SUSD Governing Board Regular Meeting - 11/30/21

001i called to order this regular meeting of the scottsdale unified school district it is november 30th 2021 and the time is 6 p.m please stand by president chenowski will you lead us in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all we will have a roll call starting from my far right zach lindsay libby hartwells john michael greenberg julie sinowski patty beckman all board members are present and we do have a quorum do any board members have changes to the agenda president beckman i would like to request that item 9 t be pulled from consent okay and i am also pulling um special presentation item 6a our student advisory

002board as they have a conflict and will be pushed to the december the next meeting okay do i have a motion to approve the agenda as amended so moved do i have a second second all in favor okay we move to agenda item three 3 3a are the public comment will be heard after the superintendent's comments please take note of our board approved meeting norms as well we now move to dr menzel agenda item 4 our student and staff recognitions and celebrations good evening president beckman vice president zanowski and members of the governing board in anticipation of this evening's audience we made a decision yesterday to postpone until a later time the appearance of the students and staff that we'd originally planned to celebrate this evening there were large numbers in terms of state championship

003award winners in a number of areas and we wanted to be sure that we had space in the room tonight for the people who wanted to be here nonetheless i think it's still important to take a few minutes to share with you some of the many many great things our students are accomplishing every day in our classrooms these are achievements which we can all be proud of as we prepare our districts 22 000 students to become the next authors engineers artists scientists teachers and community leaders for 125 years scottsdale unified school district has been recognized as an outstanding leader in arizona public education and that work continues to be at the heart of our vision mission and what we do every day part of that mission is to inspire our students to dream about their

004futures and to start thinking about that age-old question what do i want to be when i grow up the week before last tonalia k-8 students had the opportunity to meet community members representing more than 30 professions that they may consider joining at some point from a stanford educated pediatrician local gym owner and state trooper to a grammy award-winning musician flight attendant and an engineer tonalia students listen closely and ask questions of their guest with an ever-growing number of career possibilities students need to understand as early as possible that no goal is beyond their reach and also understand what it takes in order to achieve those goals next we'd like to congratulate two members of the graduating class of 2022. zachary ostrowski from chaparral high school and yahoo srivastava from desert mountain high school who are

005among arizona's 80 highest achieving seniors to be named semifinalist in the flynn scholarship program the flint scholarship is probably arizona's most prestigious offering of no cost honors college education at the state's public universities as well as study abroad and unparalleled mentorship opportunities in their fields of study we wish zachary and yahoo the best of luck as they take the next steps to become flynn finalists next week and lastly we also want to tell you about the results of a wonderful community-minded effort that's just wrapping up at cocoa paw middle school headed up by the student council cocoapa students have gathered more than 9 000 cans of food and non-perishable items this month to support the work of scottsdale's vista del camino food bank with homeless families on this giving tuesday we want to commend the

006kokoba student body principal nick noonan and student council advisor sandy flayton for the significant contribution to the betterment of our scottsdale community thank you [Applause] thank you dr menzel now we move to your superintendent comments thank you again for the opportunity just to make a few comments this evening as i know we have a full agenda the first thing i would like to address is our covid mitigation update as you know back in early november we announced to our community that beginning in january we would return to a mass optional policy there people have asked questions about that decision and i just wanted to reiterate that in compliance with the governing board directive last august i've consulted with the maricopa county department of public health related to our next steps in covet mitigation and and

007in particular we talked about the impact of our students having the opportunity all students having the opportunity to be vaccinated and following the five weeks of time it takes from the initial shot to con being fully vaccinated so to that end when i discussed this with dr sunshine we talked about the next semester being an appropriate time to move from a mask requirement to mask optional now what that still may entail when we said it in the initial communication is that the cdc the arizona department of health services and maricopa department of public health may still recommend universal mask wearing while indoors when community transmission remains higher substantial level we said at that time and we'll continue to monitor the situation should that be the case we'll also recommend the same but the the choice

008regarding this and and the risk calculation shifts from the school district when up until this point in time we had an entire body of students that had no choice about vaccination status to now individual families and students are making their own choices i've also been asked about well what happens with quarantines if mass become optional this is an ongoing topic of conversation with people at the county level and also with my colleagues in the north valley education consortium the health department is looking at adjustments to their quarantine policy they recognize that many many students who are healthy have been quarantined from school and that has a negative educational impact so there's they're looking intently at different ways of approaching this to accomplish their goal of reducing the spread of covid we're looking at it from

009an educational perspective in terms of how we can keep healthy students in class because that's where it's most appropriate for them to learn so we're working to balance that we don't have an idea at what point the health department will announce its adjustments to quarantine practices but over the next three weeks and even during the break we'll be working with them and our colleagues to talk about what that might look like as we head into the next semester again our goal is to ensure that we have healthy and safe learning environments and that we can keep our kids in school next i'd like to talk about the first robotic competition that's coming up and it's an opportunity for not only board members but also members of our community to see something that's truly fantastic on

010december 4th mojave will host and the saguaro sabre cat robotics team organized the annual first lego league regional tournament from 9am on you can witness students having the hardest fun you'll ever have teams from many susd schools will gather to work together and compete for a spot in the state tournament the public is welcome to attend this exciting demonstration of stem and gracious professionalism and teamwork the location will be in the mojave gymnasium from 9 a.m until the final award ceremony estimated to be around 4 p.m and while it might be fun to be all there all day you don't have to attend all day you can pop in and observe as your schedule permits finally i just want to talk about our students first commitment the past few weeks have presented new challenges for

011scottsdale unified school district from the time i started on july 1st of 2020 we've been dealing with the covid pandemic something none of us wanted to deal with but we're still under the governor's emergency order as a result of that and it's something that we can't ignore at the same time as my staff will attest written on the white board in my office are two guiding questions how are the children and how do we know my focus has been is and always will be the students of scottsdale unified school district currently there are significant distractions from this core purpose disruptions that i believe are disservice to our students and the nearly three thousand employees of this district who work tirelessly to ensure our students are provided the support and resources necessary to be successful pandemic

012has impacted our students and families in different ways and we continue to work on identifying strategies to ensure we can accelerate learning for those who are off track the elevated vitriol and name calling that i've seen on social media to me is an embarrassment to this district we don't allow it in our schools and the adults are supposed to be role models for our children it is imperative to create space for civil discourse and allow for differences of opinion to emerge so that we can take steps to move our district forward together as superintendent i will continue to focus relentlessly on our vision and mission invite anyone who shares our belief that susd can be world class to join me in that effort it is and always has been about our students i want to

013again express my appreciation this evening to all of our scottsdale unified school district staff day in and day out they show up in service of our children they do it no matter what the noise around them is they do it because they care and i truly am grateful for their service thank you [Applause] thank you dr menzel and we move now to our public comments gladys do i have all the cards that have been submitted in the order that they were submitted yes six that we'll bring in okay okay this is a call for public comment for non-agenda items and consent and action agenda items these may be brought to the governing board's attention under this section of the agenda action taken as a result of this kind of public comment will be limited to

014responding to any criticism made by those who have addressed the governing board directing staff to look into the matter or asking would that the matter be put on a future agenda no other discussion or legal action is allowed per ars 38-41-431-01 comments are limited to two minutes 90 minutes in total one person cannot give his or her time to another to increase the number of minutes the individual may speak i know that there are a great many people here today that wish to speak please know that we have families watching including minors i ask that you keep this in mind when speaking and please refrain from cursing or using any offensive language i also understand that our emotions are high and i don't want to shout over anyone so if the room gets a bit

015disruptive i might be taking two minute recesses just so things can settle down and we can continue thank you and i appreciate your help okay our first speaker will be grace stombres i'm a member of the unified school district community in support of my district i'm a saguaro high school graduate and susd has educated three generations 24 members of my family my family is invested in this district the families of 22 000 students choose susd for their children's education for the options our schools provide with diverse and excellent academics as well as co-curricular programs every susd school has its own unique strengths in community and culture and parents know their children's schools and teachers the families of 22 000 students are invested in susd politicians who are not invested in our schools have launched campaigns

016by attacking this district and by alleging the malaise of society on our public education system critical race theory vaccine mandates and indoctrinating curriculum are not in my school and the parents of 22 000 students know that these are not in their schools either these politicians do not want what is best for our children and families as evidenced by the flyer that was distributed their last rally on our school property their agenda is number one get your children out of public schools number two crusade for biblical teaching with judeo-christian leaders and number three defund public schools this attack on our district and our school board is a smoke screen to promote what these politicians really want and that is to make sure that the families of 22 000 students in susd will have no jana choice

017gianna jackson good evening and thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak my name is jana jackson and i am a resident in this scottsdale unified school district but i'm also something else that i usually hide i was an aerospace education specialist for nasa in washington dc i received a 1000 point of light from president bush i not only write curriculum ppp and task-based curriculum for the military for the navy nafc navc as well as the marines i'm a teacher of 28 years i've been in education for 28 years i have taught in italy and puerto rico and in every state in the united states and also worked with the uh with the european space agency i come to say this because i am an expert in one area that people are

018now talking about it is critical race theory the dangers i was taught by gloria ladson billings who was the person who actually coined the word in 1960. i didn't have her as a professor in 1960 but while working on my doctorate my doctorate is actually in cultural diverse teaching and i know where cultural i know where critical race theory is within the textbooks within your classrooms a lot of people talk about what is it but very few people talk about where can i look for it it's in the classrooms but you can't change something if you don't know where it is so i am just coming today just and graciously giving honor to god to say if you need my help i am in this area i am here for you and i apologize for

019hiding and not coming out to you to say i'm an expert in the field with the doctorate degree with the doctoral research in my background and also having a resume that is just a gift from god so i come today to say if you need my help my name is janna jackson and i am willing to give to my school district anything that i possibly can thank you for the opportunity [Applause] thank you karen werner [Applause] good evening my name is karen warner and i'm a proud very proud scottsdale unified school district parent and susce governing board where are you going when are you going to start listening to your community our trust in you to make it informed decisions about our district no longer exist the school you represent belongs to the people of

020this district said by patty beckman in 2018 this still applies today when young michael greenberg condoned and colluded with his father in collecting personal information including background checks pictures etc on a significant number of parents and community members he broke our trust the board further broke our trust when they allow him to represent the district further in order to move forward greenberg must own his actions abstain from speaking or deliberating on any items or discussions and his vote cannot count and while he should just resign and let our district heal and move forward because this district needs healing the attention outside of this building today is because of greenberg's actions i emailed both beckman and libby three items to be put on the agenda they were not and i therefore call for the following items

021to put it be put on the agenda for the next board meeting greenberg to address the purchase of a home in phoenix outside of the district and did he sign a primary residence affidavit as part of his closing package the resolution to demand greenberg resign three parents to be allowed on campus effective immediately with none of the coveted restrictions that are in place right now they're ridiculous this must happen in order to restore trust between parents teachers and community members and for the healing process to begin thank you jesse torres uh so standing up to speak to you guys tonight was an extremely difficult decision for me because i have honestly never felt as scared for my personal safety and my professional safety here in scottsdale i've been teaching here for seven years and just

022really quickly i would like to say i despite what our thoughts are and what's going on on right now with the board i do very much appreciate you guys in the work that you guys have done and this is one of the first years in scottsdale that i have felt supported by the board and the superintendent so thank you so recently i've seen very real examples as mentioned before of targeted information collection coming from members of our community where they're screen shotting where parents work they're looking up social media i'm afraid the same thing is going to happen to me just by speaking tonight and this this vitriol just has to end it is detracting from the students which is what we are all here for these are parents that are being targeted who volunteer

023in our district these are parents and board members who work for us tirelessly and they're being smeared online and that is just absolutely unacceptable and furthermore again like people have said before i believe that this this is just another thing in the long line um of grievances that aren't going to end and we are just simply politicizing what's going on here in the district in order to again go towards that ultimate goal of defunding public education i believe susd is a wonderful district i believe we have excellent public schools it's why i'm proud to teach here it's why i would send my kids here when i have them one day and i know that the parents who are unhappy do have the option and the funding here in the state of arizona to find a

024school that works for them and that fits for them and i truly believe that parents have that right and they have to have that input in their children's education so if you know these things are what's making these parents unhappy i just wish that it wasn't taken out in a way that's affecting the morale of my colleagues it's affecting okay thank you okay thank you okay bert bert teveld good evening my name is berto tevalda i am a professional educator and a national board certified teacher i speak on personal title i know i can speak without fear for retaliation that is from the district only a few years ago that was different i dare to challenge the board about their lack of critical questioning hr was on my neck immediately with a fake complaint my

025principal had my back hr like much of susd then was unprofessional thanks to a band of community members the dark years of incompetence arrogance and greed are over the voices of professionals classified certified and administrative are once again recognized this is a district where professionals will want to work important considering the raging's teacher shortage one of the many challenges we face funding depletion of funding through vouchers class sizes counselors nurses etc hearing many speakers over these past months there was virtually nothing about these real challenges to the education of our children are they about learning or burning first it was masks then it was books and curriculum what's next our schools this loud mini minority is not about saving our schools at least not to schools where over 90 of families send their children having

026choice as we have in arizona is apparently not enough for them the same players or almost wrecked our district or back same plan turned public into profit chase critical professionals away fortunately our supportive community is alert thank you here's what everyone can do get involved in your schools sign up to be a substitute tutor volunteer truly get to know your community schools become active and help arizona move away from the bottom of education funding that is the real emergency and meanwhile i will continue to speak up for my profession for my community and for my students thank you okay thank you okay jake davis jake davis hello my name is jake davis i'm a lifelong student parent of scottsdale unified school district john michael greenberg is currently being investigated by the scottsdale police department for

027behaviors including and not limited to cyber stalking the scottsdale unified school district anti-bullying pamphlet reads as follows cyber bullying is but not limited to any active bullying committed by use of electronic technology or electronic communication devices including telephone devices social networking and other internet communications on school computers networks forms mailing lists or other district owned property and by the means of the individual's personal electronic media and equipment harassment is an intentional intentional behavior by a student or a group of students that is disturbing or threatening to another student or a group of students let's see here that kind of behavior characterizes harassment included but are not limited to stalking hazing social exclusion name calling unwanted physical contact and unwelcome verbal or written comments photographs and graphics harassment may be related but not limited to race

028religious orientation sexual preference cultural background and go on and on intimidation is intentional behavior by a student or group of students that places other students in a fear of harm or personal property intimidation can be manifested emotionally physically directly or indirectly by the use of social media at what point are we not going to acknowledge what you're doing you beat me up in court yesterday good for you you met me with a team of lawyers for restraining order you should feel very proud of yourself you really should that's all i really have to say i just hope that everybody does what's right by the students i am not an anti-master i'm not anti-anything i'm pro teachers i have family members that are teachers i have children that attend the school and i want them to

029do it safely thank you [Applause] shelly gordon shelly gordon i want to talk about teachers in scottsdale unified school district having the freedom to teach truthful history not nostalgia history yes the brown versus board of education paved the way for the civil rights movement which led to the awakening of white southern racists who saw the evil of their ways and reformed and that ended racism this is a false narrative that omits the long and complex struggle of freedom by black americans since they were first forced into free labor with their bodies sold mortgaged traded physically tortured and sexually violated for 250 years and that legacy of slavery continues today but parents and outside agitators plus our state legislature want to perpetuate these false narratives and take over school curricula they are simply trying to distract

