001order this regular meeting of the scottsdale unified number 48 governing board on october 26 2021 the time is 6 p.m i will invite our students from cocoa pot to please lead us in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you very much and we will be hearing more from our students and a little explanation as to why they are here tonight the chair will now have a roll call starting from the right zach lindsay libby hart wells julie sanowski eon michael greenberg all five board members are present and there is a quorum we will now move to agenda item 2d approval of the agenda we have two items that
002have been requested to be pulled from the consent agenda that would be item 8i authorization of expenditure wilman construction inc for saguaro film room and 8j approval of award of request for proposal number 22 1826 travel agency and tour events are there any other requested changes to the agenda the chair moves to approve the agenda as amended is there a second second vice president sunowski seconds is moved inside that the board approved the agenda as amended all those in favor say aye aye hi the motion carries 5-0 agenda item 3 public comments notification as outlined in our agenda notice speakers will be given up to 3 minutes to speak and there will be a limited number of 30 minutes of public comments we do have 10 speakers tonight so all 10 speakers will be given
003their full 3 minutes in addition we do have a meeting decorum statement if you did not see it at the beginning i'll reiterate it here citizens attending and or participating in scottsdale unified school district meetings either in person virtually or telephonically are required to observe the same rules of order and decorum applicable to members of the governing board and staff unauthorized remarks or demonstrations from members of the audience yells albers and or other disruptions are not permitted the board will now move to agenda item 4 student and staff recognitions dr menzel good evening president greenberg vice president sinowski and members of the governing board thank you for the opportunity to provide an update on the many many activities underway this second quarter of the school year so you know the first quarter we get things
004ramped up and started and now we're hitting a full stride and there are a lot of things to celebrate this evening the first celebration is one that we think is particularly compelling and important and we've been talking about it for a couple weeks now and i would like dr sakos assistant superintendent of secondary education to tell us all about it thank you dr minkel and good evening governor board president beaton greenberg vice president zanowski government members mrs wagner and to our guests and foreign families here tonight on most school days susc buses average an uneventful 3 000 miles between their morning and their afternoon routes however that was not the case on friday october 1st on route 422 to focal point middle school that day a trio of students realized that something was not quite
005right with their bus driver and jumped into action let me introduce you sixth graders jason mcdonald and johnny ward [Applause] and of course they have lots of support tonight from cocoa paw middle school principal nick noonan assistant principal steve salcedo counselor ms tony rantella and we also have from the transportation department employee crystal hughes and transportation director brendan wagner can everyone please join us behind these young men and we are so happy miss hughes is able to join us tonight thank you so back to october 1st as bus 422 wound its way through the neighborhood behind scottsdale country club this morning miss hughes began feeling unwell with the bus pulled over and parked at a bus stop the boys noticed that something was wrong and sprang into action luca called to ms 911 until emergency
006responders could arrive jacob used his cell phone to provide the bus buses location to the paramedics and johnny communicated with susd dispatch bus 422 quite amazing what was happening and missed at miss hughes's request johnny also called her mother the quick thinking technological know-how and bravery exhibited by these students in this emergency was amazing and worth worthy of our recognition tonight mr wagner or mr noonan would you like to say anything good evening i just um want to we wish to have the transportation department and ms hughes express our appreciation uh to these young guys for the actions that they took that morning that resulted in the rest of the kids getting to school and of course miss hughes getting the medical attention that she needed and having spoken to some of the parents these
007actions that boys took as a testament i believe to their parents to the teaching staff etc that they that they encounter on a daily basis who obviously model um empathy compassion and respect for others great work guys appreciate it and we're glad to have miss hughes back behind the wheel cool team [Applause] so i never give up an opportunity to speak to the board so i just have a few pages i want to go over no actually uh dr sakos thank you for the great introduction and the explanation of what happened i think the to me that the the greatest part of this story is what happened after when they came back to school and first and foremost they were all their concern was about their driver crystal oh yeah and then once we got
008through that they were concerned about being late for class and it wasn't until we took them out of class and and had a debrief with all three of them individually that we found out exactly what they had done all of the kids as you can imagine on the bus were communicating with their moms and dads as this was um unfolding but their parents didn't know the extreme measures they took to provide care for crystal so it wasn't about them they weren't showboating about it they jumped into action when it was needed we call that initiative and they have lots of it so on behalf of all of coco paul we want to thank you for this opportunity to recognize these kids and i need to give a shout out to cochise elementary where all three
009of these boys attended elementary school they must have done an outstanding job bringing them up through their elementary school years and we know that parents are the first teacher so we want to please join me in giving their parents a round of applause as well thank you all right luca luca jacob and johnny on behalf of the scottsdale unified school district the governing board and superintendent menzel please accept these challenge coins as an expression of our gratitude for your amazing actions on that morning of october first [Applause] okay stay here we're not done yet however at this time i would like to introduce scottsdale fire department battalion chief dwayne bader scottsdale police department commander chris coffey and scottsdale pd's public information officer officer aaron bolen gentlemen yeah she said we're not done right okay good
010evening thank you for allowing us to be here to give recognition to these special young men and for what they did my name is aaron bolin and like i said she said i'm the public information officer with the city of scottsdale police department we have plaques for you guys they are inscribed as in honor of your life-saving efforts during a medical emergency on october 1st 2021. gentlemen we honor you for your quick response in identifying that your bus driver needed medical assistance and deftly summoning first responders for life-saving care your calm demeanor and decisive action assisted in keeping the other students safe and calm during the emergency on behalf of the citizens of scottsdale the scottsdale police department and scottsdale fire department extend their appreciation and gratitude for your heroic actions thank you gentlemen [Applause]
011[Music] [Applause] nice [Applause] real quick right thank you so much for that special recognition but don't leave yet thank you so much for that special recognition from your departments and the city of scottsdale jacob johnny and luca you are our heroes and thank you congratulations and this concludes tonight's celebrations [Applause] i want to thank you gentlemen for your courageous acts i thought back to when i was a middle school student and i'm quite certain i would not have behaved quite that way it was truly amazing when i watched the video you're calm under pressure and we are really grateful for what you did and you truly embody the values of scottsdale unified school district so again thank you on behalf of the board in the district [Applause] now i would like to ask and draw
012your attention to the big screen each year the scottsdale mayor's office conducts an essay in art competition to honor the september 17 1787 signing of the u.s constitution the we the people competition provides an opportunity for our elementary through high school students to enhance their knowledge of this foundational national document and to express that knowledge of about the first amendment the rest of the bill of the rights and and the remaining amendments susd students performed outstandingly in these endeavors at all grade levels again this year and as you can see on the screen the ceremony recognizing them last thursday at the villa linda senior center was terrific and i believe vice president zanowski can attest to that the artistic uh we so we truly appreciate the contribution of our scottsdale students and illustrating the importance
013of studying the constitution and understanding its importance for our entire community next we want to talk about the artistic talents of the susd students on display in the results of the arizona council on economic education's recent economic concepts poster contest among the non-profits organization work is helping educators prepare and students learn about personal finance economics and entrepreneurship we are especially proud that two of scottsdale online teacher aaron hansen's third grade students are among those being recognized this year and you can see examples of their work on the screen i want to turn our attention to performing arts it has been an amazing few weeks for our band and strings program in scottsdale now this past weekend three of our five marching bands placed first in three different competitions that would include arcadia desert mountain and
014saguaro these bands also walked away with all of the caption awards for outstanding music outstanding visual outstanding general effect outstanding percussion and outstanding auxiliary if you'd like the opportunity to see how amazing these marching bands are the annual susd marching band exhibition takes place november 10th at 6 pm at arcadia high school admission is free and the evening will kick off with the national anthem performed by the trumpet sections of each of our high school bands we hope you can join us for this terrific celebration and that means not just the board but all of you here in attendance and anyone watching to celebrate susd's marching bands the success of our performing arts programs continued at the abode fall orchestra festival which also was held last weekend the saguaro high school orchestra program received top
015honors with all three ensembles concert symphonic and advanced walking away with the superior ratings the symphonic and advanced orchestras received the denotation of superior with distinction meaning that all three judges gave them the highest rating possible in competition this is quite an achievement for these outstanding musicians and their new instructor robert reyes go cats and if you've ever really wanted to see what it is like from the beginning of an susd student's strings journey from elementary to high school you'll want to stop by the chaparral high school this thursday evening at 6 p.m for the annual chaparral learning community orchestra concert this outdoor event will feature performances from cochise cherokee sequoia and kiva elementary schools kokopan middle school and the chaparral high school orchestra the event is also free and is sure to provide a
016great evening of music by our string students last but not least on the stage for three nights this week wednesday thursday and saturday the saguaro high school theater department presents she kills monsters an entertaining tale of the secret dungeons and dragons playing life of the main character's late sister we wish director tim mccandless and his troop of thespians well the shows are at 7 pm each evening this concludes tonight's celebrations would any board members like to make comments related to the celebrations you know well i think uh i think our administrative staff our city of scottsdale police and fire departments have said it best that our students truly are remarkable and their heroic efforts on that day not only saved a life but was a demonstration and character really so thank you again for that
017and thank you to those wonderful students for attending here tonight and and doing the pledge of allegiance as well which was a nice touch the board will now move to agenda item five superintendent's comments thank you president greenberg vice president sinowski and members of the governing board and just a few items to touch base on this evening the first is the psat test was given to all susd 10th grade students today and those 11th grade students who signed up for it some of you may have seen the recent u.s news and world report on elementary and middle schools ranking them for the state and across the country and while the u.s news and world report has done this for high schools for a number of years this was new related to elementary and middle schools
018so i took a look at our schools and where they ranked in arizona and i just wanted to celebrate what i think is important here first cheyenne traditional was number five of all elementaries in the state of arizona and that's out of 1315 elementary schools which is pretty impressive but nine of our elementary schools are in the top 10 percent another seven are in the top 25 percent and all of our elementary schools are in the top 50 percent so our schools are doing very well compared to others within the state of arizona our middle schools out of a thousand middle schools we had four in the top ten percent and all of them were within the top 50 percent we had three in the top 25 percent and then when we get to the
019high school level out of 550 high schools we had two in the top 10 percent two in in the top 25 and the last one was in the top 50. so across the district we are above the state average which we knew based on other data reports but our our students and our schools are performing well we we know that there are opportunities for improvement but i think it's really important to acknowledge where things are going well and to celebrate those successes and so i want to express my appreciation for the teachers in all of our schools for the principles that are leading those buildings and for the ongoing support of our parents and community as we strive for educational excellence for all of our students and to build on that i'd also like to
020talk about uh international baccalaureate information night for susd and non-susd families eighth grade families in particular which is uh which actually was held like i have to see what where we are it's coming up on thursday the 28th uh the dates are blur for me at desert mountain high school um and and uh we we invite people who are in the district who want to learn more about ib to participate in that information session as well as those who might be from other districts and just to share how impressive the ib program is at desert mountain there are 23 ib schools in the state and 262 ib diplomas were awarded last year 47 of those or 18 were from desert mountain high school more impressive i would argue is that the highest point range in
