SUSD Governing Board Special Meeting 05/10/22

001[Music] like to start with a roll call from my far right zach lindsey patty bachman libby hart wells julie sanowski fordham greenberg you're in the car yes that's correct we have a quorum all board members are present right at this time we will hear about the approval of revision number three to the 2021-2022 expenditure budget shannon crosier good evening um we'll let it get that set up okay good evening board president zanowski uh vice president dr hart wells members of the board dr menzel and guest tonight we are looking at the third and final revision for the expenditure budget for 21 22 this current school year the reason we're bringing this back is that by state statute prior to may 15th of a budget year the district must take any and all budget revisions to

002the governing board for approval and so that is what we're doing tonight so this first slide just looks at where we are with our adm how we started out what we thought with the adopted revision one revision two was done in december and then where we've landed for revision three um all in all between revision two and revision three we're down adm about 67 adm across the board and those those adjustments will happen uh from december on when we look at the significant changes so we had a budget increase from budget from revision two to revision three of a little over 1.2 million dollars interestingly the average daily membership decreased but as you recall we've talked about in the past we get weights for students depending on what grade levels are in there's also additional

003group b weights that have to do with k3 with special needs students and then there's a new one in there for this year that has to do with gifted so because of those adjustments within the weights even though our adm is up our student weighted count or idiom was down our student weight account was up uh for the second and final or third and final revision so we increased that uh about 127. most of that being within group b weights part of that being within the um gifted we anticipate and there's adjustments that'll end up happening even though we do our revision now the state at the end of the year we'll go through and look at everything and if there's any more tweaks that end up happening with enrollment or with um with where

004students land within the the weight counts they'll adjust that so there's a chance that our group b weight for gifted will go up a little bit more but that's where we're estimated to be at for right now so because that that inch that increased our revenue control limit by 582 thousand dollars um dseg and the other add-ons stayed the same but we did have uh we had adm did eight audit of our prior year i'm sorry ade did an audit of our prior year adm for the last several years and between those several years found some adjustments that we needed to make and so we do have a decrease of 626 000 because of those adm adjustments from that audit and then between when we did the december revision in between now we've been working

005with ade there were some calculations that didn't get picked up from the end of last year that had to do with closing out new school opening fund and moving it to mno last year which we did to put more funds into mno so because of those adjustments our prior year carry forward increased as well so between all of those adm adjustments losing some money for the prior year adm but also picking up some additional carry forward from last year that put us at an increase of 1.2 million within the other funds our federal grants increased by 3.5 million dollars that happened within title 1 title 3 and title 4. those grants don't end until later in the year and then you have carry forward so it's typical to see funding increases between that the other

006part that happened within our federal grants is the state came out and said we have another esser grant for you that has to do with school safety and so we picked up um quite a few additional social workers through that grant and so that's also the big feeder into that 3.5 increase within our state grants we increased 5.7 million that had to do with results-based funding and receiving those funds really between the last two there haven't been that many changes i did get receive a question earlier this evening that had to do with the summary that was sent out and why there was a um percent increase that was fairly substantial within special education mno and a couple of functions that have to do with administration and the dollar change is not huge the dollar

007change on one of them is like 30 000 and another 2 000 on a different line and it came down to mileage last year we weren't having we we didn't have staff driving around we weren't budgeting as much for mileage as we close out this year and reconcile and say okay these are the expenses and where expenses are landing this year we have more staff that are driving and receiving mileage reimbursement so the percent looks large the dollar amount isn't and it really has to do with what that mileage is within other than that i'll open up to other questions governing board members 20 of you have questions vice president dr hart wells thank you president sinowski thank you shannon for your presentation and i have it well let me just clarify so is it

008a fair conclusion based on your summary there that we've received more dollars in some of these categories than we projected to receive and then we spent those dollars accordingly uh when you see the percentages increases yes so one of the things we do is we when we do this final revision we look at exactly where our where was our spending for this year and then the other part of that is we make sure there's a little bit of cushion and all of those functions and object codes so that we have in case an expenditure comes in it's it's may we still have two more months to go so we put a little cushion in there um on on the various function and object codes so that if something came in unanticipated that we would have

009coverage okay thank you and then just a clarifying question for me and do these adjustments factor in the little over 2.4 million that the district received from the governor's office has reimbursed expenses for the mitigation success yeah that is not included in here um we know that we have been allocated 2.4 for expenditures for this year and next year the grant application just actually ended was closed on friday so we have not received a single penny from that we haven't allocated or budgeted or anything on that because it it really just closed on friday okay great thank you do any other governing board members have any questions on revision number three of the 2021-2022 expenditure budget board member greenberg do you have any i do not other than uh shannon on the ade revisions uh

010is that the amount that was adjusted per the audit we recently found out about yes okay thank you are there any other questions at this time all right seeing none we will move on to 2d public comments are there any public comments at this time in regards specifically to the approval of revision number three to the 2021-2022 expenditure budget all right seeing them i ask for a motion to adjourn this public hearing now we need to approve the revisions oh okay thank you um i asked for a motion to approve uh the revisions to the expenditure budget so moved is there a second second there's been a motion made and a second all in favor to approve the uh revision number three to the 2021-22 expenditure budget say aye aye motion passes five zero now

011i'll ask for a motion to adjourn this public hearing so moved and is there a second second all in favor of adjourning this public hearing please say aye aye all right the motion to adjourn this public hearing passes at we adjourn this meeting at 6 10 pm on may 10th at this time i called to order the scottsdale unified school district governing board meeting on may 10 at 6 10 pm at this time i would like to ask vice president dr hart wells to lead us in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation with liberty and justice for all thank you dr hartwells i'll start with the roll call vote from my far right zach lindsay howdy beckman libby

012hartwells julie sanowski i'm michael greenberg thank you we have all five governing board members present and we have a quorum at this time i asked for a motion to approve the agenda second moved in second and thank you all in favor to approve the agenda as presented say aye motion passes five zero thanks uh we are going to start with our superintendent comments dr menzo thank you president zanowski vice president hart wells and members of the governing board we now have two weeks remaining in the 21 22 school year and it has been quite a journey and i'm not going to take this evening to recap that entire journey but there are a few important things that i do want to discuss you may recall that pre-pandemic scottsdale had conducted a couple of climate surveys

013with hanover in one in 2018 one and 2019. the survey gathers data related to culture and climate in our schools and responses have been solicited from staff students parents and community members we and participation in the survey is voluntary we are about to launch the hanover survey again so post pandemic for the first time to collect that same kind of information we believe it's important to have the data to inform our continued commitment to engaging all students in world class future focused learning and so we're going to be sending information out to our middle school and high school parents probably tomorrow with respect to the survey as i said participation is voluntary the questions are essentially the same as they were for the first two administrations so that we can compare pre and post pandemic

014in the prior versions of the survey we included fourth and fifth graders this time we're only going to invite middle school and high school students to participate parents will have an opportunity if they want to opt their student out of participation so that information goes out tomorrow and by before monday we'll need to know whether or not students are opted out and if they are they won't get the survey link those who aren't opted out still don't have to participate they have a choice but it is voluntary to participate we also really do want our parents to take the time it's generally about 10 minutes to provide their feedback because all of this is important as we work to improve educational opportunities for our students survey will launch on monday the 16th it will close

015on friday the 20th that will allow hanover enough time to review the data make sure that we have the proper reporting we've asked them for a little bit more reporting than in prior years because i'm interested in knowing building specific information in addition to aggregate so in the past they've looked at grain bands so what do we see at elementary middle and high school i also want to know what we're seeing by building and so that'll take a little bit more time that's the first thing uh secondly there have been a number of um things that have been circulating in our community uh this past week that i think require some additional explanation so let me start by just reminding everyone about two of our core values organizationally the first is empathy which by that