030us from their own racism everything else like protecting kids from feelings of guilt and shame is a smokescreen and by the way all children not just children of color are hungry for truthful history they are much more likely to engage and achieve academically when they're taught the truth as opposed to being taught the whitewashed sanitized curated version of history we've been feeding them all these years grappling with hard history develops students minds their critical thinking skills their social emotional learning skills their empathy and compassion and their aspiration to create a more just future here's a quote from a white student in st louis the way schools teach history establishing america as a white man's land where only one group of people is responsible for its success leads to hate and superiority complexes action needs to

031be taken against teaching youth that the largest role of black americans in art history was slave such false teachings have shadowed black people's contributions to america and have fed unhealthy stereotypes truthful history gives voice to students of color whose ancestors are largely left out of the u.s story by not teaching truthful history we will continue to see white supremacy dominate our politics our education okay [Applause] my name is rob vols i'm a district parent as well as a graduate of arcadia high school i wanted to take a moment to praise amy cardella and her work with scottsdale parent council through turbulent times emmy has worked diligently to engage with parents and rebuild committees that had previously been dormant if you are a scottsdale district parent and you want to work directly to solve the issues

032of the district no better investment in your time can be had than to work with the svc on one of their committees i serve on the dei and special education committees and want to thank joe lassen brad duel and larissa beckstead for their leadership on those committees as a special ed parent is important for me that all special ed families are heard and included in the learning communities on every campus they exist i'm still concerned that the issues of special education families are not being addressed directly and effectively and i hope to see more involvement from you dr manzel in the future to all parents and guardians who are actively participating in their children's schools thank you your work volunteering and donating to scottsdale schools is important and i know it's not been easy and

033i know it's uh with sorry i know it's not been easy with many pointless attacks on our board administration staff and teachers from a small group of concerned parents and outside agitators disrupting our children's education the scottsdale unified school district exists for the education of every child in the district and for the benefit of every resident of the district not just a small group of noisy selfish parents thank you okay lisa olsen lisa olson i'm lisa olson here is a mother of five and a retired educator students want to be respected honored heard valued and most of all seen an american student whose history is not taught in the schools understands clearly that they are not being respected honored heard valued and most of all seen it's as though they are invisible hundreds of years

034of this type of education has caused tremendous harm to our nation it perpetuates bigotry because it values one population group above all others through a process that we call omission i'm asking this school board to ignore the loud voices that are seeking to advance a eurocentric mythological sanitized version of our history and instead do what you know is right to listen to the expert educators and students who are demanding that the truth be taught in our classrooms multiple voices and perspectives offer a broader view of our nation's history and it's time that they were all brought to the forefront who hasn't learned about the mayflower of 1620 or the nina the pint of the santa maria of 1492 why don't we know then about the white lion that landed at point comfort in 1619 students

035should be learning about amazing contributors to the us that have been left out of traditional textbooks i'm thinking right now of james baldwin i'm thinking of dr charles drew fannie lou hamer granville t woods audrey lord catherine johnson sequoia tecumseh red cloud hermann bedeau and anthony romero and many more how many people in the u.s were shocked when they recently learned about the tulsa massacre it should have been taught in schools that massacre along with many others should also be taught to knowingly perpetuate the teaching of myths is to practice education malfeasance and our students deserve better i thank you for hearing my comments and for your selfless service on this government [Applause] angela lucero good evening president beckham governing board members dr menzel and cabinet thank you for being here this evening i'm here

036tonight to talk to you about the restructure in the chs complex here are some things that i would like you to consider the coronado complex is always in a constant state of change we have had the most shuffle of teacher campuses building and restructure compared to any other complex in the district how are we supposed to ever really get anything going when we are always changing also the changes before this were not successful so what makes this one any different the k-8 model works so well with our complex and offers parents of multiple students a one-stop shop for building community over the long haul it also works for drop-offs pick-offs and events we have also seen great relationships built between our younger and older students and it is truly something special we have been able

037to do so many great projects on campus to establish this we need to draw people in with programs and put money time and resources into making them last many students choose other schools in the district because of the drastic difference in programs offered and funds provided to them to succeed i believe a conversation is needed on what will draw in and let us establish those now before making these decisions you can't promise things that are not in place the restructure will not draw on people and frankly i fear that many parents will not want to move their students leaving a half-capacity elementary school my child attends a specialized program at hohokam and i am unclear whether he will have the option to stay at hohokam or be forced back to yavapai there are many great

038areas surrounding this for staffing purposes programs and more and my suggestion would be to turn the old yavapai campus into a preschool and pre-k development which will draw in community members and children of staff members and also help those students grow within our schools community education is not affordable in this area or is rarely offered last but not least staff morale is declining with exhaustion and stress and this is icing on the cake teachers don't like the unknown of all that is behind this moving a classroom is worse than moving a home the abba pi staff in particular will have only moved for one year before being asked to move again and especially leaving a brand new campus the merging of campuses is a big big ordeal admins change getting to know new staff members

039and redefining um thank you karen treon good evening as we get further into this pandemic we are seeing more clearly how much our children are suffering emotionally socially developmentally and yes academically we are seeing more clearly how much our teachers are being crushed by the burdens this is placed squarely on their shoulders it was hard before covid it is far worse now and it is not sustainable but here we are at a critical board meeting right before we start the fifth semester of pandemic impacted school and everything is a distraction i do not need to go into the allegations against board member greenberg and his father those have been documented in the press and the greenbergs will have to address these issues on multiple fronts this is for the greenbergs to handle not this board

040this board has done all it can do and i am here to implore you to implore you to move on from distractions and focus on the work before you the board appointed a new president and i commend you for that you have all had the opportunity to make personal statements regarding resignation there's nothing else for you to do you do not have the authority to remove mr greenberg i don't believe from his board seat and i don't believe any sort of resolution or request for him to do so would have any legal significance currently board members are facing demands to address their involvement with the drive but as anyone who has ever edited a kid's paper or a college application essay knows the creator of a google document or drive has the unilateral power to

041name anyone as an editor it means nothing i could create a drive or document now and in this entire room as editors and there's nothing you can do about it yet this is what the board is being forced to spend time on it is a red herring i hope you ignore the red herrings and get back to work focusing on the urgent and compelling needs of our students and teachers now they are working hard every day struggling under previously unimaginable circumstances and they cannot wait for the help and support they need from you thank you julie julie swords [Applause] my name is julie swords i'm a mother of two they're both both my kids are third generation arcadia titans on september 20th my daughter was horribly and physically assaulted by another student during lunch i

042received a video from one of my daughter's friends immediately after the assault because they were so appalled by the attack on my daughter while she was sitting at lunch with her friends in the video i saw my daughter thrown around like a rag doll she was grabbed by her hair thrown to the ground and repeatedly kicked in the ribs stomped on her head kicked in the ribs again her attacker then got on top of my daughter proceeded to punch her over and over again in her head i need you to understand the full impact this incident had on my child she was left with physical scars her clothes ripped have her hair pulled out the cracked eardrum and then the video went viral do you even understand or can you even comprehend anyone doing this

043to your child what would you do and how would you feel when i asked the principal what he was going to do about this dangerous student how is he going to protect my child he simply kept referring to the code of conduct when i looked at the code of conduct this is what i found your mission statement to ensure the scottsdale unified school district is a safe place to learn and work objectives provide safe and healthy educational environment for our student population foster and promote a positive safety culture throughout the district page 25 article b accordingly students are prohibited from engaging in behavior that endangers or threatens the safety of any person page 24 policies expressly prohibit behavior on district property that will damage the dignity self-esteem integrity and safety and or disrupt the educational

044process of any individual a week after the assault my daughter returned to school and came face to face with the attacker seeing this person every day left her feeling defeated fear of her own safety she's always looking over her shoulder scared to go to the bathroom because of what her attack what if her attacker comes in [Music] thank you mrs schwartz this is bird [Applause] becky williams good evening dr menzel president beckman members of the governing board ms wagner my name is becky williams and i serve as the president of the scottsdale education association i'm also a parent of two students and a teacher myself in the district i'm not here tonight to talk about associations or rights or policies i would like to talk about our susd our amazing community about our students and

045our educators this year has been demanding for all of us for educators it's been a year filled with the greatest challenges we faced supporting our students both academically and emotionally every person from staff to parent to student has had a unique experience navigating the changes the changes that the pandemic has brought to our lives perspectives created by differing experiences have created varying paths for some the path has meant reacting to the perception of losing rights for others it has meant taking steps to minimize health risks and maximize safety for all it has meant seeking what we believe is best for our children on the part of professionals in education our path remains the same as it has always been the creation of safe and nurturing spaces for our students to grow to learn and realize

046the futures they dream for themselves we have always been here fighting for our students when legislatures have kept funding when class sizes have increased when pay cuts have been instituted when specials electives and essential programs have been minimized when voices have been silenced we've stayed the path and continued the work of supporting our students we know their path leads to the success of our district our community and our public schools so to you the board i ask you to keep your eyes on the prize do not let the distractions of rallies or tweets cause us to lose sight of what we are all in this fight for taking inclusive action to ensure susd is the district that all of our students deserve so that they can realize their fullest potential thank you ann myers and

047myers good evening board members and superintendent menzel my name is anne meyers i live in scottsdale and my grandchildren happily attend kiva when i was in school many years ago the soviet union was our rival and cold war enemy as school children we were told that russia erased the evils of stalin and lenin and taught their students only russian accomplishments that's called revisionist history it's dishonest at best the rage swirling around critical race theory is an example of modern revisionist history crt is never taught k-12 it's part of advanced legal studies but never mind if you don't understand it if it symbolizes teaching racial history then why would we not want our students to have a factual complete history of our country when we listen to agitators whose sole purpose is to enrage and disrupt

048we do not serve our children and their need for truth and understanding susd is among the best school districts in the country because of the quality of its educators and staff we cannot handcuff them with cameras or bands or censorship we cannot force them to teach an authoritarian revision of history the mission of a school should be to teach our students so that they have an honest and factual background of understanding and appreciation of our country our world and each other please continue doing your excellent job of educating [Applause] jill laflin joe jill lassen hi good evening president beckman dr manziel mrs wagner and the rest of the board who i love so much i am going to run out of time because i have to acknowledge that dr menzel acknowledged everything that's going on

049regarding social media it's about time and i appreciate it so as a person who has devoted much of the last 10 years to equity issues i would be remiss to not point out that the rest of this board have been silent regarding the dangerous rhetoric bullying harassing behavior and hate speech that many in our community have experienced including parents teachers and even one of your very own those we elected to serve our interests the governing board members have done little to curb them along with senior administration despite death threats despite having countless people stand and speak as i'm doing now this group has been allowed to lie and disparage our schools our staff and parents like me it seems that you our leaders have failed to lead silence equals complicity and your silence is deafening

050all of you know what has been said and thanks to their own members passing the information to themselves and the press the entire world now knows many other comments have been anti-semitic anti-catholic some have depicted threats violence homophobic transphobic and overwhelmingly racist or even islamophobic and then there are those that simply degrade our and demean our teachers these social media comments should alarm all of us this kind of rhetoric is dangerous to the civility of our community and our children are watching they're absorbing all of this directly or indirectly [Music] okay thank you miss lawson okay [Applause] karen gifford good evening um president beckman members of the governing board dr menzel cabinet and guest my name is karen gifford my child goes to mojave mojave middle school is an exceptional place for students with a

051community feel am i allowed to take the max talk to talk or not can i get off when she speaks are you out of time when you speak okay thank you mojave middle school is an exceptional place for students with a community feel that involves families administrators teachers and staff work very hard to maintain the positive climate they have created i know this because in addition to being an susd parent my work i specialize in school climate and culture wonderful schools are spread across our district and this doesn't happen without district support is susd perfect no but it's a great district that needs strong family partnerships to maintain and take us to the next level we will continually improve only if we work together i encourage all of you who are dissatisfied to join parent

052groups whether that be at your school getting involved volunteering or through scottsdale parent council which was mentioned earlier scottsdale parents council is one organization that's dedicated to the success of all susd students parents and community members can join to have a voice spc works collaboratively with but is autonomous from the district can the district improve for certain but change can only come by families working with the district rather than against it i also ask district leadership and the board to do whatever they can to build positive proactive relationships with families family school partnerships are possible and they improve student achievement and well-being thank you erica mcconnell hi thank you for the opportunity for comments tonight i'm here to express my support for our teachers thank you to our public school educators who work tirelessly to

053provide a safe learning environment for our students there is a lot of talk and a lot of noise and i hope the teachers can see past the noise and know that there are many parents in this district who appreciate them we as parents have the choice to send our children to susd in making that choice we choose you we choose to support you and there are many parents who believe in you and who appreciate you please do not let the campaigning outside these doors sway you from the important role that you have educating our children i hope the adults that are choosing to bully and name call will reevaluate their choices i hope they see the more important task we have of coming together to provide the best for all our students be an example

054to our children that we can disagree on what the best is but work together so that our schools are successful thank you [Applause] rose smith rose smith rose smith thank you i'm here to express gratitude and respect to our school leaders teachers and staff for continuing to support our students during this difficult time students are top priority and you've honored that despite rude behavior directed at many of you and susd we expect school board members to check their politics at the door and serve the best interests of all susce students we also expect that we as voters have the right to fairly elect board members through democratic elections currently all five of our board members have been targeted for recall with threats to health safety and humiliation let's be frank this pushes to intimidate board

055members into resigning and it's been going on all year it's an attempt to fill their vacated seats with political appointees who are not elected by the voters because i championed positive demonstration for those who support our children's education i got to experience just a sample of the harassment like me other private citizens were targeted for intimidation and cipher bullying on public social media forums based on my experience i would call their tactics fabrication manipulation and disinformation the loud vocal minority is not most parents of susd arizona is an open enrolled state the door is open and it swings both ways our families choose susd to those seeking to burn down our district please take your pamphlets about defunding public schools abolishing the department of education and marx's teachers with you when you leave allow our

056district teachers and staff to get back to the work of educating students instead of responding to disrespect mudslinging and non-stop attacks thank you again susd community we are public school proud susan hughes good evening school board members dr menzel i'm dr susan hughes i'm a parent of susd students and i actually live in scottsdale i want to thank you and all of our educators and staff for being here for our students i see you and i appreciate you susd is a school district of choice people enroll their students here unfortunately these are sometimes the same people that spew vitriol at our educators board and community members my children love their teachers and are watching your students your children love their teachers and are watching what does it say to them and to community members when

057hate groups are invited to our school board meetings what does it say to our children and community members when people with political motives send robo texts and lie filled pamphlets to our citizens 1980 action is 1980 coalition which is a non-profit by the consultant to the aspiring governor that is being used to destroy public education many community members and parents did not feel safe coming here tonight because of online harassment and threats there's outright bullying and yes anti-semitic attacks to board members but also too many of our black and brown students and lgbtq students do not feel safe that has been addressed by the recent hanover study that showed that up to 10 percent of our students that answered that did not feel safe from racism or bullying on a daily basis we have issues

