March 10, 2022 Governing Board Regular Meeting

001here thank you very much to our palomino strings tonight thank you so much for being here do we have some proud families out there in the audience this evening if you want to stand up we can recognize you [Applause] all right are we ready okay all right it is seven o'clock and i would like to call this meeting to order i'd like to uh invite our palomino intermediate string students to lead us in the pledge of allegiance immediately following we will be having a moment of silence this evening in order to honor the memories of stephanie snyder cactus view administrative assistant additionally also a mountain mountain trail middle schooler seventh grader so thank you thank you may i have roll call please mrs greenberg here mrs bacon here mr laney here mrs matura here mrs

002case here 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 review and consider all items prior to the agenda being adopted members of the governing border audience may ask that an item be removed from the consent agenda and brought to the floor for discussion at the appropriate place on the agenda i would like to offer the agenda as posted does any member of the governing board which wish to have an item removed from the consent agenda does any member of the

003audience wish to have an item removed from the consent agenda seeing none ms greenberg may have a motion to approve the meeting agenda and recommended consent agenda items g1 through g18 so moved all those in favor say aye the opposed motion passes unanimously next on the agenda is governing board statements uh mrs bacon all right thank you um still trying to log into my word docs account um i the sights and sounds of pv schools this weekend was spectacular once again um our students are so so talented in so many different ways and um i i was getting ready to go and my husband said where are you going and i said i'm going to the sights and sounds of pb schools and he said well hang on i'm coming with you because he loves

004that event so much so um we made it a family affair on saturday and and we're there so thanks to everyone because that takes a small army to put together all of our fine arts teachers in every different area music art ceramics performance all of those things and mrs minnick if she's still here i don't she's up there so but thank you to all of those people who um did so much to create such an amazing event the other thing i wanted to see i don't know if you saw in the news but our prom dress boutique brought to you by pbea was amazing and and is an annual event that i think is so supportive of the students in our community and i really am grateful for the teachers and the staff that work

005overtime uh to put that on and help students get ready uh for the prom so that's all i have miss case i generally make short statements tonight's a little bit longer a lot longer my personal history in the district goes back to 1984 when my oldest child started in this district yes i'm old i have a purpose in explaining some history in this history decisions about curriculum ebbs and flows sometimes curriculum is determined by district personnel sometimes it is a publisher's choice sometimes it is both in the 1990s i was asked by united parent council also known as upc to debate the curriculum director about the purposeful loss of phonics in our elementary schools and the loss of kenner at the kindergarten reading program which was phonics based this was a curriculum's director's personal choice

006to change he was following the national swing against phonics to whole language i'm personally very biased toward phonics my point here is to illustrate that upc what was used as a vehicle to let parents concerns be heard and dialogue with the district those concerns the national pendulum swung back and research showed that phonics was important and necessary in teaching children to read so the district has endeavored to have phonics in their reading programs in a variety of programs through the years since then i have attended upc meetings for years and have learned so much upc has always been informative and inclusive of all parents all opin all opinions were welcomed superintendents at these meetings were asked hard questions by a variety of parents no filters upc has been asked through the years to have parent

007volunteers on curriculum committees principal selections strategic planning and so many other areas this has been invaluable along came covid upc meetings were online this changed the dynamics the clipboard for the committee sign up could not be passed to the attendees soon upc will go back to in-person meetings this is a good thing i am hoping that the dynamics change that any parent can be on a committee regardless if they are a upc rep or not that all parent groups will be represented to make this district strong all parents voices should be heard and respected for this district to prosper we need all parents and their students to feel respected and valued also we need a variety of parents to be on committees and not have the same parents so often in past upc history it

008was even difficult to find the allotted number of parents to fill a committee assignment i hope the newly engaged parents will stay engaged and will help make our district the best it can be along these lines i hope that the teacher association invites all teachers to be on district committees whether or not they are association members the district needs to include all voices i would also like to address a second topic tonight which i feel is related to my previous remarks recently we have adopted some curriculum our k-8 social studies books were very old and worn out and many were missing the arizona department of education changed their scope and sequence for k-8 this also necessitated a new curriculum third and fourth grade topics were switched and seventh and eighth grade standards were vastly changed

009we as a public school had to buy new books and materials we by law have to follow the curriculum that the state mandates in arizona school districts can purchase whatever publisher we want as long as it covers the mandated topics in other states such as texas the state adopts the books for the entire state dr corson spent years developing the guaranteed viable curriculum gvc also known as curriculum maps for the district this was done to align our curriculum to arizona state standards finding publishers who align their materials to arizona standards was challenging this limited our choices in publishers we adopted the k-8 social studies for three years and not for a normal lengthier time the three-year adoption will allow our district to re revisit this curriculum and see if there is a better if there

