SUSD Regular Meeting of the Governing Board and Public Hearing and Exec. Session 05/12/2026

001meeting to order. Thank you everyone for being here this evening. Um just want to give a little bit of overview of how the meeting is going to run. A little bit different. There's actually a public hearing in addition to our regular school board meeting. So, we're going to start off with a public hearing. We have a couple of topics um to address and then we will adjourn that and we will go to our regularly scheduled uh board meeting. Um and that board meeting will include an executive session at the end which won't include people in this room. So, just giving you the flow of how things are going. Uh thank you. Happy to be your host for this evening. Um, I'd like to start with roll call of our board members, please. >> Matthew Patinsky,

002>> John Warner, Amy Carney, >> Mike Shy, and >> Thank you, Dr. Lewis. All right. Uh, so, uh, calling to order this public hearing. Uh, the first topic in the public hearing is, uh, approval of the revision to instructional time model. Um there is no presentation for this. Um the board has been presented the information before. Um and so um I will ask if there are any comments from the public um on the revision to the instructional time model that is on the agenda for this public hearing. All right. Seeing as there are no public comments, um I will um ask if there are any uh comments from the board members. Okay, thank you. That takes care of um item D for the um the revision to the instructional time model. The second item that

003we have on the public agenda is a presentation on approval of revision two to our 2526 expenditure budget. M Croer, I believe you have a presentation. >> I do. >> Well, they are bringing that up. Uh Vice President Shy, members of the board, Dr. Menzel and Guest, um this is the time of year in May where we do our final budget revision for this fiscal year. um that is in statute for us to do that if we'd like to make any changes to it. And so this is really just tidying up with uh our budget for this year. Um so with that, we did do a revision in December. And so what you'll see here is what our original um ADM projections were. Revision one and the change between the last revision that was done

004in December and this final one. So just a little bit of within average daily membership. Um, I just got louder. Uh, a little bit of a change within average daily membership. Um, but that's based off of the hundth day. Significant changes within our M or maintenance and operations. We increased the budget slightly um up to increased it by $768,000. Couple things added to that. Um, the ADM decreased. And you might be saying, well, if that decreased, how could it increase? but our total student weighted count increased. So remember students um we get extra weights for students depending on if they're in kindergarten or um high school. We also get additional weights for um special education needs, gifted, free and reduced lunch, those types of things. So with the additional weights that we receive, even though

005our ADM went down, our total weighted count increased. Um that of course increased our budget control limit, our budget carry forward increased a little bit. We did some reconciling with some things uh with the with the state and so that increased above what we originally thought it would be. Um the M override increased and then we because of those increases recognizing that um some rebates in our energy water savings weren't coming in as high as we anticipated we decided to up that adjustment. So that's a transfer from M over to our water savings um account energy water savings account. Other changes within federal grants increased about 1.4 4 million. Um, some of our federal grants go until December. So, we don't know what the final carry forwards are going to be until later on in

006the year. And so, there were some adjustments within title one, title two, and IDEIDA. And then our state grants increased just a little bit. Um, and that mainly is because of the college credit exam revenues. Other than that, very little little minor tweaks, but um those are the more significant changes within the budget for this year. So, um any questions? >> Um like to any questions? Dr. Pinsky, can you just reflect a little bit on the journey in terms of trying to forecast ADM because we're going to be back in the same position and we never want to make, you know, assumptions on less students and less revenues if we don't have to. Absolutely. >> So, do you feel like you've learned something about where we might have been a little aspirational or in the

007case of the weights conservative in terms of the specific student population? >> Well, yes, because we are funded on current year ADM, which can fluctuate throughout the year and it goes until um until the hundth day, which doesn't even happen until um late January. Um you know, we're always in a game. I I try to can be conservative on what we are estimating um just because I would rather add money to the budget than take money away from the budget once we're you know threequarters of the way through the year. Um there were also some things that happened um with how um how some students were calculated within um various high school areas. And so that was part of what changed some of those. Um, but it is I mean it's truly especially when you're

008doing the projected when we're doing it now we go off of averages and some years we're really close and some years we're not as close. I don't I don't feel like it was too terribly off from what we projected but um it really comes down to it's it's an ADM thing that happens on the whatever the first 100 days of the year are. And since we're funded on current year, that makes it a little bit more more difficult with students enrolling or um >> yeah, so for the community, we don't learn what our revenues are, so to speak, until January of the actual operating year >> in which we're supposed to budget against those revenues. So, it's it's tricky. >> It's tricky. we get an idea with the 40th day, but I mean when there

009you you know we have to reconcile what our numbers are that we're uploading to the state what they have making sure that everything is is uploading correctly and so there's adjustments that you can see where you know maybe something a file feed didn't go the right way. So there's minor little things that can happen but it is hard because we don't know until the hundth day what our actual count will be. >> Any comments, questions from the public? Thank you. Okay, those are items. We're going to move on to action items. So, um the first action item is the approval of revision to instructional time model. And I will make a motion that we approve as noted in the agenda. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I >> Thank

010you. That's five. Uh, it passes. The second is approval of revision number two to the 2526 expenditure budget. And I will make a motion that we approve that revision as presented. Can I get a second? >> I will second again. >> Thank you. All in favor? >> I I >> I >> That passes 5-0. Thank you. And with that, I will adjourn the public hearing. All right, I would now like to call to order the board meeting and like to start uh everybody please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Like to do a roll call again of board members. Matthew Patinsky, >> Amy Carney, Donna

011Lewis, >> and Mike Shy. um want to approve the agenda. Um so I know there are um I have two suggestions to the agenda and we'll see if other board members have. One is to um move section 11 which is our uh discussion items. Uh move that to after section 13 um to accommodate board members time. Um so just shifting uh 11 discussion items after the 13. Second one I have is on the consent agenda item AC which is approval of special education policies and procedures manual. I'd like to pull that and table it for later. Any other questions or suggestions for the agenda? >> Miss Carney, >> I'm sorry. Who's who requested the change for 11 to come after 13? >> Um it was brought up it was brought up uh to accommodate Dr.

012Lewis so that we can um frontload the decision and push the discussion towards the end just so >> she's she's not going to be on the meeting for the >> the entire may not be the discussion >> information discussion items. Okay. >> Okay. Given no other comments, I will make a motion that we approve the agenda um with those two adjustments. Can I get a second for that? >> I'll second. >> All in favor? >> I >> That passes 5. Thank you. Uh like to read a statement on meeting decorum. 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,

013yells, outbursts, and/or other disruptions are not permitted. Given that, I'd like to move on to item six, student staff recognitions and celebrations. Well, good evening, Vice President Shy, members of the governing board, President Lewis in the cloud, and welcome to our families, friends, school leaders, teachers, and staff uh to the final governing board meeting of this school year. Uh we have an incredible evening of celebrations ahead that highlight the excellence, innovation, and dedication across Scottsdale Unified. We'll begin tonight by recognizing two outstanding schools. One receiving national distinction for excellence and another being honored for its commitment to health and well-being. And it's my pleasure to invite to the podium assistant superintendent Dr. Christine Bono to the uh to share more about these two schools. >> Thank you, Dr. Mensel. And good evening, governing board president

014Lewis, Vice President Shy, governing board members, Dr. Mensel, Miss Wagner, and all of our guests here tonight. Will Anastasi principal Jennifer Waldron along with any staff joining you tonight please come forward? I feel like we're really far back. >> [applause] >> I am beyond beyond proud that Anastasia has been named a 2026 National Association of Elementary School Principles. You know, we love acronyms in our field, NAESP, a national gold star school. This honor recognizes schools demonstrating exceptional leadership, strong culture, and a commitment to continuous improvement. This is the inaugural year of the Gold Star Award through NAESP. 57 schools across the United States were awarded this gold star prestigious recognition with only three in Arizona. One, I believe in Lavine, one in Morirana, and then our very own Anastasia. This recognition truly reflects a school

015community that empowers its community, fosters meaningful relationships, and creates systems that support every students growth and well-being. We want to congratulate you and your whole team, Principal Waldron, and the entire Anastasia community on this prestigious national recognition. We're so proud of your hard work and please accept these challenge coins that you may pass out. >> Way to go, Next, we are so proud of another Blue Zones approval school recognizing their commitment. So, I'd like to invite Cherokee. I think we have assistant principal Nikki Hamilton and her team. I think nurse Will and team who were instrumental in this process and incoming principal Walker. [applause] It's important to note that assistant principal Hamilton um doesn't like public speaking and I may or may not but definitely did convince her she was going to have to give

016a speech tonight. You are off the hook. So, Cherokee, again, one of our schools that have earned the Blue Zone Scottsdale approval, recognizing their commitment to creating a culture where healthy choices, strong relationships, and overall well-being are a part of everyday school life. At this point, I would like to bring up our Blue Zones partners to say some words about Cherokee. Thank you, Dr. Bono. Thank you, governing board. We're so proud to celebrate Cherokee for creating a school culture where well-being is a foundation of acade academic focus and success. Cherokee has set an example when it comes to creating policy language around programming and activities that encourage and support student health. To share a few examples, they've adjusted next year's schedule to have recess before lunch. They're they've introduced a healthy snack cart program designed

017to nourish students bodies and minds during standardized testing and their amazing garden space and garden club where students are learning how to grow food. Congratulations again to Cherokee on officially achieving your blue zones approval. Thank you. [applause] >> Thank you, Chris. Congratulations to the Cherokee community. And we would like to share these challenge coins on behalf of this great recognition. If you'd like to and then if you want to head out to your left for a picture. >> Back to you, Dr. Mensel. >> Thank you, Dr. Bono. Congratulations. Thank you, Cherokee, for the work on the blue zones and congratulations again to Anastasia. Uh the schools have to go through a lot of steps in order to be able to earn recognition in different ways. Uh and we think it's important to validate the kind

018of commitment that they demonstrate every day in behalf of our students. Next, we want to turn our attention to exceptional student achievement. From state and national competitions to prestigious scholarships and academic honors, these recognitions reflect not only individual excellence, but also the support of our teachers, leaders, and families. I'd like to invite to the podium Assistant Superintendent Dr. Melissa Sacos to share more. >> Thank you, Dr. Mensel. And good evening, President Lewis, Vice President Shy, governing board members Dr. Mensel and Miss Wagner. Tonight, I'm very proud to recognize two students whose academic excellence and dedication have them making waves across the state and nationwide. Mojave Middle School students, Zeve Shaman and Graham Hardy, along with Principal Ferraro, please come forward and join me at the podium. [applause] You're welcome. There we go. And breaking news,

019teacher Karen Cruz is here. Come on up. Oh, you're already here. Oh, okay. This is very exciting. Um, [snorts] Zeve and Graham recently earned first place at the Arizona National History Day competition in the junior division group website category. an incredible achievement that advances them to the national competition at the University of Maryland this June. All right. Um guided by their teacher, Miss Karen Cruz, I'm glad you could make it. Their project, the nuclear chain reaction, the explosive discovery that changed the world, uh explores the impact of the atomic bomb and its lasting influence on global history. Congratulations Ze and Graham on this outstanding accomplishment. We are proud of the dedication, collaboration, and critical thinking you have demonstrated. And I'm going to have your principal hand you a challenge coin. [applause] Photo time. Continuing our

020celebration on outstanding student achievement, we now recognize two students whose academic excellent places them among the very best in the nation. Arcadia High School junior Zoe Mccclure and Desert Mountain High School junior Ella Day along with Arcadia High School principal Janelle Dansky and Desert Mountain principal John Andrews. Please join me at the podium. [applause] >> [applause] >> All right, here she comes. Zoe and Ella have each earned a perfect score on the ACT. >> Yep. Go ahead. [applause] This is an extraordinary accomplishment. achieved only by a small percentage of students nationwide. The achievement reflects not only their academic ability, but also their hard work, focus, and commitment to excellence. Congratulations, Zoe and Ella. We are incredibly proud of you and all you have accomplished. I will have your principles provide you with the challenge coin

021as a symbol of tonight's res recognition. [applause] Congratulations. I'm just getting started, so brace yourself. Lot of a lot of accomplishments. Continuing our celebration of innovation and student excellence, we now recognize a team whose um whose work is shaping the future of learning. Desert Mountain High School students Arnov Hignori, Lucas Bergen, and Levi Gerkin along with principal John Andrews and their teacher Michael Knight. Please join me at the podium. [applause] I've seen you gentlemen a time or two. Student advisory board. Um these students captured the Arizona state title um in the presidential AI challenge rising above thousands of submissions with their project art uh artificial intelligence recognition air a forwardinking solution designed to guide responsible and ethical AI use in education. Congratulations on this incredible achievement. These uh gentlemen also came to student advisory board

022and collaborated with our student advisory board which was outstanding. We are so proud of the innovation, collaboration, and leadership you have demonstrated. I'll have your principles provide you with a challenge coin as a symbol of tonight's res recognition. I think I've about resigned a couple times. [applause] >> Oh, thank you. It's heavy, right? >> It is. >> Okay. Um, as we continue continue celebrating exceptional student achievement, we now recognize the students whose dedication and perseverance have earned a truly life-changing opportunity. So, Royal High School student Yahooa Nunees along with interim principal Dr. Lisa Hirs, please join me at the podium. [applause] There's your hair. >> Anybody from Sora want to celebrate with us at the podium? [cheering and applause] >> It takes a village. Um, Yahir has been named a Dorant scholarship recipient, one of

023Arizona's most prestigious scholarships, recognizing students for their academic excellence, leadership, and commitment to their future. This highly competitive award will support Yahare's college journey and reflects the hard work and dedication that brought him to this moment. Congratulations, Yahare. We are incredibly proud of you and excited for what lies ahead. We will have your favorite security guard uh present you with a challenge coin. [applause] There we go. >> All right. Continuing our celebration of scholarship recipients, we now recognize another student whose academic excellence has earned national distinction. Chaperel High School student Gavin Friendle along with principal Josh Pantier. Please join me at the podium. [applause] All right. Hi, Gavin. Uh Gavin has been named a national uh merit state farm companies foundation scholar, part of the highly competitive national merit scholarship program, which recognizes students from

024across the country for exceptional academic performance, strong potential, and future impact. This particular scholarship awarded through the State Farm Companies Foundation supports students who have demonstrated both achievement and promise as they pursue their college and career goals. Congratulations, Gavin, on this prestigious recognition. We're very proud of your accomplishments and you we will have Principal Penter present you with a challenge coin. [applause] Please know that more National Merit uh um scholars will be announced in the coming weeks. We look forward to um celebrating them in the future. Continuing our recognition of excellence across our district, we now turn to an outstanding educator who impacts reaches far beyond the classroom, Coronado High School teacher Justin Slover along with principal Melinda Splitic. Please join me at the podium. Mr. Slover has been named the Daughters of the American

025Revolution, outstanding teacher of American history for the state of Arizona. An honor recognizing excellence in teaching, a deep commitment to students, and the ability to bring history to life in meaningful ways. His creative approach to instruction and focus on fostering strong citizenship have made a lasting impact on his students and the school's community. Congratulations, Mr. Sllover, on this outstanding achievement. We are proud of the work you are doing at Coronado High School. Go Dons. And Principal Splitic will present you with a challenge coin as a symbol of our appreciation for all you do. [applause] Back to you, Dr. Mensel. >> Thank you, Dr. Sacos. Congratulations to all of our students who've been recognized this evening. Uh we are so proud of your accomplishments. And to our seniors who are graduating, we look forward to hearing

026about the great things ahead. Also, congratulations to Mr. Slover for his recognition. Next, we're going to celebrate the power of career and technical education and the impact of innovative teaching and student creativity in our schools. uh to to lead the celebration uh our director of college and career readiness, Jamie Fitzpatrick, will kick us off. >> Thank you, Dr. Mensel. And good evening, President Lewis, Vice President Shy, governing board members, Dr. Mensel and Mrs. Wagner. I would like to begin by inviting Chapperel High School criminal justice CTE teacher Charisha Tilson along with principal Josh Pantier to please join me at the podium. [applause] students >> and she's got two of her outstanding students with her. Um, Miss Tilson has been named the ACT Arizona New Teacher of the Year, an incredible honor recognizing excellence in the

027first three years of CTE teaching. Through her innovative approach to work-based learning experiences, service as an ACT fellow, and commitment to challenging her students, she has created meaningful learning experiences that have led to student success and recognition in competitions. Congratulations, Miss Tilson, on this well-deserved honor. We are proud of the impact you are making at Chaparel High School and beyond. Please accept this SUSD challenge coin as a symbol of our appreciation. [applause] Next, we are proud to recognize a student who is using his talents to make meaningful impact across Scottsdale Unified School District. Arcadia High School senior Callahan Klene along with Principal Janelle Dansky. Please join me at the podium. [applause] Callahan is part of the SEMA CTE program and has demonstrated exceptional skill and creativity this year. He has applied his musical production talents

028to support our district by helping produce music for a series of videos that highlight CTE programs across Scottsdale Unified. And you could check that out on YouTube. His work not only reflects his talent, but also his willingness to contribute to something larger than himself. Congratulations, Callahan, on your outstanding accomplishments. We are proud of you and excited to see what you do next. Please accept this SUSD challenge coin as a symbol of our appreciation. >> [applause] >> Back to you, Dr. Mensel. >> Thank you, Jamie. And for our last celebration this evening, we're going to invite uh Josh Freriedman to the podium to uh celebrate someone who's made a lasting impact on the safety and well-being of our schools. Josh, >> thank you, Dr. Manzel. Good evening, President Lewis and Mloud, Vice President Shy, governing board

029members, Dr. Manzel and Miss Wagner. Tonight we are proud to recognize Sergeant Kevin Bingham for his outstanding service and dedication at Scottsdale Unified School District. Sergeant Bing will you please come forward. [cheering] [applause] >> [applause] >> Sergeant Bingham served as a school res off officer in Scottsdale School District from 2008 to 2016 and has served as sergeant over the school resource officer unit since 2021. Throughout his years of service, he has been a calm and trusted presence for our students, staff, and families. Whether responding to real world situations on campus or providing guidance and leadership during trainings, Sergeant Bingham consistently brought confidence, professionalism, and care to every interaction. His partnership to SUSD has made a lasting impact across our district. As Sergeant Bingham transfers to a new unit, the Scottsdale Unified School District would like