058if our children are old enough to experience racism then our children are also old enough to be learned to learn how to not discriminate and be racist that is not crt but being a decent individual victoria victoria canada [Applause] thank you board members and dr menzel i am a proud and active susd parent i chose susd my children have benefited greatly from their education at scottsdale unified i'm here to support our students teacher and teachers and staff they are exhausted by this vitriol the noise is a distraction the rhetoric is a distraction it does not help our students and teachers the anger that seems to be ever present and that is directed at our learning communities does not help our students and it also directly impacts my own students at home our students care that

059their teachers and staff that show up for them on a daily basis are taken care of our children are watching that is a common theme that's been said our children are watching how we interact how we manage conflict resolution how we care for our educational ex are exceptional educational professionals they're watching us please don't give in to the distractions we need to continue to focus on ensuring that all individual learners reach their full potential i believe that we can i'm a proud susd parent and again i will keep choosing susd thank you walker kiera walker good evening i'm a scottsdale resident i was a student here at coronado and i'm also a parent of a special education student within the district my student has primary immune deficiency disorder and has to wear a mask and

060be surrounded with people with mass while i understand that we are weight mass optional that makes my student not be able to attend the classroom to be offered by the school district two hours a week of a homeschool program does not meet her iep needs to not make accommodations to protect her is not appropriate what makes any other parent student more you know valuable than my kid why does their kid not wanting to wear a mask make it to my child cannot go to school i've asked the district i went to the district to make accommodations i was given some accommodations gratefully but they're not enough and to now go back to mass optional means i have to withdraw my student and find other educational means as you all know with special educational needs in

061a self-contained classroom online schooling is not appropriate we lost a year last year with our education to now have to try to find a way to educate my daughter just because somebody doesn't want to wear a mask personally is not okay with me my daughter is just as valuable as their kid my daughter deserves an education just as much as theirs my daughter's teacher is an amazing person who has made every accommodation in the world to protect my daughter but the school district and the board need to step up i need them to give me more than two hours a week of a homeschool program my daughter deserves more her iep calls for more i've taken notes from her physicians to be constantly ignored and told that this is the best they can do it's

062not enough i demand more honey i'll say this wrong hugh's on guitar sorry coney weezar okay thank you for having me tonight again my name is coney wizard and i am a parent of two desert mountain high school students and a desert mountain 2020 graduate while kind of graduation was canceled i have served on the pto boards for anasazi cheyenne for chaparral high school i also chaired project graduation for desert mountain high school i'm sorry for chaparral high school over the past 10 years i have helped raised over a hundred thousand dollars for scottsdale unified school district i know what it's like to volunteer my time for free i also now know what it's like to be named a psycho or wacko under greenberg file i don't deserve that when a stabbing occurs in one

063of the middle schools under your leadership you are unfocused board when a c a special needs girl experiences sexual abuse under your leadership you are unfocused when you are failing the mission you signed up to serve for free you are unfocused the work of this board is very important and the scope of the work of this board must be funneled through the mission of scottsdale unified school district is to deliver a world-class education promoting the highest level of academic achievement the mission outlines who you signed up to serve and what you are supposed uh supposed to accomplish your mission is to deliver high quality academics period you need to focus i'm sorry to inform you today that you are not fulfilling the mission of susd of being academically globally competitive the low proficiency rates coupled

064with the fact that we are four years behind every global leader in math this does not align with the mission of being globally competitive the mission that you volunteered to fulfill if this board continues [Music] thank you trish olsen okay my name is trish olsen i'm the proud parent of three susc students and i'm an susc alumni myself finding out that there was a google drive that contained hundreds of files on concerned parents from this community was an absolute gut punch finding out it was created and curated by mr greenberg was a slap in the face the contents of this drive are disturbing photos of community members homes their vehicles employment information on parents financial information photos of people's children children in this district saved on that drive why exactly was this information being gathered

065why would a private investigator be hired through a law firm to take photos of our license plates why would a grown man in your position on the school board collect files and information on parents in looking at the contents of the drive i realized there was a theme all of us parents are outspoken and willing to advocate for our children and the children of this district that's it we spoke up we showed up we asked questions how did we get here because contrary to popular belief i am part of a parent group that has chosen susd we have chosen public school we've chosen this district because we love this district we support teachers and leaders and administration but i've struggled to put into words how disappointing this situation is for all of us it's obviously

066not the type of attention that any susc stakeholder would celebrate it's so disappointing it's so distracting it's embarrassing for susd and as a community we have to be able to move forward from this debacle we have to start to rebuild it's the only way to start to regret regain the trust of parents of susd the fact of the matter is the google drive exists regardless of what mr greenberg has told the press he sent an email wrap it up [Music] okay patricia pellet patricia pellet good evening dr menzel your twitter account profile says you're committed to social justice sounds warm and fuzzy to those who do not know the modern meeting it represents hate and racism investopedia defines it as favoring or punishing different groups regardless of any given individual choices or actions it means

067redistribution of wealth income and economic opportunities from those considered to be impressive oppressors like myself as i'm white it's often associated with socialism and revolutionary communism this is why susd is okay with curriculum in our schools painting whites rich and cops as bad people a lady told me today she's from illinois and already experienced what arizona schools are experiencing now she told her friends scottsdale's parents better watch out when she saw susd elected a new superintendent from ann arbor michigan by the way how did you overspend our budget by i believe a 17 percent oh you said you had no idea education had a spending limit what does it have a spending limit maybe we need to focus more on academics and not social emotional learning you need to go on michael greenberg you your

068father mark dr manziel julie and zach all possibly are tied to the dossier files on his parents i had a background check ran on myself hard to believe except i ran into a few wonderful people who have been told who have told me how your denmark has tried to financially destroy them and they told me better watch out you have no clue who you're dealing with [Music] please wrap up thank you okay sierra solemn [Applause] good evening president beckman dr menzel on the board my name is sarah solem and i am an susd parent of two and um also a four-year-old that is possibly an susd student in the future my family my kids are third generation susd students that's decades of susd support family members have been teachers and staff in three of our

069learning communities i serve on district committees i serve in our pto i volunteer at our schools i donate my time we donate to our schools and organizations that help fund susd i am an involved parent i love to be we chose susd because we support public schools we want susd to excel and be successful our kids go here that's of course what we want you serve because you also want that or at least we hope so you're here because you're on the board to make policies for all susd students and staff everything from the coveted policies to curriculum to budget but what about the policies that are supposed to govern you policy bca says that there are board member ethics and i'm going to read a little bit from those ethics i hope that you'll

070either think about these or look to one another and think about this you're supposed to set a positive example of good citizenship by scrupulously observing the letter of the law and spirit of the law's rules and regulations maintain a deep sense of social responsibility as a trusted public servant be dedicated to the highest ideals of honor ethics and integrity in all public and personal relationships shall conduct themselves as to maintain public confidence in the governance of the district and performance of public trust respectability shall safeguard public confidence [Music] please wrap it up thank you [Applause] carrie blaker perry blaker carrie blaker yeah only one can speak though right i know carrie i know both of you are listed on the comment card but only one can speak okay i'm going to let her then okay

071good evening governing board president beckman vice president i'm sorry governing board members dr menzel and gladys my name is julie gildersleed proud parent of two susd graduates and the library resource specialist at pueblo which is a classified position in susd viva puebla as a member of scottsdale support professionals association i have been empowered to have a voice engage more in the overall process of my job as well as have the privilege of serving on various susd committees i currently serve on the following district committees meet and confer i.t and pueblo's rebuild i do not mention this to boast however i do want you to know i work with many leaders within susd which brings you to why i'm here today one leader that i would like to acknowledge and thank is michelle watt chief systems

072opera officer she is new to susd and has taken on the job of keeping us all online as a lrs our job is to serve students with one-to-one devices as we are the front line of i.t on our various campuses she took it upon herself to request a meeting with the lrs's through gail oper and joined our meeting this past early release day michelle wanted to learn what we do and to let us know we matter to the overall operations she asked to be there she took time out of her day to listen and request feedback on how she can support us in doing our job michelle let us know she is available to connect if needed in the future many questions arose as a result of the meeting representing the lrs job family i

073reached out to her for clarification and a solution-based conversation the lrs's have felt left out of the loop regarding projects and any changes that were made regarding it she and i agreed that a regular it meeting with us please wrap it up thank you okay thank you very much [Music] laura weissoff governing board and dr menzel thank you for letting me speak tonight my students are third generation susd students as well i am here as a parent to brag about the outstanding teachers we have had at our neighborhood school i will begin with ms bauer in kindergarten who had problem-solving discussions with the class about things like how we can help the animals in the devastating australian wildfires while also having the more simple discussions about what happened at recess of course along with teaching

074reading and writing and miss sun who beautifully engages her mandarin students with music when our schools first went to online learning during the pandemic she taught herself the guitar and played for our kindergarten students and parents online what a teachable moment of continuing to grow during such a difficult time for us all in first grade miss joe and mrs caramucci who are also incredibly caring and reliable teachers did not miss one beat with online and in-person learning they taught an incredibly challenging interwoven curriculum including an insect unit at school complete with classroom insect pets a seven page report on their chosen insect written in school in first grade a model made at home and the world language complement of reading and writing the hungry caterpillar story in mandarin that brings us to second grade with

075a nationally certified teacher mr robinson who like other teachers is constantly going above and beyond recommending speech therapy for a student the first day of school regularly communicating to the parents of students having difficulty at school and excitedly emailing me when my child doubled her reading speed in one quarter in his class he is excited about every student and we see it all the while creating a warm environment with things we remember from our school days like reading charlotte's web aloud in class i haven't even touched on the amazing work our preschool and pre-k teachers do working on reading math and science basics while teaching social emotional skills gardening yoga and more our schools aren't just places for learning reading writing and arithmetic they're places for learning to speak enough [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause]

076jenna brandy all right uh good evening everyone as stated my name is jenna librandi unlike most people speaking here i'm not actually a parent i am a student and i am a member of the peoria unified school district uh anyways i have a very important question for everybody on this board if you have in this country you should be able to answer it here goes what fundamental values make america america well if you're having trouble answering here's a few examples for one that every individual has the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness here's another that every american citizen gets to participate in our constitutional republic but there's one more that i haven't said yet which you can look no further than to thomas jefferson for the principle that all men are created

077equal what's this mean it means that every american citizen is treated equally and fairly with no advantages or disadvantages being given to somebody as a result of something that they cannot change about themselves this is a principle that is crucial to our nation especially following the civil rights movements of the 1960s and before that the civil war so then i've covered that and i hope you'll understand what it means i ask you one final question if the principal at all men are all men are created equal is so fundamental to our nation then why are you showing it critical race theory as a societal concept does the exact opposite of this it labels black and white individuals as being privileged or under privileged oppressed of the oppressors based on things but their skin colors it

078places a label on them that is completely unjustified and even worse this is being taught to children if you force the idea on to students that a percentage of their fellow classmates are oppressed and the other classmates are oppressors you will not end racism you will start us a whole new cycle of oppression and hate will begin and will be nobody's fault but yours many parents speaking today come a specific message demanding that on michael greenberg resigns from his position as a board member but i come here with a different message whether or not mr greenberg resigns until you all decide to truly cooperate with these parents your taxpayers and the people whom you serve we have no plan to putting our and an end to our attendance at these meetings we will be here

079the next one the one after that and the one after that andrea andrea keg andrea keck i'm andrea keck candidate for governing board two thousand twenty two i'm going to speak to something that is on the agenda tonight the superintendent's goals and pay plan the proposed document sets out five outcomes to be achieved by dr menzel only two of the five have to do with academic achievement both of them are to develop plans to improve academic achievement not to actually improve academic performance but just to develop plans to do so frankly i was shocked dr menzel has been on the job for 16 months and now needs another seven months nearly two years in total to develop plans to improve academics when will we start holding him accountable for actually achieving academic improvement most shocking

080to me was that there are no specific measurable targets required to be achieved pay goal number one says demonstrate academic growth in third grade reading and eighth grade math goal two says demonstrate improvement in a.c.t results nowhere does it say how much growth or improvement is expected if act scores improve from the current dismal level of 43 to 44 percent does that earn dr menzel a pay bonus i hope not what are our tangible expectations for his performance the plan also does not specify what percentage of dr menzel's pay is tied to the accomplishment of each specific goal does this reflect the board's priorities are all of his goals weighted equally or are some more important than others i urge the board to do two things this evening one include specific aggressive measurable academic targets

081expected to be achieved by dr menzel [Music] please wrap it up thank you [Music] tracy davis tracy davis [Applause] tracy davis [Music] good evening thank you for your time i have been an ssd parent and supporter for 17 years i am also one of the targets of john michael greenberg's parent student dossier simply because i dare to disagree with him may i remind you how all of this started it started with his laptop over the past two years i'd hoped that his political aims and agenda would not overshadow his commitment to susd i was wrong of all the controversies over the years in susd this one is the worst at this point however the fault doesn't simply fall on yawn i want to thank the three board members who rightly called for yon's resignation last

082month but julie sienowski and all the community leaders around scottsdale who have made excuses ignored facts and refused to even ask john about the truth of all of it makes you culpable as well now on to jmg's next misdeed through public records it has been discovered that yon is no longer living at home with his parents but purchased a home in sunny slope with his younger brother rather than doing the right thing and announcing this he tried to cover it up from public view by declaring his tax mailing address to be in scottsdale and remaining completely silent about his residency i am certain that jan and members of the community will once again deny the obvious fact that he is no longer a scottsdale resident therefore isn't even able to serve on the board even

083our district's council today ignored my request ignored it for an affidavit of residency he needs to be asked and it needs to be a matter of record who will hold this person accountable for all of the damage he is doing to our community mr greenberg will you resign tonight or will you continue to deny deflect and detract from the truth scottsdale unified now more than ever needs better from leadership and citizens alike this is not simply about covert or one member's misconduct this is about the future of our children getting back to education with them john arnold john i'm not saying you're oh hi good evening my name is john arnold i'm a 22-year resident of the great city of scottsdale i love the city i love our teachers the students and everybody in the

084community i like many parents and community members are disappointed by the actions of our school board president and immediately call for your resignation you brought national national shame to our great city he has betrayed the trust of the city the parents betrayed the betrayed the trust of the citizens and his actions are simply unacceptable mr greenberg i ask that you do the right thing eliminate distractions so that this school board community our great teachers our great students can get back to the business of being a world class educational system you maintaining your position on this board distracts that i call for your resignation immediately thank you all for your time lily stanley lily stanley hello i'm lily stanley a born and raised phoenician and a graduate of an arizona public high school and the oldest

085of a 15 year old sister i am disgusted by the rampant embarrassing and shock-inducing incompetence that governs this school board i'm genuinely curious and anyone here is welcome to speak on his behalf because he's proven too cowardly to explain himself in what world is an unmarried childless 28 year old man who lives with his parents and grandparents a natural fit to sit on a school board such as this in what world is an individual who has proven to be so incompetent as to share a link to parents of a dossier full of names addresses divorce proceedings vacation home records social security numbers professional license informations and photos of eight-year-olds allowed anywhere near a school sadly my generation my sisters knows too well the answer and what world is someone like john mark michael greenberg given

