April 21, 2022 Governing Board Regular Meeting

001good evening i'd like to call this meeting to order it it's 7 p.m um i would like you to please join me in the pledge of allegiance which will be led by boy scout troop 616. if you could please come forward and lead us in the pledge and everyone else please stand may i have a roll call please mrs greenberg here mrs bacon here mr laney here mrs matura here here okay uh next on the agenda is approval of agenda dr bales thank you president mature 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 the governing board receive the agenda along with backup materials at least 24 hours prior to the meeting and have time to

002review and consider all items prior to the agenda being adopted members of the governing board or audience may ask that an eye to be removed from the consent agenda and brought to the floor for discussion at the appropriate place on the agenda i would like to like to offer the agenda as posted does any member of the governing board wish to have an item removed from the consent agenda does any member of the audience wish to have an item removed from the consent agenda seeing none mrs bacon may have a motion to approve the meeting agenda and recommend consent agenda items g1 to g16 so moved all those in favor say aye aye any opposed motion passes unanimously next on the agenda is governing board statements uh mrs bacon you um i don't have anything

003specific and i don't dr bales may talk about this but i don't know if you all saw but we had a lot of students have perfect act scores eight right eight students eight of our students had perfect act scores [Applause] i mean as someone who just struggled to get into college that's just amazing to me that that that is so i want to congratulate them their families and all of the wonderful educators who have helped them through the years get to that point where they are mr laney all right first of all i would like to thank all of the the principals toas assistant and principals that have been able to meet with me throughout my school visits i still have a few more i've been visiting all the schools and it's actually it's the

004highlight of this job being able to see all the little kids on tuesday i was standing outside of a room as a first grade girl was peeking back through the window making faces at me and was just it was hilarious on a more serious note i wanted to make sure publicly that parents know what's being done in the district to address certain things i know i know you have heard me say this and i know dr bells feels this way that we want to have more local control i've talked with him about getting ahead on possible contentious issues so they don't have to be contentious um two issues bathroom policy and curriculum transparency i've talked with dr bells about the the bathroom policy several times i've asked for it to be an item on the

005board the board meeting agenda i want you to let you know that this is being worked on he's instructed the district attorney to work on this and i know they were working on a policy that will work for all kids in the district when it's ready it'll be brought before the board so we can discuss it make suggestions changes and provide safe places for all kids as far as curriculum transparency i've also talked with him about this several times too as as i know states across the nation are forcing schools to implement policy through laws being consistent with trying to keep local board control i've also asked for this to be brought before the board as it will be in a future meeting as many of you know we have a new website this coming

006year and i'm super excited for it we had a preview of it a short while ago and they've been doing a great job on it so we're working on a way to implement transparency with what is taught in the in the classroom i feel there's a way to do this without putting more stress on our teachers while at the same time offering transparency with what is being taught to our kids and this will be much easier to be done on our new website and um and so i hope that will be implemented in the future and we'll discuss it at a future day and that's all i have deanne do you happen to know if mrs case was asking um yes i just want to make a short comment okay go ahead thank you um

007i just wanted to say that i can see all the artwork out there and i want to congratulate the artists and their families while they're there it's one of my favorite school board meetings and i'm sorry to miss it and i'll make sure i'd look at all these new pieces when i'm back in phoenix thank you so much mrs greenberg um yes and since our last board meeting i had the opportunity excuse me to um visit pvea's prom boutique um and i know others have had that chance to it's incredible um i i i think we have one more um saturday um and i don't know susie if you're going to be talking about it so i won't steal your thunder but uh for those of you who don't know what it is for several

008years now our teachers have put together [Music] what it used to be dresses and bows but students who are going to prom just come with a pv student id and they're able to leave with an outfit both male and female and i'll stop now because susie's going to talk more about it but it was wonderful and while i was there there were several students who did indeed find outfits and it was great and they will always take more donations so if anybody has prom worthy attire um this would be a great place to donate thank you okay and uh last week i was able to go to the dapstone celebration at shadow mountain high school and i knew of the dapps program and at shadow mountain but i had never seen the projects because we

009uh they we weren't doing in person project type things the past couple of years uh so it was really exciting to go to shadow mountain and see these the capstone projects to the dapps program uh and see what all of these students were able to do as their independent project for the year and there was a student even who took our math curriculum and was making videos for each chapter in each section of our math curriculum for um for algebra and i thought that sounded very exciting uh for to be a resource out there and she wanted to do that for the avid students in her school and so there were so many projects where students were looking to give back to the community give back to their their school uh learn something completely new

010take a whole bunch of different uh cross-curriculum uh things that they'd learned throughout their high school experience and bring it together in one project and it was really exciting we have really talented students out there i can't wait to see you know what they do next and it's always great to get out in the schools and celebrate with our students so i appreciate being able to do that so uh next on the agenda is awards and recognitions with dr bills thank you president mature it's always a pleasure to highlight students and staff for success or appreciation excuse me tonight mr drogie will emcee the honors good evening president matura governing board members dr bales members of cabinet and attendees both in person and virtual tonight we have several student and employee recognitions to share with

011you the first of which is the governing board this evening we'll be accepting new pieces of student artwork into the district's permanent art collection marine medic director of the fine arts department is here this evening to make the presentation good evening tonight's presentation of visual arts is a tradition i am especially proud to uphold if you walk around the district office you will see pieces created and purchased in our collection all the way back from the year i was born i just turned 40 last month so that gives you an idea of just how long this has been a part of the pv school's culture a little about the process that has led us to tonight every year thousands of pieces of 2d and 3d art are displayed at the pv schools fine arts festival

012in the spring teachers from every art classroom in our district install a variety of pieces that represent their students best work from the previous months not every student is chosen to have their work displayed so being featured in the festival is an honor on its own from these thousands of pieces we bring in an outside judge from the greater phoenix arts community to choose their top four choices in the elementary middle and high school categories they assess artistic technique just as much as they assess the overall aesthetics or emotional and visual appeal each of these students here tonight are being compensated for their unique and special work which has now been professionally framed and will grace the walls around us in the boardroom for the next three years until they too are dispersed among the

013district's hollowed halls to still be enjoyed 40 years from now while i'm sure we are all impressed by their incredible talent i'm especially pleased to let you know that when a teacher is informed many of them are here tonight that their students work has been chosen for a district purchase they do not go on and on about the artwork they go on and on about the child how meaningful it is to not only applaud their artistic accomplishments tonight but to meet these wonderful artists who will continue their journey of excellence ushering us into a creative and colorful future i now invite each student to come up to the diocese to present their work to the board as their name is called and then please stay in front here of president matura for a photo olivia

014lucero kindergartner from sandpiper elementary school [Applause] should we do the okay and then olivia he's gonna take your photo real quick okay okay great and then olivia if you'll come this way students you're going to come right over here oh yes thank you go ahead and put your photo now everybody watch olivia because she's she's getting us all ready perfect awesome and you're gonna head right over here and we have a special ribbon and a check for you [Applause] alfonso ceda sixth grader from cactus view elementary school [Applause] yeah that'd be great okay good job thank you alfonso from i'm sorry fifth grader from pinnacle peak prep [Applause] good job that was a heavy one i was worried about you [Applause] isabella black is not here tonight she is a sixth grader from indian bend

015elementary school [Applause] this is kira tomos an 8th grader at desert shadows middle school [Applause] all right this is kat melnick 8th grader at explorer middle school [Applause] oh cat you gotta go closer the detail is awesome yeah hmm [Applause] addie long eighth grader at shea middle school [Applause] pencil [Applause] georgiana skid was unable to be here tonight she is an 8th grader at sunrise middle school [Applause] roshin tell 11th grader at sweetwater community school so [Applause] abigail aravalo 12th grader at horizon high school [Applause] um [Applause] haley mclaughlin 12th grader in the nvaa art program at shadow mountain high school [Applause] hmm [Applause] and our last student unfortunately could not make it tonight this is alyssa hannam 12th grader from pinnacle high school thank you so much ms minnick do we have some of

016the teachers here if they are here as well we'd like to stand and give them a round of applause for supporting our students in this endeavor thank you teachers [Applause] and to our wonderful parents thank you for sharing your students with us on this journey of excellence parents give us a wave if you're here as well thank you so much showcasing their science and engineering knowledge pv schools students brought home several awards from this year's arizona science and engineering fair which was held on march 29th pv schools had its most successful year ever with teams winning at all three levels elementary fifth through sixth grade junior seventh through eighth grade and senior 9th through 12th grade the students being recognized this evening are first place winners please stand to be recognized when i call your

017name bradley alberti from greyhawk elementary school carolina leone from mountain trail middle school [Applause] unable to be here tonight is emma gerhard from paradise valley high school [Applause] unable to be here this evening from paradise valley high school is ella schmidt [Applause] also unable to be here this evening from paradise valley high school is nancy schwartz [Applause] next is uh uh serbia chonduk from paradise valley high school [Applause] and mckinley paseo paseo cos from paradise valley high school [Applause] uh president matura and governing board it's important to note that those last two names i read were not only first place but also best in fair international science and engineering fair qualifiers [Applause] awesome [Applause] next is the 2022 national history day arizona state competition sunrise middle school had three students win first place at the

018history day arizona state competition and will advance to nationals in june these three students who will stand to be recognized are era parsons audrey harrelson and isabel ross [Applause] and these students are supported by gifted teacher becky kerr and principal greg martin [Applause] you can see that i cannot speak and run a presentation at the same time so here we'll advance forward next we have pvsca professional of the month pvsca president ms michelle courtright is here this evening to make the presentation president matura governing board dr bales and cabinet tonight is my pleasure to um talk about the esp of the month her name is jane monroe and she is a paraeducator at road runner and one of her main jobs is to work in the intervention room and i don't know how many of

019you have ever been in an intervention room but it's not always a pleasant experience and one of the things that people have said about her is that jane has one of the most difficult roles at road runner yet she does it in a calm consistent kindness kind way jane is consistent in her support of students who receive interventions and regularly students escalate and say and do things that are a little aggressive or angry you would think that most kids wouldn't like the adult that is in that role but she is one of the most beloved employees on campus um all students know who she is and even the ones that don't go to intervention she takes time to have positive interactions with and she makes sure that their environment is positive and they know they

020are loved and supported those are the kind of education um people we want and especially in our para educators they spend a lot of one-on-one time with students and it's one of our hardest places to fill and she has been doing it for a very long time and the students love her the teachers love her and she does it in a way that makes all of us want to go over and watch her to figure out some ways to do this in our own classrooms so i would like to take this time to say thank you to her for everything she does [Applause] and that concludes awards and recognitions for this evening next on the agenda is call to the public we are about to convene call to the public which allows the public the

