SUSD Governing Board Regular Meeting - 09/28/21

001so the chair calls to order this september 28 2021 regular meeting of the scottsdale unified number 48 governing board the time is 601 pm we will move to the pledge of allegiance as led by ingleside middle school ambassadors i would like to invite dr junior michael to introduce the ambassadors and then we will move to the pledge of allegiance good evening dr menzel am i on is this one good check i'm good all right dr menzel president greenberg governing board members my name is junior michael i'm the proud principal at ingleside middle school and with me i have our student ambassadors and they're going to lead us through the pledge of allegiance of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty the chair

002will have a roll call starting from the right zach lindsey libby heart wells julie sanowski john michael greenberg all five board members are present and there is a quorum the board will now move to agenda item 2d approval of agenda board action required we have a request to move agenda item 7a so that it occurs after agenda item 5. are there any other requests for amendment with no further request the chair moves to approve the agenda as amended is there a second second vice president zanowski seconds it has moved and segmented that the board approved the agenda as amended all those in favor say aye aye aye the motion carries 5-0 the board will move to agenda item 3a public comments notification please note that originally due to time constraints public comment would have been

003limited to 30 minutes with each speaker being given three minutes as board president i am waiving the 30 minute limit but we are reducing the amount of time to speak from three minutes to two minutes to accommodate all the speakers tonight all right the board will now move to agenda item 4 student and staff recognitions and celebrations dr menzel thank you dr mensel and good evening governing board members president greenberg and miss wagner today i come to you with a great deal of excitement to celebrate one of our own dr mensah we would not be nearly as successful at where we are here at susd with our accomplishments in all of our 29 schools without the assistance of those who sometimes very quietly play very key roles today these individuals are critical to the effective

004functioning of our schools and we would be lost without them cochise elementary school principal sheila miller is here tonight to introduce you to one of those individuals mr charles hamilton who brings dedication and commitment with a smile and a stop sign to her school every day i'd like to invite mrs miller and miss aikman here to our podium tonight okay so good evening president greenberg vice president zanowski governing board members dr menzel and mrs wagner dr aikman and i are so glad to be here this evening to celebrate one of our coaches employees charles hamilton charles has been part of our community for the past three years and as you can see he also gets the best dressed award at our school [Applause] so charles works as a crossing guard and a new aid in

005our cafeteria and he really embodies the qualities that we look for in employees at our school he shows up for work early he rarely misses a day of work and he takes his job very seriously understanding that children are at the forefront of everything we do at our school he greets students and families in the morning with a big smile and helps students in the cafeteria with their lunches students look forward to seeing him every day and our staff consider you a huge part of our community charles charles recently celebrated his 80th birthday in august and our community staff and students along with dr menzel came out to help him celebrate so i wanted to say the thing that inspires me most about you charles is your gratitude and graciousness every day you come to

006work so dr aikman is going to share a message from one of our students so charles this message comes to you from hannah aya cavalli and she writes i look at mr charles walking up and down the lunch tables i see one kid drop a blueberry same thing every day he swoops down and sweeps it into the dirty dustpan mr charles is our hero at our school he's been here for quite a while now he's kind he works every day if he wants to or not and always tries his best no matter what also a few weeks ago mr charles turned 80 years old wow i really think mr charles is the best because he works so hard and he's just all in all just an 11 out of 10. we love you mr charles

007[Applause] [Music] mr charles we want to say thank you for choosing cochise and for displaying these extraordinary kindness and qualities every single day we'd like to present you with the coin for excellence and we want to thank you for everything that you do thank you mr charles it's a pleasure [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you mr charles for your dedication to the students at cochise elementary school we at susd could not do what we do without you and people like you who come every day to support our students in our 28 schools so thank you very much i also understand that dr hoggie got and dr sackos have another celebration this evening dr sackos and dr hoggy got i was having fun over there dr mensah but we're ready to celebrate some more thank you dr

008mensel and good evening again president greenberg vice president zanowski governing board members and ms wagner we are pleased to make a joint presentation to you tonight with dr sackos and myself all right it is our honor to celebrate the work of scottsdale unified 29 school principals from pre-k and elementary to middle school high school and online learning susd is proud to call the 29 people whose photos you see there on the screen are school leaders who oversee the learning of 20 of the district's 22 000 students and 15 000 or 1500 teachers wow i really really elevated the workforce here in scottsdale we celebrate susd principles tonight in advance of national principal month that is recognized each october national principal month recognizes the essential role of principals play in making their schools great principals are

009amongst the hardest working yet often least recognized individuals in education principles set the academic tone for their schools it is their vision dedication and determination that are the mobilizing force for outstanding teaching and student learning success in addition to saying a huge thank you to the principals that dr sakos and i work with every day we want to bring you special attention to two of them who have accomplished something quite extraordinary in these times i would like to invite laguna elementary school principal brooke williams to join me here at the podium mrs williams recently successfully defended her doctoral dissertation through the north central university she has been pursuing her doctoral degree for the past three and a half years with her research and writing of her dissertation taking place over the past year her dissertation

010was very fitting to for the curriculum of the school that she leads steam education and inquiry-based instruction she looked in depth of teacher perception about how prepared they feel they are to teach steam curricula she compared the perceptions of teachers who receive long-term professional development with teachers who receive professional development with embedded coaching her conclusion will be impactful as she works to support innovative teaching and future reading and future ready instruction for susd students congratulations dr williams and we'd like to present you with an susd coin for excellence would you like to share some thoughts thank you it has it's been a long three and a half years in the past year itself with everything that was going on was interesting um i do want to thank the teachers that supported me through it my

011own teachers many of them are here today and then the teachers at navajo elementary who helped me with my research as well [Applause] and now i'd like to invite chris osmussen up to the podium please yeah like dr williams dr dr osmussen has been working toward his doctoral degree which he received in april through northern arizona university for his dissertation dr osmusen looked at the impact of social networks on how parents choose schools for their children he was and continues to be interested on how parents friends family and coworkers influence where a parent enrolls their kindergarten through third grade students in a public school notably he found that he found that finding the right school community that supports a child's social and emotional needs was more important than a school's ability to provide outstanding academics

012congratulations dr oswiesen would you like to share anything oh thank you thank you well the challenge point [Applause] thank you dr sackos um i would really want to thank scottsville unified school district because it was the district that pushed me to continue my own education it was um a lot of help from dr bachna who i don't know where she would be but dr bachna helped tremendously dr kim garan was on my dissertation committee dr christopher treat who used to be with scottsdale also sat on my dissertation committee the principles that at the schools that i i chose to to conduct this this research at i'm going to leave that blank out of the confidentiality of the participants that pro that helped me through the study but really it was it was about community and

013i owe a lot of gratitude to scottsdale unified for pushing me to the finish line and to this degree so thank you very much thank you and that concludes this portion of tonight's presentation celebrations thank you and congratulations to uh dr williams and dr ostmusen uh i will say that having been on the same journey they've been on doing it in a pandemic is extra commendable i just don't know how you pulled it off and you're still vertical we appreciate all you do for our students so thank you thank you all right we have a few more successes and celebrations this evening turning inward organizationally speaking i'm proud to share with all of you that tonight our school district's finance department has once again received the certificate of excellence in financial reporting from the association

