001what a great way to start off the evening that was so special another round of applause and if we have any parents in here can you wave that was a really nice way to start us off thank you it is seven o'clock I would like to call this meeting to order please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance and if we can please have the choir uh start us off thank you okay may I have roll call please Mrs Greenberg here Mrs bacon is absent this evening Mr Laney here Mrs matura here Mrs case here next on the agenda is approval of agenda Dr Bales thank you items approved by consent will not come up for discussion during the meeting but will be approved when the agenda is adopted this is possible since members of
002the 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 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 I just want a clarification with our board secretary or any of our comment cards tonight for any of the items on the items for discussion or okay do any of our board members have any item they might would wish to remove from consent agenda okay we're receiving clarification if there's anyone in the audience who's not filled out a card who's uh would like an
003item removed from the consent agenda okay just confirming if we have a comment and need to remove one oh okay consent agenda item five and six are being removed from the consent agenda and we'll move to our items for approval okay and so I would ask for a motion um to approve the meeting agenda and recommended consent agenda items G1 through G 4 and G7 through g11. so moved all those in favor say aye aye any opposed say nay motion passes unanimously next on the agenda is governing board statements Mrs case this past week we have the privilege of meeting with the student body members from the different high schools and it was just such a pleasure to hear their ideas and to understand their perspective and they're so willing to share and um I
004just really appreciate that opportunity and tonight I think we're back to normal in our district the noise level in here was great it was happy noise and we are doing student recognitions this is I this is a fun part of being on the school board so thank you all for being here Mrs Greenberg um yes I also want to uh thank the students who are participating in student voice it was great too it's not it wasn't her first back in person but it was our first for the school year so it was um exciting because we have some new students we always have new students at the beginning of the year because we have new freshmen um as part of student voice I want to thank Mr long for doing a wonderful job facilitating it
005was um we have become more um topical or topic oriented and in our student voice and the one this past week we talked about student safety and there was a lot of incredible brainstorming going on in terms of what are some of the things we can do we as a district in schools individually can do particularly in the area of communication when things come up and and do that a little bit more quicker so it was great to get that feedback from our students Mr Laney I too would like to thank the students for participating that and the administration that staff that put it together I was really impressed with the comments of the youth as we dealt with um two hard subjects you know School threats and suicide and uh I felt that our
006students handled it really well and gave us lots of great suggestions I fully understand the um the threats because my daughter goes to one of the schools that had a recent threat and and she echoed the feelings of the students there that they uh they felt a little intimidated or apprehensive to go back to school that day and I remember talking with my daughter about it and helping her through it and and I mentioned to her that that's probably the safest day to go because we know about it and so I worked with her on that but on the The Suicide Prevention I asked the the students what they felt about it and and one of the students gave a great answer and he I feel understood it completely he said I play sports I
007participate in clubs I attend events I have a core group of friends I'm busy all the time and because of those things I am happy all the time he hit on in that one sentence on all of the things that help with depression you know he hit exercise friends activities not being alone in support groups and you know because this is something that affects us all and uh and I also asked the kids how many of them in our group had been affected by Suicide either a family member or a close friend or a relative and every single one of them Rose their hands or raised their hands if I can speak correctly and uh and so just really impressive to listen to what they felt needed to be done in our district to help
008them with that so thank you for putting that on um I wanted to bring up something that was said during student voice as well because we have a lot of teachers in the room tonight and I really appreciate seeing our teachers out there and uh and knowing that our teachers are in the school and we're in this district for the kids and that means so much knowing that we have a really great group of teachers there whose number one priority is our students and so I wanted to give you all the Kudos because what I heard in my group was that what made our students feel the safest when they there was an announcement or a lockdown was looking to their teachers and having the teachers be calm and know what was going on and
009they felt they look up to their teachers and the teachers knowing what to do and what the protocols were really made them feel safe and these were at the schools that had had incidences and you know those announcements come over the loudspeaker and you know there's always questions and to be able to look to the teachers and to have the teachers know the protocols and for our students to say that they felt safe because of their teachers speaks volumes and I wanted our teachers to know that so thank you all right next on the agenda is Awards and recognitions Dr bales thank you very much at this time I'd like to invite the governing board down in front of the diocese to join me and uh Mr drogate will do the honors good evening president
010matura governing board members Dr Bales members of cabinet and attendees both in person and virtual tonight we have one student recognition involving several students from around the district uh tonight's honorees uh 17 of them tonight qualified as the 2023 National Merit semi-finalists the National Merit Scholarship program is an academic competition for recognition and for scholarships and high school students enter the National Merit program by taking the PSAT or nmsqt during their junior year semi-finalists are the highest scoring entrants in each state finalists will be notified in February 2023 for their scholarship acceptance we couldn't be more proud of these semi-finalists in which the best of luck as they continue on their Journey uh this evening I'll call by school so when I call your name please come up to the dice for a photo a
011photo taken by school if the audience could join me in congratulating from Horizon High School Riley Franco from from Paradise Valley High School Zara Alam Quinn George Baylor green suwani Patel sharisti Rajiv Gavin Russo wait ing next also from Paradise Valley High School Felix Shen sakshi wag and Sydney Wolford representing Pinnacle High School unable to attend this evening Aiden Boyd it's fun uh in here in person Ethan Kushner anag and Dia Hudson Roddy alaksha Ella Terrell and rounding out this evening's awards for the National Merit semi-finalists from Shadow Mountain High School Annelise Vincent foreign well we're capturing this moment on photograph please give these students one final round of applause foreign thank you and with that President mature that concludes this evening's Awards and recognitions it's so fun seeing all the parents come up and
012uh congratulations to all the parents and and all of the students tonight um next on the agenda is call to the public 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 we 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
013back 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 and a respectful and civil manner foreign we have four people who have submitted comments cards prior to the start of the meeting each speaker will have three minutes for remarks those who have asked to speak on agenda items will be recognized at the appropriate time during the meeting please State your first and last name when you come to the podium our first speaker is Jennifer Ariza
014and next will be Christy Wellborn hi my name is Jennifer Ariza and I want to say thank you to each of the board members for putting the time in that you do to your positions I know personally it's difficult to make each one of these meetings so for that I thank you I stand here tonight as a concerned parent in the Paradise Valley School District and I appreciate the opportunity to speak my concern as a parent in the district is the education and Welfare of Paradise Valley Unified School District students as I stand here tonight I want to declare that pornography should not be allowed in our schools I want to ask each of our board members if they've been able to research the effects of pornography on children pornography is most often thought to
015be pictures or videos of nudity or sexual acts but the depiction of those sexual acts in literature is also pornography the American Bar Association states that exposure to pornography harms Children and Youth by normalizing sexual violence creating unrealistic expectations for intimate partners and relationships and increasing the risk of addiction this happens whether it's a graphic video or an explicit passage in a book pornography is used to train and desensitize people and increase demand for human trafficking porn users often seek to act out what they have seen and read in pornography the national Center on sexual exploitation states that a wide array of harms from pornography use have been objectively identified by research it also states that converging evidence from peer-reviewed research finds that pornography consumption especially of violent pornography is associated with a broad array
016of sexually hostile attitudes and violent behaviors such as male sexual aggression against women greater likelihood of adolescence sexually harassing a peer purchasing of sex I'd like to ask if anyone on the board has known someone who's been a victim of human trafficking do you know that Arizona is home to the largest human sex trafficking recovery program do you know that we are taking Elementary age children into this program if we know that pornography and literature is harmful to children and if we know that pornography is a gateway to human trafficking then I have to ask why each of our board members would be approving any pornographic material especially violent pornographic material to be in our schools on your watch in closing if you haven't already taken the opportunity I would encourage each one of you
017to do some research into the effects of pornography on children and I would hope that the board recognizes that as Citizens we are called to stand up to ensure the welfare of our communities and when the citizens see that the school board is not ensuring the welfare of our students I would hope that parents would continue to stand up and fight for the kids thank you next up is Christy Wellborn and then we'll be Barbara Jennings hi my name is Christy Welborn um um good evening board members thanks for allowing me the opportunity to speak my name is Christy Welborn and I'm a PV teacher and a proud parent of a second and fourth grader at Desert Shadows I'm speaking tonight because I was one of the teachers that was transferred and I'm going to
018cut out some of my stuff because I want to get to the good part and thank some people that who helped me out in this process um I was the teacher at Cactus View and I taught kindergarten and five days before our school went online to teach in 2020 I was Surplus because of low enrollment the head of HR at the time was Dr Bales and he was very helpful accessible and patient as he knew the impact it had on me as a single mom of two um and where I wanted to be and I chose Pinnacle Peak prep to teach first grade and I have to recognize my teammates who supported me Christina Canela Cindy garcini and Meredith Ogden I would have not had such a successful year that first year there without them