010is better material published in two more years what is published in these materials is the choice of the publishers then they sometimes publish material that i disagree with at the time of the adoption for k-8 social studies i wanted different materials and voted against the adoption i believe that we needed to have better materials and felt that we should have core knowledge curriculum at more of our schools and not adopt the current curriculum i feel that core knowledge program is rich in its presentation and engaging to students to do this type of change in our district it would take a lot of change in thought and extra funding for training for teachers and may i say courage so i wanted parents and teachers and the administration to consider this choice for our future it will

011take time and thought from a variety of parents teachers and administrators and much courage thank you mr laney thank you i would like to thank the uh the six candidates that we have for these positions for stepping up it's uh it's a brave thing to do and so i appreciate your willingness to do that as you know i'm pretty new at this and so i understand um stepping up to do something like this especially when sometimes you have no idea what you're getting into so but tonight i want to make a few comments because i didn't understand the full process coming to this i know a lot of people may not understand the process so in my hand right here i have ars 15-341 which governs what the board can do and in there item

012number 41 it says adopt in public meeting and implement policies for principal evaluations okay one of the things that we do as a board is we oversee the hiring of a superintendent and i also have the superintendent's contract right here and i'd like to read something from it this is something that we have done as a board it says sorry the superintendent shall have charge of the administration of the schools under the direction of the governing board he shall be the chief executive officer of the of the board and in accordance with district policy shall direct and assign teachers and other employees of the schools under his supervision shall assign organize reorganize and arrange the administrative and supervisory staff subject to the approval of the governing board so that that explains why he is in

013charge of picking people and we are here to vote on those people the other thing that i want to read is the actual process that uh the actual process that is used uh bullet number one which was added this year survey the community for characteristics they would like in the next principle advertise nationwide through multiple media platforms applications are screened by the assistant superintendents for hr and the respective level and the respective level either elementary or secondary selected candidates are sent to video or sent a video interview to respond next level candidates are interviewed by the superintendent assistant superintendents for curriculum and instruction hr and and respective level background check references and social media footprints screened by hr and just a side comment it was interesting when i went through my interview in the district

014they didn't have a social media footprint by me because i don't do social media and then next finalists selected for community interviews and these interviews are done by parents stakeholders administrative staff and then once that information is gathered the cabinet reviews community feedback and the entire selection process then the superintendent makes a recommendation to the board that's the over that's the overall process it's kind of extensive i had a a lively conversation with dr bells the other day and about this because i was i was concerned i i i really wanted to make sure that this that we're picking the right people for this and so um when i say lively it was lively it's fun and what what the what i get when i have a lively conversation with somebody is i know that

015they're passionate and i know that they've done their work so in that conversation we discussed what was happening and i know from that conversation that all of the candidates that are coming in today have been vetted screened and they know what they're getting into and know the tasks that they have ahead of them and that they're going to work on making this district as good as it can be and that is what i wanted to say tonight and i have i have confidence in that process thank you uh mrs greenberg yes i'd like to sort of shoot back to mrs bacon's comments and um the spectacular sights and sounds i hope everyone here did have the opportunity to to go um it was interesting having it at shadow but i thought it worked extraordinarily well

016and given the fact that the pv mall no longer exists um it's it's nice to know that we have um many options for for coming years but i do want to thank mrs minnick and all of our extraordinarily fine fine arts teachers all of our tremendously talented students it was just so much fun to see how many people i mean you know given the weather too is one of those um parking lots were full um you know auditoriums and gyms and everywhere that there was um art and site the sights and sounds were all full and just you know bravo it was as always um an amazing event and i'm glad we're able to bring it back in person once again um also since our last board meeting since it's been a month i do

017want to congratulate the um base space force jrotc unit at shadow mountain we have had an air force jrotc unit for many many many years well it has now been deactivated and the space force unit won the first 10 in the country is now officially in business and if you were at sights and sounds you probably walked by the building where the the new space force logo is it was it was very cool um that same day united parent counselor that same evening united parent council had its vendor showcase for the year and um i want to thank uh kia and everybody on the board it was a marvelous event and um i hope that we connected vendors with different uh parent groups and there were some amazing and i know dr bales there were

018going to be some discussions with you to do some things district-wide from some of the vendors uh it was a great event and um it's nice to be able to sit up here and talk about going to events in person again and i also just want to say in case we don't get a chance at the end happy spring break next week thank you i'm going to repeat a couple of things that i've already been said this this evening but um had uh a lot going on since the last meeting about a month ago uh one different thing that i did is i was able to go to i believe the title was stinky cheese man uh performance at the there was a play at explorer middle school uh over the last month and and

019i believe that was the title of the show but that was fun it was fun to see the kids up there and uh just really taking an active role and uh participating in their schools so that was that was great i also was at the jrotc program um and watched as they officially changed over and wow like i i knew what i was going to but i didn't realize until i was sitting there like the importance of it and and the feeling of it it really was a wow factor and uh and it made me i sat up a little straighter because all of the the jrotc program students were there and they were all in uniform and they sat very at attention and so i had to work on my posture a bit that

