001effects I like to call this meeting to order we would like to have the Palomino 6th grade Symphony lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance if you all stand and join them okay thank you so much that was fabulous are there any parents of These Fine students in the audience tonight if you could you please stand you can please stand that was fabulous thank you students thank you parents and thank you uh Mrs hopatelli for that incredible performance that is hard to do with just sixth graders that is very hard to do so that was very impressive um may I have roll call please Mrs Baker here Mrs Greenberg here Mrs Christensen here Mrs case here Mr Pantera here next on the agenda approval of agenda Dr Bells thank you president case items approved by
002consent will not come up for discussion during the meeting but will be approved when the agenda is adopted this is possible since members of the governing board receive the agenda along with backup materials at least 24 hours prior to the meeting and have time to review and consider all items prior to the agenda being adopted members of the governing board or audience may ask that an item be removed from the consent agenda and brought to the floor for discussion at the appropriate place on the agenda I would like to offer the agenda as posted thank you does any member of the governing board wish to have an item removed from the consent agenda does any member of the audience wish to have an item removed from the consents agenda seeing none Mrs Greenberg may I
003have a motion to approve the meeting agenda and recommended consent agenda items so moved all those in favor say aye aye aye all those opposed say nay motion passes unanimously next on the agenda governing board statements um Mrs Baker thank you president case um so first of all I didn't get to go on any site visits we had a death in the family last week and I was unable to attend but I am looking forward to making up those visits I was able to attend the Sight and Sounds um that we just had I had uh one performer of my own I had uh one who had some artwork there and then I had one who performed and had artwork so not only did I get to see my own students but I got to
004see some of the artwork of all of our students and it was amazing and some of it was really moving artwork every single student who participated their parents and their teachers should just be so proud of the hard work they all did um one other comment I'd like to make is this week Educators have been on my mind quite a bit um we are in the business of education and people in our district our students our staff our parents our community everything goes back to people it's our job to educate our students and support our educators when we don't prioritize the working conditions support and pay of our Educators we're sending them a powerful message um we are telling them they aren't valued here and that's far from the truth if we lose our best
005our brightest and most hard-working staff we'll lose far more than that will your students will lose our reputation and we will lose Community Support in a time when educators are constantly under attack by the media and the legislator when pay is low and morale is down we need to lift them up as best we can as a district and send our Educators the message that they are valued heard respected and worth more than any bottom line thank you thank you Mrs Christensen I'd like to welcome everyone here all the students Educators parents and community members that were able to make it out today it's really important to have a voice in your community especially in our schools the last board meeting I promised to make a strong effort to look at our district from a
006different lens I've come in to this position as a as a parent and now I'm um now I'm that I'm a governing board member I need to listen and hear all our stakeholders and and I'm doing my best to do that and as I continue to make it around the district um I just I'm just so pleased with how our students are so proud of the accomplishments they made and and the teachers I love talking to the Educators around the district and the dedication and support for all our students here I do want to give a shout out to um Brandi Moore Miss Brandy Moore for her team doing such an amazing job running sights and sounds and empty bowls at Shadow Mountain High over the weekend I was able to buy a ceramic dish
007that I brought home because I've been needing I broke a spoon holder and one of those ladles and so I was able to replace it from a student from our Sweetwater School I got to hear Quail Run Elementary School seeing the national anthem and they did a great job I saw some amazing Ceramics beautiful works of art and as a supporter of the Arts myself I'm so proud to see that our district continues to support our steam initiatives and our budding artists here in our district I would like to thank principal Lee from Palomino primary principal Robles from Palomino intermediate principal strophis from Horizon High School and principal Martin from Sunrise Middle School those are the four tours that I did over the past couple weeks and I'd like to say principal Martin and I
008we actually got kicked out of one of the classrooms it was in a mandarin immersion school and we violated their no English rule so nice job to that educator for you know holding us accountable I don't know Mandarin I would like also like to highlight some positive conversations my my colleagues and I on the board have had through recent study sessions we have we've had some healthy passionate discussions on Dei in our district and we're we are working together to come up with some good definitions so that we Define it for our district and one of my personal major concerns was that it would take away from the focus of academic achievement in the name of equity forcing equal outcomes but I was pleased to hear that nobody on the board wants to limit our
009high Achievers in the name of equity so we're working we're working on that and and you know so so pleased to have these uh discussions we want all our the other commonality is all of us on the board want all our students to thrive regardless of race ethnicity or gender we need to support our sped gen Ed AP gifted individuals regardless of physical or mental capabilities and whether an individual comes from an within come to our schools with an IEP or um you know a Latino student at Palomino Greenway Middle or a white student from greyhawk elementary if they're struggling we need to get all our kids help regardless of their background and where they're coming from so I'm happy that everybody on the board agrees with that and just my conclusion um I think
010every board member up here really wants to make pvusd a premier district and even though we have different ideas on how to get us there um I I I I think we're all looking at different perspectives when we when we hear each other and I'm personally looking forward to more healthy discussions on how we can do so together foreign thank you um Mr Pantera thank you yes to I've been out and about welcome everyone Hi good evening um seeing different schools going to different events the uh sites and sounds awesome love being there um and I've been talking to principals and one of the things I bring up is well how are you guys analyzing your data you know what are you doing to take the data and use it in the classrooms and they
011all have different plans but they're all looking at it and they're looking at how we are best addressing these these standards in our district and it got me to thinking well what did I do in my classroom uh way back in the time I remember though standards were not enough for me I want every student to try and do better than the standards the standards are like a basic a baseline we'd like to have them go beyond the standards and do better and do more for themselves in their learning um but not necessarily attach a grade to it so I created something called in my class in the Journal of Honor cool huh who wouldn't want their name in this all right um I've kept these since I began them in what 1998 I have
012every single one of the journals I've had and students would do things they do projects um they would want to redo assignments they would say well can I study this instead I said well yes you can because it's you're taking possession of your own learning they would do things for each other didn't just about academics either it's about doing something for somebody else that's unexpected and I noticed it um years would go by an adult person would come to my classroom and the first thing they want to look for is their journal with their name in it and say oh that's me see oh you kept it Mr Panter yeah of course I kept it I said I would I've got them right here one that stands out to me was a student um Taylor
013hervey she was a student of mine got her name in the Journal of Honor several times but she not only came back to see her name in the journal she ended up working at the school at Eagle Ridge came back with an employee there for a while and says you still have that Mr Peter said yes I do do you still have that goth picture of me in it yes I do you know and the students were so excited even more excited oh this is a true thing people do come back that's mistake that's how she looked back then oh my gosh and um we want people to do more we want our students to do more we also want our certified and classified to do as much as they can to be motivated to