019fast forward to two years later this August at Pinnacle Peak our first grade our numbers have been low pandemic and otherwise but we knew it was going to be some Staffing in February my classroom was funded through Esser to keep small class sizes so you can imagine how surprised and devastated I was after being with my first graders for about three weeks to learn that my class would be collapsed and I would be transferred I had two days with my first graders and that was it they collapsed they also collapsed second grade at our school Jenna Dawson who you heard from last time at Pinnacle Peak parents former parents colleagues they all reached out and people were upset and I just want to thank them for their support as well but I felt terrible for
020my first graders and my former first graders um and I want to recognize there are new teachers in second grade as well Wesley Wren and Kennedy sequest and the job they're doing um I want to thank Dr freed because he encouraged me a principal at Pinnacle Peak he encouraged me to step out of my oh we gotta hurry step out of my comfort zone in primary grades and to talk to Jerry weathers the principal at Sunset Canyon and check out sixth grade so I did and I am teaching sixth grade there and I understand that you know 200 kids didn't have a teacher and it melted my heart with my sixth graders cheered um when I told him I'd be their teacher for the year but the way this was all handled was was terrible
021we're PV and we're the gold standard people choose to be here and want to be here and I feel like we're losing teachers and Families um and we have the best teachers here we're here for our students and I would suggest doing this before day one I know that's kind of hard but we got to figure that out and I was transferred two times in two years I want to thank Rob Das and Susie C Stacy Pusher and Dr Bales for all meeting with me and Chrissy Stevens and everybody at Sunset Canyon foreign we have Barbara Jennings Barbara Jennings and then Lily Gresham yes good evening my name is Barbara Jennings my son is Robert he is a junior at Horizon this year um I concur what the other parents said I am very concerned
022about the direction our PV schools are going not just for our kids but for our teachers as well and the spending and where the spending is being spent um two hundred thousand dollars to go to lobbyists we paid 400 000 to Dr Welsh um when he failed as a superintendent um he's paid 55 000 a year to the asba which is partly responsible for the horrible curriculum that has entered into our school system so it's very disconcerting when you have things like what just happened at Horizon with the threat but there is an increase in violence I know my coaches wife works at Greenway Middle School and it is a war zone crime drugs violence on a daily basis and these should not be happening in our school something is wrong within the culture of
023our school and I think a lot of it has to do with the curriculum that is being fed to our students teaching our students to hate each other because their color up their skin and over sexual design over sexualizing our students with transgender dysphoria has been so harmful and so much of it is being done behind parents back this has put teachers in bad positions but it's also created an extreme amount of distress by the parents for this school of board and administration I'd like you to think back um and what you would give yourselves as a grade um for our last four years of teaching because our schools are failing our test grades are 30 to 50 percent and why do you think that is it's because you're not putting emphasis where it belongs
024which is on education which is on science math English you're putting it on social activism and green New Deal things um it's just you've you've gone off course and I keep on hoping and praying that you see the damage it is doing to our kids kids are depressed more they were shut down they were locked out of school they were forced to wear masks for extended periods of time which affected especially young ones through development and I fear going forward how you're going to handle if we have something else occur like that again are you going to be willing to damage our kids further by shutting down our schools and masking our children I want to see that you put money where it belongs which is to helping our teachers getting better teachers giving them
025higher pay in our school district and stop spending money on lobbyists and wasteful spending on some of these other agenda items which I will speak about later you're digging into parents response it is our responsibility our kids Social Development is on the parents thank you that's your time Lily Gresham hi my name is Lily Gresham and I'd like to start by saying thank you to all the board members for all their hard work um I believe in public education that serves all students um also I think the primary function of education is teaching students how to think for themselves book Banning restricts info information and discourages freedom of thought and children prepare for adulthood in the classroom with books and through education and banning books for being pornographic whatever that means is not protecting our
026children it's about discrimination and I would really like or whoever talks about pornography in schools including um uh HB Bill 2495 um I would like to have some specific um examples of references to what pornography they're referring to because it comes up at every meeting and I'm I don't even know what it means I mean what is the sexually explicit material that is being referred to I would like to know what books it is in I would like the reference I would like I would like to know what there are talking about because you can't just come up here all the time and talk about pornography in schools and the bills that are pornographic sexually explicit whatever what are those I mean what books have that what lesson plan what material is is pornographic I'd
027like to know instead of just throwing it out there and banning everything um I'd like I like specific examples um of alleged pornography sexually explicit materials I'd like to identify those materials specifically so we can avoid them I guess um what else I mean but you can't just come out here and spew stuff all the time and it's also in the in the house bills as well um and and I thought education is um supposed to teach our children how to think for themselves how to be critical thinkers how to have empathy for others how they see the world around them and they need to see that they are represented in school literature books um because otherwise it's it's not fair and it's discriminating and it's a censorship and what else um yeah that's the
028safest way for our kids to learn about the world is through literature and it is the safest way and even if topics that may be uncomfortable to read are the safest way for kids to learn to process those challenges and when books are flagged and um reserved or as inappropriate it sends a message to um the people in those books that somehow they're inappropriate that they don't matter they're not represented so whatever that pornography or sexually explicit material is or whatever is inappropriate I I think needs uh needs to be identified specifically that's my time next on the agenda is Dr Bales and superintendent comments we've got a beautiful audience out there all color coordinated I love it you're looking good people looking good all right Stacia thank you so much for being here tonight
029and to the administrators holding up the wall in the back there we uh we did have the opportunity to recognize some outstanding student achievements and I'd like to continue that recognition uh this past spring Arizona's academic standards assessment for English language arts and math were administered to all third through eighth graders and I'm proud to report that 484 students received a perfect score congratulations to our students on this fantastic accomplishment I'd also like to thank our teachers and our classroom support staff for their dedication and supporting our students on their journey of Excellence so thank you foreign addition to those very tall and handsome students that were next to me a little while ago we also are that recognized as we recognize the National Merit semifinals we're also proud to announce that PV students has
03021 2023 National commended students from Horizon Paradise Valley High School Pinnacle and Shadow Mountain congratulations to those students also foreign National Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15th through October 15th each year we observe National Hispanic Heritage Month by recognizing the contributions made by Latinos and Hispanic people to American society and culture as well as American citizens whose ancestors came to America from Spain Mexico Central America South America and the Spanish-speaking nations of the Caribbean now this next announcement is not just for parents of eighth graders I want kindergarten parents to listen to because it's not too early to be thinking about this journey of Excellence we have some upcoming events for 8th grade students excuse me uh geared towards honors and gifted 8th graders uh and their families who want to attend Shadow Mountain high
031schools Digital Academy of advanced placement Scholars a Humanities honors program is hosting an open house on Wednesday September 28th at 6 30 in the media center Paradise Valley High School Center for research and engineering science and technology or Crest their information night is on October 3rd from 5 to 8 in the auditorium at Paradise Valley High School Crest allows students to study one of three specialized disciplines bioscience computer science or engineering and we hope that you come to learn more about these exciting honors programs foreign the Arizona School of personnel administrators Association aspa has released results for their annual teacher survey the report indicates about 26.6 percent of teacher vacancies remain unfilled while 41.7 percent of the vacancies are filled by teachers who do not meet the state's standard certification requirements I share this because
032I want the governor and the legislature to wake up we're tired of being left behind and forgotten I have always strived for excellence in every position that I've held but quite frankly we're 5 300 some dollars below the national average per pupil in this state and that's not even average that's below average so if you want to leave a legacy step up to the plate and do something in PV schools we engage we Inspire and we nurture students through high quality instruction meaningful educational opportunities and dynamic learning experiences and one of those experiences are PV schools College and Career Fairs which will be held in October these fairs allow our high school students the opportunity to meet with recruiters from colleges universities and technical schools Statewide and across the country students will have five chances
033to meet with college recruiters and career counselors who will provide them with the first-hand information regarding their schools and answer all of their questions the best part is that students are welcome to attend any of the district-wide College and Career Fairs regardless of which high school they attend and more details are available on our website at pvschools.net and in ending tonight's comments I wanted to call attention to a special recognition we recently learned about in the category of K-12 education PB schools has been designated as the highest ranking employer in Arizona as a part of the Forbes best employers by state list outside of Education including all Industries the district ranked higher than Nike Nike Starbucks Hilton Nordstrom and other National organizations so we are very proud of that the list was compiled by surveying