030to thank you, Sergeant Bingham, for your years of dedicated service and leadership. Please accept this challenge coin as a token of our thanks. And He had we had to have all his bosses here because he doesn't like recognition. So, they're guarding the doors so he doesn't run out. Back to you. [applause] [applause] >> Thank you, Sergeant Bingham. We truly appreciate all you've done for SUSD. And that will conclude our celebrations this evening. >> Thank you. Wonderful to see all those celebrations. Love it. Um, next we have a special presentation from our student advisory board. So, I'd like to invite the SAB team to come up to the podium. All righty. Good evening, members of the board. Dr. Menel, Miss Wagner, my name is Fiona Riley. I'm the current president of the student advisory board and

031this is our final update for the 2526 school year. >> Today on our agenda, um we're going to share our wildly important goal updates. Um we are going to talk about the teen town hall comments and how those went. And finally, we're going to talk about our plan for the 2627 school year. As a reminder, um we have our president here, Fiona Riley. Um she will be leaving us after our final meeting tomorrow. Um I'd like to give her a big round of applause for all the work that she's done this year. [applause] I'm excited to take over in the role next year. Uh I'm Max. Um and I'd also like to congratulate this year's senators. Um, we had Kinsley from Arcadia, Olivia from Chapperel, Lindy from Coronado, Sid Gupta from Desert Mountain, and Ashny

032from Sawarro. This year, our subcommittees included college and career readiness, technology and communication, climate and culture, safety, security, and facilities. These subi subcommittees collaborate with district leadership and tasked with establishing and executing our wildly important goals are wicks. for the college and career readiness wig. Our wig was to implement at least one career focused information session at each school aligned with student student identified interests based on survey data. This year our final yearly progress included implementing several lunch and learns with career professionals and creating and sending out surveys to weigh student identified interests. I got to head up the climate and culture um committee and work with them this year. Um our wildly important goal has been to create a shadowing program um at our SUSD campuses um like they have at many private schools

033to give our prospective students a firsthand view of life on our campus um and to bolster enrollment hopefully through this. Um we have planned this year for two pilot programs that are going to be taking place at Chapperel in Desert Mountain next year. Um we are currently working on recruitment for the program leaders um and the ambassadors who are going to be um along with these students taking them through what life looks like on both Chapperel and Desert Mountain. And we are setting dates for September and October um hopefully on our half days to be able to allow students um in the eighth grade to be able to come and see what these schools look like so that we can hopefully get them on our campuses. All righty. Uh for the technology and communication subcommittee,

034um a wildly important goal mostly focused on establishing some sort of marketing package um for each of the SUSD high schools. Um and to film one SUSD source podcast run by a SAB student per month. We fell a tiny bit short of that wildly important goal, but that's why they're called wildly, I suppose. Um we filmed two SUSD spotlights, uh which highlighted Saro and Arcadia, but we do have three more planned, including Chapperel, DM, and Soul. Um, we also wrote every month that we were uh that was possible for the SOSD source, a student written column to explain what we've been doing on the board, how we've been interacting with district leaders. Um, and finally, we uh made really good headway for the coming years and we discussed ways that students can contribute to social

035media in ways which are safe and appropriate. >> All right. Then we have safety, security, and facilities. Our wildly important goals were to decrease the number of reported collisions in the parking lots across high schools before the end of the school year and to increase student participation in facilities related surveys to 40% from each high school student body. Our final yearly progress was that we conducted the facilities survey across all high schools within the district with 28 participants and we order devices that detect vapes and other violations within the bathrooms. Now for teen town hall updates. First at Sarro we used a new format. We had half of our time answering presubmitted questions and the second half we answered live questions from our audience and that allowed us to have better prep and a more

036balanced discussion as well. Also, there was high engagement with diverse topics in artificial intelligence facilities and technology plus record student participation at Chapperel. There were mixed opinions on the proposed changes to the lunch schedule and they identified that their biggest needs are improvements to academics and school culture, more college prep support, safer parking, better bathrooms. However, there was also strong praise for English theater and class variety. Next, at Desert Mountain, they had a record turnout for their teen town hall with 300 students. and they address concerns also of a proposed change in the lunch period time funding bathrooms and access to technology. Their results were they it led to improvements regarding the lunch schedule, clarity about artificial intelligence and awareness for awareness for the funding. Then Arcadia also had a mix of questions about artificial

037intelligence policies, schedule facilities and mental health resources and the students there had a strong interest in understanding how or why school decisions are made. Finally, Coronado, they had high engagement on diverse topics such as students needs, campus environment and facilities and technology or infrastructure. Additionally, the students were excited to increase engagement at school events and they were ready for the academic challenge associated with increase advanced placement courses and dual enrollment classes. They're also very proud of the fire science academy and the development of the hub. Finally, we have our goals for the 26 27 school year. So, we will be continuing to work on our in our established subcommittees. We will be finishing tasks related to our current wigs such as the ones that we weren't able to accomplish this year. Uh continue we will

038continue to work with SCSD officials such as the the board members and community partners CCD to make student voices heard. Thank you. >> Thank you very much for your time and for listening to all of our updates throughout the months. Um, it's been a very wonderful year of SAB, one with lots of progress and lots of community engagement. Um, are there any questions? >> Miss Carney, >> thank you. Thank you for each of your leadership on your campuses this year. I do have three questions and I thought, you know what, I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you tonight because um, do you does do each of your campuses have vape detectors in the bathrooms? I was on that committee and currently we are in the process of ordering and testing those. So we will not be

039receiving those immediately. Um we are still in the process of testing those out but we're hoping that if they do work and that they work efficiently that we'll be able to bring that out to every single campus. >> Okay. And when would when are we looking at rolling that out? At the beginning of the school year. >> Uh testing it. We'll be rolling it out in the beginning of the school year. will start on one campus. We haven't decided which one yet, but I believe that it should be making more progress as the year comes. >> I'm going to invite Mr. Freriedman. He looks like he's eyeing for the podium. >> Thank you. Just trying to help her out. Uh we are we evaluated one set I believe it was last year. We're looking at

040a couple different sets uh to evaluate currently and then we're not we don't have any plan to roll them out anytime soon due to cost and a couple other issues. Um but currently we're evaluating so that if we do uh potentially in a bond or whatever down the roads be able to roll them out in the future. >> Okay. Thank you. I just feel like we've been talking about this for a while and it be nice to see it happen. >> Yeah. the ones the ones that we tested there were not the it's all early iterations of them so they uh the first few that we tried were just uh more of a nuisance than they were a help and so as they get better and the technology improves then we're hoping to look forward

041>> Awesome thank you okay and then a question on how have you uh as leaders on your campuses been able to support the administration with a a dress code >> dressed code has been a hot topic issue at all of the schools. Um, and I'll speak from my Desert Mountain experience. Um, with the changes that the board adopted this year, um, it was a struggle if I'm being honest. Um, the enforcement has been honestly I would say as it has been imple implemented as best as it could be. Um it is hard for the administration specifically male administrators to dress code females. Um so that is something that has been a challenge. Um I will say that it has gotten stricter in a sense with this new um update to it. Um so there has

042been a lot of push back from students. Um and we've talked about this many times in our SAB meetings and it's been a common topic of discussion. Um I think the way that most of us felt was that if we go to something that not a change this year but a change down the road that is more agreeable between students and administrators where we're looking presentable um we are looking um students, staff, everybody on our campus um is looking in a way where people coming in to tour will be like oh I want to send my kid here. Um so it's finding that happy medium is what we've been trying to do. Um, and at Desert Mountain, we're working towards that, but I do think that this most recent update to the conduct code with

043the new dress code has made it a little bit harder. >> Great. Um, and then lastly, uh, have you been involved with making decisions with the graduation, the the regala, and students wanting to wear the stoalls and the cords? Have you been a part of those conversations? Um speaking from experience at Sarro as a senior who's graduating. Um there has been a lot of discussion uh with administration, we've been speaking with Dr. Sacos about the changes, trying to be unified, not uniform. Um understanding that there's differences between each school. Um what I will say is that just speaking with the senior population at my school, other schools in the district, um there's a little bit of dissatisfaction because obviously students want to wear as much as possible to recognize the hard work that they've put

044in over the years. Um, but I know at SOOR specifically and from what I've heard from other seniors at the board meetings, there has been a lot of collaboration among staff and students. Um, at SOR there's been a lot of awareness about what students are allowed to wear, what's allowed for pictures versus ceremony. Um, so I would say that that update has been well implemented, but also very uh definitely a hot topic of discussion at all the campuses. >> All right. Thank you, >> Dr. Pinsky. Have you had the opportunity to review the bond materials and some of the improvements to get a sense of whether it's responsive to particularly the facilities concerns that you've described? >> Yeah, I got to look through the presentation and I try to listen online at the board meetings

045when I can. Um I know that a lot of the money is being allocated to the Desert Mountain Learning Community. Um which makes me happy. Um but it won't affect me sadly. Um, if only you guys could have done this three years before, but um, I'm happy for my siblings who will eventually be able to see these changes. Um, but I know that we have a lot of plumbing issues at Desert Mountain specifically, and I liked that that was being addressed. Um, beyond the basic improvements though, I would love clarity on like what we're doing. Um, beyond just like the plumbing and the boring stuff. Um, I haven't gotten a lot on that. Maybe I haven't looked hard enough. Um, but that is something that I have reviewed and I've been mostly happy with it

046and um, if I was a voter, I would vote yes. >> Well, you set me up for my follow-up question. So, thank you. >> All right, let's hear it. which is if the board does proceed and of course if you get the answers to the questions that you're looking for, do you imagine maybe calling an audible on your plans this upcoming year and including uh support for the bond uh as part of your activities within whatever rules there are about students. >> Yeah. No, I will speak for myself and then maybe some others can comment, but I think a lot of what we want to do next year is advocacy. um especially with enrollment declining and that problem. So I think adding the bond into this would be something that would spike my interest for

047sure because it will affect us um maybe not us personally but um it's the seeds that we're planning for the future. So I will let anybody else from the board comment but I think I would love to do that. >> And as I asked it did occur to me that there are rules about what you know school funds can be used. So obviously it would have to stay on the right side of those rules, but yes, >> two big things up. >> All right. Thank you, >> Dr. Lewis. Any questions? >> Okay. Um I just wanted to Miss Carney, thank you for bringing up the dress code. I appreciate you bringing that up. Um have you or do you plan to put something forward with administration as if you were go if you were going

048to rewrite the policy? How would you do it? Because I really value SAB and your input. I don't know if that's something you have done or plan to do. >> Um, I know personally and then obviously everyone else can comment. Um, but I know through our meetings with the board, um, we've seen that it's very varies widely from campus to campus at Sorro, we've had almost no issues at all with the new dress code. Um, I don't know whether that's about enforcement or implementation. Um, but it really has not been like a big culture shock to our community. Um, but we've definitely had conversations about how the student advisory board students feel they can advocate for other students in their peer group, um, about what things are fair or unfair with the dress code. Um,

049so I would say that going forward, it's likely that the board will be able to, um, help to figure out what is the best kind of middle ground on that. >> I'll quickly chime in for next year. Um, I think that with the information we have right now, um, that the dress work, the dress work, the dress code prior to the update was somewhat more effective. Um but I do think that um if you would appreciate it, we could conduct some type of survey among students or just get a general consensus on what is fair, what is that middle ground um and what the change would need to be for effective um imple implementation and enforcement of a dress code. >> Speaking as myself, if there's any future public policy majors and someone wants to

050take a stab at uh editing the policy and sharing with administration, I would give that a lot of weight. So please, that's an open invitation. >> Okay, we will maybe update you next time. >> Thank you very much. >> Yes. So I just want to say thank you. Uh this is an amazing group of student leaders. Uh and and I think I have four seniors, three seniors. I'm trying to three or four here um that are going to be moving on. And uh I know Fiona is going to Harvard and that you know she said it sort of nonchalantly when she was making a choice between two really good universities. Uh we have we have talented students in our district and I'm just grateful you took the time every month to sit with uh the

051leadership of the district to talk about the things that were important to you on your campuses and to continue to provide leadership uh and and role model for the next generation of student leaders. So I look forward to working with you Max as the incoming president and wish our seniors well and look forward to our final meeting tomorrow which should be a lot of fun. Thank you. >> Thank you all. >> I wanted you asked me about a question but I didn't. I have just a comment. Is that okay now? >> Yes. Go right ahead, please. >> I just wanted to say thank you to the students. The sophistication and maturity with which you address issues that are very real is a model for all of us, not just your fellow students. Um, so thank

052you for the time, energy, and some of the appropriate stress that goes on when we have civil discourse. So I appreciate you. >> I'll say one final thank you to our board and to Dr. Mensel and to Dr. Sacos for allowing student voices to be heard. Um, and we're excited for next year. Thank you. >> Thank you. [applause] >> All right. Next, we're moving on to governing board reports. Uh, Dr. Patinsky. Uh, it's a busy time in a happy way with all the end of the year activities. So first I had the opportunity to finish uh my visits to various Desert Mountain Learning Complex schools which just a base of where I live and my family lives I had not previously had a chance to visit. So thank you to the principles most recently Desert

053Canyon Middle School, Redfield and Mountainside uh Middle School and also the chance to visit with uh site councils at some of those schools. So thank you. Um it really was special attending the retirement celebration. So, that's something the district does for our staff at 20 years, 30 years. Um, and sometimes we have people who are 40 plus, which is amazing, and are not there to retire. Um, and it's just a really special opportunity to recognize our staff. And so, I want to thank everyone uh who is retiring this year for your service, as well as those celebrating such big anniversaries. From there it was the Coronado Promise celebration which connects a little bit to um the awards ceremony and um and then the sports banquet to just say thank you to the Chars. Uh when

054you join the board and you go to these events, you start to and the Chars are at the site council meetings, you start to appreciate all the ways in which the Char support our district. So I want to say thank you to them as well. Um, and then last but not least, uh, certainly, um, active time for, uh, our email inboxes, particularly around phase two. I want to continue to welcome families to reach out and write. It's an important topic. Um, do my best to respond to every email and, uh, also had the opportunity to have a few one-on-one conversations with community members concerned about phase 2. So, I want to thank everyone who's reaching out and uh, exercising their voice as well. Thank you, Miss Wernner. Miss Carney, >> in the interest of time,

055I just want to thank everyone for a great school year and let's finish the year off strong and have a great summer break and then I'm just very excited to be with the Sarro community for graduation. I am beyond excited to be able to be on stage and give my own son uh his diploma. So, thank you. >> Dr. Lewis comments. >> Yeah, I just wanted to share a little bit about the uh state budget. Uh we have a 1.4 billion dollar deficit at the state, which always raises a flag for public educators since we're so reliant upon state funds. Uh I also know that the state legislature is working very hard to be responsible to um uh make the cuts that are sadly necessary. Uh they're examining a 5% state agency cut across agencies,

056a 5% uh cut to universities operational budgets. They're looking at 390 million sweeping of funds across the capital, which a lot of ideas are on the table, but might be actually difficult to to tally up to the number that that needs to be found. I am pleased to say that the budget proposal at this juncture includes a $200 million school facilities uh piece relative to the lawsuit. And so the district additional assistant looks like it might be proposed at 29 million. And there is some protective efforts for 37 million at the for the free and reduced uh poverty level weight. Uh, and I appreciate, you know, the the efforts that everybody at the legislature is doing to um modify under these horrible times. Uh, you know, when we're looking at overall $31 million cuts to

057basic state funds due to declining enrollment statewide. Um, I also want to mention that there is a concern just to keep our eye on the ball for $2 million to a slight decrease for meals related to what were is referred to ironically as leftover funds from last year. Uh, so I just want to be mindful that we keep an eye out for our food challenged uh, students and families and that we're supportive in any way we can. Um, I know there's a little bit of a disparity on um, how to approach whether Proposition 123 can be a helpful solution or not. Uh, but it's something that I know when Governor Dussy originally proposed barely passed. So, I'm just keeping my eye on the state legislature and I appreciate the fact that we have a state

058legislature here on our team and and thank you for everything that you're doing to to make it balanced because it is a tough tough call. I'd like to conclude by saying congratulations in advance to our graduates. Happy summer to everyone. Um, and thanks to those who are teaching summer school. Uh we have the funniest ironic per perception is that oh good you get summers off and I don't think people realize the hard work that's about to come to uh close the school year out or end the school year. A lot of work is necessary and getting ready to hire for next year and getting people primed and ready for the upcoming school year. So for all of you who are working so hard over the summer, thank you. And that's it. >> Thank you, Dr.

059Lewis. Uh and I'll conclude my report. Um uh attended the Coronado Promise scholarship dinner. Um thank you to the foundation um for doing that, for having potentially lifech changing scholarships for students and to see them celebrating with their families was just wonderful. And then I'm fortunate to be able to take part in the upcoming uh Coronado graduation. Looking forward to that. Uh and congrats to all the grads this year. I'm really happy to celebrate everybody. That will conclude our governing board reports. Uh, Superintendent Cumins. >> Thank you, Vice President Shy, members of the board. May is a very busy month. We typically talk about the 90 days of May. Uh, even though we end the school year on May 22nd, it feels like a lot. And and that includes the monthly celebrations that we have.