014go beyond and believe me I see it and they do they go beyond but it's hard to go up and Beyond what's the job expect of you if you're not valued and honored you have to have that Baseline safe environment like my students all had a safe environment that they could take those chances they could go harder higher and longer and all the things that you want them to do and the same thing with the staff you know we've got to honor them we got to Value them not just monetarily but treat them like professionals treat them like family members that we know can do this job and and go beyond that's what makes us a destination District to be in thank you Mr Kent here Mrs Greenberg um yes I um also had the
015opportunity to go to see sights and sounds um I want to thank Mrs Minick and all of our very fine fine arts teachers and our instrumental um Educators and you know in terms of what Mr Pantera was just saying about going above and beyond I think we saw so many instances of that at sights and sounds this weekend um it's it I always love seeing you you can you know you see a school and you see a grouping of uh you know the students art for example and you know the assignment they got but it's their interpretation of that assignment and you know what they did with color or what they did with form or what they did with um you know just the media they used and um again it was I I had
016the opportunity to hear some of our choirs uh perform and they were phenomenal um it's I am glad that sights and sounds has found a new home at Shadow Mountain um I remember being up at pvcc once upon a time being at the PV Mall Once Upon a Time obviously you can't be at the PV Mall anymore but I'm glad we brought it home I'm glad it's a shadow and um I think the atmosphere is is even more conducive to um a incredibly successful event so I just want to say thank you to everybody um who had art there who participated so pretty much everybody in the district um and certainly every school and I just appreciate that that's something that people want to do and that we do it and just um also just
017want to say I hope everybody has a great spring break next week thank you thank you Mrs Greenberg um it's as you can listen to the board members you can see that there's a passion for making PV the best it can be and I so appreciate that and I so appreciate that we have this opportunity to watch PV grow and the commitment to the Arts has been here for decades and I've been in the district for decades and I just appreciate that it's so important all seven of my children play the piano and and I was so grateful that they had art and choir and all kinds of things at school and that they could learn in other ways that I couldn't help them with and um I um the commitment in our district to
018their Arts is commendable and I believe that it makes him better academically too I strongly believe that and speaking about teachers about this time for I don't know a period of 30 years I don't know a long long time because I had my children are 20 years from the oldest to the youngest is 20 years and so I started with my oldest two having a teacher appreciation dinner and we would invite their teachers to our home and and have a dinner for them and they were shocked the first time we did it and after a while they looked forward to it and they talked about it and said oh you're going to get one of their kids and oh they have a dinner and it was really fun and we got to know the teachers
019in a unique way we got to know these teachers in personally and ah our teachers spend more time with our children than we do especially in elementary if you think about the day how much time they spend and I just so appreciate the dedication of our teachers to our children and to the their success um going off on a little bit of a tangent here I missed a board meeting a couple times ago I was traveling out of the country and while I was traveling I went into different countries and the number of languages people spoke I was in the Dutch Islands the ABC islands and they spoke four languages they're and I didn't know this before I went there their native language was Dutch everything they learned in school was in Dutch and all
020the written materials the signs were all in Dutch and but they also knew Spanish they also knew English and then they had this combination of language and I can't remember what it was called it was kind of a culmination of all the above and yeah and then I I met other people they knew six languages and it just struck me how different America is and and I've known this before and I've thought about it a lot I'm so grateful we have two schools that are immersion but I just I don't want any of our Hispanic students to ever lose their Spanish I want that to be encouraged because it is a skill that they take into their life and they'll get better jobs they'll I mean teach them the grammar to go with it teach
021them everything they need to know and let's expand to do more languages Americans I know it's not a Paradise Valley it's an American thing that we think everybody should just learn English and we don't need to learn other languages but I think it puts us at a disadvantage and um anyway I just think the more and I learned German in high school which I can't speak hardly anything but I I think and and I wish all the time oh the 20 words my father taught me in Spanish I wish he had taught me 200 words so if parents if you speak Spanish teach it to your children have them learn languages are so important to connect us in the world and I just think it's important anyway that's what I've been thinking about for the
022last month and I wanted to share that with you and I appreciate that we have two immersion schools and just this past week I spoke to a young man from Alberta Canada and um he went to a French uh immersion school k-6 and then middle school he did Spanish and in high school he did Spanish and French so he knows three languages how amazing is that anyway enough of that so next on the agenda is Awards and recognitions Dr Bells thank you president case governing board members cabinet and guest it's always a pleasure to highlight staff and students for recognitions Mr drogy will MC the honors tonight and at this time I'd like to invite the governing board members to join me down in front of the diocese good evening president case governing board members
023Dr Bales members of cabinet and attendees both in person and virtual tonight we have several recognitions to share with you this evening we'll be inviting our honorees to the front of the room for the recognition and photo so please make your way to the dice after I call your name first the or ASU recently hosted its first ever Arizona State Mandarin Chinese speech contest where a Whispering Wind third grader took first place in the elementary group category please help me congratulating Uma Rosner of Whispering Wind Academy foreign under the direction of Coach Paige Hoffman and assistant coach Lacey Sloan Horizon High School Palm recently took top honors at the AIA Division II state championships the team placed his runners-up at the U.S Nationals event in Anaheim California excellent job Huskies please join me in congratulating
024bretlin Bennett of Horizon High School Charlotte coletto Lindy Allison Kirsten Cox Brianna Giordano Morgan Barkley Kaylee Dorn Evelyn coletto Kayla Reinhart Maddie croon and the team's coaches coaches Paige Hoffman and Lacey Sloan all right one for me all right one two three thank you for the second year in a row a Shadow Mountain student has won the AIA Division III State wrestling champion at 190 pounds this student has a career record of 87 and 3 and has recently signed a letter of intent to wrestle at ASU next year please please join me in congratulating from Shadow Mountain High School Luke Isaac thank you our next honoree is the recipient of the national Center for Women and information technology in seawit educator of the Year award this impressive award is given to women who demonstrate interest
025achievement and leadership in Computing and Technology congratulations go to staff member from Paradise Valley High School Crest computer science teacher bhavana Verma the next guest to the diocese taking Center Stage as the Arizona dance dance educator of the Year award recipient for her dedication influence and Leadership at Shadow Mountain High School's North Valley Arts Academy please join me in congratulating nvaa dance teacher from Shadow Mountain High School Leanne Slater foreign is the recipient of the Paradise Valley education association's recognition of Professional Standards award for teachers the honoree will be introduced this evening by Ms Susie seep pvea president good evening president case Dr Bales governing board and cabinet it is my great pleasure tonight to recognize tonight's props recipient Randy reader a resource teacher and aspiring counselor who teaches at Greenway Middle School this is