03470 000 Americans working in businesses with at least 500 employees and the surveys were conducted anonymously without our knowledge allowing participants to freely share their opinions the list ranks 1382 employers that received the most recommendations so we're very proud thank you and those are my announcements and comments for tonight president mature thank you next on the agenda is items for approval Dr bales all right for the next item we do recommend consideration and approval of resolution 524 memorandum understanding between teen lifeline and Paradise Valley Unified School District we do have one comment from Barbara Jennings thank you these are for items five and six um for the the memo memorandum excuse me we are just working on item number okay because so all right you don't want me to do both that's okay same time
035okay I can't remember which one was five or the other one team Lifeline is first okay um this I'm a little bit concerned about this again because it sounds like these people are going to be on our campuses we do not know who they are they're going to be speaking to students regarding social issues and as a parent those issues belong to us at our home if a child is or a student is having difficulty in the class and they're showing signs and they reach out that's one thing but putting these people on on campuses which I'm not sure how many campuses the age of the students that are going to be addressed of course we always want to protect our students from any Suicidal Thoughts but again it's overreaching into a parent's job it
036is our job to take care of our children their mental and and social well-being not the schools your job is to educate our children not to provide these counselors we don't know who these people are we don't know what their background is we don't know what they're going to say to our children we see a lot of this transgender nonsense going on and the push to take these puberty blockers which is horrible and has long-term effects on children we see children under 18 getting mastectomies removing their body parts and we don't know who's going to be encouraging this encouraging them to do certain types of medications we do not know as parents what is going to be going on with this lifeline and um the suicide so I mean I I don't know if there's
037some way we can find out who's going to be working for them um was there something somebody wanted to please continue if you're talking to the board right I understand that but it's rude when people yell in the background because this is our children it's our children and their welfare and nobody's going to take better care of them than their own parents so this it's concerning to me because I don't know what is going to be involved what they're going to discuss with these children who these people are that are going to take on these discussions with our children and is this going to be an additional cost to our school system and again you know is this the appropriate place to be spending money I mean maybe it's things in our curriculum that are
038causing our children to have depression and Suicidal Thoughts when you're confusing them sexually um so that is something else that needs to be addressed as well thank you president mature governing board cabinet and guest tonight we recommend the mou that is attached for review to this agenda item we have a long-standing partnership with teen Lifeline for nearly 10 years you may recall that all of our students grades 7 through 12 have a student ID with their contact information on it to remind students they are not alone there is no cost to the district with this member of understanding and these are trained counselors to assist they provide a 24-hour seven Lifeline for kids to talk to peers or adults that have been trained to assist them they are a resource for us in times of
039crisis recent school threats in our district and across the valley continue to cause tremendous stress to our students and as a reminder we are committed to the safety of all and we take every threat seriously so we definitely want to continue to do that we plan we train we prepare we advise our process for responding we have District emergency response plans we have site emergency response plans and we have these memorandums of understanding with long-standing partners that help us we were the first in the state to lead the student ID initiative and now it touches more than a quarter of a million students across the state and you may recall governing board that just the other day when we were meeting with our students in student voice one of them talked about how the student
040ID was a place that they knew they could call if they needed some support and so with that we do recommend approval any questions or comments from the board Mr Laney so as we were talking earlier this is definitely this was a topic that uh in the student voice and it is a topic that affects us all and I know that Dr Bell's uh on his emails you have the note the um your signature at the bottom always talks about this I've noticed that and so my my question I think um it's in there it just wasn't mentioned yet when a student reaches out are aren't the parents supposed to be notified if they're under 18. I'm just set a so in our next item if we're making referrals it's always with parent consent onto
041item number six okay uh this one is uh also you know parents are a part of this process but this is a time of response to crisis situations but you know providing the information parents can call the the hotline number two if they want okay yeah I'm gonna pause for a moment because I realize we do not have a motion on the floor yet so I'd like to officially have the motion on the floor and we'll continue our discussion uh so may I please have a motion uh to approve the recommendation adoption or the recommendation of the resolution number 524 memorandum of understanding between team lifeline and Paradise Valley Unified School District so moved okay we can continue our discussion I believe Mrs case had a comment Dr Bill you've had a long term relationship
042with teen lifeline and have brought that to the district to put the phone number on the back I I have seven children and I mean I would always hope that they would come to me but sometimes kids like to reach out to other people and they feel more comfortable for whatever reason and I am grateful that we are involved with something time proven like teen Lifeline that students can reach to and with your association with them it makes me feel comfortable continuing this partnership with them thank you Mrs Green no um I I did also want to point out that I believe it was a couple of years ago that the legislature actually legislated uh something that we had been already doing which was providing the teen Lifeline information on the back of cards and
043that that is now a Statewide uh law yes correct we provide that information to students um and they are listed as one of the partners uh that any District across the state can be uh using on their their cards am I correct that is correct okay thank you very much any other comments or questions okay uh then all those in favor please say aye aye aye any opposed motion passes unanimously next on the agenda is uh consideration and approval of resolution number 525 member and understanding of facilities use agreement between Paradise Valley Unified School District and Southwest Behavioral Health Services should I ask for a motion first uh Dr Bales first thank you very much president board members cabinet and guess um the purpose of this agreement between the PV and the Southwest Behavioral Health
044Services is to provide some Mental Health Services substance abuse counseling and parenting skills including individual group family counseling services to students and families within the district all of these services are provided as a courtesy and pair with parent permission we do have a comment uh Barbara Jennings yes thank you again I'm just a little bit concerned how this is going to play out [Music] um from what I read that they're going to be in our schools and I don't know what age again if it's high school elementary school um what BRAC background these counselors will have and where they'll be um in our schools it's just um the fact that too that you're renting out Palomino for a dollar again we have an override that you're passing and to rent out this facility for a
045dollar then when we possibly can make income to maybe serve some of our teachers or other areas is also a little bit confusing to why you would do it for a dollar and I believe we still absorb the expenses of the electricity and um the operational expenses as far as the lighting if I'm incorrect I'm sure you'll tell me but um I just am concerned about again people that are in our school specifically to do counseling work I mean we hired those SEL counselors five of them are ready to be in our schools and now I believe they're from when I read that they are going to be also in our schools and is it just going to be high school or is it going to be middle Elementary so there's just questions I have
046regarding how this program is going to work thank you okay may I please have a motion uh to approve resolution number 525 memorandum of understanding of facilities use agreement between Paradise Valley Unified School District and Southwest Behavioral Health Systems so move um Dr Bales do you have further information you'd like to provide us with and then we can ask any questions yeah uh Dr Jairus would you please help with some commentary uh yeah Southwest Behavioral Health is uh currently operating the in six of our schools directly they uh have we started with Palomino uh we were working with Palomino for about 10 years and then a few years ago we started expanding that to other campuses in these situations they assign a counselor specifically to a school or a pair of schools in this case
047we're currently serving six to help provide access to students who typically would not have access to these types of services when they are referred they are done so completely with parent support and parent signing off on that so parents are aware of of who the counselor is and the the meeting time and location the office space that is being used is not the entire campus there's an office space set aside on campus for the counselor to provide services there at the campus if that's what's best for the family um oftentimes they might meet remotely or virtually after school hours they work with the families to negotiate when that's going to be but we do provide the opportunity for them to have space on campus Because oftentimes the students who are most in need of it
048and families that don't have access that's the best time for them to be able to meet with the counselor thank you Mrs case um I have a grandson that um has a hard time controlling his physical actions toward others and he's been able to go to someone on campus and that has really helped him in his schoolwork so I appreciate programs like this that can help children learn how to defuse the situation so they can continue to have friendships at school and not ruin them with inappropriate actions and um so I'm grateful for programs like this and I'm glad that it's done with the permission of the parents because my daughter really likes having this done at her school thank you Mr Laney yeah I just wanted to say when um um when you were
049saying access you're also meaning the Arizona Health Care containment system right so just wanted to clarify that for anybody who didn't catch that yes yep okay so that it helps people enroll in that so a lot of our Title One schools people may need that um that they might not know about it and they'll get the help of course with parental consent right okay correct and I would also add that you know there's levels of service that we can provide based on uh experience and expertise and so we've hired campus positions to work with students but their capacity is limited based on what their training and background is and so when we start getting into the real need of a student who need one-on-one uh counseling that requires a certain amount of training uh organizations