020day um also something i learned and i'm not sure that i knew this before so i wanted to share it with everyone was the knowledge that our jrotc program while it is housed at shadow mountain is available to all of our high school students across the district it's considered one of our cte programs so if there's any student who's at a different high school and wants to participate in the new air force jrotc program space force oh my goodness thank you then that is available to all of our high school students so i i i was excited to learn that i want to make sure everyone knows that um i also was at sights and sounds loved the location thought it was fantastic it really felt like a community event this year um and uh

021just seeing it felt very alive on that campus and i loved hearing everything everywhere i walked there was new sounds and um it was great getting back to the empty bowls project also i know we we continue to use our bowls up here um so seeing all those new additions this year um and uh that's it but thank you to uh to all of the staff who put that program together it was fantastic event and i look forward to seeing that again next year thank you very much next on the agenda is awards and recognitions dr bales thank you president batura it's always a pleasure to highlight students and staff for success or appreciation this evening mr droghi will mcr honors tonight hopes if i turn that on uh good evening president matura governing board

022members dr bales members of cabinet and attendees both in person and virtual tonight we have several student and employee recognitions to share with you our first recognition won the 2022 arizona inter-galactic interscholastic association division iii wrestling championship at 190 pounds he entered the season with an impressive 3 34-1 record coached by tyrone abercrombie please join me in congratulating luke isaac shadow mountain high school [Applause] our next recognition is the paradise valley high school varsity boys soccer team they were presented with the prestigious arizona interscholastic association sportsmanship award coached by brett bowman please join me in congratulating the paradise valley high school varsity boys soccer team mr drogy i just wanted to mention that that award is selected by the referees who vote on that correct mr dennis that's a really special award for sportsmanship as

023referees uh made that uh selection so kudos to them our next recognition is the paradise valley education support professional of the month pvsca president michelle cortwright will make the presentation president matura governing board dr bell's encampment it is with great pleasure that this month we recognize jenny birdy she is an i.t student information and state reporting specialist in technology and as many of you know technology people speak in a language that is kind of foreign to most of us um one of the things that i saw was we have a lot of letters for this person jenny had over 20 people nominate her which is a very large amount but there was a pattern i saw the same three words over and over again approachable patient dedicated and i want to read a couple of

024the things that people said she has developed a wide variety of training tools for new and ongoing employees as our programs and capabilities have evolved she is always on the cutting edge she keeps her i.t staff at all of our school front off peop office people informed and supported through emails training and one-on-one consultations she has infinite patient and even when we call her daily for advice she is patient with us she thinks outside of the box and she communicates clearly and succinctly and then there was the i.t people and i just love the way sometimes they speak um they say she understands and accept her roles and responsibilities with fierce determination album alcohol i can't even say it now algorithm rhythm i could say it earlier uh and she audits like grace um there

025are very few professionals in the state that deeply understand the nuisances that come with state reporting accountability and the integrity of data we are fortunate enough to have one right here in pv jenny is not only an asset to our district when it comes to student information she also assists neighboring districts as they rely heavily on her knowledge and expertise she represents us at the level at the arizona department of education at meetings there jenny is an asset to not just us but the state and so i would like to um have jenny stand up she is here tonight [Applause] and last this evening but certainly not least is the recipient of the paradise valley education association's recognition of professional standards award for teachers the honoree this evening will be introduced by miss suzy seep

026pvea president thank you president matura dr bales governing board and cabinet i am here to recognize mr ross dodson he's a behavior interventionist at road runner the road runner school and he is a behavior interventionist there was nominated by sonny john the psych often when i'm here nominate talking about props i'm here talking about a long time teacher or educator somewhere in the district mr dodson is new to us this year but he received um just a really glowing uh uh nomination and i have to say that i interrupted him in his classroom when a little friend had just been sent for a visit and um you could tell how comfortable and happy she was just walking through the door he provides so much amazing peace and comfort at road runner i really love this

027nomination mr dodson has been a wonderful addition to our campus this year he not only does his job well but he is quick to help others he wears many hats here at road runner mr dodson was hired as our interventionist which is a combination of teacher and counselor but he's also great at building positive relationships outside that setting students are eager to earn positive time with him and we did steal some positive time from this student it's easy to see why his demeanor is calm and kind he's also consistent and firm in his expectations his combination is a perfect fit in this position we're so fortunate to have hired mr dodson and i hope to be able to continue to work with him for years to come i'm so proud to have a colleague like

028mr dodson in the district i'm so proud we continue to be the kind of place that attracts the very best of the best and even though it's a little early in the evening i just want to say congratulations and thank you to all of our new principals this evening including folks that have been not just principal roles but other leadership roles i do want to point out that every single one of them has been a member of the paradise valley education association and that when you decide to join an organization like that you decide to empower your own voice get stronger together and the decision to be part of an organization means that you understand the most important parts of republican democracy i'm so proud of all of them tonight and i'm so excited for

029everyone in our district thank you [Applause] and that president matura concludes this evening's awards and recognitions thank you next on the agenda is call to the public we are about to convene call to the public which allows the public the opportunity to address the board although state law does not require that we hold 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 open due to arizona open meeting law the governing board cannot respond to discuss or take action on items brought up during this time however staff members may be directed to get