026her ninth year teaching she's been in PV and at Greenway for seven years she grew up in this district and graduated from PV High School she was nominated by her colleagues Alex Ariana and Alice Hoffman and here's what they had to say Randy goes above and beyond to assist students and staff she has an amazing classroom teacher but also as it is incredible with leading PBIS on our campus she has an excellent problem solving skill always looking outside the box to increase student learning especially with our students with learning challenges she's kind and caring and a joy to work with positive and proactive she wears many hats she's the special ed IDL Ela resource teacher she leads PBIS she has Relentless energy never gives up on trying to creatively improve the learning culture and climate
027at Greenway as a leader she's organized and focused on improving learning outcomes and student engagement she manages administrative tasks inspires colleagues as the PBS coordinator her innovative ideas highlight the positive behaviors exhibited by students and she runs the roar store that celebrates Student Success in the classroom um in her and classrooms as an Ela resource teacher and co-teacher and inclusion Ela Randy's creative and supportive cultivates deep understanding and always has time to talk about how to meet the needs of students she makes instruction the very best it can be cultivates deep relationships and all of us are fortunate that there are great teachers like Randy and pbusd I'm so proud to introduce her she's here with her mom Betsy reader also a long time employee and her dad I think is also an employee of
028the district come on up Randy mom wants a picture too last but certainly not least is the Paradise Valley education support professional of the month pvsca president Ms Michelle Courtright will make the presentation foreign case governing board Dr Bales and cabinet as the pbsca president this is one of the best things I get to do is showcase our outstanding esps and this month we are recognizing Daniel Brashear Danielle beshears and she is a community ed preschool child care associate at Copper Canyon and we often get letters from all over but I'm not sure how many people have worked with Littles but Littles create a very different challenge because not only are you teaching them the academic skills that they need to be successful in kindergarten but you're also sometimes for the first time exposing them
029to those social skills that they need to be successful in their entire lives so you have to have a very special personality to be able to do this to show them that oh little Johnny is a little sad today look at his face and without bringing the child down and from what I understand Danny is very very good at that I have a letter here from a parent and it says Miss Danny makes learning fun she takes the time to understand each child and the style of their learning my child Raves about Miss Danny and as a parent I know my child is in good hands with Miss Danny and she generally has every child's best interest at heart and her teacher who she has been an assistant for for 10 years says she is
030more than just an assistant she's like having another teacher in the classroom her knowledge professionalism and kindness we work so well together that I really don't have to ask her to do anything she knows the schedule she knows the units she just does it she understands the needs of the children she talks to them respectfully and they love her Danny makes my job easier she steps seamlessly into the Lead Teacher role when I'm absent or need to re leave the room and they are the best team ever and the thing that excited me the most is Danny is currently attending University classes to obtain her teaching certificate and it's my understanding she plans to do that interning and that student teaching here and like governing board Pantera said this is what we want we want
031to grow our own and we want the skills that they have to stay with this district for years and years so it is great pleasure that we honor honor Danielle Brashears this month thank you foreign case concludes this evening's Awards and recognitions I just love it when we spend so much time recognizing the wonderfulness of this District next on the agenda is call to the public tonight I have oh we have to read yeah after the video first we'll have a video call to the public is about to convene this portion of today's meeting allows the public the opportunity to address the governing board although state law does not require that the governing board hold a call to the public The Paradise Valley Unified School District and its board have chosen to do so because
032we believe it's important to hear about concerns and issues from our community while call to the public is not designed to be a discussion the board is here to listen due to Arizona open meeting law the governing board cannot respond to discuss or take any action on items brought up during this time however staff members may be directed to get back to you and address individual concerns as a reminder the point of this and every board meeting is to accomplish the business at hand and to be able to do so in an open and collaborative way all in attendance are expected to observe meeting rules as well as rules of politeness and decorum so that we may serve as an example to our students that issues can be discussed in a respectful and civil manner
033foreign people who have submitted comment cards prior to the start of the meeting each speaker will have three minutes for remarks on those who have asked to speak on agenda items will be recognized at the appropriate time during the meeting and there's two comments concerning items during the meeting as a reminder we ask that you please direct your comments to the board first day your first and last name when you come to the podium our first speaker will be Trevor Nelson good evening board members um Trevor Nelson any Honest One um in 2005 David Foster Wallace addressed a graduating classic Indian college and he began his speech with a parable he said quote there are there's two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way he nods
034at them and says morning boys how's the water and the two fish swim for on for a bit and then eventually one of them looks at the other one and goes what the heck is water I'm glad to see the district has made an update to the board norms the section where it says lead a district of equity uh it was approved in the consent agenda Equity means and this is reading from it Equity means that each student receives what they need to develop to their full academic and social potential I'll repeat that Equity means that each student receives what they need to develop to their full academic and social potential I'm glad that's been cleared up because there seemed to be some that struggled last week with that at the board meeting Equity does
035mean that each student receives what they need what's greater than Equity though is breaking down the barriers that prevent people from receiving what they need to fully develop in the first place institutional barriers racial barriers social barriers emotional barriers and learning barriers to paraphrase the opening line of the social contract by the philosopher Rousseau people are born free but everywhere they are in Chains some of those chains are good like when we make agreements with each other to not steal from each other seems a bit extreme but I think it's good and we all agree that it's good to have that boundary or that chain and that rule of law to not steal from each other and if someone does then we demand Justice sometimes we even instill those chains on others and we don't
036even realize it I mean after all what the heck is water anyway we are born into systems and structures we don't know about and social norms we would not know existed unless instructed by our families the schools and other societal forces we have to experience the consequences positive and negative often of those social chains we're born into in order to know the chains that are there it might come to a surprise to some people but not everyone experiences the same identical experience as your own experiences to borrow from another American idiom some people just can't quote pull up their bootstraps and be successful because they don't have any bootstraps or any boots don't fear change embrace it immerse yourself in understanding the social chains around you around all of us look for inequalities and institutions
037and be an inclusive helper to your fellow person thank you next we'll hear from Diane uh is that nyman I'm Neiman okay yes I had three children that went through the Paradise Valley school system and I have a one of my best friends was a teacher and I know that um so much of uh uh education doesn't involve just the classroom but there's many hours afterwards that they're required to get ready for the um for the next day or whatever and I just really wanted to complement the board today because the emphasis has been on teachers and students that are excelling and in particular what Tony Pantera said I appreciated that I do have some concerns however about uh first of all uh there's I know you're going to be speaking tonight about expenditures and
038I don't see anything about increasing teachers salaries and that's a concern that I have because I have looked into it in 2018 Governor Doug Ducey promised to raise teachers salaries by 20 by 2020 and only 87 of the 205 school districts hit or exceeded that in Arizona so I'd like to see a committee that would investigate increasing teacher salaries um the highest paying job in the PV Valley of Paradise Valley Schools is um special ed at 67 000. and I really feel like the average um is below what it would be nationally and that's the average is for only 42 374. in 2023 The Paradise Valley high school ranking uh sat ACT scores placed in and this is 2023 um they placed math proficiency at 48 and reading at 45 and those taking College Prep