016we mean we welcome all with kindness love compassion and joy the second is inclusion we create an equitable environment where everyone is respected treated with dignity and has a sense of belonging so this past week we received two keb complaints regarding a staff member in one of our buildings this complaint also has been out in social media there have been a lot of public comments about it and there was even press release related to it in addition to those keb complaints i also received a concern from an organization called freedom from religion with allegations that a high school teacher has been proselytizing students in one of our schools while not submitted as a keb complaint the process used to review and respond is similar so i think it's important for people to understand what the

017process is when someone files a keb complaint and how that gets treated first i just want to read the policy to be very clear keb states trust and staff members and support for their actions should be such that employees are freed from unnecessary spiteful or negative criticisms and complaints in spite of this criticisms and complaints may be forthcoming these complaints are best handled starting at the school level and when necessary should proceed through the various administrative levels all complaints shall be referred to the superintendent or designee for investigation the employee involved shall be given an opportunity at each administrative level at which the matter is reviewed for explanation comment and presentation of facts either formally or informally the employee will be afforded elements of due process as provided by arizona law once a complaint is

018has been filed it is routed to the appropriate staff member sometimes this is in human resources or general counsel but it could also be a building principle or someone who supervises a department we take each concern seriously but just like in our court of law a staff member is presumed innocent as we begin the investigation into the concerns our goal is to ascertain facts and understand the issue from both the perspective of the individual or individuals who submitted the complaint as well as the staff member and anyone who may have relevant information related to the material under review typically a keb review takes a week to ten days to complete before report is finalized and a response is given to the individual who fi filed the concern and this the timeline can vary depending on

019availability of people for interviews and and what other information is necessary we always encourage uh people to directly address their concerns with the individual in question so if a parent has a concern with the teacher we encourage them to have the conversation first with the teacher before going to the principal that is respectful and is the best way to hopefully get to quick resolution to the concern if the concern isn't addressed satisfactorily then there is a process for it to move to the various administrative levels there are several levels before it gets to me and to the governing board although we've noticed that many times people simply want to go to the governing board without following the proper chain of command so on may 2nd in the afternoon i received a keb complaint regarding a

020kids cup club employee this information was sent to the governing board as well as her general counsel i was out of the office on monday and tuesday attending an educational symposium but i did reply on on wednesday indicating that we had received the complaint and that it had been forwarded for appropriate review of the concern on may 5th without any additional conversation a press release was issued on campaign letterhead with letterhead with four signatories all candidates for public office titled concerned parents and community leaders pen open letter to scottsdale unified school district this was an overtly political act placed prior to finalizing any investigation of the kb complaint that was given to us and it was shared widely on social media to target an individual publicly for their personal identity in this case the individual

021against whom the complaint was filed does not identify as either male or female is overt discrimination and inconsistent with state and federal law as well as school district policy more specifically board policy ac states the following the district and governing board are committed to a policy of non-discrimination that does not discriminate on the basis of race color national origin sex including sexual orientation and transgender identity disability age height weight marital or family status religion military status ancestry genetic information or any other legally protected category collectively protected classes in its programs and activities including employment opportunities you may also recall the city of scottsdale adopted a non-discrimination anti-harassment policy in april of 2021 it states in relevant part it is the policy of the city not to discriminate and provide equal opportunity to all persons regardless

022of actual or perceived race color religion sex national origin age sexual orientation gender identity or disability in the access provision and treatment of city services programs and activities it is the policy of the city that all persons be treated with respect and dignity as specified in sections 15-4-15-7 each person has the right to receive services from the city in a manner that promotes equality under the law and prohibits unlawful discrimination including harassment and retaliation the city of scottsdale and the scottsdale unified school district are committed to creating environments where each individual is respected treated with dignity and has a sense of belonging additionally we are obligated by state and federal law to be non-discriminatory in our employment practices the keb complaint related to the employee has not gone through all of the steps and therefore

023i will not address details here other than to emphasize the serious seriousness with which we take our the concerns and our commitment to non-discrimination our parents need to know and understand that we prioritize the safety and well-being of our students in the past including this current school year employees who have engaged in unacceptable and inappropriate behavior have been disciplined and or terminated from employment such a decision is made after a careful review of the facts not simply based on allegations the decision to circumvent the investigation and wait for and not wait for findings before issuing the open letter reflects an agenda that is political in nature and not one that was committed to ensuring that there wasn't a violation of board policy or state or federal law i need to say something to our scottsdale

024unified school district employees this district will not take adverse employment action against any individual as a result of their identity no matter how offensive that may be to some i want to say that again scottsdale unified school district will not take adverse employment action against an individual employee as a result of their identity inappropriate action and conduct will be addressed consistent with board policy and state and federal law but an individual's identity will never be the basis for termination dismissal unlawful harassment etc this brings me to the second complaint submitted by the organization called freedom from religion this group also issued a press release it was either last night or this morning outlining their concerns in the complaint it alleged that a high school teacher is proselytizing students specific examples were given along with pertinent

025legal citations regarding how the actions violated law much like the other keb complaints after we received it the concern was referred for appropriate investigation we did not place the teacher on leave we did not assume a violation of state or federal law prior to completing the investigation we will not discriminate against an employee solely based on their religious faith whether it's christian jewish muslim hindu or no faith at all but we will address concerns about specific actions if the investigation reveals that something took place that was in violation of board policy or state or federal statute the level of vitriol and targeted tax toward an employee whose gender identity doesn't conform to the traditional male female classification is disconcerting to me rsusd values of excellence integrity empathy inclusion trust and unity exist to ensure an

026environment where all are welcome regardless of their individual identity religious beliefs or political affiliations hate and targeted attacks toward individuals on our staff are inconsistent and incompatible with these core values it is my hope that our scottsdale community will respond with kindness love and compassion towards all as we work to finish this school year on a positive note speaking of a positive note i would like to point out that tomorrow is national nurses day and we are truly grateful for the work of our scottsdale unified school district nurses uh throughout the pandemic they've been on the front lines addressing both the health challenges in our buildings as well as responding to concerns of students and parents and and dealing with their day-to-day responsibilities in addition to covid and finally i would like to ask you

027to join me in congratulating our communications department may 13th has been identified as national school communicators day and so i'd like to acknowledge christine harrington nancy norman victor and laney for the work they do to tell the susd story [Applause] dr menzel thank you for your comments and thank you for leading our district appreciate it at this time we will move on to agenda item 7 information discussion items starting off with our s-a-a-s-e-a and s-s-p-a updates i believe presidents becky williams carrie blaker veronica leaper are here to share their reports at this time i guess we're going to finish the year like this good evening governing board president sanowski vice president dr hartwells board members superintendent and documents out and guests i would like to i would like to take this moment to recognize some

028key players this year for me there have been times i'm going to try to do this unemotionally there have been times when some someone from the district needed to call the sspa for input or approval i would be the one to get that call some of you here already know the answer i give so let the records show that my response is and always will be that i am not the association i am only the pres the president it is our executive board our meet and confer team and the members that make up the sspa we are an organization that chooses to work together when one has an issue or suggestion we look to find others with the same interest to support and that is where all of our work began back in 2020 i

029would like to thank christa dimitrulius i said that a million times on my way out here so i change your last name i would like to thank krista for sticking me with me as the vp through this amazing adventure as you all know our day our day jobs alone keep us busy beyond anything we can even describe because there are so many vacancies throughout the district that a lot of us are covering for one or two staff members that have left and those positions being hard to fill after we clock out is when our job begins which leads me to the classified meet and confer team we all volunteer our time to meet one night every two weeks from four to eight pm to get the job done i would like to thank esp's brenda