060And I'm going to run down the list very quickly with with uh apologies if we miss anyone. But the month of May, we celebrate AsianPacific American Heritage, National Physical Fitness, and Sports Month, uh, National Speech, Language, and Hearing Month. On May 1st, we celebrated School Lunch Hero Day. National Music Week was May 3rd through 10th. Last week, we celebrated Teacher Appreciation Week and National Teacher Day on May 5th. We had our National School Nurse Day on May 6th, National Bike and Roll to School Day on May 6th, National School Communicators Day on May 8th, and then I hope everybody really celebrated their mothers and all the moms on last Sunday. And then uh to wrap things up at the end of the month, we have Memorial Day uh where we pause to remember and honor

061those who have given their lives and service to our country. Scotty Unified School District is truly a special place. Uh we were recognized for the 16th year in a row for the National Association of Music Merchants as a 2026 best community for music education. The athletic banquet last night was a reminder of excellence in athletics and we still have softball and baseball teams that are competing for state championships as well as individual athletes in various track sports. And so all around there have been amazing things to celebrate. There are graduation events that are upcoming. Tomorrow night, we will have the Math Science Academy graduation at Sarro. I think we've turned the temperature up like we do every year to make sure that on the quad we're roasting. On Saturday, we have the Native American convocation

062at Arcadia High School at 6 PM. We will also have a firstofits-kind celebration next week on May 19th, uh, celebrating students from Scots Unified who are joining the armed services. So, we invite our our board and others to come and celebrate those students and their commitment to service. The Scottsdale online graduation will take place on Wednesday. All five high school commencement ceremonies will be on Thursday and the score graduation will be on Friday morning. These are always a highlight of the year as we celebrate the success of our students. Uh the only thing that I wish is that I could attend each and every one of the ceremonies versus just picking one graduation each year. So, as we wrap up the school year, I want to thank our entire SUSD community, our students, our staff,

063our families, the partners for your continued dedication and support. Your collective efforts make a lasting impact on our schools and our students futures, and we thank you. >> Thank you so much. We're going to move on to our public comment section. In compliance with the open meeting law, the governing board may not dis discuss or take action tonight on any matters raised during public comments that are not on the agenda. However, governing board members may respond to direct criticism, ask staff to review a matter, or that a matter be placed on a future agenda. Public comments will be conducted in accordance with policy BEDH. As a reminder, each speaker will have two minutes. The screen will indicate the time. Please be prepared to close your comments and relinquish the floor at the conclusion of your

064time. The board asks that each speaker please introduce yourself by stating your name and whether you live in our school district for clarity on the record. We thank you for your time in attendance here this evening and your cooperation in following the meeting to corman protocols. I'll read the name of the speaker. When you hear your name, could you please come up to the podium? I'll read the name of the next speaker to be ready on deck. Once you start speaking, your time will start. Uh our first speaker is Debbie Schumacher and on deck deck is Jeff Retay. My name is Debbie Schumacher. I'm an SUSD homeowner and grandparent. I'm here to recommend your first encourageable degenerate for your new level DP school at Puma campus. There's no need for transferring records or relocating the

065student because they're currently already there. This student has more than four years of history of harassing and bullying multiple students as well as assaulting classmates with scissors. Said student was barred from having scissors because of prior attacks. A few weeks ago, this child had scissors and attacked a student. However, because both children were just out of the camera view, no staff member witnessed the account, nothing was done. Nothing. Despite the fact that this child has a long history of bullying, harassing, and scissor assaults, nothing. Despite the dispensive wounds on the victim's hands, arms, and the slashes in their clothing, this child needs help. Whether it's therapy, medication, behavior modification, or discipline. This child must be removed from the general population for the safety of their classmates and to get the help they so desperately need.

066Prior to reopening the Puma campus, security must address the camera deficiencies to ensure full coverage of the campus for the safety of all students and staff. As the majority of Puma students will be progressing through the Sorero Learning Complex, please support them by varying barring the student from attending any school in the Sora Learning Community for the duration of their education, including banning the student from participating in any school activities or sports so that the aggressive student does not cross paths with his victims. Now that this has been brought to your attention, SUSD, you must act to address this child's behavior and protect the victims. If SUSD fails to act, this child's behavior will only involve resulting in either this bully becoming a national headline or one of the victims becoming the next Dylan Clybold

067and aggressively acting out in frustration. >> Jeff on deck, TJ Buckley. >> I was fired by Dr. Menel for refusing to call girls by boys' names without the parents permission. Dr. Menzel's office solicited these letters from the transgender students, claiming they were severely traumatized by my refusal to call them by their preferred name and pronoun. These letters were key to Alexis Wilson banning me permanently from Arcadia High School and eventually firing me. Dr. Menzel brought in a visiting administrator to do the dirty work and fire me. I immediately asked to see my personnel file. For some strange reason, unbeknownst to Dr. Menzel, she gave me copies of everything. These letters from the transgender students had been secretly and illegally placed in my file. Fast forward two years and I get a phone call from the

068Arizona Republic. A reporter had heard me speak at a board meeting and they wanted to publish a story. I sent them all the documents I had. They then filed a foyer request to the District of Freedom of Information Act, which is a federal statute for my personnel file. They called me to say that they received the file and here we go. The transgender letters were missing. Dr. Lewis, you called me into an executive board meeting to resolve my issues. It was built as an action item, meaning the board action was required. I no sooner arrived when you and Dr. Shy or Mr. Shy voted to tell me to go home. Dr. Patinsky courageously defied you and provided the swing vote to let me talk. You rushed me along totally indifferent to my concerns. You simply

069walked out and read in the paper. I read the next paper that you would take no action. You and Dr. Manzel have a lot in common. Here are some remarks you made in an interview while running for the school board. Children go through various identities related to gender and sexuality. So why have separate bathrooms in schools? By the way, Dr. Lewis, does that also include locker rooms? But I don't want to make laws that tell some kids what they can and can't do and how they should or should not feel about who they are. Your term as president expired in January. Everyone in this room knows Amy Carney should be the president. She's a rising star in the state's political arena and will restore integrity and accountability to the superintendent's office. TJ Buckley. Up next,

070Melinda Gulick. >> Good evening. Um, I'm TJ. Buckley, president of Scottsdale Education Association. Um, so I would like to stand in support of many of the things that you have in front of you tonight. Uh first I want to reiterate the uh collaboration that went into our performance pay plan that you'll see in consent agenda and the new CA that is part of your agreement action agenda. Um I also want to take time to thank uh assistant superintendent Leam Mitchell who uh reformatted the agreement which was badly needed. Uh the agreement speaks to the creation of two task forces. one covers the new the salary schedule that we loving not so lovingly refer to as the beast. Uh we're going to work to simplify that which that's a major goal for our association moving forward.

071Um also looking into horizontal movement uh which could have a major uh effect on certified staff's agency in salary movement. Um in the appendix you'll notice that there's the surplus uh policy as well as the reduction in force procedures which will be major topics of conversation next year um as we move forward with phase two and the potential for further budget cuts. Um as always we encourage the board to approve all association agreements agreed to by the four recognized associations. As we know uh as you know we work tirelessly on these agreements and hope to see our work honored by the governing board. Lastly, I want to urge the governing board to support the bond proposal before you tonight. The bond is crucial to keep the district moving forward financially. Uh this bond will allow

072um the necessary capital spending that is necessary with the movement of DAA money. Um and any without this bond, we could seriously hinder our staff compensation package, school programming, and ultimately the education and experience that we work so hard to provide our students. Um, I'll be here for the duration of the meeting. So, if you have any, um, I'm available to comment on anything as far as certified related help out there. Thanks, >> Melinda Gulick. And then last up, Denny Brown. >> Good evening, President Lewis, Vice President Shy, members of the governing board, Dr. Mensel, and Miss Wagner. Thank you for your service and commitment to the students of Scottsdale Unified School District. My name is Melinda Gulick. I'm a resident of the school district. I'm a graduate of uh SUSD. I attended Cherokee, Cocoa,

073and Chapperel. And just recently attended my 35th [clears throat] Firebird reunion where I saw many of my old friends and shared treasured memories of our experiences in SUSD. I have two sons, one at Hopi, where I serve as a classroom volunteer, and one at Ingleside where I serve on the site council. I began serving on the Yes to Children campaign committee in 2004, long before I had children, and have been serving as a co-chair for the last several campaigns, which have been successful. I'm here tonight to express my support for placing a capital bond on the ballot this November. I have to admit I was skeptical but was excited to see the high likelihood of support from voters for core investments in our facilities throughout the district from across the spectrum of age, geography, and

074political affiliation of voters in the district that you reviewed at your April meeting. It has been 10 years since the last bond. I was on that committee, too. and SUSD facilities are showing their wear and tear of thousands of students using the facilities over the years along with the need to significantly upgrade our safety, security, and technology to meet the needs to engage today's and tomorrow's students in worldclass future focused learning. I urge you to unanimously support the investment in our students. The students we celebrated tonight and heard from tonight are a perfect example of why we need to do that. We need the investment in our district, our community, our property values, and >> Denny Brown. >> My name is Denny Brown. Uh, I've been involved with the district. Melinda reminded me at for

07520 years. Um, I live around the corner. I used to work there. Um, I think this proposed bond could be one of the most important bonds I've ever worked on. There's concerns out there. This bond would show the neighborhoods that the district is committed to maintaining all of our schools and their assets. Uh, this bond could also reinforce the idea of repurposing schools for continued use and not just closing them and forgetting them. Our students, teachers, families, and neighbors need to know the district is there to pres preserve our schools and the assets. Thanks. >> Thank you. That will do it for our public comment. Um, we're going to move on to the consent agenda. >> Thank you. I appreciate >> if the superintendent can please follow up on Schumacher's um comments. Thank you. >>

076Thank you. Any other followup from board members? >> I'm good. >> Thank you. Apologies for that. Uh, all right. On to consent agenda. Um, I will make a motion to uh accept the consent agenda as modified, which was tableabling item AC, everything else as in the agenda. Have a second for the motion. >> I'll second. Sorry. >> All in favor of the motion? >> I >> That passes 5-0. So, at this time, given the board's action, I would like to acknowledge four administrators who are on the consent agenda for hire. Uh, first returning to Scasa Unified as the interim principal of Copper Ridge is Mr. Tim Iron Man. Tim, welcome back. [applause] Our incoming director of payroll, Amy Satderfield. The new principal for our level D program at Puma, Dr. Dr. Kimberly Wheeler. And last

077but not least, assistant principal at Chaparel, Danny Minkx. [applause] Welcome to each of you, and we look forward to having you uh in your new roles on our team. >> Thank you. All right, we're moving on to section 13, which is action items. Um, first item A is approval of resolutions calling for special bond election in November 3rd, 2026. Mr. Roller, Vice President Shy, members of the board, Dr. Menzel, Miss Wagner, thank you for having me tonight. Um, my presentation will be brief. Um, if you remember, our last number was 416 million. Uh, we worked through that. We're now at 375 million on the lower end of uh what Noble Predictive Insights had said would be um something that people would really get behind. One thing that I mentioned was that the phase two was

078a big deal. It was out of timing. we we need to make this decision. So, um what I did was I took all seven of the schools that are being considered, identified their total expected spend on the bond, um averaged that out, multiplied it by uh 70% and then multiplied that by two or divided by 70% and divide or multiply by two. That gives us an 11 million deduction, but still leaves us money to do our facility condition work. Uh maybe not do a a PE space or things like that, some high dollar items, but it'll definitely take care of our infrastructure and the things that are most important to keep that facility intact. If there is uh u a project that turns out that we're going to um repurpose that school into something else,

079then uh we'll have some monies available to help with that as well. Uh this will this slide shows you the percentages of uh each pamphlet line. Um, as I showed you in my previous presentation, pamphlets have several lines in them. We've identified um where uh those will land um for each slide each line. Lastly is the percentages of um spend at each uh learning center. And uh Max was right. Desert Mountain gets the most, but remember uh Desert Mountain is the oldest, Desert Mountain is the biggest. and the Desert Mount Learning Community um also is the biggest at eight total schools um instead of five or six at the others. So, uh we've kept the administrative uh support buildings at a very low number, but we we have a number in there that we're confident

080we can get the work done and keep those buildings uh going as well. Lastly, um I believe uh the work starts as soon as you say go. And so we've got some a lot of work to do. Um when we get the bond money, it typically drops a month or two after um the bond is passed. And I would like to be able to make sure that we're ready to go and as soon as that money drops, we're able to start doing projects because there's a lot of uh very necessary work that needs to be done. Um in uh the last bond, we had a bond oversight committee that uh met on a regular basis. Um they talked about the process um the approvals. um we made sure that that the people were getting the

081projects were getting what they wanted in the projects and so we're going to duplicate that again. Um we're not going to uh cut any corners. We're going to make sure everybody is fully aware of the money that we're spending. So um with that, I believe Randy Stein is up to uh talk about the tax implications. >> We do have um It's Randy Stein here from Steve. Um the slides that you'll see here were um presented at the work study meeting as well. Um we just changed now that we have narrowed it down. We had three options before. We narrowed it down to um a bond ask of 375 million. Um so this just shows what the uh expected tax rate would be um throughout that that portion of it. Um for part the first few

082years, you know, we'll be doing still covering the old bonds. um but then adding a little bit more for this bond. Um this is actually what would be in the voter pamphlet. Um and shows just what that tax rate or implication would be with the average value for tax purposes. Average home value being of um $67,000. Um so the estimated average monthly for some uh a home valued at that would be $1310. Um, and again, Miss Miss Stein talked about this the other last time we were here, but really kind of illustrates the fact that, um, it goes off of limited property value when we're looking at what that tax rate is. Um, and again, that can very different be very different than what the home value would be were you to sell your home

083right now. Um, so it also gives a little perspective, too, as to um, you know, there's there's a huge difference on the tax rate for a $600,000 home versus a 1 1 million dollar home. So, little perspective there. Um the uh this last slide just goes over the the cost of the election. Um we will have we will have a cost no matter what we do. If we had a bond or or we or the board approved to sell property or not, um no matter what, we would have a cost for election because we have um two governing board positions on that ballot. So, uh that would be roughly $82,000. And this is just going off of what it was from the last election. Um it's $500 per question or that's what it was the

084last time. We actually have a meeting with U Maricopa tomorrow finalizing some of these things but um it's been 500 per question in the past. Um approximately 62,000 for pamphlet printing and postage translation services that has to go through that. Legal fees is actually paid through prepaid legal but I it is a cost that will would occur through our prepaid legal. Um but that's a cost as well. So, total estimated cost for um putting this on the ballot would be about $161,000. Put it up for questions. >> I just want to clarify again on the the tax value, property value. So on slide nine, um, if I had, let's say, that home in the middle on East Welden Avenue, >> with the 66,000 limited property value, then go back up to slide eight, >> it's

085going to be about 1310, $1310 a month. >> So that so the 600 on the last slide is the 607. It's about the same thing. So if your house looks like that Welden property, you're paying $157 a year for this bond. Yes, that is correct. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Dr. Patinsky. >> In terms of cost, to the extent that work starts to happen even before, you know, voters decide on the bond so that we can hit the ground running, are there any additional commitment of expenditures with consultants or architects or designers that would then uh kind of be eaten if for some reason the the bond wasn't approved? We are going to work towards a zerocost effort. Um get the architects and engineer engineers involved later on but we still need to plot out

086that first year of all the projects. Um for instance is the security projects don't necessarily need architects and engineers. The con uh the vendors that provide those services they can do that work. Um, so we'll identify um in those early months before the bond is passed what that's going to look like, have all the different discussions that we need to have with the principles and all of the different folks and and have that plan locked in and then uh start spending money, but only after uh the bond is passed. >> Thank you. >> I have a question. >> Go ahead, Dr. Lewis. >> Thank you. Thank you for your hard work to put the 500 million down to 300 some million. I I appreciate that. I was curious what your thinking process was as you

087factored in the increased cost for uh potentially labor and materials. Did you factor in the current inflationary rate? I'm I'm imagining you did. I just wanted to hear your thinking process. >> Yes, we did. Um, we use a couple different resources to determine the cost of construction and uh, depending on which uh, form you're reading from um, it's either 3.5 or 4.7%. So, we stayed on the low side at 3.5%. Um, but we also made sure that we um, were not being um, too conservative in the pricing. We wanted to make sure uh based on everything that we did in the last bond, we use those numbers. Um we know that since COVID uh we saw increases of between 35 and 45%. So we applied a lot of that work to um to those percentages.

088>> Thank you. If there no more questions, I'd like to put a motion on the table and then we could discuss before we vote. So, I'll make a motion to approve the resolution calling for a special bond election November 3rd, 2026. Do I have a second? >> I'll second. Any discussion, comments amongst the board before we vote, Miss Curry? >> Uh, I just ask that we do a roll call vote because I'd like to explain my vote. >> Of course. Any other comments? All right, let's do a roll call vote. Dr. Pinsky. I vote yes. I miss Warner. >> I'm a staunch supporter of public education and local control and this is an opportunity for the voters in Scottsdale Unified to have their voice heard. And with that, I vote I. >> Miss Carney. >>

089Uh thank you. I I just like to say that I would have liked for us to explore whether the potential sale of the properties listed in the next agenda item uh could have first been evaluated as part of a broader financial strategy for the district. For example, could proceeds from any future sale reduce the size of this future our future bond request to taxpayers. But regardless, I do believe that this is a decision to be made by our taxpayers and our voters uh will get to make the decision uh if they want this or not. And so my vote is yes. >> Dr. Lewis, >> uh I am in support of everything that's been said so far. I too am not. >> And it's a yes from me. It passes 5-0. Thank you. >> Thank

090you. On to item B, approval of resolutions calling for authorization to sell property uh in the election on November 3rd, 2026. Miss Croer. Yes. Uh thank you. Good evening uh uh President Lewis, Vice President Shy, members of the board, Dr. Menz. Um at the last board meeting, uh we talked about whether or not the board would like to uh also put on the ballot the option to or the authorization to sell um a couple different district properties. So uh this just goes over and again this was at the last meeting, but the requirement to sell district property. Um the two things that I want to highlight on here is that if it is a successful um the governing board is not obligated to sell those properties. It is just gives you the option if you

091want to do that now. If you want to do that you if authorized a governing board could do put those properties up for sale now they could put it up for five years 10 years down the road. It just opens the door to allow this governing board or a future governing board to sell those properties if if approved. Um and that authorization does not expire. Um the three that we are bringing forward tonight are uh Choya campus, Apache campus, and Oak. Um as you can see, those are um primarily used for some rentals at this point in time. Um Apache is also where we have our southern bus barn for transportation, um fuel station, those types of things. Um, again, if the if the governing board wanted to move forward with this, um, because the

092the bond has passed, uh, the only additional cost for doing this would be the $500 for the ballot question. Um, it will be one question that would encompass the three properties. Um, which we did not list the very detailed description of those properties that will be on the ballot, but this is the ballot language that would be out there for for the authorization that I'll open it up for questions. >> Questions? Dr. Pensky, just a reminder, if we were if we don't move forward and then decided to put it on the ballot next year, we would be incurring for the district if memory serves around $150,000 worth of expense to put it forward versus piggybacking on the existing ballot this year. Is that >> um it would actually be a little bit higher um because

093this ballot has is a midterm ballot. There's multiple items on it. So the amount that we pay >> Oh, it could spread out over more. >> It could spread out over more questions and and and um voter qu opportunities, whereas if it was just us on it, it would be it would be a mail-in ballot, but it would also cost us more money per ballot to do that. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> So you want to do it on a prim like a midyear or presidential. Keep the cost down. >> Any other questions for Miss Crocher? Thank you. I'll do the same thing. I'll put a motion on the table and we could discuss before we vote. I'll make a motion to approve the resolution calling for authorization to sell property in the election on

094November 3rd, 2026. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Any comments before we vote? Dr. Pinsky, >> I I just want to explain I I support this. I take very seriously the idea that, you know, the reason having a vote is to give the community the opportunity to weigh in on a property sale and so you don't do it just to get a blank check. That said, I think it's very prudent for our taxpayers to save the funds by including it. We don't know whether the bond will be approved and if it's not, then this gives us the flexibility to continue to invest in our physical plant. Um and I think the properties that have been selected to be put forward you know that that process of evaluation these are the logical properties that