021opportunity to address the board although state law does not require that we hold a call to the public we have chosen to do so because we believe it is crucial for us to hear from our community about concerns and issues having said that please note that the board is here to listen call to the public is not designed to be a discussion due to arizona open meeting law the governing board cannot respond to discuss or take any action on items brought up during this time however staff members may be directed to get back to you to address individual concerns additionally i want to remind you that in lieu of speaking tonight you may choose to submit written comments to the board by completing a public comment form on the district homepage all comments submitted by

022noon today have been provided to each governing board member and to the superintendent's office in advance of tonight's meeting tonight we have four people who have submitted comment 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 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 openly and collaboratively all in attendance are expected to observe our meeting rules as well as rules of politeness and decorum so that we may serve as an example to our students that issues can be discussed in a respectful and civil manner please state your first and last name when

023you come to the podium our first speaker is barbara jennings and the next speaker will be jennifer ariza good evening my name is barbara jennings that's it right that's all you need for me it's been a while since i've been here um but i felt like i needed to voice my opinion regarding the spending of the 200 grand tours lobbyists i've spent many hours down at the senate and the house and i observed exactly what lobbyists do and they aren't for the people and they certainly aren't going to be representing our students either so this is our tax dollars our tax dollars that are going to lobbyists who are going to work against us and to build this bridge that has been divided and partially it's been divided because things have been hidden hidden from

024the parents and the public spending that much money to further divide the parents from what we want for our children which which what we were hoping that you would want to which is for a good education for our kids for our kids to be enriched mentally um to move forward not to become social activists which is seeming which is what is happening with our curriculum in all of our schools and it's shameful the fact that the arizona school board association sued the legislature to take three important items out of a bill which was critical race theory which is social emotional learning those are the same mask mandates and vaccine mandates and the asba who again our tax dollars pay to join this committee organization 30 000 a year for them to again work against the

025parents i don't i don't know how to bridge it i wanna trust that you guys are gonna do what is best for our children what's best for their mind it crushes my heart and so i'm so glad my son is a sophomore he's got two more years in public education but i feel like our system is so broken right now and where are the people who have honesty and integrity and who are going to fight for our children and stop inputting this over sexualization and the critical race theory into our it's in everything it's in our math books you can't have jane be the baker anymore jane has to be the fisher bill has to be the baker it it's just the absurdity our children are being attacked that nobody's disenfranchising the lgbq i can't

026remember how many more letters are but nobody's just disenfranchising them everybody has the right to be who they are but they are the ones who are coming after our children and i think that has been made very clear for teachers who have gone on the lives of tick-tock if you haven't seen any of those videos there's plenty of them putting these sexual identities into the minds of young children elementary school children and that is wrong and i don't understand why you're not protecting our children thank you hi my name is jennifer ariza and first i want to thank you for the time each of you guys put into your roles here on the school board and tonight i stand here as a concerned parent in the paradise valley school district and i appreciate the opportunity

027to speak as i stand here tonight in addition to sexual ideology as was just spoken about by another parent i also want to declare that pornography should not be allowed in our schools pornography is used to train and desensitize people and increase demand for human sex trafficking porn users are often seeking out to act act out what they have seen and read in pornography additionally they continue to demand more and more in order to keep up with the demand more women and children become prostituted and trafficked across this country and i'm sure you know that pedophiles cultivate a friendly relationship that investigators call grooming it could continue for days or weeks before a pedophile begins bringing up sexual topics or asking for explicit pictures and more importantly i want people to understand that even if

028an actual meeting never takes place it's been documented to note that youngsters can be victimized by sexually explicit material has anyone on the board ever known someone who's been a victim of human trafficking does everyone realize that arizona is home to the largest human sex trafficking recovery program does everyone know that we are taking elementary age children into this program if we know that pornography is used by pedophiles to groom children and if we know that pornography is a gateway to human trafficking then i have to each ask each of the board members why would you ever allow any pornographic material to be in our schools on your watch in closing i would hope that the board recognizes that as citizens we are called to stand up to ensure the welfare of our communities when

029the 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 their children thank you next up is lily gresham and then we'll be sandra christensen hi my name is lily gresham and i live in the district and i have a student that goes to horizon i had four topics to discuss but i only have three minutes so i'll make i'll try to hit two of them briefly the first one is i think that for people to attend these meetings especially to speak they should live in the district and they should have a student at our schools because sometimes when you have these meetings there's lots and lots of people and there's there's people that are outside that want

030to cause conflict and they hold up signs and they come from different areas and they have nothing to do with our students they're just here to wreak havoc and get on the news um because i i almost got like assaulted by one of them at one of the meetings okay so that's the first thing i wanted to say is that i think that anybody who comes to these meetings especially anyone who gets up to speak should be from the district and have a student at one of our schools okay the second thing i wanted to say is i don't know what pornographic materials people are talking about being used at schools there is a bill called house bill 2495 which the fact sheet on it is about school sexually explicit materials prohibition and it prohibits

031public schools from referring students to to using or seeing any sexually explicit materials and any parent that objects to any of the learning material or activity on the basis that it is harmful may um withdraw their student and the anyone who objects to any learning material on the activity on the basis that material or activity is harmful means objecting to the material or activity because of sexual content violent content or profane or vulgar language so i guess that would mean that would cut out pretty much most of history or anything it could that could pertain to anything okay so i think that book banning is um has increased dramatically since last fall and i think these bans are censorship i believe that knowledge is power education is power and there are some activists that are

032making a constant concerted effort to purge books um from schools written by people of color and lgbtq authors maybe because these people don't want their students or any students learning about race racism people who identify a trans or gay or any marginalized group these book bans are used to ban the supposed crt critical race theory being taught in our schools crt is only taught in universities and law schools however the term crt is being used as a catch-all term for all various teachings about race so students are not allowed to learn any historical topic that mentions race or racism is my time up sometimes okay thank you president mature president matura dr bells and governing board members my name is sandra christensen thank you for allowing me to be here today and celebrating the success

033of our kids um so as a somebody who has a science background and an art collector this was a really cool celebration of the kids i was really happy to be here today i'm i hope that we would celebrate the success of all our children and i so i've been reviewing the arizona department of education's comprehensive school report card system um i went back before covid19 because i know that we had some challenges with kovid so i just want to share some numbers with you 2018 to 2019 school district the paradise valley unified school district in ela had 32 percent of our children be proficient meaning at grade level and 17 highly proficient meaning 49 which is less than half of our children are proficient or highly proficient in math 29 proficient 18 so 40

034of our children are either proficient or highly proficient in math and then science um 28 and 29 so about 57 these are dismal numbers um and i compared to a school that you know we would like to maybe um meet or and i looked at basis scottsdale their ela was 37 proficient 54 so 91 of their children are either proficient or highly proficient in math 34 and 55 respectively at 91 percent proficient um science 15 meets and 81 exceeds so this is something we should aspire to in our school district so i thought maybe they're spending a lot more money per kid and that wasn't the case we're spending about 945 dollars per student in our district and they were spending in the 8 000 range so it was actually less and then i i

035thought okay well maybe i need to compare apples to apples so i looked at higley unified and you know their numbers were also much higher than and i'm running out of time so i won't have to i won't go through all the numbers but um they were well over 50 so 63 65 and 75 percent compared to paradise valley unified so in closing i just as parents teachers educators we want to come alongside and let our students be as successful as possible so let's put dollars back in the classroom recruit and retain quality teachers and let teachers get back to teaching the basics math science thank you okay next on the agenda is dr bales in superintendent comments thank you president mature governing board cabinet and guest this month of april has been set aside

036to celebrate autistic people and promote inclusion and understanding in 2021 the autism society of america announced a change to the designation from autism awareness month to autism acceptance month special education departments and school districts across the country work to provide support and services for autistic students we are so grateful for the work and dedication of our special education educators and peer educators supporting students in this area this week is national volunteer week which recognizes the contributions of volunteers parent and community volunteers are invaluable resources for our teachers and students pb schools is fortunate and grateful to have dedicated volunteers who motivate and inspire others by giving their time knowledge and heart to support the school community if you'd like to volunteer your time to increase student achievement our volunteer and paradise program is recruiting volunteers

037to provide one-on-one or small group instruction for kindergarten through eighth grade students visit pvschools.net forward slash vip to learn more thank you to all of our volunteers as briefly mentioned earlier we do have cause to celebrate some outstanding young people who earned perfect a c t scores i'm thrilled to announce that those eight students in our district recently earned that 36 on act it's an incredible account accomplishment we're so proud of them their hard work and dedication from paradise valley high school the students are baylor green jason latz and gavin russo from pinnacle high school ethan kirschner lilly mcgeever hudson rodney and bennen watson and from shadow mountain high school and elise vincent furthermore 10 students earned a composite score of 35 and 16 students earned a composite score of 34. congratulations we are so

038proud of you congratulations to your parents your teachers that support you along the way i also had the opportunity to visit the dap dapstone celebration last week i had the pleasure of attending this and several others did as well and during the event the digital academy of advanced placement scholars dapps those students presented their year-long capstone projects to parents fellow depth students shadow mount administrators and staff it was a wonderful event the piece i'd like to add is that this dapps class of 2022 was a has been awarded two million dollars in scholarships so far what an achievement congratulations in pv schools we we pride ourselves on our community relationships in fact you'll see community strength as part of our strategic plan later in this evening this commitment to community was solidified recently when we

039were nominated as one of the best public school districts in the phoenix area the nomination comes as part of the jewish news a 74 year old newspaper and magazine publisher 2022 reader's choice series thank you to pb schools community for this nomination it means a great deal to us community members can vote for pb schools pbusd best of the best any time before may 15th and there is a link to voting on our website at the home page tonight we'd also like to take the opportunity we take great pride in growing our own leadership and capitalizing on the capacity we build with our employees for more than 40 years we have been identifying developing and nurturing aspiring administrators in our administrative internship and management training program each year we select a small group of teacher

040leaders and provide them with experiences to continue to prepare them to be administrators in our district tonight we would like to recognize this year's aim class and at this time i'd like them to stand and be recognized with a round of applause [Applause] take a good look because history tells us that you will see many of these faces helping lead our schools in the future congratulations to all of you [Applause] the arizona department of education's partnership with donors choose has provided resources to more than fifteen thousand teachers at sixteen hundred schools across the state in pv schools four hundred and thirty thousand dollars 878 to be exact went towards classroom materials over the past two weeks making 482 projects a reality i'd like to express our gratitude to those who helped fund classroom projects through

041donors choice choose these classes in tonight's mission moment we where we highlight areas that engage inspire and nurture students through high quality instruction meaningful educational opportunities and dynamic learning experiences i'd like to highlight our pv women in information technology pv wit program this program focuses on gender equity in the information technology field it helps to turn the page on a national challenge to recruit and retain women in technology related positions we recently had two current pv students two graduates of pv and all pv uh pb wit attend and present at the consortium for school networking in nashville not only is this a point of pride for the district but it's also a milestone on these students journey of excellence congratulations to all of them and also mentioned just briefly about our prom boutique sponsored by