086such profound access to influence and power without a hint of accountability the answer the very world that psychopathic cultural marxists like jan greenberg and his kind are allowed to create is this sick and twisted precedent one that you feel comfortable handing down to posterity for my my sister and i clearly based on your cowardly refusal to resign from this board entirely your answer is yes yawn michael what about the rest of you are you comfortable with the world run by dossier compiling cowards like jan michael or do you have the backbone to stand up for me and my sister or the thousands other boys and girls in this district sadly i'm here to tell you what is bound to happen if you settle into the failures of sadistic complacency you will see a mass exodus

087from public school systems the likes of with this the likes of which this nation has never seen your power will be diminished and your influence will be gone so if you sitting here don't decide right here and now to publicly call on your colleague to leave this room vacate the proximity of children within a hundred yards and seek desperately needed mental health and i'm not sure how you can even sleep at night but frankly as for me i'm having a hard time finding a reason to care i'm not sure such cowards are even worthy of such comfort unfortunately for you our children's don't belong to the state they belong to us resign all of you frank cunningham frank cutting him frank cunningham no no frank good luck okay emma kate bartels hello my name is

088emma kate bartles i recently moved from washington state and am a current freshman at gcu i fled the failed school system in washington in hopes for better schools here in arizona i am now playing offense by calling out corrupt dishonest and unethical school board members like mr greenberg i escaped the grasp of the creeps dossier as far as i know because frankly until there's real account accountability how can i be sure how can anyone what is your vested community what is your vested interest in this community i'm genuinely curious i want to know why you're still here young michael greenberg because clearly you don't care about children's well-being not enough to let them breathe freely not enough to let them feel safe from stalkers like you and your father not enough to let them feel

089safe in their own skin not safe from the click of your camera's lens not even safe from the demonization of their own inherent characteristics at the hands of critical race theory mr greenberg it is clear you are trying to indoctrinate and divide my generation on the front page of this agenda it states the vision of the scottsdale school board is to engage students in future focused learning what you are doing in the district is the opposite you may not have to face the repercussions of living in a world where children are taught to hate america and to hate each other but you are actively destroying this country and leaving my generation to pick up the pieces you need to stop villainizing concerned parents you need to stop keeping dossiers it is your job to be

090a positive advocate for students and you are failing it's time to step down thank you [Applause] alexandra spencer alexander spencer [Applause] sorry i'm stuck i apologize my name is alex spencer i have lived in the phoenix area for three years and i see a lot of stories make national news because they raise serious concern about the state of our education system most of these stories are not taking place so close to home but unfortunately the scottsdale school board district and young michael greenberg have changed that citizens and parents need to be able to trust that the school board members that they appoint into power are using that power responsibly and ethically allowing the school board to consist of members who have lost that trust is irresponsible at best and at worst dangerous to the future

091of every child that receives an education in this district in school children are taught skills and life lessons that extend beyond the classroom one of the most important and everlasting lessons is that actions have consequences we expect children to learn and embody personal responsibility yet how can we do that when we do not hold ourselves and our leaders to the same standards i ask for each of you to strongly and carefully consider whether the decisions you are making in your positions of power are genuinely bettering the lives of your students and the parents who entrust you with not only the present education of their children but their children's futures i hope you all take time to reflect on what it means to be a public servant i also want to kind of go off the

092script here for a second because there's a lot of people in this room in addition to the board that have been heckling and scoffing when people stand up the reason that we are all here today is to share our opinions and when you have a leader here that is making it acceptable to tell parents that they will be mocked and doxed for sharing an opinion at a school board meeting and having that person remain in power here is going to create a toxic environment that i hope we can all avoid thank you very much [Applause] tim curtis tim curtis uh good evening my name is tim curtis and i'd really like to thank you for public service but public service means public servant not master honorable public service again not a master so stop making

093parent enemy lists stop tolerating unnecessary lists of people stop ticking people off um and regarding you know the the mandates it seems like in january they'll will start letting the parents decide on masks and it's probably about time but i trust you will not exchange old mandates for any new mandates and i trust that you will not create new family lists a novak's list a one shot list a two shot list a two shot but waning list a two shot with a booster list there's so many lists that you guys can create and obviously it's causing problems so i trust that you will let families with their doctors decide on these things at this point be servant leaders please leadership isn't enemy lists or mandates or dividing education is about options critical thinking and free

094thinking so stop choosing sides and stop these distractions thank you crystal nettle thank you for allowing me to speak or giving me the opportunity to speak tonight i have a two-minute refresh of history i'll read really swiftly here my name is crystal nettle and i am a grandmother that has very reasonable alarming concerns for america's children first i would like to quote president george washington which reveals the reason as to why we the people are before the scottsdale school board this evening he famously stated that america's most urgent need is to teach our future generation the science of government and how to be guardians of our god-given liberties and freedoms or we will lose them through the last 60-plus years this this has been tragically grossly neglected the 1950s was america's greatest decade why was

095this america had the highest support superior education parents didn't worry about sending their children to school there was christian prayer the bible was highly esteemed and creation was taught in science class this education system developed critical thinker thinkers who became upstanding who became upstanding citizens sadly when prayer in the bible was banished from the school room america's education system started to plummet into gross darkness america's founding father benjamin franklin had foresight and said if the bible was put in the back of the school room there would be violence and immorality without end he also said we have a republic if you can keep it and only moral and virtuous people can keep it most people believe america has a democracy rather than a republic history proves that a democracy eventually ends in chaos which is

096where we are at i'd like to remind folks here tonight that america was founded on the gospel of jesus christ making america a great christian nation i am beseeching this board to consider what has been successfully proven that prayer the bible and the constitution in the school room that made america that great nation that it is today and it still is we're just going to rise up and make america great again and restore the republic it was the horrific bad decision that took prayer in the bible out of the classroom [Music] please wrap it up thank you [Music] deborah white hello to the to the board members and dr menzel my name is debra white i'm a physician in scottsdale and i'm a product of the public schools i choose to put my child in

097public school like everyone else here and i thought it'd be nice to counter some of the negative voices i'm sure you guys know that you have a huge amount of support and the negative voices often tend to be the loudest it's so difficult to see where we keep voting for more funds and more support and somehow the state just keeps stealing it out from under you and yet everyone continues trying to do their best to do a good job for the students and for the community i think the i mean this is quite an unpaid gig you've got guys have got like what a nice public flogging you get to put up with um but i think the teachers have enough to deal with to deal with funding to deal with all these different ideas

098and to we need to not have censorship but we have to be respectful of parents views too but understand that we're here to educate the community for the community and not just for themselves so i just want to say thank you and give you my support thanks [Applause] okay that ends our public comments do any board members have a comment remember shanowski yes i do thank you for asking president beckman and i would like to note that our current governing board president is patty beckman we as a board voted on her to be the president so i'm correcting the statements that were made that we have a different governing board president at this time i'd also like to comment on a statement that was made that three of the four governing board members chose to

099ask for the resignation of john michael greenberg at the last meeting that we had without opening another can of worms here i'd like to just clarify that that was not a vote it was on the agenda to for the potential of doing that but us voting on it is not the way to change an elected official's placement so i just want to clarify that that we as a governing board do not have the ability to oust a colleague just to clarify that thank you for the moment to clarify that any other board members okay we will move on to our information and discussion items the first one is 8a the coronado learning community proposed restructure plan dr menzel thank you president beckman i'd like to invite to the podium dr evie hagiegot and the team

100that she's going to have present the conversations that have taken place over the course of the last year related to the coronado learning community and she has a team with her that will also be prepared to answer questions dr hagiga thank you good evening president beckham vice president zanowski members of the board dr mensah and ms wagner today i have the great privilege to address a key area to ensure a vibrant and viable future for the coronado learning community i want to first acknowledge the individuals that have been directly involved in researching and developing the recommendation that will be shared with you this evening could you please stand as i call your name miss amy pallatiucci coronado high school principal dr david perniski tonalia k8 principal mr chuck rentala hohokam and yavapai principal standing in

101for mr hodo assistant principal amber allen pima miss margaret cerna title one executive director mr sean crozier title one coordinator dr melissa sackos assistant superintendent for secondary and dr scott mensah you may remain standing but thank you for the support he may be seated one of our objectives is to build a strong pre-k-12 trajectory to ensure the future of the coronado learning community our purpose today is to present a plan which allows for a smooth flow from the elementary to the high school the lack of current program capacity to enroll additional students in grade six eight is limiting enrollment for tanolia in the middle grades as well as the number of incoming 9th grade students at coronado high school from its natural feeder pattern restructuring the corollary learning community to include a standalone middle school

102is a critical element to meeting this objective four additional objectives also include attract and retain a diverse student population through a rigorous academic program and social emotional support provide a strong comprehensive high school program at coronado by increasing offerings through the increase of student enrollment increasing a sense of community and of course market the programs and their outcome the lack of current program capacity is being addressed by restructure but the restructure plan displayed in this roadmap why is this doing to me there we go the recommendation is to have three elementary schools ho ho com pima and yavapai a standalone middle school tonalia and coronado high school parents staff and community feedback has been key throughout this process in the spring of 2021 the coronado learning community principals and district leadership asked the community through

103town hall meetings and thought exchange about the ideas regarding how to better address the needs of their students having a dedicated standalone middle school was a recurring theme once a recommendation was developed based on need research and stakeholder input the coronado learning community staff and family received the proposed recommendation along with how students would be impacted by the possible change through surveys and question and answers virtual and in-person meetings additional input and feedback was collected from staff families to learn about the about their support to restructure the coronado learning community the survey results revealed the following 78 staff responses were submitted out of those 82 percent of the staff that submitted the survey are in support of the restructuring 297 parents responses were submitted and 58 of the parents that responded to the survey are

104in support of restructuring it is the support from the staff and parents that bring us to express to the susp governing board the interest to have the restructuring recommendation approved on december 14 2021 to ensure a vibrant and viable learning community in anticipation of the restructuring plan being approved the following factors are important to consider student enrollment the goal is to capture the majority of the students that are currently enrolled at hohokam in yavapai pima and tonalia k5 in addition efforts will be made through marketing to target families in the respective attending areas and families new to our district wanting to be a part of the susd family for desirable growth it is based on promoting quality programs with the coronado learning community aggressive marketing and capitalizing and recapturing students within the coronado learning community

105attendance area for staffing each school will be staffed based on student enrollment like other susd schools and for fiscal responsibility we want to make sure that we continue to provide the resources that each school needs and when this restructure plan takes place we want to make sure that all schools have the needed resources to make sure that we are educating kindergarten through pre-k through 12th grade students possible outcomes is key for us to share with our community families of students from tonalia k5 hohokam yavapai pima have the choice to enroll their student in their neighboring elementary school yavapai hohokam or pima middle school for tonalia and high school coronado high school also parents may submit open enrollment applications for their students to attend other coronado learning community elementary schools or other susd schools for high

106school for our transition plan we will continue to serve students ninth through twelfth grade middle school would be tonalia that would serve grade six seventh and eighth elementary students in hohokam families of those students in grades k-5 within the hohokam attendings area are open to staying there if their parents so choose to families of students in grade skate 5 at pima attendance area could attend pima and or open enroll to attend if parents choose to tonalia k8 family of families of students in grades k-8 would transition to yavapai or open enroll their student at hohokam or pima if program capacity allows and families of students in sixth through eighth grade would continue their education at tonalia middle school yavapai students currently at ho ho com would be able to remain we would have that granted

107access and we would also include transportation for the 2223 school year there is a lot to be proud of within one of our susd most historic learning community an education within the new structure opens the door to ongoing success for our students and gives us the opportunity to increase enrollment at this time i'd be more than happy along with my team to answer questions and comments and gather information from you any questions from board members for member heartmelt hartwells there we go thank you dr hager and team uh for the presentation and the um in the documentation the proposal as well as responding to my several questions over the last couple of days but as you probably wouldn't be unsurprised i have a few more and my let me just make sure i i understand

108i thought this proposal was trying to do a whole lot and my so i was focused on the finances of the whole law and what i'm going to propose is that in december 14th meeting that the proposal be staged into phases because there's more metrics in numbers associated with the res the restructuring component the move of yavapai to release the pressure on the rate limiting step which i understand is the middle school right now is the rate limiting step and so this first phase is to release that pressure so that that's no longer a rate limiting step yes i think trying to do the whole picture is introduces a lot of unknowns this would be very difficult to quantitate those unknowns financially so i applaud the efforts i am supportive i would like to however

109ask that in the next iteration in december that we see the proposal streamlined into phases and putting some more meat around that phase one in particular the financial projections you just mentioned transportation costs for example yes that's not in here to the extent that we can develop a budget and i talked to ms groser about this to spend against i think that that would help put some guard rails in terms of the expectations of how much this is really going to cost i know there's going to be it's going to be hard to estimate with a lot of accuracy but there can be estimates made so that would be my request based on my understanding and again thank you for getting back to me with um oh my answer all your answers thanks thank you

110dr hartwell vice president shanowski i'm so glad you asked those financial questions dr hartwells because mine are about human resources not the monetary monetary resources i'm glad there's a team involved in this because i think any time we talk about rearranging our district that we need to be considerate of the human resources and the cost of moving programs families children and our staff members including our leadership at each site level so my concern is well i have several when is this process as far as staging it into different time frames when will that that idea of who would like to go where let's identify where programs are going to be specifically special education special needs programs i know in the past we have had it was it was somewhat viewed as an easier shift to

111move special programs because typically there aren't as many children involved in them i get really concerned about that myself shifting those programs i think we have we need to be considerate about that let me i digress a little bit i apologize let me just share really quickly yes we do uh we've started the brainstorming around if this is approved on december 14th we know that it's going to be a fast-paced approach and so we've started the brainstorming around what are some of the impacts to your point about staffing and so again not something that we're prepared to share now because what we want to make sure is that our public knows that this is something that has not been decided upon we're coming to you with an idea that we feel is going to create

112that relief and so while we're doing some brainstorming and having ideas we haven't had anything set in stone because we want that transparency to always be in front of everything that we do and i will say that as long as i've been in this district it seems like this particular restructuring approach has been the most comprehensive i've seen so kudos to the team it's greatly appreciated to see that there's so much considered here in reading the survey results and getting down into the minutia of the responses i found a couple things interesting as well as concerning and i want i would really like the team to consider these issues program equity again program equity there was comment about north versus south i would like to consider that more of learning opportunities for our students so

113language immersion was brought up robotics was brought up there was conversation about ib i know we have it at desert mountain currently i also get concerned about the enrichment opportunities provided for students as well including the fine arts and performing arts something there was a comment that i wrote down that really stood out to me and it was don't over complicate things by deconstructing all the schools shuffling all the staff requiring them to rebuild a whole new school culture and systems along with physically moving their stuff and whatever teacher made that comment about moving is a classroom harder than a home i would agree with that so i do like that our district has in recent history financially supported teachers in and with the assistance of goods and services helping them move their classrooms so