095we would consider. So I think this is financially prudent. I also think it's strategically prudent from a budgeting perspective. Thank you. >> All right. No other comments. We will take a vote on the motion. All in favor say I. >> I. I. >> I. >> Motion passes 5. Thank you. Next is the approval of real estate sale agreement for the sale of property at 7575 East Main Street to the city of Scottsdale. Uh there is no presentation for this. This has been discussed previously. Um so I will do the same thing. U make a motion and we can have comments if needed. So I'll make a motion to approve the real estate sale agreement for the sale of property at 7575 East Maine to the city of Scottsdale. We have a second. >> Seconded. Any

096comments before we vote. >> Okay, let's take a vote on the motion. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion passes 5-0. Thank you. Next up is item D, approval of the 2026 2027 association agreements. Okay. Uh Dr. Cruz, are you gonna make a presentation? >> Um there is no presentation here. >> Everything is I will hear uh questions. I would like to first just uh do a big shout out and thank you to our association groups and our IBN team. This is really the culmination of all of our work and collaboration throughout the year. Um these agreements really codify the changes that the board has made um for several of them already in February and March and April. and they have also been reviewed by our attorney, Miss McClennon. >> So, I'm happy

097to stand for questions. >> Okay, >> Miss Carney. >> Thank you. I just had a a comment. Um, and for the record, I just wanted to note that we did not receive this information until nearly 5:00 yesterday. And so, um, it's it's hard in a big agenda like this, uh, to sufficiently look through all these. So, I would just ask if in the future if we can please get that this earlier because the this is a big item and it would have been helpful to have it prior to 24 hours. >> My apologies, Miss Carney. I agree with that. >> Thank you. >> Dr. Pinsky, >> just one question. Could you explain the um class size? I'm trying to find the exact term. there sort of staffing targets and then there's an additional bump in

098compensation when class size goes above, you know, certain ratios or thresholds. So, is that still presumably under the maximum class size that we set as a district? So, there's some gradation down >> maybe just could you explain a little bit of a class size? >> Yes. And I'm sorry it's not sitting in front of me. I should have uh I didn't waste trees and have all of these printed out in front of me. So, I might look back to Dr. for some assistance. But um we look at class size and we have a target which we staff to initially. Um we don't add a teacher until all of the classrooms at that grade level are over the the maximum which is the next bump to it. So um it could be that we maybe don't

099add a teacher. It's late in the year. Um we we maybe add an aid to that to that grade level or to those classrooms. Um we also could add some compensation. So we look at that a little bit differently. >> So it kicks in once we're above >> the policy ceiling, which I guess why would we ever be above the pol. There are just some times where that happens. >> There there's some times when we look at um perhaps it's May, right? We're not going to add a teacher at that point in time. >> Okay. >> We we look at other options that I believe are also detailed. >> Okay. Thank you. All right, no further questions. Put a motion on the table. I'll make a motion to approve the 2026 2027 association agreements as

100presented. A second. Second. >> There are no comments. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion passes 50. Thank you. >> Thank you very much, governing board. Um item E, approval of supplemental materials for the 2026 2027 school year. Uh Dr. Jazinski presentation. >> Microphone is not on. Thank you. >> Thank you. Good evening, President Lewis, Vice President Shy, members of the governing board, Dr. Mensel, Miss Wagner, and guests. It is a pleasure to be with you quickly this evening. Tonight's action items request approval of four new supplemental materials, as well as the district's full supplemental resource list for the 2627 school year. Additional details were provided in the B memo shared last week, and tonight's presentation will briefly summarize these recommendations. All supplemental materials brought forward this evening were reviewed by the supplemental

101committee curriculum review committee. The committee met multiple times this spring to review new and currently used supplemental resources. This review and approval process is guided by Arizona statute and Scottsdale Unified School District governing board policies related to curriculum development, adoption, and instructional resources. Just as a quick reminder, SUSD teachers utilize a variety of resources. This evening's request specifically focuses on supplemental materials. These are resources that support instruction across schools and are used for 20% of instruction or up to 20% of instructional time. The committee is recommending approval of four new supplemental resources. These include two career and technical education certifications, one college and career readiness platform, and one special education resource. All materials were on public display from March 13th through today, May 12th. In addition to the four new materials, this action item includes

102approval of the full supplemental resource list for the 2627 school year. This annual approval ensures continued access to already approved instructional supports across the district. The supplemental review committee will reconvene in the fall to continue newly proposed resources for the next school year, ensuring the list remains current and responsive to instructional needs. And with that, I invite any questions or comments. Any questions from the board? >> I have a question. >> Go ahead, Dr. Lewis. >> Which CTE course? >> Let me scroll back real quick to that slide. We have um the introduction to basic construction skills for our new construction program at Sorro. Um the construction technology fourth edition as well. Um and then school links which will actually cover not only CTE but all students for college and career readiness. And I just

103want to clarify, are these subscriptionbased resources that are digital? >> These are uh one year purchased. Um I have Jamie here. She might be able to answer specific questions about the resource. >> They're consumables. It sounds like >> consumable. Um school links um would be a subscription basis. So it would be um entering into um an agreement and the textbook resources would be um subscription per per student >> hard hard copy. >> Um they yeah they would have access to hard copy or digital copy. >> Okay. I just it just parlays into another discussion we're going to have and I just wanted to kind of hear that. Thank you. >> All right. There's no other questions. I'll make a motion that we approve the supplemental materials for the 2627 school year as presented. Can I

104get a second? >> Second again. All in favor of the motion vote I >> I >> motion passes by vote. No. Any opposed? >> Um I'd like to explain my vote. Um the since we're approving the entire list of supplemental materials um that that's where my issue lies with some of the uh resources that are on this list. Um I know in the digital resource survey that went out um in the district that uh teachers were talking about that we just have too many tools, too many things that cause confusion. And so um I really think we need to narrow this down through this um this next year. And also the board needs to understand what we're spending on each of these the current uh spending which is is not on this list. So um

105since I know we need to make some some cuts on this and some resources that um I don't agree with spending on I am a no on this >> motion passes 41. >> Thank you. >> On to item F. Approval of revisions to the 2627 student code of conduct. I know there's no presentation here, but um I believe Dr. Sakos is available if there are any questions. Any questions from the board? Miss Carney. >> Okay. Um so I'm directing questions. >> Thank you. >> Okay. And hi. Okay. Since we switched the order, this is a little uh different for me since we this was supposed to come after the information items and when we were going to have >> sorry >> originally this was coming after the technology presentation. So um I just have a

106few questions on the new the updated uh technology and network section there. the acceptable and responsible use. I'm not sure. There was a lot of red line. >> Yeah, >> sure. Actually, you know what? For that question, I will bring Chrissy. >> I'm happy to help. >> Okay. So, I just have a question. Um, and as we we talked about when we had our meeting, I I believe that this whole section needs to be a separate document like a a district use uh agre tech agreement because there's so much information and it's very important. I know we had talked about taking that out of this and making it a separate uh agreement which I believe needs to happen because it's just going to get lost in here and it's very important information for parents and

107for the students. Um but I do have a specific question under the privilege of monitoring. It says use of district technology and network resources is a privilege not a right and may be revoked at any time. Um it also says that under consequences violation of these protocols may result in suspension or termination of technology privileges. So several times in here it says that technology may be taken from a student. So my question is what happens if technology is misused and taken away from a student? How will they still be educated if they're not able to be on their on their device? >> I'm actually going to pass the baton now back to Dr. Sacos who would deal with more of the discipline side. >> All right. Sorry for the pingpong over here. Um generally what

108happens is the teachers and or administration will provide the student um with an alternative assignment um so that they can still demonstrate mastery of the standards. Um, and oftentimes it is a short term um, unless we're having repetitive violations of technology. Um, but the teacher would make sure that they have an alternative assignment without the the need for technology. >> Okay. Um, but what if and what if parents want that for their student anyway, not not to be on devices? I think that's a great conversation to have individ individually with teachers andor administration um to ask them and let let them know the rationale why there are some things that are valuable uh to learn or that we have our resources and technology but there's also alternative assignments that that schools can provide um if

109that is the case. >> Okay. Is is this something that we could table um and look at taking this important technology piece out and make into a separate agreement? >> Perhaps we um provide a link in the code of conduct to technology use agreement and look at an alternative location to house it on the website. We do realize the importance of making sure at the beginning of the school year we are bringing to the forefront of our students and our parents um our technology use agreement um as well as some other areas such as the code such as the dress code that we want to make sure that students and and parents are paying close attention to. Um we can certainly do that. We do want to get the code approved so that it can

110um schools can begin their preparation for communication for summer as they as they're beginning to communicate with families. >> Absolutely. And I think the committee our goal is to just increase the visibility as much as possible. So if it is in the code, I am happy to bring that back to the committee as well and have a conversation about where else we can house that agreement on the website so that it increases visibility. >> Okay. I just think it's a it's an important conversation and like I said this was supposed to come after the presentation which we are going to have a more robust discussion and um now that we mixed it up it's a little more difficult. >> Thank you >> Dr. Pinsky. I have a question that I get often from parents which

111I think relates to um the handbook may also relate to other district policies. What are the remedies for teachers who experience consistently disruptive students in the classroom and what are some of the considerations when it comes to enforcing the remedies? >> So each campus um has a progressive discipline model that they follow. Um each campus also follows our MTSS multi-ter systems of support and behavior. Um and that begins with the um re the reinforcement positive reinforcement and then uh what we call minors. Um once they reach a certain amount of minors um then it becomes a major and that is becomes an office discipline referral. Sometimes when there's a repeat behavior um depending on elementary, middle or high school um administration assistant principal may may push into the classroom to see you know how again

112we can reduce the the behaviors identify the antecedent toward the behavior. um take data to see why the student is acting out look at the function of that behavior so that we can determine the right interventions uh for the students. Um so it's a multiaceted approach and if it's not happening or if it's they're not making much progress on the campus um then of course support services will also uh push in um and also see how they can help do some observations and develop a plan uh for for the students so that the you know the teachers can teach and the kids can learn without major disruptions >> and and what mechanisms do we have to understand from teachers how they're feeling about class behavior? behavior uh in their classrooms and student disruption and sort

113of the effectiveness of our enforcement and code of conduct. on all of our campuses they have what's called liaison um where the a group of teachers um will meet with the principles on a frequent basis sometimes monthly some uh sometimes uh you know um every other month and they bring the concerns to the to the liaison group with the principal to talk about we are starting to see a pattern of uh disruption or disrespect on the playground um we also have our our multi-ter systems support um our MTSSB teams in which uh teachers most likely are a part of too that can also help look at what are the next steps in order to support um the students with the appropriate behavioral interventions. >> Do you have a sense of whether we are seeing in

114the district particularly at the middle school uh level an increase in concerns among teachers around classroom behavior? >> I'll defer to Miss Cron. I don't typically get the complaints directly from teachers on on behavior not being handled, but I don't know what you're what you're hearing from the campuses or what the data is telling us at this point. Right. Um, so on our campuses, we also have our MTSSB Tills, which is a teacher that receives special support and training to help other teachers um support behavior in their classroom. So, that is one more resource that we have, that is one more person that our teachers are able to go to. um if they have concerns regarding, you know, how behavior is addressed, kind of share that information. Um I work very closely with our administrators.

115If there is a behavior that is interfering with the learning or if a teacher is really kind of struggling with the behavior, they often reach out to my team and we go in and work very closely with that teacher. A lot of times it starts with that observation where the teacher might be the one that is really kind of asking for additional for themselves, you know, wrapped around what we call the grade eight teaching strategies. If it is more of a, you know, student, we work with the teacher to identify the function of the behavior and then put supports in place that match that function to decrease. We provide, you know, data collecting tools, ongoing support where um [clears throat] a member from my team would go in on a regular basis and model how

116to implement those supports in the classroom, you know, work directly with the the student. And then we also look at what other resources are available on that campus so that we can support the student. >> Do you sense a trend around classroom behavior issues in the middle schools? >> So in the middle school our number one referral right now is defiance and disruption and that has um historically been a concern. uh we see a trend where it is decreasing but then we also see that that is a it's a concern. >> Okay. >> So just for my colleagues I've asked um >> the district as part of kind of year-end reporting what to what extent do we track discipline incidents across different sites and can we get a sense on year-over-year trending and can we

117see it by school? just because I hear from families, you know, concerns around classroom behavior. Um, I'm sure it's anecdotal. It's not at every school, not at every grade, not every teacher. Um, but enough that I felt like this was the right opportunity to raise it. >> Thank you. >> I was just going to say we're gathering that information and I also think this conversation dubtales nicely into our capturing kids hearts presentation that will happen after this action item. >> I love a good segue. Um question uh following up on the the SAB comment about dress code. Let's say SAB came to us in October and they said we've got a great suggestion to change the dress code policy. Could we if uh put forward and approved could that change mid year or is this

118only on an annual cycle? >> We typically bring the code of conduct on an annual basis. Um it's not a board policy per se. So if SAB wanted to present um at one of their opportunities to present then certainly the board can can take a look at that um and opine as to um some of the next steps that we're taking whether it's immediately um and that that would obviously any changes to the code would have to be communicated to the family um and the students mid year but that's c certainly something that I think that they would um be very eager to entertain um and come to the to board with their ideas. >> Thank you. Any other questions? >> Miss Carney, >> thank you. Um, since you brought up the the dress code,

119uh, could you just, um, reiterate what was changed in the dress code that we're referring to? >> So, >> what update was made by this board? >> The Yes. So, the update that was made by this board was to that the naval must be covered, >> right? Right. So that's the only thing that was changed. >> The only thing that was changed, yes, from our previous um code of conduct dress code, >> right? >> And I will share that when we first took a look at the dress code, we had um stakeholder input from teachers, from administrators, from parents, from students. And we changed the dress code where it did have the naval covered and then there was a movement to, you know, that that was um putting unfair attention on some of our female

120students and so it was changed and then this board adopted the new change again with having it covered. So that has been the the biggest update and I'm always happy to again bring that information back to our different groups or students and um and right now we do have one minor um in the code of conduct in our who knew it data for address code violations. So it's something that our administrators and our teachers have been you know really kind of pushing out and we talk a lot about teaching behavior the same way that we do teach academics. So in the beginning of the year, you know, after a break, October break, winter break, coming back and reviewing what are the behavioral expectations on campus and that is one that is reviewed. So there has

121been some push back from some of our, you know, high school campuses. Um, but it is something that, you know, our school teams are really working to push out and change that behavior on our campuses so that students follow the dress code. >> Thank you. There are no other questions from the board. Put a motion on the table. I'll make a motion to approve the revisions of the 2026 2027 student code of conduct as presented. Can we get a second? >> Second. >> A second. >> Thank you. All in favor of the motion say I. >> I. >> Motion passes 5. >> Thank you. Thank you. And that will do it for our action items. We will go to >> Thank you for the to the agenda, everyone. And I will look forward to following

122what we talk about as the meeting continues. Thank you. >> Thank you, Dr. Lewis. >> All right. Byebye. >> All right. Moving on to section 11, information discussion items. Uh topic A is information update on capturing kids hearts program implementation. Good evening, governing board members. Thank you so much for the opportunity to share a little bit about Capturing Kids Hearts. And I promise you won't have to hear very much from me because I think you probably can see a really cool group of people behind me um that are going to share some of their experiences um with capturing kids hearts in SUSD. Um just want to make always the connection that our work around capturing kids hearts is really in service to um our strategic priorities around climate culture and community engagement. Really having full

123and thriving schools that also means it's a school where kids have feel safe. they feel respected, they have a voice, um, and they can contribute to their culture. Um, we do all of this for our our why because kids, we have some incredible ones we're going to hear from tonight. We want to elevate excellence all of the time and we want to make sure that we're focusing on their future. And what we're hearing even from student advisory board is our kids have voices. They have a real picture of what they want their future to be. And so I'm just so pleased with the opportunity with Capturing Kids Hearts to really engage our students um and help uh with their agency and contributing to uh the culture of their schools. So I'm going to talk just

124a little bit about why capturing kids hearts, what brought us here. Um and so during the 2425 school year, so not this one, the one before, um the principles at Tonalia Middle School and Yavapai Elementary were seeking ways to strengthen climate and culture at their campus. both um principal Jagadinsky, Principal Perry at the time would reach out to us and just say, "We're we're seeing a lot of um behaviors. We're seeing a lot of challenges. Our staff are concerned. Our families are concerned." And so really, they were seeking solutions for something that would make a big difference. We had the opportunity um in the spring of that year, the three of us um and some others to go to, um a short session where we learned a little bit more about capturing kids hearts. And

125at the time both those principles were like this we really feel like this could be the thing for our kids for our schools. Um and so we were able to um engage with capturing kids hearts and bring those both to Tonalia and Yavapai. We did have an administration change at Tonalia and Principal Via um assistant principal Rogers embraced fully the notion of capturing kids hearts and I can't wait for them to share a little bit about what a difference it has made on their campuses. um a little bit of a background on Capturing Kids Hearts and if I mess up anything, our incredible champion Misty um is with us this evening from Capturing Kids Hearts and she can share any additional information that you may have along with the SUSD cheerleader extraordinaire. Um Miss Margaret

126Cerna, my sister Margaret, who helped really champion this work um at these schools throughout the year. Um really the background on capturing kids hearts is it's a discipline model. Um, it asks students with their teachers to develop a social contract, an agreement at the beginning of the year of how we're going to engage with each other. Um, students have the opportunity to know upfront if I make some missteps, what happens, how do I stay in class, what happens if I get out of class. Um, there's a discipline ladder for teachers. A lot of our teachers seek, you know, we need some more help with progressive discipline. We're not sure what's the right thing. And so it provides teachers um some tools around progressive discipline but also really thoughtful questions so that sometimes we can engage

127with students um who might be having a hard time and use a lot of adult language which doesn't always help um the the moment in time. And so there's really four questions that teachers leverage um with students to really get them to reflect on their choices um and what to do when we're misbehaving, being disrespectful. And then for administrators also, it's really focused on driving um the support for the culture of the classroom to the teachers and the students, but also provides to our administrators the same sort of ladder of expectations, ladder of discipline, um that we know is really supportive in those environments. Each classroom really is built and focused on the Excel model. Um, and that's really how the lessons and the experience within the learning moment should um, be felt. So, they