021in the assessment is 40 to 44 points and four students statewide were in that range three of those were from desert mountain high school so if you want academic achievement you want evidence that our students are performing at the highest level here's one other indicator to celebrate so kudos to the team at desert mountain high school the ib team in particular for all the work they do as a quick reminder we have early release tomorrow and thursday for elementary and k-8 students and thursday and friday for middle school students for parent-teacher conferences as we know this connection between school and the family is critically important we'll be taking advantage of both in-person and virtual opportunities i was at a conference with fellow superintendents earlier this week and one of the things that one of them
022commented on in a in a panel discussion was that while we've had a lot of disruption through covet one of the things that's not likely to change is the ability to offer virtual parent-teacher conferences so that we can accommodate more people's schedules so that's a positive development another thing that i think is important is open enrollment for the 22-23 school year begins on monday november 1st again we are actively working to recruit students to enroll in our exceptional programs and there are so many different options and that window officially opens on november 1st and and two more things of of note one is next year's class of kindergartners and their parents are invited to kindergarten events at our elementary and k-8 schools between november and 18th some of these visits are virtual some are in
023person and if you go to susd.org backslash kindergarten you can get more information so those were things that i wanted to highlight that are successes then i just have one other piece of information that i think is important to call the people's attention that that isn't really good news but it's very important to have on people's radar and that is either friday of this week or monday of next week the arizona department of education will be releasing its analysis related to the aggregate expenditure limit so coming from michigan the aggregate expenditure limit is something that's a foreign concept to me because i did not realize that a state would cap what it could invest in public education but in arizona back in the 80s we capped what could be legally spent on public education there
024have been a few times in the state's history where we've exceeded that expenditure limit and based on preliminary information it appears as though we will be roughly a billion dollars over that limit when the ade releases its report what they do and and most of this is statutory in nature there's a formula for the number of students you look at the revenue that's available the amount increases a little bit each year based on an amendment that was done a couple of decades ago but long story short with the decline in students that we experienced last year as a result of covet and there was a significant drop in the number of students coupled with the inclusion of 301 funds in the formula so previously 301 funds were exempted from the aggregate expenditure limit it was
025a voter approved initiative that expired the legislature extended 301 but because it was done by legislative action the determination has been made that those monies now fall under the aggregate expenditure limit and that's almost half of the total billion dollars that we're looking at additionally the state restored the the daa funds and you have some other expenditures that are there which create this precipice now the constitution contemplates that this could happen and the legislature has the authority to take action to to create a one-time exemption they can do it once per cycle where this threshold might be exceeded it requires a two-thirds vote of both the house and the senate and and the way the statute reads the legislature must act by march first and if they don't by april first every school district in
026the state has to take action to reduce its budget accordingly so if you just do a little quick math we're looking at having to cut what's estimated to be about 17 percent of our budget in the final quarter 85 percent of our budget is tied up in staff salary and benefits so this is not an inconsequential risk to every school district not just scottsdale unified but every school district in the state and it's a product of a law that was established in the 1980s and the entire environment for how we fund schools what the conditions are like for school districts in in the state it's very different so it calls for a long-term fix but in the short term we really need our elected officials to act quickly to address this concern to work uh
027act to exempt the the state from the aggregate expenditure limit this year while also committing to look at a long-term solution and so i just wanted to call that to your attention uh we've the report at the conference that i was just at indicated that the leaders in the house and the senate are willing to put this on the agenda early when they return in january but i think it's important for people to understand that we need to make our voices heard related to this it does have significant consequence one estimate of costs were that it would be about thirteen hundred eighty seven dollars per student uh for scottsdale that represents just over 29 million dollars that the state would be requiring us to cut with less than a full quarter remaining in the school
028year so on that sad note i will turn it back to you president greenberg thank you for that very informative superintendent's comments the board will now move to agenda item 6 public comments our first speaker of the night is patricia pellet followed by kerry kirksmart okay are we ready you may begin thank you many of us parents do not want curriculum teaching certain groups that certain groups are oppressors and others are oppressed such as in the book that i brought up last time called front desk adding to this there's another book now out there called ghost boys that now makes two books in susd teaching that cops are bad it feels like the school board is using our kids as pawns for their political agenda taking away parental rights and freedom of speech muzzling our
029kids with masks as they go masculist at events labian labeling as parents as terrorists censoring the last school board meeting by purposely not showing the speakers it's parents tax dollars and it's our kids parents have a right to be involved in their kids curriculum we don't co-parent with the government here's a few examples from me collecting recall signatures a couple i recently met who grew up in poland as kids during communism says they see the same signs of communism taking part in america today they could not wait to sign my recall two people i met non-white said they are tired of being called oppressed by white people we are not oppressed i recently sat next to a tattooed guy with piercings on my plane ride home from california he said he knew he didn't fit
030my narrative i said how do you know my parents were drug addicts i'm one out of four siblings to graduate high school i lost my baby brother to a drug overdose he then apologized and said i'm sorry he said he had turned his life around too he used to be a drug dealer in philadelphia and now he's a teacher i thought wow this is an incredible story we need more people like him he then told me that oppressors owe the oppressed and it's okay to steal from the rich my thought then changed to wow this guy is teaching our kids anyways parents should have a say in their kids curriculum we need open school board meetings we need to remove this material in schools that are teaching profiling society should stop believing the censored media
031that takes one rotten apple and applies it to a whole orchard we need to engage in healthy in-person dialogue with one another put down our technology get involved in what's happening local in local politics not just dc this is how you find out the truth we need to put our kids first over your agenda recall susd.org for petition signings thank you our next speaker is carrie kirksmart followed by karine werner one of the places that you could find in the budget is where you adopted status it was a million dollars you didn't even vet the supplemental materials or the books romeo and juliet is a chapter in sabbath it's a big it's a full chapter and its focus on in status is obsessive love and unhealthy relationships one of the supplemental materials that you're supposed
032to read before the launch the students into the play is listen wise and it says is your in your opinion what should really rich people do with their fortunes what does it take for a person to rise from rags to riches what does any of this have to do with with romeo and juliet and what's its purpose another supplemental to be shared at the conclusion of act four is what's killing teens it romanticizes suicide a warning comes along with this video that says that it's not recommended that vulnerable especially those who have a degree of suicidal ideation watch this series it's a powerful storytelling that may lead to impressionable viewers and romanticize the choices that they make and characters that develop revenge fantasies wow are you getting your parental approval for this nope are you
033putting this on an ela teacher yes an ela teacher who sees over 200 students per day and this glamorizes risky behavior and copycat deaths that's really alarming to me and that's just what the warnings say how are you doing um if you think that you're immune to uh prosecution for this you're wrong because you haven't gone through the materials dr geren admitted that she didn't go through the materials the ela specialist that we met with including with you zach and patty and dr manziel and dr guerin and your lawyer we met with you in june and you all said that you hadn't been through the supplementals she said that they had been approved but not reviewed by anyone at susd and the head of ela training quit right after our meeting which is alarming to
034me when i pointed this fact out to dr guerin menzel and your lawyer at the june 2021 meeting menzel lost it you yelled and somehow that part got cut off on the video that we requested from a meeting he lost it he lost his cool and he realized that there was liability so he cut it off that's very strange these are sensitive topics that require at the very least parental permission and a counselor thank you our next speaker is karine werner followed by amy carney good evening so my name is karen warner i'm a parent of scottsdale unified school district student and today i'm going to talk about agenda item 7c which is the first read of the proposed revision of the policy of ihamb family life education you guys never see stummy's us in
035the capitol times uh armando ruiz said something amazing things regarding what's on your agenda today so agenda item 7c and it is to specifically to remove the language promote honor and respect for monogamous heterosexual marriage i'll say that again it is to strike the language promote honor and respect for monogamous heterosexual marriage he said once we take that off the table we brand that as inferior instead of the idea of monogamous heterosexual marriage like it or not the message that we send is that that of world view is inferior it's denigrating and there is something wrong with it now no student should sit in a classroom and feel that monogamous heterosexual marriage is inferior the mexican community has a large number of people of faith he says it is an attack on what they believe
036and i agree with him he goes on to say what i do know is that you cannot cure discrimination against um you cannot cure discrimination by discriminating against another group in this case people of faith nearly 25 percent of susc students are of mexican mexican heritage and i would wager to say the combined amount of people of faith from all backgrounds is significant this proposed change is divisive discriminatory and a gut punch to people like myself and people of faith this statue is silent meaning you can choose to keep this language and that is what i ask of you you know see the thing about inclusion which is a big thing lately is inclusion is for everyone it's also for people of faith thank you thank you our next speaker is amy carney followed by
037uh candice verdica apologies if i pronounce that incorrectly amy carney followed by candace fodeca hi i'm amy carney i'm a mom of six who have all been educated in susd thank you governing board and dr menzel for allowing me to speak tonight you've you've chosen inclusion as one of our new susd values where everyone's respected is treated with dignity and has a sense of belonging which i absolutely agree with yet i question how well susd is living that out when we choose ghost boys as approved reading material for our 7th grade students the story is about a white police officer shooting and killing a black 12 year old boy systemic racism and its traumatic impact is the central theme of ghost boys ghost boys explores how racism is built into laws policies and practices the
038result in a society where people of color and particularly black people are blocked from health wealth opportunity justice and safety at susd are these the ideas we want to fill our kids heads with while our goal shouldn't be to make everyone happy and comfortable it should be to find literature with universal themes that are good for all students our kids get so much messaging from social media and pop culture that school reading is one of the very few chances we have as a society to fill our kids heads with something meaningful i'm going to read you quick excerpts since i don't have much time are you prejudiced the lawyer asked the police officer no liar someone shouts have you heard of racial bias no heard prejudice can affect your thoughts actions whether consciously knowing or
039unconsciously i'm not racist possibly you were responding to unconscious stereotypes of black men is large threatening dangerous another one sarah's going to be fine she's a white girl but she's not white girl she's sarah me and all the other boys on her computer screens have names tamir rice laquan mcdonald trayvon martin michael brown were people black kids colors shouldn't make anybody scared is it because slavery happened is this why some whites are afraid of black people i don't know how will reading this book make our black students feel empowered or victimized how will our students who come from a police family feel reading and discussing this book in a classroom and i worry most about the parents who aren't able to be engaged in their child's education and have no idea what literature is even
040being assigned to their student but who trust you to give their child the world-class education they deserve and that you tout that you provide is this book meeting their goals yes parents who don't want their 12 year old reading ghost boys can opt out and are beginning being given an alternate read but should this be necessary those same students will have to sit in class for the discussions surrounding the book and i read one ques one discussion question from the back of the book what did you know about black lives matter and the civil rights movement before reading ghost boys many people have interpreted black lives matter as an anti-police movement does ghost boy strike you as an anti-police book of course justice is a real issue that we should all care about and parents
041should be raising their children to pursue we want diverse meaningful texts first thank you our next speaker will be candace vodka followed by tim curtis hello um my name is candace vodka but that's okay i get all different iterations of it um i'm a mom of three young girls in susd and thank you for giving me a moment to speak i know the school and the sros are working hard to address school safety with gates and locked doors along with educating children about bullying and resilience in addition they've made efforts to address the emotional and mental health of students as with the crisis dogs but an important safety measure that is often unaddressed is reminding parents about the importance of safe storage of firearms while i appreciate the right of every person to own a