050like Southwest Behavioral Health are able to provide that training that's beyond the scope of of our employees just have one more question how long has this been how long will you use this this is an mou that's been renewed before and we've been with them for more than 10 years we've been with them for well over 10 years okay thanks Mrs Greenberg so just to um reiterate what I'm reading in the mou and and you know because questions were raised the any counselors or any staff from Southwest Behavioral Health is only going to be working with students who are referred to them and only with a consent of their parents and potentially the families would be working with the counselors in no way are we seeing um anyone from Southwest Behavioral Health walking hallways looking
051for students this is completely referral that is correct okay just just wanted to make sure thank you um I've really appreciated this partnership I think it's been uh so important to the schools where where these uh where these services are offered because families who are taking advantage of these services do not have um most many of them do not have the opportunity to go find counselors on their own pay for counselors on their own to find time uh to take off work to meet the needs of the student and to have the behavior Southwest Behavioral Health be there for these kids and the parents can utilize these services at a time that's convenient and that is actually made available to their students is such a gift and I appreciate that we have this this partnership
052so um all right all those in favor of approving resolution number 525 memorandum of understanding and Facilities use agreement between Paradise Valley Unified School District and Southwest Behavioral Health Services please say aye aye any uh say nay motion passes unanimously uh next on the agenda is uh additional items for approval Dr Bales thank you president mature governing board members cabinet guests and tonight we recommend for approval the 712 English language arts curriculum resource adoption there were no changes from the first reading at our last meeting but Dr Corson and his team are available to answer any questions we do recommend approval foreign we're set with the I apologize may I please have a motion to approve the recommendation adoption of 7 to 12 English Language Art curriculum resources to be implemented as presented so moved
053do we have any uh comments or questions for Dr Corson or doctor I just I just want to just quickly how long is this approval for and what is the dollar amount on it just quick referral certainly in this case this adoption is for seven years and at approximately two million dollars for this seven years okay thank you one other comment it was uh the committee 100 agreed to this isn't isn't that what my memory serves that is correct 100 of the committee agreed to adopt this and just as a reminder to the governing board this is the existing uh resource that we have been using for the last uh six years and it has been widely popular among our ELA teachers and continues to receive high ranking uh from Ed reports thank you for
054reviewing all that I appreciate it any other comments or questions all right uh all those in favor please say aye aye any opposing a motion passes unanimously next on the agenda is consideration and approval of resolution number 526 Dr Bales thank you president mature governing board members cabinet and guests tonight we present a unique partnership to re-engage with students who dropped out but have not enrolled in another Arizona public or Charter School Mr long will present for approval good evening president matura governing board members and Dr Bales for your approval this evening I present to you a memorandum of understanding between elevated education and the Paradise Valley Unified School District through the establishment of this memorandum elevated education will offer students and their families re-engagement in positive mentoring for youth through a project funded by
055the governor's office elevated education's teen Victory program provides a positive alternative to teens and young adults seeking to re-engage in their academics the program will offer opportunities for youth of diverse economic backgrounds to gain skills for academic success relationship building with others building a positive self-image as well as connection to their local community elevated education monitors the progress of students who choose to participate in the program and proactively intervene when these students show early signs of attendance Behavior or academic problems intensive and individualized support is the Hallmark of this program designed to give students who have fallen off track and who face significant challenges for success when students transfer to other districts and Charters we can generally account for their whereabouts students who will be targeted for participation in this program are those students who
056have been dropped from our rosters due to attendance and have unknown whereabouts through the use of directory information elevated education will search for and reach out to these students with that we recommend approval may I please have a motion to approve resolution number 526 a memorandum of understanding between elevated education and Paradise Valley Unified School District for school year 2022 and 2023 as presented so moved do we have any comments or questions Mr Laney so I know in here it says no cost that's correct it's not going to cost us anything for this so they're um going to help us out to find kids that we don't know why they left our district where they went so this is going to help us get data to figure out why we've lost some of our kids
057it's am I correct on that there is no cost to the district it's funded from the governor's office and we think the return on investment it could quickly be helpful if they can help re-engage them back into our schools and that's what their mentoring efforts will do first and foremost is to track them down find them and uh and and try to re-engage them with our schools and support systems thank you Mrs Greenberg do we know how long this program's been going and what other you know successes other districts or other schools have yeah this is a brand new program just recently funded uh from the governor's office this summer so it's a new endeavor Mrs case you know this is really exciting to have an opportunity to reach out to these kids who need
058to graduate from high school and who've fallen through the cracks maybe they got a job maybe they didn't whatever maybe after covid to reach out to them and help them so they can have a good step in the right direction for their future this is really exciting thank you for reaching out and making it available to us thank you and just to reiterate something that I think Mr long mentioned you know while we know typically when a student enrolls in another Arizona public school or Charter School records are requested and that is data that we can find easily from the Arizona Department of Education we do not know if records are not requested if they are homeschooled or private school or parochial schools so um you know we will collect data to know if maybe
059that's where they've gone and if they're not if they're just working in the community and and still floundering then the opportunity exists to re-engage them back in our schools I'm I'm really excited about this partnership and I wanted to thank the governor's office because this is something that can make a real difference in kids lives um these kids if they're out there and not being educated and have left school prior to graduation if we can get those back those kids back and keep them from floundering out there and and have them graduate and be a part of our community like this is such a wonderful opportunity so I'm glad we are a part of this program thank you um all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed say nay motion passes unanimously uh
060next on the agenda is gifts and donations and we have quite a few this evening we are always appreciative of all gifts and donations that come into our district and uh we have such a generous Community who uh is out there uh really pulling for our kids and and helping our schools where they are able and so I wanted to call attention to a few tonight um we have uh Scottsdale Unified School District donated 1300 to Road Runner school and I think that's really special we have that they were able to uh our district next door uh being able to provide things for Roadrunner school and to the site discretionary fund uh Rebecca clout donated uh just over a thousand dollars to the site discretionary fund at Pinnacle Peak Preparatory School we had desert Trails
061Elementary school PTO donate Turf and storage shed and outdoor shades for an outdoor learning area for approximately twenty five thousand dollars uh Grayhawk elementary school PTO donated an outdoor classroom uh to greyhawk elementary school and that was over two hundred thousand dollars that was put into the Outdoor Classroom I know that was several years in incoming and with Community Support as well so that's a great gift to the school and I do want to call out to pvschools Education Foundation for donating uh 25 000 to Shadow Mountain High School PV High School North Canyon High School and what this money is used for is to provide funding for dual enrollment APA exams IB fees and this makes it possible for students who have financial needs to access all of these classes at no cost to
062them and so appreciate PV schools Education Foundation for supporting those students and with that may I please have a motion to accept the gifts and donations as presented so moved uh all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed motion passes unanimously next on the agenda is items for discussion Dr bales thank you president mature Governor's cabinet and guests our first item this evening is the K-12 writing curriculum supplement adoption's first reading and Dr Corson and his team are here good evening and again president matura governing board members Dr Bales cabinet and guest tonight is a first reading of the supplemental writing and adoption committee recommendations one of our facilitators of this committee Shelly Edgar our elementary English language arts curriculum specialist is here this evening to present you the committee's process and recommendations
063and answer any questions you may have good evening tonight I will be sharing with you the writing supplemental adoption committee's recommendations for writing programs at various grade levels this presentation will include our committee membership our purpose timeline and process evaluation criteria Community feedback and recommendations the members of the committee included myself and Jen young as the facilitators teachers from elementary middle and high schools special education teachers administrators and parents I would like to thank the committee members for their dedication I appreciate their investment in making a recommendation that is best for our students families and teachers the purpose of our committee was twofold our first purpose was to identify and recommend to the governing board District approved writing curricular resources that schools may use to supplement to our current English language arts primary curriculum resources
064which are wonders for grades k-6 and study sync for 712. our second purpose was to select an elementary and secondary writing curriculum to purchase for schools who request a supplemental writing resource the rationale for this was to increase literacy achievement through explicit writing instruction as part of our multi-year literacy plan to provide supports to schools with curriculum resources and Associated training for schools that had not previously purchased materials ensuring that all students have access to Quality materials to analyze and select resources that align to our state standards engage students in evidence-based writing strategies and prepare students for college career and community life to achieve these goals we research vendors gathered proposals and assembled our committee members at our committee members each vendor presented their curriculum and committee members completed rubrics to evaluate their resources we