114i hope that would also take place yeah and the answer to that really please had an opportunity to speak with uh mr roller and that is the case uh just as it's been the case with previous moves that we've needed to make most recently with hohokam and yavapai and so we do have the opportunity to support with those expenses which i think it's a wonderful thing there was a conversation or at least a comment made about potentially a science stem technology focused and advanced campus that would attract students within the district not just outside the city boundaries so i think if you know i i'm sure this looking at the caliber of this group here that they are considering all that feedback but those were some particular things that really stood out to me as

115is concerns and also some positive feedback too so thank you for the work that you are all doing on this and i look forward to our next conversation on this thank you topic okay thank you any other board member questions i have a quick one um along with my fellow board members who asked great questions i just would like to see in the next meeting a plan for some recapture like a recapture enrollment projection because um while i think this is definitely needed and strong programs for to support strong academics i also would like to see what our plan is i mean i don't want to do this necessarily and just have buildings and expect the enrollment to come so i really would like to see what type of projecting we're doing what the expectation

116is some goals with it and how we're going to get there okay thank you for that feedback thank you any other board member questions okay we move on now to our next discussion item which is the appraisal of the 68th and oak street property for potential lease options dr menzel thank you president beckman tonight we have two parts of a presentation the first is the presentation by shannon crozier related to the appraisal of the property and then we'll have a presentation by representatives from physic phoenix rising related to what's being proposed on the property shannon i'd like to turn it over to you thank you good evening board president beckman vice president snowski members of the board tonight we're looking at the appraisal that was done on the 68th street property formerly known as tonalia

117elementary tunnellia clue was moved to a different location in june of 2014 subsequently the buildings were demolished leaving one administrative former administrative building and the vacant property around it we've had a request from the phoenix rising for a proposal for for that that location and as a result of that had community meetings and then uh were requested to ask for an appraisal to see what that land is valued at and what would be an appropriate market uh value for that lease in doing that we had purchasing look for appraisal companies that were on state contract they were we were given three of them um unfortunately we were only able to really get a quote from one company the timing of this is that in the housing market where everything exploded and appraisals were hard to

118come by as well as hard to get done in a in a quick manner so we do have an appraisal from first appraisal services for that location again this is the 60th street property which is formerly tanalia it sits on just over 10 acres 4 395 000 square feet there's only one building left on it the other buildings were were taken off or demolished from the property and what we looked at what was a fair market rental based off of looking at the fact that we do have a vendor who would like to to do some improvements on that land um there was a couple of different methods to be able that the appraiser was able to use and those methods were put into the appraisal that the board received and is i believe posted

119online but they went with a market rent analysis and i'm not going to even pretend to be an appraisal type person or know about all the different methods to be able to do that but essentially what they did to come up with this rate was they looked at a comparable area in in that location to get comps on property or land from that they came up with a dollar amount of 18 dollars per square foot took that times our property square footage and came up with 7.9 million dollars for that property the second part of that was to then determine a capitalization rate um looking at a table that they had with it it comes at between four and five percent so timings that times the 7.9 million is where the appraisal got to 316

120400 to 395 600 for a yearly rent range for a yearly lease based on that they estimated that an appropriate place would be around three hundred twenty thousand dollars for a year or twenty six thousand six hundred sixty seven dollars per month um at this time we basically have the appraisal we haven't this is the first time we presented that to the board this is also the first time that we have phoenix rising available to present what their proposal is to that property next steps after that would be discussing if that was a if that proposal is something we wanted to move forward with and then looking at what would be an appropriate lease rental rate for that what would be the appropriate time for that lease it would be a long-term lease and so

121the next step would be looking at that working with outside counsel and then bringing that back to the governing board to decide where they would like us to which direction they'd like us to go with that proposal so with that i'll take any questions board member greenberg could you please remind the board what the rental money in the future that we generate from this can be used for absolutely um because this would be a long-term lease it would go into what's called plant fund plant fund has a complex definition of how you can use it but essentially it's capital projects capital type things that you could do so the money generated from this would not in any way help our m o budget out or create some you know be a place that we could

122then pay for salaries it would it would provide into the plant fund which could be used for capital projects then thank you i would just like to note that this taken together with the coronado restructuring project i think are too amazing undertakings for our district i don't think the coronado complex is benefited by not having a dedicated middle school but i also think by developing that new restructuring plus adding additional benefits that our own students can participate in like these partnerships with phoenix rising is is a great benefit to our students and i appreciate the administration bringing this to us for review other board member questions remember vice president chenowski i would also like to state my enthusiasm to improve that property and to make it useful and functional for the community that surrounds that

123property because anyone who's driven by that property can see that it's been a long-standing eyesore in our district so i appreciate putting pride back in that local community board member hart wells thank you miss kroser could you remind us of if the property were to be sold outright what that value is so the rental over 240 months is a six million a little over six million dollars do you remind us the what a sale price in today's dollars would be by the appraiser i'm understanding that was done yes so if we were to sell the property which would have to be approved by the voters to to do that if that were to happen the appraisal the amount that they estimated that to be at would be 7.9 million thank you okay any other board

124member questions shannon i do thank you i know you sat down with a few of us and went through some of the fine details with this and i know this is just mostly for discussion now that it is something that's going to value the community greatly we'd like to see it happen but we also want to make sure that our taxpayers are treated fairly and we get the best contract and return for using that land as possible so thank you for your efforts i appreciate that any other questions no okay yeah so we have with us tim reister from phoenix rising thank you shannon good evening president beckman and members of the governing board and dr menzel it's wonderful to see you again for your protection i'll leave the mask on but i'm going to

125give you one quick smile because you deserve it after all the work tonight uh i'd also like to introduce to you two of my colleagues who will also be speaking uh bobby dooley is the general manager of phoenix rising fc our professional organization he runs everything you see with our pro team he's here because he has immense experience developing soccer facilities everything you've seen from us has been under the direction of bobby dooley regarding our facilities and stadiums tebor pella is a real gem to our organization he is one of the key directors for our entire youth organization he used to be an assistant coach for ucla their men's university soccer program and he has immense experience across youth soccer in the united states and the reason t-bore is here t-boy is the director of

126our college counseling and attainment program and we're very unique in that our youth soccer club which is a non-profit organization funds a full-time position in tibor to provide the 9 000 kids who play for our youth club the kind of counseling they need to help them get to college that's what he does full-time for us he also because he's so devoted to the kids and he doesn't know i'm going to say this i was in california this past weekend watching our kids at a college showcase tournament and there were a group of kids who divert who deserve this exposure but weren't a part of the teams that were selected to participate and i found out that tibor gathered those kids from different teams created an extra team brought them at no extra cost for his

127time just because he cared about the kids and he wanted them to be there to have the chance to be seen by hundreds of college coaches because he wants these kids to have every opportunity keyboard is that kind of person we're fortunate to have 160 other professional coaches who we employ in our non-profit organization to help kids the thing we don't have enough of is grass and that's why we're here visiting with you and that's why we're so grateful for your staff member dennis roller who has been unbelievably professional and patient with us and working with the neighbors in the tonalia community to give us a fair chance to see if this is a possible partnership and i'm extremely honored that you would take the time tonight especially with this busy agenda to hear our

128plan as well if you look at the screen you'll see our vision for the tonalia site as you've heard you may have read in your packet it's been seven and a half years since there's been anything on this land we'll show you a picture of its kind of current state here in a few minutes but briefly i wanted to tell you a little about who we are in case you're not that familiar with with phoenix rising fc we are arizona's highest level professional soccer team we play in what's called the usl championship league which is the united soccer league championship their highest division and there are teams in the united states and canada and we are extremely fortunate that phoenix rising has been the most winning professional team in this league over the past five

129years combined we've made it into the playoffs all five years we we we won the western conference twice in that five year period and made it all the way to the final match twice first time we lost to louisville by one goal and last year the day before the game it was camp we were standing in tampa ready to play and unfortunately some of the tampa players tested positive so the game was cancelled am so grateful the the way the community has embraced this team it was really a dream of ours to bring professional soccer as you see the diversity in your student community many families come here from other countries where soccer is their most popular sport many of us who were raised in the united states didn't when i was a kid we

130didn't even have a soccer team in my community um so we want to make sure we're we're staying competitive we're providing the kind of culture that our community is evolving to embrace and that's why phoenix rising is here when we started five years ago we had two sponsors and today we're honored to have over 55 sponsors of our organization including really deep collaborative partnerships with phoenix children's hospital in mayo clinic and i share that because bobby's going to talk about some of the things we think we may be able to do to assist the school district and some of your programs we have ideas for foreign language you know many of our players are foreign players and the the language that spoken in our locker room is represents the world and maybe having players come

131to foreign language classes could bring some different motivation and and talking about health and foreign languages might add a different spin to a foreign language class same with fitness um our athletic directors and our sports trainers having them work with some of your your phys ed teachers and having our players make some guest appearances or doing field trips to the facility could be really exciting we are growing our resources we're nowhere near the success of a arizona cardinals yet or the phoenix stuns you know we're still a small entrepreneurial organization but we are desperately looking for partnerships to help us serve more kids and in in the uh the five years that we've been around we've been able to help grow youth soccer tremendously and the only thing between us and that continued success is

132grass so tibor is going to come up and just share a little background on our youth soccer club it's it's our non-profit affiliate and he will personally be one of the leaders who will show up to that site every day to go to work if we're able to do this together tibor please so i love my role because i get to talk about something happy so just as an aside to mention that i was in san diego um just a moment ago on my fancy watch i received a notification that josh martinez was just offered a full ride scholarship to the attend the university of san diego next year and tim doesn't know this but behind the scenes just since sunday evening we had john stull a 16 year old who survived the sierra leone

133civil war uh escaped at the age of 11 joined our club two months ago was offered a spot to play at swarthmore college in pennsylvania it's one of the five best liberal arts schools in the country on that team also one of our native american students eli brayboy was offered her spot at swarthmore jakunduru marezewa how's my pronunciation pretty good huh he's one of our congolese refugees which offered a scholarship at western oregon university that's just in the last three days every year we have dozens of kids from this community go off to play college soccer fulfill their dreams and they're of every stripe of color and ethnicity we have a couple of hispanic boys playing in the ivy league at cornell and yale university i could go on and on because it makes me

134happy that slide speaks for itself we've been doing this for about 40 years the only way we've been able to survive is by raising money we're a non-profit youth organization and so we ask people within the business and other communities to dig deep and to make possible opportunities like the ones that i was just describing and during the course of the past few years eight or so we've given away actually more than a million dollars in the last just a year or so we had to balance the books after a critical year everybody was affected by kovid i don't think anybody more than the children i am proud to say that i think during kovid phoenix rising was the happiest place in scottsdale i live on oak street about a thousand feet from tonalia so

135i have a really vested interest in seeing this come off well i'm a father i was lucky to be able to put my kids off into school and so it's just become my mission to be able to do the same to help kids in our community and um i'll just sort of end by saying that you have a lot on your plate and i think everybody in this room understands that um just from my own sort of you know very personalized perspective not a businessman i'm not just a former high school teacher and a soccer coach from where i sit i'm proud to tell you that phoenix rising is not just a soccer club it's a combination educational institution social services organization we provide tutoring we provide clothes we provide transportation we provide food we

136provide for the basic needs of a lot a lot a lot of kids but what we lack the most like tim said is grass so i really appreciate your consideration thank you thank you guys for having us tonight so let's talk about the site before we show you guys a couple visuals and what we want to do to this site we spent a lot of time over the last year in meetings and gathering feedback as you can see nearly uh nearly a year ago we started with the open community meetings and listening feedback it's important this is a part of the community we want to make sure that some of the attributes of the site include the feedback and what's important to the community so a lot of time a lot of back and forth

137you can see some of the the key requests to beautify the site we all know that it's a bit of an eyesore it has been for quite some time saving the the existing building in the mosaic that's something we heard repeatedly and and it's important to keep there and it's something that we want to incorporate into our site reopening the playground um having somewhere 24 7 obviously nighttime isn't conducive but 24 7 access to the site for the community parking on site that was important because of the busy roadway and making sure that there was some access for people that were utilizing the site could also park there as you go through there you can see you see some of the other elements but but most importantly was to keep the neighborhood involved so working

138with our our design team talking to the the community the neighbors that was something that we wanted to make sure happened so you can see the visual that tim previously referenced the what the current site looks like and what the proposed site is sits below and it's about we've estimated anywhere from three to four million dollars that we're going to put into that site to get that to look like what it looks like on on the bottom there so there will be two soccer fields that will be lit we've spent a lot of time there was a lot of feedback um understandably so on lights on what those would look like in the technology we've we've met with some of the neighbors and we've actually invited them out to different sites around town the technology

139and the advancement in lights at this time the laser focused leds are are very impressive and some of the neighbors after seeing some of the led lights around the different parks the newer parks around the valley were positive remodeling the existing building but also making that existing building the community space so not only did tibor mention that he would be on site some of our other staff members but also having rooms there that could be rented out for birthday parties used for community meetings that was important administrative office um the hundred parking spots and then a landscape perimeter excuse me again beautifying the site making it look better than what it is right now so making sure that we include some landscaping to to make it look nicer the community access again that was probably

140the most important um you know data point that we got back from the community an exercise path as you can see tim talked about health and fitness and and having our players come to the schools or the coaching staff or any of our youth coaches and speak fitness is very important to us we think it encourages and enhances learning kids are in a better environment so having a 24 7 exercise path and the community having access to it at all hours of the day is was also important access to the building scheduling that of course and then access to the soccer fields not just for our our programming right most of the programming for the youth would be in the evenings that leaves beautiful fields beautiful complex that we use for field days field trips

141events during the day on those fields as well tim touch up on a little bit of course he's the creative one can play with the play with words fitness rising there's a lot of different concepts that we have but most importantly what we do is we have players that represent all over the world i think this this year alone we had 12 different countries represented they love nothing more than to go out into the community they love nothing more to be with the kids they'd much rather be in a room full of kids than a room full of adults and for them to be able to see those kids you talked about it early on tonight about some of the people that you know the flight attendant that spoke to those kids i think that

142means the world and we'd love to work with susd on some programs for for these kids i think that would mean the world to them that's a little bit more of a different 3d dimensional view of what the playground area would look like covered that that's important of course here in arizona to make it try to make it 365 but also some of the structures so it just gives you a little bit of a perspective on what the size and scope of that i know if you if you look back you just see that in the top right corner of the current site but that was important for us to show kind of the size and scope of that that playground area and lastly before we'll turn it over to tim for any questions that

143you guys may have of course getting the feedback on what the site looks like or what where are the improvements that that we would recommend for that site and the money that we want to invest into us getting feedback from the neighbors and as you can see um very positive response from the community with what we're looking to put onto that site so with that said i thank you again and any questions for us i'll i'll let tim handle thank you bobby thank you any board member questions dr hart wells thank you for the presentation and the uh willingness the collaboration and i've said this before i met you when i attended one of those community meetings and i said at that time my focus is our students and how this can help our students

144although the community's involvement and buy-in is very important to make this a success and i think there's been an earnest effort by all of you to do just that and i appreciate that along the lines of the student involvement you mentioned that the access to the fields and this was something i wasn't clear on access to the fields not on game it days be contemplated for field trips or field days is is that correct i was in the impression that was not an option yeah we're open to work with the district okay and figure out how how does it make the most sense but we don't want to suggest that that we have curriculum you're the experts but we have facilities and very motivational speakers who can we think be helpful to your faculty and