039courses the pass rate was only 66 percent so Arizona ranks lowest integer salary in the country according to the website that I looked at when adjusted when adjusted for cost of living and quality of life so they get around 48 000 a year um and the curriculum does say about um it says the par The Paradise Valley website says for K through six the curriculum provides a comprehensive Equitable education and I think that's uh unfortunately that does not seem to be wholesome in my viewpoint because the the students are encouraged to view one another with about their race and their background and and really the focus is more on difference than on uh unifying the students so it's not a and it's also not a focus on Merit uh and accepting attitude and friendliness and
040cooperation so I did see a good display tonight with a band and the students that received Awards and so I am hopeful that um everyone here is on board with wanting to make the students all Excel next is Kerwin Franklin followed by David Genji hi president case and board thank you for letting me speak you've heard me before and I have five children my mom was a teacher for over 30 years in Paradise Valley her name's on that bench out there and I want to thank all of the teachers that taught my children here at Explorer and pinnacle they are so blessed they're on the three great colleges and I we couldn't have done it without them and despite the fact that I probably have many differences with their teachers they were very respectful of
041me as a parent and what I chose for my children I was really upset when I watched the last board meeting online and Carrie Baker's tweeting we're not a society of white Christians you tweeted so many white boys mocking a picture of Brophy students on Twitter the last board meeting watching a group of lgbtq support equality Arizona schools coming to speak at our board meeting that are neither taxpayers nor parents in our district was disappointing that group posted on social media and we must fight against parental rights they Advocate to support only one faction of our students and they advocate for non-academic learning such as adult drag shows in schools as a board member you're supposed to equally be focused on all students and you're supposed to be focusing on their academics yet I don't
042hear a lot of discussion about academics your open racism toward white people with differing values than yourself does not scream inclusion for me it shouldn't matter if I'm white nor that I'm a Christian however it does matter that I'm a parent your public statements are what our district and Community doesn't need the parental Bill of Rights is a state statute and thankfully you don't have the power to dismiss it I'm happy to educate parents and provide them the form to submit to their schools so they can prevent teaching any curriculum or materials that's not aligned with their values this is their right and it doesn't discriminate based on race or their religion if you don't think parents matter just look at the declining enrollment numbers devastating our district look at our declining test scores we
043have the power to remove our kids and we will do so if you choose to destroy this district from the inside out we don't even need the esa bill you openly opposed since extremely extremely successful charter schools around our districts with waiting lists that are free lastly your Tweet on January 27th calling Tom Horn a racist since he's anti-crt is the definition of bigotry there is only one racist in this room start acting like a board member or resign you may want to start tweeting about what you're going to do to bring half our kids back up to grade level regardless of the color of their skin David is it genj I Branch followed by Jeff landday in this case you gotta write two times that's that's amazing nobody gets that good evening my name
044is David genj I have some prepared comments here but I've got to say Mr Pantera I dig the tie I'm serious bolo ties should come back in I'm a proud father of three young girls in the PV District my oldest will be starting kindergarten in August early in 2019 while my oldest was still our only child and we have young twins uh we moved in order to be work within walking distance of greyhawk Elementary unfortunately rather than preparing our oldest to attend greyhawk I spent the past two years researching all options outside of the PB PV District school here's a short list why we've we've heard from some of the speakers previously here's a short list why for me number one declining academics schools are failing our kids and a complete 180 is needed to
045put academic achievement above social justice and social emotional learning the parents writ large we want teachers and administrators to focus on traditional curriculum like math and reading we welcome like uh Mr Pantera I wrote here we would welcome students striving to beat the standards that's fantastic I would love to see that and I hope we start to see that uh second lack of fiscal responsibility this came up previously as well but many of us want to know have these expensive new curriculum yielded positive results the test scores sure don't seem to prove that have expensive sel-based programs and counselors improve the mental health of our children maybe I mean it doesn't seem so but how would we know there are no details there is no evidence to prove that either has seven elementary schools in
046the district only have enrollment at 38 to 48 percent of capacity and two middle schools range from 35 to 49 capacity so what are we going to do with that capital in these commercial assets that are underutilized all this to say funding increases year over year never seem to solve the problems they purport to address nor do we see improved test scores another request to increase the District budget is surely around the corner finally activism from elected officials our schools are not incubators to experiment on our kids these are not incubators to experiment the latest call for social justice or to prop up the next thing like the previous speaker I agree derogatory comments on social media from active board members such as Miss Baker are extremely harmful to our kids and our community you
047hide behind the tenants at Dei thank you Jeff landday followed by Emily Wagner hi good evening thank you governing board and Dr Bales for allowing me to speak my name is Jeff landday and I'm a parent of two children in the Paradise Valley District I have a daughter in seventh grade at Mountain Trail Middle School and I have a son in ninth grade at Pinnacle high school and before my topic I want to give a shout out to principal Patrick Clancy at Mountain Trail he's amazing accessible and does a fantastic job so kudos to him um so my topic I want to speak tonight about everyone's so-called concern with the social emotional development of our children and I will add that it's my opinion that the home and the family is the primary source of
048emotional development of children not the schools or our mental health professional might be the schools are primarily for academics some of the other speakers talked about there's this big fight to keep SEL in schools while ignoring through the curriculum some of the things that are taught especially in English class I've noticed that negatively affect our kids both of my kids have had to read and study multiple books and stories that have Darkness death are not uplifting and so forth very few of the stories and things they study in English or uplifting or positive or have Happy Endings I provided I came up with just a few examples from their schooling in third grade my son uh had to read a book called Alibaba and the 40 thieves in that book there was a scene where
049thieves discover a man and they kill him by chopping him up third grade uh in eighth grade English they did The Telltale Heart supposedly a classic by Edgar Allan Poe that deals with a mentally ill man Desiring to kill and murder an innocent old man because he has a funky eye and this year my seventh my daughter's seventh grade drama class chose to do that in their drama so she wanted out in ninth grade this year my son had a poem called My Papa's Waltz that they studied that clearly describes a child that's abused by his dad while not necessarily bad to talk about abuse nowhere in the class did the teacher say anything about abuse being bad nor provide a hotline number like you might see at the end of a movie that includes
050abuse so my conclusion here you know to Dr Bales and the board is uh we need to review the curriculum curriculum and we need to be aware of some of the story lines that are being taught u5 and Dr Bales oversee the education of thousands of students if we actually do care about the emotional development of our kids we need to pay attention to these dark themes that are being taught there's lots of options out there so I ask that you hold yourselves accountable as the board for kind of paying attention to that I don't want to give a kudos to Mrs Christensen who I know has been delving into the curriculum to work toward some of these changes thank you Emily Wagner followed by Lily Krista Gresham President Hayes Dr Bales and board I'm