030spicek julie gildersleeve susan wall and ed milford for their valuable time and participation inside interest-based negotiations [Applause] it is amazing that we show up drained from our day jobs and leave almost every time inspired to do more and to help more additionally i do not want to leave out the admin team that sit and meet and confer with us thank you dr garan amy goff and dennis raylor together they are rebuilding trust with us as they actively listen to the classified stories that we bring forward we have valued their participation they step back to hear our suggestions when they then they engage by providing positive feedback especially when it has come to the additions and subtractions to the handbook revisions together we have been collaborate collaborating solutions some immediate some with goals in mind all

031to better all to better policies and procedures salaries benefits and working conditions together our work has only begun and i'm so excited to see what the future unfolds we are narrowing down the voices that say we didn't know sspa existed we have had over 250 one-on-one conversations with fellow classified brothers and sisters our membership has almost tripled what it was when krista and i came on board we are continually identifying emergency emerging activists through close through close to 50 job family meetings held in the last two years we have represented our fellow esps when called upon and we have reached out and welcomed over 285 newly hired education support professionals during our reign last friday the sea president becky williams and i had the honor and the opportunity to develop a welcome address to the

032arizona education association delegate assembly and we nailed it susd was represented superbly through this this year's combined motto to better together we told the story of what we all have overcome since 2017 and the crowd was so excited for us all and they are all waiting to hear the outcome from the better together with our classification agreements to end our report for the 2122 school year we still have great things planned ahead beyond salary the ongoing battle with minimum wage we are working on professional development a mentorship program and getting something together with the charles foundation thank you dr manzel for listening to our emails and to this governing board president sinowski vice president hartwell's governing board members greenberg beckman and lindsay for steering this ship in the right direction encouraging collaboration and teamwork is

033what we have needed for the past five years please don't stop [Applause] carrie always jokes that we make her go first because and i wish i didn't have to follow that now because she said everything that i would like to express so much more eloquently so uh good evening dr menzel president sinowski members of the governing board ms wagner and guest as we come to the final weeks of the school year we are also wrapping up our first interest-based negotiation cycle certified staff will be returning in july to the first negotiated employment agreement in six years going through ibn training as an entire district team was an extremely positive experience and set the tone for the work to come as teams turn over and members are added next year i'm hopeful that we will have

034the benefit of this training again the commitment to the collaborative process on the part of all team members is critical to positive outcomes when we all have a seat at the table we ensure that staff have the necessary supports in place to do their jobs and in turn we are able to provide the optimal learning environments that our students deserve this process has not been without its challenges and as we grow in this process and look ahead to next year i feel that we have some good input for thinking on some refinements to areas that were challenging all of this is understandable considering that as a district we have not met had meet and confer for six years and that ibn is a new process for all of us it has been more of a

035time commitment than many team members anticipated and we are all ready for a break and looking ahead to next year at this time i would like to thank our certified bargaining team for their hard work so far we aren't done yet they are the ones truly enduring the hot seat in this process and deserve some recognition knock here i think is anna patterson and jennifer liebhobber beth hindenburg and mark feifer thank you we would also like to thank our certified administration team dr bowman dr hoggy got veronica lieber and kane jagadinsky i did it is that right did i say it right okay yay i would also like to take the opportunity to recognize the members of our executive board board members are elected from among their peers to serve the terms prescribed by our

036bylaws service on the board is voluntary and takes place outside of contracted time elected members serve because they are rooted in the values of equality public education for all of our students we know that when education professionals have supportive working conditions they in turn can provide the supportive learning environments that our students deserve please join me in recognition and gratitude of our board members vice president whitney keeler treasurer anna patterson secretary kerry kirland and members at large beth hindenburg dave hanlon pat basseau charity rekla karen batson and jenna emmick i truly could not be up here as the sea president without all of you bart i did not forget you i'm saving the best for last bert chevelle gets an extra special shout out tonight not because he's more valued member of our board or

037deserves more recognition of recognition but because this is our last opportunity to thank him publicly not only is bert leaving the sca board and our district he's leaving arizona to move to the netherlands but don't worry he's not leaving the classroom he's accepted a position as a biology biology teacher and our loss is their gain bert is the kind of person who as soon as you meet him you understand about him that he is a relentless advocate for what is right the end game for bert is always excellent opportunities for all students in arizona his absence will truly be felt and i am grateful for the time that i was able to lead this association with his support and encouragement and with that i would like to thank dr menzel and the members of the

038governing board for the bringing the meet and confer process through h.a policy to our district and allowing us to participate in this process thank you and it's always good for me to follow them because i can keep it short um first off i was i'm going to speak for saa but i didn't even serve on our team as co-presidents grace stombres served and but i had the pleasure um dr menzel asked that i serve on the ssea or cea certified education association on their main converter team their interest based negotiations team so that was my pleasure it's been a really great experience for me and i can't tell you how important it has been that the three associations have worked together on this this is the first time this is almost my 30th year in

039this district in many different roles and we have never worked together like this and so working together has been so important to us because we as principals and administrators we know that we can't do this job without our other associations without our certified and are classified how important they are to every one of our campuses so that has been so wonderful for us to be working together we've really enjoyed that so as i said i sat on sca so i reached out to my sa a members the administrative association members and they really truly wanted to um thank um the district members they wanted to thank dr melissa sackos shannon crozier and alexis wilson and they said that they were so supportive and so understanding throughout the process i wanted to jump in because as

040a an executive board for sa we met regularly so i did know what was going on in there grace and i speak daily almost so i want to thank my whole team and um but especially grace stombres and nan wilkinson grace my co-president anand who is my assistant principal has served as the assistant principal they went the extensive amount of hours doing research looking at principal salaries and these went way back just seeing the inequities that have gone on for many years so they were able to do all the research and bring that in and with the help of dr menzel we were able to equalize those um they were able to make the corrections and begin the process to create a standard for principal and assistant principal salaries they reported and that in the

041last they were more than halfway through on the new agreement and they are pretty sure that they're going to be able to finalize the administrative agreement by the end of the school year by the last board meeting so that they can bring it in and they are very optimistic that they will finish in the next two meetings and they will be ready to present um and they're excited about that so that's about it and thank you again governing board members okay do any of you have questions or comments you'd like to add at this time board member greenberg do you have any um well no i would just like to thank all of our association heads for doing all the work they do each and every year because it's not an easy job we know

042that the work you do requires compromise working on difficult and complex situations to reach you know really meaningful solutions so i i appreciate that and i would just like to say if i may i superintendent mental i do very much appreciate your comments but i did not want to unmute and clap into the microphone and and i would just like to note that it's evident that behind every great learning experience that our students are afforded in our school district are caring and highly qualified employees and staff members so thank you for all of what you guys have all done those of you in the audience that have been part of this process as well over the years and hanging in there and returning unified to our scottsdale unified school district greatly appreciated thank you and

043with that students right now i left this at the last strategic position glad you got that uh with that we will move on to information discussion item 7b proposals for consideration to the arizona school board association agenda and that conversation um will be led by vice president dr hart wells thank you president stanowski so just to set the stage here um you have and have had for a few days now a copy of the communications that are received so that you could take a look at it but like we did last year we have an opportunity to weigh in on the priorities that asba as a private nonprofit nonpartisan organization who supports local control of school districts and excellence for all students across the state and here's our opportunity to do that we have until

044i believe the date is may 23rd that we have to submit the proposal so i just want to give a little bit of background i took from the bylaws of asba so we could all understand what this association really is and perhaps is not so as i mentioned it is a private non-profit nonpartisan organization it is an advocacy organization and the purpose of the association according to their bylaws is to promote the general advancement of public education in the state of arizona the united states of america and its territories that's number one number two to promote lay control of public education meaning local control and then number three to coordinate educational policies and procedures and promote uniform application of school laws in the state and there are a few other more ministerial uh duties that