014of school business officials international for the 2019-2020 fiscal year so congratulations to shannon and her team for that recognition we also want to talk a little bit about some of our performing arts so as as you know from my weekly update i had the opportunity to attend opening night of clue at chaparral high school it's so wonderful to see our students performing on stage to enjoy their theatrical abilities also to recognize the students who are working behind the scenes to make the magic happen from lighting to makeup to costume and design everything was really exciting to experience and given the impact that the pandemic had on our system last year we didn't enjoy that in the fall so it was really wonderful to be in the audience and enjoy their experience i would also like

015to point out that in case you have some time and you're interested in enjoying a performance of your own desert mountain high school will have a lighthearted retelling of homer's odyssey the show runs tomorrow thursday and friday night at 7 pm so if you're not familiar with how talented our high school students are and the quality of the direction they receive from the drama teachers and even if you are familiar i highly recommend you catch one of these shows if possible additionally our high school marching bands are putting in terrific performances on the field the six-time state champion spirit of arcadia marching band got off to another great start taking first place and five caption awards at last weekend's arizona marching band association competition at glendale high school at the same competition desert mountain high

016school marching band placed second and our coronado downs also had a strong showing it has been 18 months since our marching bands were able to compete live so i'm happy to report yet another sign of normal returning to our high school experiences also competing last week was the desert mountain high school symphonic orchestra which received a superior rating one of the highest ratings possible at the arizona band and orchestra association's fall orchestra festival i want to congratulate all of our students and the staff that support them as they've led the way in the performing arts here in scottsdale and i want to thank all of the people who have been here to join in these celebrations this evening thank you thank you the board will now move to agenda item 5 superintendent's comments dr menzel

017thank you president greenberg and members of the governing board so as usual i'll start with a brief update with respect to coven and as you know yesterday we had a ruling by the judge related to the challenge to arizona's provision that would have prohibited a district from requiring a mass mandate there's a whole lot more in the challenge to the bill as well as in the ruling but just cutting to the chase the judge ruled that on essentially on procedural grounds the inclusion of the mass prohibition in the budget reconciliation bill violated arizona's constitution because it it was was not directly connected to the title of the bill budget reconciliation and so in that case the judge ruled that it is unconstitutional she didn't rule on whether or not a mass mandate itself was constitutional

018she ruled on the procedural grounds that inclusion in the budget reconciliation bill violated the single subject provision of the constitution we know that the attorney general has indicated that he plans to appeal the ruling uh having having read it myself and having talked with our general counsel the legal reasoning that's been provided is pretty solid and it relies heavily on prior supreme court determinations related to the provisions of the constitution and pursuant to governing board directive 01-2021 following the judge's ruling it fell to me in consultation with maricopa county department of public health to make a determination about whether or not scottsdale unified school district should continue to implement a mask requirement and as you know from the communication that was sent to our families last night the decision has been made based on that

019conversation with the health department to continue the mass requirement our community transmission levels of covid remain in the high level not even just substantial but in the high level if you look at the epi curve on the maricopa county department of public health website you'll see that early march of last year we were about in that moderate transmission range and that that continued through about july 7th and then we quickly escalated to the high transmission level and while cases appear to have plateaued and are slightly starting to decrease we are still at a level where the health department recommends universal masking in my conversations with dr sunshine as recently as this evening she said next to vaccination masking is the second most important strategy to mitigate against covet spread in our communities she's also pointed

020out that as we know there's a significant portion of our school-age population still not eligible for the vaccine so we look for and hope for the opportunity to move to a mass optional policy but at this time with covid transmission rates as high as they are in our community we are going to continue to follow the recommendations of the public health department we've also had questions about ventilation and as you know we've we've installed merv 13 filters in our in our classrooms and the air is cycled about seven and a half times every hour so we have a good amount of airflow in every classroom as the temperatures drop we have the opportunity to open doors to get increased ventilation in our classrooms and we are continuing to approach our strategies on a layered basis

021so as you know in talking with public health officials that it's not just a single strategy that helps ensure that we don't see spread of covet on our campuses but it's layered mitigation strategies the ultimate goal for us as a district is to ensure that we can maximize in-person learning opportunities for all of our students and as you've seen in the data that we've provided every week of the number of students who have been required to quarantine since we've put the mask requirement in place has dropped significantly we still don't have one case of any student who was a close contact while masked testing positive for covid and and we are going to continue to track that data to ensure that we're not missing anything the final mitigation strategy that we're working on putting in

022place and the first pilot will be available next monday is working in partnership with in-office dx to set up pcr testing at two of our elementary schools cherokee and and and those will be voluntary uh parents will choose to take their children uh and they can do surveillance testing one of the keys to mitigating spread of covet on our campus is early detection and so that will be yet another opportunity for our families to take advantage of and finally we are working on a test and stay approach for after fall break because the last thing we want to do is have healthy students miss school and so we want to make sure that we're looking at all of the strategies to keep as many of our students in school while also reducing the risk of

023transmission of cobin the other thing that i want to point out is that we are continuing to make progress on our strategic planning goals so we've moved from phase one to phase two you know that we've adopted our vision mission and values for the district in phase two we're focusing on broad goal areas and those include academic achievement the framing might be academic excellence the actual wording is still being developed we're looking at school and community partnerships we're looking at culture and climate in our buildings we're looking at goals related to finance and organizational health and well-being so the committee is comprised of a diverse group of stakeholders i'm always impressed by the level of conversation at those committee meetings we expect to be able to bring forward some of their initial thinking within the

024next month or so we've got a meeting the third week in october and we can bring that to the governing board for review and input before we finalize those recommendations in addition to goals and objectives we'll be talking about key performance indicators at the end of the day we want to set high goals for ourselves as a district and for our students high expectations for each one so that we truly can achieve our vision of providing world-class future focused education for all of our students with that that will conclude my report this evening thank you dr mensel the board will now move to agenda item 7a student advisory board presentation dr menzel dr sakos would you like to introduce our president and president-elect of the student advisory board please dr menzel of course i would

025like to introduce our student advisory board president trex jones arcadia high school junior as you remember trex was the president-elect last year and new to us this year is uh zach oakland had to get that correct and zach is a junior at desert mountain high school and he is serving in the position of president-elect so you'll see zach again next year so with no further ado let me just turn it over to our student advisory board leadership team okay good evening president greenberg and vice president zizinowski and members of the board sorry dr menzel and mrs wagner um so we've already went through introductions so we're talking about our members of the student advisory board and we mentioned our senators and which schools it are from first one is isaac speier from arcadia tate mcdowell

026from chaparral gisele rojas guzman from coronado and then gabriel chen from desert mountain zoe daly from saguaro and joining us on sol is uh hayley holmes from yeah homes on sol yeah and zoe sorry um so what is the student advisory board it's the student advisory board is a group of students that come together from different campuses to talk about concerns on the susc campuses that could concern one school or all of the schools and we come together to talk about these problems and possible solutions to these problems sorry and so we have our update tonight is going to be on the thought exchange class ranked discussion and varsity tutors for sosc students and leading that is zach good evening so first up for our thought exchange update when the slide switches do i do

027that i'm sorry sorry so the question we asked this year to all the students was what are some things you are looking forward to and what are some things that concern you about this year at school so from this this question we asked we got a lot of results students from every single high school and students from every single grade level um however it was online using thought exchange this is our first time using thought exchange so we did have some smaller participation than normal but we still did get a lot of participation taken into account technical issues so again these are our results we have 183 participants that responded 180 thoughts and 31.79 ratings so of the schools um we have chaparral taking 33 percent of the responses as well as every other high