042firearm with rights come responsibilities safe storage of guns is an evidence-based method to prevent teen suicide and was recommended as an important method of addressing school shootings in the 2019 secret service report since three quarters of school shootings involved an unsecured firearm obtained from home approximately 5 million children live in a household with at least one gun that is easily accessible and that can lead to a tragedy for example an unintentional shooting or an impulsive decision to commit suicide this problem has only worsened during the covet pandemic with gun sales surging over the last 18 months secure storage of guns saved lives both at home and at school i asked the board to pass a resolution to promote a public health safety campaign reminding parents of the importance of safety safely storing their guns and
043asking about the presence of unsecured guns before sending their children to visit a family member or a friend such education campaigns speak to the goals of both public education and first responders as we all want to keep kids safe and that's it but also thank you for everything else you're doing to help keep our kids safe and healthy at school this year thank you our next speaker is tim curtis followed by amy bean good evening my name is tim curtis thank you for your public service especially the staff thank you so much and congratulations on all the successes staff thank you very much um last time i was here september 28th i think it was there was a student presentation regarding a student survey and there was a rude outburst from some members of the
044audience and then the following friday the superintendent put out this email admonishing those rude outbursts and rightly so but that email i don't think went went far enough um what was missing from that email i think was self-reflection self-reflection from leadership the outburst was a i think it was a symptom to a bigger problem that problem i think is animosity that we have not only here but throughout the country and i think the good leaders will will continue self-reflecting what can what can we do better i think that we have to keep in mind when we take and make decisions to make sure that we're trying not to take people off stop creating animosity stop mandating when we don't need to clearly the the district has shown that they do self-reflect um [Music] you know
045we mentioned the successes today knowing that we could probably do better always we dial down some of the coveted stuff by not no longer sending kids home healthy kids home simply because there may have been some arbitrary contact hated to see healthy kids being sent home so thank you for that so we are capable just wanted to remind you about that education to me and probably everybody and you guys are the experts so why am i talking about it but i'll just say that it gives birth to critical thinking it gives birth to skeptical or healthy skepticism i should say it gives birth to free thinking i don't think it gives birth to mandates i think leaders advise i think they steer i think they coach i think they teach but true leaders don't dictate
046ultimatums so please continue self-reflecting dial down the mandates and uh and the animosity with that thank you thank you our next speaker is amy beam [Applause] hello thank you for giving me a moment to speak i come to you as an overwhelmed parent who feels blindsided by political ideologies that are being promoted in the elementary school classroom i am particularly put off balance by the fact that these ideologies are being taught through supplemental materials and in-class books that are not presented to parents in advance and the fact that the board has stated in the past that they are not teaching crt that it is not part of the curriculum at susd and of course the buzzword here is critical race theory which is an academic theory that was developed in the legal university setting and
047has expanded from there crt is no longer just an academic theory but an intellectual and social movement it teaches that race is a socially constructed category that is used to oppress and exploit people of color schools should absolutely embrace diverse perspectives my concern is that susd has embraced one particular perspective and and is now presenting that perspective as objective truth our nation by and large has lost its group grip on objective reality we are losing our ability to distinguish reality from fiction crt moves along these same veins by attributing any negativity toward a person of color as evidence of racism in the book my daughter's class is reading white rich people are mean to others namely brown people or poor people because of the color of their skin or their income level black people are
048always harassed for things they didn't do by white male cops and immigrants lives are never fair while this may feel true for some people it is certainly not a universal objective truth why is my daughter's 4th grade class being assigned a book with a hyper focus on race and wealth why is she being taught to view each person in her life through a lens of economics and skin color every character in the book is introduced by the color of their skin and their economic status everyone what about their character what about their personality does nothing else come into play in a relationship between people i want my daughter's school to teach her academics the basics of reading writing arithmetic and science teach her how to construct sentence teach her the facts of history teach her
049the scientific method as she moves into higher education she can debate the merits of crt critiquing crt is difficult because it is a complex issue and deserves much more than just a few minutes of attention so i just that's it thank you our next speaker is mahmoud hussein followed by jason alexander good evening superintendent menzel madam president madam vice president governing board thank you for the time so i was here last month and last month was you guys were here it was kind of a dumpster fire by way of public comment it got rowdy it got nasty and i went home and i was talking to some people about it and if you guys are going to be subjected to that i'm going to be coming every month to make sure you guys know that
050i appreciate you now tonight has not been anywhere near as adversarial or combative and i appreciate that again i'm gonna tell you you guys are doing great work you're doing the hard work your job as public servants working for the government isn't not to make ways it's to do the right thing and the thing ends up being is sometimes the right thing isn't going to appease everybody and i appreciate that you guys are doing the hard work tonight i've heard some disturbing ideas and i'll tell you where they're coming from aren't licensed professionals they don't have backgrounds in in these fields where they're speaking they're concerned parents and i 100 understand that but they don't necessarily always have the backgrounds to be able to speak to those ideas throughout and fully so i appreciate that
051you guys do the research i appreciate that you guys listen to the experts that you guys listen to the science that you guys listen to the people who can help us make the best decisions for our children because that's what this whole thing is about that's really all i wanted to say thank you again thank you our next speaker is jason alexander and our final speaker will be emmy cardella hi my name is jason alexander and i would like to say something in praise of susd tonight i had a wonderful experience with mr steven cervantes he is an assistant principal and the athletic director at desert mountain high school my daughter recently transferred to desert mountain high school had some problems with her athletic eligibility and mr cevantes went above and beyond to help us
052work through those eligibility issues those administrative challenges guided us through all the forms we had to do through the appeals process uh took several hours out of his schedule over the last few weeks to tell us exactly what we needed to do and how we needed to construct our administrative appeal and uh came with me this morning to downtown phoenix to be present at my daughter's appeal i could not praise him enough and he said hey this is what we do this is our job this was not a special recruited athlete this is just a girl who wanted to play soccer and use athletics as an opportunity to become part of her new school's community and make that transition from being a new kid to meeting new kids meeting new friends and mr cervantes went
053above and beyond to help her accomplish that and that's really going to make a huge difference for her moving forward at desert mountain so i just wanted to recognize that and express my gratitude to him for that thank you thank you our final speaker is emmy cardella good evening governing board dr menzel and miss wagner i'm emmy cardella from the scottsdale parent council and i'm just here to give a quick update on what our organization is doing we had two exciting new initiatives we are expanding our special education committee we have added two additional co-chairs to our existing chair in order to host more events we have two coming up this week we have one on thursday and iep training that's going to be held on zoom and that's in spanish for our spanish-speaking families
054and then next tuesday in person at the mojave district annex at 6 p.m we have a meet the sped team so marge rayburg will be there with her full team and it's just going to be a question and answer session as well as an opportunity to gather feedback from parents questions will be collected in advance so even if you cannot attend you can submit your questions or your feedback and then based on that meeting they will the committee will work with marge to create monthly meetings to give more information to parents or whatever resources they're interested in hearing from about and then we also launched a gifted committee in partnership with karen brown and they are doing their first meeting on november 18th and similarly that will be a meet the team of the gifted
055specialists and hear from parents and hear about what they want to plan out for the year in terms of a monthly meeting as well and that's at the mda at 6 pm and then our next general meeting is november 17th that is at the mda at 9 00 am and our special speaker will be the director of title 1 margaret cerna and as always dr menzel joins us for a question and answer and everyone is welcome to attend all those meetings and they're also streamed online to watch thank you and thank you scottsdale parent council for all the work you do helping our parents the board will now move to agenda item 7 information discussion items item a hohokam bond project audit report dr menzel thank you president greenberg and members of the governing board
056as you know a few months ago the board adopted and approved an iga with the city of scottsdale to conduct our first internal audit the project that was selected was the hohokum project in part because it was nearing completion and in part because it was substantial in scope and there was the potential for identifying ways that we can improve our processes my experience so far has been the the city of scottsdale and their expertise has provided value to scottsdale unified school district things that were identified during the course of the audit helped inform some of our contracts that you've already reviewed and approved and i think that those have been positive changes i also am grateful for the team that built hohokum the architectural team the construction management team and our staff and they all
057had to participate in in this process of careful review in order to identify improvements so that i'd like to turn it over to sharon walker from the city of scottsdale to review the process and the findings president greenberg members of the governing board i am sharon walker i'm the scottsdale city auditor and i wanted to just give you a brief overview of this audit report so as dr menzel already referenced we had several conversations a few drafts and then the intergovernmental agreement for this audit was approved by both the school district governing board and the city council in march lake cluff who is with me here today has a lot of experience doing school district performance audits and construction contract audits and she led the team that conducted this audit so the audit started in
058late april wrapped up at the end of august as dr menzel mentioned we shared observations on an ongoing basis during the course of the audit because we knew that there were new construction projects started starting and we wanted to provide the opportunity for making any changes that the district might want to incorporate early so as i mentioned the work wrapped up in late august and then we got a draft report to dr menzel and his team for review in early september and we met with the district's team to go over the draft report in detail in late september in at the end of august early september a few additional records came in so we went ahead and reviewed those just briefly to see if they had any impact on what we already had in the
059audit report we did our own internal quality assurance process and then that timeline is what resulted in this audit report so what i wanted to do then was to just briefly walk through the audit using the audit highlights which is a high level summary of the entire report so the top arrow on the left side points to the audit objective which was to review contract administration including procurement project management contract compliance and cost effectiveness in the description of the bond project in the background section on the bottom left there's a note highlighted at the time that we wrapped up our work at the end of august this project was actually still ongoing the construction had essentially completed and the district was starting to use the buildings but there were still punch list items final pay
060applications for the contractors subcontractors had not been submitted yet so an important thing to keep in mind as you've read through the report is that we identify what the cut off timelines were for the various types of information that we were provided to be able to analyze during the audit so then on the right side of the report we summarize really briefly in the highlights the audit results and the audit recommendations as you can see there were four areas the first two related to the construction contract the third area related to the design contract and then the fourth area was documentation standards related to all aspects including procurement design construction activity records so the bottom right of the highlights we reference the management response the district staff agreed with all of the audit recommendations and
061in the management action plan which is part of this audit report they outlined the activities that they had ongoing already and then the additional steps that they plan to do to implement the audit recommendations so last friday we met with the district's new audit committee and went over the draft in more detail and the committee had a chance to ask us questions and also had a chance to ask the staff questions about the management action plan so that's a really high level summary of the audit our intergovernmental agreement with the district also provides that we will pro we will assist as needed during the audit resolution process our typical audit process follow-up process for city audits allows us to answer some detailed questions that the staff may have as they're going through the process of
062implementing audit recommendations and so that's the type of approach that we are available for as the district works on implementing audit recommendations and making changes and so with that i would be happy to answer address any questions that the governing board might have thank you thank you very much as mentioned the audit committee has reviewed these findings and has requested a follow-up to hear back once the district department has implemented its written procedures as part of the follow-up process and board member hart wells and i can speak more a little bit more to that um after any questions board member beckman so jumping off of that is so the the management responses included in the audit report if you have any specific questions about the work that's being done dennis and dan are here they