045are listed in their bylaws but those are the three i think that hit home for us uh in a nice segue that what we have before us is the educational policies that they have on their current agenda for consideration in advocacy at the state legislature and i'll just read off in case those of you at home don't have this the 2022 priority issues there are four and then there are several that drill down into these four different areas and the four areas are the following adequately and equitably fund district schools to at least the national median per pupil funding to improve outcomes for all students to preserve and strengthen local control and then finally require public accountability for taxpayer dollars spent on education and we say public education as but does represent all public education

046organizations in the state of arizona not just district schools so with that i will leave it open to my colleagues to provide any comments um for or against what's already here or requests for additions uh i have a few but i'm gonna go last i will let all of you comment if you'd like i would just like to add at this point that the priority issues align with what i feel is best for our students in our public schools and for to attract and retain our su our staff members so um and there are a lot um as you look through some of these objectives underneath each of these priority issues there are a lot of objectives here so i think it's a very robust and very focused future focused agenda here um i can't

047imagine what else to add so i'm curious to hear what you have to say yeah okay board member i would agree there's still a lot of work to do in all of those areas so you know anything additional i think might dilute the focus of what we where we need to be regarding the four priorities that are already laid out board member greenberg do you have anything to add to the agenda president i do not have anything to add i think it's a pretty robust agenda and given that you know some of these items well the most of these items have been on the agenda for several years now uh and we are we continue to struggle to make headway there um uh you know i think we need to continue to focus and hopefully

048get some wins thank you all right i will i will put on the table the three and they are not that there may be more refinements of what's already in the policy agenda uh one is to index the da for inflation where it is currently only applied to the mno budget and not the district additional assistance budget second i'll just read the three and then can comment if you like please and the second and this is something that uh i think shook out or in an underscored way as a result of pandemic and that is currently online instructional remote students are not funded at full aedn and my request for addition would be online instructional models should be funded based off not on offline minutes worked by the student but rather fully funded the remote

049students as a full adm count our remote students are just as important as our every student and then the third and this may be a little bit more provocative but this used to be on the books that district schools were able to hold licenses to charter schools and i would like to open the discussion at asp and i have not spoken to anyone there but i would appreciate my colleagues thoughts on putting forward a discussion to rescind that prohibition vice president hartwells can you please read number one and three again muffled oh sure so index the doc for inflation where it's currently not mno is somewhat end kind of indexed to inflation but there are some caps that certainly do not track with where we're at today right so there's work on both of those

050fronts the m o indexing is is already in the agenda the third was the um to roll back the prohibition on district schools from holding licenses to charter schools i remember when that was added yes yeah i appreciate those okay would you mind um putting those in writing and and sending them out to us since we have um dr menzel would you like to add i just wanted to to add that in the bullets under adequately and equitably fund district schools they do include indexing uh da funding for inflation so it is is part of that there but i think it's a really important point because as we know the inflationary pressures have been really significant we are fortunate that they finally restored daw this past year after having cut it so this is the

051next logical step the other part with respect to the the ability to authorize charters i don't think the school districts were the ones who wanted to remove that i believe that when you think about the opportunity to innovate for a district school to be able to authorize a charter to innovate without all of the same restrictions that we have as a district school i think there's a an opportunity there and and so i i think there's some merit into at least re-exploring that thank you and and the um purpose of the inflation indexing all of the funding whatever you want to call it whatever bucket it is is to make sure that gets to the top of the bucket i think we've all commented there's a lot here it's very um it is dense and

052with a lot of good policy suggestions and reasons to advocate but i'd like personally i would like to try to put some emphasis on the financial components that are in each of the four buckets so question with regard to the process i know these um priorities are due by may 23rd i believe it is i don't we typically you know we've handled this in different ways in the past and i would like to get some clarity from maybe miss bird on how we are going to approve additional since we're clearly not going to have another meeting before right this is thinking about that you know we can't vote it's a discussion item so how do you propose we proceed should there be additions to the four before may 23rd i will admit i need to

053go back and look at exactly what asbo requires in that you are correct you cannot take action on anything that's going uh off of this agenda because we didn't notice that action was going to be taken uh it may be a simple matter of as the representative on the board that dr hartwells can consider everyone's feedback and then submit those recommendations in her capacity as a member delegate as a delegate to the board after in this meeting getting the input from from everyone and so that's probably the easiest way to proceed i need to go back though and look at the asthma bylaws uh to look at that and i did not do that before this meeting because i did not anticipate this question okay i appreciate that so if um vice president hartwell's when

054you send us the email with regard to your additions your your would like us to consider maybe outline the process and how we're to proceed as well i would appreciate it you bet i did take a look at the bylaws before the meeting so the standing committee is a legislative committee and they will receive this request for consideration they do not have to accept right those concepts the legislative committee will vote on a policy of finalized political agenda and this is all this is stipulated in their bylaws the pull process certain days they have 20 days then they'll have to send it back out to the member boards and you probably remember receiving this last year we did take a vote on the finalized agenda so we should have time because the vote the 20-day

055window to review what the legislative committee approves as final is not until um the june 20th okay so we should have that last board meeting should be an opportunity to have an action perfect um but if you would like to submit i will i will absolutely do as you requested board member beckman and send you all an email in writing with uh wording for my suggestions that i brought forward today and then if you have anything while you think about it to add please let me know i'm not going to exercise any veto power i'm just i will forward your thoughts to the legislative committee as you provide them i do i do appreciate your um input on this as our delegate i have complete confidence that you will represent us very well thank you

056vice president dr hartwells and to be clear um daw for those of you that are listening refers to our district additional assistance board member greenberg did you have anything to add no i did not okay all right seeing none we will move on to our action items and action item eight a is an update on classified scout salary schedule and i believe that is a q a and alexis is here to answer any questions that anyone on the governing board has are there any questions on this particular action item um alexis i i would actually like to share a conversation that you and i had governing board members as you can read through the summary or the background information on this particular my concern was that the part that's bolded there from that point down

057to the end it says all classified employees received a minimum of a three percent increase but due to the failure to increase the maximum three percent employees at the top of the scale receive the two percent increase i was concerned with how that happened if employees had been notified that and i guess there are about 10 of them that fall into this category and then how do we avoid this moving forward do you mind sharing what our discussion was a little bit further as far as how do we avoid this type of a situation moving forward certainly president sunowski members of the board dr menzel as we discussed earlier what happened was when we were looking to issue contracts and get salary schedules approved in early march the timing of the process where we were

058with interest-based negotiations at the time we we were very confident about the two percent so the salary schedules were brought forward with that on the max end of the hourly wages when we got back to the tables at interest-based negotiations we were able to eke out another percent and as a result we needed to come back to have the salary schedules approved one more time to include that one percent because there were ten individuals who were at the top at the two percent so in order to allow them to benefit from the three percent we need to add that one percent back on so and to your question about how do you avoid something like this moving forward um as our associations mentioned earlier interest-based negotiations is typically a much longer process than your standard

059meet and confer or your standard you know negotiation practice where you just you know here's what we have here's what you get and that's sort of back and forth it's a much longer process so we would need to back our start date up for interest-based negotiations in order to try to get that landed prior to the issuance of contracts and salary schedules so team association we will we'll start as early as we can i think the other thing we also discussed is we never know what is going to happen with the budget that doesn't change anything whether we start in september or or march for that matter but with ms crozier usually she has feels really confident about what we can do despite not necessarily knowing all the pieces of the budget thank you i

060really appreciate you explaining that vice president doctor wells just in terms of process so this it sounds like the 10 employees who are adversely impacted by this kind of gap in timing inadvertent gap in timing when the contracts are approved and your next round of interest-based negotiations um will they receive back pay what's the implementation of how they're going to receive there so they'll actually be reissued new notices of appointment with the uh higher rate it's for next year that's for effective july 1. okay so it's contract correct correct notice okay thank you okay any other questions from governing board members okay thank you okay seeing not no more questions at this time i ask for a motion to approve 8a updated classified salary schedule so moved is there a second movement and a second