028school including sol being accounted for very proud of that we also have on grade levels we have 9th 10th 11th and 12th graders who are proud that everyone did get a chance to respond and we had the largest population from our 10th grade students so of the students that responded we asked them as i said before what you're what are you looking forward to and what are your concerns for the school year so first we have what are you looking forward to so some of the things that students were looking forward to is graduation moving on to college they really wanted some students not that they wanted to leave high school but it's a new part of their lives that they were really looking forward to they're also very excited for school dances school events

029pep rallies all that stuff that's able to happen on campus this year that maybe wasn't allowed to happen last year as well as interactions on campus new friendships all that kind of stuff we're in maths and school we had students that were looking forward to that we also we also had students look forward to learning new things and closing their learning gaps so they wanted to learn new things some of them felt like they didn't learn as much last year so they're happy to be back on campus this year learning more as well as different clubs and opportunities at campus after school during school and then there's tutoring and support students are looking forward to and field trips so now we're talking about what are they concerned about so some of the concerns that were

030shared to us by students were the lack of drug education and awareness lack of sexual education and awareness bullying and mental health not taken seriously the length of the school day and homework that's been given by teachers including busy work um high school parking and traffic bathroom cleanliness products and restrictions where in mastering school there were students concerned as i said we had students on both sides of the spectrum students were also concerned about incorrect masked wearing and the tobin 19 spread on campus as well as insects on campus equity and department funding some of the students were talking about how some departments were overfunded compared to others and they wanted to see more funding particularly arts cte that kind of stuff and then also preferential treatment whether it depends on the groups or different

031sports athletes just preferential treatment by teachers and by staff on campus i'm gonna hand it back to trex to talk about class rank thank you zach um so we're gonna be continuing the discussion of class rank from our last year's student advisory board um we also with this we met with dr dodd and dr gilman i'm sorry if i butchered that but um we're gonna work on that and we're gonna be talking about this throughout the year we're gonna be surveying students and seeing how they feel about the proposal that we are making and so yeah and the next thing is of our city tutors we're going to work on spreading the message about varsity tutors and how students can access that um we'll be using our new social media platform that we're going to

032be making the next couple weeks so give us some time on that and yeah and so the next steps with the student advisory board with all the data that we saw from thought exchange we're going to be breaking down that data by school and be discussing the issues with the principles and seeing what we could do with that we're also going to be establishing sub groups and committees to talk about these issues and see proposals or things we can do to stop these problems or work with concerns and we're also going to be using our social media to talk about these concerns and also work on that questions or comments thank you thank you thank you are there any board member questions or comments board member hart wells thank you i just want to thank

033you for being here and doing the kind of work that you're doing it's very important that we hear the students voice that is why we're here for the students and their educational welfare so thank you to both of you for stepping up and being leaders in your community thank you definitely thank you are there any other board member questions or comments well i do have a few questions but i will pass them on to dr mental because i think they're better answered within the group itself but thank you very much as always for coming here and all the work you do we really appreciate it and for those who couldn't attend in person thank you as well thank you so much thank you the board will now move to agenda item six public comments as

034a reminder each speaker will have two minutes for their public comments so that we can fit all the speakers into our agenda our first speaker is patricia pellet and our next speaker will be robin snyder may i begin you may begin after i filed the recall i have met the most amazing people from collecting signatures at various locations and from canvassing my sonoran heights community what hasn't been pleasant is learning about some of the curriculum forced upon our children violating arizona parental rights laws crt you may think was banned in arizona however it's taught through social emotional learning and social justice here are some examples a sixth grade homework assignment in susd asking kids one what is the social order of your family who is the most important or respected what are the roles of

035each family member this is appalling to ask little kids this why because it appears the school district is looking for biases in our kids another example a fourth grade reading assignment in susd a book called front desk full of curse words and it paints rich and white people and police officers as bad why not focus on the majority of people who are good stop the segregation in this school district i teach my boys to love everyone anazi has had complaints about their fourth and fifth graders using foul language my second grader was reprimanded by the vice principal two weeks ago for practicing some of his newly learned words he said he learned them from the fourth and fifth graders how can susd reprimand students for what they are endorsing in these books finally sex ed

036no examples that i have yet in susd but i'm sure they are coming the famous mayor from hudson ohio who asked the school board to resign or face child pornography charges over a controversial book asking students to describe their sexual experiences thank you very much our next speaker is robin snyder if you'll please come up to the podium please your time is up my name is robin snyder and i'm a mom to a current susd sophomore as well as mom to two other susd grads and my husband and myself also graduated from susd and have lived in the district for all of our lives in the past when i've been asked by my neighbors and friends about where to send their kids to school i've given them my sales pitch of why it's so important

037to go to school with your neighbors to do life in the community where you live to share in the activities of your neighbors and get to know them for decades susd has been known and touted for that community until now these days i'm receiving more texts and phone calls from friends within susd asking what they think what i think they should do and you know what i tell them i tell them to pull your kids out if you've got elementary school kids head to great hearts head to rancho solano head to christ lutheran for high school families head to notre dame go to scottsdale prep or better yet home school you know why i do that because i've seen firsthand what's been going on and not with the interests of their students nor the parents

038nor the taxpayers but with the interest of what's behind this board and i'm frustrated by it i feel like the focus that once used to be spent on reading writing and arithmetic is now talking about things like the meaning of the n-word as was the topic yesterday in the freshman class english class at chaparral i was going to play it for you here but i don't have the time but it's pretty interesting stuff in addition you told our kids they only had to comply with the mass until today september 28th you reiterated it every day on morning announcements and they were counting on you you adults that they have counted on for everything and once again you've let them down and us down if you truly cared about the science you would look at the

039studies that have shown how mass not only don't prevent nor protect all they do is create a barrier to learning as communication and understanding is impeded because the kids can't read the teacher's lips and the teachers can't understand what the kids are saying not to mention the impact on their mental health susd is on the chopping block and although you may not thank you our next speaker will be emmy cardella [Applause] good evening governing board dr menzel miss wagner my name is emmy cardella i'm here for the scottsdale parent council just to give you an update for the month of what we have upcoming and to share with our parent community as well our october monthly meeting is october 20th it's a nighttime meeting from 6 to 7 p.m it's at the mojave district annex

040and we have dr michelle watt the chief systems officer joining us to give a presentation then as well as take questions from parents and as always dr menzel joins us for a brief q a at the beginning as well and we have spanish interpretation at all of our general meetings that's something we really need help spreading the word on so anyone who is involved in that community please please help us spread the word and then at the end of the month on october 28th we have two events in the morning we have a pto round table so that's an opportunity for anyone involved in the parent organizations in any of the schools to come together and have some discussions that's also at the mda from 9 to 10 30 in the morning and then that

041night we have a training on ieps and that is in spanish so that's over zoom and that is presented by raising special kids and open to anyone so again help us spread the word on that thank you very much our next speaker is bryn de fusco good evening governing board i apologize if i'm going to be reading very quickly now that i'm limited to two minutes i was struggling to get into three minutes my name is brynn cantor de fusco my husband and i have been susc parents since 2012. our family's experience within susd has been overwhelmingly positive and i'm not here to complain but i do have a concern according to sophia kirby of the center for american progress as our nation becomes more diverse it is crucial that our institutions reflect this diversity