065made the supplemental resources that were considered for purchase available to the community for um to the public for Community review and the committee held its final meeting in September and voted on Final recommendations the evaluation criteria was that as part of the committee's consideration members evaluated the resources based on the following criteria aligns to the Arizona English language arts standards addresses all genres and purposes for writing as well as the steps of the writing process and the six traits that includes multiple instruction tools like graphic organizers models and tutorials provides scaffolding and differentiation for all students provides a scope and sequence that builds Knowledge and Skills in a logical and organized format includes initial training for all teachers in various formats in incorporates online and or printable resources that can be accessed from school or
066home and that it supports Tier 1 and tier 2 learning as part of as part of the Strategic initiative multi-tiered systems of supports the committee reviewed all of the community feedback about the supplemental writing resources and it included comments from 25 teachers and two parents there were concerns raised by the two parents and several teachers about one of the resources being considered no schools were currently using this curriculum So based on the feedback and further analysis the committee is not recommending that resource for our district Community feedback indicated that the majority preferred writing by design for grades k-6 and no red ink premium for grade 7 12. the committee's recommendation for the approved resources include writing by Design no red ink premium step up to writing units of study writing right from the beginning and
067Beyond thinking maps if approved schools could choose these resources when implementing supplemental writing resources in addition for schools that currently do not have a supplemental writing resources and are requesting when the curriculum department will purchase writing by design for grades k-6 or no red inks for grade 712 per the committee's recommendation at this time would you have any questions for me Mrs case did you have questions sorry well I have many okay um I uh so the community feedback so you're doing writing by Design case six yes and then uh no red ink for 712. yes the premium version premium what's the difference between so no red ink offers a free version um that teachers can already choose to use but it's very limited in what it allows and access to so the premium version
068has more lesson plans directed to writing whereas the free version is more grammar based lessons and activities okay um so then there can curriculum recommendations what's the difference from what each school will get and what's below here how does that work so the committee is recommending that we purchase for those schools who would like to have a supplemental writing adoption um to purchase the no reading premium for grade 7 through 12 and writing by design for case grades case six however we already had some schools that prior to this year had purchased their own writing materials and so we put those out for Community review and feedback and they're on the supplemental list that a school could continue to use but they would do so on on their own so are those are the ones
069that are listed over on the other side then yes I mean that next so right whole list is the ones they can choose right or they might be are these are some of these are already being used at some of this yes in fact all of them have been used used in the past by some of our schools okay and they've been found to be good programs that's the committee you're working with right the community reviewed them and found them to be good solid programs and then they also put them out for Community review and we received um positive feedback okay so is there any grammar curriculum per se or is it smattered throughout these programs or how does that work so no reading premium definitely has grammar lessons embedded into its program okay writing
070by Design is strictly a writing program it teaches the foundational writing skills as well as the genres that need to be writing but our comprehensive program in grades k6 is wonders and that has grammar lessons embedded into the program okay um might have some further discussions because I have some real opinions on the grammars that some of my children have had in this District that have been fabulous oh great okay well we and the author has gone her kids have gone to our school district oh that's wonderful yeah so anyway I I'll continue to talk about some of those things but um so this the the schools which have proven that what they're using is working they'll can continue to use that if they so choose there are some schools that would maybe like to
071start with the newer programs but they can choose something that's on the supplemental list okay and then how about training how does that work so within two programs that the district would be purchasing writing by Design and no writing premium the district will be providing training because that will be embedded into the process and then Jen young and myself will continue offering training for the years to come if a school is using a different program that's on the supplemental list it will be up to that school site to provide the training okay and then how long is this program for how long or and is it online or material or how does that work so writing by design for k6 is a physical material there is an online component where teachers can print PDFs and
072also there's some um additional helps that can help them grade assignments like the students have to post one portion of their assignment no red ink premium is a completely online program so no physical materials and then as far as the length of time I believe that will be determined by the cost is that uh the um the adoption is ongoing and uh because it is supplemental materials at critical Venture uh times for example if our standards change or new products uh come about that are quality writing materials we have a supplemental curriculum process that we'll be engaging in uh periodically and at those times we can entertain additional programs uh if they show evidence of Effectiveness so it's more of a year-to-year process on some of these probably longer than year to year probably every
073other year we'll be considering additional programs that we might add to the list and at that time if there's a particular program that's currently on the list uh that the committee doesn't feel should continue on the list we'll be bringing that to the governing board to remove from the supplemental list thank you thank you Mr Laney I have questions about the cost structure of it is it subscription based is it per class per School per District how's the how's the cost structure set up no red ink premium is per student cost basis and I believe I need to possibly double check that and I will have that information for you and I will give it to Dr Corson to give out writing by Design because it's physical materials it's a one-time purchase if we choose
074to purchase that online portion it's only available for grades three through six that is a site license for the whole school for grades three through six so not by individual student cost so I would purchase it for the that particular school or the whole District we would have to decide like all of the schools that are wanting to opt in would have that option it would have to be renewed every year it is a yearly cost though for them you can teach the program however without that online piece okay thanks Mrs Greenberg okay so just just to reiterate um when we are asked to approve this next meeting we're actually going to be approving all of the um the programs that everyone is is using that the committee has reviewed to ensure that they have
075board approval but moving forward if anything is to be purchased it would only be writing by designer no writing that is correct just wanted to double check okay and um uh one thing I did want to make sure is the no red ink that is online only uh that will there be resources for students that may not have the internet I know we they all have uh their Chromebooks now but may not have internet access at home that some of the any assignments will have time in class if they need time at school to uh to finish assignments in case they're not able to do so at home I just want to make sure that that is something that is teachers are aware of and and we'll work with the students on uh Miss matura
076some of our schools already use some of the free versions of no red ink and they do make accommodations for students in that case this is primarily a tool that's used within the class period uh to develop students writing abilities it's not really intended to be necessarily a homework piece and so that that writing instruction is delivered in the class great thank you and I I did want to say I really appreciate this new structure where schools who are using supplemental materials that have been found to be effective and that the board that the committee went through and and found that they were appropriate materials that they are able to continue to use those resources but moving forward that the district as a whole is investing in two structured programs and so that time and
077resources can be spent on professional development for specific it can be done across the board and it's not trying to work on a whole bunch of different materials so I really appreciate the direction that this is going and that it's being using funding appropriately using our staff appropriately and and hopefully more effectively so thank you any other questions okay thank you very much next on the agenda are recommended recommended policy revisions Dr Bales president mature governing board members Captain guests tonight the cabinet members and I will present policy revisions from a very busy legislative session that ended in June after reading House and Senate bills signed by the governor attending legislative updates and sometimes seeking legal counsel all of the revisions or additions are the result of these new laws tonight's presentations are for first
078reading only and they will go in groups so Dr Holmes would you please begin for us thank you Dr Bales Madam president members of the board this is first read for recommended changes for governing board policy GB GCB staff health and safety specifically adds language that brings us into Conformity with recently passed legislation outlined in ARS 36 681 and the 36 685 which prohibits us from requiring masks or vaccinations related to covid-19 and I'm happy to take any of your questions any questions Mrs Greenberg um I would this is not necessarily specific to this one but since you're first up I'm gonna I'm gonna say it now lucky me um in many of our policies and and I mean you know we we do use uh policy services from asba and and this is one
079that that since the copyright will see is there this is being recommended um as was written by asba but I think moving starting with these and moving forward where we don't designate within the body of the policy what statute is applicable I think we should I think for for informational purposes for for all of us um I know we list them down there and right now we know which ones are you know the new ones are because they're yellowed but the moment we stick this in policy they won't be um and I do think um and I I will say specific to this and as I mentioned Dr Bales in a very long conversation there are some others um this is one of those policies where this matches exactly what's in statute and it may
080not necessarily be something that we as a well it's not this one is not necessarily something where we as a board or we as a district have leeway to say what is or isn't going to be in here so I think it is appropriate particularly in something like this to add something like you know per ARS statute number the school district shall not or something like that um I think that's that is that helps you know with anybody who wants to read the policy wants to know what specifically which statute specifically applies um then it's right up there and they don't have to go through the list of what will become you know for ARs and everything else um to find it that's the first thing I would like to point out on this I