063could answer any of those specific questions there are some pieces of the work that are still being finalized that we discuss with the audit committee but if there are specific questions about the management response they would be happy to answer those and i would add to that simply that a number of uh if you look at the management response we've agreed to all of all of the elements a number of those changes relate to the contract terms and the contract process those have already been implemented for or most of them have been implemented for the current rebuilds like kiva and will be implemented for future ones the ones that haven't been implemented yet are simply because our legal department is finalizing that contract language we we have not approved it yet either and to note
064our and as was noted by the city auditor we do have a very small team and because of that and and dennis raylor can speak a little bit to this it might slow down our processes a bit in order to go through these written procedures that they're developing we were told that the written procedures uh would hopefully be done end of week this week and that's something that would be followed up on by both the city auditor and the audit committee but for the most part the response i believe covers uh what our district will be doing to implement those changes and board member hartwells i don't know if you have anything you want to add to that not specifically the follow-up was requested by the committee since there were a lot of ongoing and
065already in-process changes being made as well as ms walker indicated the project's not closed out yet so a lot of the financial terms that are in the audit report are really uncertain at this point so there's still a little bit of work to do but there was still a lot learned at this time point that could be implemented and i think the administration felt that it was important to go ahead and get going on that given there are other building construction projects that were being teed up which my understanding and we can get to that the action item but the contracts that we are seeing this evening do are informed by the findings of this report is that let's make sure that was correct it does and i appreciate that i just since we publicly
066have highlighted the findings i wanted to make sure that we publicly were addressing not just detail them not not specifically in the weeds but saying that we have a response to them and that the public would hear about these findings and know what we're doing about it so thank you and if if i might add just for the information for the public in the back of the report there is a two or three page management action plan that is available and the report is a public report board member hart wells so i am as part of the audit committee i i made these comments before on friday when we heard this the findings but i want to say them again because i want to make sure that the community understands the overarching goal of this
067audit and any audit that the audit committee would require as i see it is to improve the organization's efficiency and effectiveness as a whole they're sensitive it's very difficult to have your work analyzed in the kind of detail that this work was analyzed and it involves people so whether it's your colleague or a stranger this is difficult process to go through and there was a lot of good work that occurred and that was sincerely appreciated but that's not necessarily the goal of an audit and it's not going to find itself into the audit report so i'd ask if when you read this document that you keep that in mind i want to acknowledge though that the very good hard work by the staff and all of the many other folks that who were involved in
068this project to the builders architects engineers administrators but again the goal is not to highlight good work it's to focus on ways that the enterprise can improve itself and as a consequence to lower the risk to the enterprise and to that end i want to say thank you again to miss walker and the city auditor team leigh for all of the work and that went in and is now represented into this honest report i thought again it was making clear though that the report is not based on a finalized project so this is still a little bit of a moving target okay thank you thank you board member hardwells i believe that as well said i think uh if i do do any other board members have any questions or comments at this time i
069just echo those sentiments i think you know this was our first major internal audit we audited a team that is very small and extremely busy and they produced all the reports there was no notation that anything was withheld everything was provided as as needed by both the contractors we worked with the vendors as well as district personnel there were some delays just because there's some delays in in time we really appreciate our partnership with our vendors and our district personnel the work they do is is is quite incredible and i would just ask i see a board member lindsay has a question but i would just ask um at a high level uh superintendent mental and what would you say is the cost benefit analysis for this audit i it costs uh taxpayers it cost
070the district about 90 000 uh i think it's well spent but how does the how does the administration view this this works so i would i would concur that that the value for the expenditure has been realized in a number of ways uh some of which might be in actual dollars as we settle the contracts and at the end of any construction project uh there's a review process to make sure that we've documented everything appropriately and that was one of the points if this had been a concluded project completely then you would have a different conclusion here to be able to answer that question differently but i would i would point out that there are some of those things that will be resolved as a matter of course in reviewing this and this has kind
071of highlighted some of the conversations that we need to be having to close out each of the contracts the other piece that i think is hard to quantify but really important are the changes that we have in establishing an independent architecture architect contract in modifying some of the cmar contract provisions and so when you look at it in its totality the the return on investment for susd i think is pretty significant i don't know how it it compares with other city audits that you found but my belief is that by improving our practices in in the ways that have been recommended here i will be able to realize more efficiencies in our construction management process thank you board member lindsey yeah i just had a question on here there were high dollar change orders that
072should have been brought to the board for approval they weren't what recourse is there with that like i mean what happens when things happen that should get board approval they don't get board approval i would turn to uh to our general counsel to answer that question there's items in this report that said that the governing board should approve of approved items that were approved without governing board approving them so what recourse is there when that happens [Applause] because obviously that's a rule so when something gets approved that should have come to the governing board and it didn't come to the governing board what happens with that well certainly what you're talking about is expenditures that didn't get approved and hearing those expenditures would need to go back to the board and be ratified from there
073and so there's a ratification process when we go back i don't know if jennifer has anything more president greenberg's members governing board mr lindsay if if i understand correctly your concern is that the some of them the change orders were not yeah and there was a uh what is it the base the basic service fee okay and so my understanding is that derives from policy not from the procurement code so your general counsel is correct that ratifying that expense would be one way to address it but i don't know that that's necessarily required under the procurement code unless it was above and beyond the scope of what's required there that's the answer thank you and again just to reiterate because the contract has not been that the construction work has not been finalized there are
074still these punch list items our district's management has intimated to us that there that there's still that reconciliation process with the construction the cmar in order to determine what those savings will be and what that final figure will be and then we can report back on a numerical evaluation of cost benefit analysis as well as what benefited but certainly for example in addition that there's the elements we have to discuss like the transaction privilege tax being being added on there and recouping that um does that answer your question yeah and i just had one more the uh cmr transfer funds and savings from the various gmp line items and the auditors and district staff had requested during the audit and the seymour had not provided those details is that normal they indicated that they had
075not closed out their books yet and so they didn't have all those details available yet and so that would be one of the items that the district should be following up on as that project gets closed out that all of those estimates contingencies allowances that weren't specifically called out that were used for different project needs all of that should be accounted for as part of the closeout process okay thank you vice president zanowski yes miss walker i noted that two of the three recommendations seem to be very front-end procedural improvements is that is that typical that you see in audits i mean i think it's a good thing because as we're moving forward with some of our work we can address it before these bigger projects begin but is that typical to these results these
076recommendations and each audit is kind of unique and in in terms of they seem to be front end i guess i'm not quite following that established requirements for closer review of subcontractor selections the procedures for reviewing progress payments changes to work quality control those seem to be um administrative systemic front-end issues right as was referenced the building services area has primarily two staff who are handling these projects and it's not uncommon to find in an area that has a very small number of staff to find that they're a little bit informal but actually establishing procedures having written guidance and forms that help manage the process even when you have a very small staff helps make sure that things don't get missed or forgotten and so in that case in that respect they there are some
077front-end recommendations and they're directed at trying to provide some structure so that it's actually easier for the small staff to keep track of things if i may i keep hearing we have a small staff in this i'm very aware of the the people who are doing the heavy lifting and i appreciate the work that is getting done is this potentially an opportunity for us to examine the effectiveness and efficiency of having that small staff and maybe since we have so many big projects still coming up um that we look at providing the assistance with additional personnel specific to that apart department so you can move forward with better ease that was part of what we discussed at the audit committee meeting there are choices that we get to make in terms of our risk management
078and if if you spend less in terms of having people to manage the process you might have greater risk if you spend more in order to have people to to implement the recommendations here they reduce the risk so that's the topic of conversation thank you i appreciate that conversation thank you uh dr mensah i just wanted to make one other clarifying point related to mr lindsay's question on the um expenditures over a hundred thousand uh prior to my arrival there was a belief that when the board approved the project that that any of those changes could they were approved de facto since i got here and since shannon took over as cfo we've followed the governing board policy to bring any changes over a hundred thousand to the governing board so those decisions were made
079prior because there was just an interpretation that the board approved the project we could do this we we understand the expectation of the governing board differently so we've been bringing those to the board for approval are there any further questions or comments well thank you again to our department you've done an excellent job especially being the first into the fire as they say thank you to our construction vendors uh for participating in this thank you to the city of scottsdale for this uh excellent joint venture truly i think we can only better each other with with more city to district cooperation so thank you very much as well to you and your staff with that the board will now move to agenda item 7b mno override capital override and bond fiscal year 2021 report dr
080menzel thank you president greenberg and members of the governing board each year we're required by state statute to present an update on our override and bond fiscal expenditures for the prior year and shannon crozier is here to lead us through that information yes thank you bring this up here okay uh president greenberg vice president's now schemes members of the board dr menzel and guest tonight we are looking at expenditures from last year for our bond and overrides as well as budget for next for this carrot year that we're in we are required to do so by state statute we're required to present this information by october 31st thus we are here tonight looking at these two items first one being the maintenance and override maintenance and operations override this was passed by our voters in
081november of so we're in year two well we finished year two we're in year three now of it it expires in 20 of the fiscal year 24 25 so we have a little bit of time before that goes through and before we have to look at whether or not we're ready to do another mno override but that just gives you a timeline of when things are so for the mono override there were specific items within the pamphlet that described how we would spend those override dollars maintaining current classroom ratios all day kindergarten music art world language athletics co-curricular activities technology which added a few teachers for technology staff development which the main component of that was we added five additional days to the teacher contract um so that they would have additional time before school
082after school to to do those professional development days and to provide competitive teacher pay looking at last year you can see we had twenty million point eight twenty point eight million that was utilized or received for the m override looking at the breakdown again the bulk ends up being in maintaining classroom ratios keeping those ratios lower than what they would have to be if we didn't have that override next biggest area being music art foreign language athletics and co-curricular activities we follow with that same pattern as you can see going into the budget for this year i will point out one of the things i looked at and i'm sure others might notice is that actual for last year is a little bit higher than budget for this year the reason for that being is
083that amount is set when you do your adopted budget and when we did our adopted budget last year we had a much higher adm we did not anticipate the changes that would be happening with coven and the amount of students going in so if you look at that and think well why did it why did that go down a little bit that's the reason why next one is our capital override otherwise known as a district additional assistance override that was approved by the voters in 2016. we have that one until 23-24 school year one of the things that we'll need to be looking at discussing soon is do we want to go for an early election which would be november of 22 it's a little bit more than a year from now or wait till