042our communities of color are america's future and it's important that we not only prepare them as future leaders it's also crucial that we expose white educators parents and students to diverse equitable and inclusive leadership instruction and activities doing so also ensures that scottsdale's future leaders are more competent competitive in an increasingly global economy on june 15 of 2020 susd sought written quotations from qualified consultant services in diversity equity and inclusion the rfq indicated that the committee for diversity inclusion would meet from time to time during the school year and use the consultant as a guest speaker or workshop facilitator many of us would like to know the status of this committee diamond strategies one of the nation's leading dei firms reached out to susd after being encouraged to do so by a number of highly

043respected leaders in the community despite the fact that they worked successfully with numerous school districts internationally and obviously within the united states no one responded to them forward-thinking and successful districts established dei as a top priority diamond strategies can help inoculate susd from cultural blind spots and the viral financial costs of doing business and education as usual how can we say that we're committed to inclusion while ignoring the outreach of dei business leaders i'm not alone in my hope that our district will get serious about diversity inclusion based on the ubiquitous incidents motiva thank you for your time our next speaker will be victoria khazlaric did i pronounce that correctly hi i'm victoria kozlerich and i've been a scottsdale property owner for 20 years and a full-time resident here for 10. in making my comments

044today i'd like to start by zooming out a bit to talk about why all of us are here and it has to do with responsibility the fundamental responsibility of elected officials is the safety and security of those they've been elected to serve local state federal doesn't matter this is a basic that all public servants haven't in common for you this responsibility is to the students the faculty and the staff of susd fulfilling this responsibility is essential to governance providing safety and security makes education possible during the pandemic fulfilling that responsibility requires doing what you can do to keep students teachers and staff healthy through requiring masks and vaccines and social distancing and all of the things all of us have been wrestling with for the last 18 months i want to thank you for your

045perseverance and your determination to continue to fulfill this most basic mission your job isn't easy and it's been made harder by those who want to fight you every step of the way because of course they know best there are lots of voices in this room some outdoor voices and some indoor voices each of us has something to say but you're the ones responsible for getting things done for the safety and well-being of students teachers and staff you're doing the right things for the right reasons and i thank you for staying the course thank you [Applause] our next speaker is rob falls superintendent menzel president greenberg the governing board mrs wagner good evening i'm rob walls the father of an susd student from desert mountain currently attending the score program at arcadia a few months back

046i spoke to you about the frustrations that my wife and i had with the district special education program from that meeting district staff reached out to my family to discuss our concerns but unfortunately after that once again we had a dead spot in communication it was only after more emails phone calls did we finally get the information we had been requesting since march this information only arrived a few days before the start of the school year and while we are happy that our son is in the score program now the last minute nature of this effort on the part of the district is unacceptable it is hard enough to navigate the district with a special education child and i sometimes feel like the district is working against us over the past few weeks i've met

047virtually with other parents who have with kids in special education who share these frustrations i would ask the district and the board to consider meeting with special education parents concerned with the accessibility information about the district programs and special services and consider expanding the district website to include detailed descriptions of every special service program available in the scottsdale district finally i'd like to thank you for the masked mandate and sticking to the science thank you very much our next speaker is karine werner good evening my name is karen warner and i'm the mother of a current susd student and two graduates when i put my kids in public school i put them in sgoc because it had a stellar reputation for excellence in education it didn't need 156 thousand dollar marketing campaign budget to draw

048kids to the district its pure reputation and verifiable results spoke for itself no one here put their kids in susd because of any of you people no board members no superintendents any of that so much has changed and the students are being withdrawn at an alarming rate this is especially because of your appalling covet protocols and mandates and your misinformation behind seo per maricopa county department of health 479 children out of over 700 000 between the ages of 5 to 18 have been hospitalized due to coveton 8.3 months that's 58 cases a month i'm certain hospitals are not going to be overwhelmed with 58 children between ages 5 to eight if the masks are your way to keep students healthy and protecting the children's health why are you not helping them with actually supporting their

049immune systems by providing nutrition healthy vitamin rich foods maybe even some little vitamin packets and a bottle of water in the morning anyways i am certain that all of this rigamarole that you guys are doing is just a cover-up for manziel's lackluster stats from his previous employment where students are proficient in english language arts at the end of third grade started at 51.3 percent and ended at 43.3 percent students proficiency in math and english in uh grades three through eight started at thirty two percent ended at twenty nine point six percent and the sat college and career readiness benchmarks went from thirty one point five percent to twenty four point two percent we're really not interested in this we wanna get back to actual education with math english fun thank you [Applause] our next speaker

050is lincoln wurtz words thank you my name is lincoln and i'm a sixth grader in the sdsd school this weekend i went to the gym with my father i noticed that almost nobody was wearing a mask they were sweating and basically on top of each other but no masks after the gym we went home to watch some football i noticed almost 100 000 people screaming at the top of their lungs with no masks that evening our family went to a crowded restaurant and there were no masks like where you go to the bar why would we mask only the people that are safest from this virus we the children are the safest from this virus every teacher school in my school has had the chance to be vaccinated we now know the vac that the

051vaccinated gets the virus and can spread the virus just as easily as the unvaccinated people you've seen the science right guys why would the vaccinated be scared of the unvaccinated with this science it seems like the only the unvaccinated would be the only ones to get worried about catching covid whether it be from a vaccinated or an unvaccinated person i am not worried i'm not worried because the science says i'm safe from the virus what i'm not safe from is headaches not seeing my teacher's face getting sick from a muzzled with a dirty rag all day and your politics i am not safe from your politics there is no mandate in the history of our country for a virus that has a 99.98 seven percent survival rate none the flu is 400 percent more deadly

052to children yet not one person in this room said anything about mass to combat the flu did anyone here forgot the flu anyone hear about nesting the flu well we sit it here about them asking people that are safe by my classmates can barely read and thank you our next speaker will be mahmoud hussein [Applause] sir sir please sir please our next speaker will be mahmoud hussein is there a mahmoud hussein was i apologize was i not pronouncing your name dr manziel madam president madam vice president governing board um here right now and i gotta tell you i really appreciate that you guys are following science i appreciate that you guys are following the cdc i appreciate that you guys are following the maricopa health maricopa county health department you're working with these people who

053are licensed medical professionals with years of experience and you guys are charged with protecting my two kids so keep doing what you're doing don't listen to these people because just because you can get coveted survive doesn't mean you should get coveted and survive we're still like we're only just now beginning to start studying the long-term effects and half of this school district half of the school district is not even eligible to be vaccinated right now please keep protecting our children that's all i needed to say so thank you thank you our next speaker is tim curtis um good evening board members staff i'm tim curtis 11 years in the scottsdale unified school district thank you for your public service first especially staff thank you very much um i think you should listen to everybody that's

054really important i really appreciate the weekly updates that's very helpful so thank you in the email but regarding covid i'm not here to tell you to do anything but i am asking you to stop doing some of the things that you guys started there are scientists on both sides of the issue a lot of people on both sides of the issue nurses on both sides of the issue some are losing their job because of the mandates so i want to ask you to stop picking sides stop the mandates stop ticking people off it's just too much it's too much for our school district not all school districts have mandates and i know that the county health department recommends that there's masking indoors but not a mandate it's just too much let the families choose for