042pvea i'm happy to report that ahead of this year's prom season the prom boutique has made incredible impact this year over 100 students have been dressed for prom at no cost now they're participating in approximately uh they can support approximately 50 more prom gurus and so to be outfitted at the boutiques at this weekend's last opportunity thank you to our dedicated staff for committing your time to making the prom special for all i'd also like to thank the community and the generous donations received lastly allow me to express my deepest appreciation for our community support the support has allowed us to continue offering high quality instruction meaningful educational opportunities and dynamic learning experiences the support of our voters has allowed for our facilities to properly match the level instruction and potential of our students there

043were several construction items approved in the consent portion of tonight's agenda that will take place this summer you'll see more of these projects as we move forward painting remodels furniture more are all contributing to the success of our students offering them updated spaces to collaborate and learn and grow thank you pv supporters and those are my comments tonight president mature thank you next on the agenda is items for approval dr bales item h1 president mature governing board members cabinet and guests in this item we recommend a partnership to use existing facility space improved services for special education students and increase revenues for the district dr jarrus will present for approval president matura dr bale's governing board and cabinet tonight i present for your approval a lease agreement with the austin centers for exceptional students also

044known as the aces for the cholla campus the choi campus was previously the home of roadrunner school prior to the construction of their new campus which opened at the beginning of this school year the asus is a state certified special education school for kindergarten through 12th grade special needs students and they serve the academic and behavioral needs of students who require more intensive special education services that then can be provided within arizona public school districts charter schools and state placement agencies this lease agreement will benefit the district in several ways first the lease will provide an annual revenue source for the district it will reduce the transportation costs that we currently spend to send students to the aces campuses in tempe in peoria as part of this agreement we will receive up to 250 days

045of focused behavioral intervention for our students and it also ensures the use of one of our school sites during a time when the district is not currently in need of the site at this time we would recommend your approval we do have one public comment card nicole klutwick and you'll have three minutes i don't think i'll need three minutes um yeah i was just leading reading through the lease and there was just one clause that kind of concerned me a little bit and it says that the district agrees to offer the aces as its first option for placement of any students who require placement outside of the district and commits to placing the aces as many students as possible who are currently placed in other private day schools um i don't know where they are

046now i tried looking through the vouchers too hard to find them um to find which schools we're sending them to if we are sending them currently to aces awesome that's great but i would say that like based on what's going on here all they need is 11 students right the one that's free in the lease plus an extra 10 um and then they have free rent which seems very bizarre um but that's how the leases is written and considering the fact that most aces schools where the two aces schools currently have 280 and 136 students it just seems like are we giving the school away so i just wanted that to be considered and thought about before you guys voted thank you okay man please have a motion to approve resolution number 511 property lease

047agreement between paradise valley unified school district and austin centers for exceptional students as presented so moved does anyone member of the board have any questions or comments i have a question i do have okay go ahead nancy mrs case okay okay thank you um what was just brought up the the ten how how does that work is there more details on that that i don't understand ms barrigan would you uh care to provide the background regarding the market rate per square foot um yeah we worked with our attorneys to determine what an appropriate market market rate per square foot would be so we're charging what they would charge approximately at any uh for-profit you know leasing company for uh property in this area so it's not as though we're giving away the property for them

048um businesses are allowed to make a profit in the state of arizona and uh you know it's it's up to them to determine what they charge per student um i don't know if that answers mrs case's question what's the deal about how many students how does that work i think dr jarris might have more information on that i mean we are already sending students to the aces program it's a program we would use and continue to use whether they were renting from our district or not um as dr jairus mentioned we have the additional benefit of not having to transport those students to campuses in tempe and mesa i believe dr jarrus yes correct we currently uh contract the aces for approximately 30 students a year on average and so this would allow us the

049opportunity to have them rather than transport them to the other campuses we'll be transporting them there if we did not have this lease agreement we would continue to contract with them just be we would be sending them to locations outside of our district boundaries instead of within our district boundaries and president mature if i may add we we had a number of revisions uh to this lease agreement and work with our attorney i i don't know dr jarros do you recall maybe up to 10 drafts of this so it we were very thoughtful in putting this forth before the board is so is there if we have up to 10 students is it a great break even situation i'm not technically sure how to answer that question mrs case it's it's a we're receiving a

050monthly lease arrangement with them so we're receiving income from them on a monthly basis um and i'm not sure how you would determine if there's a break even in there in terms of the uh you know what we in turn use them for um okay i just am not familiar with the details that were brought up i know that in the past we have spent a great deal of money in getting our students to other places and to us it was a good use of them i mean i went through this very detailed at the time that we agreed to it and are those agreements that we originally thought is that all working out as we had hoped uh yes this is as we presented this was part of the discussion when we proposed the

051rebuilding of the roadrunner campus uh and one of the benefits would be that we would have the uh current building available to rent out to a vendor such as the asus that would allow us a revenue stream for use of space that we're not typically using the lease itself does not necessarily necessarily change our our need or our partnership with sending students to to other campuses uh when they when that the need calls for it so um having them here just makes it it helps us save some money in the terms of transportation uh if we did not again have this lease we would continue to send those students to uh other campuses when the need arise rises i just remember going through this in detail and if things haven't changed it is the same

052i mean it was a win-win for us from what i because i asked lots of questions at the time it is similar it is the same uh as when we discussed it at that time okay thank you mr laney just a quick question since i wasn't here when a lot of this was discussed how much are we saving by doing this that's the other part of the win-win that she was talking about i'm sure dr jarrus did you want to answer that or do you i would love to answer that if i can recall the exact number um the number's a little under 200 000 if i remember correctly in terms of the rent that we're receiving we have the 250 days which is an additional benefit that we're not receiving now of the services

053that dr jarris mentioned in his summary ultimately this lease agreement benefits us more than it benefits the aces we would spend the same amount of students as we said at aces as we would now and have the additional cost of transporting them we are not adding or taking away any more students we now have the additional 250 days and we have nearly 200 thousand dollars in rent annually and our current transportation costs if i remember it's it's significant it's roughly in the 90 000 a year range of what we spend to transport students to the the current campuses so that would be a significant savings as we're now transporting them within the district okay that's what i was wondering thanks this is bacon and that number of 30. is that fairly consistent year to year

054or have we gone up and down or what does that look like i think it depends on the year um i would say over this past year we've it's it's been an averaging 30 uh at any given moment i i don't have the pre-pandemic because the past two years we that number has changed significantly i don't know the exact number is pre-pandemic yeah i guess it would be a little hard to tell during the pandemic so um i had uh wanted to point something out and then i do have a question also um but i appreciate in addition to the cost savings that we have with transportation um i'll also alleviate the transportation time which when we're low on bus drivers is helpful there um to not use so much time and even more importantly

055kids aren't going to be on the bus for as long how wonderful if we can just transport the kids within our own district we know how far that is as opposed to sending them far outside of our district and having kids on buses for that long so i i i i appreciate that we're gonna we're gonna have that uh opportunity uh to help our students on the busing and i had one question about the lease because they're talking it talks about no modifications without um without our approval which makes sense and then it seemed like uh they talked about if they construct new classrooms is that something that they think in the future they may need would that be like internal moving walls or something like that is what they're anticipating a need for yes

056the current office space um has a large area that has been utilized broken up into cubicles uh for however many years now and those cubicles have been removed and it's now in open space and they anticipate it's large enough that at a certain point as they increase their enrollment they will want to subdivide that space up to use it for as classroom space okay thank you very much um all those in favor say aye aye aye bye motion passes unanimously uh next on the agenda is items for approval dr bales thank you president mature governing board members cabinet guest item h2 in this item we recommend contract templates for the employee groups dr holmes will briefly summarize the changes and similarities between the different contracts and recommend for approval madam president members of the board

057we are recommending the approval of the 2223 employee contracts the the there is one slight change to the contracts this year and that pertains to interim language and the reason for the change is very simply that within our system we're we're differentiating between groups in terms of their interim status so it's a simple change with that in mind i do need to recommend an amendment to the contracts that you have before you and for the purposes of approval i believe that can be accomplished by a motion to approve with the recommended amendment so bear with me while i set that up the amendment is going to pertain to section h of the continuing certified contract section h of the probationary certified contract section f of the education support professional contract and section f of the

058education support professional exempt contract madam president members of the board the last sentence in the stated sections of these stated contracts is identical and the recommended amendment is that the last section of the last sentence in the stated sections of these stated contracts should end with the phrase except that this does not apply to teachers on a continuing contract or other employees who are permanent employees for the bargaining agreement with that i'll take any questions we do recommend approval with with the recommended amendment okay i please have a motion to approve the um changes and our additions to the contracts for 2023 as presented and amended yes so moved and i think before are we going to roll cover how are we doing the voting well now i was going to ask for any member

059wishing to make comments or uh so i'm going to move that it make a motion with the addition of except that this does not apply to teachers on a continuing contract or other employees who are permanent employees per the bargaining agreement and that is section h for certified um and section f for the esp that's correct does anyone have any comments or questions i do what does that mean what are what are we changing there what's the change it it just means that the whole section that is pertaining to the notice regarding uh the interim status which would be a non-renewal notice it does not apply to the to the employee stated in the recommendation which would be teachers on a continuing contract or um or other employees who are considered permanent employees per the

060bargaining agreements more explanation interim status contracts are intended to be for one year only so they are not contracts that are renewed so this this section outlines that if a contract is an interim status contract it is it is the board's notice of non-renewal at the point of signing the contract however that would be in conflict with a state statute regarding continuing teacher contracts and it would be in conflict conflict with bargaining language so the amendment that i just asked recommended that you approve would exclude those individuals from the notice so it excludes interim employees from the notice no it excl it excludes it excludes employees on an interim contract who are either on a continuing teacher contract or who are considered permanent employees per the bargaining agreement okay sorry i'm going to follow up

061with that so that's fine clarifying so someone in that position may be a permanent employee but maybe on an interim assignment is that where the clarification would be and you wouldn't want just because their current assignment is interim that's correct make them an interim employee they still retain their permanent employee status that's correct you got it now i got it okay good thank you okay any other questions or comments okay all those in favor please say aye aye aye the opposed motion passes unanimously uh next on the agenda is another item for approval dr bales item h3 president mature governor board member's cabinet guests in this item we recommend the certified performance-based pay plan this plan is only for members of the certified bargaining group such as teachers nurses psychologists and related services dr holmes

062will prevent uh we'll present a brief summary of the changes and recommendations for approval madam president members of the board we are recommending the approval of the 2 20 uh 2022-2023 performance based plan without amendment i will share with you that there are there are no changes other than dates to the plan with the exception of the amount and i would like to highlight that the the full amount for the upcoming school year is five thousand two hundred and seventy four dollars which is an increase of a little over six hundred dollars and that is cause for celebration because uh at the beginning of the budget season we were anticipating that we would probably see a reduction of around six to seven hundred dollars so uh for our teachers uh it's very significant that not