051saddened but not shocked to learn that our district is absolutely failing at its number one job which is educating our students and academics according to your own statistics in 2022 only 45 percent received a passing rate in math and only 56 percent received a passing rate in English language arts that means 55 percent are failing math and 44 are failing in ela that means you are failing as a board isn't the product of an educational System supposed to be a functional adult with passing math and Ela skills enough to get a job to support themselves and contribute to society instead we're busy trying to condition the students in for two prioritizing their feelings through SEO lessons couple these failures with the district's abysmal pandemic policies and it's no wonder the enrollment rates are steadily declining
052there are several campuses in Jeopardy the following list of schools is either at or below 50 capacity Desert Springs Eagle Ridge Gray Hawk Hidden Hills Larkspur Liberty Sunset Canyon Greenway Middle School and Sunrise Middle School I do not envy the position you will be in to determine what's going to happen at these campuses make no mistake it is the failures of this District that has put us in this position today voters are not going to be so willing to pass yet another bond to in order to cover up your failures anymore and Miss Baker I'm still waiting for that apology or your resignation either one will do next is Lily Gresham well um hi my name is Lily Gresham wow I have missed a few meetings and I'm just um first I'd like to say
053thank you for everything that you guys do and thank you Miss Baker um and I don't think you need to apologize for for your thoughts um I um want to talk about there's um three bills that one is SB 1305 that is called the empowerment hotline I don't know if you guys have heard of it another one is SB 1331 which is about schools parents and Firearm possession and SB 1323 which makes it a classified felony for schools to provide any explicit materials okay um first I'd like to say that the United States depends on its public school system and our shared Society also depends on it some County governments stated government stated purpose of removing pornographic material or CRT and public libraries actually campaign against uh political and religious censorship the primary function of
054education is to teach students how to think for themselves parents should not be able to tell students uh and schools what to teach we have elected educated and experienced school boards for that purpose parents can control what their own kids can learn but not what everyone else's kids can learn in public schools parental censorship in schools is harmful because it prevents students with inquiring minds from exploring their world seeking truth and reason stretching their intellectual capacities and becoming independent critical thinkers students must be equipped to think critically understand facts of the world and that what Society needs to teach them to learn and develop into independent critical uh thinkers Banning or censoring information particularly inappropriate or CRT is not about protecting children it's about restricting information simply because someone dislikes the ideas or the material
055and schools are a community resource and no individual citizen parent or otherwise should assume any right to individually mandate what course that community resource should take and honestly I think many parents have neither the education nor intelligence to make these decisions for all of us and all of our children okay and let's see although Arizona public schools have been ranked worse in the country and the contributing factor has been the quality of school education I understand it's not your fault it's certainly not the teacher's fault it's we have our school funding our school funding is um damn I did next on the agenda is Dr Bells thank you president case governing board members cabinet and guests this evening in PB schools we continue to engage we Inspire we do our best to nurture students through
056high quality instruction and meaningful educational opportunities and dynamic learning experiences and one of those experiences happened toward the end of last month when 17 space Force Cadets from Shadow Mountain High School's Junior Reserve officer training Corps uh Jay rotcy had a once in a lifetime experience visiting the Peterson space force base in Colorado Cadets received an exclusive look into the everyday operations of the base Cadets raised more than fifteen thousand dollars to make this trip possible showing their dedication and enthusiasm for military service for more information on our JROTC program visit pbschools.net and congratulations to these young Cadets popping those earbuds throw on your headphones and crank up your speakers PB schools has launched a new podcast it's called PV beat and from highlights and achievements to important news and events this podcast offers the
057PB schools Community a way to stay in tune with the district a different medium check out PV beat on major podcast platforms like apple Spotify or by visiting pvschools.net forward slash PV beat read Across America this week many of our schools celebrated Red Cross America to celebrate the joys of reading as we know readers read and writers write this annual event brings communities together by allowing students staff and parents to enjoy a week filled with fun excitement and learning thank you to all of our special guest readers including Dr Jairus Dr hotstock and Mr Pantera who spent the time at Indian Bend where they shared some of Dr Seuss's most beloved stories PB schools wants to promote and encourage Literacy for all students at all ages from the communities and one of the best ways
058to do this is by reading to and with students it's no secret that there is anxiety around school safety unfortunately the core of the problem is bigger than just schools and bigger than our district but there is something that can be done at the local level to help prevent tragedy coupled with support for students in need assessments of potential risks and Partnerships with local law enforcement is PB school's commitment to preparation and training for more information on how we are empowering our schools to make potentially life-saving decisions head to the district website Newsroom you'll also hear more about school safety on our second episode of PV beat our new District podcast I mentioned congratulations to the members tickle's going to catch me tonight I know it congratulations to all the members of the Sunrise Middle
059School robotics team both of sunrise's teams participated in the Arizona State robotics championship and Flag Staffing the Grand Canyon division team Sunrise coolbotics moved to the onto the finals where their Alliance won first place as a result uh the robotics Arizona State robotics Championship earned second place out of 47. congratulations to both teams spring is right around the corner and that means that it's State Testing time showtime as I'd like to say when I was principal uh testing starts at the end of this month continues through the month of April we want to remind families State Testing is mandatory and final for Student Success these tests provide information that will improve how students are taught how teachers are coached and how we can better support I can take over uh the data that also provides
060benchmarks to parents and students preparing students for tests at home is important and uh is an important part of the process so ensure that your students get plenty of rest and nutritious breakfast and are on time to school for more information on testing schedules please contact your child's school I'll let Dr Bales take this next one thank you excuse me it is with great pleasure that I welcome K Norris volunteer executive director of PV Community Food Bank also formerly known as Paradise Valley Seafood being k a long time and former governing board member continues to serve our community PB schools and the food bank have a long-standing partnership and it's my pleasure to welcome her thank you thank you lived in The District 47 years I'm committed if I cry ignore me I believe in
061what we do here so I'm the volunteer executive director for the PV Community Food Bank for the new board members who may not be familiar the um speaking tonight is three pronged one to thank you for support through the past years um to tell you new programs that we have and then to ask have a request at the end we the food bank was founded in 1985. it is an all volunteer it takes 140 to 150 volunteers a week 10 months out of the year to keep the programs running we're at 501 3C and we qualify for the Arizona tax for tax dollar we rely on private funding we do not accept any government funding solely private funding because we treat our neighbors as we call them not clients with respect the only reason the