055themselves and stop sending kids healthy kids home just because of an arbitrary close contact you might have been exposed decision i'm not even sure if that's been evaluated for effectiveness which might be why you've been changing the mitigation strategies of the last month or so and that's more reasonable so thank you that's what we're targeting all this is affecting the kids is esteem they're feeling punished socially i don't buy the fact that kids want to come to school to wear a mask i wasn't looking forward to wearing masks so i think they're being cynical we all know how kids can be uh we're in a land of innocent to proven guilty so i don't understand and i haven't for months how we got to a point where we're sick until proven healthy i'm really struggling

056with that um so remember when kids feel punished uh repressed and taught to fear their whole well-being suffers so please thank you [Applause] our next speaker is blanca steven stevens oh good thank you okay my name is blanca navarro steeper i have been in sust for 15 years and until recently have been strong support of public education why would i be questioning the value of susd schools as a for us so long sgsd has been declining in its ability to provide academic excellence in our learning communities i believe that a great academic education is a great equalizer in society by providing opportunities for those willing to put an effort and diligence let's look at how our district is serving our students according to a letter sent on june 1st 2021 from the president of the

057susd governing board only 60 of scottsdale students tested proficient in english language arts and math this is the minimum standard for the state we can't even meet the minimum standard what's changed we'll see furthermore sixteen percent of eighth graders are performing three or more grade levels below that means our eighth graders are performing on the fifth grade level unacceptable let's talk money and building great schools in district enrollment this year dropped by 5 300 students which means susd lost funding tax dollars for each student who left according to the joint legislative budget committee arizona public schools now have 14 326 dollars to spend per pupil in 2021 22. this means susd lost approximately 76 million dollars because parents largely chose charter schools over public schools for their children this is a huge loss in revenue

058for a district and that could be used better for academic and this is just my person my opinion parents my perspective ela books links to websites that at times are inappropriate and bad for our students you'll have to be diligent and talk with your children thank you [Applause] thank you our next speaker is caroline ho hi members of the school board by virtue of the fact that you were hey would you pay attention to me and stop my thing please pay attention please stop it and start it over i'll wait till you i have your attention your time is running you have two minutes pay attention to me it's your duty it's your duty by the virtue of the fact that we voted for you and voted for you to protect our children you all

059should have voted against the supplemental materials that you voted in in june that put pornography in the hands of our children they include things like suicide mental illness underage drug abuse lots of sexual abuse they sprinkle in extreme bullying by the way you had a really bad case of that at chaparral high school where a kid is very injured these materials make people feel bad about themselves they glorify drug use and they glorify drug use by children one of the books in the supplemental materials includes an eight-year-old girl who was raped by a teenager and later sexually abused there's excessive profane language child porn child abuse alcoholism mental instability and sexual abuse um and you voted for that your job your job is to protect children and you're not doing your job you should have

060looked at the materials you should have vetted them you shouldn't have sent it to a committee who didn't vet those materials didn't read them before you allow our children access to that you should have been focusing on a high academic standard that's not focused on the lens of crt thank you our next speaker is brian coffrey brian coughlin first like to thank the board for giving me time to speak today um say uh i'm disappointed your decision over masking is an understatement i know that governor ducey's executive order was overruled on technicality but you had the power to make approach pro-choice or not with over a year of data to analyze the most recent global random control test studies on masking show no efficacy to masking schools or in public in general the numbers are

061decreasing as you mentioned dr mensel but not due to masking it's due to seasonality if you're not familiar with dr edgar hope simpson who spent decades of research and wrote the book transmission of epidemic influenza he showed that respiratory viruses spread on seasonality not winter spring summer or fall but based on latitudinal zones southern states like florida arizona texas fall on the edge of the north tropic zone the season's ending that's why that's why the rates are going down but when you look into northeast new york midwest illinois montana they fall in the they fall into the the the temperate latitude zone cases arise will rise there they're already starting masking no masking that's a respiratory virus it simply doesn't matter what most disappoints me about the board though it's a lack of objectiveness objectiveness

062and critical thinking it's clearly dominated by group think this adds no value to the district looking at school age data that was just published last month on the med archive public server showed that ages 0 to 19 infected fatality rate of 0.0027 at survival 99.9973 johns hopskin published a paper the month before that when adjusting for comorbidity showed zero infected fatality rate understand the playbook here what looks to be we're not following the science the critical thinking of science which is concerning to me your next move is going to be forced vaccination to attend scottsdale unified school district that would be very thank you [Applause] our next speaker is sarah solemn hello good evening my name is sarah solem and i am a parent here in the susd district um dr menzel i'd like to

063thank you for clarifying on the statement about the court case today because actually in the susd email that was sent out it stated that mandatory mass bans were unconstitutional so please make sure that the data or the information that you're sending out to the entire district is actually accurate information because as we've talked about many times misinformation actually a lot of times does stem from the district as we go into the directive for mask mandates here in susd i'd like to point out some interesting things item d on here states that there is an educational exception and with a a staff member may with their school principal have permission to permit students within the room to remove their mass during the delivery of core educational activities and i would like to think that everything that

064susd does is a core educational activity especially in the younger grades when they are learning how to read and speak we're talking about phonics we're talking about enunciation of words and learning those things at a young age is so developmentally important please consider that as you extend this mask mandate now and then you're saying it's going to be in effect until two weeks after fall break but as of right now you say the only thing that's better is a vaccination and that's not going to happen for our young kids whether that's because it's not approved or parents don't aren't ready to choose that yet so i'm afraid that you're going to continue to extend this and as our young children face continuing trying to learn in these masks that is dangerous and then as we

065go into it the end the termination of this directive is just the superintendent no longer believes that the use of mass indoors must be mandatory um i think dr hartwell said it best when she was campaigning for this role some some government agencies just seem to be scientifically illiterate and i would say this directive is just that [Applause] our next speaker is dave seligson hi guys sucks having to wear this mask mesa is the largest school district in the state three times larger than susd they've been operating successfully mask optional they are following the ph guidelines why can't susd do the same thing with all due respect to the phd members of the board you're not real medical doctors some of you aren't even parents let the parents choose the risks and mitigation strategy for

066their own children i'd also like to say recall susd.org [Applause] i hope there's a camera in here recall susd.org recall susd.org thank you [Applause] thank you our next speaker will be rebecca page my name is rebecca page i'm a mother of four young men two of which attend the susd school district it is my govern my god-given right as their mother to protect them and to nurture them until they are of age to make their own paths in life i am proud to be an american i have lived in two socialist countries i lived in germany for five years i lived in canada for three years i have walked the concentration camp dachau and i was so horrified by looking at all the pictures of the millions of children that were murdered and i asked

067myself how can this happen so you know what i did i went to the library because this was before google and i spent hours researching it and you know what one by one they took our rights away and this stupid mask mandate one single human hair is measured at 70 to 90 microns one single hair the covet virus is measured at .12 microns your mass these mass do nothing against the cove virus nothing there is zero efficacy if you're supposed to get covet if i'm supposed to get covet then it happens if i'm supposed to die with coven then it happens that's just the plain truth i appreciate your feeble attempt in protecting our children from covet 19. however i completely disagree with it and i will call you out as a hypocrite we've all