128meet and greet, you would see at either of these schools, which I bet our kiddos will talk a little bit about, teachers greeting them every at every entrance. So, if you're a first grader and you go to music, you go to lunch, you go to your classroom, every day there should be a teacher standing at the doorway, greeting you, getting to know you, really making sure that you feel seen, welcomed into the classroom. Um, also really built upon individual students needs and interests, and taking the time up front at the beginning of the year to build that culture. um really and truly giving kids and teachers the language to empower their decisions, talk about how they're feeling, um what's going on with them. And it really really focuses on empowerment for our teachers to feel

129like they have um supports. They also have clarity with what would happen if this happens in my classroom. What will be the support for me as a teacher? What's the response from the administrator? um and really then getting into that lesson in a meaningful meaningful way. The steps are sequential. It's something our teachers have really engaged with over um their training and over the course of the year. I'm going to talk a little bit this next slide talks about the wraparound supports for each school. Um so the campus uh each campus gets a dedicated strategist. That's our friend Misty. Um she works directly with the schools. She has come to know their teachers. She's come to love them when I'm with Misty where uh you know every teacher sees her hey they stop they give

130a hug. She's really ingrained herself in the culture. She works closely with the administrators and the teachers on that transformation surve uh transformation plan and their journey. What are they working on? The schools are a little bit different. So really trying to make sure that we're collecting information and data, monitoring their journey, and then a huge amount of support for teachers both in the professional development that they all collectively got as a staff at the beginning of the year and then identifying some of our process champions who had additional layers of support throughout the year. Lots of um tools and resources are a part of our campus premium packages. We also as a district get a layer of support so that we can see what difference is this making? How are things going? What might

131we need to do whether it's in our code of conduct, whether it's in some of our intervention strategies to help make a big difference. And so these um in concert with the campus supports really do provide that wraparound resource that we need um in order to elevate excellence in these schools. Um we do talk a little bit about how we measure that impact all along the way. So, we are dialed into the achievement and the growth and proficiency of these students, but we're also really dialed into how their teachers are feeling at the beginning of the year, in the middle of the year, and the end of the year. How our parents are feeling in the beginning, the middle, and the end, and how our students are feeling at the beginning, middle, and end. And

132then each uh each school team gets the opportunity to talk with Misty, go through their data, set goals, track progress, and make adjustments as those happen. But like I promised a little bit uh for me. I'm done. I'm getting close to um done for this piece. But I would love to invite up our Yavapai. I think we have Principal Perry. We have some students and um some staff who are going to just share their experience with capturing kids hearts. Good evening. Our student has requested to do this alone. So, we're gonna step back and let him. And he needs a stool. >> Yep. You can stand on this. >> Oh, it's too high. I'll just sit. >> All right. Hello, I am Emit and I am a third grade student at Yavapai Elementary School. Here

133are some reasons why capturing kids hearts makes our school special. One reason is that kids get to lead good things. This is special because we start every day listening to others and you can know what people are excited about. It helps build relationships. It also makes you ask questions, boosting your interest in others. Then we have checking and fing. This signal helps when people aren't listening and being rude. We kids get to do this, so it helps keep each other accountable. Jobs in class are always nice for people to explore new things and practice leadership skills. One job is our ambassadors. They greet new people to show them respect and how our class works. Also, the four questions help people to get back on track and reflect on their actions. These are some reasons why

134CK/ capturing kids hearts makes our school special. >> [applause] >> You don't need the stool. >> I don't need the stool. Yeah. No, I mean I'm short, but yeah. Um, hi. I'm Samantha Yala. I'm a third grade teacher. Emmit's teacher. Um, at Yavapaya Elementary School. I have had the opportunity to serve as one of our process champions for capturing kids hearts and have firsthand seen how it has positively impacted our school. CKH brings a whole new level of understanding and positivity to our campus. It helps build relationships, accountability, and leadership within our students and our staff. The biggest aspect of CKH that has helped our campus is the unification it brings. Many teachers have the skills and ideas to create a positive and studentled classroom. But having these practices that are implemented universally pushes the

135expectation in all areas and raises the bar for student behavior and academic success. For example, a student can walk into any area and know that when someone calls a foul on them, they have to give two putups or positive affirmations. And it's also a great tool that works at home, too. Parents get notified every month of our focus word and how they can work on it at home. Whether that's creating goals, writing affirmations, or simply having a discussion on what that word means to them and how they can show that at home and at school. This has been a great way to see us help build a collaborative bridge between home, the community, and school. I have loved seeing the way that CK has helped our school grow, and I really hope that I can

136see it help other schools grow, too. And now we'll hear a little bit from our friends at Tonia. Good evening and thank you for inviting us to share this uh wonderful program that we have uh luckily implemented at Tonalia Middle School. As a new principal, I have to be honest, I was a little skeptical when you know the capturing kids hearts, it sounds a little kidish and so forth and so on. and me with a high school background. Um, I came in and right away we were very fortunate because Misty is not only uh a trainer for uh capturing kids hearts, but she is one of their main cogs and is just a wealth of knowledge and support and quickly as a new principal at Tonalia. It was very clear that the training first of

137all really set the tone for the campus and as a staff we had a lot of fracturing within our staff. We had a high turnover uh that year. So, a lot of new members, a lot of uh components that were separated for uh various reasons. And what it did uh from the start uh as a new principal at the campus, it gave me the opportunity to build relationships with the staff and them with one another. And I feel like in two days, it was about two years worth of relationship building. That was um I mean, I it's priceless as as a new administrator. um it would have taken me forever to get to know my staff that way. And that's the same thing that spreads out throughout the campus. Um you know, and I want

138to uh make sure that um I'm going to let them talk about the nuts and bolts. And what we wanted to focus on is really the changes that we have seen CH uh um do to Tonalia. Um but part of that is it does not happen without leadership and what and that is exemplified by uh the teacher that I've asked to come here as well. Um she is one of our process champions. We have five of them and they lead our staff meetings. Uh we model all of it within our staff even on our announcements in the morning. We share good things. I share a good thing every every morning with the students um as well. Um and we celebrate each other. The kids submit it online as well. We share three random students good

139things in the morning so that they can hear and then they do it in every class period. So it's a little different elementary because we they do it six times a day. They have six social contracts throughout the day. We have a social contract as a staff that's posted in the library that we follow as a staff. Um, and it's all led by our champions and in the classroom. It's led by our student leaders. And I invited one to come tonight. His name is Ryan Montenegro. He'll be attending Coronado next year, which is unfortunate, but he is a fantastic example. And I asked him to come because I feel like he has the pulse of the school and our CLC learning community. And so I want to invite Ryan Montenegro to come speak to you

140a little bit about the changes he's seen. >> Hello, I am Ryan Montenegro. CK helps students learn more about one another and teachers. Oh, sorry. Oh my god. These relationships have helped decrease altercations and issues between students. I've seen multiple change or I've seen a decrease in fights and altercations like I said through sixth grade and seventh grade. Uh the greetings at the doors help build relationships with teachers. Consistency. We know how like our social contracts help like oh my god why am I why is this so hard? [laughter] >> Oh yeah >> the consistency. We know how things will be addressed regardless of the teacher. The social contracts help help uh give students ownerships. Sorry. The host our social contracts help give st students own students ownerships. Sorry. And why? What the heck? Anyway,

141our social contracts help our students own up to our or to their behaviors. >> And uh yeah, >> yeah. and and and Ryan and I had a great Thank you, Ryan, SO MUCH [laughter] and Ryan is um he's actually on our newscast in the morning very frequently as well and uh [laughter] he was concerned a little bit about but what Ryan and I discussed uh even uh regularly because he's part of the one of the students that I turn to if I need to get a pulse of what's going on and it does provide that consistency uh from class to class uh day to day, moment to moment. And the students have that buyin because they create these social contracts. And so it gives them that ownership that oftentimes students don't get, especially at middle

142school. They're not trusted a lot of times with that kind of responsibility, but in this case, they create it, so they own it, and it really makes a difference. But I want Miss Flores to come up and share a little bit as a staff member. Thank you. >> Good evening. Uh, I'm just going to read from my phone, kind of repeating a lot of what's been said, but this is just shared from my perspective. Uh, my name is Sarah Flores. I work at Tonalia as the sixth grade ELA teacher and a process champion, which has been awesome to get to know Misty. But um just a little side note, you know, as soon as we adopted this program last year, even as a success teacher and the experience that I had was very difficult last

143year, I really knew that CKH, first of all, it spoke to my heart because I wear my heart on my sleeve everywhere I go. So, I just knew that it was kind of what our campus was missing. Um and also just as a heart-c centered person, it was something that gave me hope again and not wanting to leave. and knowing that we were adopting that is truly what kept me there. So, uh, [sighs] what the heck, dude, Ryan, it happens. I'm getting tears in my eyes. Okay, here we go. So, last year I stood on the front lines of our campus behavior as the teacher for our crosscategorical behavior program known as success. It was intense. It was difficult. I saw firsthand how much our sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students and our staff were

144struggling to find a common ground when it comes to behavior and accountability on campus. This year, I moved into sixth grade ELA, and the difference isn't just because of the curriculum. It's because of capturing kids' hearts. In my behavior program last year, we were often reacting to fires using many different methods trying to manage behavior. And this year, we're able to use a more proactive approach. First, we began to use a social contract. So, starting week one, just like was explained um with my sixth graders and all of the teachers on campus at the same time built a contract with each class using four questions that guided our agreement. And the four questions are, how do you want to be treated by the teacher? How does the teacher want to be treated by you? How

145do you want to be treated by your peers? And what should we do when there's conflict? This activity looks like one student volunteering to be the scribe and writing a long list of all the words that we all feel are important and necessary for TMS and creating a rise respect include safe and engaged culture. It then stays posted and visible for the entire year and we refer back to it and add to it if needed. So when a student is off task or a peer conflict arises or a student needs redirection, I don't have to be the enforcer. I simply point to the social contract and ask how are we supposed to treat each other? what was the agreement we made? Are you keeping your end of the agreement? It's a beautiful thing because they

146realized they're not upholding their end of the agreement and naturally will change their behavior. Last year, uh there wasn't very much student accountability when it came to addressing behavior in the moment. And with CKH, there's 100% student accountability. In my classroom, students check their peers respectfully. This looks like them holding their thumb up to a peer who's not following classroom expectations and trying to keep them accountable by referring back to our contract. They're self-managing. They're taking accountability for their own learning and responding to redirection, which allows me to just teach instead of manage behavior. When it comes to my colleagues, we now use a common language. This this was something that uh as the process champion, I feel that a lot of the adults on campus were very afraid of this because not every educator

147is there to be vulnerable, especially with each other. And I think it takes a special place to get a group of adults together to say, "Man, this is really hard or I'm here for you or will you help me? I don't know how to do this." And so, um, every time I go up in a staff meeting, [laughter] I'm like, "Hi, it's me again." And they're like, "Oh." But it's because I'm they know that I'm going to bring the CKH heart that is is what's kind of like repairing our campus and rebuilding us back up and really making us stronger than ever. And I never lose that part of me. And honestly, it's become things that like my co-workers can count on. and um it's been really refreshing to lead that because it feels like

148uh I was meant to be that part of our campus to bring that to Tonia. So um so the common language when behavior arises the four questions um are different than what we used to write the social contract and this is really powerful. This is the piece that redirects and gives a self-reflective moment gets them to say out loud what it is that they need to be doing and the four questions are what are you doing? what are you supposed to be doing? Are you doing it? And what are you going to do about it? Uh our students don't have to guess what the expectations are and that consistency has lowered their anxiety and ours. And that that's been, you know, there's no power struggle in that. And so a lot of the defiance at

149our on our campus has gone down because when you put their responsibility right back on them in the moment, there's nothing that they can do but get back to work or knock it off or whatever is coming up. Um, I feel more supported as an educator using CKH because I don't feel like I'm on an island anymore and I was quite literally on my own island teaching the success program, but now it's really um brought everyone with the same common language. That's a huge part of it. Um, the results of using CKH have been obvious and very significant for us at Tonalia. We've seen the number of referrals drop, notably less tardies, more support for new students and guests on our campus. It's been impactful to all of the stakeholders at Tonalia. For me, the

150real data is in the good things. Good things starts every class period and we share um sometimes it's that we woke up today if that's what our situation is because there's always something to be grateful for. Sometimes it's that we got Starbucks in the morning. you know, the the the um there's a lot of different things that kids can bring to the table when we share good things. And sometimes it's very vulnerable moments for kids to share what's going on. And I truly believe that if kids are not regulated, they cannot learn. And good things gives us the chance to get kids regulated and feel cared about and then they're more willing to do what we need for for the day. So, uh, you know, I I went from a high stress behavior management year

151to a deep relational teaching year. Uh, CKH didn't just change my classroom. It changed how I get to show up as a teacher and a colleague. And it's given our campus the tools to ensure that every child is known and seen and held accountable in a way that builds them up rather than tearing them down. Thank you for your time and this opportunity. so much better than listening to me. You guys are really incredible. If it's okay, I would just like to take a moment to invite the teachers and the students. I'd like to present them with a challenge coin for their leadership of capturing kids. So, their words really tell us everything we need to know about the difference it's making for them. We also though shared a little bit of data related to

152areas um and their summary. We ask teachers for their feedback throughout um the school year um leaders, students, and families. And so this just shares some of those um examples of where we are with the current data. Um and I also just wanted to show uh some of our discipline data year-over-year. So what you can see is blue reflects um 2425, gold reflects 2526 and you can see throughout the year a gradual decrease in um discipline incidents at both schools. I will say when I looked at the data I thought oo what what's happening at the beginning of the year and I think our teachers shared specifically it's about gaining consistency. It's about having consistent approaches. And when you're inconsistent across the staff, it means one kid could get written up for the same thing

153every time in one class and never for the same behavior in a different class. And so bringing that consistency sometimes can make the data look a certain way. But at both Yavapai and Tonalia, we have seen a a nice and considerable decrease, especially in some of the higher um concerning behaviors. So what are our next steps? Um our next steps are to continue with these incredible schools um to continue um support with Misti but also to onboard Hoocom Elementary. There's a great desire to have in the Coronado learning community in their K8 environment um this for all students. And so we're bringing on Hoocom um and previously in the year in conversations with Mr. Only at Cocoa, he was also seeking something around how can we strengthen our support, our climate and our culture at

154Cocoa. how can I give teachers and students some of um the voice and agency? And I think through some of his conversations with Principal Via, he also really expressed that capturing kids hearts felt like it might be a nice fit for Cocoa. Um so those are really our next steps. And I would be happy to um entertain any questions. >> Are we gonna have Margaret and and Misty speak? >> We would. Yes. Margaret and Misty, you guys want to come up and share some stuff? Yes. First of all, I want to thank you for calling me the district cheerleader because I do love SUSD. But um I just want to talk a little bit of my perspective. I worked closely with Misty and with the principles in the implementation of the program and I going

155on 50 years in education. I'm going to tell you this is one of the best programs I have ever witnessed. Uh my wish is that I could go back to 1978 when I was a teacher and had this training. Then I wait again I wish I could go back to 1999 when I was a principal to have this training because I think uh words that come to my mind when I think about this program is consistency, common vocabulary, mentorship. But what really impressed me about this program was it wasn't just about changing the behavior of the children. It was changing the behavior of the staff of the teachers. I saw u mentorship. I saw leadership, you know, as we talked about the teacher leaders and uh everybody stepped forward to this and before the program

156came on board, I did meet with um um Principal Via and when they were talking about what they wanted the school to look like next year and I have to tell you, Principal Via, you made their dreams come true. I've saw the difference uh in the children. I see the difference in the teachers. I see the consistency in the discipline. It's not even called discipline. It's really called steps and strategies. So, going back to where I wish I had had um this training as a teacher and as a principal. I wish I had had it as a parent and I use it on my grandchildren now, especially the four questions. Boy, and it gets me where I want to go. But I want to really acknowledge uh principal Perry where she I mean the way

157she brought this to her staff, the way she in uh the way she implemented and the way she got buy in was incredible. Um also um the teachers how they had bought into it and the behavior of the children and the discipline it's amazing. So again, I wish it had been part of my life early in my career, but I'm very grateful that it is a part of the lives of these teachers, administrators, and especially the children. Uh Misty, you are great at what you do, and I think I've made a lifelong friend. Um, I wanted to say something that I wish I had said before is I'm really curious to see the effect of these eighth graders going into Coronado because they're going in with these set of skills. Let's bring it to Coronado.