062only thing they have two things to come to the food bank for food that they live within the 98 square miles of the school district we are a Community Food Bank we are not huge trying to cover the whole state we we feed the title one kids and the community members in our district that are suffering from food insecurities so Paradise Valley Unified School District benefits from our Nurse Program we give juice and crackers to every nurse in the district they are the most fun our volunteers delivered the juice and crackers and these nurses like do a dance they're so excited because the school cannot afford to provide them with that and they give out some really heavy duty medicine during the school day we provide weekend food for kids bags the program was founded
063in 2007 with 50 bags a week and during since the last 17 or how many years it's been we've distributed over 200 000 weekend food bags to Title One schools and we do this so that our students can show up to class on Mondays well nourished and ready to learn poverty is the number one reason why kids don't learn okay we Whole Foods gave us a fan if you can believe it refrigerated van in December that allowed us to open up a new program it's called the Palomino outreach program and we are now able to deliver food for those of you that may be new to the district you know the Palomino neighborhood used to be called the square they're trying to get away from that it's the highest poverty highest crime rate highest density
064in Northeast Phoenix the two square miles they have a hard time English is not their first language and it's difficult for them to get out of that area to seek services so we deliver now to 60 families a month food that will last them a week or two and we work with the schools to identify who those families are so that's that's a new expensive program but it's a great one um we work with school resource officers they will come to the food bank and just give us names and the number of people in the family and then they will deliver the food boxes to areas that they do not want us to go into um we have special projects we deliver to senior centers halfway houses and Veterans homes so let's see the weekend
065food for kids program costs between 140 and 160 000 a year we have to have that food purchased and sitting and waiting to be bagged each week a lot of food banks only rely on three percent of their food donations for distribution the rest of the time you they're collecting money that's not the way we operate because we're a Community Food Bank and we have this relationship with the school district 97 of the food we give out is donated through school food drives through Community Food drives through Temple churches Boy Scouts whoever will have a food drive and I want to thank the school district because you have had school food drives for us for years and the volunteers at the dis at the schools that run those School food drives are teachers who are
066going up and beyond their job and we believe that school food drives is also a teaching tool for the students the organization the giving out to others we find sometimes when Palomino and other Title One schools they want to have food drives they want to be part of the system they don't want to just be given we'll find some of the food coming out of our bags that they will donate back and we cherish those okay um so thank you for your support empty bowls wasn't that fun did you see the art we had table there because the empty bowls is they that you pay for the empty bowls and the money comes to the food bank and that's been going on for 10 years too and this is a beautiful program she has that
067shadow it used to be stuck up here in the corner these little empty polls program so we're happy for that um I've told you about our new programs so if you will look at the papers I gave you the first one gives you a general idea of what we do really please go to our website it's really special and it's not fancy but it gives you our heart and who we serve this is a picture of the weekend food bags that we give out all the social workers have to do is connect with our the person that's in charge of that and give us a number we don't ask for stats we don't ask why you had 10 last week and now you want 50 we don't care we just want to feed the kids
068so we have volunteers to assemble these and then we have 17 20 drivers that deliver them to the school so they don't have to come off campus to pick up that's a new one this is our family food boxes wire we have served 60 more last year than the year before family food boxes that's a lot of money for us and it's a big change in the population this is written in Spanish in English um in 2019 and 20 in January 2020 we sell 1188 Neighbors in 2022 January 23 January January we saw 2192. we are a volunteer of food bank we accept no federal funding and we rely upon the school district to help support us Dr Jairus um had some funding and he called and the school district gave us almost forty thousand
069dollars worth of food we can't accept you know Federal money but we can accept him spending it and giving it to us so that was a that was huge uh I could go on and on about how much how many more people were serving we're serving a lot more seniors we're serving um families that families that are three generations now you know Grandma and Grandpa mom and dad and kids because they're moving in together so so this I want you to look at this if you would this is not to make anybody look bad or particularly good the point with this is and I sent this to Dr Jairus two years ago we need the support of the cabinet and the superintendent each beginning of the school year to introduce new staff members nurses social
070workers principals to support our food drives when when we call and ask them we'll do anything to help them you know if they when I have one tomorrow we'll work with them we drop off boxes pick it up it takes a lot of work for the volunteers at the school to have a school food drive but we appreciate that but you can see from this that one year at school might give you know 8 000 pounds and the next year nothing and a lot of that has to do with staff change so that's where we look to you for support continued support we we love supporting the school district with our weekend food for kids program and our nurses and getting to the Palomino neighborhood now because we have a refrigerated van and I just
071want to thank you I'm open for questions okay thank you so much your lifelong services this district is amazing shout out to your partner back there Kathy glenmeyer as well I know she doesn't want to come to the mic she's served our district a long time as our director of nutrition and wellness so both of you are we're so blessed thank you thank you well you know you the school board provides or the district provides us with the same representative on our board Camille is and so she keeps us abreast of what's happening in the schools that's part of her job description I think and I we really appreciate that as well so um thank you thank you thank you thank you so much and that concludes our comments tonight thank you next on the
072agenda is items for approval Dr Bells oh I'll introduce them okay thank you president case Germany board members cabinet and guests and tonight we present for approval and engagement letter to participate in a multi-district litigation suit against a variety of social media platforms such as Instagram Snapchat Tick Tock and their parent company bite dance just to name a few for predatory practices targeting under Youth and negatively impacting their mental health and we recommend approval Mrs Greenberg may I have a motion oh I want to do the card okay excuse me um Trevor Nelson has a comment on this subject you're you're passing okay thank you no not on this one uh Mrs Greenberg may I please have a motion move that the governing board approved the agreement between the Paradise Valley Unified School District law
073office of Joseph C tan pllc and Keller rohrbach LLP and authorize the attorneys to initiate a multi-district litigation against meta-platforms Inc Facebook Holdings LLC Facebook operations LLC meta payments Inc meta platforms Technologies LLC Instagram LLC syculus Inc snap Inc Tick Tock Inc bite Dance Inc alphabet Inc Google LLC 25 Holdings Inc and YouTube LLC on behalf of the Paradise Valley Unified School District as presented thank you any board members wishing to make a comment no okay all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed say nay motion passes you anonymously thank you next on the agenda Dr Bells president case governing board members Captain Augustine we present two outstanding homegrown principal candidates to continue leading in PB schools Dr Holmes thank you Dr Bales Madam president members of the board first up uh Tammy
074Delia is currently the interim principal at Desert Springs prep with 15 or probably 17 years of experience in public education she earned her Bachelor's in elementary education with an emphasis in early childhood education from ASU and her Master's in educational leadership from NAU if proof she will receive salary and benefits in accordance with PVP bargaining agreement and we recommend you approve Mr Leah to be the principal at Desert Springs prep thank you um may I have a motion to approve the recommendation to hire to Tamara they'll Delia Delia for the position of principal at Desert Springs Preparatory Elementary School it would be my honor so moved any board members wishing to make a comment inches speaking beforehand I'm so excited this is going to be great um all those in favor say aye aye aye