068seen the videos of you out at the bars without your mask if you really believed in it you'd be wearing a mask shame on you they do these masks do one thing amazing they impede the lack of oxygen i am raising lions i'm not raising sheep the health of my children is not your concern so don't pretend our next speaker will be shannon [Music] our next speaker is shannon myers i would like to put this board on notice that if they're going to require mass to be worn in schools they will also then take the liability for its adverse effects for my children and any others that are being forced to and do not wish to comply that includes but is not limited to physical mental emotional social breathing issues teeth and mouth issues learning

069disabilities caused by limiting visual mouth cues acne and a wide variety of other issues that we don't even know that you are causing right now you are and have been now put on notice you are overstepping and out of control you should be arrested for kidnapping our children this is force action these masks are medical devices you cannot force our children to wear medical devices this is not about safety you can wear any kind of mask you want it could be a dirty dish ray it doesn't matter it's not going to do anything also if we were introducing pornography in our own homes child services would be our doors taking our children from us what are you doing you are failing us wake up [Applause] thank you our next speaker [Applause] our next sorry about

070that i didn't do it on purpose trust me i wish i would have thought of it our next speaker is jane hearst's purges hello my name is jane herges i'm a mother of three i grew up in a home with two public school educators my parents have a combined 60 plus year in la unified school district they used to be the biggest public school advocates until recently as well as me sadly they have watched the public system take on powers that don't belong to them for example making health decisions for children that their parents don't agree with and let's be honest you guys don't even believe them like she mentioned you've been seen out on town going against your own little mandates the hypocrisy has been displayed over and over when you are seen out

071on the town without your masks yourself this has never been about health every stat has been based on lies hospitals getting paid forty six thousand dollars to write covid on death certificates pcr tests being faulty and unreliable doctors and nurses now being fired for not complying with mandates after working for a year and a half with and for covid patients at no point has anyone ever talked about how to build our own immune systems that should be the first thing the school does is teach how to build this immune system we know where this is headed start with the mass then force the testing then force quarantines the cdc has shielding camps in place i have one question for you guys and all the educators supporting forced quarantines and camps are you guys going to

072play part in that being okay with leading our kids to the slaughterhouse i have hope that you guys will stop pushing this evil agenda god bless you guys and god bless this great nation that i believe will turn back to god and be saved from those that are influenced by media hollywood and corrupt organizations i believe in humanity i believe in you guys [Applause] you that concludes our public please please sit down [Applause] thank you the board will now move to agenda item eight consent agenda board action required are there any questions or discussion about the consent agenda as presented the chairman moves to approve the consent agenda as presented is there a second vice president zanowski seconds it has moved and seconded that the board approved agenda item eight consent agenda has presented all

073those in favor say aye aye the motion carries 5-0 the board will now move to agenda item 9 action items 9-a approval revisions to policy gcqf disciplined suspension and dismissal of professional staff members dr menzel thank you president greenberg and members of the governing board as you know at the last board meeting we reviewed these policies and there were some changes that were requested related to this policy i'd like to turn it over to lori byrd our general counsel to review those and answer any questions you may have i hate to be cliche but is this on um you have all been given copies of the proposed language in response to your feedback and i'm happy to answer any questions you may have about that language thank you are there any questions about agenda item

0749a policy gcqf board member beckman hi miss bird um with regard to step one a two i just had a question about the verbiage we had written earlier in the policy that and i'm writing here that we would have that we it would the hearing or something would would happen no less than two in no less than two days okay the notice or and then we go to a one or i'm sorry step one a two and it's not we don't mention no less than two days in that so i'm wondering if there's a reason it's not the same verbiage so if you pull up the policy that particular verbiage was a changed board member beckman we didn't discuss that if you look under step two hearing for suspension without pay or dismissal the language

075that was changed was that reads unless the governing board votes at its annual organizational meeting to conduct the hearings all hearings conducted pursuant to this section shall be conducted before a hearing officer and to my knowledge that was the only concern that was raised and it was correct and the language you're referring to so this may not be revised this may not be something that's raised so we can address this later i'm just curious maybe if you have an answer now i understand if you don't since i'm probably surprising you with a little bit here and you're looking at i'm looking at if you look at statutory requirements e1 correct okay i think that what you're looking at is remember that each of these provisions addresses a different type of discipline right and so different

076types of discipline under the policy may have slightly different requirements for due process that might make sense but that was my question really was there a particular reason that in something like this shall have the right to a hearing we would make a point or not we not now it's not something we raised recently but in your professional opinion that we would suggest that the supervising administrator would schedule a meeting no less than two days no more than 10 days after the date here but then further down we don't mention that no less than two days i know it's a detailed like kind of a nuance here but i just it's my understanding that that there are more when an employee is facing termination or suspension without pay it's a more formal process the two

077days that's noted when an employee is disciplined that two days is a meeting with the admitted the their supervisor or the administrator and so again these this is policy that was approved before it's statutory and so i can look into that more for you if you would like that's fine uh however this is not a change from policy that had already been approved previously and again i understand that we didn't discuss it last time the next question really quickly step four under the appeal yes so the governing board uh may appoint a hearing officer and this may be a different spot than this one and before i thought we defaulted to a hearing officer maybe not in this particular sentence but you see the appeal i see step four the heading is step four sorry

078it's difficult to bring you to deny to the same spot in these lengths i think we're in the same spot i'm just not sure i'm understanding we had verbage that said the governing board may appoint a hearing officer and i was curious if we weren't going to reflect the language in this paragraph to describe the default which we had to the hearing officer the section you're referring to is page 7 of 10 step 2 hearing for suspension without payer dismissal section a so it's a separate section okay correct so i'm scrolling through there to trying to find it but if you found it great so we are going to take these separate would they no that'd be helpful so we're going to take these we're not always going to we raised this last time we're

079not always going to default to a hearing officer there's going to be cases where we might decide to and we might not that's my question uh the way the language when it's a hearing for suspension without pay or dismissal the option or the the general well unless the board whoever that may be votes at their organizational meeting to hear these matters as a board it will automatically default to a hearing officer being appointed because that was as i understood it the preference um that the board had expressed uh for this provision and it was and that's the reason for my question is because in this final draft there was a paragraph that said we may and if you're saying that that is in there just for me and again i would ask is it the

080same disciplinary circumstance i don't want to waste the board's time so i will find this and i will get it to you later and because i believe it we will default to what we voted on so regardless if that is the intent of the board and what we voted on then it might just be a verbage change so i will get it to you thank you board member beckman i do take your note though on under procedure for discipline under ars page 4 of 10 aa2 the reference to 10 working days it may be worthwhile to change not more than 10 working days after the date of the certificated staff member receives the notice to in accordance with statutory requirements section e which is that suspension under ars 341 is two days and e2 dismiss

081or dismissal with suspension under ars 15 539 is 10 days or no sorry e1 apologies ignore me under statutory requirements section e1 so we would change the the the idea being that rather than saying not more than 10 days or two days in those situations we could make an amendment now correct approve approve this policy as amended can make an amendment now i would want to make sure that any amendment you make conforms to statute however and i can't i don't have that particular statute in front of me um so but yes i mean procedurally you can you can make an amendment now so that was my concern is that the language be reflective of consistency throughout the policies and if it was our intent to have a different process in one type of hearing