030back 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 noon today have been provided to each governing board member and to the superintendent's office in advance of tonight's meeting tonight we have 12 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

031to 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 you come to the podium our first speaker is jennifer ariza and next up will be walter uh coolett kuclik thank you hello my name is jennifer ariza um first i would like to say that it's really nice to see everybody's smiles and i would like to thank miss case for speaking about the social studies curriculum and also mr lacey for explaining to everybody how the principal process works because i think it helps if the board is transparent with the community and it helps us understand how everything operates so i stand here tonight

032as a concerned parent in the paradise valley school district and i just want to also let everybody know i do appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight i would like to say that in addition to the fact that pornography should not be allowed in our schools our schools should not be indoctrinating children on any gender or sexual ideology protecting the innocence of children and granting parents the authority to raise their children as they see fit with regard to sexual mores is baseline decency and yet this has become a controversial issue schools should not be overriding parental values there is a concerted effort going on to teach our children about gender ideology normalizing what parents would believe to be immoral schools do not need to be teaching kindergartners that boys can be girls and girls can be

033boys and we don't want to be teaching our third graders that all forms of sex are morally equivalent and that all lifestyle choices are exactly the same families are the most valuable and durable form of human connection that we have we don't want our schools to be turning our kids values against our family's values parents do not want their young children exposed to inappropriate content about sex and gender theory at school gender social transitioning should not be allowed in our schools that means that we should not be telling young children that they can choose if they want to be a boy or a girl and pretending like a little boy is a little girl or that a little girl is a little boy allowing them to use the opposite bathroom etc how many of us

034have studied human development for those that may not have i want to make sure that everyone knows that the human brain does not even come to full maturity until the age of 25 knowing that we should know that we should be protecting the innocence of our children and not be intentionally confusing children with gender ideology thank you [Applause] walter kuclik and after will be sandra christensen um thank you my name is walter kukilik i have four children that attend paradise valley unified school district my family is i come from a family of public school teachers and administrators i requested to meet with the governing board several weeks ago and they denied that request i wanted to talk about student safety mice i figured the best way to talk about this is to explain what happened

035to me and share with you what i wanted to share with you in person but you guys wanted to make this a public display i don't know why you couldn't meet with me so on january 24th of this year my son was almost killed at a paradise valley elementary school playing a pe game that was already told by this uh by doctors by nurses you guys paid to have concussion prevention and protocols created in 2016 and you guys weren't following them and instead of following those concussion protocols to prevent this near-death injury um you guys instead of following the procedures to prevent it or follow the right procedures upon this near-death accident i got a phone call from you guys at school to pick up my son and i i knew better than anyone else

036on that campus and there were this was from the nurse and the pe teachers who should be trained to know how to handle life-threatening her juries i got picked up with a traumatic brain injury where he almost died i had to drive him immediately to phoenix children's uh hospital where he went immediately to the emergency room and immediately into icu and then a next into emergency neurosurgery i received no communication from this district or from the school i received a couple text messages from a nurse and a phone call my son almost died as a result of negligence activities as a result of your educators your administrators and staff and then on top of that i find out several weeks later from my niece who also goes to that school that after this near-death accident

037or injury um that should have been banned by your concussion protocol that they're still playing it so then i call the school and the district and leave several messages and then magically this game is now all sudden banned and i asked for a meeting with your board about safety policies i walk into a uh i came i've worked with a number of different industries home building manufacturing uh energy there's if there's a near death or traumatic industry people investigate it you guys are going to bury it and ignore it i'd like to understand what the board does to investigate and prioritize student safety i've seen vision statements over the last four or five years not one of them focused on returning this children to this the parents in the same state that we drop them

038off in until you decide to next we have sandra christensen and after that will be eddie jackson your president matura dr bells and members of the governing board thank you for allowing me to speak on the topic of ap literature today i had the opportunity through open meeting law to attend district ap literature committee meetings before i get to my experience and discussions i want to request three items going forward my three asks would be to for teachers to post assignments ahead of time along with the summary of what the book is about preferably beginning at the at the beginning of the school year or at a minimum at the beginning of each quarter the summary work is being done by this excellent committee already and the ap literature committee just needs to provide that

039information to parents so they can decide on the books that my second ask is to follow for them to follow district policy and get parental permission on books with sensitive or explicit comments content and since they're doing the work ahead of time it should be relatively easy for them to have that information and then find an alternative book ahead of time instead of waiting till the last minute when somebody objects my ass number three as miss case so eloquently stated in the spirit of diversity and inclusion we should encourage new parents to be on committees that have never served before choosing parents that can provide different input than what has been given in the past we can still have the upc assigned parents but maybe have another process to pick parents outside of upc when