084november of 23 in which case if it did not pass those funds would would end the capital override is set in a flat amount of 8.5 million dollars which is what the pamphlet shows for curricular materials school technology furniture fixtures equipment fine arts athletic library programs and then playgrounds equipment and safety we don't always spend that amount so as you can see the actual is lower than 8.5 million in some cases we know that we're purposely holding money for the next year because we have a bigger project so we spent less than the 8.5 million last school year which is why when you look at this budget it's more than 8.5 million because there's carryover dollars that'll be allocated to those programs based off of what they haven't spent so far the last one is
085the bond the bond was basically to renovate and renovate and construct new schools school safety and for transportation buses white fleet that bond was for 229 million dollars we have spent a considerable amount of it we've actually gone out for all of our bonds so we have all cash on hand now for those bonds totaling the 229 million this just kind of looks at where where do we move forward for the budget we have 78 million still set aside for this year and that leaves a budget balance of 72 million for the future projects that'll go forward after this this school year as we move on but you can see where that breaks down bulk of it where we receive the money where we've spent the money we still have money to spend is within
086that renovate and remodel schools that's the kiva project finishing up hohogam to von and pueblo along with the small maintenance items that we still need to do at schools that being said i just wanted to share a little bit and this doesn't go into great detail but gives a little idea of some of the projects that have happened cherokee was finished up that view right there i think is like the postcard view of the school it's a beautiful school the saguaro innovation center hohokum again incredibly beautiful school that's now completed and then this is the desert mountain high school football field with a new artificial turf that doesn't tell you all of the amazing things that we've done with our bond projects and what all dennis and his team have been incredibly busy doing so
087i want to make sure that everybody knew that we had this sway link that's on our district website under the bond programs and this will tell you everything you want to know about bond it will tell you exactly down to the detail the po numbers how much we've spent you can see it by program i'm just going to scroll over a little bit life cycle financial overview how much was life cycle how much was rebuilds security what some of the common terms are that you'll see so if you're looking at it going what is pre-construction services it'll share with that but it tells you by school what was done how much we've spent if there's still projects to happen there and i'm going to click on let me move forward through here breaks it down
088by learning community what's completed what hasn't been completed pictures so you can see all of the detail from the beginning of our bond through now what has happened and what your dollars have gone to so i just wanted to make sure that that was out there that anybody who wants to have a better understanding of all of the projects that we've done from the beginning of the pro of the bond it's all there it's there for them to see exactly how we spent and and just the great things that have happened on all of our campuses whether they were remodeled or rebuilt or not where those dollars were spent so with that i will open it up for questions thank you are there any board member questions or comments board member beckman something this is
089that is on the website if you go to the district website and you look at bonds you will see that it takes you to links where again you can see the detail down to the po and exactly how much was spent on that po for that project yes vice president zanowski mr raylor can you share who helped with the sway i think he's got a secret team of amazing college students high school and college students that were working on it but i'll let him share good evening president greenberg members of the board dr menzel uh yes the sway was created by a young man named gatlin farrington he is a proud chaparral alum that is now in his second year at asu it was his he was his brainchild and we gave him all the
090information that he needed and he did a fantastic job for us love that thank you are there any other questions or comments just to clarify on the capital override will the administration be bringing forward a recommendation as to when we should first go out for that yes we'll be reviewing the pros and cons of taking an early approach november of 2022 versus waiting until the drop dead date it's my understanding that most districts in arizona prefer to approach the early election date in order to be able to go back again if it were not to be successful but we'll do an analysis of the pros and cons and bring forward a recommendation before the deadline by which we have to make that determination thank you are there any other questions or comments thank you very
091much the board will now move to agenda item 7c first read of proposed revisions to policy ihamb family life education dr menzel thank you president greenberg and members of the governing board the next five agenda items are all policy related and i'm gonna invite general counsel lori byrd to the podium she's worked on the specific revisions that are here and is able to answer any questions you might have let me pull up the first policy that we're going to talk about here so that everyone is on the same page and we can see what it is that we're doing i just want to make a general comment if i may with the permission of the board that applies to all of the agenda items which is these policies were all being brought before you because
092there have been statutory changes in the law and because of those statutory changes we had some policies that were out of alignment and we of course want to bring those policies into alignment with the law the other thing i want to mention is that there have been some items that were mentioned by some of our public speakers tonight that have to do not with the policies but with the regulation and again i will tell you that the policies are to align with the law and then specifics of curriculum for example and what can and can't be in the curriculum falls under regulation we wouldn't want to change regulation until we've gotten your approval for what happens in the policy language and so and again even in our regulations we want to be in compliance with
093the law and of course when we adopt policy and look at policy we're going to make sure that everything that is required by statutes included and nothing that is prohibited by statute is not included so we are only doing policies right now certainly uh you know the regulation piece you'll be given a copy of those regulations once they're developed the first policy we're going to look at has to do with family life education or more colloquially colloquially known as sex ed the i'm going to highlight the changes in the law you can see that the black line is what we needed to take out of existing policy what you're seeing up there is existing policy with the changes that are being proposed so the legislature this past term prohibited schools from teaching family life education
094or what's more commonly known as sex ed before the fifth grade although it was not our practice to teach family life education before middle school our policy as you can see said k-8 so we needed to take out things that seem to imply that sex eb was being taught prior to grade eight the policy then goes down anything that is underlined is suggested language from our policy service that i've reviewed and has been reviewed although they do a very very good legal review as well this suggested policy language is what aligns us to the statute and as you can see the very first thing is that we are going to get parental consent again we have always gotten parental consent it just wasn't spelled out as clearly uh in our policy languages perhaps it could
095have been in prior policy so we are proposing to add the language that you see on the screen about parental consent and the times that you need to have parental consent where you'll notice that we're adding language about the ability of parents to review curriculum and to review prior to giving the consent what their children are going to be taught and there's time parameters in there as to when and how that has to be accomplished you'll see that what's uh lined out here because now there's no real distinction between grades nine through twelve um this was outdated language that doesn't align the underlined language really sets forth how we're going to adopt any curriculum we are not adopting new curriculum right here tonight today what we're doing is putting a policy in place and then
096we will follow the mandate of statute when and if we need to propose any new policy i know that um you have received some information regarding the curriculum that's currently in use and that isn't changing at this juncture in time and so if there are any questions those are the highlights in terms of what's changed in the law and why i'm bringing the policy before you are there any questions i'm here to answer questions if you have questions about prior implementation we also have some content experts available to answer your questions board member hart wells thank you this isn't necessarily a question but i think it pertains to all of the policies we see this evening and in our conversation and talking about these policy drafts i just want to underscore what miss bird said
097about how these policies and how our policy numbers work we have the policies which are the law and then you have implementing regulations and so our policies that have a dash with an r after it are the implementing regulations you can't have an implementing regulation until you have a policy and then there are exhibits and the exhibits have a dash with a capital e after them those are like implementing guidelines documents a lot of times the administration will use checklists you know processes sops those are also not in place until the regulations in place which can't be in place until the policy is in place so we're just at step one i think there might have been some confusion um about that process um but that's just how law in the united states works correct
098and and thank you for obviously some regulations may be out of alignment and those regulations they will be reconciled policy as well as anything that wasn't in the policy but we still have to follow in the way of law right but we have to at the moment this evening all of the policies that are on the agenda are were amended in a last state legislature session right that is we're recalibrating our policies to align with current state law and then the regulations and or exhibits as applicable will then be revised that's correct thank you board member beckman thank you um yeah these are the the policies what was referenced if you look down and actually it's not in this policy the administrative code sets forth when and how we the state board of education is
099the one that sets those regulations so the administrative code was also adjusted to be in line with the statutory changes and those changes are the exact same changes that are outlined here so not only are we aligning to statute but we're aligning to the state board of education's regulations that we're also required to follow but there is no change in the regulation that's not reflected within within our policy i i it looks like i didn't answer your question is there a okay are there any other questions or comments just to be very clear the governing board to reiterate board member hartwell's point the governing board reviews and passes policy regulations are the administration's function that carried out on a day-to-day basis those are implemented to carry out the policies we adopt the governing board does
100not review or approve them and to board member or to council birds point the comments tonight relate to that the public made relate to the regulation that is not being amended tonight correct it has nothing to do with the policy that the governing board is reviewing and uh tonight thank you even all everything's reviewed to make sure that scottsdale remains in compliance with all applicable laws so if something is struck uh or changed in all likelihood there's an underlying statute or regulatory change that required that thank you are there any further questions or comments the board will now move to agenda item 7d first read of proposed revisions to policy jfb open enrollment i need just a minute here for us to get on the screen so let me again preface this one by saying
101this one is going to be another policy that will have regulat um changes made after we approve the policy i will tell you that this is it's not a major change in practice but the legislature did put a lot of words in that we're now required to reflect in our policy the biggest changes just to summarize without going through you know what's what's a fairly lengthy document i know you've all had the opportunity i hope to review the document is that capacity at each school site will now be posted it's a transparency issue it will now be posted on the school's website so that anyone who is interested in open enrolling their student at a particular school will be able to see how full that school is in terms and whether or not they are
102in fact accepting open enrollment there's also no deadline so to speak for open enrollment so parents can apply for open enrollment at any school that has capacity throughout the school year and there is an a oh you didn't get your application in by a certain date therefore you're not going to be considered in the line so to speak for open enrollment it does require that students be put on a wait list if there is not room for them at a particular school and that those spots that people come off the wait list at any time a seat becomes available the other thing that this does that's a change uh i mean i will tell you when i reviewed this scottsdale actually has an open enrollment policy that's been pretty expansive um we we've welcomed many
103kids into the into the district and allowed them to choose schools that their parents best feel fits their needs but there are some changes to the priority category so all students are prioritized and the priority categories have changed somewhat [Music] and we have to align how we were prioritizing students for those open spaces with now what the law tells us are the priority categories and they are actually spelled out fairly clearly uh both in the proposed policy and the statute of kind of who's first in line second online third in line for those different spots we are having continuing conversations about the implementation of this policy you'll notice that the definitions of capacity are x out capacity in a school building at a grade level for general education isn't really something we need to wrestle
104with per se that's pretty much dictated by class size building capacity those kind of things where it gets trickier is what's called our special programs and how to determine capacity in our special programs is something that we're going to have to figure out and i'm going to be completely transparent with you is i probably don't have all of your capacity answers this evening we are meeting on the 29th uh and we can probably answer some more of those questions as it relates to capacity when we come back for for the second read i can't promise you i'll be able to answer all of them it's much trickier to determine capacity for example in a special education program than it is in a general ed third grade classroom and some the legislation itself lacks some definition