082so be it but if our if our intent was to be consistent in the process across all hearings for instance with the length of days then well in all fairness at the same time it does say scheduled not more than 10 days so that would include the the two-day progression it's it is oddly it's oddly worded um and that is a portion uh uh our general counsel is correct that is a provision that that was not amended so that's been here for some time um but as long as you're okay and we're all understanding that we will be complying with statute and the governing board may appoint a hearing officer if desired i think that the policy is okay is that does that work for the board it work i'll shoot you an email and

083as long as what the board had as far as its intent when we voted if it's okay the way we have written it i'm good with it thanks i i'm i'm making a note word number fragment are there any further questions or comments about agenda item 9a the chair moves to approve action item 9a approval revisions to policy gcqf discipline suspension and dismissal professional staff members is there a second second vice president sunowski seconds it has moved in second to approve action item nine a as presented all those in favor say aye aye aye the motion carries five zero the board will now move to action item nine b approval revisions to policy jjj extracurricular activity and cultural expression dr menzel again this was reviewed at the last governing board meeting there were some changes

084and important questions that were raised and lori byrd is here to answer any specific questions you have about those modifications so what was discussed at the board meeting there were two changes originally to this one was that we needed to add the cultural expression is allowed at extracurricular activities there was no follow-up or feedback upon that provision however there was a concern by the board that as the [Music] academic eligibility language was written that it was somewhat ambiguous or could be subjective and that it may not reflect the intent that wanted to be conveyed so that language which is on page one under a it's about two-thirds of the way down the page has been reflected to be much more specific and to clarify the academic eligibility requirements for students who are either members of

085competitive athletic teams or competitive extracurricular activities board member hart wells thank you miss byrd for making those uh changes my understanding is the current language that we're looking at is consistent with the aia academic eligibility as well thank you for making the changes and being responsive to your comments are there any other comments or questions about this agenda item thank you the chair moves to approve action item 9b approval revisions to policy jjj extracurricular activity and cultural expression is there a second second board member hartwell seconds it is moved and seconded that the board approved action item 9b approval revisions to policy jjj extracurricular activity and cultural expression all those in favor say aye hi hi the motion carries 5-0 the board will now move to action item 9c support high school musical nominations national

086school boards association annual conference dr menzel thank you president greenberg we're bringing this request forward as some of you know not too long ago the national school boards association put out a call for nominations for student performances at their national conference happens every year it's an important part of the conference to elevate student talent it always centers those those uh conferences in a way that highlights what what's happening in our public schools because the conference is in san diego i thought it might be interesting to forward a nomination from scottsdale unified school district so i worked with michelle irvin our fine arts and pe coordinator to identify which of our performing arts groups might be able to participate meet the criteria of the nsba and also be eligible to travel on the dates that have

087been identified she initially listed a number of five or six different performing programs across the district before indicating that because of their schedules they're all performing in some other places and have other commitments that she was recommending the saguaro high school big band ensemble in addition to being available they also had a refereed video performance that can be submitted for the nomination so for those reasons if the board is so inclined we're recommending approval because nsba does require governing board approval before we submit the nomination which is due october 7th we would be taking the the funding for this out of indirect cost and we anticipate those costs not to exceed eighty eight thousand four hundred and sixty dollars happy to answer any questions board member beckman and then board member hartwells okay um shannon

088i had spoken with you earlier can you please kind of go over for the public and for the board why indirect costs is this a usual and customary type of submittal is it equitable meaning if we have other schools that want to do something similar are we going to be able to say yes to them and by the way saguaro's band is fabulous so i'm excited to see this happen but could you just kind of give us a summary about that absolutely um so we chose 570 for this one typically when students do travel they do fundraising boosters help out they seek tax credit contributions to do that the reason i picked fund 570 for this particular trip is because this trip is a little bit different in other than other experiences we specifically asked

089a school to to participate in this activity um and to and to to travel to where they're having the conference and so that's why i looked at using a different fund instead of saying we'd like you to do this and telling this goal we'd like you to submit this and move forward with it and and then telling them but also you have to come up with all of the fundraising money for it we have helped other groups out when they do field trips we've helped mini town out in the past we've helped out uni town in the past so there have been other field trip experiences where they do need a little extra funding and we have helped them out with it this is unique just because it's not something we've done in the past

090and like i said it was something that we went to the school and said based off of your availability and your and meeting the qualifications for it we'd like it if you would um consider doing it so that's part of the reason why we didn't follow the normal funding sources of where we would usually pay for that we do try to help out other groups when there's funding issues you know if it's thousands and thousands of dollars that would probably raise a little bit more question but we have tried to help out other groups as well in the past um i know the superintendents in the past have said i'd like to donate funds from my discretionary to be able to help schools out if they're you know short on things for like robotic competitions

091and and whatnot so it's not the normal field trip request that we would do it's not the normal funding we would do but it's not totally out of the norm of what we've done in the past thank you board member hart wells thank you so my questions are not directed to the substance of the nomination at all but rather to the broader organizational perspective that this appears to be somewhat precedent-setting that the board is identifying funds for select activities so along the lines of equity to the other programs and schools that might have an interest in these kinds of uh cost sharing is the 570 funds something that there's going to be a process built around for other schools and clubs and programs to request subsidy well i think part of what's making this a

092little bit different and dr menzel correct me if i'm wrong but it was my understanding that to submit an application to be considered for this the governing board had to approve that selection which is not typical with any other field trip or any other act i mean the governing board approves the activities that we do but it's not that we bring specific activities and say we need you to to specifically approve this to even be able to be qualified to to to do this activity so i think part of this is a little bit unique in what we've done from what we've done in the past okay i would just like to add to that the saguaro big band did not come to us saying hey we'd like to perform at the nsba the question

093was raised by me uh to michelle irvin do we have performing groups that might meet the expectations that nsba has in this nomination and then i checked with the governing board president to say do you think the district might be interested in moving forward a nomination so if we're the ones who are asking one of our groups to perform somewhere it seems like it would be reasonable for us to cover those costs the inverse you know schools all the time are looking for opportunities and fundraising to support various activities and we have a number of different ways to do that we've got support from the scottsdale unified foundation we have support from other philanthropic organizations and as shannon mentioned there have been times where we've also used funding like this where we've had shortfall and

094needed to fill in but i i i would say that unless we're going to consistently nominate groups to participate in some event that requires travel i don't know that it's particularly precedent setting i thought this was an opportunity because of the relatively close proximity and knowing that we have high quality performing arts groups that we could consider it we don't have to do it but that was the rationale behind it i guess my comment is maybe it should be precedent setting i'm coming at this from that angle i don't think you're entirely appreciating and that is that maybe there needs to be something a little more like this for the schools and their activities so that there is more opportunity across the board not just when we find the national school board association has an

095opportunity and i appreciate that this particular activity requires board approval that does say that in the eligibility requirements i see that so i understand why it's it will say as well that all overnight out-of-state field trips have to be approved by the governing board as well so if you're traveling overnight you're going out of state those are always it's in a consent item but those are submitted to the board as well we haven't had very many in the last year and a half right or really hardly at all but um so we do those always do go to the board but this was unique in that they had to have your approval to even attempt to be able to do that activity and i'm digging this a little deeper that not the approval but the