063only was it not a reduction but it was was a pretty good increase with that i'll take questions we are recommending approval okay may i please have a motion to approve the 2022-2023 performance-based pay plan as presented so moved any member of the board with questions or comments mrs greenberg um and dr holmes can you remind us or remind some folks um who sets that amount it's the state okay is it the jlbc or no no i'm going to make a technical correction to that just because i'm technical sometimes uh we set the amount of 52.74 it is based off the amount that is set by the state through jlbc and joint legislative budget committee of the per pupil amount that we will receive for the upcoming year the per pupil amount that we will

064see receive this upcoming year was more than we had anticipated and only slightly less than last year and if you remember last year by last year i mean this year by this year i mean next year um it's uh it's only 25 less than what we actually received this year with the catch-up payment we had that big catch-up payment this year which is why we thought it would be a significant lesser amount next year it is not in fact that much less in fact we're able to do more thank you that's thank you any other questions um i do have one question how long have we had performance-based pay um in the state in our district that the performance-based pay would would have been initiated uh as an outcome of prop uh 20301 prop 301

065which was uh voter approved in i believe the year 2000 so it's been around for quite some time thank you all those in favor say aye aye any opposed motion passes unanimously uh next on the agenda is um approval of changes and or additions to the bargaining agreements for 2022-2023 dr bales thank you president mature governing board members cabinet and guests in this item we recommend compensation for each employee group for the 22-23 school year to summarize these packages dr holmes will present each one individually and then we will ask for a we'll call vote for each package dr holmes madam president members of the board item 4a pvsca esp bargaining agreement we're recommending approval of of the bargaining agreement uh with the following highlights uh one percent increase to base pay a one thousand

066one time return to work and retention incentive three point three four percent one uh one-time return to work uh and retention incentive uh additional increase an additional increase in hourly rates for bus drivers dispatchers and routers to make permanent the hard to fill agenda they received this year on your repo or your approval earlier this fall one additional day of paid training for special education para educators and members of transportation a one-time hard to fill agenda for bus aides community education child care associates and special education para educators ranging from 530 to 680 and moa's and language changes for which we came to consensus during the bargaining process okay we do have one public comment card uh michelle courtwright and you will have three minutes thank you president matura um governing board dr bales and

067cabinet my name is michelle cortright and i am the president of the paradise valley support employees association um i wanted to let you know we did ratify at 98 percent we had a large group of individuals who actually chose not to vote and to me that spoke a lot especially with what i received i wish i could say bargaining went well this year but to be on that wouldn't be an honest statement this year it was very challenging in so many ways but i think the biggest issue was compensation i think everyone in the room knew that employees were not going to be happy with the compensation outcome and they were right i've spent the last five days responding to employees that are angry with me my team and the district they feel defeated they

068can't afford to stay in a job that they love in a place that where they make a difference as their advocate i've been trying to figure out where to direct my anger and who is responsible for this mess well earlier today i realized that no one in this room is at fault the fault lies with our politicians and until we can convince them to fully fund public schools that it should be their top priority we're fighting a losing battle i know we did everything we could at the table for our employees and i'm grateful to the board for giving us the opportunity and i truly wish we could have done more my hope is our politicians can get along long enough to pass the type of budget needed to fully fund our schools and its

069employees and that somehow we can get back to the table because there is money there and we just need them to give it to us thank you may i please have a motion to approve the changes and or additions to the pvsca esp bargaining agreement for the 2022-2023 uh year as presented and this will be a roll call vote so moved any member of the board wishing to make a comment or question mr laney so i would just like to say that as a board if you had been in the meetings with us you could see how we anguished over this over multiple meetings um based on what we had to work with we i feel we did the best that we could to increase it as much as we could and i have to

070say it's actually more than what we were expecting in the meetings that i was at i fully understand what it's like to to live under a school teacher's salary as my dad was a teacher sorry i'm getting emotional um i remember buying my own clothes as a high school student because my parents could only afford two pairs of jeans for me why we see emails from community members asking you know how to fix this or asking us to fix this or that um we're imperfect we're doing the best we can i would strongly encourage anybody in the district to look over the budget to help us help you to offer constructive suggestions to help us figure out how to do better on these things and that's what i'd like to say mrs bacon um i

071i just would like to say that um the state is sitting on a 5.3 billion dollar rainy day fund and the fact that we are in this situation is extremely disheartening um there is the ability to improve there is the ability to give us more money i also want to say that it we're we are a unique district in the sense of we're we're a declining enrollment district so we do not have the resources that some other school districts have because they have increased they have they they are increasing their numbers of students because they're building more housing developments there's lots of things that are going on in districts that surround us that we can't match because of our declining enrollment and that's partially my fault i still live in the house that i lived

072in when my kids were little and i'm renovating it so i'm going to live there forever now um so there's so many things that as mr laney said that that go into this that are that are out of our control and i really wish we could have done more mrs greenberg i was going to say this when we vote since i was first but i'll just go ahead and um i want to say that i very much appreciate um mrs cartwright's comments um i appreciate the 98 ratification but i don't think anybody up here anybody down there feels that [Music] this is adequate um it is what we can do right now and we know that as mrs bacon just said the state is sitting on a 5.3 billion dollar i think you're generous and

073calling it a rainy day fund um and i know that there is a great deal of um chatter or talk or or the questions always ask when we say fully fund and then uh the the legislators who um [Music] want us to sit on 5.3 or or give it back say well what's fully fund well we're sitting anywhere between 46 to 49th so let's at least get to national average and in that state i don't know mrs berrigan you can correct me if i'm wrong that would mean at least an additional five or is it seven that five thousand dollars per student an additional ten thousand dollars excuse me additional ten it's gone up since i looked last ten thousand dollars per student to get us to the national average we have it in that

0745.3 billion so the fact is is that there is money in this state to support our students and support our teachers and support our schools i wish that rather than try and pass a skinny budget which didn't happen there is meaningful discussion down at the legislature about what to do with 5.3 billion thank you mrs case i can't see you but are you interested yes i am thank you um i've been listening to all the comments and um i just have to say that i as a board we've been struggling with trying to pay employees more for years and years and at some point it's really hard to do things out of the goodness of your heart and with inflammation going up i understand all those things the employees make such a difference in the

075lives of our children they've made the difference in my children's lives whether in a variety of of course teachers but all the other employees also make such a difference in the lives of our students and usually you go into education in any form because you want to make children's lives better and i appreciate all of their work and i wish somehow we could magically wave a wand to make things better but that isn't going to happen without changes that are out of our control and i um i i want to thank all of our employees for all they do on what they do it on and um so we worked every which way we could when we had meetings on this to increase pay in all the ways we could and it was the best

076we could do so that's my comment thank you um and i do believe and someone can correct me if i'm wrong uh that in the contracted language that we have today we do have built-in contingencies so we are hopeful um that when the budget does pass that it's not the skinny budget and it is a meaningful conversation in what they can put into education and if that money does come it is already pre-allocated and and will be going to the staff and the teachers um in our district and that language is already included in what we would be approving today so it would not require any additional um voting at that time you you are correct uh that is in the contingency language uh in the contracts that you approved in item two thank you

077we already approved the contingency thank you very much for the clarification um so we can be hopeful that um that meaningful discussion is happening downtown um looking at what is funded versus what is required of the district and required of our staff and and teachers and uh and if we are able to compensate at a higher level that would be fantastic and and i look forward to the day one day when we can celebrate at these at these meetings um because we do have enough to to make a difference so um with that uh may i please have a roll call vote mrs greenberg aye mrs bacon aye mr laney aye mrs matura aye mrs case aye motion passes unanimously madam president members of the board we are also recommending the approval of item 4b

078the pvea certified bargaining agreement highlights are a one percent base pay increase a 1 000 dollar one-time return to work and retention incentive a 3.34 one-time return to work and retention incentive uh two additional paid professional development days uh in addition to moa's and language changes for which we came to consensus during bargaining we do have a public comment card for susie uh susan seep sorry i was so blown away by the art today that i forgot i was going to speak tonight so it's late president matura governing board dr bales and cabinet thank you tonight for allowing me to address you on behalf of the certified educators in pbusd i don't have to remind you how tough the last two years have been on them as they've been on our support professionals our administrators

079our community and in particular our kids we come together in october every year to complete an extensive survey that elicits the concerns and interests from of everyone in our diverse group from there the bargaining team works with the pva executive board to reach read each and every comment try and distill and concentrate the interests and then share them with the district's leadership in november while they share theirs with us along with the realest of realities the budget everyone shares the same interest to try and create the best possible learning environment for our students development and well-being that starts with employees that feel valued and we feel valued when we feel heard and that's why i think the district so deeply for the process beginning in january we spend several full days together going over the

080issues that the certified group has taken from the survey and we weigh them against the realities we share stories and interests possible solutions until we come to a consensus it isn't always easy and it definitely isn't always fun but it's incredibly rewarding rewarding to get through it i'm pleased to be able to report that this year's bargaining agreement was ratified what that shows is the trust that the membership has in the bargaining team and in the district's willingness to bargain in good faith and do their very best to improve the working conditions continue to provide the best pain benefits we can and hold on to the greatest most dedicated staff in the state in addition to that i do want to say that um our members know how hard you all work to find every

081penny that goes into compensation and they do a lot of work outside of the school day on their own over the summer and at night doing the only thing that we can do and that is really trying to influence the state legislature the governor and others to try and get pro-education candidates into the legislature and try and keep the interests of private schools from from stealing our funding thank you may i please have a motion to approve the changes and or additions to the pvea certified bargaining agreement for the 2022-2023 as presented so moved any members with any comments i just want to say everything i said with the esps is just goes for all employees right i think we all want to say that so just know that ditto okay then may i please

082uh have a roll call vote mrs greenberg aye mrs bacon aye mr laney aye mrs matura aye mrs case aye motion passes five zero before i go on to 4c it's probably worth mentioning because it's not part of this approval but it is somewhat related but just as a reminder no increases to health insurance premiums for employees as part of the efforts we're making to do the best that we can 4c item 4c madam president members of the board we are recommending your approval of the ess bargaining agreement highlights our one percent uh increase to base pay a one thousand dollar one-time return to work and retention incentive a 3.34 one-time return to work and retention incentive and minor language changes for which we came to consensus during the bargaining process i please have a

083motion to approve the changes and or additions to the executive support staff bargaining agreement for 2022 2023 as presented so moved any comments uh may i please have a roll call vote this is greenberg aye mrs bacon aye mr laney aye mrs matura aye mrs case aye motion passes 5-0 madam president members of the board we're asking for your uh requesting your approval for item 4d the pvp bargaining agreement highlights our one percent base increase uh one percent increase to base pay one thousand dollar one-time return to work or retention incentive a 3.34 one-time return to work and retention incentive and minor language changes for which we came to consensus during bargaining may i please have a motion to approve the changes and or additions to the principal bargaining agreement for 2022-2023 as presented so