040we have different views that can be freely expressed we learn more than when we work with those that always think like we do contrary to what members of of media and social media are saying parents that i talked to are not for banning books we are for following district policy our students benefit greatly when parents and teachers educators come alongside each other to help students achieve high left levels of academic standards in the classroom in a letter that dr bells wrote back in november he stated that pv schools believes that it's important to balance preparing ap students for college-level academics and age-appropriate coursework i wholeheartedly agree with that statement the difficult part is defining what one considers age-appropriate coursework i read a book that was labeled green and i thought it was mature content so

041but the good news is the ap teachers have done an excellent job reviewing the literature and utilizing a rubric that incorporates educational value and identifies the explicit items i found that comments from teachers were thoughtful and engaging and i think they're doing a very good job listing those things so thank you okay eddie jackson and then we have kerwin franklin good evening eddie jackson i have two items i wanted to discuss number one at the last meeting a parent expressed concerns about the district approving two hundred thousand dollars for lobbyists no one on the board asked any questions and neither the board nor staff provided any clarification on how the money would be spent where is the transparency a later public records request indicated that the district was opposing bills that seek to hold school

042districts accountable in the same way that cities and counties are held accountable so staff put forward an agenda item to oppose accountability and offered no transparency on the matter now we know that there's a curriculum transparency bill coming forward right now and i'd like to have the transparency on are we using district taxpayer money to fight against transparency and parents we need to know that the second item the parents at wildfire were recently notified that we were losing our stem specialty class next year due to declining enrollment and others have reported the same thing as happening at their schools in the district yet the school has no plans to adjust the social emotional learning personnel that are assigned to every school in the district it's no wonder why many parents don't trust this district and

043have opted to pull their kids out the board voted for metrics that shut down our schools twice last school year and supported the mask mandate that just ended on february 28th so we'd like to hear what are your plans to keep our stem classes in our elementary schools we need a sustainable plan to keep stem specialization in our schools thank you kerwin franklin will be julie blumenreich hi my name is kerwin franklin um i'm the mom of five boys i went to pv schools i went to arrowhead my mom was a teacher for over 30 years um i was really grateful to attend the study session this week and learn more about what's going on in the district it's difficult for us working parents to get there and we're kind of taking turns and sharing

044information so we can keep abreast of what's going on um i think that information should be easily accessible um i was glad the transparency word was used in the meeting as it's my experience that things aren't that transparent one of the administrators mentioned public records requests are taking 20 hours per week my question is why is that the case if we're being transparent has anyone ever analyzed the data what is being requested surely that would show the areas that we need more transparency if one parent has a question it's likely other parents have the same question i myself am trying to get access to the legislative bills the pv is lobbying just like eddie mentioned i was able to get a list of two hot bills after the last meeting i was then told to

045contact upc who has a legislative committee on their website but they told me they don't have any list of bills nor any meeting notes and i need to go back to dr bales i then asked a board member who was kind enough to send me a more detailed list today that took me a month and i have a full-time job most people would have given up or taken the first email at face value i also previously sent an email requesting the budget for math curriculum was and i was not able to get that information these should be easy requests to close out without ever needing a public records request the last point i'd like to make is i'm disheartened when i review the legislative bills pv is using our tax dollars to lobby against every

046single bill was republican and the district opposed all but one the only one that was giving the district more money however when it comes to school choice or accountability for teachers following state statutes with our parental rights pv opposes it i thought education is nonpartisan i'm not surprised pb would lobby against school choice bills since our district was one of the hardest hit with losing 600 kids last year had pv not made the choices they had we would be in a very different situation those kids have gone elsewhere and have no reason to come back their parents are even willing to incur the inconvenience of transporting them to and from school in another district my request today is that our pv board seek out input from a diverse group of parents truly representing our base

047and be more inclusive on your committees stop playing politics with our kids education and focus on academics focus on strategy to bring the kids back to pv rather than wasting money on fighting legislation that helps them leave pv could use that lobbying money to keep the stem teacher at wildfire and build long lasting relationships with families pv should be investing in academics would drive which would drive the families back here to the district thank you after julie blumenrike will be megan starr good evening president matura governing board dr bales cabinet and guests my name is julie blumenrich i'm here tonight to speak to the wildfire community and on behalf of the wildfire community i have been a wildfire parent for the last 14 almost 15 years and i say almost 15 because there was a

048time that wildfire was so popular and crowded that there was a waitlist of 75 kids for the pre-kindergarten and we did not get in but we uh did find a spot at another pv school so that was great um but i do remember a time there were seven kindergarten sections at wildfire a time when we were so large we bumped the sixth grade over to explore the band room and the staff room had to be converted to classrooms but in 15 years we have definitely seen some change especially the need for new schools wildfire has support and survived the opening a fireside and we support it and we will survive the opening of sky crossing less than two weeks ago we did learn that we will be losing stem as a specialty school and also