081may I may have another comment but are you saying right at the top yeah just you know where it says uh the school district shall not just say per ARS fill in what the statute is the school district shall not there you know there's enough there's a number of instances in our policies where we specifically say what the statute is so I just going forward I think we should do that as a matter of course I think that's a good idea so it's ready reference yep um are there instances where uh throughout um you know we have a very long policy manual uh are there instances where uh perhaps it's multiple ARS that are going to be applying to the same sentence or you know so it's several in there how would what would be
082this would be an example there are two two references well I mean we could stick it at the end of you know a or in the beginning of a or beginning of B I mean I I think there's ways to do it but I do think it makes sense to have it connected to what it is as opposed to having it listed just at the end sure my thoughts okay and uh all right so that was all from Dr Holmes I believe any questions on oh sorry uh Mr Laney yeah thank you um and thank you Ann for clarifying or screenberg clarifying where the g b g c b came from because reading through all these documents it's super confusing trying to figure out which is which with alphabet soup as the name so I
083was I was wondering that but I have a question about this the um the mask requirement for the law does that um does that uh apply to school buses foreign Mr Laney the answer is uh yes all right we do not have a federal mandate that you know might cause conflict between federal and state expectations but the supplies uh as it is written two school buses as well thank you all right next Dr Jairus will take the next several uh uh beginning with IMD Dr Jairus thank you president Maturo governing board and Dr Bales cabinet guess uh the first policy is IMD the school ceremonies and observances the first part of this policy update changes the daily Moment of Silence from up to a minute to a minimum of one minute but not more than
084two minutes this update is in compliance with House Bill 2707 which amended ARs 15-506 and the second part of the revision is in alignment with ARs 15-717 which defines the right of teachers and administrators to read or post specific items from American history and Heritage and I'm welcome any questions any questions or comments on this one Mrs Greenberg no it's just this is another one where I think if we can insert the statute you know to the material it it impacts I think would be helpful okay the second policy is JF student admissions the added language to this policy identifies the application process for a certificate of educational convenience this process is used for students in certain cases to explicitly outline which school district is responsible for the education of a child and I am
085welcome any questions foreign policies we're seeing tonight are based on uh legislation that passed this last legislative session okay thank you the next policy is jlcb immunizations of students the revised language to this policy confirms that immunization for HPV and covid-19 are not requirements for student admission this revision is in compliance with HB 2086 which was passed in the spring and I welcome any questions Mrs Greenberg um I'm still kind of confused on this one and and I know Dr Bales and I talked about it but it it says the following immunizations are not required for School attendance and then it it you know lists HPV and and covid-19 and then says a school district or Charter School is a government governmental entity that requires a person under 18 years of age to receive a
086vaccination for covid-19 or any variant must obtain the consent of the person of that person's parent or Guardian um but right above we say that we can't require it so we can thank the legislature for this little conflict uh particularly with the policy G bgcb referenced earlier that primarily references staff uh health and safety I spoke with the asba attorney about this and they actually are working on some revisions not pertinent to this question or comment but this policy and we'll receive it hopefully within the next 24 to 40 business hours and then have it available for your review by the the next reading um so I don't know if it'll clean up any of the conflict because we talked about that but particularly in the regulation there's something that they want to address and
087I've been waiting for that email to come through to to highlight that but yeah there if there is a little bit of confusion it's because of the compliments of the legislature okay and and I understand that and I I you know I'll stop until you see the new one but um I think if we still have confusion then I think this is one of those cases where we may need to then rework it take a little copyright off and rework it ourselves too until we eliminate that confusion if possible I would worry though because I feel like the confusion is in the actual law and not in the way that it was written here and so I I that would be my concern there is by uh reworking it um I do want to just
088confirm that our immunizations that are required in our district are not things that are done by the governing board but we follow the health services from the state is that correct correct actually it's part of the administrative code uh that's put through the Department of Health and our next policy is jlcc communicable infectious diseases the additional language to this communicable disease policy requires that a school must have parent or Guardian permission before requiring a student to wear a mask or face covering this revision is in compliance with ARs 1-611 which was amended in the spring of this past year Mrs Greenberg I sorry I spent a long time on these um I still feel this I'm sorry I had a conversation with Dr Bales about this one too I think it's worded strangely um I
089think in reading it most of us would understand exactly what it means um but I think the way we have Clauses in there um somebody could construe that parents not give consent on the mass but that we even have any sort of requirement to it so I would just ask that we make sure that this says exactly what we mean for it to say does anybody else have any wording suggestions to help well I'm wondering is this taken directly from the ARs is this what the wording says in the law um if we can go back to that uh I I believe it does and we have to double check but I think it comes right from one of the statute but we can double check that Mr Laney yeah just to clarify it just
090basically means that uh kids don't wear masks unless the parents want them to end the story right okay would have been easy if they had written it that way yeah may I make a comment yes in this case having been a parent of children who got lice at school this next one is put in lice I'm just saying it's not fine okay so if we can get clarification on on that one though that if it's if we're just repeating wording from the law which uh I mean that's then so right uh because changing around if we're changing around the wording from the law then that puts us in a disadvantage possibly later so just wanted clarification on on what the statute actually says would be um helpful in that one thank you and the next
091policy is jldab referrals to other agencies this new policy reflects the requirements for school districts as established in ARS 36 3436 which addresses providing access to Mental Health Services through funding provided by Jake's law and I'm welcome any questions Mr Laney sure thanks I'm sorry um this is uh purely 100 opt-in correct so nothing in this can go or take place without the parent coming to us and saying I want my kid enrolled in this absolutely it requires um an opt-in process for families that requires a reporting to access uh from our on our end um and uh a survey of some kind um so it's very transparent okay and the final policy on my part is Ki visitors to schools revisions to this policy articulate requirements for schools to allow parents to tour and
092observe a school these changes are reflective of requirements that were passed in HP uh 2025 this past spring comments or questions oh Mrs Greenberg um I know at some point we had access to oh wait a second okay um this is I think both in okay first the policy and then the regulation uh there is a um a line here and again I presume it is straight out of Statute that says no visit tour observation shall be permitted If it threatens the health and safety of the pupils and staff threatens is a non-specific term shall we say do we do we have guidance as to what we consider threatens to mean no we don't have direct guidance that's going to be rather situational as we kind of explore this policy and the practice of it
093so that could be as benign as a capacity within a classroom or space due to fire code that could be you know a situation that's happening on campus that additional visitors would would pose a threat so this is going to be that that term threat is going to be something that we kind of identify as we work through situations I appreciate that and I I did want to make a mention that we've we've always allowed tours to be going on in our schools and allowed people to be visiting our campuses so this is now a law codifying things that we've already been doing as a district and now we need policy specific to the new law but it is something we've already been in practice and now we just need to do it as a
094law correct thank you me um I don't see the regulation here but I know that I made a comment to Dr Bales about this one too is um in the information we received there was a recommendation in the regulation there's a paragraph that starts out in visiting a classroom and originally it says parents must realize the teacher's first responsibility essentially is to the students into the class and the recommendation was to remove parents must realize and I don't quite understand why we would want to remove that because teachers aren't visiting the classroom so we're removing in the it's the parents who are visiting the classroom so I I think it's I I just don't understand why we would remove parents need to realize I think part of that is uh with the idea that all
095people involved with the scheduling of these tours would recognize that that's a priority so that would include perhaps administrators office staff um that that's my thought on why you know that sentence would be specific to all people in the process not just the parents requesting the tour then it seems to me we need to rewrite the initial in visiting a classroom and just say you know for classroom visits the teacher's first responsibility is and then it becomes more universally applicable I would think or something like that but it's just when we take it out then there's no subject of applause or it becomes the teacher so if if we rewrite this one it'll take likely take the copyright off of it but we can do that foreign the next several Mr long will present good
096evening president Maturo governing board members and Dr Bales I present for a first reading consideration of recommended revisions to policy language for governing board policy jicfa hazy uh House Bill 2322 criminalized hazy hazing is a Class one misdemeanor unless the victim dies and then it is a class 4 felony policy jicfa and exhibit are based on previous law which was largely unchanged the major change to the policy is that the definition of hazing now links directly to the criminal statute therefore hazing has been redefined in policy and in the exhibit I will be happy to answer any questions at this time anyone have any questions Mr Elaine that one question the the line that's underwritten in writing um so bottom of first page that was added correct where it needs to be documented in writing