096funding and that's what i'm asking is maybe there should be some thinking around what opportunities this that this could be precedent setting at least in part so that there is more active equity not just this was a one-off so maybe it shouldn't be a one-off thank you do any other board members have any questions or comments board member beckman um to that point i hope you know we do we are part of things like this more often however and saguaro is fantastic but should we do this again next year and then the year after and the year after how is how are we going to choose which one of our fabulous fine arts programs can we we go out to pick ask michelle ervender et cetera to pick to go forward because this could be

097a fantastic thing and it's considerable in cost but what is what is going to be that criteria by which we say you're the one that's going next year do we know well because the national school board association conference moves all over the country it's really not practical to consider applying when it's in chicago or in florida it just cost us significantly more and the likelihood they only pick three performing groups so the likelihood of picking one of our groups for travel that far away is diminished so this was sort of one of those things where you know to be candid i heard that san diego was phoenix south of the summer when i moved here so you know it just seemed to me like that it's a reasonable commute to get there i i think

098and i believe michelle irvin's in the cloud our performing arts groups know where there are lots of opportunities to perform i'm not familiar with all of what all of those are nor am i familiar with ones that they might be interested and eligible to participate in but don't apply because of funding constraints so michelle if you're there that might be helpful information here i don't know that it's just nsba that we're talking about i think if i understand dr hart wells it's how do we enhance additional opportunities where funding might be a barrier for our groups to perform on a bigger stage all right thank you uh can you guys hear me yes wonderful uh yeah that's a that's a big question i know that i've competed with groups all over the country and internationally

099so i really want to thank all of you for your growing support of this this was a wonderful idea that was thrown together by dr menzel and i went and i looked and see what groups were available um so this was kind of a great way to do it if this is something we want to look at i do think uh maybe we could go along the proximity issue or areas like that or we could have an application process [Music] but it definitely opens up the doors and we probably should think about the type of activities we want to do maybe performing at national conferences that could be one of our things so get a school board association be it at some big national conference that might be like midwest or you know things like

100that there's a bunch of big conferences that happen on the west coast so that might be an idea as well thank you board member beckman so i appreciate that thank you but speaking to dr hartwell's comment this is something i would like to see more of and if miss irvin could at some point identify some worthy fine arts you know national things that we could consider as a board i would really appreciate hearing you know what her criteria would be the cost you know barriers etc because these opportunities are fantastic for our students so thank you vice president zanowski ms irvin while we have you on the line quick question for you how many of our performing arts groups typically do seek out competitions and participations out of state or even even within our state

101but travel to competitions uh generally quite a bit of our high schools do that and they also do basically curricular type of activities at universities or theme parks uh but there's some things that kind of pop in my mind if we want to look at things more local uh it could be like possibly the rose bowl parade or various other events that might not be uh as expensive to travel like i did the you know london day parade i don't think we want to throw that in there because that was pretty expensive so lots of options if i've given you a little time i can pop together some local ideas but generally speaking most of our high schools travel and our middle schools and they do like music festivals and stuff like that you read

102my mind i was going to ask you for that so yes that would be greatly appreciated thank you just kind of an idea of you know let's share with the community how many of our groups do have these great opportunities for student learning absolutely in fact quite a few of them are going in april which is why that list kind of got chopped down thank you very much thanks for your work in this area too it's exceptional thank you so much i appreciate all of you very much thank you are there any other board member questions or comments well thank you for that lively discussion and i'm sure the administration will work to help out our various fine arts and other extracurricular groups with funding as much as possible the chair moves to approve action

103item 9c support high school musical nominations national school boards association annual conference the recommendation being saguaro high school's big band is there a second second vice president sonowski seconds it is moved and seconded that the board approved action item 9c as presented all those in favor say aye aye the motion carries 5-0 the board will now move to agenda item 10 are there any uh future items that the board would like discussed board member hart wells and then board member or vice president sinowski i actually have a couple of ones a follow-up from the public comment period we had a member of the public and parent ask about an rfq that was i got the impression it was not this past summer but the previous summer uh so that's that predated you dr menzel or

104was around the time you're transitioning on board so um i would just ask that you we refer that to the administration for follow-up please that's pretty old um and then the second is a almost a housekeeping question i believe when we're talking about policies the community scene on the youtube video the language that we're talking about i don't believe that that's um visible on the video we do we do link the policies on the website so they could they could pull it up on their computer but it's not shown on the screen as we're discussing it unless um right the presenter puts it up on the screen okay so at the last board meeting when we were showing all all of them then the public could not only just access it by going to the

105website but could also see it during the the live presentation okay so the black lines are available to the public on the susd web page even if during the live meeting the language is not shown in the powerpoint or or whatever is the screen to okay great thank you i wanted to just make sure that we are making that information available so it can follow along it's very hard to follow along with something you can't see and read and actually i don't have any topics i just had those two follow-up items thank you thank you vice president zanowski and uh dr hartwell's actually asked my question as far as follow-up for the dei and diamond strategies that conversation another thing i'd like to be um like for us to consider is that reference of that

106the dead spot in communication is referred to during open or public comment tonight and the gathering of special ed parents i know we have discussed that in the past and i would like to suggest that we bring that up as not just a future consideration but a future action as well that we put in place we get going on this because we've been talking about the need to improve our communication and services throughout our district and this would be um a very uh useful way to to do that and in regards to the policies when we're discussing them i think it would be beneficial for us to include those so that the audience especially the black line copy so that the audience can see what we're referring to so i would like to suggest that

107when we're discussing policy changes that we have it visual during the presentation during our discussion as well they are actually available to the tech team and they could have put it up i guess i just didn't ask for them to do it because i wasn't expecting to make a presentation but only answer questions but they're actually available and we're made available and we i apologize no need to apologize um i just think it would be very helpful um to clarify for people what we're discussing i think that's helpful and i want to um just commend you too i really like that black line copy because it shows the changes that we're discussing the underlined and strikethroughs that's a really helpful way to address changes thank you board member lindsay yeah one of the common things

108that i've heard from years is concerns and complaints from former admin current admin staff about sped issues parents and i think it's about time that we start talking about doing a sped audit so thank you are there any further okay the board will move to agenda item 11 dates of upcoming meetings our next meeting is tuesday october 5th 2021 at 6 00 pm that is a special governing board meeting at the mda monday october 18th 2021 at 5 pm that is the board workshop at the mda then tuesday october 26 2021 at 6 p.m the regular governing board meeting at coronado high school the board will now move to agenda item 12 governing board reports do any board members have items they wish to report or remember beckman thank you vice president zanowski well fed

109um i would just like to take a moment to share that several of us board president greenberg dr menzel and council byrd had the opportunity to attend the arizona school board association lock on friends it was very beneficial great learning opportunity so that's my report chair thank you and i just add that board member heart wilds was present as well board member lindsay i just wanted to make sure that um with mr charles and his his big birthday celebration there were two parents at cochise that were instrumental in putting that whole thing together um julie schulze and leslie's leslie steinberg so i just wanted to make sure they got a big thank you thank you for doing that are there any further governing board reports with no further governing board reports the chair will move

110the board will move to agenda item 13 adjournment the chair moves to adjourn this regular board meeting of the scottsdale unified number 48 governing board on september 28th 2021 at 7 45 pm is there a second or member backman seconds it is moved and segmented that the board adjourned this regular meeting of the scottsdale unified number 48 governing board at 7 45 pm all those in favor say aye aye aye the meeting is adjourned you