075all those opposed say nay motion passes unanimous congratulations welcome give me would you do you have a family member or you'd like to introduce thank you and your children went through this District that is fabulous that is fabulous well that's wonderful welcome we're so excited to have you at Desert Springs next up uh Vicki Raymond is currently the interim principal at Quail Run Elementary School with 17 years of experience to public education she earned her Bachelor of Science in elementary education from the University of Florida her Master's in educational leadership from NAU if proof she'll receive salary and benefits in accordance with the PVP bargaining agreement and we recommend you approve this Raymond to be the principal at Quail Run Elementary School may I have a motion to approve the recommendation to hire a Victoria
076Raymond for the position of principal of Quail Run Elementary School with great enthusiasm so moved thank you any board members wishing to make a comment we're so excited we oh we have to vote wait a second all those in favor say aye aye aye all those opposed say nay motion passes unanimously now you can get excited but do you have any friends you'd like to introduce with you tonight aha thank you so much welcome to a permanent position in the district we're happy for you thank you um next on the agenda is gifts and donations we have many donations tonight and we are grateful for all of them and realize the amazing part they are they are to our district I'd like to mention a few at Desert Trails Elementary the PTO there gave seventeen
077thousand dollars for three interactive flat panel screens at Pinnacle High School excels gave two thousand dollars to the athletic department at Pinnacle Peak Preparatory Elementary School Rebecca clout gave thirteen hundred dollars of cash to the site discretionary fund at Sunset Canyon Elementary School the PTO gave twenty five hundred dollars for furniture for the library and at Shadow Mountain High School the PV schools Education Foundation gave fifteen hundred dollars in cash to the NBAA drama so we appreciate all of these donations may I have a motion to approve please so moved all those in favor say aye motion passes unanimously next on the agenda is items for discussion Dr Bells thank you president case Governor board members cabinet and guest tonight Ms Bergen will present a short budget update as we work our way through the
078final steps in preparation for next year's fiscal budget Ms Bergen thank you Dr Bales president case and governing board members much of this information will look familiar but just want to update on where we are at currently with our budget and as you see on this slide I put in parentheses as of now because the legislature is still meeting we don't know what our final per pupil allocation for next year will be and potentially any other other changes to the budget so this is what the budget looks like currently for fiscal year 23 24. going line by line we start with a move of 0.17 percent of the fiscal year 23 this current year pay increase from Medicaid to mno and that's a negative 327 thousand dollars that was something that was discussed last year
079when the budget was passed the district had an interest in ensuring we had a one percent pay increase for staff 0.83 came out of mno and at the 0.17 percent came out of Medicaid with the understanding that that would be moved to mno for fiscal year 24. the next line item is the budget task force ongoing deficit when the governing board made a final vote back in December they're left remaining 1.24 million dollars of the budget deficit to resolve for fiscal year 24. so that is on there as well with our current fiscal year 23 ADM and add-on weights we have some adjustments as the district unfortunately continues to decline in enrollment and that's just under 1.3 million dollar decrease to the budget as well there's a projected fiscal year 24 enrollment decrease of 504
080students which is about the same as 701 in total weighted student count and total weighted student count is ultimately what the school district is funded off of and just as a reminder those weights include things like special education weights we now have a gifted weight there's a friend reduced lunch weight and a couple of others that's a negative just under 3.4 million we do have a positive number on here and that's the likely two percent base support increase amount which is the perputable funding from the state the the statute reads that we get two percent or inflation and right now the two percent is less than inflation and that's what they will cap us at unless they decide to provide more to the per pupil funding and they did do that for fiscal year 23
081I don't know if that's going to happen for fiscal year 24. but with our projected enrollment and that potential increase that's a positive just under 3.8 million dollars Tei is teacher experience index that measures our District's teacher experience across the state in comparison to other school districts and unfortunately we have a decrease for that for this year or moving into next year from 1.008 to 1.0035 and that's an approximate negative eight hundred and forty thousand dollars to the budget the next section is expense adjustments projected for next year we know that minimum wage increases each January and for January of 2024 I have my current estimate at 6.6 excuse me 6.4 percent that would bring minimum wage from 13.85 as it is currently to 14.75 and would be about a negative 165 thousand dollar decrease
082to the budget the medical cost increase was on there at negative 565 000 but that for the first time in four years that increases being passed along to employees for fiscal year 24. I also have a projection for inflation costs to goods and services at 6.4 percent which also is the current CPI or consumer price index that would be negative 2.2 million dollars to the district and we'll point out that those lines seven and nine currently estimated at 6.4 percent those will continue to be updated hopefully CPI continues to decrease and if so then those negative numbers won't be as high and hopefully the deficit won't be quite as high accordingly we do have a fairly significant utility increase expected for next year approximately 10 percent um APS is expecting to propose their rate increase
083and some of those rate increases are as high as 24 percent we're estimating 10 percent which would be about negative 725 000 dollars we do the replenishment of the contingency funding for Staffing as we do each year that allows our human resources team to hire teachers instructional assistants generally after the year has started so if a grade level has at a particular School site has more students in it than we expected projected and hired for having that money in there allows us to be able to hire staff for that and if we want to replenish that moving forward then we've got to include that in the budget here we also know that there'll be an asrs which is the Arizona State Retirement System increase of 0.12 percent the district and the employee see that increase
084both at 0.12 percent and for the district that's a total cost of 240 000 increase we do finally have another positive number with our staffing adjustments and some staffing attrition savings that's projected because of the number of teachers we won't need next year with the decline in enrollment as well as some changes to the special education program and that totals a positive uh just under four and a half million that brings the mno deficit next year to four million nine hundred forty five thousand dollars currently um I do think there is a potential as I mentioned for some of those numbers to decrease um and hopefully none of those numbers will increase moving forward the next piece is the reductions and how that is being handled within the bargaining groups I point to the second
085to last column to begin with with a percent of salaries which was calculated based off of fiscal year 22 salaries in mno and the certified group had 73.6 of those salaries the ESP and or classified group 20.4 percent and then the admin which includes principles directors cabinet and then the executive administrative assistants is about six percent of the budget if you go back to that second column with 494 million 945 000 at the top that's the reduction number needed from the prior page and apply those percentages from each of those groups you see the reduction by group that is needed and currently with our ESP group we have some decisions moving forward that get us to about 313 000 of that just over a million dollars that's needed for that group as well as nearly
086all of the reduction needed for the admin and exec admin line uh 269 000 of approximately the 296 000. so this is an accounting of those numbers um the the reductions that is we have combined the title one coordinator with the director of language acquisition uh that that new position is going to be the director of federal grants you approved that appointment last week you will recall the board approved in their uh with respect to the budget they approved a reduction of one COA administrative position in December that was estimated at the time to be a hundred and nineteen thousand dollars in total savings that would be salary uh employer side costs and benefits the actual savings uh with this one is adds an additional eighteen thousand dollars uh to support that we did need