105that i would like i wish they would have defined the legislation a little more clearly but we'll figure it out and we'll be able to answer your questions in that regard uh instead of me just sitting up here talking and telling you probably stuff you already know what questions do you have about this particular policy is your microphone on sorry no one can even hear me which i can probably a good thing i don't know um so we did spend some time going over capacity for a really long time we really drilled into that a couple of years ago so i would like to try and get that answer whether they're going to look at like a state facility board capacity which is just pure measurement of the school or they're going to look at
106program capacity because i know when we did our capacity numbers we really did take into consideration that program capacity number as it related to for instance like our stem schools and special education and whatnot because as the public may already know just looking at those sheer numbers of you know a student can fit in a desk and this measurement including a hallway is difficult so i would like to get and the state is not going to give us that definition they haven't given us definition for things like special education capacity and i think there's a variety of considerations when you look at that and the law does require not only that capacity or ability to accept open enrollment students be broken down by grade level but by your special programs and so and that has
107to be updated and posted every 12 weeks on the school website so no they didn't tell us for example what capacity means for a special education program is it the number of students in your specially designed classrooms where they're spending the majority of their school day in that classroom remember we also have capacity reserves for certain types of students you know it's easier to calculate what's the capacity for example of an ib program than it is to calculate is it the caseload of our speech therapists is it again i tell i don't have the answers because we haven't had the ability yet to have that in-depth conversation i can also tell you it's conversations happening in other districts as well as to how to be transparent how to give parents the information they need but
108also be able to serve the children that we're accepting for open enrollment well it does seem to come around every couple years in depth whether it relates to excess capacity as far as people looking at consolidating et cetera and when we were really drilling into ours some of our specific schools have very unique layouts for instance if you take echo canyon and they have very small rooms so this conversation is a more nuanced conversation to where we really need to understand our understand our school specifically as it relates to the programs in them and the capacity available for our students needs at each site so i appreciate you getting that information thank you sure board member hart wells thank you i think that's a very important concept to understand is what do we mean by
109capacity i i can't hear you board member hurt wells i'm sorry is my microphone not on can you hear me i cannot okay just complimenting uh board member beckman's question i think that's an important crux of understanding how this is all going to work i'm sure you're working on that um i actually just have a confirmation question here the chart that we received is this has had you did you prepare this misspell i cannot take credit for that wonderful work that was dr garrett and that's okay i don't have any specific questions but i can i mean we can answer questions that you have about i don't have specific questions on it i just want to make sure it had been reviewed in light of the statutory changes and that's been signed off okay in
110excruciating detail okay very good thank you very much are there any other board member questions or comments i will only comment to the effect of the general debate over local control if you look at the comparison between what the governing board two years had decided should be the priorities for enrollment compared to what the legislature has now decided they're almost entirely in reverse so that's my only comment there any other further comments or questions thank you very much the governing board will move to agenda item 7e first read of proposed revisions to policy jkd student suspension and where's the black line i almost wish we would have started with simply policy jk because what i'm going to tell you about the next three policies um as they relate to discipline is there are harmonized to
111statute in the same way the primary change is that there are i would disincentives is the wrong word but it is not favored to discipline students through expulsion or through suspension in the fourth grade students below the fourth grade fourth grade and below and so the changes that you're going to see and they're highlighted here lay out the procedural steps that need to occur if in fact you happen to have a student for whom the administration the site administration feels uh needs this particular form of discipline and they are the the changes themselves are to try to keep kids in school so that we're not removing kids from the learning environment unnecessarily and then you know i'm i'm divining the mind of the legislators but but based on it's here it's to keep kids in
112school to keep them learning but also instead of just kind of a punitive measure provide some underlying support that may or may not get to the root cause of whatever the behavior is and kind of set them on a better path um as they move forward and so what you see these policies were mostly primarily additions to our existing suspension policy that apply k all the way up through 12 but now we're adding kind of these special caveat sections uh for example you can no longer suspend or expel a kindergartner if they're below the age of seven you there there are other measures other disciplinary measures you can take but the legislature determined that you know what you just can't do it for a kid under seven years old and so these are the procedures
113that and the steps although i i say steps hesitantly because they're not necessarily sequential in the new language that have to be taken for some of our youngest learners it also requires a readmission policy which we've always had for the suspensions particularly the long-term suspensions but i do want to point out that for the youngest students this we're not just talking about longer term suspension suspensions beyond 10 days we're even talking about those one-offs and um that that could be a change from current practice and from what was outlined in uh the existing statute uh this is not a change as you can see the only change is because when i was going through and reviewing this it simply didn't read well to me when it said step two following step one that seemed a
114bit redundant to me it is not a content change you will just see those [Music] so that and as you can see that none of this has changed this is all existing these are all existing policies board member hart wells thank you well as you know i'm a big fan of tightening up language so thank you for doing that mike my comment and question is really drawn to jk jkd and jke because i think they all are in that kind of same universe yes and generally we had a conversation and the question is is there annual training this is a very important topic that no staff member should be ambiguous about what the rules are and what the level of their authority is to discipline a student and to what extent so my question and
115if the answer is what i think it is i have done a little bit of questioning already is there annual training required of all the staff to ensure that there is a current legal context of everyone's understanding of what these policies are and where the law is this could be a moving target including due process rights of the students and the students and parents rights involved in this process that's a question for whomever let me try to break your question down a little bit so i reviewed our current moodles and on our moodles which is the system for that we use the staff does annual training i did not find it a specific training module that addressed the jk policies particularly the long term suspension and discipline expulsion policies which is where the bulk of
116your due process writes because you're you're talking about taking away a right you're talking about removing a child from school for an extended period of time so in terms of our moodles i didn't find a policy or a training there but what i will tell you is i know that our principals in our administration and our site staff is expected to follow policy as part of their job and to know um you know what they can can't do when it comes to disciplining their student and the process that needs to be followed that being said [Music] in terms of peripheral staff others on campus i don't believe that that same expectation maybe exists because they're not the ones imposing the discipline and when we get to expulsion we can talk a little more about those
117due process rights but as it stands now there isn't anything that requires staff to be trained on the processes for suspension and suspect at least not that's written down now in practice there may be something else you're on yeah do you want to come up here melissa that is correct there is not a single module through our google platform for all staff however there is yearly training for our administrators who are implementing the uniform code of conduct thank you i'd like the board to consider adding to all three of these policies a requirement for annual training of all staff who interact with students on the current legal context of these three policies including due process rights of the students rights and the parents rights are there any board member questions or comments or responses to
118board member hartwell's request vice president zanowski i would just like to note that i do appreciate what dr hart wells just said and i also think it's important not just for administrators to be aware of this but i also think it's important for all staff members to be aware of these laws and these changes because um being on the other end as a teacher i think there are times when teachers expect discipline to follow actions without understanding the laws so i think it would be helpful i know it's one more thing to add but maybe it can be blended in with some of the most prevalent changes to the the current laws and they're actually the staff is already asked to be updated and applied on the changes to the law it just hasn't happened
119yet and you know it would be nice to have the policy in place and then we can can go ahead and train them all on the policy but the staff also has been asking questions about what does this mean for us what can we do what can't we do and have been eager to know the parameters around some of this new statutory language sure appreciate that thank you and just one last comment we actually have our outside counsel through udall shimway one of our partners doing this particular training this thursday so we are beginning to train on discipline and we'll continue to ensure that our administrators are aware of the policy changes and any regulation changes board member hart wells thank you dr sagos who who is receiving that training art assistant principles okay i
120would like the apollos i would like that to be considered more broadly there are other staff that are involved in these potential situations that i think again in my view also as an educator i'm required to do ferpa training once a year regardless and we do it through a moodle type thing and i find that this content is equally important as educational rights under the federal law this is state law and i see it as almost the same so if i understand what the board is asking is that when we go back uh in the second read there'd be some language included uh across these policies that talks about training is that i believe this of the board i believe we would like to see uh that language added as as an optional language to
121the effect that training will be provided to all staff i know you're not voting you're not correct um as optional for for us to discuss i would request though that the administration uh join provide a recommendation as to the utility of that of that additional language as well as the feasibility of carrying that out and whether that is recommended or not before the board votes votes to adopt it okay i understand what you're asking now board member hot button um when we would be wanting to require or have our educators actually get this training would it be before school every year would it be ongoing what kind of what all of it would look like well i mean in terms of ongoing i can tell you that i know that you know the assistant soups
122always provide ongoing training and everyone in the district has access to their you know various administrators as well as myself so but in terms of formal lies here's what you know you're going to know that we'll certainly have a conversation about what um you know the recommendation would be in terms of policy okay are there any further questions or comments the board will now move to agenda item seven f first three to propose revisions to policy j k e expulsion of students so this policy has been conformed to statute just like jkd was the language that you see here is in fact almost identical and in fact probably is identical although i'm not going to claim that i went through it absolutely word for word and made sure that every single word uh was the
123same um again there are the readmission procedures um let's see the other thing that was in existing policy and again this was more the policy is written was confusing so it had first it had language about expulsions are going to be held by a theory then it had language about or you know later on it had language about well the governing board is going to do this so my recommendation and again this is a first read so uh you know provide me with your feedback is that and based on conversations we've had in the past i harmonized this as if a hearing officer was going to be the person who initially heard the expulsion case and then they would bring that recommendation to the board as opposed to the governing board itself holding because it
124was my understanding one that that was the practice anyway and the policy just wasn't clear so although this that you see isn't necessarily as the language it's cleaning up as as dr hartwells would say confusion within the statute within the policy itself and certainly it can always be changed if that's something that is concerning to you board member lindsay yeah just out of curiosity the previous policy had a whole section about alternative to suspension yes and this one doesn't have anything about alternative to expulsion correct um alternative to suspension was in place prior glory sorry i can hear better when i stand closer um alternatives to suspension was in the policy prior so i didn't touch that and i didn't add it to expulsion because it wasn't in there before and it wasn't required by
125statute i mean certainly again as board members that's something that you can have a discussion about and you know but i have trouble if if it's an alternative to expulsion which means removing the child from the school district then does the alternative become long-term suspension or i guess maybe that's so that's part of what is an alternative to expulsion would be the question i would kind of ask that you consider as you're thinking about maybe adding this into the expulsion policy that you really play that out as to what that would look like in what circumstances it would involve because expulsion really is our most substantial and severe disciplinary consequence and so and there are many due process that's why the most due process rights are attached to this particular form of discipline but my