084moved mrs chisman may i have a roll call vote please mrs greenberg aye mrs bacon aye mr laney aye mrs matura aye mrs case aye motion passes 5-0 madam president members of the board we are asking your approval for item 4e the coa bargaining agreement highlights are a one percent increase to base pay a one thousand dollar one-time return to work and incentive uh retention incentive a three point three four percent one-time return to work and retention incentive and minor language changes the changes for which we came to consensus during bargaining man please have a motion to approve the changes and or additions to the central office administrators bargaining agreement for 2022-2023 as presented so moved mrs chisman may i please have a roll call vote mrs greenberg hi mrs bacon aye mr laney hi

085excuse me mrs matura aye mrs case aye motion passes 5-0 madam president members of the board we're asking your approval this evening for item 4f the cla bargaining agreement highlights are a one percent increase to base pay a one thousand dollar one-time return to work and retention incentive a 3.34 one-time return to work and retention incentive and minor language changes and please have a motion to approve the changes and or additions to the cabinet level administrators bargaining agreement for 2022-2023 as presented so moved mrs chisman may i please have a roll call vote mrs greenberg aye mrs bacon aye mr laney aye mrs matura aye mrs case i motion passes 5-0 uh and that concludes that portion next on the agenda is approval of strategic planning commitments and portrait of a graduate dr bills thank

086you before we go on i did want to express my my deepest appreciation to our bargaining team leaders from our stakeholder groups i want you to know that i understand and hear it was not an easy process and i thank you for continuing to to build trust and work with us we are committed to seeing our employees succeed so thank you to our bargaining leaders in this process i'd also uh like to president mature governing board members uh tonight we'll provide you with the final version of the strategic goals and commitments and portrait of a graduate with your approval we'll move forward to phase three of this process and begin to develop district-wide initiatives and superintendent goals dr jarros will present for your approval president matura dr bales governing board and cabinet tonight i present

087to you updates to our strategic plan and as dr bales just mentioned we will be seeking your approval as a reminder the project started in the fall and is the result of our design team um which includes representation from each of our stakeholder groups sorry i'm a slide off here in addition to reviewing changes to our strategic goals and commitments i'm also providing you a look at the publication that our marketing department is designing to help promote and support the strategic plan with our community the opening of the brochure we'll begin with a message from dr bales to explain the value of the street of the strategic plan and the process used to create it and it will also have a brief overview of the district the publication will then identify the vision and mission

088which you approved earlier this year then we will also identify our values and action statements that emphasize the importance of being student focused innovative collaborative acting with integrity recognizing growth and being respectful at the last governing board meeting i presented the goal areas and i will spend some time identifying changes from that last reading once finalized and approved the brochure will present these goals and commitments in a format similar to what you see on this current slide right here our first goal is the student experience in this draft that you are reviewing today we replaced the word interventions with supports as it encompasses a broader range of opportunities to help our students be successful and we also replace the word agility with readiness our second goal area is staff experience since the last presentation we

089added celebrate to commitment 2.2 and at the end of 2.5 we added to serve the needs of every learner in goal 3 educational environment 3.4 3.5 if remember both began with the word create to so to change things up we changed 3.4 to begin with build and we made similar changes to goal 4 community strength so that the commitments were not all starting with the same words in goal 5 we restructured 5.5 to read ensure inclusive practices in the decision-making process by involving stakeholders as appropriate and in goal 6 we reordered these commitments as some of them were similar in nature so it made sense to put them next to each other so that it read a little bit a little bit more cohesively and we also simplified uh commitment 6.1 uh for clarity purposes

090the brochure will also include our portrait of a graduate which was shared at the last governing board meeting and at a study session and that identifies those character traits that we uh hope for our graduates to all leave here with including being a creative thinker a critical thinker collaborative community community-minded ethical and resilient those are the changes to our goals and commitments and we're asking for our goals and commitments and we're asking for your approval to to them as well as a portrait of a graduate and i will be happy to answer any questions man please have a motion to approve the strategic planning commitments and portrait of a graduate as presented so moved and anyone wish to make any comments or questions uh mr laney so i i really appreciate all the work that

091you put into this it looks really good um i think you uh i think you think i was joking about the putting the chucks in for the shoes i was joking but anyway maybe maybe i could have gotten that across better [Laughter] but it looks good so i appreciate you making all the changes to it mrs greenberg um yeah i want to add my thanks to the design team as well having facilitated strategic planning in the past and having served on the district strategic planning team once upon a time i know how involved the process is and i know that it um uh but i know how exhilarating a process it is as well and i believe that that comes through in um what we have here and i'm excited about where this is going

092and i appreciate that we have a strategic plan so thank you everybody mrs bacon um i also would like to convey my thanks to the committee members who worked on this it was hours and hours and hours they may have put in more hours the first this part up to now than we have collectively um the meetings were long they were involved i know it required a lot of thinking um and that's hard to do and exhausting sometimes so i just want to thank everyone who is on that team who worked so hard including all of our employees who put tons of time and effort into this and i echo anne i am glad we have a strategic plan um now let's keep it alive is casey do you have any comments yes i do

093i just want to say that um the amount of energy and work and thought that went into here this uh strategic plan is quite amazing and i appreciate the corrections that were made with the little tiny contributions this board made and i just um i i'm grateful that it has been so thoughtful and that we have been able to see the results of much hard work and i just wanted to go to work and do and make all of those processes that come from the street strategic plan uh start moving so thank you very much all of the committee and all of the cabinet members who and who have made this look good and we're hoping it's we're trying to do what's best for children and this is and students and this certainly is a

094step in the right direction thank you oh i uh wanted to reiterate uh mrs bacon's sentiments that now that we have this this is it's not a in the drawer document we've all committed to um having this be a living document that we this gives us i really can see um pathways forward uh from from the strategic plan and that's really exciting and uh and seeing the work and progress and and come down to this and seeing in this nice slick marketing piece it's really exciting it's uh it's great to have have it be where we are today and i can just envision where some of these uh marketing pieces are posted and uh i i really like the look of it and the continuity and and i like how i talked last time about

095the color scheme and how how the shading and how it all comes together with our new website and so i just i'm i very pleased uh with how it all came together so thank you thank you for your work and with that uh all those in favor please say aye aye aye aye aye any opposed motion passes unanimously next on the agenda is gifts and donations and we our district is very fortunate to have community members and families and people in our district who are interested in supporting our schools and go above and beyond and make donations so appreciate every donation that comes to our students and wanted to point out a few um just highlight a few tonight one copper canyon elementary school pto did provide a thousand dollars for copy paper for their

096schools uh north ranch pta provided 30 uh tvs on rolling stands for their classrooms uh in the amount of 24 963 dollars um bright side benefit made a donation of 23 del laptops in the amount valued at ten thousand dollars to the crest program at pv high school uh at sunset canyon elementary school the dorito partners did give a thousand dollars to be used for student supplies pbis rewards and teacher resources and at vista verde middle school daryl and michelle carlson donated library classroom library books in the amount of 2589. so thank you again appreciate all the donations to our district and may i please have a motion to for acceptance of gifts and donations so moved all those in favor say aye aye aye sorry i turned my mic off motion passes unanimously next

097on the agenda is items for discussion dr bales thank you president mature governing board members cabinet and guests and tonight will provide you the work of the calendar committee a special thanks to those that participated it's one of those also arduous tasks that happens every four years and the recommendation for the four school year calendars beginning in 2023 24 will be presented tonight by dr jairus for first reading and discussion only president mature governing board dr bales and cabinet tonight i present to you the calendar committee's recommendation for school calendars for 2023-24 2024 25 2025 26 and 2026-27 the calendar committee is charged with the task of developing calendars that adhere to state law requirements and legal holidays and also consider religious observations and past experiences with calendar design the calendar committee included representatives from

098each of our stakeholder groups and i'd also like to take a moment to acknowledge the work of my executive assistant tara sorenson who spent countless hours preparing calendar templates and counting days each quarter and semester to make sure we've done it correctly it's amazing how everything doesn't always add up to 180 when you think it does i will be summarizing our briefly summarizing our timeline we met virtually in january to review the committee committee's charge a governing board policy and a calendar pre-survey to gather stakeholder feedback on specific calendar concepts in february we reviewed those survey results and created three calendar options to present to the community in march we presented those three options to the community through a survey and received input on their preferences and tonight i am presenting the committee's recommendations based

099on that feedback uh just to give a little bit of background the counter committee works to adhere to several specific parameters as outlined in the governing board policy icr these include the first semester ends before winter break spring break occurs after the third quarter we attempt to honor all major religious holidays we have one calendar that serves pre-k through 12th grade and we try to balance the semesters when possible taking into account that the second semester needs to incorporate statewide testing our our policy also asks that we give consideration to starting school as late as possible which might include starting school on a date other than on a monday i've lost a slide here and also note please know that the professional development and parent-teacher conference early release days are not part of the counter

100committee's initial calendar those are added after the final calendar is approved as we do this process every four years we reviewed some common themes found in previous counter committee discussions uh previous community responses indicated an appreciation for a midweek start for the first day of school having the wednesday off before thanksgiving honoring religious holidays ending the first semester before winter break and finishing school before memorial day as i mentioned we presented a pre-survey to our community at the end of january we had 4728 responses from across all stakeholder groups and in those results we found some common themes there was an interest in a full week fall break either after the first quarter or during the week of thanksgiving the results also show that breaks throughout the year were more important than a later start

101date to the school year there was a strong preference for the school year to end before memorial day and there was a little interest in an extended fall spring break where you have a fall break of two weeks and a spring break of of two weeks and in the open-ended comments there was an interest in of course starting later in the school year and an alignment to neighboring school district calendars after studying the results the calendar committee finalized three sets of calendars each with a relatively unique identity option one included a full week break during the week of thanksgiving option two included a full week fall break after the first quarter typically in october and option three was a traditional calendar in that it was we called it a traditional calendar and that is very

102similar to the current calendar that we are currently using it is important to note that while identifying oh let me go back and slide here it's important to know that while identifying features of options one and two were a full week break in the fall there was that was not possible for the 2025-2026 school year that particular school year had several fall holidays that fell on a tuesday or thursday as a result the 2025-2026 school year used the same traditional model for all three options and i can demonstrate that when we present the actual school year model calendars we presented these options to the community in the form of a survey in march we received 4267 responses as you can see the breakdown by stakeholder groups if you are doing the math you will note

103that the numbers from the individual stakeholder groups add up to more than 4267 because people are allowed to choose more than one category uh depending on their their which ones they fell into when asked to indicate their first preference for a calendar 49 selected option two uh that had the full week fall break after the first quarter and options one and three were very similar and their response is close to 25 percent and this chart shows the breakdown by stakeholder group and you can see that preference 2 was fairly consistent as the first preference among all the stakeholder groups based on stakeholder uh feedback the calendar committee recommends option two with the full week fall break for governing board approval and the following slides uh will show these these calendar years and you can see