061all in favor to approve the updated classified salary schedule say aye is that an eye up in the cloud board member greenberg yes okay thank you uh the motion passes five zero and we will move on yes and we will move on to action item eight b supplemental materials at this time i believe dr kim dodd's karen and company is they're going to lead that discussion their action item thank you thank you magic curtain powerpoint can you get closer to the mic okay yes hello president sanowski a vice president dr hart wells board members beckman lindsay and in the cloud for the member greenberg i am here tonight with two of my colleagues lindsey stoller slover and jonah wallace and we are proud to share with you the work that we have led for two

062particular committees the secondary novels and the supplemental materials committee our goals tonight are to review the definitions of materials explain our processes that the committees have followed for reviewing materials and ultimately recommend annual approval of supplemental materials and novels for 612 ela units the terms before you are not new to susd annually during this presentation we provide you with this language for our community it is important for you to know that the curricular materials we utilize in the classroom comprise are comprised of a wide range of resources such as our adopted texts supplemental books and novels supplemental materials like a video as well as ancillary materials that a teacher may choose to supplement a unit also to be noted these definitions and our processes for curriculum recommendations presented tonight support our board policies specific to

063community involvement where we include our parents our teachers our students and our administrators in curricular decisions and also we we adjust and we modify to ensure high quality programs within our education system also these types of instructional materials ensure that our curriculum is meeting the varying needs and the abilities learning styles of the students who are in our classrooms tonight we'll share with you a phased approach utilized to incorporate our new instructional materials to accom to complement our curriculum adoptions i'd like to also familiarize you with a process that we have to honor any susd request for reconsideration of an instructional material found on the district website for curriculum is a link to a google form which on this slide is highlighted as the top blue in the yellow box this form is welcome for

064anybody to submit a concern that they may have related to an instructional material the requests are received by our ela english language arts coaches and based on the type of material that is being requested for reconsideration it will there then go to a committee appropriate either the secondary novel review a supplemental materials review or if at the elementary level it goes to an ancillary review committee rubrics are utilized for each of the committees and this is obtained through our feedback is obtained through a google form each of these rubrics is aligned to the skills and concepts that we are expecting the material to support it also incorporates text complexity and input was received from the librarian association as well as previously used rubrics throughout our school district for novels for example this slide here illustrates

065for you links that are available on our curriculum websites these are forward-facing to the public so any material for k568 or 912 is visible for view by our community with the materials that are previewed for families we expect that our teachers will communicate any type of novel for example that is going to be utilized in the classroom via a curriculum night a newsletter their google classroom any means of communication class dojo etc we also want to make sure that our parents understand that they have the right to opt out of an instructional material like a novel that they might find objectionable and that teachers therefore would then provide an alternative text for a child to read in doing so we want to be sure that any discussions that are taking place are available for all

066kids in the classroom so the expectations for learning outcomes are consistent regardless of the differentiated resource that might be used in the classroom so to share a little bit about the process that we created this year and utilized i want to introduce you to johnna wallace she is our secondary english language arts coach and she has been the champion of our secondary novel selection committee and she'll tell you about our work this year let me click this do we just press this yes ma'am all right thank you good evening so in august of 2021 registration for participation on the secondary novel review committee was posted on the committee hub stakeholders interested in participating signed up we had roughly 50 people apply and of those 50 31 were selected the committee is comprised of parents grandparents

067guardians teachers site and district administrators and members of the teaching and learning team who also serve as the lead for their respective grade level small group we did our best to align the group members with the grade levels they were associated with such as a parent of a seventh grade student would be included in a middle school book club the secondary novel review committee met throughout the school year and the first meeting took place on october 7th where members were placed into smaller book groups and given their first novel to read and review each member had a target date for reading their assigned novel and completing an evaluation rubric for that novel small group members would agree on a meeting date for the week following the completion of the evaluation rubric to discuss their novel

068and come to consensus on whether or not they would recommend that novel the following week all small group members would come together as a whole group to present their novels discuss and make recommendations a new novel would also be assigned to each group at the whole group meetings i know they love that part this is an example of the information each small group would create for their novel the summary gave the whole group an idea of what the novel is about and it provided a premise for the positives and concerns that the small group would share out to the whole group in the small group meeting members would also share out any positives or concerns they had about the novel they just read and the group would come to consensus on whether or not to

069recommend the novel for classroom use this is an example of that part of the process this would also be shared out to the whole group when recommending a novel to the governing board for approval several factors are considered is the novel aligned to the standards did the committee recommend the novel if the novel was recommended were there concerns brought forward that require additional thought and review before a recommendation is made based on these considerations novels are organized into the following categories green these are novels ready for recommendation yellow are novels that have a conditional recommendation and read our novels that the committee did not recommend for use here you see a title of the 22 novels that are ready for recommendation or as our committee refers to them the green novels three of the novels

070that are on this list are for the comprehensive gifted program here you see four conditional recommendations which our committee refers to as yellow novels and as i previously mentioned these books the committee recommends but with caution i will elaborate elaborate on that process for reading conditional novels on the next slide you will also see four novels that the committee does not recommend for use the committee refers to these novels as read novels comments as to why these novels are conditional or not recommended are included in parentheses below the titles the process for a teacher to utilize a conditional or yellow novel emerged during our secondary novel review process there are books that the committee believes are valuable for use in the classroom but collaboration between the teacher site administration and ela curriculum coach like myself

071would be important due to the complexity of some of the text it's no surprise to any of us that as we return to school new norms are being established including norms for our curriculum decisions it begins with the teacher filling out a conditional recommendation form which is submitted to the secondary ela curriculum coach that's me and the site their site administrator this provides the opportunity for discussion of implementation of the novel within the classroom parents are also an important part of this process and for this reason the teacher will send a notification to their students parents to inform them that a conditional or yellow novel will be used in the classroom and the purpose for using this novel parents will have the option of allowing their child to read the conditional novel or having their

072child read the identified alternative novel teachers will receive signed permission from parents prior to the start of reading the conditional novel now i would like to introduce lindsay stoller slover to present the supplemental materials review process thank you first a quick thank you to our supplemental materials committee members who included parents teachers staff and administrators for their time and their participation so our supplemental materials just as a quick review supplemental pertains to teaching and learning supported materials district that have are provided with district coaching and financial support and are used at multiple sites we maintain an updated list yearly of our supplemental materials that's available on our website so our committee process convened to consider specific supplemental materials that were submitted for review the committee began by reaching consensus on norms the rubric and a

073system for review the committee could recommend or not recommend materials for use in one case the committee recommended a resource but with some conditions these conditions would mean that the resource may be used only after coordination and planning with the district ela coach similar to novels the committee recommended one resource for use and one resource for conditional use the recommended resource was letters to juliet from listenwise it was a short kind of like a podcast recording about a program where people write letters to juliet in verona italy the one that was approved with conditions was an a a resource called rap as protest poetry that was from study sync the committee did not recommend one of the resources which was an excerpt of a podcast called how grief works and that was part of the

074seventh men unit as part of sabbas this one was not recommended because of a couple of varied reasons one was just the use of the resource required the teacher to queue up the podcast at a specific time which may be difficult in a classroom setting to get it right at that exact time the also one of the challenges was that the podcast had some ads that may have been viewable and also just the quality of the sound and the audio for students might not have been optimal and so the committee chose not to recommend that particular resource and with that i will turn it back to dr dodds for any questions board members do you have any questions for this team vice president dr harwells thank you president sinowski thank you all of you for

075your presentation and to everyone who worked on this big big lift clearly a lot of thoughtful consideration went into i think balancing a lot of a lot of weighty issues so thank you for that um my question is on how did you in the novel review how did you choose these books for the reading and review for the committee were they teachers suggested were they already used in the curriculum were they wanted to be used in the prelim all of the above how did they what was the triage so the books came from our ela adoption these are novels that are recommended for use and that was our primary focus we also had some novels that parents that we had received a reconsideration review of reconsideration of instructional materials and those got reviewed as well