097with such details as may have been provided yes okay that's good thanks and just for clarification there are some we are currently evaluating some procedures and some of these new policy revisions may require us to bring the parent student handbook back for some revisions too so we're still evaluating those to cross-reference and once the policies have been adopted should we need to revise the handbook we'll bring that back as well and then to add to that it is a requirement by law to put it in our handbooks and display it in our schools The Hazing law specifically are we okay on that one okay I present for a first reading consideration of new governing board policy jjia intramural sports Senate Bill 1165 the save women's sports act requires that each school district and Charter School
098designate their inter-scholastic or intramural sports based on the biological sects of the students who participate on the team or in the sport the permissible categories are the following males men or boys female women or girls or co-ed or mix the law outlines that a student that is harmed may bring a private cause of action for injunctive Relief damages or any other relief available under law I would be happy to answer any questions at this time Mrs Greenberg um is there a definition of harm uh there is no direct definition of harm I think is going to be situational depending on what horror may be to an individual and that and that harm again is something that can be litigated correct so lawsuits could come out of a perceived harm which would be in the eye
099of the beholder based on this law okay thank you Mrs Greenberg uh this is another one I know I made the point earlier this is another one where I very um much believe we need to uh with the statute up front that requires this Mr Laney thanks and this one all of this text was taken directly from the law too correct taken directly yes it's like a government test where the questions asked in the Nick is asked in the negative and the answers are all in the negative and then you have to um translate so um I took me a few times to read it to understand and finally get one of the questions and um so like uh when Horizon had um a girl on their football team that's allowed under this law that
100is allowed under this law yes now that I did want to point out this says intramural sports which is not the is intramural is different than the next reading will be for interscholastic Scholastic okay okay so this was the interview intramural which would include Middle School sports okay thank you I present for a first reading consideration of recommended revisions to governing board policy jjib inter Scholastic Sports uh Senate Bill 1165 the save the women's sports act requires that each school district and Charter School designate their interscholastic or intramural sports based on the biological sects of the students who participate in the team or in the sport the permissible categories are the following males men or boys females women or girls or co-ed or mix the law outlines that a student that is harmed by the
101school's knowing violation may bring a private cause of action for injunctive Relief damages or any other relief available under law we'll be happy to answer any questions at this time and we'd be happy to add per ARS on this one as well okay I present for first reading consideration uh to add governing board policy JRR student surveys um House Bill 2164 amended ars-15117 which governs District or Charter School administration of student surveys relating to 14 specific specific topics districts are required to provide parents a copy of any survey and obtain informed consent from the parent at least seven days before administering the survey the previous statute limited this requirement to surveys that would be retained for longer than a year and listed that consent would be obtained at the beginning of the school year we'll
102be happy to answer any questions at this time foreign thank you president matura the next uh several policy revisions will be presented by Dr Corson I do want to make one comment that when we get to number 14 there will be two comments uh from the audience uh good evening again president matura governing board uh Dr Bales and guess I'll begin with policy Iha basic instructional program House Bill 2325 established 9 11 education day and requires the schools dedicate some portion of September 11th or an adjoining non-weekend day to teaching in an age-appropriate fashion about the terrorist attacks on September 11 2001. This legal requirement has been added to policy Iha and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have all right continuing on with policy i h a m b Family Life Education
103this is a new policy for our district that outlines requirements for instruction in sex education which is equivalent to our human growth and development curriculum per House Bill 2495 we've already been in compliance with these requirements outlined in this new policy and I'm happy to answer any of your questions um I would like to invite up Jennifer Ariza and I believe Lily Gresham has left uh that was our second speaker so Jennifer Ariza hi my name is Jennifer Riza and I want to thank you all again just for the time you put into each of your positions and I stand here tonight as a concerned parent in the Paradise Valley School District and I do appreciate the opportunity to speak um the proposed governing board policy of family life education has a few items I
104would like to highlight first I want to Echo what Mrs Greenberg mentioned to include the statute information it would actually be amazing if there could be a hyperlink to it so you could find it easily too I don't know if that's possible um because I did try to find some of them and I just couldn't find them so in regards to the written material first I wanted to address the section that says the district May provide instruction in kindergarten through grade 12 on acquired immune deficiency syndrome and the human immunodeficiency virus as authorized by Arizona law and while I I do realize that this is written in the lie I still have the following comments uh first what is acquired immune deficiency syndrome or Aids as it's commonly known it's a disease of the immune
105system due to infection with the human immunodeficiency virus or HIV as that's commonly known and how does one acquire HIV according to our government website it states that both men and women can become infected men who have sex with men and people who inject drugs have a higher risk of Contracting HIV it's concerning that instruction on AIDS and HIV may be provided starting in kindergarten I'm not exactly sure why we we would want to be teaching our young children about AIDS and HIV at that age My Hope Is that we will not do that it also States uh in the document that a school district or Charter School is not required to provide sex education instruction to pupils so I would like the board to consider doing something different which would require us thinking outside
106of the box I would ask that the board actually consider not teaching sex education what if we allowed the students families to teach them their morals and values concerning sex education and we transition our school's focus and attention on teaching our kids to master their academics in closing I would like to ask the board to review the language in the document specifically please consider not teaching sex education and allow parents to if that is not possible I would please ask each of you to take time and ask yourselves would we be teaching our kindergartners about HIV and AIDS thank you foreign ey a clarification question all over sex ed programs have a parental opt-in correct okay that is correct um I've been in oh can I go ahead I'm sorry um I've been involved with
107um the sex education programs in the district for a lot of years and we have one of the most conservative ones in the state that's presented which has been okay through parents and through the years it's always been an opt-in process and you can always look at over all the materials which I've appreciated and I've used the opt out for myself for my children and that's always possible but I've talked to many people in the district who want the sex ed to be done in the schools so we allow parents to choose and I appreciate that okay continuing on policy ijl Library materials selection and adoption House Bill 2439 instructs school districts to adopt procedures that provide parents access to a School's library collection and a list of books and materials their children check out
108this bill also requires a 60-day viewing period for books being added to a library's collection This legal requirement has been added to this policy and we're currently working on processes to address this legislation um I do have a question for you Dr Corson and I apologize if I catch you with um information you're not able to provide with me this evening um but uh as with all policies uh much of what is being discussed tonight are things that pretty much in practice we as has already been available or out there but now that it's codified into law there are many procedural items that need to happen in order to comply uh with things that may have been able to be done with a question answer to a teacher now needs to be codified in law
109and I just was wondering if you have any idea just with this one specifically um who and on your team or throughout the district have you has been involved with you working on this new policy and approximately how much time do you believe has been spent just on this policy alone uh thank you Miss matura currently we are working with our information technology team as well as media techs throughout the district to identify uh practices that are going to be helpful for parents to access information through our fallet system so we're also working with that particular vendor uh to identify an efficient way for us to be able to post materials on the website as well as to give parents access to uh their checkout materials for their children so we spent quite a few
110hours already in that process and as part of the new 60-day review that will also require some time spent by my curriculum team working through that okay and in books uh new books being added to the website that that's likely not something that can happen immediately uh so there will be delays for students receiving access to new books in libraries across the district is that depending on what the procedures will be yes president mature that is a fair assessment we are looking at a potential District process so it takes the burden off schools to do that individually and so that will entail an annual process by which we will provide 60-day reviewing of all books that uh schools are considering for adding to their collection but again in order for us to have the capacity
111to do that that is going to be a one time a year so uh various ptos or that are donating books for example we'll have to wait for that annual process of course we want to make sure that we get the books in students hands but in order to comply with the law we have to do what we have the capacity to do to follow that process so this does require much staff time to comply with this law which will entail students waiting for up to a year to receive new books uh depending on what the process and and what our capacity is to um to do this so a new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book will not be in students hands immediately especially for families that don't have time and opportunities to go
112to the public library or the means to purchase these books new for their children yeah and just one point of clarification president matura is that books that are already part of a collection that have been damaged and we're just replacing those books or books that are again already part of the collection and we're just adding more copies those will not need to go through a 60-day review process but any new titles that were not previously part of the collection will have to go through that process okay I just wanted to make sure that those that information a lot of times some unintended consequences have been um out of uh some uh legislation that perhaps was they wouldn't uh legislators were not aware of how this would impact students immediately and directly thank you Mrs case