104they uh in 2023 2024 the first day of school will be on august 3rd the fall break would be august 9 october 9th through the 13th and the last day of school is may 23rd uh before memorial day we'll also note that there was an interest in aligning our breaks with neighboring districts in this particular year our fall and spring breaks do align with the scottsdale unified school districts in 2024 2025 the first day of school is august 5th with a fall break during the first full week of october and again the last day of school is prior to memorial day 2025 2026 this is the year where as you can see uh we have a holiday on september 23rd which is a tuesday on october 2nd which is a thursday and then on november

10511th which is a tuesday and unless we wanted a week where we were coming to school monday tuesday wednesday we took thursday off and then we came back to school for friday we would be not able to put a full week fall break in there unless we were to push back the start of school into july so this is a traditional more of a traditional model then in 2026 2027 the first day of school is august 4th with a fall break from october 12th through the 16th again this is a first reading of this recommendation i would be happy to answer any questions you might have does anyone have any comments or questions i have a comment okay um thank you the work on the calendar committee is arduous hard laborious and more complicated than

106you can ever believe i this is one of the binders i have kept because it's so complicated i have long fought that wording there in there to start as late in august as possible was because i pushed for that years ago when they started that um the parameters for them to work within i do have a comment the more times i i've spoken to many elementary teachers about this through the years and the more times you break up the um uh school week so you have three days here two days here and then you have four days and then you have four days and you finally get five days it's it's more disruptive for elementary from what teachers have told me than any other thing because their their normal flow of what they do every

107day is disrupted so that's always my concern but working with the calendar is very difficult i'm just throwing that out there thank you mr laney yeah just really quick since um this didn't line up with what our family wanted i might be sleeping on the couch tonight nothing is being officially approved tonight this is for okay just the read um mrs greenberg um kind of piggybacking on what mrs case said i i do like um in terms of where we were able to bring in that one week of fall break um most of these calendars lose more of that disruptive element of a day here a day there um and and i and i also want to thank the committee um it it's it's always been an interesting one um and um contentious i guess

108sometimes i don't know if that that um applies to this this year um but um i'm really glad that we had you know a good number of our community of our parents and our community remember our um stakeholder groups um weighing in and i'm glad that we're able to take that feedback and and work it into the calendars that that you are recommending it was a very harmonious group oh good and all of them commented i had no idea this was so difficult the calendar committee was the first committee district committee i ever sat on and it was not calm at all [Laughter] it was before we had the parameters it was before we had that policy and it was difficult um so i think that the policy the parameters that we put in there

109have helped a lot and made the committee less contentious and if i was a normal person i would have just turned and ran and never gone back and done anything in terms of district committees again but that's not who i am so here i am i thought it went well because of leadership i'm sure you did dr jairus um i i really liked seeing the survey results because what i in my head thought would have been the most popular was not the most popular so uh i it was really interesting and seeing that it came down with all the all the stakeholder groups were all it was it was fascinating read for me to see that and um it did feel a bit early to me in the year and i know that this is

110mrs case's every year we talk about this the beginning of the school year um but i did notice that it is close in alignment with our neighboring districts which i know for families is really helpful because sometimes if we are pushing back a week there's that week in between where all the camps in the valley end because everyone else is going back to school and there's no options for the pv families so um so i think it's nice that we're kind of in alignment there it's helpful for all that child care so thank you for all your work i know what a complete puzzle this must be to put together so thank you very much excuse me yes excuse casey susan yes thank you i'd raise my hand but you can't see it um i'd

111like to make one other comment the difficulty i have found through the years is trying to align it so and i'm glad we're unified to school district but we're trying to align it so families can be together in holidays in um summer break so there's time for enrichment activities in the summer that's why when you start too soon in august you cut off when the swimming pools are open etc um we just have to be mindful that our calendar affects society and our community a lot more than we think it does and um so we always have to look at those holiday breaks like i i would love to start later but then we would get out later and it's more important i've talked to so many students about this that the semester ends before

112the winter break and so um anyway and that aligns with colleges and having had children through elementary school through college all at the same time and you want those uh breaks to happen at the same time so calendars are hard i'm i want to thank the calendar committee again they're very difficult thank you next is items for discussion dr bales item eight i2 president mature governing board members tonight will provide you the work of the family student handbook committee and recommendations for the 22-23 school year mr long will present for first reading and discussion only tonight good evening president matura governing board members dr bells and cabinet tonight is the first reading for you to consider changes made to the family student handbook for the 2022-23 school year first i would like to thank our

113parents student handbook committee from our stakeholder groups for their hard work and input on the revised handbook and a huge thank you to dr von necton as the facilitator of this committee and all of his hard work while serving as student services director for secondary i would like to begin by reviewing the timeline and process for this annual revision in january 2022 input was sought from directors for changes due to statute policy or regulation in february the committee met twice during the first meeting the committee reviewed the handbook for understanding from an administrator parent and teacher perspective during the second meeting the committee reviewed and assessed recommended revisions from committee members in march a red line version of the handbook was provided to the committee for final review and agreement of recommended revisions for the

114second part of this reading i will review the summary of those revisions that were agreed upon we remove the parent definition from page two remove parent and replace with parent slash guardian throughout the document remove the pandemic information from page two we remove the guarantee from page three we updated the superintendent's letter from page four and added pv schools portrait of a graduate when approved um on page four and that was all due to the work that we uh surrounding the mission vision and our strategic plan we removed an added language for digital citizenship and digital etiquette on page 10. we added language for transgender procedures in regard to title ix on page 15. oops we removed an added language for our parent resources on page 17 we remove an added language for public concern

115on page 17. we removed an added language for teacher qualifications for title 1 schools on page 22. at a language for student discipline grades k through 4 on page 34. we updated the board member information and added language for governing board general information on page 39. we updated the front cover title page and re-titled the document if you recall last year we had some discussion around parent student handbook versus family student handbook and we made those changes for this school year we updated the table of contents and the pagination of upon governing board approval and i'll be happy to answer any questions at this time mrs bacon yeah i was looking at the parent resource section um i think that's page 7 17. [Music] um we we certainly have um a lot of resources for

116parents in our schools and so i'd like to see an addition or i'd like us to consider adding um our school counselors our school social workers the people who are in our buildings who provide that kind of support nurses so forth um i'd also like to see us have a more comprehensive directory of community services um that are out there um that work with students and work with families to support them in education so i think that we've got a lot of resources that we're kind of missing out on that that could give our parents some additional assistance as needed mr laney sure i have two things page 18 public concerns complaints about personal procedure uh you use the word uh complainant in that instead of parent slash guardians that seems inconsistent with the rest

117of the document what was the reasoning behind that i believe the reasoning behind that was complaintant wasn't just the parent it could be anyone yeah other than that so that's okay that's what i was wondering if that was why you included it and then the other item i have is on page 27 for off-campus misconduct let me get to it in the examples section it's it's inconsistent with uh ars 13-3111 section b and if you want me to go into details right now i can otherwise you can i mean you'll be able to go up and read that law and for sake of time i don't want to go into details but easy to see yeah mrs case do you have any questions or comments no i do not thank you okay um all right

118this was one of the committees that i had served on earlier um and yeah it is there's a lot that every year needs to be looked at just to be in alignment with uh changes that have been made to our board policies um so i noticed some of those changes so that's always good in there um and i did notice i'm gonna call out the the new cover i noticed that coloring technique going on there that we see in our website i forget what you call it sun setting or something they there's great good gradient gradient um so i did notice that that is being carried through so i appreciate that continuity thank you very much oh and mrs greenberg yeah i'm sorry um i i actually just wanted to echo what um mrs bacon

119had been talking about in terms of the parent resource section as i agree i think if we can expand upon that and sort of balance what we're talking about in terms of a resource and better perhaps to find that um you know up upc programming i think is excellent and that is a type of resource but i think some of the things mrs bacon was talking about go into a different um path on on resources so i think if we can can balance that or or better you know better underline what we're talking about i think would be great okay and we next have another item for discussion dr bales thank you president mature governor moore barber's cabinet and guest tonight will present the work committee work for additions to the advanced placement literature list

120with more than 100 books previously approved for 11th and 12th graders to read in ap classes and only a handful or so labeled sensitive tonight's list for discussion is in addition to the existing list we are a public school district with a diverse board and even more diverse community i appreciate the work of this committee to provide parents information about the literature in these ap classes and the choices available for their son or daughter to read in these advanced classes dr corson and his team will present for first reading and discussion only tonight good evening president mature governing board members dr bales cabinet and guests tonight is the first reading of the literature list recommendations for advanced placement our two facilitators of this committee jen young who was our secondary english language arts curriculum facilitator

121and jenny jarris assistant principal of paradise valley high school are here this evening to present you the committee's process and recommendations and answer your questions good evening tonight we are here on behalf of the committee to recommend titles to be added to the district literature list for advanced placement courses these are college-level courses that are taught in 11th and 12th grades the majority of the books are being recommended for the 12th grade ap literature course but there is one non-fiction book unbroken that is being recommended for the 11th grade ap language course ap language is a writing and rhetoric course therefore teachers typically focus on non-fiction works these novels are not to be taught by teachers of other courses as they are designated only for ap students however ap teachers may choose to teach novels

122from the current 11th or 12th grade literature lists additional titles may be added to the ap literature list over time by submitting them for review during each literature list update which occurs every two years our presentation will include our purpose background on advanced placement courses committee membership and timeline community feedback evaluation criteria our review process and curriculum recommendations the purpose of our presentation is to share with the governing board a first reading of the process and recommendations of the ap literature list committee since this list of titles is designated only for advanced placement courses the committee thought it was important to provide some background information about the ap literature and ap language and composition courses these are advanced college-level courses that are taken by choice in grades 11 and 12. ap students are expected to

123read a wide variety of literature in order to prepare for the free response question on the ap exam the college board does not publish a list of literature because they believe that students should be able to critically analyze a wide range of literary works although the college board does not provide a list of titles they reference specific titles on the ap exam there are lists available online of titles that have been referenced on the ap exam the only two titles that have not been referenced on the ap exam are unbroken and the curious incident of the dog in the night time all other titles being recommended tonight have been referenced on the exam many multiple times prior to this update ap teachers were allowed to teach novels that were not on the literature list in

124order to provide a wider array of literary choices for the ap exam in order to provide transparency and partner more effectively with parents this committee was tasked with reviewing ap teacher submissions and making recommendations of books to be added to the literature list for ap courses the members of the committee included facilitators advanced placement teachers administrators and parents from our high schools throughout the district we would like to thank the committee members for their dedication to the process they spent hours reading analyzing and reflecting on the novels in addition they completed rubrics and participated in robust discussion at every meeting we appreciate their investment in making recommendations that are best for our students and families our timeline teachers submitted titles in december and the committee was formed in january we met several times between january