076but it was mostly saabas and study sync so it was i'm sorry to make sure i understand the answer then so the answer is predominantly the novels were selected from the adopted ela curriculum currently and then there were a few that you added because of some communications with families right now okay so to elaborate dr hartwell's when we adopted the new curriculum last year we adopted studysync and we adopted my perspectives and along with our traditional textbook if you will come all of the different novels that are available to us thousands of them that we can purchase as well as the different supplementals like the listen wisely the hook and inspire so as we began to add to our textbook we reviewed the novels first jonah did send a survey out to the grade level

077teachers to say among these books which would you want us to prioritize so that we could try to tap right into what our teachers were interested in considering to add to to their lists uh and as she had mentioned also there was a book that we reviewed that was previously on the list but had been requested for reconsideration were the books that ended up on the not recommended list the books that were or maybe that it's too varied to say conclusively the books that were asked to be reconsidered uh great question no the four books are from our new adoption just and we just thought right now they weren't appropriate thank you very much thank you again for all your hard work thank you board member beckman uh just a quick question uh this august

078are you opening the committee up again what's the process for that i want to make sure all of our parents you know hear as much as we can communicate when the dates are when it's available what the process is where it will be the whole gamut yep thank you board member beckman we will relaunch for our committee we do know that our current members are interested in continuing to participate as well but we have a lot of books to read so we will post again on committee hub we found that to be very valuable one thing that we did learn this year as there was some transition of members of teaching and learning we did have two parallel committees running so i do want to clarify that as well so when members were signing up

079for supplementals as well as novels there was some confusion as to what a supplemental was and what a novel was so we did make contact with folks who had initially applied for supplementals prior to me joining the team and we did access that google doc and we made personal phone calls to each of those members to ask if they wanted to join our committee and what was great is we added a few members to our committee who had signed up for supplementals thinking that they were really signing up for novels so we will make it very clear that this is for the novels and supplementals is a different committee okay one more question about the committee so is it a year-long commitment and okay and then if people fall off for whatever reason say that

080something happens do you go back and revisit the original applications or do you just close that position say a parent gets a job but now they can't do it anymore we actually selected alternates okay and in addition though our book clubs run like the book clubs many of you might belong to so while we have our whole group meetings where we um share out our books and we receive our new books we also meet in small group so when we meet in small group to prepare for the whole group discussion let's say i can't attend small group it's okay i was able to complete my rubric i was able to give my feedback and a member of my small group team was able to share how our group felt about the book which leads to

081a whole new whole group conversation so we did have really good participation people um were very interested in their books some were interested in what other people were reading as well so it was very um it was a very successful committee i would say okay one last question the list that you are prioritizing not prioritizing whether it be novels or supplemental um and i understood and i appreciate the question that a lot of it was savas related regarding the curriculum adoption um how are you going to choose going forward i know we grandfathered in a thousand books a long time ago in 2019 that were here previously because you couldn't read a thousand books and if someone wanted to challenge a particular title to have you all read it that was the process but before

082the upcoming year how are you going to prioritize what the group actually reads um what is the process for that great question we'll continue with the books that we still have to vet okay we also have two books that have bubbled up that have raised some concern on some campuses and one that was a request for review so we will be adding in two novels for that purpose as well at the high school level so that's my question you you do commit to ones that are brought forward there's never going to be okay okay thank you thank you any other questions board member greenberg do you have any questions on this topic yeah i i appreciate um dr garan and and the whole team for answering my questions i know i had asked whether any

083folks were being removed uh or placed on this new list and whether that's happened before i have to say i just i every year we do this and every year um i always worry that we're removing books um or moving them to i guess this kind of new conditional type list and this year i believe is the first time that that's been presented to us that we've actually removed or changed things i'm not super sure that i'm comfortable voting in favor of this on that basis i think i you know i think our students and staff need to have the freedom to to teach you know the books and have that academic freedom i was looking through these lists and i i think i've noted in the past that you know we have several ann

084rand books on here we have unwind and the middle school list i just find it very hard to justify allowing those books based on the comments that we received on these other books like ghost boys or or whatever it's called i i believe that dr garan had mentioned in one case that there was a member of staff who was using one of the books that's now been removed for several years um and will now have to change their their plan um so or planned on using the book this year and it's now been removed on the books that's been removed so i just find it i appreciate all the work that goes into this i appreciate you know this you know staff being careful and considering parent complaints but you know a number of these

085books appear to be books that have been complained about nationally by political organizations which also raises my suspicions on some of this as to why those particular books were targeted but other books were not and i don't know it i don't mean to ramble here but i just this this conversation makes it makes me deeply uncomfortable thank you board member greenberg i have a question how how much time do you think has staff time has gone into evolving this process this year in particular if you had to give a ballpark estimate i'm not going to hold you to any hard number but just guesstimate two dollars for each boy you know it kind of depends on who you're talking to yeah i know you guys are looking at each other well there's a lot of

086layers for example we haven't approved the novels i would like for you to share that with the community okay so we haven't approved these novels so they aren't something we have in our warehouse so we work with gidget and tyler in the warehouse we work with our publishers to get the materials so some were able to get donated as an on loan are you going to approve them others we purchase we know four or five of or we check out of our own school libraries i read ethan from and clearly a student had read it because i found all of their post-it notes in my book and it was quite fascinating and so that is one layer that i would say each time we go to do that that's at least two hours for every

087single round that we're going through just in terms of gathering those materials working with our our partners for gathering the materials but then in terms of preparation for each what jonah didn't share is that for each of the rubrics she actually aligns every single rubric to the essential question for the unit so for every novel there is a complementary unit that we're supporting so if the theme is um what do you learn from love and loss what do you learn from love and loss that's going to go with that rubric complementing that particular book so for the seven books that we read four times throughout the year 28 times times two to three hours hundreds of hours i would say has gone into preparing for and then facilitating the small groups that each of us

088has facili has led as well as lindsay and the work that she's done with supplementals you know viewing queueing up and preparing for so many hours but valuable hours i think that is something that each of us will say about our committees is we really enjoyed we did team builders to get to know each other because we wanted it to be a safe place because we needed to be able to discuss and be honest about how we felt about the content we were reading so i think that it was time very well spent i noticed on some of these the conditional recommendations they have potential other courses better suited or other grade levels is are those books so a fault the fault in our stars reddit uh great book um i think there's a lot

089to be learned from that i know some students have chosen to read that on their own either on their devices or going to the public library and checking that book out and wanting to have conversations on that um then in the classroom and i note here that this says it may be better suited for grade 11. is that book then shifted over to grade 11 not just recommended or maybe already ready for recommendation versus conditional recommendation so one of the things that we did this year because of this committee is the supplemental novel lists have been redone there's a column for notes now and that would be in that note column and it would be at the site level to determine whether or not they wanted to use it for the grade level that it

090is actually intended for or if they wanted to use it for a different grade level we'll leave that at the site okay thank you and then what about the ap lit ib because i know they have some regulating oversight that allows them and encourages them to read some more complex literature so what is the process for those particular levels of instruction yeah thank you for that we actually recently met with laura campga to talk about that and to talk about the importance of having alternative selections available as well and so we have confirmation from ib that they are encouraged to differentiate the text and what historically has happened with ib similar to what we've done for the self-contained gifted program is run small book clubs for that particular program so a year ago i believe

091they added v for vendetta into ib we would do the same thing if laura or anybody else came to us wanting to add another book and then what if students wanted to add a book because we have not included students so far in this conversation as i've heard that's a really good point and that is something we are moving toward we have kids on our apib adoption committee for econ and gov and i think that is really important to honor what the kids are ready for and that is something that really contributed to books that are on the conditional or not recommended based on feedback from our campus leaders and our teachers really kind of talking about how kids are in a different place right now and what are they ready for what are some