145and with the students and frankly it helps us too the more we can engage your community i think we'll all benefit so we're very much open to ideas and we suggested the several ideas about working maybe with health teachers or working with foreign language teachers or phys ed teachers those those sound like it might be a good fit but we also want to make sure your teachers like that idea well i appreciate that you are as an entity committed to being excellent corporate partners in collaborating with the district and i do believe this is the types of collaborations that i'd love to see the district do more of it's a real value add for our community for our kids and hopefully for you so thank you thank you dr hartwells any other board member questions

146nope okay thank you we appreciate all of your presentation and answering all of our questions we're looking forward to a great partnership thank you our best holiday wishes to you all thank you okay before moving on to the next agenda item we will take a five minute recess it is 8 51 returning at 8 56. is reconvened at 8 27 pm we will move now to the next discussion item which is the fiscal year 2022-23 early budget projections dr mendel thank you president beckman i'd like to invite shannon crozier back to the podium each year we start the budget process usually at this november meeting and she'll walk us through kind of the preliminary predictions based on what we know at this point in time okay thank you good evening again board president beckman vice

147president sinowski members of the board it is that time of year where i think i get to stand up here almost every board meeting and talk about budget or revised budget or some type of budget for the year or next year so now is when the fun begins we do start looking at the budget assumptions for next year we the first part of that the key part of the budget really being adm adm drives the entire budget so when we looked at the estimates for next year we took a look at where have we been in the past with reductions to adm pre-covered that was at 386 for a student weight account so there's the adm there's weighted count for the student weighted count we've been down previously around 386. kovid changed that average a

148little bit especially last year with so many students on aoi or online learning through seoul so that upped it to about 584 we right now are using a reduction of 406. we don't have 100 days count we won't have that until the end of january so it's a number we'll be watching but at this point we're looking at about a 406 reduction in student weight count keeping in mind that the adm is the students the weighted count is the extra weight we get for those students depending on if they're high school or k-8 or if they have other special needs that have weights to them additionally we are looking at an inflation rate of two percent we haven't gotten that number yet from the state as to what that will be or what the legislature

149is thinking that will be but at this point it's looking at about two percent things are looking really good with the inflation part on that however we're capped at two so that's why we're going with the two percent so taking that number we take the number of students we have right now reduce that student weight count by the 400 and that puts us at 27 010 for an estimated student weight count we take the base level and assume a 2 yearly increase and from there start calculating things out taking the teacher experience index rate that's additional funding we get when we have teachers who have additional experience and essentially cost a little bit more we've been flat with that so we're keeping that number the same we'll have that number shortly but at this point

150we're keeping it as what it was last year because we have been relatively flat with that we get some funding for our audit so just a little bit doesn't add a whole lot and then our transportation with that we get our rcl our revenue control limit and that's what our m o override that was passed is based off of so we calculate the 15 additional funding for that d sag estimated carry forward 15 million we actually carried forward a lot more than that this year it was over 16 million that's pretty high that's above what our standard is our standard is around six percent and so we are working to bring that down a little bit but we also know that last year we didn't have a lot of the expenses because school wasn't in

151session the entire year it was in session but we didn't have kids in the classroom um with the supplies and and all of the utility expenses we would typically have so we anticipate bringing that down that kind of affects where our budget our bottom line gets us to because we purposely need to bring that down some we have water savings transfer that's money that we transfer out of mno over to our lease agreements for different energy saving projects and then prop 123 funds that's the funds that were voted and approved several years back that will go away in a few years but right now we're still at the we're fully funded with that um with the estimated 1.4 it fluctuates depending on what our adm is and what the adm in the state is but

152we're anticipating that about 1.4 again so with that we get to what's called the general budget limit or our mno budget of 175 million additionally we have continued we want to continue to work to bring down some of our cash accounts some of those cash accounts came down through kovid and accounts such as community schools made a big dent in that cash balance so some areas that we were going to some expenses we were going to move to other cash accounts to bring it down we need to slow that in the past we need to slow that down a little bit because those accounts got hit pretty hard but we still have indirect costs that we can that we need to bring down we have rental monies we need to bring those accounts down so

153we're looking at moving 500 000 worth of expenses out of mno and over to a cash account mainly the indirect cost so with that when you take a look at what our budget is our estimated budget right now is for this current year and what we think our estimated budget would be for next year unfortunately we start out with a deficit of five hundred thousand dollars however we have a plan to address that which is the good part so we're starting out at negative 500. we know we always have program increases there'll be things that we need to do for to finish the accreditation for our early years program there'll be increases in contracted custodial they'll just naturally be increases and we know that we're still looking at the um yavapai coronado complex situation so

154we put aside a hundred thousand that's generally what we budget at this point in the game for for program increases um yavapai reopening if that were to go we are estimating right now that the salaries that for an additional fte that we would have to add to yavapai would be approximately 350 000. and then the property casualty insurance so for this current year we did not fund that we actually didn't fund it last year either because the balance is so high in there and i want to slow our contribution to that but that's creeping towards the two million dollar mark of what that costs our insurance account and instead of making it so that in three years we've now got to come up with two million dollars and we've created all these funding gaps our

155funding drops and all in one year i think it would be more prudent to only partially fund it so instead of funding the full 2 million out of mno fund a million dollars because we haven't had that in our budget the last two years that would actually be a program that would be a cost for us for it however i think we can just do part of it half of it which would be the million dollars that we have to add back in which puts us at a deficit of 1.9 million that said we do have really healthy balances in our medical insurance account as well as our workman's comp contributions and so in looking at that we've been working with the self-insurance trust board to see what can we do how can we use

156those funds one of the things to keep in mind is that we are not able to just write a check from the self insurance trust and and cover salaries or or put money back into the district the only way we can bring those balances down is by not funding them the full amount so the idea here would be to bring down the balance within the health insurance to do that over a few years period and again we don't want to have in three years four years when prop 123 goes away that we now have this funding cliff where we're losing all sorts of things and also we've got to start funding again our self-insurance trust so the thought here being this over the next couple of years reduced that contribution in the health insurance account

157by a million in the future we can up that a little bit when we have a better idea of how the economy is doing how those accounts are looking how health insurance is going we don't know what's going to happen with rising costs but we can reduce that contribution important thing to keep in mind is that doing that does not affect our employees at all all we're simply doing is saying we're not going to put the full amount in from mno for for the staff we're going to hold back a million of that so that frees up some funding for us within our m o same concept for our workers comp contributions uh same thing we have an excess amount in that within the self-insurance trust and so we want to start to bring that

158down right now the number we came up with i know is a little bit weird 762 000 it's essentially what we're paying right now out of mno into workers comp so again we would start to bring that down by not fully funding that out of our district accounts and then the last part is because we've been able to carry forward and and do well over the last couple years we have a balance of a little over 400 4 million in our mno that's unallocated which is a great thing but that partly comes with vacant positions and positions that come in lower than what we think they're going to come in you know we estimate in may we don't know until august what those positions are necessarily going to cost so the other part of it

159would be moving that four million dollars from unallocated back into salaries benefits other ways that within the district so doing that we are able to um clear up that 1.9 million dollar negative amount and actually end up with about 3.8 million to work with we did present this to the meet and confer the other day um at our last meeting so they have an idea of what where we kind of are when we move forward with our employee groups as to what are the possibilities for next year we've also stressed them and i'll stress it again tonight this is really early projections we don't know what's going to happen with adm we don't know exactly where inflation is going to be we also don't know state retirement goes up every single year i don't know

160yet what that's going to be but at least we have an idea of we can bridge that gap i believe and we can have some funding and we can there's some ways we can move expenses around so that we can have the funding to be able to hopefully do a little bit towards compensation 3.8 won't really take care of all of the problems but hopefully it'll make a little bit of a dent within that so with that we just take a look at where are we moving forward this of course is the early early projections tonight in january we'll come back with another estimate hopefully we'll have a little bit better numbers a little bit better idea from the state of where we think we're going to be i won't have the 100th day quite

161yet but we'll have a little better idea of where we are within our aoi counts and closer idea of where we are to the 100th day additionally we'll also have the capital budget proposed capital or early estimated capital budgets for next year in february we'll come back with a review proposed salary schedules and employee benefits we are working every single week with the meet and confer teams here on out to hash that through because timing is tight and then in march on this follows the same schedule that we've done in the past march 8th would be a tentative approval of the mno salary schedules employee contracts so that we could then issue those contracts in early march before spring break to our teaching staff capital budget would come back in april end of april so

162that we could get that budget loaded and schools could start then entering requisitions and getting ready for the next year in may and then in june we do our proposed budget and then the final meeting june 28th being the public hearing and hopefully budget adoption with that are there any questions board member greenberg thank you for this presentation uh very clearly as always the main driving force here is our adm and i would like to note that gosh i think after april we're able to begin if we desire as a board to negotiate our superintendent's contract again and that is something i have considered incorporating into part of that payment plan as a way to tie student enrollment and parental choice to enroll in the district as part of that so i think that's something

163as a board we should keep at the top of our minds in addition to all this as we begin on thinking about what are those concrete goals that we can set once the strategic plan is complete and once we have kind of a very clear direction that our district wants to take uh from our community that uh this be this be part of that because i think enrollment uh is driven frankly at the end of the day by all the other great things that we do in this district from academic opportunities and success and extracurricular clubs and sports activities as well so i just wanted to note that that stems from a discussion i had with board member hart wells about ways to kind of change and alter the way that superintendent's salaries are aligned

164with goals as well as public perception and improvements thank you vice president zanowski shannon can you please explain for me the audit adjustment sure um we are required to do uh an annual audit and as such that we are able to claim part of those fees into our budget so it's really a kind of a year and a half later process but we're able to reclaim the fees for the federal audit that we have to do back into our mno budget thank you shannon when do you anticipate it might be possible to bring the cash accounts to the forefront again and talk about the balances and kind of the plan as far as you see it how low we could bring them down to help out offset some of the expenses in the mmo um

165we could actually so on december 14th we will be doing a budget revision number two okay and so that kind of does fit into where we are i mean the budget revision is is within the m o essentially but we can talk about at that time where we are right now and where we think we're headed okay thank you board member greenberg another question i think that is related to this but also relates to this year's budget um i believe board member hart wells and i had requested and other board members kind of a plan of action in case the state does not raise or approve the raise or increase to the um constitutional limit on spending on education is that something that is being kind of worked out on at least at a high

166level in case the state government does not do that yes at a high level we know that we'll have to dip into lots of different areas but we can we can bring forth more detail on what that would look like okay thank you very much any other board member questions board member hart wells um yes thank you mr greenberg for bringing that up the in the event that the state legislature does not wave the cap on the aggregate expenditure limit i would encourage us to have some kind of straw man together by the end of the year to understand where what would be your unfortunate disaster plan to take that into account because we'd have to move quite quickly in the middle of everything else that would need to be done in the spring with

167contracts so i know one more thing but unfortunately i think we it would be prudent to plan for that absolutely and if that were to happen that would dramatically change what our budget for next year would look like yes yes and i appreciate the uh request to review the cash accounts okay thank you any other board members questions okay thank you shannon thank you all your time and effort answering our questions so we'll move now to the consent agenda do i have a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended without item t the authorization of expenditure sps architects for taiwan elementary school so moved do i have a second second all in favor hi the consent agenda is approved we move now oh dr mental has something to say so thank you for approving

168the consent agenda i would just like to introduce christine harrington who is our new director of communications she's here this evening and you just approved her higher and she'll be starting officially on friday welcome christine thank you okay we move to the first of our action items which is the consent agenda item that was pulled from dr hart wells the authorization of expenditures sps architects for tavonne elementary school dr hart wells board member hartwell thank you is mr raylor in the cloud he is and he's available okay great all right thank you so i requested uh this be pulled because i wanted to um discuss a little bit about the um the proposed increase in the fee so as i understand it and dennis oh there you are okay great um so as stated in

169the agenda item so this should be available to the community the board approved back in june this procurement of services from sps plus architects and the request today is to increase that amount from 425 000 to roughly 517 000 specifically to include design of the adjacent ways to understand at a percent of it and then um 60 160 hours for a community engagement and up to 5 000 of an allowable reimbursement expense by the entity my first question is that a customary amount with respect to community engagement 160 hours good evening president beckman members of the board great question dr hart wells the uh what is it what is customary is not scottsdale um we uh since cherokee we have uh embarked on these visioning committees that take up a tremendous amount of time they're

170very well worth the effort but that's what that is for the the engagement through visioning committees and the engagement of community meetings there at taban we've had one we have an expectation of doing two more and then all the work that goes in between those meetings to put the information together bring proposals back to the committee to formulate those designs and things like that so i don't know what customary might be but i know that there's a tremendous amount of time involved in the visioning process and then just for the community to clarify the visioning process includes the community members that's correct time spent is could you give us an example of a reimbursable allowable expense so in their contract a reimbursable expense is mileage going to and from the job it could be printing

171in preparation for a meeting it could also be for notification to the community so when we have community meetings we will do postcard flyers and send them out to a radius of the community and they will pay for that and we reimburse that okay and those are reimbursed after internal review and approval correct okay if they may actually have to submit um the invoices for that good thank you has any work actually begun um against the contract that was approved in june um so yes absolutely there has been uh we like i said we've had one community now when you say work i'm assuming work as the design team uh that that answer is yes physical construction no uh that we won't see that happening until this coming summer but we have had several visioning

172meetings we met today and plan on meeting again with miss julie ballard next wednesday we're meeting almost on a weekly basis uh to put together the design for the work that's uh anticipated this summer okay thank you you invited me to look at a section of the contract um article 6 titled cost of the work which of course i can now not put my finger on well i don't have the exact language in front of me um but i had it it makes reference so the second sentence of 6.1 article 6. i'm going to do this from memory so i'm paraphrasing the second sentence of article 6.1 of that contract that you kindly provided to all of us makes reference that the cost of work includes the value of any labor or materials that the

173owner provides to the project do you see that provision do you have that contract dennis um i don't i don't have it in front of me that's like the one document i did not open up in preparation but i'm familiar with what you're talking about so although it's in the contract customarily they do not charge us for that so an example is ccs presentations they provide the ifps the the the boards that the teachers use in their classrooms and they provide the labor to install those we as the owner pay for that that's a pretty substantial amount i think it's in the rest of the consent agenda and that we do not calculate that into the cost of work it's in the contract but we do not allow that to happen okay so i'm thinking

174mr greenberg board member greenberg has the contract here so i can see it it is the second sentence and i'm just going to read the sentence specifically so make sure that we're on the same page hope that's okay the cost of the work also includes the reasonable value of labor materials and equipment donated to or otherwise furnished by the owner so we're the susd is the owner and i'm understanding that i want to make sure i'm understanding this right because i think it's peculiar if i'm understanding it right that should your team which often does do work to help bring costs down contributes to the scope of work that that in effect contributes to the cost of work on which the fee to the architect is paid is that my my understanding correct so contractually