158Let's bring it to the district. And again, I invite all of you to go and talk to the kids. Last thing I'm going to say and this will almost make me cry is one of the activities that uh was shared with Misty is at the end of the sess sessions with the kids or at the end of any type of uh event or activity that we have we tell the children to um say what one word of how they feel after experiencing capturing kids hearts. And at Tonalia you know what it was I feel safer. I feel happy. I feel empowered and in the elementary I heard the kids say, "Boy, our classroom is like a family now and that is what makes a difference." So, thank you. Thank you for taking it to Hoocom

159and Cocoa, but we can't stop here. Okay. Thank you. And Misty, thank you, Miss Perry or Principal Perry and Principal Via. Oh my gosh, I'm glad they're there for the kids. I feel like a proud parent. I'm just sitting over there, got my chest out. I'm so excited. Um, thank you so much, uh, for the opportunity to come and speak to you on behalf of these wonderful leaders. I I I have to tell you, um, you've got two excellent leaders in position over at these two schools. And I I work across the nation. I've done this for many years. And it is very seldom that I come into a school district to two schools first year to make as the great links of implementation that have been made here. And it would I would be

160aiss if I did not point out that their dedication to this process and their their clarity with their staff and their commitment to follow through with what I've asked them to do is what has brought us to this place. And so I'm here um to to brag on. They did all the great part, all the the warm and fuzzy part, but I also want to make sure that that you guys are aware that there's some science to what we do as well. It's not just warm and fuzzy. Um I come from a long background in education, 25 years in the high school trenches. And um in 1999 I attended my first capturing kids hearts training as a teacher, senior English teacher, and I brought it back to my classroom and I have used it ever

161since. in every um every role that I've had. I've went from a a teacher to a counselor to an administrator. And I will tell you that um CKH, that's what we call it at the secondary level, not capturing kids hearts, CKH, but CKH has played a major role in my life and and I now have the honor of coaching other educators and bringing hope to them. So, I would love to answer any questions I can for you guys um about data or or anything that you would like. >> Thank you very much. I know I've had the uh honor of um visiting Principal Via, Principal Perry, and the pride they had in the program was just so apparent throughout my visit there. So, that was wonderful to see. Thank you for this. Um any questions

162from board members? I just want to say this very much was responsive and you know as a parent of a cocoa student I'm excited that it's going there next year. >> Excellent. >> So >> excellent. >> And hopefully you'll be involved since everyone sings your praises. >> Hey, I will be involved. >> I will see you there. >> Scottdale is my territory. [laughter] >> Thank you, >> Miss Carney. >> They're hugging it out. Um, I did want to thank the students, the two boys, um, for hanging out here late on a school night. And I just want to say fabulous job just for showing up and being courageous enough to go to that mic is everything. And um, I myself I I mean, we still get nervous, right? It's not easy to do that. And

163so just showing up uh, is fantastic. So, thank you for being here because that's you're who I want to hear from. So, thank you. And then I do want to have uh one last on the topic of Coronado. I know we got information that um Principal Spelics felt like maybe they didn't need to bring the program to Coronado, but maybe for ninth grade. Where are we at with implementing bringing it for ninth grade? >> So, so I had a conversation with Principal Splitic and understood the number of uh initiatives that are going on at Coronado. But when we had the conversation about that transition of of Tonal eighth graders coming into the high school, she agreed that she could dedicate um teachers uh probably three that primarily work with freshmen to get them training in

164the cohort with Cocoa so that they can get a initial introduction to it and so that we can bridge that transition. And I think that is kind of be the the towhold to say this is what can make a difference and then you can build from there. And so we reached agreement so that it doesn't detract from the work that they're doing on other initiatives but can really help bridge the transition from Tonalia into the high school. >> Perfect. And then uh question on Koka. Perfect. I think it's it's we know um it's it is something I could see um being really really needed and helpful there. But but speaking on you know starting in middle school will be difficult. I mean, are we going to then look at maybe, you know, Coochis, Cherokee would

165implementing uh on those campuses as well? >> I think that since we've seen success within the feeder pattern, there's definitely an opportunity to look at what implementation might look like at some of those sites, too. I'm happy to follow up with those school leaders um because I do think that that and what we're seeing from the elementary to the middle is pretty powerful. So, be happy to follow up with them and um circle back with that. >> Okay, great. Thank you. Question for Misty, sort of dubtelling off of what Miss Carney said on the uh high school versus the lower grades. I heard you say it's CKH instead of capturing kids hearts. Other than the branding, is the um execution substantly different for older kids versus younger kids? >> Uh we personally uh are very

166intentional about who trains at the high school level. Uh for instance, that's basically all I get to do. I don't get to train many elementaryaries. I train the secondary because of my experience there. And some of the things that we do change, uh, for instance, you might have heard some of the the students talking about checking each other and calling fouls. Um, when a foul is called at the elementary level, it means that someone's hurt your feelings. When a foul's called at the secondary level, it means that someone has made you feel disrespected. And so there's a some change in the verbiage. U, the overall process is the same. >> Uh, but we do approach it a little differently, of course, at the high school. Um, just because we know that they're they need it.

167They need things changed for them in order for them to have more buy in. >> Thank you very much. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you for the presentation. >> Can I say one more thing though? Can I >> please go ahead? Um, in all the years I've done this, I have never had a representative from the district that has been assigned to me to to aid me, to help me. And I just want you to know that Margaret has made such an impact um, being able to travel with me to these schools. Um, she's taught me some things about her car that you can tell her about, ask her about later. Um, yeah. And I, you know, well, but but I say all that to say that Margaret loves Scottsdale and she has

168so much to bring to the table and she um she has really aided me so well. I I hope that she gets to continue to do that and so thank you for that. Thank you for that. When they first told me she was coming along, I was like, I don't I don't know what to do with her. I I've never had it that opportunity, but she has been such an asset to the accomplishments we've made as well. >> You've got the ultimate insider. >> Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you. All right, we're going to move on to discussion item B, status update regarding phase one and phase two repurposing of schools. >> So, Miss Mitchell is going to take uh the the first uh bullet or two, then I will talk a bit about phase two

169and then she'll wrap it up with update on the Coronado Learning Community uh committee that is launching. >> Might as well just stand here since I'm up here if that's okay. Thank you so much. Um thank you so much for the continued opportunity um governing board members to speak about the concier services um for puma and echo as well as the next elements of our phase um 2 and soon to be Coronado learning community work. Um I just want to share some enrollment updates around our concierge services. Right now we have um 238 of 266 echo students who've been enrolled in SUSD schools for next year. that reflects about 89%. Uh 94% of our puma students, that's 230 out of that 244 have been enrolled um and or the process has begun to to engage

170in um SUSD schools for the next year. 8% of our students have indicated their intent to withdraw and not enroll in SUSD schools. We have seen some changes in those numbers from early on in um January and February when we were first talking to families. um some of the SUSD residents had shared that they would also be leaving the district. We've seen that shift a little bit um as the numbers play out where many more of the SUSD residents have opted to continue to stay enrolled in SUSD schools. Um and so that 8% of the students um the majority of those students were open enrolled to our school district and we aren't yet sure if they'll re return to SUSD. some of the records requests is what gives us that final information. But I'll continue

171to update you guys as those numbers change and in the fall we'll give you really a hard count of where we landed. Staffing updates. Um all certified and all classified staff have been placed for next year. Um so everybody who wanted to continue working in SUSD found a home. Um I had the opportunity last Wednesday, May 6, was that last Wednesday? was um to be at Hoocom for their early release time where they welcomed puma teachers, echo teachers, teachers that will be new on their staff and it was just really awesome to see the hookum teachers really open arms making doing some good things type of work even though they're not yet fully encapturing kids hearts just to see that connection um and that embracing. I'm sure as a a teacher coming from Puma or

172Echko, it could be nerve-wracking and a little scary to walk into a staff meeting um with your new staff for the very first time. And so, it was just really it's been awesome to see the receiving schools and what they're doing to um support teachers and families as they come on board. Some additional um enrollment efforts, some of the less um student centered um feel-good efforts in concierge. We do have some logistics right now. We're really thinking about records, making sure that as we close out these school years, every single child, all of their information is safely transported to the place that they're going. Um, and Dennis and our facilities crew, they are working tirelessly to also make sure any relocated teachers stuff is relocated well. They've met with every staff and are continuing to

173support through all of those conversations. Um, also important to note, and I have I'll pass around to you. Um we ordered packs of books for every child at ECHKO and at Puma. Each um pack comes with three different titles that help students adjust to new experiences in the f future year. Um each pack is individually bundled and it has a grade level specific um letter to the students. So the one I will share with you says really dear future seventh grader. Um and it just gives a little bit about uh new opportunities um when they're joining new schools. And so those have arrived at the schools. Um, Principal Hodo and Principal Hughes have um, woven those into some of their end of the year celebrations where they will really have the opportunity to connect with

174families and to pass those out. Um, and we are continuing our efforts with the community concierge team. So we did a training with um, the initial community concierge interest group. We had a number of the members from the SUSD education foundation who also attended and there's been some real synergy around what could this look like and how will we um expand the support for community concierge throughout the summer as we roll into o uh August, September and October where we know we really want to have a whole army of people ready to support any families that end up transitioning based on um our phase 2 efforts. Um so with that I'm going to um pass to Dr. Mensel who's going to provide a little bit more information on phase two and then I'll talk about

175Coronado learning community in just a minute. >> Thank you Miss Mitchell. So uh for phase two you remember that we have a committee that's comprised of one staff member from each of the schools multiple parents and some community members and they've met five times. All the information with respect to the work of of those uh that committee is on our website. You can I you can find the summary from the meetings. You can find the presentation slide decks where we reviewed the demographics, reviewed uh the utilization of each of the the schools. And then uh as they first level set so everybody had a common understanding then they began to work with the uh Rick Bremer the demographer to talk about where our students are choosing to attend within the Desert Mountain Learning Community and

176Copper Ridge. And at one meeting on I think it's April 16th was the first time where six models were presented for review and and from there there were questions, comments, conversations and two more models were introduced before at their last meeting last week they narrowed the options for a deeper dive from 8 to five. And I know that there have been questions that have been sent to the governing board about that process and what it means. And I think it's important to differentiate between the the charge for uh part A of phase two and part B. The first part was to identify at least three viable options for further analysis. Uh at the last meeting I said we could do as many as five uh but we really don't have the bandwidth to test every

177option and not all have the same level of likelihood of getting across the finish line. And so we wanted to narrow the options so that we could be focused in terms of that analysis of what are the cost savings for each of the options that are moving forward. What are the boundary and feeder pattern implications? We're going to launch the survey that we've talked about before uh that ask our parents what are the the things that will impact their decision. Is it the program? Is it proximity to where they live and transportation cost? Is it u the before and after care options? So we have a whole list of things that will help us understand the value proposition that will guide what parents will decide to do. We'll also ask them if if option one,

178what are your plans? If option two, if option eight, those will all get further refined. But that's the summer work is really to do the deeper level of analysis to ask and answer the questions. not only survey our staff but survey our survey the parents but also surveying our staff to gather that information. So when we asked the committee members from phase two who would like to continue to do the work, uh virtually all of them said they had an interest in continuing. Uh what what I know from I was at the beginning the first meeting and at the last meeting and I had a table tell me you know what uh we appreciate the process. We're grateful for the facilitators and we're friends. And at the each table there was a person from each

179of the schools that participated in having these conversations. So the facilitation itself was designed to have very difficult conversations. At the end of the day, when you have a charge that says uh we need to reduce our footprint by at least two and perhaps more schools in order to have full and thriving schools, uh there's a recognition in that room that at some point there's going to be a difficult decision. The goal here was to be able to narrow the options so we could do a deeper dive. I was asked at that last meeting, what if something surfaces in the analysis that's not part of option one, two, or eight? And the and the response was that we'll have a way to capture that information to note it in a report that comes to the

180governing board. And so we envision that somewhere early to mid August, we'll have an analysis of all three of the models that will be a SWAT analysis essentially. What are the strengths of this option? What are the weaknesses or challenges here? What opportunities does it present? And what threats? What do we anticipate in terms of potential bleed off of students because there's an economic impact of student loss as well? That's the kind of analysis that we intend to be able to provide at the end of the summer work. Then the governing board will have a hearing that will review all three options. There will not be a single recommendation that comes forward to the governing board and the boundary um recommendations will be tied to each option. And so unlike what you saw with Puma

181where we did the decision first and the boundary second, the boundary will be built into the recommendation for each of the options. So to be uh a singular based on which option the governing board decides. The hearing in September allows you to hear from all of the interested constituents, parents, staff, any community members that have comments, questions, observations, and then a final decision we anticipate in October. That was the timeline that we had laid out before. And so uh we do as Dr. Patinsky said earlier welcome the comments, questions and concerns that people have. Uh but really phase two part A was designed to get to at least three viable options which the committee did and then we'll dive deeper into the implications of those with an analysis early to mid August that we'll be

182prepared to submit to the board. >> Awesome. And I am really looking forward to um on the 28th of May, we will launch our Coronado learning community growth um design team. And so after we um moved forward with uh Puma and redesigning the boundaries there, the Coronado learning community principles have really wrapped around um together talking about marketing, talking about lots of the things that they are doing. and we launched a communitywide application um for members of the Coronado learning community to also be a part of a redesign of the community to see what's working, what else could we be doing. Um so we'll have our first two meetings um May and early June. And what we'll do in those meetings is build some of those same relational bonds across the team, but also analyze

183the journey. Um the Coronado learning community has definitely had a lot of conversations, a lot of problem solving um minimally over the past decade, sometimes a little bit longer. It's really important for there to be a shared knowledge base across that community of everything we've tried, everything that they have encountered and endured. And um that is a a critical place in which we want to capture that information and really see what worked and didn't work. Then we would move into some future partnerships with possibility planning. So, not s starting with a we think this is where we should get to, but what's possible. Um, and so we look forward to partnering with um some of our uh friends at Arizona State University who really live and um exist in the space of possibility planning and

184who have partnered with us on some other areas just to help people think really broadly. If we tried this, what might happen? If we tried that, what might happen? And really entering into that um approach. And so that's really the work that we will do with that committee over the course of um summer and in early fall, bringing to you guys a comprehensive growth strategy on how we continue to invest in the Coronado learning community, how we um intend to grow that community even more um and any adjustments that are recommended um based on the efforts of that team. >> Those are the updates I have. I'm happy to answer any questions. >> Thank you. Any questions? Miss Wernner, [clears throat] >> Miss Mitchell, you mentioned that a 100% of the teachers or staff that

185wanted to stay were able to uh get their position. How many are that and how many are how many chose not to stay where they were not comfortable moving forward? >> I will make sure I follow up with those specific numbers. It was a very small um number of students I or I'm sorry of staff members. I believe um maybe from Puma we might have had three or four resignations of people who won't be returning to SUSD. I think it's relatively similar in terms of numbers from Echko. Um and so it's uh a small hand people who decided whether it's the commute um or anything else that happened to not return. Um but I'll make sure I follow up specifically with those numbers. >> Thank you, >> Miss Carney. >> Uh thank you. Thank you.

186Well, I um I I definitely have concerns over uh the committee and how things have gone. Um how the meetings aren't weren't open to the public, right? Um but yet curated pieces from those meetings have been put out into the public and it's it's been very confusing even as board members, you know, uh you know, the Desert Canyon community hosted their own meetings, right? they went outside of uh the committee and I'm just concerned um I I all along thought the committee should have been a board committee so that it was public um because I feel like we have just um picked pieces out that we we want people to see and yet we couldn't um see the real conversations happening in that room which we should have been allowed to do. I mean, not

187me as a board member, but the public and so I have concerns about the committee and how uh things have gone and I want to voice that. Um I also want to get dates and understanding around these surveys because I've been asking for the surveys to go out. People they want them uh they wanted them before three options were put out there. Um when are these surveys going out to the staff and the families? >> Yeah. So it is our intention by Friday. Um so Dr. Dr. Bachna and I were working on some of those today, reviewing the questions, um solving for some single-user links, really trying to also think about how we'll deploy the surveys, but every intention we have is um Friday, I would say Monday at the very latest and then to

188be out for minimally three weeks. And we'll also push additional reminders. So, families and staff would get that through parent square while we will deploy it, remind. And then we'll partner for community, we'll partner with local HOAs. Um and we've had a good amount of outreach from um the community of that are impacted by phase two um in being able to provide them the communication and the survey for the community so they can also help broaden the reach. And so we felt like two weeks might be a little bit too short of a time to get as much reach. Um and so we are going to leave it open for that three full weeks and then convene the committee back together to dive into those survey results. >> Okay. Are um all the families the

189parents are they getting the same the same survey through every school community? >> Yes. So yep uh every family will it will be one survey where families will um select you know where your kids go to school. There may be some branching in that survey dependent on certain schools have um specialized programs or our dedicated um signature programs. So, there are some unique questions specific there, but it is a single survey. Um, and every family will answer the vast majority of the same questions. The community survey will likely look different, probably be a little bit shorter, not ask which school your kids go to. Um, but also, we don't have as quality of a mechanism um to protect against multiple um one person taking the survey multiple times as the community. We can protect against

190that um for staff and for families. And so that's why there will be a different um community-based uh survey, but we will be sending that out around the same time. >> Okay. And if the board could uh if you could make sure we have the the surveys and questions are going out, that would be appreciated. >> Absolutely. I'll make sure I include it those and all my updates. >> Thank you, >> Dr. Patinsky. Well, I know it's put a little bit of um not egg on the face, but it's you know, I know that it's a a line of [clears throat] criticism that originally we were going to do a survey and then we waited. As someone who felt like the survey made sense to come from the committee, that was actually ultimately responsible for

191scoring these. Um, I didn't have a particular view of whether the committee should do it at the beginning to inform the down selection or to do it now to inform the scoring of the three. Both make sense and for different reasons. Um, I imagine if we ask families to sort of vote, you know, most families are going to choose options that don't affect their school. So, I think it's really important that the survey inform the committee's ability to do that SWAT. What? Understand nobody wants their school to close. Knowing that there will be schools that close, how should we value, you know, how do you think about K8? Something that excites you, not excites you. You know, how do you think about travel? You know, the other items that were talked about. So, I just

192want to be careful because I think, you know, from some in the community, the perspective is this is our chance to say I like this option over that option. And it's great that that will be provided, but at the end of the day, that probably is a stalemate across school communities. And it's really important we get the attributes that allow us to defend and support any decisions that are made. >> I really appreciate you saying that. I too felt a little itchy throughout around some of the surveying, when's the right time, when's not the right time. What I found in attending every single one of the meetings is within each session, there were conversations at the table that surfaced. We need to ask families this. we need to ask families this. And so I think

193one of the um benefits of doing it now is we have had five um meetings, three hours each, 15 hours alto together to surface. We need to know from families what drives is it before care is it transportation? What really drives some of the decision- making? Um and I did value that from each table over time. They all had the opportunity to surface we need to ask about this, we should ask about that. And so I do think we will culminate and roll into a survey that is truly developed by the members of the team reflected based on what they wanted to know from their their neighbors, right, their kids' friends um and their parents. And so that I think was really important. But I I can recognize and acknowledge there's definitely a variety of

194opinions about when is the right time to survey. While we do want to offer families the opportunity to sort of plant their flag in their choice, we also want to know what drives their decision-making so that should they not have a favorable outcome, we can be responsive in our approach to make sure we're meeting their needs as best as possible. >> Miss Warner, >> Vice President Shi may be heard for a moment. Um, so this is Jennifer McClennon. I do want to caution the board and appreciate Dr. Patinsk's point that the survey came out of the superintendent committee that was created by um for the purpose of defining the next steps in your phase two. While the board members can ask Miss Mitchell and Dr. mental questions regarding the update they provided. I want to

195caution the board against getting into a discussion in which you're providing direction to the administration on how this committee should function because it is uh was formed as a superintendent committee and um to Miss Carney's point um although she disagreed with that being formed as a superintendent committee that is how it was formed and so the board cannot give direction to that committee that puts us over the line um and at risk for making it a boardappointed committee which would uh then bring us into open meeting law compliance requirements. Thank you. >> Thank you, M. Warner. >> Uh, thank you. Uh, Miss Mitchell, do you have concerns with the timing of the survey and it coming out this late with school ending here in a couple weeks and people go on vacation or they have

196summer things? Um, I don't personally have concerns. I would say in my 20 plus years of education, every time we deploy a survey, it doesn't feel like the right time. It's too long. It's too many questions. And so while I do think there's a lot going on right now, I think that given the um feedback we received since phase 2 conversation started, I don't think that families impacted by phase 2 are likely to miss this communication or not um bring it forward as a level of importance. And so I can understand that there may be potential criticism around it being at the end of the year. Um, I also recognize that these families are deeply engaged and we will do really good due diligence to ensure we have really high response rates even to the