049one of the favorite and most beloved teachers in our school and in that short time our community has made phone calls wrote emails had meetings researched existing and new grants and other funding sources asked about going to a part-time stem teacher combining other specials and bringing in a pto sponsored program students hung posters around the school and tried planning fundraisers on their own to try to save the program pv schools has a vision i share in that vision i also want all of our students to be taught the skills to be the leaders of tomorrow so they can realize their dreams in an ever-changing world when i hear the word skills in relation to the words leaders tomorrow an ever-changing world i can't help but think that that would have to include technology skills i

050cannot speak for the school administration but i am hopeful that there will continue to be strong stem curriculum next year taught at every grade level and that we will soon have a full-time stem special again i cannot speak for the wildfire pto but i'm hopeful that the pto will find a way to sponsor additional stem instruction or resources at wildfire if it comes to that i want wildfire families to be hopeful too i ask administration and the governing board to provide us with leadership and a plan and something concrete to be hopeful about i also want to take just a few seconds to recognize and thank our stem teacher mr justin price he has been a teacher a mentor an ally and a friend and i know this will not be the last time his

051contributions will be recognized in this room thank you after megan starr will be michelle lovett good evening governing board and cabinet my name is megan starr i am the science fair chair at sonoran sky elementary a volunteer position i've held happily for the last seven years i just wanted to say thank you to the district for your strong support for our stem programs and for the first ever elementary school district science fair that wrapped up this past week mr phil howard dell chaired that organized it and coordinated it and at times i am sure he would have thought herding cats was easier than getting the elementary students to present virtual science fair projects nonetheless for the first time ever the district had over 60 projects with near to 100 students on topics ranging from behavioral

052sciences to chemistry geology and planetary sciences their projects were amazing and now some of them thanks to mr howard dell to the teachers that supported them and to our volunteer judges will be going on to represent the district at arizona science and engineering fair on march 28th so i hope that we'll all cross our fingers and see how well they do our middle school students and our high school students have a long tradition of doing very well at this competition and i think our elementary students will as well so a huge thank you to those schools that participated uh desert shadows elementary gray hawk elementary scribe sky sky crossing and sonoran sky elementary and thank you again for your support of the program and next year i hope that we go back to the old-fashioned

053trifolds filling up in elementary cafeteria and we can all walk around and see them because really these kids are amazing at the science that they are able to do so thank you after michelle lovett will be wendy mahler good evening everyone my name is michelle lovett i'm a teacher at indian ben elementary school and have been with the district for 11 years i have a daughter who graduated from pv high school three years ago and his son who is about to graduate from pv high school this year i'm here tonight to share my story with you i cannot sit back any longer pretend everything is okay i think it's important to put a face to the stories that are impacting many teachers today in our country state and district who are struggling to survive on

054a teacher's salary which is no longer a livable wage this is my story i guess you're going to have to get a real job it's something that has played over and over in my head for the last three years this is what was told to me when i was getting my divorce what i didn't know was that my ex-husband might have been right the last three years i've done everything i was supposed to do i've saved money i work after school as the coordinator for the after-school program at my school i even work summer school last year i even started giving plasma twice a week for extra money even with everything i've done i've become very close to being homeless which i never thought would happen to me as a teacher just like all the

055stories you have heard or read about regarding the housing market i'm here to tell you they're all true my landlord told me on a friday that he was going to raise my rent by two hundred dollars and to let him know by tuesday what i was going to do you can't imagine my fear how was i going to come up with an extra 200 a month with a rising cost of gas and food when my paycheck was not increasing where was i going to go because i couldn't afford the rent increase i originally planned on buying a home this year unfortunately with the rising prices of houses that's almost impossible i work at a title one school and i can't even buy a home in my school boundaries luckily i was able to negotiate with

056my landlord a price increase of only a hundred dollars but he made it perfectly clear he would not be doing that next year i can't even begin to explain to you what i went through two weeks ago when i truly didn't know where i was gonna go or what i was gonna do with my two children that live with me full time my rent each month is a little over eighteen hundred dollars my paycheck every two weeks is around thirteen hundred dollars so now i'm left with only a few choices look for a third job to work on the weekends quit teaching to find a different job with a livable wage or move back to maryland where i first started teaching many years ago one teacher that i started teaching with in maryland who has

057a master's degree just like i do makes 96 000 here in arizona my contract base salary is only 53 000 i used to say i stayed in arizona because the cost of living was less but i might not have a choice in a few years and have to go back to maryland this is not a livable wage i can honestly say i love teaching and i would be devastated if i had to leave teachers deserve to have a livable wage they should be able to afford rent and be able to purchase a home we have to do better after wendy mahler is going to be kia karata hello my name is wendy mahler good evening i wanted to say that i'm grateful for the opportunity that to be able to watch the ap committee process

058especially through open meeting and the opportunity to be able to speak to that group i want to give a heartfelt thank you to the ap literature committee for all the thoughtful work that they're doing um they have a passion for literature and they bring this passion to this group and it is evident by the conversation that's going on and their passion for reading and literature and the students and the rubric that they have created is absolutely outstanding it should be a gold star standard going forward from here to perpetuity i have two recommendations for this committee any sensitive issues as noted by the committee on the rubric that they created under appropriate content such as language violence sex drugs etc should be an automatic required parental consent and with that with that they should also