087to add a 0.5 total title title TOA pardon me that will be funded out of Grant funds so it does not impact the mno budget we are eliminating the Esser coordinator saving our Sr coordinator fully uh Savings of 68 000. we have eliminated an Executive Administrative Assistant we have eliminated the assistant director of Transportation which will be replaced with a lead with a that will be a net Savings of forty five thousand and we have also eliminated the distribution Hands-On Science Center worker and distribution Tech so the net results of those reductions brings us to 269 000 for admin and exec admin assistance and just to clarify when we say admin that does mean our principles group PVP COA our district administrators and the executive administrative assistants being the the six people that support cabinet
088and then for esps that reduction is a total of three hundred and thirteen thousand not listed on the previous page I'm noticing is uh but included in that is uh We've we've reduced nine instructional Aid positions um that account for a large portion of that three hundred and thirteen thousand dollars and just some of the price we are working within is maintaining the seven to eight percent mno budget balance carry forward um that has been our Target in in the past as well as 11 to 12 percent uh budget balance carry forward in our operating funds including mno indirect cost classroom site fund Medicaid and Community Education uh historically that figure has been between about 11.6 and 15.5 percent over the last five years if we didn't have that budget shortfall that number currently would
089actually be at about that 15.5 percent and then additionally maintaining the 90 of the district additional assistance allocation going to mno which is about 12.7 million dollars and 10 percent going to unrestricted Capital at about 2.3 million dollars and just as a reminder we moved from 85 percent of the district additional assistance allocation going into mno up to the 90 percent based off of a decision uh related to the ultimate end of the budget task force back in December the board made that decision and on to a sneak peek what I'm calling a sneak peek of the Arizona auditor general School District spending report that just came out on March 1st I'm sure you all looked at that as soon as it came out in great detail and I'll provide a more detailed uh presentation
090on that uh either later this month or early in April to the board and the public but we do have a few pieces of good news that I think are important to share in that and the first piece is with instructional spending in our district comparisons these are the districts within the Maricopa County area that we compare to and comparing fiscal year 21 to fiscal year 22. instructional spending is very specific to classroom expenditures or function 1000 and we are not allowed to code anything to instructional spending that's not happening directly in the classroom so this is all very direct classroom spending you can see that for this year we are for fiscal year 22 really last year from fiscal year 21 to 22 we increased our instructional spending by 1.3 percent it's a pretty
091significant increase and that puts us at 58.7 percent which is the second highest in this peer group here there is a grouping they put together with classroom spending which includes that that number from the previous slide that instructional spending which is function 1000 as well as function 2100 which is student support and 2200 which is instructional support and all three of those together for our district increased by 1.5 percent from fiscal year 21 to fiscal year 22 bringing us to 74.8 percent and the highest in the peer group here I think Dr Bales wants to add something before I get to the next I can mention without coughing um that 74.8 percent does put us at tops in Maricopa County and third in the state um so we're happy that we continue to put our
092money in the classroom thank you Dr Bales the next one is uh just a little peek as well at the administration spending and District comparison from fiscal year 21 to fiscal year 22. we decreased our administrative spending by 1.2 percent moving from 8.9 percent down to 7.7 percent and that puts us at the lowest for administrative spending in our peer districts as well um it's it's always hard for me to look at things glass half full I'm a glass half empty kind of gal and my job is to worry about things but I do think it's important to celebrate some of these important points as we try to make these achievements moving forward and with that I'm happy to answer any questions are there any questions from any board member oh we have one excuse
093me Trevor Nelson did you want to make a comment on the budget um I'll keep it quick um I've been in this District now for about eight and a half nine years and been around for a while um seen some good decision making and some very poor decision making and recently I've seen a lot of really good teachers leave the district it might have to do with the fact that the district is lower than all the neighboring districts in German starting salary Scottsdale down the road is 3 000 more so these numbers are they look fine but they don't react they're not the reality of what's going on with the employees um one thing that's frustrating to watch is that agreement made last December after the last 14 million was suddenly realized uh that negative
0941.2 that was left unsolved in December and passed forward I'm sure no doubt is factoring into the most recent round of Cuts as we saw in the negotiations the teacher and what astonished International educators I hope the unions have worked on getting the quote other duties as assigned removed from their contracts and if they haven't they should work on that at some point because that's just code for unpaid overtime these teachers have lives and Families you know the kids in soccer and stuff they have you know second and third jobs that sort of stuff and I know I understand the Arizona legislature did school districts no favors when they passed the universal vouchers causing what could be labeled a great unenrollment the public schools students and I'm sure a lot of District leadership and the
095board might say well we couldn't plan for this that might be true but when you don't have a plan you end up planning to fail and that's what's frustrating to watch it's year over year over year of continual just mistakes that are preventable so I give the district's action on the budget one star thank you are there any comments from board members or questions or arrogant yes Mrs Christensen I I won't talk to specifics um we're gonna deal with this but I I just want to say that none of these decisions are easy and I'm confident that we as a board are gonna really do the right thing and um support our teachers and support our students and that's a big priority and I just want to say that I I feel like all of
096us on the board feel that way that um you know the these this is never this is never fun to look at budget cuts I mean I came more from the business world and you know this happens to all of us when you know families when you know somebody loses a job they have you have to cut um in big business we have to cut in and this is one of our biggest responsibilities just to have this fiscal responsibility by no means is is it easy but um I just would like the community to know that um we're gonna this is heartfelt on all of us and and we we're going to do our best to make the best decisions possible for the district with under the circumstances okay uh any other comments it it's
097never easy and I promise my goal has always been to put as much money into the classroom as possible because it's our teachers who make all the difference and um that has always been my goal um next on the agenda is call for executive session Mrs Greenberg may I have a motion please move that the governing board call for an executive session in accordance with Arizona revised statutes which read as follows Arizona revised statutes 38431.03.85 discussion or consultations with designated representatives of the public body in order to consider its position and instruct its Representatives regarding negotiations with employee organizations regarding the salaries salary schedules or compensation paid in the form of fringe benefits of employees of the public body or the purpose is meet for instruction and direction thank you all those in favor say
098aye aye all those opposed say nay motion passage unanimously we will reconvene the meeting after this and I don't know what time it'll be but whenever it is we will reconvene this meeting thank you so much thank you we are reconvening the regular meeting at 9 14. next on the agenda is instruction to Administration instruction to Administration regarding negotiations with employee groups as directed in executive session Mrs Greenberg may I have a motion move that the governing board instruct the administration regarding negotiations with employee groups as directed in executive session all those uh in favor say aye aye all those opposed say nay motion passes unanimously before we adjourn I would like to remind you that the next regular board meeting will be held on Thursday March 30th 2023 at 7 pm may I have
099a motion to adjourn so moved all those in favor say aye aye all those of us say nay motion passes unanimously thank you