125and march to discuss the novels that were being reviewed between meetings committee members completed the work necessary to prepare for each discussion the committee gathered feedback from the community by posting a google form on the website and allowing for public comment at two of our discussion meetings community members could submit their feedback through the form and they could also attend our meetings where they could speak and share their feedback with the committee under open meeting procedures that we created we received a variety of feedback forms with various stakeholders including students parents and teachers within those forms there were 16 positive comments that pointed out the literary value of several of the books and indicated that they would like to see the books added to our literature list there were 12 comments that pointed out sensitive

126content in the books and believed that they were not appropriate for all students five comments suggested that we mark specific books as sensitive and notify parents of the sensitive content the committee considered all community feedback including the public comment at two of our meetings we responded to community feedback by doing the following we assigned one to two more committee members to read and complete the rubric for each book that received conflicting feedback we discussed the book at length and considered community feedback and we reviewed community feedback again before voting on recommendations there was there were several criteria on the rubric which we used to evaluate each novel the following items were considered novel aligns with educational standards and curriculum the committee reviewed whether or not the novel has credible teaching resources available if it's aligned

127with standards if it has cross-curricular connections and if it's a pro an appropriate reading level for advanced students in a college level course represents high quality literature the committee reviewed whether or not the novel has thought-provoking and universal themes well-developed literary devices a well-respected author favorable reviews and an artistic style represents diverse literature the committee also reviewed whether or not the novel has an authentic voice diverse characters and perspectives unique experiences and would foster engagement for students appropriate subject matter for the grade level when the committee considered whether the subject matter was appropriate they looked first to ensure that the sensitive content was not gratuitous but aligned to the purpose of the novel for example in one of the novels profanity and violence are used in some scenes but it serves to provide an accurate

128representation of the soldiers and the time period and also develops the theme of the impact of war in addition the committee reviewed whether or not the main character provides an authentic voice the novel contains positive messages and the content whether sensitive or not is appropriate for the maturity level of the audience our process for adding titles to the literature list is comprehensive and thorough the title submission form was completed by teachers in december and 11 titles were submitted for consideration by the committee the committee discussed our process and rubric at the first meeting and we also assigned titles to be read and reviewed by each committee member before the next meeting at the next meeting the committee members color-coded each novel the color codes were based on the rubric and evaluation criteria that were previously

129shared as committee members recommended a color for each novel a code of green meant that the reader would recommend the title without further review a code of orange meant that the reader believes that the novel contains sensitive content that requires significant discussion if a book was coded orange we assigned two more readers a code of red meant that the reader does not recommend the book because the literary value does not outweigh the sensitive content at the conclusion of this meeting we assigned additional readers for titles that were recommended as orange novels that were coded orange were read and reviewed by at least four committee members we met twice in march to discuss the novels in depth review rubric scores and consider community feedback at our final meeting we reviewed all of the feedback for each

130title and the committee members placed their votes novels were recommended based on consensus or a super majority of 80 percent the following titles are being recommended for the ap literature list as green if a teacher chooses to teach one of these novels it will be listed on the syllabus for parental review at the beginning of the year although these titles are not marked as sensitive a parent still has the option to opt out of any required title including those that are green these titles include unbroken by lara hillenbrand all the light we cannot see by anthony doerr the sun also rises by ernest hemingway slaughterhouse five by kurt vonnegut the curious incident of the dog in the night time by mark hadden in addition there are four titles that are being recommended for the ap

131literature list as sensitive if a teacher chooses to teach one of these titles it will be listed on the syllabus at the beginning of the year and teachers will be required to notify parents of the sensitive content parents and students will have the option to opt out of the selection if they do not feel that the content is appropriate if a student opts out the teacher will provide an alternate title with equivalent literary objectives and there will be no penalty for this choice these titles include snow falling on cedars by david guterson in cold blood by truman capote one flew over the cuckoo's nest by ken keezy and the handmaid's tale by margaret atwood it is worth noting that there were two titles that were submitted by teachers for review that the committee does not

132recommend these are miss jane by brad watson and no country for old men by cormac mccarthy mccarthy the majority of the committee members felt that the literary value of these titles did not outweigh the sensitive content so they will not be recommended after significant review the committee recommends nine books to be added to the literature list this list will be designated for only advanced placement students in grades 11 and 12. at this time we'll take any questions you may have any any question mr laney well go ahead all right thanks so i appreciate all the work that the committee's done it takes a lot to go and read these books and then reread them and review them and put that together so i really appreciate that there's nothing like being in an unpaid position and

133making hard decisions so i get that um after reviewing this list it doesn't it doesn't seem consistent to me uh for instance slaughterhouse five in my opinion should be labeled sensitive and the way i kind of look at things when it comes to sensitive or not i don't look at it in the aspect of whether the kid can handle it or not or whether um you know it may be age-appropriate or not i just look at it whether it has sensitive material in it or not plain and simple so with this list i feel that slaughterhouse 5 if it's kept on the list should be labeled sensitive let's see a good way to tell if constant content is sensitive is if i were to read some of these books and some of the sensitive areas

134of the books in a live meeting like this they couldn't be posted on youtube um that's just an easy litmus test let's see next thing oh as far as reading books um mrs greenberg mrs greenberg and i have had discussions about this i personally probably read a book a week which is probably 52 more books a year than most kids in high school read anyway so before anybody jumps to conclusions about my comments on this list this is not about banning anything this is about giving kids choices and doing it in a way that doesn't put peer pressure on them for instance with the way the process is right now is if they're if there's a um if there's a book on the list that's sensitive right they have an opt-out for it and then

135they're giving another book a a an easier way to do this in my opinion that would take the pressure off the kid would be to offer two books to the whole class and say pick one of the two if we're going to suggest great works of writing in my opinion why not books by charles dickens mark twain jane austen george orwell if you really want to get a great discussion going 1984 would sure bring that out or even the scarlet letter uh scarlett letter was a book that i read as a kid i don't know if it's on the existing list or not as i don't know what's on the list are on the existing list awesome i mean yeah that that left an impression upon me um so i'm glad it's on the list

136can i get a copy of that where can i get a copy of that list you know forgive my newness to this it's in the weekly update oh i missed it all right it shows you how much i have to read okay i did give you a lot of homework i apologize yeah and i i failed no i'm joking let's see so here's here's the way i remember and look at the scarlet letter right it's it's written in a way that is thought provoking but doesn't it's not written uh with explicit content and it still gets the point across and and and it left such an impression on me that i remember it 35 years later human nature hasn't changed in millennia so why not focus on concepts and not the explicit ways of explaining

137them and so basically i would like instead of an opt-out when it comes to these on the list make a choice when the teacher presents it give them a choice and uh and and then the kids so they don't have to fill their peer pressure or be ostracized because maybe just one kid will choose the other book right or opt out give them a choice and on this list i would like if if these are going to be kept on there i i want slaughterhouse five to be labeled as sensitive because of what i've read in it so that's all i have to say for right now mrs case i can't see you but i uh are you do you have a comment or question yeah i'm trying to get my video there uh i

138can see me but i guess you can't so okay i do i was trying to show my faces i read a long comment here if i might um i don't know why my video's not working there is that going now okay thank you now okay thank you i don't really want you to see me but maybe that's more appropriate um so i have comments i wrote down um first i want to thank the committee for all their time and dedication to read and discuss and write their thoughts on the recommended ap literature list i also want to thank the concerned parents who attended the meetings and read the books and wrote their opinions to the committee for consideration this is a ton of work i know it is um i take my responsibility as a

139board member very seriously i am committed to doing what is best for our students we had an unfortunate incident last year where a book assignment was made without any sensitive material warning without any parental permission and without an alternative book choice for for half the summer guidelines have been put in place to not have this again to not have this occur again i appreciate all the thought and effort that went into this process dr bells is committed to having input from the community and from the committees all the processes are in place but when the finals list is to be approved or not approved the buck stops at the elected school board if there is a problem the board is held accountable it is our elected duty the public expects us to protect our students

140and their families from questionable material i take this responsibility very seriously we are receiving a recommendation tonight to add books to the already extensive approved book list suggested and spoken to knowledgeable english majors and to teachers in pv who i respect and love we have added books to the list to bring richness and diversity and updated titles beyond that i'm a parent to seven children who have gone through paradise valleys a pre ap summer reading program and books assigned during the school year i am not new to this program the purpose of the ap program is to challenge and educate these students in their preparation for college and careers my family has been personally blessed by this often intense preparation i'm at my daughter's college graduation today and tomorrow as i speak she was well

141prepared but this list as it stands now as recommended to the board is unlike any books given to my children in the past lines have been crossed i have read the notes on most of the books written by the committee members their initial response was to label multiple books with sensitive material in their initial response they did then a second member would read the book sometimes a third five books were put on the green list these could be assigned to students and then discuss in class without parental permission i have one book on the green list which i have serious concerns with it is slaughterhouse five in the committee's own words there is um and this is i was taking care of all of this so i can't quote it exactly there were uh concerns

142on the list there were sensitive material they acknowledged it and there were some things in common sense media which they talked about but the parents comments uh said there were masturbation oral sex condoms there was talking about it marital infidelity and pornography so i i don't think to earth and getting together with a porn star and there's all kinds of problems with it it should have parental permission to read this book it should not be on the green list when i know books don't have to go along with the movie when the movie was made it was an r-rated movie and uh um i know i've been around a long time uh i understand i think since 1969 um but i i don't feel comfortable with this being on a green list at all um

143why should this book be placed on a green list without parental permission what is the objective with that um i also don't believe this book has enough literary value to be assigned the significant challenges of this explicit content does not outweigh the liabilities at the very least it should require parental permission i wonder what happens to students who choose an alt do they miss out on lively educational class discussion that's a real concern of mine if we're having books where part of the class uh reads a book and part doesn't uh years ago i had a book concern and i went and my child could read a different book anyway it's complicated but i just think i i'm concerned with students being ostracized by their choices and the peer pressure is great during that time

144i just have concern with that so my second biggest concern is a handmaid's tale i believe this book should not be on any recommended list at all even the one with sensitive content um i i was able to get into the committee's list that came from committee members and this is some of the comments they had on those the book contained significant suicide ideation public execution rape beatings sexual encounters and adultery some limited profanity and references to pornography that is from the committee's own notes that if you really did dig deep into the committee you can see those and then one of the things another thing that was said here the thoughts in um that they talked about it talks about suicide basically these women are treated as sex slaves and it talks about suicide

145and i'm trying to all frequencies society or the ways the handmaids could commit suicide to get them out of their horrible circumstances um being raped or uh choosing to die and that is a definition of um of a rape uh anyway i'm not going to go into all the details that i have i believe that this is not an appropriate book to be assigned and be on any reading list that this district stands behind um so parents listed this book uh as having some of them said that it mocks christianity because it has a uh it takes bible quotes and takes them out of content and i i just i don't know um so i have a question what message does this book send to teenage girls about women and for that matter to teenage