059explain to the parents why it is controversial since they've already done the work and have it on the rubric just explain that to the parents this will protect all stakeholders it will protect the district the teachers and the kids and it puts the onus on the parents and maintains parental rights number two if a book is sensitive and given as an assignment then a non-sensitive non-sensitive book should be given an option at the very same time this way the children can choose either book without feeling peer pressure to opt out for example this year i wanted to opt out my son from one of the books that he will be assigned this year and he does not want me to opt him out because he feels that he will be treated differently than his classmates

060or just be different from his classmates and rightly or wrongly he thinks that he'll be learning a different modality than from his teacher than um if he chooses that or if i choose to opt out for him so taking the peer pressure out of reading assignments by offering two options at the same time and by requiring any sensitive material be given parental consent for x protects all stakeholders i would like to again thank the ap literature committee for their passion for books teaching and thoughtful considerations on the topics thank you after kia corrado will be dina chulu good evening president matura governing board dr bails and cabinet my name is kia carrada and i am the upc president this year spring is always a very busy time for upc this is our opportunity to celebrate

061all of the wonderful things that have happened this year by celebrating our teachers our staff members and the volunteers that serve our district um we would like to thank everyone that attended the school vendor showcase as some of you mentioned it was wonderful to see your faces there and support the parent groups in the district school vendor showcase is a long tradition for upc it's an opportunity for us to support our parent group leaders by connecting them with vendors that will be able to support them at their school sites with things like fundraisers spirit wear yearbooks restaurant nights at local restaurants it's just a lot of fun and it's a great opportunity for parent group leaders from around the district to meet each other and collaborate and form those relationships a big thank you to

062our school vendor showcase chair hera dembowski she did an amazing job um she is our mountain trail one of our mountain trails middle school upc reps this year and she's also the upc treasurer um i would also like to point out the amazing work that our upc outreach committee is doing they're a fairly new committee for us um but they are always busy supporting our students teachers and staff in pv outreach has already done two events this year with our transportation department as you're all aware it's been very challenging to get bus drivers so we really want to show our current bus drivers some love and they don't have a very glamorous job so we want to say thank you for all they do to get our kids to and from school safely every day

063and that we appreciate them um so thank you to outreach for that and they had a new idea now they're doing a para educator day because our para educators need some love too so they are currently working with a few art teachers from around the district to make a special surprise for our paras and we are going to be celebrating them on april 6th if you would like to reach out and find out how you can support the pairs at your school you can send an email to outreach at pvupc and our amazing outreach volunteers will get in touch with you and let you know what we're going to be working on and how you can help support us um and i do want to shout out to the paras themselves because they are amazing

064and they do so much for our kids every day and our schools couldn't function without them and we need more if you're interested you know somebody you think has a lot of love in their heart and can really help our students with their education and support our classrooms please go to pvschools.net backslash jobs because they're all posted there even positions for next year there's a great opportunity to support public education thank you [Applause] okay we have dina chulu and then melissa schwartz will be our final speaker being president matura governing board dr bales and cabinet my name is dina chalu i'm a parent of three elementary age girls in pbsd and i'm a former student myself i found out a little less than two weeks ago that our school stem program was cut along with

065others due to declining enrollment i was told by administration and staff that we were required to keep our other three specials music art and pe and so there was no choice but to cut stem i wondered why music art and pe were required i asked many a district and i couldn't get a clear answer i was told over and over that it was made a requirement but no one could explain to me um why or by whom yesterday i was told by district leadership that pbusd has a long-standing commitment to music art and pe i asked where i could find the information on the website and i was told i wouldn't find on the website it was probably on a governing board minutes from a meeting sometime in the past others may have been told

066that the requirement was made in our most recent mmo ballot language or the bonds um i have copies here it's not i understand that tough cuts need to be made i understand that we have a declining enrollment and a budget that keeps decreasing but i believe that stem as an allocation is important studies shown that that is the case stem-related occupations are outpacing non-stem-related employment growth and jobs that involve stem field on average pays double the salary of non-stem related jobs knowing this are we making the decision to cut stem because it's in the best interest of our children and their future or is it because it's easier for us as adults i think we are doing our students a grave disservice by cutting stem studies show that when it's taught by their regular teachers

067even with excellent professional development a lack of stem subject matter expertise and experiences coupled with anxiety and low self-efficacy led to low teacher effectiveness and more importantly a lack of interest in stem subjects by k-5 students i urge our district to revisit our commitment to pe art and music above all let's make these decisions together one that's based on data and science our district has historically prided itself on a shared decision-making process and is valued in pip from school councils unfortunately this no longer feels like the case the decisions that are being made without input from our stakeholders our parents and our students mark a dramatic departure from our established culture the pv way as i've known it is always about community involvement and it's one of the things that makes our district special it's