126only request is that as you're writing and considering this policy that you would kind of flesh out what that would look like maybe dr menzel wants to weigh in i just know it's something that's become very popular with school districts to to not go to these lengths and they have that alternative yeah i i support the idea of exploring alternatives to expulsion when and where possible and i think we just need to spend a little time talking about what it might look like in terms of the policy language and then to laurie's point practically what does that mean for us do we have to do something differently here or are there other options that we can specifically enumerate so thank you board member beckman so i'm curious i have seen before other districts doing the
127long-term suspension thing as to not have the expulsion on the student's record when so they would use it to your point when a minute ago when you said that becomes a long-term suspension instead so that the student doesn't have that on their record when they go somewhere else or for re-admits or whatever and so i don't think that's what we're exploring necessarily but my question is is this scottsdale online was considered in this as far as the um an alternative to expelling them to didn't we dr sakos can you weigh in on that sure we do have a current process hello hello um we do have a current process for alternative to expulsion and have had for several years i want to say six seven years and the alternative is to enroll in scottsdale online
128or another educational institution with stipulations for return to scottsdale unified those being maintaining a grade point level addition or no additional con or behavioral incidents and then some rehabilitation for the reason why they were out such as drug and alcohol programming etc so we do have something currently in place that we can we can share with the board um so that you can see what we have been doing and then specifically to specific to language we do have language in the code of conduct on alternative to suspension and we can certainly explore some language in alternative to expulsion the code of conduct committee gets underway here next month and so these are things that also go to that group for discussion and consideration to align our state and local policies and uh mr lindsey if
129you'll see there are still the same re-admittance uh provisions so that does give the student away they're not kicked out of school forever i guess there is a way for a student to re-enter our district if certain conditions are met but that's not the same as the alternative to expulsion because of course the expulsion then still shows up on the student's record if it's a true expulsion so what we have done is um we have aligned those admittance requirements from an expulsion to the readmission requirements for an alternative to expulsion and so they're very much the same except for an alternative expulsion allows for us to be able to continue to provide some programming in our district or for a student to go somewhere else for that period of time to to get their education
130and then hopefully come back to us right and i do also want to point out that if you re you know if you read through the policy uh some of these provisions are governed by the idea in their discipline policy for students with disabilities so there's somewhat of a different process students with disabilities can still be disciplined but there are parameters set by the individuals with disabilities in education act that governs how those different discipline scenarios play out board member lindsay my question was answered board member hart wells thank you dr sakos um you mentioned that this process has been in place for uh several years an alternative to expulsion using so is there a reason why that process has not been codified into policy that you're aware of not that i'm aware of i
131don't have control over my mic over here no particular reason other than it provides a a level of specificity that may change from year to year and is more i think it more equates to something as an exhibit not necessarily board policy or regulation so we could make you know there could be consideration of of us doing an exhibit but there's no particular reason i can think of okay thank you are there any other questions or comments my only question relation to all these policies is that following a hearing officer's recommendation to the board the student has the opportunity to appeal to the governing board itself if it disagrees with that recommendation correct that is correct thank you any other questions or comments would we like we like the administration to consider adding language about
132an alternative to expulsion so if that could be considered as well an alternative to expulsion language thank you the governing board will now turn to agenda item 7g first read of proposed revisions to policy jk student discipline how parents so i i guess i'm really going to ask do you have any questions on this this is the overarching general discipline policy for students who aren't necessarily going to be suspended or expelled and it again just harmonizes and reiterates the statutory language regarding students fourth grade and younger and one of the things that was in there that i xed out was it said or charter school board and i just i mean obviously you are not a charter school board so that language was taken out and then subsequently removed from jkd and jke thank you
133board member hart wells just as i indicated miss bird i have a few editorial feedback comments and i can just send those to you by by email i think they're not substantive changes and just a few things i caught um i'd like to share i just like to reiterate my request for the board to consider uh training being included in the policy and i wasn't just thinking of necessarily teachers i was actually thinking also security officers thank you are there any other questions or comments thank you the governing board will now turn to agenda item eight consent agenda are there any questions about the consent agenda as amended dr mental might one very quick comment here on the payroll vouchers uh the date seems off is there a reason why it's not up to date
134to last week because the board agenda packet was due before fall break right and so it was due to gladys up by the 8th in order to give hr time to review all of the information they had a due date of the 5th or the sixth whatever date is here and it was because of the fall break window that it's not more current thank you i just want to make that clarification for the record the chair moves to approve the consent agenda as amended is there a second second vice president zanowski seconds it has moved and segmented that the board approved the consent agenda as amended all those in favor say aye aye aye the motion carries 5-0 we will now turn to consent agenda item 8i authorization of expenditure willman constructioning for saguaro film
135room vice president zanowski yes dennis i i do want to make a comment that i did appreciate miss crozier already pointing out sway because it's a very useful tool as are the smart sheets that are also available so thank you for putting all that together and those details because i i do not recall in my with my history in scottsdale schools being able to monitor not that i'm interested in monitoring the penny spent but just seeing that the work that's being done on the bond projects so thank you i i did want to bring this one particular item up and this is for the film room at saguaro um because i had some questions about the executive summary and progress on the 2016 bond projects to note there are 465 projects on that bond 375
136have been completed five that includes five school rebuilds right so this is quite impressive work so thank you i wanted to bring that into public's view because i think that's very noteworthy i have a question on the practices in determining how these project savings are allocated because as i understand well why don't you share with me uh or with us the um where this money is coming from for the film room yes good evening president greenberg members of the board vice president sinowski the typically we try and keep the money within the school so if we do realize savings we try and keep that money there at the school so if they have other projects that they would like to see happen we try and make that happen in the case of saguaro high school
137the tennis court replacement project was budgeted originally at 1.5 million dollars that project came in at 867 so as you can see a substantial savings there at saguaro now some of those dollars can also offset a project that was never originally on the bond list and that's the innovation center and the rest of it will go back to unallocated so again we first our first priority to spend it at the school if there are other needs elsewhere in the district then we will look at moving those it is not an easy task to say yes or no to a project that was never on the list mostly because we want to make sure that everybody gets what they need as you might imagine literally every school comes to us on a regular basis needing something
138this 229 billion million dollar million dollar not billion bond is not nearly enough to take care of our nearly 4 million square feet of school buildings there's always going to be a need in this case we had recently done the field house at arcadia and i believe i'd had several conversations about opening a particular pandora's box and voila here you go so saguaro high school would like to do this work at their school they have commitments from their booster program and other members of the saguaro community to help pay for some of this it is most often my preference not to have boosters or donors do some of this more physical work to our buildings sometimes we don't get the product that we're looking for sometimes they cut corners because they're trying to just spend
139as little money as possible so in this case the discussion was concrete tiered seating theater seating is not something that we can skimp on we have to have structural engineer design it and then we have to do that work to specifications and then the second thing was the electrical they've got a pretty significant electrical requirement for all of the lighting for the room so we wanted to make sure that those two things that require code compliance ada code compliance and then electrical and structural code compliance that we made sure that those were met beyond that anything else in the room is going to be the responsibility of the campus so the audio visual the artwork on the walls the flooring all of that stuff can be done of course still through our our purview to
140make sure that it's done right um but but those are things that don't and can't materially affect the building itself that's very helpful thank you dennis um one more thing and i don't know if you can answer this so i understand if you can't but because the project's not done but what is the intent of the room other than as i see it for football play review will it be open to other student clubs teams classes throughout the campus so as i mentioned in the agenda item it will be available for all of the teams during their seasons but athletic director matt harris text me today and said hey don't forget if they ask to speak to staff training opportunities it's going to have 75 seats in it so that takes a good portion of
141their staff that they can have a venue to also do staff training and other things so this is really going to be in their minds a multi-purpose facility football first but then everybody else will get that chance to use it as well super thank you i appreciate that you're welcome thank you are there any other questions to agenda item eight i the chair moves to approve consent agenda item eight i authorization uh the authorization of expenditure will make construction for saguaro film room is there a second second vice president sinowski seconds is moved in second to approve agenda consent agenda item eight i authorization of expenditure will make construction inc for saguaro film room all those in favor say aye aye aye the motion carries 5-0 the board will now move to consent agenda item
1428 j approval of award of requests for proposal number 22 1826 travel agency and tour events board member beckman hi there um the reason i pulled this is it was a substantial sum and when something is substantial like that i would like our leadership team to speak to it and kind of get a little more specific about you know what it's concerning etc for us and for the public absolutely board president greenberg vice president sinowski member beckman our school district in the past has allowed students to travel within the state within the country and within the world really and so with that there comes substantial expense that goes along with it those trips are school sponsored trips they are funded through generally tax credits club activities gift donations fundraising those types of things what this
143rfp was for is because we have spent because we spend over a hundred thousand dollars within all vendors for travel um it's necessary for us to do an rfp or to use a cooperative or some type of agreement or some kind of procurement for it to cover us for those activities pre-covered we did close to two million dollars with travel last year traveled we said no we don't want our kids traveling it's not safe so it was significantly less but as we are working to get back to um pre-covered normal or a new normal i suppose we are seeing that students are beginning to travel again for festivals concerts athletic activities we have a school that has been given the opportunity to do a study abroad in through the theater program in scotland where they're
144the ones asked to be there they have to they have to part they have to qualify for that so with that we are starting to see travel become more of a thing within our students and a little bit within our staff as well for conferences so what this basically does is says these are the companies that we have gone out that we selected through our through our rfp process to be able to cover our students there are a number of them because there's different trips depending on what you're doing and so sometimes it's more appropriate to go directly to a travel agent to have them create the trip that is more specific to what you're looking to do whereas other groups have tours that it's a specific time specific date they're going to very specific
145places like washington dc is a really popular one and it's very regimented this is what you'll do the teacher doesn't have as much flexibility so by having tour a travel agent as well as tour companies in here it gives our students our staff a little bit more flexibility to look at what suits their need best for student travel thank you i appreciate that thank you are there any other board member questions or comments [Applause] the chair moves to approve agenda item the consent agenda item 8 j approval of award of request for proposal number 22 1826 travel agency and tour events is there a second second board member backman seconds has moved inside that the board approved consent agenda item eight j approval of award of request for proposal number 22 1826 travel agency and
146tour events all those in favor say aye aye the motion carries 5-0 the board will now move to con action item 9 a approval pre-construction services contract for rfq number 22 2026 construction manager at risk for pueblo elementary school dr menzel thank you president greenberger members of the board tonight you have in front of you a proposal for approving the pre-construction services contract mr raylor and miss mclennan from gus rosenfeld are here to answer any questions you might have with respect to the proposed free services contract are there any questions or comments related to agenda item 9a approval pre-construction services contract for rfq number 22 2026 construction manager at risk for pueblo elementary school board member beckman just a generic question given the audit findings are we interpreting some of those findings as we take