175that is correct and your understanding is correct but we do not allow that so when it comes time to reconcile those books we do not go back and add up our expenses and allow the architect to drop their fee on top of that okay we don't allow that okay so yes it is in the contract but that does not happen okay thank you um i am in strong support that the district followed the auditor's recommendation in preparing its own procurement contract for professional services and not be using that which is provided to us those kinds of uh provisions get in there and they're not in the well i think you get my point okay thank you very much mr wheeler you're welcome board member hart wells would you like to make a motion i i

176will move to approve the agenda item authorization of expenditure to sps plus architects for tavonne elementary school is there a second second board member greenberg seconds all in favor all right motion passes to approve former consent agenda item t the authorization of expenditure sps architects for taban elementary school we move now to action item 10a the second read approval of high school and middle school planning guide for the 2022-2023 school year do any board members have any questions board member greenberg thank you dr garan just so that i understand the emails we had earlier today it is your intention to bring back the item concerning class rank in december am i on you are okay great thank you um board member greenberg yes we will right now we're collecting data input from parents staff members

177and students and dr dos can share the numbers with you we have had quite a large response and we're going to do another push with the weekly update so that will close in about a week and based on community support and input we will make a decision related to that recommendation so it's going to be a piece of the puzzle that we consider if we have strong support and we believe we need to move forward we can bring it back as early as december but we want to make sure that we have student staff and parent buy-in not only that the thought exchange allows us to dive deep and see the different concerns answer questions address misconceptions if there is any so we just spent an hour going through some of the initial data today

178with the representative from thought exchange and we will continue to go deeper to see what concerns there are and what ramifications because we understand it it is it is a large change when did we receive when did we request uh research be done by the eab so we received many board member questions on this and so it could have been during the first read or it could have been an email following up asking for additional research we had done some preliminary research ourselves on this some of our administrators and counselors called different colleges universities but i thought it was an excellent idea to just dive deeper and we have partnerships with research firms that are outside the district and they are able to gather and synthesize the best research out there and so we just

179received that a couple days ago after making that request to the research firm and it does really support the latin honor system or moving away from class rank and that many schools across the country are doing that and in addition many colleges are not requiring it so um that is really great information and i'm so glad it was requested the latin honor system moving to that would be in line with the same systems used by our state universities and community colleges my only concern about the statements made is that in my view if you and your team research a matter you believe that it's in the best in your professional opinion you believe it's in the best interest of our students it's of course great to have the buy-in and get the feedback but if

180it's something that really would help us and our community is absolutely against us or against the change i feel like that is antithetical to how we're supposed to govern uh as a representative democracy that you know you are the subject matter expert so if if people are confused and just don't understand it and the feedback is you know this is stupid i don't want you to not recommend it is my point if it if you believe the research supports your position and you believe it's the right decision for students because it will allow them to not have to worry about if i take course x it isn't an honors or ap course and i will not get the weighted gpa if universities do not really use class rank anymore but instead as the research noted

181look at the holistic picture of the student within the context of their school which i believe has been the case for some time i i was never asked for class rank at any of the schools i applied for ivy league international or state back in 2012 so i just i don't want you to be afraid to bring back something just because students or parents or others don't like it is is my personal feeling on this absolutely and as leaders we make tough decisions based on the best interest of students it is certainly one of my core values and i would absolutely do that i do think gathering this information is really important to help us make an informed recommendation and that's what we'll do thank you vice president chenowski oh i didn't see it yeah

182did you have a question yeah okay go um i actually have several comments and some questions to make on this particular action item because i think it's really important when you talk about the success of our district it does revolve around the opportunities afforded our students and i see our planning guides as the stepping stones to their success so when i asked the question in the past about the input and the options for teachers and students and also industry leaders to provide input into this process and i was told it happens and then i look at the feedback that we were given recently and it says it will be happening i get a little concerned with that because i feel like i i feel like the the response that i was giving was stretched a

183little bit um i think that the industry input the collaboration within our industries for future job trends is vital to staying ahead of this for our middle school and our high school course offerings i also note that our arizona state standards i do not believe should be our attainment level if we are really to be a world-class education organization i think we need to be aiming higher um my own children were very successful in scottsdale schools many of us here have had kids who have been very successful in scottsdale schools we also understand the glitches and i would like for us to focus on some of these glitches and not just talk about changing them for a better process but actually change them so that we don't have to wait because right now we have

184students that are going to be registering this next month for next school year so to change something and say well we're going to do it next year we're talking a whole year and a half before this impacts students opportunities so i don't like when we have to do things last minute i understand the time crunch we're in so i don't want to put kibosh on something that's really important for our counselors our students our parents to have these conversations with kids and determine what they're going to be doing next school year so i'm going to ask that we are really trying to be proactive instead of reactive as a district and determining these learning opportunities for our students and i also want us to be not aiming low and hitting but aiming high and i'd

185rather have us aim high and miss and continue to improve my two cents worth and i hope that gets put into use thank you board member hart wells thank you president beckman i am first i want to say thank you again for all the hard work that's gone on and into the planning guide and the sincere considerations to the student feedback the lift of delineating class rank versus latin achievement assessments on class rank specifically so as a parent i received the survey so i the thought exchange and so i contributed my um to my thought and then i did some reviewing of other thoughts that were in there and i was surprised at how many contributions were they didn't understand had didn't have enough information to make an informed decision so i was wondering is

186it possible between now and the next push to produce perhaps a pros and cons chart of latin versus class rank and what i think in the eab findings will that be made available to the public or will it be distilled into perhaps an faq or some kind of digestible information because i think that would go a long way for people to parents to make informed decisions um i'll let you answer that is that anticipated um thank you dr hartwell so we have talked about we learned today that we can actually go into thought exchange and answer some of the questions individually and so then as people review the questions and see the answers it builds a shared understanding i want to be very careful in regards to presenting information but not presenting one side sure

187your pro con idea is is an excellent one so and and dr dodds has talked about trying to create a screencastify or a video because sometimes reading something great it was a lot to read so sometimes if you can see some screenshots and have a voiceover that's easier to to look at on your phone we understand people are so busy so we're going to tackle some of those those opportunities i'm really hoping this new tool that we can answer questions today will help and it might i can i was just thinking well i'll be looking for the tick tock video with your next question but i i was just thinking is something that could help get in front of it before someone takes the time and you know i'm not sure what percent of parents

188are thinking i don't know enough about this to even open up this survey and we certainly don't want that but what a great time to educate everybody about these two types of systems and how one has be really becoming obsolete um in favor of another and and how that can benefit our students or not you know what i also observed a number of comments about um you know their this particular parent student will never be the number one rank you know this kind of um because of the context of the building that they were in for example and actually this latin system will help normalize that type of uh environment specific context for a student so i think there's a way that we can address some of those questions just to help parents make informed

189decisions and they may still not like it but that's okay and then dr dodds had a great idea and you might speak about how the counselors are using the news and the videos to talk to students about it to have more understanding sure so um thank you for the question board member hart wells when we launched this we knew it was really important to make sure the children understood how this might impact them and we asked all of our news networks to provide opportunity for the counselors either via video or a live to present to the students what this was all about to inform them that this would be coming into their district email we are fortunate with the thought exchange thank you dr menzel for bringing that to us that we can identify a

190lot of themes we can even find similarities and differences we can sort them by participant groups so when you participated you were in a parent participant group we have student participant groups and staff participant groups and we really like that because it allows those voices to build off of one another as of today we had 1189 people who had participated there were a thousand some number comments and then 15 000 ratings associated with the different comments so when we disaggregate all of that we can identify themes which our next step we think would be important would be going back to the campuses taking the information that we identify in the themes those concerns and directly relating them to the research that we now have to help people understand here was a concern here's what the

191research says so we can educate them but we also think it's important to personalize it with the school counselors on their campuses because our hope is that our counselors have relationships with the students and their families so they can tell stories of how this relates to the children at their campus so there's scenarios that they can give of you know meet zach he wants to go to asu meet patty she dreams of usc and so how does that relate uh you know how does that relate for the families to really see their child in the situation so that they feel comfortable with however we may go right now it's pretty split as we could see with our data but there's a lot of interesting themes that are emerging as well that of course will present

192to you but a lot talking about the social emotional needs of children and how moving away from class rank allows them to be students and continue to develop through the pandemic in their academics so that was an interesting theme that we saw emerging so i need to ask a question of miss byrd because i want to stay true to the agenda item and i'm getting a little bit nervous that we're having a discussion about class rank right now when the agenda item is about the planning guides and it specifically says we're not that we are talking about class rank at some other time and so it's making me a little apprehensive that we're getting into a discussion that's not on the agenda necessarily i would concur i think that is building off the question that

193was originally asked about what is coming next but i would caution you that class rank is not on the agenda for tonight and what we're taking action on is actually what's going on wasn't the class rank discussion part of the planning guide no not for it was this due to the desire to collect additional community import in input and to gather more information and so the agenda item tonight is simply the approval of the planning guide so that if the planning guide is approved students counselors and parents can start choosing those classes that they will need just our curiosity if we wanted to approve the planning guide tonight with the original as originally recommended would that not would that include the class rank piece that was asked specifically to be split off and for more

194information to be collected so what's being on this agenda as if we should simply do the second median approval of the planning guide and then if you reference the minutes from last meeting you'll see that there was a need for further information and further discussion before any decision could be made on the classroom i'm sorry i probably didn't phrase that wrong i phrased that wrong we when we approve things we can approve them with amendments correct an action item you can improve an action item with amendment that i my advice is that this is a class rank is a separate discussion from approving the course or planning guide itself and given the request of the board from the last meeting to collect additional information and to study this a little more if not been separated

195into two separate issues so you couldn't you couldn't come back when the amendment say we're going to approve class rank as an amendment to the planning dog this session okay i appreciate that thank you very much thank you miss bird i i do have a specific course planning guide questions um may i may i continue um okay dr dodds um again thank you for responses and kind of digging into um some of the questions that i've we've been kind of ping-ponging back and forth the last few days specifically about the proposed science core course related to sports and health and my understanding is and thank you for adding the math requirement prerequisite of algebra 1 and currently it's being proposed as the science prerequisite is biology 1 or and or pre-ap biology should the planning

196ib approved and i've stated my concern that given that this course is a upper class person's course it is a core science course and there is already an elective sports medicine course offered i realized that there would be a lab associated with this particular course i don't know what that means necessarily my proposal was that there should be core fundamental prerequisites so that the student could needed to earn their way into this particular course and i do feel strongly that as proposed a single biology in a single algebra one which i went back in my notes a few months back we were talking about was going to be done in the eighth grade is not sufficient to earn your way into this course and so my proposal is to pull the course and if we

197can't pull the course i'm sorry i don't i can't support as proposed today i just think it's we're not there yet but i do appreciate all the work and it's not personal but this is something that i feel very strongly about given my experience as an educator thank you board member greenberger lights dewan do you have a question yes but it looks like but not on this not on uh board member hart wells point so perhaps if board member lindsay has okay board member lindsay well not on board member hart wells's point so lindsay i was just told you might have something to share on the sports classes yes and and before dr hartwell's we do have our science coach in the cloud if we want to ask any specific questions related to your comments

198so just wanted to let you know that she is available and then dr dobbs would you like to answer the sports question sure okay so something that a question that was asked board member lindsay about students who are participating in varsity sports and maybe have taken pe as a summer elective and then are going to be taking their sports courses as a freshman a sophomore or junior and a senior we did make an amendment to the planning guide to add in ninth grade so hopefully you can see that reflected in that and indeed if a student is going to be playing a sport they are able to take their pe during summer and continue to play their baseball basketball soccer whatever their sport may be and did you guys discuss with aia or ncaa about

199freshmen also taking this and it not causing any issues i've just heard stories where some of our athletes have been questioned and scrutinized for taking so many sports classes when they go on to college at this time we are not aware of any students who have been flagged in any way um board member lindsay we did say that we could bring that up in a counselor's meeting because sometimes you know we did have a fresh set of eyes on something to see if maybe something has happened in one school it's definitely a great discussion to have because we want our students to have the opportunity to really have a variety of classes that also include of course their love of athletics but have it be a balanced curriculum so we thought we would bring it

200up in a future counselor meeting okay board member greenberg vice president zanowski you'll have to correct me if i'm remembering wrong but i believe one of the issues that we had discussed about planning guides in general was kind of the inflexibility of somebody comes up with an innovative idea say at the start of a school year and has perhaps a way of putting together a rigorous course an academic course you know by the start of the next semester for students to sign up for what is the flexibility there for innovation where a teacher or another individual wants to propose an idea do we alert all of our staff to kind of the deadlines each year hey you know if you're thinking of doing a new course for the upcoming year you know this is when

201you need to propose this way i mean are we pretty do we provide a lot of information about that support you know where where necessary to answer that question board member greenberg our process has been that there's a course proposal form that our schools receive in high school let's say the ap of ed services is the liaison or the counselor is the liaison they often work with our instructional coaches so for example the exercise science class johanna kaiser our science coach worked very closely with dan milligan and the classroom teacher who's interested in that course they worked on things and then that comes to the planning guide committee i think an area where we have an opportunity to rethink this to your point vice president sinowski is historically this process has been just an annual

202recurrence when the school year begins we push out a reminder of course proposals the sites communicate with their staff i think we have an opportunity and our committee has talked about making this a cycle that never ends that we are constantly meeting and we're constantly bringing people into the conversation and that'll give us an opportunity to not just work from august until now when we present something to you but instead be seeking those things have something that is continuous we have top of mind of what are we going to want to be thinking about and how can we build this and where do we identify gaps how can we pull people in that maybe we haven't been pulling in before often we rely on aaron with cte with industry leaders you know but i think

203you bring up a really good point of how are we working with our community college partners and our university partners to be thinking about those multi-disciplinary experiences that kids are going to be going to so we do have an opportunity i think to improve that process i think we've had it kind of down pat to a pattern but we really want to see it as a continuous cycle i'm really excited about some of the ideas that came out of this year it was dr dodd's first time in this cycle and i love how we're expanding it and i also just want to mention that the strategic our strategic plan is going to really push and drive this innovation that will end up making an impact into our course guide selection well i i appreciate that

204because innovation is important and also i feel that giving our subject matter experts the opportunity to develop new courses and the flexibility there and support is really important in fact you know one of our teachers who is a finalist for the teacher of the year award one of his things was creating a new a new class a new course which is just such an exciting thing to be able to do for our staff and i to the greatest extent possible it's nice to encourage that and and help people along the way and then just one thing with these proposals that you bring to us and everything i do i do just want to caution i i don't recall that the majority of the board had made an instruction that we not bring this back on

205that we not that we bifurcate the proposals so i just i just want to be careful in the future that are that we don't start changing proposals and switch them all around just because one or two board members indicate some hesitancy so i just i want to put that out there thank you very much i appreciate it board member hart wells thank you i just wanted to um and i didn't get a chance to do this specific to the planning guide the graduation requirement i feel bad the graduation requirements and i had brought up the last meeting about that gap in our world language requirement which right now is zero years whereas our at least the arizona universities have shown us two years minimum i think what we're seeing at least my experience as a