197point of we can isolate probably who hasn't responded in some way and just say please take the time, please do these. Um, and really if we see response rates at the end of that third week that are really low, it would be another push, keep it open a little bit longer. And so I'll be monitoring it all along the way and in my updates I'll provide you just some information on what we're seeing in terms of response rate. Thank you. And a followup, uh the questions in the survey, will they also have closure options? So, you're going to have the the three options, whatever it is that you've chosen to have, but within when you have three options, there's also schools that are ultimately going to close. Are those schools going to be listed in

198the survey as well? >> It's not really the survey uh wasn't recommended by the committee to be listed as um vote for what's yes, votes for what's no. It's much more around surfacing intentions of families, what drives some of their decision-making. We will ask them to provide feedback around all of the options and likely give an opportunity to share which of the options would have been your your highest preference um in that in that space. >> Okay. And when you mentioned the tables earlier, it was Dr. Miselle that mentioned there was uh members from each school at each table. Was that a parent at every table or did some of them have parents from some schools and community members from other schools? >> There were parents and staff at every table because every school had

199multiple parents, four parents um and I think one or two staff members. How it uh went around it wasn't as each table had parents and staff members from every school. Every school was represented at the table. Um the majority of the committee are parents. Okay. So, some of the tables did not have a parent from each school at the table for the discussion. >> I would say probably there are some tables that did not have a parent from every single school. >> Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Can you remind us uh how many people total on the phase 2 committee? >> Seven. We had 42 people. Um so, seven tables of six folks. We had a couple of um community members who joined. They were non- voting. Um but you know, uh, partners, university

200partners, elected officials who also attended some, um, of them as well, but it was really those 42 members. We also, whenever a member would miss more than once, we followed up if they were going to miss again, they were replaced. And so that was a concern. We had one parent, for example, who had a family emergency came up and was very concerned, my school won't be represented. And we were able to find another parent. Um, Dr. Benson met with each parent that came on. We onboarded them. We walked them through everything that had happened. and then really those table communities welcomed them and had those conversations and so anytime there was um it looked like we may lose some of the balance um in terms of representation we made that change. >> Thank you. >>

201Any other questions or comments? >> Thank you very much Miss Mitchell. You can stay there. Uh our final item is the information update on onetoone technology and usage in the classroom. >> So Miss Mitchell and Miss Harrington are going to lead the PowerPoint presentation. But I want to um say a couple of things. One, I want to thank uh board member Carney for suggesting we have this conversation and the team for the work they did in preparing for this discussion. Uh many people know that across the country this conversation is taking place in terms of um technology use, screen time, onetoone devices, you you name it. This is a topic of conversation at state legislators legislatores. It's a topic at schoolboard meetings and it's relevant here. So I look forward to the conversation tonight and

202appreciate the opportunity to be able to talk about where we are in Scottsdale. >> Sorry you're getting a healthy dose of Leam Mitchell tonight, but I really appreciate the opportunity to be back um and partnered with u Miss Harrington and talking about uh the future of technology. We always want to root everything we do in our mission and vision. And what you can see is that both our mission and vision are focused on the future for our kids and the skills, abilities, and dispositions that we expect them to have to contribute to contribute meaningfully to our society. And we lead with really strong core values um that we as adults want to exemplify and that we want to support our students in exemplifying and learning in order to be those community members that hopefully will

203take care of us and make great laws for us and um do the things we are doing now for our elderly um community. We want to talk a little bit about the impact of technology. And what we know about the impact of technology is especially in school systems, it depends entirely on how intentionally we use it, how well we train our staff, how clearly we set expectations for students, and how we partner with families in implementing technology in our schools. We're going to talk a little bit tonight about three eras. We're going to talk a little bit about prepandemic era in Scottsdale Unified. We're going to talk about what we considered the pandemic era and where we are now, which is post-pandemic era because there was a lot of technology change throughout those three phases.

204Um, pre- pandemic, uh, there was some changing landscapes in 2015. State assessments shifted online. Um, that was here in the state of Arizona, also very popular across the country to move all assessments into computers. There was a boom in adaptive technology assessments and skill practice. It allowed us to get more information, more data that would help increase the precision with which we were planning and responding to student learning. So, a strong hunger, a strong desire, and also um during that time driven some by assessments. Um so, our response, I'm going to ask my friend Miss Harrington to talk a little bit about how SUSD responded. >> Good evening. Yes, pre- pandemic we had computer labs, we had laptop carts, and we also had devices that were purchased by way of PTO's, gift dollars, grants. So,

205there was a lot of inequity and nothing that was necessarily unified across uh the district. It was all very well-intentioned but um but tough to manage from an IT perspective and then also inconsistent student experiences just again dependent purely on that which either the site was providing or the laptop carts and the labs that existed there on the campuses. So there was no unified strategy but there very quickly uh became the clear identification of the need for a unified strategy. So we get up to 2015 and that's when really uh the district decides to establish the first you know data center network operation center and this brings us now to where we're not so much peacemeal but rather really running a professional enterprise level um operation here and now managing and supporting the instruction the

206safety security communication and operations across the network districtwide. Then in 2016 um we had a transformational investment um by way of our stakeholders supporting the capital override and that again provided us the opportunity for a unified approach that was far more equitable providing technology to all of our students um so that they would be utilizing essentially the same sort of devices. That of course got kicked into high gear with um the pandemic. that the renewal of said capital override really just reinforced that which we know our stakeholders valued, which was equity, consistency, the safety, security, reliability, but also something that was sustainable and scalable. Um, so that we knew what we were planning for, what we had to budget for, what our staff and our students could come to rely on during that time. Similar

207to how we had um I guess a peacemeal um networking system where different devices, different bandwidth, we also had different practices in action. So individual schools had different tools they were using. Um but our teachers in general were using tools like Galileo to design assessments, look at individual item and standard analysis that empowered teachers um different than it had before. um they used some of that adaptive technology that I mentioned and really anything teachers could find that was online that seemed cool um here in Scottsdale and in other places those became sort of the fad and and the way of work within the school setting. That brings us to the pandemic era. Um so I think we hopefully can forget it be soon but we will not uh forget it. Um, we remember that that

208was a big change for everybody, right? Immediate remote learning required. Um, the virtual tools and resources, it was um, I liken it to Oprah. Um, everything was free. Free tools. Zoom everyone for free. Near pod is free. Every digital tool during that time was provided to school districts so they could quickly shift to remote instruction for all students. It showed lots of systems that there's a need to respond while all the kids are away. Um and again, it really reflected that explosion. You'll see on the slide um a visualization just of the 154% increase in the market of digital tools since 2020. And some of that was the advent of a need to have this much um support and in uh in instruction, but also access because many many children were at home. And then

209just to add as we made way to that um actual onetoone deployment there were a number of devices just depending on what we could get our hands on. So Surface Goes, there were iPads, there were Chromebooks, Windows devices, you name it. It was about getting it into the hands of students. Some of it based on that which was already deployed and again that which was available and then very quickly we could identify that which was hardy enough to sort of survive in our K12 kiddos's hands. and then additionally which was going to have the service agreements, the warranties, the repairs um that our team would be able to continue to manage which is how we ended up with Google Chromebooks K8 but then additionally Windows devices 912 so that our students be could become more

210college career ready knowing that Windows devices are something they are more apt to encounter in internships and in the workplace and in um college settings. We also made um the transition from like whiteboards to smartboards which everybody had been excited about and then from smartboards to viewboards during this time. So again the opportunity for our teachers too to be able to um to essentially broadcast on their screen or use it even as a computer. It's been very handy for our substitutes that are coming in um to be able to log in there and then the implementation of Google Classroom. We think about things that are u massive game changers in the way of how we've approached teaching and learning. But again, things that were free once upon a time and are just uh not now,

211but things that we became accustomed to and just became uh super critical to our operations at that time. And the continued acquisition and use of that wide variety of digital tools, but now a better focus on that which has the greatest value so that we can narrow the scope of that which is available to our teachers and our learners. And I think um Scott still like many other systems um experienced with our kids um during this time um a significant increase in concerns about the amount of time kids are using their technology. Um we started to hear a lot more and we're hearing that right now about the impacts on their mental health. Um truly like the addictive types of approaches with social media and some of those types of things and that's really brought

212us to where we are today. Um, thank you member Carney for also asking for us to really rethink where do we go post pandemic era because it is a changing landscape. There is that research and evidence that relates to screen time and it is alerted us to a need for change. Um, it's understanding the competitive marketplace. Families can choose any school they want throughout the state of Arizona for their children. And we recognize that different schooling opportunities are providing different choices. And that presses us into the need to reflect on what options do we offer in Scottsdale. And we really want to focus on because we had a 154% increase in the market, narrowing the scope of the tools that focus on deep thinking, discourse, um, and collaboration. really focusing on what our parents want

213the most, which is academic rigor and quality learning experiences. Um so our response to that is we want to elevate guidance and ensure high levels of safe and appropriate use of technology for that purpose of deep learning. Um we're going to introduce to you tonight some draft um language that will um and infographics that talk a little bit about um guidance we want to start the year with um and we want to launch related to technology in the classroom. Um we're going to talk a little bit about the infrastructure tools that help us measure time also around safety and that we need to do a deep analysis of our current tools. What's duplicative? What's not meaningful in terms of the use of time and um with that really build and implement a comprehensive K12 digital

214um and artificial intelligence citizenship learning continuum. Oh, that does look kind of funky. That's not what that's supposed to look like. Uh well, this was shared with you also uh just yesterday. So whether you had a chance to review it. Um I hope that you will eventually take the time to do so. Each of them has each of the lines and the years has a little plus sign you could drop down and see what the expenditures looked like that year. Most notable you will see that 2024 in fact um looks quite a bit smaller. Ironically, you can see the 1.6 million there. um that was um smaller as we're always looking to extend the life cycle of the devices, but then additionally sometimes inventory is available or there's a deal. So something gets purchased one

215fiscal year or um you know vice versa it rolls into the next. So you'll see the years on either side were a little bit higher versus the one um the refresh cycle did not change rather it was just indicative of inventory and need at that particular time. But these um include, you can sort of see it pulled out there, the device replacements, um refresh cycles, the repairs, and we do have a consistent refresh cycle. So, for example, uh this year it was Desert Mount Learning Community students that uh got new devices. Next year, it's Chapperel Learning Community, and it just cycles on um year-over-year. So, we know clearly what the expectation is, and we can budget for that responsibly um and plan ahead. when you open up um should you choose to click on that

216little plus you'll be able to see again all the different um uh expenditures that are associated with student devices. So those would include things like services and warranties. Um absolute for example that helps us to locate or disable any devices that may be lost or stolen. Um that has helped us recover devices. Um so again this is about being uh loyal to the stakeholders and the assets that we have here in the district and making sure that we maintain them appropriately and also have a strategy that can be sustained uh we can plan for long term >> can I ask a question in regard to that please >> um okay so I see I see the numbers and you're saying for the upcoming school year 3 mill3 379229 is what we have budgeted for that.

217But how come can you explain then on tonight's consent agenda we have Dell Corporation for 5,600,000 which is well over the numbers that are here. So what why we approved 5,600 tonight for Dell. What does that go to? >> So these are what I shared with you is student only. So we also buy staff devices from um from Dell as well. And so that may also include some of that. Um, and I'm trying to think if there's anything else specific to Dell that we buy, but there would be other devices that could be purchased through that vendor. >> Okay. >> This is only this is only specific to the one funding code that is student centric. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. We also just wanted to um pull forward some of the data that

218we have learned about academic achievement as it relates to screen time. Um the adaptive technology tools that really um brought into the market when we were talking that pre- pandemic era did and do still provide um evidence that it yields a positive effect when students are using them at a recommended amount. Um, and that's where you can see that green line sort of above the zero that effect size being more positive. What we also know and research has told us is the more hours on the screen um the less impact in a positive way that it uh for our students and in fact high levels of screen time usage can over time reduce um the quality of learning. And so knowing that um screen time, the mental health of our kids, the access they have

219to so many different screens, um that's really at the forefront, we wanted to think how do we adjust in order to um preserve the 21st century that we are a quarter of the way in and the future, but also um respond to what we know our students need. Um, we've talked some about those pros and cons of having so many devices and access to devices. So, those pros around um, every child having what they need, being able to personalize learning for for precise learning for children. Um, it teaches future ready skills. Our kids are leaving the stage, crossing the stage and right into the workplace where they are expected to know how to navigate, use, and um, handle all of the digital world. um it uh supports instructional efficiency um and really supports communication and

220continuity across our system. But there's a lot of cons also and those are some of the things that we're going to talk about next. The distraction and the misuse, the screen time concerns there is around cost and sustainability. Um equity gaps can persist um when we remove the opportunity for students to have access all the time to what they need. and teacher readiness. Also, teachers enter their careers at different stages, different ages, and different comfortabilities with technology. And so, that's something we want to continue to reflect on. We did want to sort of sort out what screen time is, right? Not all screen time is the same. Not all screen time does the same thing to us. Um, so really, it's three types of screen time. Um, cell phones and social media, that's one area.

221We have edtech that's really used to support that student learning. um in addition to high quality instruction and then screen time for entertainment, watching movies, uh watching shows, all of those types of things. In our schools, we really are focusing on that middle screen time for educational technology. Um and the reason that we are prioritizing that is that's our main business. We've worked towards reduction of social media screen time because we have an away for the day policy and that's something we continue to believe in. We think it's really important and our students shouldn't be accessing their social media regularly. Their phones should be away for the day and that's something we continue to work on in enforcement and support with um students. But in terms of educational technology, we do want to have really

222thoughtful guard rails in place because it can benefit our students. but it also can be a detriment. So, Miss Harrington's going to talk a little bit more about how sa safety leads um in the digital space just like in our face-to-face space safety is always top of mind. Uh thank you. So, absolutely our filtering system is aligned with the children's internet protection act or SIPA. It is most important that we're protecting our students engagement and we're blocking anything that would be quote unquote mature or inappropriate. Um we definitely want only that which is age appropriate and is going to support um the instruction and the and absolutely just further enhance the first best instruction from the teacher. uh sometimes I am told that sometimes even in the same day that our filters go too far

223and then on the other side of the coin told that they don't go far enough and both statements can be true all at the same time. Uh the internet is ever changing and the AI algorithms are ever changing the categories in which websites fall. So this is a moving target. it is making the job um more difficult uh regularly and it is why the partnership that we have with our teachers and our parents is so very critical. It is often uh those who bring it to our attention that we need a website unblocked or again on the other side of the coin we need that website to be blocked and is why we have um again monitoring tools that are available to our teachers. For example, lightseed classroom so that they can monitor that which

224the student is engaging in during the course of the day and then lightseed parent portal so that our parents can identify and control that which their students are engaging with outside of the school day. So, bell tobell, we should have you covered, but outside of that time, absolutely, we have tools to engage with the parents as well. Um, we want to make sure and, uh, thank you. Earlier tonight, you approved the student code of conduct, which also now makes it clear that, um, BYOD is no longer allowed. So, we will not allow for students to bring their own device. It is um this really bubbled up from teachers and administrators who wanted to ensure that they had access um to lighteed classroom that they were able to monitor that which was happening um during the

225school day and that additionally students came in with a device prepared for testing and um that they were on our filters with um a device that was being brought from home. We did not have the same sort of oversight and we didn't have the same kind of guard rails in place. So, um, so I know that had bubbled up really from the sites and, um, so thank you for that. There is an ongoing review and adjustments to our filters, um, like I said, because they're changing regularly. Um, so we meet, um, honestly, we meet every Tuesday to review the the filters and the Google policy. Um and then additionally we uh meet every Tuesday to review any digital resource request as it relates to any sort of um software app or website um unblock. So

226if somebody is requesting access to a website, it may be that it doesn't get reviewed until the following Tuesday. However, if somebody is asking us to block something, that is something that we immediately review and act on. We are certainly not waiting till following Tuesday for that. Um, but the expectation is that if you can't access it on our network, on the student device, then that does not mean you reach for your cell phone. That is not where you go then to be able to access it. Um, and we do know that cell phones are on a cellular network that we have very little control of. It's again why we um appreciate um eliminating the BYOD because we know a lot of students could use their hotspot and then have greater access than that which

227our SUSD network would allow. Um and so it's just a reminder to our teachers and our students if in the classroom you can't reach it on your um device your that is issued by the district. There's likely a good reason for that and otherwise bring it to our attention and we can explore um making it available in the future. Uh again we've got those weekly reviews. Uh we want to make sure that we are maintaining a safe environment but also maintaining the opportunity for students to engage with that which enhances their educational opportunities. Safety is absolutely our leading driver with all things in the digital space. But I also just want to draw your attention to why we use educational technology. It is a great tool to differentiate and meet the individual needs of our

228students. It allows skill building and practice to happen um for students at their level. It also allows access access and inclusion for students who may um want to engage in the same conversation but may need it at a different level. It gives also a significant amount of information. Um when we talk about assessments and adaptive assessments, it really gives teachers a good amount of information that allows them to provide responsive instruction. Um that brings us to a couple drafts um that you should see. we are drafting and these are going right now through rounds of feedback um from our content coaches, from our school administrators. The first really being a technology for learning framework talking about in Scottsdale Unified, what's our why? Um what's our shift in terms of device usage? really thinking from the

229the initial like everybody's got a onetoone and we're do it with these things and uh we can you know get on a tablet get on get on the computer for these different things to consume learning or to comply. Really shifting it to using technology as a tool to support their learning. Um it's similar to a pencil or a crayon or some of the school supplies that we have known and loved for many many years. We want our students to be able to access the tools, but thinking and agency and creation and syni synthesis should be the driver. We wanted to also be able to provide some feedback to our families of when they would expect that we were using technology and when they should expect we are not using technology and really what those core

230beliefs are around a human centric approach. So that kind of gives a high level here's what we're hoping to accomplish in terms of our use of technology. And then the next page you see is guiding principles for integration. This is something that we heard we're hearing from our teachers asking us to support them with some additional information and guidance um around how much time is appropriate, how much time are they using it now. And so this initial draft starts to lay out in kindergarten, first grade, second grade really what families could expect in terms of amount of time each day on the computer. There's always some caveats. Our state is still requiring us to pro take assessments online. Um there are classes that our middle schoolers and our high schoolers take for coding, for cyber

231security where it's sort of inferred and assumed they'll be on the computer most of the time, but our kindergarteners shouldn't be on the computer almost all the time. They should be on the computer rarely. And so that's been reflected in feedback we heard from our teachers from um our uh April 29th early release. they elevated a lot of wonderings about AI. What does that mean for our elementary kids? What does that mean for kinder first? And so this is our initial um take on providing some more guard rails around the amount of time to expect students to be engaging with technology. There are some things we've talked about skill development and a lot really within this that is still very draft like and so we welcome any of your feedback and your thoughts and this

232will go through another few iterations before we finalize with the strong desire at the launch of the school year to launch with all teachers here's what this is and then provide a grade level appropriate for our students here's access acceptable use of technology here's what you can expect so that our teachers can also host those conversations with children and with families. >> Miss Mitchell, question. Um I know it's not finalized or anything, but looking at the um grade bygrade recommendations, I like it. You know, I'm assuming and from what I see here, you know, it's a graduated sort of scale. Do you expect there might be significant impact to curriculum such that I'm a first grade teacher? The recommendation is no more than 20 to 40 minutes daily screen time. Wow, I've been doing twice

233that much because I'm using I now have to overhaul my curriculum to fit in these guidelines. Do you imagine we'll have things like that that will cause significant shifts for our teachers? >> I think those things would bubble up. Our current recommendations around our adaptive tools like that are 15 minutes twice a week types of things. In terms of our core curriculum, um all of our students are provided the opportunity to have paper resources. Um it should be more teacherled in some of those spaces. So imagining using the viewboards, um but for our core resources, I don't anticipate some of these um times creating additional constraints. Um, but I think that's where the feedback loops with our teachers are also really important around how big of a game would this change for you. I can

234imagine our coding teachers would be like it's legal class period. Um, but we would want to make sure we're in touch especially with our elementary teachers where we anticipate some of those the variance may um be greater in terms of the actual screen time per grade level per school. >> Thank you. >> And it really just sort of wraps with this matters so much now. Um, it matters that each child has access to the learning tools, that we are using them to support really high quality instruction for student outcomes, that our kids are really prepared when they leave us, but also that it's secure, it's safe, and that we have systems that can sustain um no matter really what we're up to. Having guidance like this is truly a benefit to every one of our

235stakeholders. I feel like it is responsive to um your requests but also responsive to what I know Miss Harrington conversation she's having with families as they encounter concerns myself with students um and teachers as well. It just creates clarity around the expectation, gives some permission um and helps us understand where we can be more responsive to support their needs. And we want to make sure that everybody is aware there's options, there's choices and options. And so, um, while we are onetoone device, a family could say, "I want my child to leave their computer at school. I don't want them at home." Um, those are options. Checking out textbooks and paper resources, those are also options. Should that not be something in their day-to-day life right now, those are things that we make happen for kids.