147a look at these next contracts that are coming down the road here mr greenberg members of the governing board dr menzel ms wagner and ms beckman the answer to that question is yes dennis and i met with the auditors who presented to you this evening in august specifically to review the construction management at risk contract and one of the recommendations that they made was to separate out the contract documents so that you will have a pre-construction contract to cover the services up until the board considers a guaranteed maximum price proposal and so that's uh the direction that is being presented to the board tonight another one of their recommendations was that the pre-construction contract contained not just the percentage cost for the project but an actual dollar figure and so that's also being presented we
148did review with the auditors that you found here tonight both their forms the forms the city of scottsdale uses their suggested changes and i followed them out this evening and asked permission to send them the changes that i will be making to the construction management risk contract for general construction services to ask for their assistance if the superintendent and the board approves that cost so thank you are there any further questions or comments regarding agenda item 9a approval of pre-construction services contract for rfq number 22 2026. the chair moves to approve action item 9a approval of pre-construction services contract for rfq number 22 2026 construction manager at risk for pueblo elementary school is there a second board member hartwell's seconds is moved in segment of the board approve action item 9a approval of pre-construction services
149contract for rfq number 22 2026 construction manager at risk for privilege elementary school are there any final questions or comments i see board member hart wells did you have any no that was an accident sorry no worries wrong button [Laughter] any questions or comments all those in favor say aye aye aye the motion carries 5-0 the board will now move to action item 9b approval pre-construction services contract for rfq number 22 2126 construction manager at risk for tavant elementary school does the board have any questions or comments related to this contract the chair moves to approve action item 9b approval of pre-construction services contract for rfq number 22 2126 construction manager at risk for tavonne elementary school is there a second second vice president zanowski seconds has moved in second that the board approved action
150item 9b approval pre-construction services contract for rfq number 22 2126 construction manager at risk for tavan elementary school any final questions or comments all those in favor say aye aye aye the motion carries 5-0 the board will now move to action item 9c adoption of governing board goals are there any questions or comments related to the adoption of the governing board goals board member heart wells okay thank you i just wish to make it clear to the community that these are goals it is not specifically stated on the background of the agenda that these were goals for the governing board itself not for administration teachers students but for ourselves in an effort to improve our own efficiency and effectiveness in terms of governance of the district thank you are there any other questions or comments
151related to these board goals vice president zanowski and that these were created at our four hour retreat that we had in the mojave library last week thank you my only comment is that i had written to scott and subsequently discussed with dr mental and vice president sanowski a little bit related to the agenda item and board committees as i noted in my email per the board strategy discussion last night the board would like to narrow agenda items to the following three categories as i understand them first those that are legally required second those that will fall within our legislative function and third those that will fall within our appraisal function as established in governing board policy i noted that stanford's graduate school of business corporate governance research initiative provided high level recommendations in 2020 related
152to board organizations and identify key areas that that the legislative and appraisal function covers including and please bear with me as i convert it to district speak but approve the district's strategy test our models and identify key performance measures identify risk areas and oversee risk management plan for and select new executives design executive compensation packages ensure the integrity of published financial statements approve major asset purchases protect company assets and reputation for district assets and reputation represent the interest of our community our students our staff our parents and our community at large ensure the district complies with laws and codes and review culture and tone from the top we do a number of these aspects already our state has dictated to us that a major asset purchase is any expenditure over one hundred thousand dollars and
153we approve all expenditures anyways as part of our uh well most expenditures anyways this is part of our regular and and study session meetings the guidance also provides helpful information on key board committees public publicly traded companies which i guess is the most similar to scottsdale unified school district and and universe public universities generally have three main committees an audit committee which we have already formed a compensation committee that sets the superintendent compensation advises the superintendent on compensation for other assistant superintendents and high-level officers sets performance-related goals for the superintendent determines appropriate structure of compensation monitors the superintendent's performance relative to targets those would be those kpis hires consultants as necessary and of course the governing board itself has its review its mid-year and final review of the superintendent's performance and this would be something
154that complements that as well as establish his way to ways to uh better compensation systems for all of our staff and then a nominating governance committee for our purposes that would really be the standards the policies and procedures for our district manages the board self-evaluation process uh and manages uh other aspects related to the uh superintendent's succession plan as well as other high-level staff succession plans one thing that was noted in the internal audit committee uh is and we've discussed it is the small staff and the organizational structure and one of the concerns was is that if almost everything that is done uh with um in a critical high function area like bond management construction services if two of those individuals are out sick or decide to switch jobs or retire midway through the year
155or what have you who fills that position and how do we plan for that so that's that's what those are the three committees that are generally recommended or are either required to have there are other committees that board members have raised that we could discuss such as a risk risk committee to establish you know what is our appetite for risk in our district and whether we we are okay with putting that level of risk on a department like construction services and like so these will be fared it out i'm sure over the next few months with the administration the governing board what type of committees we want to look for but you know this is kind of the outline of what i've been looking at in terms of agenda setting and board committees uh and
156how to address those are there any questions or remember beckman okay so you just clarified that for me i suppose i was wondering i'm like did i miss something those are all things that you're taking a look at that you will bring before us correct at some point for consideration correct okay yes these are there's no action being taken on these items i just thought uh to make it clear that you know we we are starting progress on these this is uh by no means uh something we're just implementing and these these goals will go out by the wayside i just wanted to provide okay you know we are we are initially looking at these and then if you go further down the road we'll have an opportunity to weigh in on whether we need
157them or not as we decide as a board how they're structured if they're super if they're okay they're reporting okay yes these would all be board committees so they would be subject to the leading law and all open because it would be the board putting these together like the audit committee superintendent mental perfect thank you thank you i would just add that it may also require some policy revision given the current prohibition on standing committees i mean the policy says we won't have standing committees so if we shift that we'll also bring forward the policy changes that are required in order to adopt what structure is ultimately decided by the governing board so it does have to go through that two-step process wonderful just so we'll have a fairly in-depth discussion about how they're going
158to be structured how we want to move forward the need for them etc thank you absolutely i think it's a very good point are there any other questions or comments about the governing board goals as presented tonight the chair moves to approve action item 9c adoption of governing board goals is there a second second vice president sunowski seconds is moved in second to approve action item 9c adoption governing board goals all those in favor say aye aye aye the motion carry is 5-0 the board will now move to agenda item 10 future items board members may propose uh topics for future consideration are there any items of future consideration vice president zanowski yes as it was brought to our attention during public comment this evening the request for public health education and safety campaign sensible
159gun storage i would like for us to pursue that with the resolution are there any other desired future agenda items board member hart wells i think this has already been brought up but just to put it in the right category here a follow-up once the hohokam project is finished and all of the financials have been the pay applications have all been finalized and we have a close out if we could just get an update on how that all reconciles i think that would be great whenever it's ready to go that's not on uh thank you and to note a future item for the audit committee will be to develop a plan for future audits so that will also be brought before the board for discussion and approval are there any further future items board member
160hartwells um i have to thank you i actually have a question about the audit committee and identifying audits will it be the intent of the governing board to identify the subsequent projects or will the audit committee do that and then make a recommendation to the governing board could you just explain to me how that process or remind me how that process is going to work i'm i'm i hate to do this but i'm afraid that isn't a proper question to answer at this time because it's not properly agendized but that we will provide an answer to that question for all board members i think that's very simple for uh superintendent mental and myself to do are there any future items uh to propose for future consideration the board will now move to agenda item 11
161dates of upcoming meetings our next meeting is tuesday november 9th 2021 at 6 pm that is a special governing board meeting at the mda tuesday november 30th 2021 at 6 p.m our regular governing board meeting at coronado high school and i believe we may have a meeting to discuss the superintendent's uh goals and objectives or will that be included as part of a special meeting i think we'll add that on the 9th on the 9th are there any governing board reports board member beckman um thank you for dr menzel and your superintendent comments talking about the play that we have at saguaro but i know that the board as well as the public was also invited to coffee house at saguaro which i happen to be the secretary for the choir boosters as well so
162that's why i'm giving it this plug it's november 3rd 4th and fifth so i hope all of you can attend it's going to be a great night a tradition that they have had for many many years lots of talent and lots of fun thank you board member lindsay yeah first i missed one last month coach cochise had a go gold day for pediatric cancer and the student council asked the families to donate money and they raised 2 600 for phoenix children's hospital which was really good so i wanted to thank miss ledin who's the student council teacher rep student council on the cochise families for being very generous and then this last friday i was at the chaparral football game and the coco paw band got to perform with the chaparral band at halftime they
163did a really great job and then the last one is thursday the orchestra concert at chaparral looking forward to that to watch the kids jam out my daughter will be jamming with her violin so it'll be fun and i think my wife will rather be there than watching the green bay packer cardinal game after what's been happening so vice president zanowski yes i am rsvping for november 3rd for the saguaro coffeehouse i did have the opportunity to see one of our new teachers in scottsdale schools well new to this position and big footsteps to follow and that is a desert mountain high school in the theater program he um adapted homer's odyssey and the students performed it and it was spectacular i also had the opportunity to go to the math party and i'm not
164one who really i will admit it cares much about mathematics myself but i did go to the prisms vr supplemental party and that was super cool that was um i was able to listen to watch and explore with lindsey gilbert and then bernie fritz to see this amazing virtual platform and how it's used and how it will be implemented for student instruction in our district so i'm very excited for students and our teachers to have this upcoming opportunity also saguaro high school had a rocking lunch that officer steele was part of and the guitar class and it was really a neat atmosphere on that campus that day i hope more campuses explore such things like allowing the students to perform in front of their peers i know it takes a lot of courage to do
165that but it was it was a lot of fun and i think all the kids really enjoyed that as to the adults also i did have the the privilege to help the scottsdale branch of the american association of university women read through hundreds of middle school essays it was super exciting and then to participate in the mayor's constitution contest that also included art and podcasts and a video as well the mayor's office did a great job of including our community members and our district in that activity and then um one of the great things about education is to see the exceptional teachers honored and recognized this year at the arizona education foundation teacher of the year award there was a common theme and i was so excited to be there it was overwhelming emotionally i
166was there to support saguaro high school's social studies teacher ashley kroats but was so exceptional about this event is the theme was making the connection between teacher and student learning and that's why teachers teach i mean to see these videos that that the kids made that were they were part of for this process was really amazing and this was a statewide award so kudos to saguaro high school social studies teacher and all the teachers that were part of that it was really really a nice opportunity thank you for my governing board report i will begin reading homer's iliad right now i'm sure we would all agree that'd be a fun use of time for the next week uh are there any final governing board reports vice president zanowski i actually forgot to mention that teacher's
167name at desert mount is shad willingham so kudos to shad it was exceptional to get kids engaged in a production of the odyssey it was really neat thank you the chair moves to adjourn this regular meeting of the scottsdale unified number 48 governing board on october 26 2021 the time is 8 38 p.m this is very second second board member beckman seconds is moved and seconded that the board adjourned this regular meeting of the scottsdale unified number 48 governing board at 8 38 pm all those in favor say aye hi i'm hi the motion carries 5-0 and the meeting is adjourned you