092triggers that maybe didn't exist a few years ago that today would impact really the goals of that reading assignment so i think it would be really important um for president sunowski to to get feedback from our students as well i really appreciate that i also really appreciate the amount of work that goes into it if you click click through this they're color coded so you know it doesn't it doesn't take a lot to follow a particular path the color coding is green means go right yep green means go yellow means slow down red means stop i get it and i think it's helpful for others that may not have the experience that are paid professionals in our english language arts department might have it involved with literature and reviewing literature and looking at the standards

093set by our our state department of education and our teachers in the extended process so i do appreciate all that you guys have done and the number of extensions that you have for parents to have involvement as well as respecting the professional voice and i look forward to the inclusion of students in this process as well and thank you for i knew it was several hundred hours but i i think um our general public needs to be aware of all that goes on behind the scenes it's often hard to convey that in a parent teacher conference or even a face-to-face conversation with someone that's hard to put that forward so i appreciate you trying to it's probably more than hundreds it's probably a thousand um looking at what you guys have done this year is

094phenomenal thank you any other board members have questions or comments yes go ahead foreign i i guess maybe that pieces my question though um because according to the information i was provided by dr garan uh if i may let's take the example of the ghost boys novel so according to the information and maybe i'm misunderstanding it i reviewed the kind of abbreviated review by the small committee the committee of four or five individuals who listed the positives and concerns but ultimately their recommendation was consensus of all four members of the group is to recommend this book for use in seventh grade this book requires a strong open robust conversation about race since this is a complex issue teachers are encouraged to let parents know about the book and encourage at home discussions and then there

095was a vote of the full committee that reads 13 yes or no one checked both options and what did not select a preference so the recommendation was made but then all that was said was based on the conversation and comments shared in the recommendation form the book was determined to be a conditional approval so i i'm trying to add up these numbers and understand the conditional proof i mean the conditional approval is that if it needs to be if it is going to be used it needs to be used only with explicit parental consent so i can jump in on that one this is this is kim garan board member greenberg so getting the input of the committee members was really to get a pulse check in less than a vote so to see if

096we were reaching consensus and if there was concerns so when there were concerns brought up and there was a robust discussion what i really loved about this process is there were differing points of views where people were able to sit down and have thoughtful conversations and to come to consensus and have some agreements and disagreements in a very respectful manner and put forward recommendations and so um when they had explicit concerns yellow is not a negative conditional means that there is sensitive content that we want to be very transparent about and let families know about that and we want to provide teachers additional coaching and support to navigate that challenging curriculum or content so i think a conditional actually is a positive because we're setting up the teacher for success providing a high level of

097support from our fantastic ela coaches and being very transparent with parents so it's not that we're not honoring these difficult novels we're just increasing transparency and involving more people in the process and providing more support for the teachers i i appreciate that i just again i i have to say that these are all three novels that i was specifically told about changes were being made to that were all novels that were specifically complained about by political organizations and when i look at what we do have again i mean i i think it would be it's hard to understate how right wing in my view and rand's works are and that is okay i believe that students and staff should have the right to use those works and to agree with them or disagree with them

098that is their choice that is what academic freedom is and we teach critical thinking we do not indoctrinate students one way or the other on any matter but i find it hard to understand why those works are not i mean because it is impossible for us to review all thousands of works how can we say where is the equity i guess for the fairness and assessment is it always going to be books that we're reviewing that happen to be the hot topic of the moment as opposed to other works that you know are just lost in the shuffle of things or or what i mean that's what i'm i'm just trying to because i i just i i don't i don't understand that aspect of the process i mean it to me it looks like

099these are mostly words that are works that are hot topic hot button you know books in the political world but not necessarily hot button books at all in the academic world so that's i mean i'm just trying to understand that board member greenberg actually the novels that were not recommended and ladies please correct me if i'm wrong um were not recommended for a variety of reasons so actually um the red novels were not novels that were um were challenged they were instead um not up to what we thought was there was i i was i was in one committee meeting where um the committee thought this this novel's fine it was not that interesting and maybe not up to our standard another wasn't aligned to the grade level standards so didn't necessarily support or fit

100so there was a variety of reasons why um novels weren't recommended and and some were actually um they scared dr dodge she doesn't like scary novels so to make everyone laugh she had to read some scary ones that she did not like it's true lots of ghosts she called me vice president dr hartwells you just confirmed my understanding is that there's always regardless of what color code we're going to assign here there's always an option for a student to have an alternative assignment yes yes thank you dr menzel yeah can we go back um go the next slide nope next one nope okay let's go back further this way i just wanna underscore right here so when we look at recommending a novel to the governing board for approval the first question is is the

101novel aligned with the standards there are so many reading options and what we can't do if we're going to have consistency of high expectation for all of our students to be able to meet the standards that have been established by the state of arizona is to have it just be a free-for-all and so this process helps ensure that when we're approving a novel we've reviewed it to say this one is going to help us ensure that if it's taught in a classroom it's aligned with the standards the other questions are important as well but it starts by making sure that we've got that alignment some are tighter than others and so i think the committee process is designed to help ensure that we're getting the best possible um and and widest variety of novels that

102meet student interest but also are aligned with the standards thank you dr menzel any other questions tom oops remember greenberg i apologize so i i understand that but my question is i mean what is the threshold if if if the full committee made it 13 to 4 if the small committee made a 4-0 recommendation and the full committee made a 13-4 recommendation how can a book at what point is a book no longer on the conditional list and it's just on the regular list like what what is that i mean there has to be some measurement right or is it just we're concerned that if we use this book or if a teacher uses this book uh i mean you know the transparency point we have to be transparent by law we have to inform

103you know parents what works may be used during the year and whatnot so i'm just i'm trying to understand i guess on the one hand there's so many books i'm trying to understand how those specific books were chosen so how how how does i mean what what constitutes an unconditional approval versus a conditional approval so board member greenberg to elaborate on dr guerin's comments about reaching consensus we didn't have a set number of we needed to have this many people who were in favor of recommending the book compared to the other something else that was really important to us was teacher feedback about their comfort in teaching the content so all reference for example the haunting of hill house the haunting of hill house ends in a suicide the teachers on the committee felt very

104uncomfortable assistant principals on the committee felt very uncomfortable with bringing that into our classrooms right now ghost boys for example or two of the other books that we're going to review next year they aren't even part of our district adoption these are site purchased or teacher purchased materials that are not used i'm using district funds for but are books that historically people have liked to read again times have changed so there are different types of triggers and we have kids who are coming to us from all different places so there might have been experiences that children have had that if they were to read that book the alternative selection like dr hart wells brought to our attention has been really important for us so again because it's conditionally recommended doesn't mean a teacher can't choose

105it another layer to this too is as we're all aware we have a lot of new teachers there's teacher turnover there are teachers who are teaching classes that they historically haven't taught so it's new to them we don't want to put somebody who is new to a grade level or new to the classroom in a situation where they aren't prepared for all that comes with teaching because teaching is not just about teaching the kids in our classroom it's about communicating with our families as well so that's where we really believe that the support that we can provide from teaching and learning is valuable because we don't want to set a teacher up for any type of um misfortune with all of their good intentions so again just because it's conditionally placed doesn't mean it can't

106be used it just means we want to have a double check on it and that we really understand what we're teaching and why we're teaching it so i i think but so we have all these books that teachers can choose from and you know they have we provide them you know warnings or they understand the content you know this book has suicide in it this book has topics involving self-harm or death or racism or what have you if we provide that all to the teachers aren't the teachers capable of deciding what the right because there are multiple books that address the same topics and we don't require that teachers all teachers use the exact same book for the exact same class across all our schools wouldn't they be in a position to decide for themselves