236Requesting alternative assignments. If there is a child who has not demonstrated great decision-making in a digital environment, we want to make sure that they still have the opportunity to learn and demonstrate their learning and that is generally through an alternative method that is not digital. Um and then I'm going to invite Miss Harrington to talk a little bit about light speeded parent portal. >> Thank you. So again, light speeded parent portal is really for um if you trust us to have the bell to bell, this is for after. So to make sure that if you wanted to limit the controls um or limit the resources or the time and scope that your student can use their device, that is where the parent would have the ability to do so andor to see how their student

237is using their device during that time. And that right now I can tell you there's only about a h handful um or so of parents that are engaged in using that portal. We're still learning a lot about it ourselves. Um we're getting great feedback from the parents engaged in that. But it's certainly something that we're willing to work with families on. Um if they're interested in that additional layer and that insight, uh it is something that we too can learn from. >> On on that, Miss Harrington, so is the structure that the parent can log into a portal and see their child's use, time, content based on what Lightseed has done for their device they use in class. >> Correct. So they would be able to see, for example, like after school if they're just

238sitting on their device all day, is that is that necessary? Is it tied to the curriculum? Are they studying for a science test or writing a paper or are they, you know, I don't know, scrolling on YouTube or doing some other search that they probably could find another use of their time. And so then that is the period of time that the parent would get to determine whether that was um permitted or not. and they could u you know decide what sort of restrictions were necessary um andor if it was just a matter of them being able to have the insight maybe they don't need to restrict it but they need to have an awareness of how it's being used >> and you're saying only a small number of parents are actually taking advantage of

239that portal >> like fewer than 50 and it's mostly when they have an incident then they call and they say hey you know this has been a challenge with my student and then we lean in and say hey here's what we're seeing here's how we can support you, let's get you logged in. Um, a simple call to like the help desk or work order would generate that so then we could follow through. Of course, we need to make sure that we're giving the um, access to the appropriate uh, parent or said guardian. Um, but yeah, so it's only been fewer than 50. So truly we're learning from this as well um, and from the feedback that we get from those parents engaged. >> Thank you, Miss Kernney. >> Uh, thank you. Yeah, I probably was

240the first parent on that when we brought this a few years ago, right? And I've been asking for transparency and for for the parents to know about this. There aren't many people on it because parents don't know about it, right? The district has never put anything out letting parents know that they can do this. And so I am asking please put out an email or information somewhere so parents understand that they can get this information. It's it's valuable and it's like like I said to you before, it's just partnering, right? Um you know, it's not I am very against helicopter parenting, but if there's a need to go in and look at what your child was on during the school day, that's very valuable information. And you know, for a parent, it's been very valuable

241for me. And I want every parent to have that option. Not just because I'm a board member and I know that it's there. I'm asking please put the information. I will I'll told you tomorrow. It'll be on my social media. Um, but put it out there so people know that they have this option. That's why there's no parents on it because they don't know it's there for them. >> Thank you for that. it right now. It is on our website and it's teachers too that are a great tool in um in sharing this. But absolutely appreciate you and your partnership and what you've brought forth so that we can continue to learn and and get some of the some things blocked and then the others unblocked. >> Yeah, I I would echo that. I'm actually

242someone who has called the help desk um not in the last year but but around the challenge of having a device in the home that I can't control and yet having you know times when things are shut off and and and available and I never until this meeting knew that I could avail myself of that. So, I do think when it comes to parents concerns around one-on-one, one of the biggest concerns is it's introducing a device over which they have no control into their home with little ability to sort of monitor, which it makes sense that Lightseed would invest in a parent portal. Um, and so I I just want to echo if it's a you have to call, have a complaint, then get a support ticket, then we'll set it up. I can kind

243I understand you don't want to give strangers control over student devices. So that's a a sticky wicket, but this needs to be more of a standard sort of understanding and expectation that parents have this versus an exception process. >> Appreciate that. We're learning to um just in in our ongoing conversations and meeting more regularly as an IT team as it relates to filters with our vendor partners with Lightseed to better understand this if there was a way that it just rolls out to all whether you use it or not or if it is a one- on-one uh right now it is a one-on-one kind of request. But those are things that we're going to continue to learn and then lean on partners of our own to figure out how we can best serve our parents.

244So, thank you for the feedback. >> Yeah. I have a few questions, but Oh, >> go ahead. You sure? >> Well, you know, it's right on this topic, so >> Yeah, please. >> Uh, so what I'd like to see is that when parents and the kids check out the devices that there's a notice to them that this is available for them so that from the beginning they are fully aware that they can use um lights. Thank you. So, this was a hard session to prepare for because there's so many directions you could go in. Like, are we interested in safety and filters and monitoring? Are we interested in just sort of screen time and sort of age differentiation? Are we interested in the effectiveness of this, which we ultimately should be because we're spending a

245lot of money on technology? If it's not impacting learning outcomes, why are we spending the money on the technology? For me, the guiding principles of integration is sort of the anchor. It's getting to a place where we as a board informed by district leadership have an opportunity to weigh in and say this is how we think technology should be used in our district. Um so I guess first question this does this is new right? So up until now, and I don't mean this in a critical way, although I know it'll come off critical. Um, up until now, it is not the case that a first grade teacher, second grade teacher, third grade teacher would have had clear expectations set with them about there's common sense, but a clear expectation set with them about dosage of

246technology on a grade level basis. Is that correct? >> That would be accurate and correct. There's sort of dosage per tool. Um but as a you know whole thinking about the the day of a student from start to end we haven't thought through that and provided that level of guidance to our teachers and they're also I think asking us to help narrow the scope of what's the most appropriate and most meaningful. >> Yeah. So I think that is excellent and I would assume that we all look forward to the opportunity for this to be brought back. Is this something that the ultimately would be a board approved policy? would it be like how do you see us encoding our technology philosophy? >> Yep. So we would look at it similar to um how we uh

247lead right now I think about like our artificial intelligence guidance. Um so really in a broad communication campaign where it's um something that we lead with uh in families with students and it's uh readily available to everybody more in practice um less in policy just because that I do anticipate it will iterate and change over time based on what we learn and what we know. Um but that would be our desire is over the course of the next few months to get lots of layers of feedback invite your all's feedback from our teachers too and from some of our kids. I think SAB have a lot to say just too about informing and helping to advise what this looks like, but it would be to more codify it as a systemwide practice. Um, and also

248then printing backpack letters, things that put this in the hands of our families also. >> Okay. Um, two, is it the case today that we could tell our kiddo they have to leave their computer at school? And if we did that, would they be able to I don't understand how they would have done any of the homework that is technology based. So, is that in practice something that's an option for parents? >> It is in practice something that's an option for parents. What we would say, and I know Miss Harrington and I have had many conversations about homework. Um, because a lot of our the higher you go in grade levels, the likely more investment you're making outside of school in your own learning. Um, and a computer really does drive some of that when

249it comes to research and putting things together. Um what we know is that often there is a device needed at home to accomplish homework. But because some of our families aren't able to your point monitor it at home, have the same reg uh you know rules and regulations. We want to afford that to families that if you don't want that device coming home, it could stay at school. And then each school, we wouldn't mandate here's exactly how you have to handle it. We would support them. We've talked about laptop carts and different ways in which safe and secure storage um would be appropriate for every school. Um but it is an option if families don't want to your point to introduce a new device that they aren't able to oversee um after hours that there

250would be um and there's homework that needed digital usage there would there would likely be need to be a computer at home or um we have incredible local libraries here in Scottsdale that I also know have a lot of safe and effective filtering and um ready and available access to families as well. >> Thank you. Third, for me, and I'm not sure this is yet addressed in the integration, assessment and feedback is one of the big costs of technology. It if I compare my youngest child to my oldest, the oldest things came back, things were marked up. If she wrote something, she could count on a teacher marking up what she wrote. More recently, it feels like things go into, you know, my whole career is in edtech, so I'm not a lite, but things

251go into this black box of Google Classroom, soon to be Canvas, and they get a grade and then and I see a student nodding, two students nodding their heads, they're not getting any feedback, you know, and I've noticed that progression in the district that the ability of teachers to share artifacts of learning and the ability of students to actually experience direct direct feedback from teachers is getting lost through the kind of exchange process of technology. And so is that something that you expect to be addressed in the guiding principles for integration in addition to exposure time certain principles of how pedigogy works with technology? >> Yes, I think and I appreciate you bringing that forward as well. Um yes, I think that those are things there was this strong desire and hunger for automation. um

252you know let's give you know give all these tests it'll give us all this information but what we've learned over time is if you have 15 tools that are collecting information on your kids and you're a teacher and you have one planning prep you can't go to every tool and see how those to your sort of blackbox analogy is right all the information >> something a little different which is teachers get a Google doc submitted they review it they grade it students don't get any feedback on writing >> for students too yeah >> yeah they have no idea why >> so sorry both ways but for us moving forward for our students I think there is a desire from fam from students like you said shaking their head. They want to be able to turn

253things in in paper. They want to get more rubric style feedback. And so in our practices, I think that is where we talk about the teacher training and the coaching. It is around meaningful feedback to kids. What John Hattie tells us is students getting feedback increases their own engagement and agency in their learning and it also increases teacher efficacy. And so those are practices that we would want to lean deeper into. Not just so we're automating reports for teachers or having easy ways for kids to turn things in, but really getting to that meaningful learning is also students getting meaningful feedback. And so through some of AI tools do actually help in some ways with that through rubrics. Um, but it's something just I appreciate you bringing that forward when we think about the teacher

254training and the coaching and how we can represent that in our frameworks is really important and that's something you should see in the next iteration. >> I would strongly encourage us to include it in the integration. It's partly what you're describing which is now students do something in Savis, Savis grades them. They submit something in Google Classroom, the teacher grades through Google Classroom, and you're almost a systems integrator trying to understand, but also those different environments >> do not consistently give feedback on learning. And so we're losing the formative dimension of assessment through technology. And I think that's something that we ought to be explicit about. And then the last piece and I apologize for monopolizing the mic a little bit is um you know again on sort of realizing the investment one of the

255hopes was parents would have clearer communication with teachers around what's happening in the classroom how to be involved and again I think parents feel like they're systems integrators. One teacher uses Google Classroom, another one sends an email. One, you can always count the Google Classroom, if there's an assessment that week, will have it in an announcement. Others don't. So, you're back to sort of trusting your kiddo. This isn't a therapy session for me. I apologize. Um, >> we had one, too. >> But, but >> we have teenagers. You know, I think part of guiding principles is also being more consistent in the expectations of how teachers use technology to communicate with families around, for lack of a better term, kind of academic planner and executive functioning purposes. >> I very much appreciate you pulling that

256forward, too. And I think um it gives the timing is gives us a great opportunity as we shift to a new learning management system um and spending next year really establishing those key core principles and expectations for syllabus calendar how we communicate within our systems. some of the pandemic era that we said everybody just use Google classroom figure it out right I think breed some of the inconsistency I think families experience and that's where in a move to a a solid um sole learning management system I think our work next year is really spending time creating those core principles that we want to implement consistently and asking our teachers to weigh in and help us build those throughout the year I think that's really critical as we move forward um and something we'll continue to

257Thank you very much. >> And then there's just a nice fancy slide at the end that we wanted to show you. Oh, >> great. >> Thank you. Um, so I had requested this to happen November 12th, 2024. So, we're a year and a half late or but better late than never. And I reassed for it last month. Um, so I'm very happy that we're starting this conversation and that we um I think that the board I think we need to schedule one of our special meetings as um around this so that the board can give their opinions and feedback so whenever that might fit into the schedule. Um I would like to see that. I've got a few questions. What about prek? Um is pre do prek use devices? >> We do. >> Uh I'm

258going to defer to Dr. Bono who's going to share some answers uh related to pre-K and early learning. >> Thank you. Governing board member, I think it was Mrs. Carney. Uh prek preschool toddlers do not have one to one. They also don't use their own devices in the classroom. Um our state our licensing is very clear on that on limiting screen time where you might see them participate and I've seen this in classrooms where the teacher might be doing something on the Smartboard. I saw one uh a few months ago where they were matching colors or they were matching initial sounds. There was a table and a tea and the kids would come up and connect those in a lesson but there is no one to one device nor will you see the kids on

259laptops and a laptop cart or in a teacher device uh during our early learning programs. >> Okay. So our scholastic is is not digital that we have. >> There is a component to the Scholastic curriculum that the teacher uses that is digital but the students don't activate it on any devices. So this the teachers might pull up a lesson where perhaps they're reading a story uh whether but the screen time is very limited and I know and I can confer with uh Mr. afternoon as well. But because of our state licensing, they're very clear on those parameters as is the national standard of our early childhood programs to limit that amount of screen time. So, it would never drive instruction. It would just support it. But again, the students would never be driving a device

260to support their instruction, if that makes sense. >> Okay, perfect. >> Thank you. Um, just just a few things since we're we're getting late here. Um I'm very interested in cutting our costs. Um so I had asked for the annual spends on the edtech um from 2018 on which I knew we wouldn't have right um by now. But I think if we continue to gather that information for us and what you what you put on the agenda item today for the student devices, I would like to see for the edtech programs and >> um so we can see where we're at with the spends on that. Um, also I'm very interested in an opt out for parents who don't want the one-on-one device. Um, there are districts that are going to that and allowing parents

261to choose, especially at the lower grades. Um, you know, I think this is a great start, but as I had mentioned, I'm I'm looking to go back to preandemic um practices for elementary students. And that's something we can discuss, you know, in the special meeting, how everyone feels about that. But um I think it's a great start. I'm happy we're having the conversation and I think um I think that's it. We could probably go on and on, but I think it's a great start and I appreciate all the work you put in and then uh meeting with me. >> Well, you're very welcome and we really appreciated the opportunity to just hear from your thoughts being able to have that conversation and invite all the rest of you too any thoughts you have, feedback, changes

262that you might want to see or or have us think about when it comes to these. Again, they'll go through multiple iterations till we get to a final draft that reflects really our system level of voice. Um, and so we just appreciate the opportunity to be here this evening even though it's late and say thanks to everyone and sorry you had to hear my voice so much. >> Thank you very much. All right, at this point we are going to go to executive session. We are going to stay here which means if you are not part of executive session session you are excused. There is a tiny bit after executive session. You're welcome to hang out and come back in, but there's not much there. Thank you all for being here, and we will soon

263convene an executive session. Oh, Mr. Shy. >> Okay. >> Would you like me to assist? >> Yes, please. >> Okay. Um, Mr. Vice President, members of the governing board, I would advise the governing board to move to recess into executive session pursuant to ARS 38431.03A3 and A7 for the purpose of obtaining legal advice and instructing its representatives regarding proposed lease options at Echo Canyon K8 School as well as a second executive session pursuant to ARS 38431.03A3 03 A3 for the purpose of obtaining legal advice and instructing the attorney for the public body regarding the superintendent's contract of employment. >> I'll make a motion that we move to executive session as per council's description for the two items. Do I have a second? >> I second. >> All in favor? >> I have a clarifying question

264though. >> Sure. >> Thank you. Um you said that uh B that we're going to go into executive session >> and then give direction to the attorney, but there's no action item for that. >> So the there is a direction to the attorney for the first executive session regarding the proposed lease option. The second executive session is scheduled just to obtain legal advice. >> Okay. Okay. That's what I want to verify. Thank you. >> It's okay. Uh, another vote. Uh, all in favor of the motion say I. >> I. >> And all opposed. >> Motion passes 40. Thank you. It's 10:29. I hereby adjourn executive session. Uh move on to an action item. Um I'm going to make a motion that the board give direction to the attorney uh regarding potential lease option at Echo

265Canyon K8 as discussed in executive session. Do I have a second for the motion? >> Second. >> All in favor? Hi. Hi. >> Okay. Sorry. >> I I believe that you've given me direction as discussed in executive session. So, I'm I'm sufficient with that direction. Thank you. >> Motion passes 40. >> Uh all right. Uh future items. Uh board members, any future? Nope. We have dates of upcoming meetings. Next meeting on June 9th at six o'clock uh and June 23rd uh at five o'clock special governing board meeting at MDA. And with that we adjourn at >> we need a motion. >> Motion to adjurnn. I need a second. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. No opposed. Motion passes 40. We are adjourned.