206parent was really closer to three years um for certain schools but i would also argue and i made that kind of argument that the college gap but i do feel and i've done a little bit of poking around since things i was still noodling on that after the meeting that arguably there might be a career gap and i and i shared some bureau labor statistics information with you and um not every student graduates and heads to college and so for those that are headed into careers a lot of those careers um and i made the pitch for programming languages expanding that definition of world languages to programming languages and i do believe that there is at least a discussion to be had and i appreciate that you have acknowledged that we might not be able

207to do this this time however it's the type of thing that in a proposal mode where you have accepting rolling submissions of ideas or you have a more dynamic process i would encourage that this be a topic and i would really like to dig into changing that susd graduation requirement and with respect to world languages where world languages is a broader scope including programming languages that's my last pitch for that vice president zanowski a couple positive things here dr dodds karen one was i liked the way the description was broken up from word salad paragraph to bullet points it was easier to read easier to understand i think for a parent sitting down with their child or even just a student deciding on their own what courses they want to take i think it gives

208them a little clearer understanding of what they would be getting into and then i also want to make a note about east valley institute of technology which we are all part of that consortium and um uh board member hart wells and myself were able to go out there last night for a presentation with the school boards in the east valley and i'm telling you looking at that list i was glad to see that list of course offerings when dr hart wells was talking about the programming language and and all of that like we need to do a better job of sharing those opportunities with our community because it's quite extensive and i realized some of the struggles and the commitment that it takes for a student to say that's what i want to do because

209it does take them away from campus but we did have some interesting conversations with some of the evit staff last night in regards to giving our students a better look-see of what their potential is out there whether it's aeronautics or you know whatever program they're interested in i'd also like for us to consider some of our expanding some of our summer learning opportunities as well because we can all think of kids who can't fit everything into a typical school year so to add greater variety of course offerings for summer maybe even that event experience that's it thank you any other board member questions okay so is there a motion to approve the second read of the high school and middle school planning guide for the 2022-23 school year so moved is our second second board

210member synowski seconds all in favor aye motion passes hope i'm sorry oh i applaud any of any um against opposed no okay a no any abstentions okay motion passes four to one with board member hart wells opposing okay we move now on to action item 10 b approval of the sixth amendment to the easement agreement with american towers llc at yavapai elementary school dr menzel thank you president beckman uh this item was tabled from the last meeting in order for uh lord byrd to investigate potential choice i'll let her address the request and the response the request was came from a concern by the board members that they were asking for some pretty extensive signatory and affidavits requirements of contacted american tower they agreed to remove the affidavit requirement and to limit the signatory the

211superintendent only there is nothing else that has changed in that uh easement agreement other than the removal of the requirement of affidavit and additional signatories beyond the superintendent are there any questions from board members okay i moved to approve the sixth amendment to the easement agreement with american towers llc at yamaha elementary school is there a second second four member greenberg seconds all in favor motion passes five to zero we move now to our action item c which is approval of the superintendent's annual goals and performance pay plan dr menzel thank you president beckman as members of the governing board know we've had an informal quarterly evaluation what as members of the and you know there are two different buttons here to turn this on and off i've learned that um as members of the

212governing board know we had an informal quarterly evaluation earlier in the month and as we had that conversation there were a number of ideas generated for potential goal areas i took those ideas and put them in the form of both the broad goals as well as specific performance pay goals for board consideration and those are presented in the board packet okay board member greenberg thank you superintendent mental thank you for presenting these to us and i think they do generally reflect our prior discussions however i i do want to emphasize uh moving forward now that we do intend to have phase two of our strategic plan in draft form done by i think december was the plan but perhaps that's moved a little bit to january and those concrete key performance indicators that moving forward

213for future years that these are measurable uh objectively measurable improvement metrics and not um general projects that need to be completed although of course sometimes that that will be the case and of course in this case and this year things were delayed which is why we couldn't necessarily implement those uh performance metrics as well as the fact that we don't have our strategic plan done it does take time and i appreciate our parents and our communities work on that to get that done as quickly as possible and in a meaningful manner but that would be my expectation for next year's discussion on these that these be very specific metrics in line with the strategic plan and that they be tied to your performance pay and hopefully we can maybe shift the discussion on performance pay

214for once in the state and make use of the full 20 percent amount that we're allowed to uh work up to depending on how the board decides to negotiate the contract so thank you board member hart wells thank you president beckman so i i had um thank you dr menzel for the draft uh goals based on our conversation at the informal review upon review further review i was struggling with quantitating what academic growth and i'm specifically talking about the performance pay goals here what academic growth meant and since it's tied to pay it seems that it would be better for you and us to understand what that number what are those numbers something more specific than growth that's a large universe of things same struggle with what improvement means what's the meats and bounds of

215what does improvement mean in terms of act scores or collagen career readiness as benchmarked by act scores so um i also felt like so you have the dashboard in here um it looks like the survey came out so i had drafted a revision only because i have a very hard times having somebody read things to me i need to see it and read it myself so i took the liberty of kind of reworking some of these and with some proposed proposed numbers so that i could understand where we all might be in terms of what fast bridge growth looks like and what college and career readiness looks like in terms of numbers and i spent a lot of time going through a lot of data so these are not arbitrary numbers but i have hard

216copies of my draft to for all of you and i did send a file and we don't have to show it but um i would like at least to give the board a minute and dr menzel a minute i apologize this has not come to you before that is entirely my fault on timeline i was still working on this uh today it's important to note that this is a public document absolutely yes um and miss bird has it and miss beckman has it sure i think there's an extra okay great and this is a draft um it's just me attempting to use more specific numbers for the goals board member greenberg thank you uh board member hart wells uh so um i like the use of uh statistically significant growth um since that is objectively

217measurable um and that and kind of the flexibility there that's nice is that it applies across the board because statistically significant will of course be related to the numbers that we have currently the only one of the concerns i have is that for some of these benchmark data points we have very few years of data so we couldn't with a single data point i'm concerned we might not be able to show well depends what you unless you in less than five percent total at two or more levels below could you explain that a little bit uh how that would apply in that case yes so um statistically significant growth and where i gleaned that term was in the information that was provided to us before the board retreat on iready um is there were different

218types of growth and there was proposals especially from some of the principles to use growth of using fastbridge and i ready between fall and spring so within this course of this school year and there is data for that if i understand dr bachna last spring there is data now i've included fifth grade in the reading not just third grade um and i've included eighth sixth grade in the math proficiency not just eighth grade um and then in terms so that's where the term growth came from was actually from those two supports that are being used that's what their package insert information describes as a value add to the classroom and to the student and my understanding was that particularly in iready there were kind of stretch growth i forget what the term was but that

219was specific to that student and they weren't it wasn't really a credible assessment for broad strokes numbers which is why i stayed away from it so this was informed by the package answer information the corporate information that we received in advance of the board retreat for these assessments the less than five percent total at two or more levels below grade level is informed by where where we were at as of the summer uh particularly with eighth grade math where we had 16 percent of students of eighth graders three or more grade levels three or more levels below grade level um do you remember this okay so that's what that is referring to um they are aggressive and synced with the goals that are not performance pay goals they target bringing that those the lowest achievement

220up to speed and a focus kind of universally in the last second half of the school year on bringing all of those kids back up to grade level or getting pretty darn close to it and that that was the spirit of the focus and then i'm proposing these are all also somewhat modeled off of what was dr menzel drafted based on our discussions um and then the college and career readiness in terms of a.c.t i was looking at the composite scores that over the last five or six years that we have been given that information and it seemed to me i wasn't sure what improvement in college and career readiness as evidenced by act i've not seen act aspire results i don't i don't know if i've seen those that doesn't sound familiar to me

221so this is the first year i believe we're giving it so that that would be a baseline indicator for this year okay so so okay okay so that wouldn't we wouldn't be able to demonstrate any improvement there because there's no baseline okay so that's why i stayed with act um and then composite scores which of course is all the subject matters uh averaged and then on a per high school basis because there's quite a bit of disparity in the composite scores of the different high schools um and i think that granularity is important in terms of focusing energy and as a consequence budget development i think it was timely that we start talking about budget development because it should be teed up to support goals so i am not wedded to these specifically i i

222did this because i needed to get something out of my head that i thought represented better what i um would would be in support of uh in terms of specific numbers or something objective an objective and measurable number about from which we could actually determine whether the metric was met or not and there's as you notice overwhelmingly majority focus on academic achievement which is also something that is a little different so dr hart wells i wanted to say you i think you know i agree with you and looking for some numerical demonstration of achievement i would like to hear from doctor sure yes yes and i apologize this is the first documents scene this draft i apologize for that so so in general i would appreciate time to be able to review specifically i'd like

223to talk with the team in terms of what we have in regards to the data to be able to say it's statistically significant or not i want to be sure that what's proposed here is something that we can actually gather and glean in the data that we're collecting earlier today i was at desert canyon elementary school and students were doing their mid-year i-ready math assessments you know so i think that in spirit this makes sense to me but not having a chance to go back to the team to say okay what does that data look like and can we actually provide it in a way that reflects what's here i would need a little bit of time to explore that so i don't have any objection to the spirit of what's here i just would

224like to be able to go back and make sure that what's being suggested is actually something that we can produce yeah i think that that i appreciate that superintendent mental that is kind of what my with the growth i agree with because that is a measure we take in the less than five percent i agree with um because that shows significant improvement from the 16 percent um but i think the use of statistically the term statistically significant um you know we need to make sure we have enough data that we can show that but i think this is much more in line with what we need to be doing and planning for no matter what for the goals for next year without without questions so i really appreciate this work and i think it's very

225helpful now and in the future so thank you so question then board member hart wells and dr menzel is this something that you would um find more appropriate to table to the next meeting and have our chance to review specifically and come together with an exact recommendation i am comfortable with that and i think that is fair um because again out of fairness this was i did not discuss this with dr menzel in advance okay i moved to approve the superintendent's annual goals and performance pay plan until the next meeting december 14th 14th uh do i have a second second board member heart while seconds all in favor motion passes five to zero we move now onto agenda item 11 future agenda items do any of our board members have requests for future items all

226of you okay i don't know who's first uh board vice president zanowski thank you yes i would like for us to take a really close look at what our class actual class staffing numbers are student-teacher ratios i know one of the conversations that i had with dr huggie got was our staffing standard versus actual practices and what it looks like in the classroom for a teacher and how many students that they are responsible for on a regular basis in educating our kids i think we there's a lot of research out there that says what best numbers are and i really would like for us to not just take a look at this but start implementing this through i'm hopeful hoping the strategic planning process is going to be discussing this too so hard caps on

227class numbers i don't like the rule of averages in a classroom because one teacher could have a lot and one may not have so many so i i think that if we're really looking at focusing our instruction success for our students we need to be looking at hard caps so that every student no matter what class they're in has the opportunity for success i also would like for us to have a serious discussion about community education the latest information that we received last night at the east valley school board consortium talked about the increase in access via kids using their phones the risks and deaths due to fentanyl-waste synthetic pain medication this is a serious issue in the valley in our state um in 2020 there were more teen deaths you by these one pill

228can kill one pill of the synthetic fentanyl laced pain medication more from that drug and kids are not taking it thinking it's going to kill them then covet suicide and traffic accidents combined it's an issue that we don't talk about and i think we really need to and i'd like for us to carefully examine some of the resources available through the high intensity drug trafficking area network and it's free to any district they'll give presentations to parents two classrooms they have age-appropriate information from little littles to our high school kids and i think it's something that's very serious that we need to be discussing i also would like to continue to have put the proposal out there for a title ix audit i'm referencing facility use and access financial investment male versus female extracurricular athletics

229i'm not going to go away until that is looked at and carefully examined and that we know the facts again this isn't about determining you know we're good we're bad but let's figure out how we best serve all of our students in our district i would like for us to have an esser funds overview and how these funds are directly being used to impact student success in our classrooms and that is my list thank you okay thank you board member greenberg i believe last time at our last board meeting we had a number of board policies that we had requested some proposed language on related to public comments and the way in which board meetings are uh gosh i know suspended when necessary so i'd like to make sure we bring that back as requested

230by the board and i'm happy to provide some language or some ideas based on what i was thinking of if that would be helpful i think yeah the 2b policies yes thank you okay any other board members future agenda items i concur with um vice president sinowski my agenda item that i'd like to see is a discussion regarding escrow funds all expenses associated with the distribution of them and crew including positions created and the targeted approach that we are using for these funds to help our students okay moving on now to agenda item 12 dates of upcoming meetings the next meeting is tuesday december 7th 2021 at 6 p.m it's a special governing board meeting for the superintendent's mid-year evaluation the meeting after that is tuesday december 14th at 6 p.m it's a regular governing

231board meeting here at coronado high school yes this particular meeting the regular governing board meeting at 6 00 pm may be moved to 5 pm to accommodate the shift in the student celebrations from this evening to the next regular governing board meeting that is finals week for so many of these kids and we'd like to get them out of here so we may be making that change for the one time anything else okay number 13 do any governing board members have any governing board reports board member or vice president zanowski here we go i really would like to thank all of the staff members that play a role in providing great opportunities for kids one in particular and our families one in particular was since our last general public governing board meeting was the red

232ribbon week not alone not my child gave that presentation and it was addressing the issue of teen suicide another very important although unpleasant topic to discuss with kids and that was a great presentation um i had the privilege of viewing what i thought to be one of the best productions i've seen in susd in the theater and that was at saguaro's theater she kills monsters it was fantastic it was relevant to kids the theme was and it was just really well done so kudos to everyone who played a role in that also had the ability to witness some amazing talent at the saguaro coffee house i know there was a lot of work that went into volunteer work that went into hosting that so thank you to everyone who had a role in that and

233students that was fantastic also the chaparral athletic signing event was very fun to go and watch it was not just really exciting for those student athletes who are signing their letters of intent to their universities but i found out that some of our students had signed interest letters at age 14 with top level universities for their athletic prowess so it was that was really cool it was neat to see the student body root on their their friends that was nate by the way that we had eight of the 11 signing they were females just making note of that um the scottsdale joint education community meeting that dr menzel board president beckman and myself have the privilege of participating in i think a lot of our conversation that we've been talking about with using our community

234better and developing opportunities for our kids i think this is really closely parallels it and so we have had another meeting since our last governing board meeting and we're moving the needle further along to working with our school district our community college and the city of scottsdale the chair of 60th celebration many of you were there that was really neat to learn about and to recognize and thank our charos for their philanthropic investment over the years in our scottsdale school district our students and our staff i also had the opportunity to meet with some folks here in the city of scottsdale that deal with the family promise of greater phoenix and i did not know this existed and they deal with homelessness of families including their pets in the city of scottsdale and i look

235forward to us working more closely with this organization um because i think it's again one of those another hidden hidden secrets that we don't have homelessness in scottsdale and we do and sometimes it's very temporary but this is a very um as i see a great organization for us to learn more about and then as i mentioned before the east valley school board association um her consortium had uh gathering at event on their main campus last night and that was very enlightening to attend so that's it for my brief report thank you any other governing board members have reports no okay i moved to adjourn the meeting at 9 49 p.m do i have a second second all in favor aye aye motion passes 5-0 meeting is adjourned at 9 49 pm you