146boys so i i just don't think this is it should be on any list that pv's name is behind and that i as a board member am responsible for um it is my recommendation that this book be taken off the list completely and not be able to be assigned to our students as i've stated before this record this is a recommendation to the board we are the deciding body elected by the people to safeguard our children and provide them with a quality education this is not book banning this is our job thank you mrs case um mrs bacon did you have a comment yeah yes i do um [Music] first i do want to thank the committee i know it was a it was a tough one um and i appreciate all the work that

147went into it um i i'm sure it was especially difficult for you as leaders of the committee so thank you for the work that that you've done i think it is the choice of parents what books should be read by their children 100 i don't i don't want to tell a parent what their child can read that is i'm not interested in doing that um i have thought long and hard about this i just wonder why we don't just list every book and send a letter permission home for every book um that that is going into this ap class it is a college level class um that doesn't mean that we have to have college level material in terms of um some of the things that have been pointed out but i i do wonder

148if we should just send a letter home for for every book that a teacher is going to teach about in an ap class that may be kind of a higher um more sophisticated content i guess is is the word um the other thing is i i i do like the idea of two books being offered um so i think there is consideration on both sides of that there will be there may be children who are ostracized because they're not reading the assigned book and there also may be children ostracized for reading the assigned book so i want to make sure that we understand that that goes both ways that's not necessarily um only the kids who who aren't reading the assigned book are going to be ostracized um and we need to that doesn't need

149to happen at all it shouldn't happen ever um that's not what education is about it's about learning new things so um so those are my initial thoughts i am glad and i thank um both mr laney and mrs case for for their comments and sharing their concerns about things the one thing that that i am glad about is that we're not voting on this for a little bit so that we can kind of go back and absorb this you know take a really good look at it because i think it is worthy of significant thought and introspection so um i appreciate that we have a little bit more time than two weeks from now mrs greenberg um i um i agree with pretty much most of what mrs bacon just said um i do believe

150that we are charged as a district to prepare our students and i think when we are talking about students in particularly a 12th grade ap lit class i think we can pretty much assume most of these kids are going to college not all necessarily but i think it's it's an assumption we can make and it is our job to prepare them for that we constantly talking about being college and career ready and at least two of the books on this list i read in high school and um when we look at themes and we look at some of the concerns that have been expressed i'm a little surprised nobody's bringing up the sun also rises in some of the content in that book quite honestly so i think we can find sensitive material in many

151places and um i so i i i want to thank the committee as mrs bacon did it was not it's it's a lot um to to consider and to look at it through the lens of 2022 versus when i was in school which was a while ago um [Music] and that's part of what we're dealing with that's part you know maybe that's why sun also rises isn't considered sensitive anymore maybe we've been desensitized to some of the themes of the sun also rises but i think we do have to realize that we have to prepare our kids and i appreciate the discussion of which of these books have appeared have been referenced by ap so we know that they have appeared on the test and i i think the the the point we have to

152always keep in mind is and i know that you have said it is that no matter whether a book is considered sensitive or not a parent can i can say i do not want my student reading this book parent guardian can do that that is absolutely the epitome of parental choice and we support it and [Music] i have to assume that that's what we've been doing for a long time and that our teachers are prepared if a parent does not want a student to read a particular book that they are prepared with an alternative whether it's we move forward and we always offer an alternative i think that's a discussion to be had and how that would be handled i think that can perhaps provide um you know a path but it's not a path

153without a lot of additional work um but i think we also have to provide our teachers with a very robust list and simply putting on this list does not mean that a teacher is going to choose it and i think that's something else we have to keep in mind it's a possibility but it does not necessarily mean it's going to happen but there's a reason there's a reason teachers ask for these books to be reviewed and there's a reason that the committee felt that these books could um should appear on our list so i again appreciate the work of the committee thank you and i also um i was interested when you pointed out that no matter what level a book is rated that there is always the opportunity for a parent to say to

154a teacher to offer a different a different option and i think that is so important and thank you mrs greenberg for pointing that out too that that is no matter what no matter where it is on the list that that is always an option for our parents um had some specific questions that so um just to remind me the unbroken is the only one that's on here for the 11th grade ap class and then all the rest are strictly for 12th grade is that correct that's correct okay and summer reading assignments will come from either this list or from the other 12th grade or 11th grade list depending on the choice and will those be green options that are given over the summer or is there differentiated between summer book versus for the for the

155summer books um teachers are only allowed to put a sensitive title on there if they are providing a list of choices so they would have to be providing other choices if they include a sensitive book on their summer list um otherwise you know they could include a book that's on the on the list is green okay and if it were a summer list book were sensitive material they would have that same form that would go home then with the summer reading yeah they're required to notify parents of the sensitive content and um you know give them that alternative uh title okay thank you um i was interested and you did point this out but i wanted to just remind uh that every two years this list is um looked at adding and um adding additional

156materials so i think that's great because being able to keep up with new literature and keeping up with the ap tests and i did also likely showed which ones have been on uh recent or prior ap tests um so knowing what literature uh they're pulling from is helpful and helps prepare our students for that um and this list again this is for the aep classes only so other honors english or dual enrollment english they are they go with the other um list the approved list correct ap teachers can teach off of the already established list and then in addition um you know whatever is approved on this list but it doesn't go the other way around so other other teachers are not able to teach titles that are specifically designated for ap okay and i

157also wanted to remind um everyone that this this is a whole new process for our ap teachers because up until this list the list was unlimited for the ap um class correct and so there was no designation there was no criteria set there was no um uh literature team that was looking into these these books so this is i mean we've narrowed it down from unlimited to this list of of nine books so a lot of work went into um looking through these uh titles and discussion and um and over time i'm sure titles will be added with the same process so i appreciate the process being started and that this was something that was needed for our district and i'm i'm really glad we were able to get on that and get that moving

158and put it in motion and have this list with us here today um because that took a lot of undertaking to get from where we were to where we are today in that amount of time um but it is a it is a big shift from unlimited to to now having this approved list um and it does seem we had a lot of comments up here about looking at perhaps uh many in addition to being on the syllabus that um so a syllabus is prepared each year um for the ap literature class and goes out to the students and to the parents and do the parents sign off on the syllabus is that something that comes back to the teacher so all teachers um and not just ap teachers but all teachers are required to

159list their any novels that they're going to be teaching um throughout the year on their syllabus or in the younger grade levels it might be like a newsletter or something like that rather than a syllabus um i can't we don't have a specific policy about parents signing the syllabus i know that i mean i always did and i think most teachers do get a signature on the syllabus but i can't speak for everybody so so i wonder if that may be a place where some of the content information is opposed to every single time a title goes out if it's listed on the syllabus and all that information is provided up front and if the parent is signing off on the syllabus then there would be a place for them to maybe make a notation

160uh at that time and then it wouldn't be additional uh following up on paperwork throughout the year would be all it could be all contained at the at the beginning of the year so that may be a way to give parental involvement from the very beginning without adding additional steps throughout the year just a suggestion but it seemed like there was um from the board interest in uh getting more parental feedback um for all the books mr laney yeah and what you just said is exactly what i said at the beginning of the the meeting with my board comments on the more transparency and so by the ap doing this it's awesome it's a move in the right direction so and i'm glad i'm broken it's going to be on there it's a great book

161okay do you uh dr bales do you believe you have enough feedback from the board at this point do we get you knew enough to think about excuse me i had another comment go ahead okay mrs case thank you very much i have a question to um the presenters um how do you have a class discussion if half the class read one book in the other class or 20 of the class read one book or two percent what read one book or five percent how do you have a class discuss question then i just i don't understand how you physically do this i mean i guess for summer reading you could have them write things but a lot of what literature is is discussing it and going through and guiding the discussion i don't understand

162how you do that um i mean i think that uh you know if a teacher were all offering multiple choices um or even two choices they would have to facilitate um smaller group discussions you know and provide maybe questions um for the students to be able to answer and then they would be in their smaller groups and the teacher would kind of visit each group um but you know it definitely presents challenges with facilitating a whole group discussion if they're reading different books so um it would just be um you know the way the teacher designed it but i mean it seems to be not a teacher but it seems to me that there are themes in a lot of these books that that you could talk about thematic parts of the book and have

163students discussing that um in a full class discussion so that there's um you know information shared um it's i i mean i think you know you have um kind of those socratic seminars that happen you know where you're getting groups together and working on um you know analyzing books i think it's doable is it a lot more work yes it is um and and i feel for the teachers in terms of that that much more work but we do have to be responsive to the community um so this is a kind of balancing act that i think i think it can be done but it's gonna be a lot of work aren't so this is happening now i mean this is not simply because we have a list that now has sent we have a

164list that has sensitive books this is happening now this wouldn't be new simply by adding these books so you know perhaps i mean i think what mrs bacon just brought up i'm sure is some of the what's happening but perhaps for second read you can go back to you know some of our ap teachers and go okay how are you handling this now and and maybe we can get that that feedback and information well and i'm just going to mention elementary teachers do this all the time because not all their kids are reading at the same level so there's lots of discussion going on in small groups and pulling groups together to read different books so this happens throughout the spectrum of our schools and grade levels and i would also expect um and maybe

165it's an inappropriate expectation but that if a teacher provides a syllabus and provides a list and there is a book that 98 of the class will is not going to read has been opted out i'm going to assume that teacher is going to withdraw that as an option so i think it is it goes back to the parental choice within the classroom and i think we need to respect that dr corsica and uh yeah go ahead and miss this case i have another comment and you brought up the point about the sun also rises um the sexual uh content is are done differently by hemingway and the teacher who read that book made comments uh from the committee the teacher who read it said hemingway left it at the bedroom door now they have other

166things going on in in um the sun also rises there's alcoholism and everything else but and other problems but i'm just that is how hemingway handled it where these other books that have been on this list are more explicit and there's some graphic sex scenes that uh i i have some concerns and parents need to be well aware of what they're giving permission to and it needs to have diverse opinion on what they're giving permission to and not just a simplified version thank you and mrs case i understand that but at the point i was trying to make is different people will find different issues with different books and that's the reality of it so just to summarize president mature governing board members cabinet and guests dr carson and i have sure been taking notes

167and i think some of the themes that i've heard from multiple people here at the board level is the idea of offering two choices the idea that there continues to be parent choice that there's potentially a syllabus up front with a signature and there's an interest in maybe finding out how we're handling it right now in terms of delivering more than one instructional piece of literature in the classroom those are the themes i heard that i sense there's some one-offs that you know were mentioned by but i didn't didn't sense themes so that's my summary if there's any more you want to add at this time i'd be happy to listen with that we thank our presenters tonight dr course and your team thank you so much we'll be back and just for the sake

168of our online audience as well this the second reading will not be presented at the may 5th board meeting it will be presented at the may 19th board meeting so we have some time to reconsider and digest all the conversation tonight thank you uh before we adjourn i would like to remind you that our next regular board meeting will be held on thursday may 5th to uh at 7 00 pm may i have a motion to adjourn so moved all those in favor say aye aye motion passes unanimously thank you very much