107whether that book is is acceptable or not for them or within their purview of something they want to address absolutely i i definitely want to value what the teacher has but i also maybe think we should provide some context ghost boys that seems to be a topic right now is um was read by three two classrooms one potential classroom so when we think about district-wide this is not a book that is even in every school it's something that is on one campus shared amongst a team and then another campus that was going to utilize the book as well so it's not like we are denying teachers throughout susd the opportunity to teach any of these books again it's just a matter of making sure that we're prepared and also to go back to what dr

108menzel brought up aligning with our standards and something that janna has really been supporting our teachers with is what are the skills what are you trying to teach it's not just about the content of the story but what are what are the literacy standards you know are you looking for motif are you looking for character development and is this the best book to teach that as well and so it it wasn't about a political commentary in our small group discussions okay i appreciate that i won't take up any more time thank you board member greenberg thank you for your questions all board members and dr menzel for your clarification um doctors kim and um ms lindsey silver stroller slover thank you for your presentation thank you to everyone who played a role in this including

109our community members our administrators and our instructional staff greatly appreciated this is how we get better so thank you um with that being said at this point i will ask for a motion to approve our 8 b supplemental materials move by beckman is there a second second second invite dr hart wells all in favor to impr to approve the supplemental materials as presented say aye opposed nay we have a four to one the motion passes thank you very much and we will move on to action item eight c idea arp not a aarp but arp grant stipends and i believe dr garan is going to be presenting that for questions yes president sinowski governing board members dr menzel cabinet and guests just what we needed in education more acronyms delivered by esser so we recently

110were made aware that we received additional esser funds related to idea or special education funds and when speaking about how to allocate these funds we understand one of our most pressing challenges is is staffing with special education so we already have a small incentive for staff that teach in self-contained classrooms and this is one-time money but we are recommending an additional five thousand dollar stipend for self-contained teachers which would make a seven thousand dollar stipend for next year and a two thousand dollar stipend for resource teachers um k-12 and this also includes our preschool programs we are hoping to incentivize some of our current staff members that have the certification that are in general education classrooms to consider coming back to special education and there are districts around the state also offering incentives so we

111need to stay competitive and draw teachers to our districts so that is why we're making this recommendation governing board members questions vice president dr hurt wells thank you president zanowski and thank you for bringing this forward um i think we've all probably read how some of the states are moving in this direction and it'd be nice if our state would do the same thing but we're going to fill that void this year my question is the proposal is directed to the certified teachers and psychologists what analysis has been done in incentivizing for the educational support professionals that remain or are considering uh or can recruit into the classroom because we know in special education in particular it really takes a team absolutely and i am i was honored to be a part of the sspa

112negotiations and we felt like we really made some traction with the uh classified salary schedule by infusing 1.3 million into the different steps so though it wasn't focused just on paraprofessionals we felt that there was so much wage compression throughout our support staff that it was directed toward toward all of them but this one is specifically to address our numerous teacher vacancies in the classroom and then in addition as we fill the vacant positions we felt it was important to provide additional support so that teachers will stay in the positions by offering additional mentoring not only to our teachers but to our new school psychologists okay thank you so as i understand it then the educational support professionals that have specialties in special education there won't be specific uh stipends for incentivation and to incentivize

113them to stay or move into our these classrooms but rather that was dealt with in the ibn as a whole yes and is there a delta difference on the grant funds that were received versus how much this stipend total is proposed to net out so this this takes most of the the funds to cover this we we um cost it for how many teacher vacancies how many teachers we currently have so it it all it's not only new teachers that get this it's teachers that are already currently serving so it does take i think it's a little over oh there it is 890 000 and what was the total additional arp funds received under idea i'm sorry the additional arp funds are 890 998 and 30 cents and i have not done the math on

114the proposal and how close that gets us shannon do you i can't see you we i yeah we have we know that we have enough within the fund to um provide the stipend however how close that is i couldn't tell you right off hand right now so okay i would just ask that if we can uh if there's some some net remaining if we could give consideration for the paraprofessionals thank you thank you great input any other questions on this topic board member greenberg do you have any questions on this topic none thank you okay seeing no more questions i ask that we make a motion to approve idea arp grant stipends at this time so moved is there a second second moved in seconded all in favor to approve the ida aop grant and

115stipends say aye aye that motion passes five zero thank you and at this time we will move on to action item 8d expenditure authorization early procurement of electoral equipment approval of joc early procurement electrical for pueblo elementary and i believe this will be q and a and we have mr raylor here for any questions that anyone might have to yes uh vice president dr hert wells thank you president sinowski i dennis i have a my question is this total given cost escalation we've already experienced and this total amount here that's projected 143 000 and some is that pretty close to what was initially as you're developing the gmp is this close to what you had projected or what mccarthy had projected president sunowski vice president kurt wells members of the board dr menzel we had

116this this is not a number that we would have projected individually we have a budget established for pueblo and this is one of those items that it's actually a 52-week lead time right now so we've pulled it out we've we've locked in the electrical contractor and supplier so that we can have this price in this price alone without seeing any other escalation um but this wouldn't be an item that we would have segregated to to budget okay so this is usually rolled into a larger number correct i don't really have an idea okay which you'll have the joy of seeing in just a few weeks okay well we'll be prepared for that shock okay thank you yeah there will be a few emails in advance to prepare you guys board member back mid so i

117don't suppose we're existing in an environment where we would get any sort of incentive for pre-purchasing this right zero okay thanks doesn't hurt to ask right well usually the terms you if you you know him that world sometimes you can i was meeting with the pueblo team today and um i think i've got more gray hair than i did earlier in the day we were told a story that's happening out in mesa school district they have this exact same equipment that was ordered last june and one of the main breakers has two little tiny o-rings that they cannot get and those o-rings are holding up that service entrance section to being installed in mesa's high school and so they're coming up with a plan b to get the air conditioning going so they can do

118the rest of the work and they're looking at about a hundred and ten thousand dollars a month to get temporary electricity to the building so it is really really bad out there well that's a fun thought yeah i i used to lay in the groundwork i used to sleep very very well at night and um of late it's it's not working out for me understood and note that our our kids in our community deserve upgraded facilities so we will do what we can to continue with those projects yes super thank you dennis any other questions all right see uh board member greenberg do you have any questions um no i i appreciate that explanation dennis yeah okay seeing no more questions um i am asking for a motion to approve action item 8 d at

119this time so moved is there a second second i'm all in favor to approve uh expenditure authorization early procurement of electoral equipment approval of joc early procurement electrical for pueblo elementary please say aye at this time hi hi and then motion passes five to zero moving on to our last action item for our meeting today approval of the 2022-2023 governing board meetings calendar dr menzel so you may recall last year we moved our meetings to the second and fourth tuesdays with the specific intent to avoid the conflict with the city of scottsdale council meetings um unbeknownst to us when we did that the city was going to change its meetings and so we still have the conflict from from a school district perspective the first and third tuesdays are better functionally and we would like

120to return to that schedule so our first meeting of the next school year would be august 2nd the day before school starts but really nice to be able to approve all the summer hirings that we we didn't do in july because we don't have a meeting then so we recommend that we go back to our first and third efforts have been made to encourage the city to stick with the second and fourth now that they're on it and then we won't be in conflict so that residents of scottsdale can attend both our meetings and the city's meetings which is really an exciting way to spend tuesday nights do any board members have any questions about the proposed school district meeting calendar for a governing board okay seeing none i asked for a motion to approve

121this um governing board meetings calendar second we have a motion to approve and a second all in favor say aye hi emotion passes five zero awesome at this time i ask for a motion to adjourn this special meeting um so moved moved and seconded all in favor to adjourn say aye aye motion passes 5-0 meeting is adjourned at 7 5 0 p.m on may 10 2022. you