113so let me understand the books that we currently have will not go through any process but there will there be a listing of those books we currently have or not uh in this case that is correct the law does require us to publish uh the collection of each Media Center on the website and so we are currently Gathering those lists for each of the schools to be able to publish on the school and District websites I can't even fathom how much time that takes I can't even fathom um so each school can still decide which books they want for their students because they'll be certain schools that they're more popular with the kids at that school so each school will still determine which books they have in this case that is correct each school will
114submit to any books that they wish to add to their collection to our annual District level process okay thank you I wanted to add one more thing sorry and then I'll I'll reach out to you but uh just piggybacking on what Mrs case was saying is that uh it's such a large process and and when we in PV are lucky that we have the staff that can kind of piece this all together uh there are many districts out there that do not have the staff do not have the capacity we have rural districts across the state that are also being impacted and so as as much time and energy this will take with our staff we are fortunate to have the staff available to do so so I appreciate that for us but there are
115other districts who are going to be affected uh in in a much more difficult way um just the capacity on the website is astounding to me how much gigabytes or whatever it is that it takes is astounding to me okay I've been ignoring this side I apologize Mr Laney it's totally fine um so the uh yeah the amount of books depending on the school it can be quite a bit I know there are a few schools that have well over 30 000 books in some of their libraries Sky Crossing doesn't have as many yet because it's new only has a few thousand and I I took the opportunity to speak with our one of our Librarians who no longer works with the district but worked recently and because I wanted to know how much time
116it would take for this process and based on based on what she told me that the current books in the library are already electronically entered and she said that she could easily print out the list so the the time that's going to take is with our web developer parsing that list and putting it on the website so the Librarians themselves as long as their library is up to date and it may not be because you know that many books but as long as it is up to date they could easily print a list same with them when they order new books that list is easily accessible it's when donations are made those are the ones going to be time consuming because then you've got to go and manually enter all of those so yeah it
117will be time consuming but luckily we have been doing electronically for a while and keeping track of the books so you know I'm grateful for that I think we're good on that one thank you all right moving on to policy i k f graduation requirements House Bill 2632 increases the passing score from 60 to 70 percent on the required Civics test for graduation this new requirement has been added to this policy and I'm happy to answer any of your questions all right then policy j l d a excuse me pardon me I'm sorry I didn't motion quick enough there sorry um but as far as the graduation requirements none of those are changing from the state is that correct none of the how many because that whole thing am I on the wrong one am
118I did I skip one no that is the one so the uh all of the parts of the policy that are are still are not highlighted that remains 22 for all the high schools except Paradise Valley is 23. right the only changes are going to be the highlighted ones about just about the Civics uh testing okay thank you all right to policy jlda school counselors and psychologists House Bill 2178 exclude schools psychologists from licensure requirements prescribed by the board of psychologist examiners this language has been added to our policy all right and finally for me policy KB parental involvement in education this updated language results from House Bill 2161 and 2439 related to the parents Bill of Rights parents access to the school's library collection and parents access to educational records I'm happy to answer
119any questions you may have Mrs Greenberg um as I discussed with Dr Bales I would appreciate consideration of um rewording or eliminating part of the opening paragraph um I think this policy and the various statutes that applies to it cover a lot of ground um but I think when we think of Parental involvement in education traditionally we think of volunteering and we think of of those types of supports and I think this policy is Moore's attitude moves Way Beyond that and I don't think the board particularly because many of the things here are here because of Statute not necessarily because we as a board have looked at this and said oh let's put this in it's here because of Statute so I'm not sure we're adopting this policy to you know promote involvement per se
120and I think we it makes more sense to perhaps just start with the second paragraph and then add the second sentence of the first paragraph to the end of that and call it a day on how this opens just to clarify the the recommendation is to delete the first sentence of the first paragraph and move the second sentence of that first paragraph to the end of the second right so that it would read the governing board recognizes appearance right is codified in the parents Bill of Rights sections and another in other Arizona in in Arizona's other codifications of parents rights estate in title one of ARS this policy is adopted in consultation with parents teachers and administrators thank you for that clarification yes to anybody I think that's good as long as and this is
121not going to change anything uh within the this is already our policy and so um the the language from the statute is still um clearly outlined and our last policy Ms Berrigan thank you president matured and the rest of the governing board and Dr Bales uh we are almost done and my three should only take about an hour so I like to keep Dr bales we will start with policy Dia related to accounting responsibility uh House Bill 2179 was amended with Arizona revised Statute 15914.01 which applies to school districts who are seeking approval from the State Board of Education to assume accounting responsibility for their District though our district is already an accounting responsive accounting responsibility District which basically just means we record our own revenues and expenditures run our own checks things like that
122we're amending policy DIA to conform with the law and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have Mr Laney yeah I asked Dr Bells about this in our little meeting and um this is just in case you run away is that correct it's like I'm joking it's kind of a stop Gap just in case we need the state to pick it up yeah and actually the county each County would would run that so for example the previous District I was in were a smaller district and generally smaller districts allow the county to do this piece of the work for them um but we're a larger District we're able to do that and there's benefits to doing that we can run checks when we run want to run checks and things like that exactly I'm
123not running away no it Mrs case if that one's finished may I go backward I want to make a comment I'm sorry okay are we finished with this one okay um on the the one before about the parental right parents Bill of Rights etc etc if you go down toward the bottom it said that um about the reviewing it talks about the library books and materials um oh what did I just see it I just wanted to bring this up to let them know item 13. I can't find it page three um yeah no d d one and two it says procedures by which parents may receive a list of books and materials borrowed from the library by their children the following are exempt from paragraph C and D the schools without a full-time library
124media Specialist or equivalent position School District Libraries that have agreements with County free Etc I'm just saying we're going to do this even though we're not required to I just wanted to make a point of that that we're going to go ahead and do this but we're not some of our schools don't have full-time Librarians but we're going to go ahead and do it I just want to make a point at that thank you okay moving on to policy ee related to transportation services Senate Bill 1246 enables the school district to contract for vehicles and other transportation services which include electric vehicles specifically Arizona revised Statute 15 923 now permits districts to to select pre-approved contract carriers or private parties to obtain electric school buses or other electric services in addition Senate Bill 1630 expanded
125the type of vehicle permissible to transport school children to Vehicles described in ARS 15925 this expands the board's authority to utilize non-school bus Vehicles allowable vehicles are now included in policy ee primarily 11 to 15 passenger vehicles but I will note that the school district does not currently have vehicles in that size of 11 to 15 our vans are all 10 passengers or less happy to answer any questions Mr Lamy yeah this is something that I asked Dr Bells about too because I needed clarification on it and it's not necessarily a thing to be used to get a an expensive EV and um and then transport people around in it it's going to allow us to be able to accommodate an area where we haven't been able to so it's actually going to reduce our
126costs instead of increasing that is the Hope and um this sort of came to light during covet and with the reduction of bus drivers that we're seeing Nationwide Statewide in our district to allow other vehicles to be utilized that don't require the same licensure as a yellow bus okay the final one policy ee aea is for bus driver requirements training responsibilities uh this sort of goes in line with the previous one and the expansion of Senate Bill 1630 and additional allowable Vehicles came with those legislative changes correspondingly so drivers of non-bus vehicles can be licensed for those types of vehicles as well as insurance being purchased for those of you fingerprint clearance card and DPS certificate to drive school children eeaea is updated to reflect these statutory changes and our transportation department as well as
127our human resources department in Valley Schools Insurance trust all work to ensure that our drivers of buses Vans or any other District vehicles have the appropriate licenses clearances certificates or anything necessary for them to operate a district vehicle happy to answer any questions okay so not quite an hour all right thank you all for uh enlightening us on the new legislation appreciate all of those updates today um next on the agenda is call for executive session may I please have a motion to call for executive session move the governing board call for an executive session in accordance with Arizona revised Statute 38-431.03 A3 which reads as follows discussion or consultation for legal advice with the attorney or attorneys of the public body and Arizona revised Statute 38-431.03.a2 which reads as follows discussion reconsideration of Records
128exempt from law from public inspection including the receipt and discussion of information or testimony that is specifically required to be to be maintained as confidential by state or federal law and Arizona revised Statute 15-843 regarding recommendation for expulsion student case 23-02 purpose student discipline all those in favor please say aye aye aye any opposed motion passes unanimously it is 9 05 pm and we are recessing our regular meeting to go into executive session we will reconvene our regular meeting after the executive session is over thank you we are reconvening a regular at 9 53 pm next on the agenda is direction to Administration may I please have a motion move the governing board approved the hearing officer's recommendation in student case 23-02 as presented all those in favor please say aye aye aye any opposed
129say nay motion passes unanimously before we adjourn I would like to remind you that the next regular board meeting will be held on Thursday October 13 2022 at 7 pm may I have a motion to adjourn so moved all those in favor please say aye aye motion passes you anonymously our meeting is adjourned at 9 54 pm