068not too late to get that back i know that everything is hard right now and you guys are getting beat on from all sides and by everyone there's so much that we can control but i want you to know that parents are here and we want to be a part of this we want to be involved and we can help and now when the times are hard it's even more important that we rely on our shared decision processes that we come together and we work with each other because we all share the same ultimate goal thank you [Applause] good evening president matura governing board dr bales and cabinet i'm melissa schwartz a parent of two students at paradise valley high school in the crest program i'm the chair of upc's gifted committee the pv united

069parent council has been busy providing presentations for parents throughout this school year they include daytime events following our general meetings and evening events often partnering with pv schools departments to provide current content of interest to all parents here are some of the programs we've already presented this year financing your child's education after high school parent group program success stories which featured parents speaking on the unique programs offered in our schools our special education committee hosted iep meetings 101 our immersion committee brought in christina ladis to talk about the benefits of second language immersion with the gifted department we have presented many evening events the presenters are all focused on gifted learning challenges and most have written numerous books studies and presentations with the use of digital presentations we were able to expand to national and

070sometimes international presenters our students and teaching staff also benefited from activities earlier in the day with each of these presenters addressing anxiety and adhd in our gifted learners using an integrative approach with our local pediatric neuropsychologist dr laura wingers who's local here parenting for and with creativity with dr ronald begetto bright complex kids supporting their social and emotional development with doctors jean peterson and dr dan peters supporting twice exceptional learners at home with dr emily kircher morris and then we presented the gifted school middle school programs the digital learning center and journey united parent council is currently in the middle of our teacher and staff appreciation program annually we encourage students and parents to nominate their teachers and staff at their schools to recognize those that have made a difference by going above and beyond

071for the students in pv schools nominations can be submitted on our website pvupc.org through 10 pm on march 23rd recipients will be recognized in may our next upc meeting is on march 23rd our educational presentation is on important topics in school funding with our own jill berrigan thank you for your time tonight [Applause] all right next on the agenda is superintendent comments dr bales thank you president mature governing board uh cabinet and guests um as you may be aware the house and the senate recently passed an override to the aggregate expenditure limit i sent notes of personal thanks to house and senate leaders rusty bowers reginald bolding karen fan and rebecca rios and to our local state senators and house members that voted uh for this override nancy bardo steve kaiser justin wellness john cavanaugh

072christine marsh kelly butler and sarah longori i encourage them to take the next step and solve this 40-plus year-old outdated formula for the future so that we don't have to have this conversation again next year as many of our board members already pointed out uh space force uh is alive and well at shadow mountain high school it was a wonderful event i'm not sure that i can say anymore then this is certainly a point of pride for shadow mountain and our district so kudos to mr applein lieutenant colonel bones and all of the program leaders and cadets out there so thank you actually i think they're called guardians right mr adelman that's right they're not cadets they are guardians so kudos the paradise valley educational association brown boutique was also mentioned earlier and pvea is

073currently accepting donations of gift cards and restaurants uh to hair salons florists makeup artists and tuxedo rentals for student giveaways pbea is also collecting generally used formal wear i know i've donated a few suits some plus size dresses suits men's shirts all of it's available so if you're interested please help make those donations items can be dropped off here at the district administrative center monday through friday 8 to 4 30. prom attire and gift cards will be noted to students who attend pv schools in pv schools we engage inspire nurture students through high quality instruction meaningful educational opportunities and dynamic learning experiences this is our newly adopted mission statement one of those experiences is our annual sites and sound that you've heard mentioned already several times tonight that was held last week and i too

074enjoyed the celebration was amazing i had a wonderful time and those in addition to that i think missus mature mints and the ceramic bowls and i would add that with the support of our generosity of our community our empty bulls fundraiser raised two thousand two hundred and seven dollars for the paradise valley community food bank so thank you to all who donated i'd like to recognize maureen minnick our fine arts director and all of our fine and performing arts teachers for making this event spectacular finally allow me to express my appreciation to our community for their continued support our community has allowed us to continue offering high quality instruction meaningful opportunities and dynamic learning experiences our voters continue to support us in bond and imminent right of voter approved initiatives especially our facilities and uh

075tonight there were several construction items approved in the consent portion of tonight's agenda that will take place this summer you'll see many of those over the next several meetings also most every nearly every school will be touched this summer with some type of summer project you'll see these moving forward painting remodels furniture and all contributing to the success of our students offering them updated spaces to collaborate learn and grow speaking of collaboration i'd like to share some new learnature here's a picture at shadow mountain high school these are modular desks that can be configured in a variety of ways to increase our students ability to work collaboratively in teams and projects this flexible classroom concept is one example how our facilities can support student learning long gone are the days with the desk and the

076basket attached and the difficulty of trying to put them together to learn collaboratively so very exciting thank you to our voters for supporting our bond projects that allow us to do this kind of work and those conclude my comments tonight thank you next on the agenda is items for approval dr bales president mature governing board members cabinet and guests and then this uh these highlights we'll recommend several new administrators for the 22-23 school year and i'm really proud to say that they all have also graduated from our administrative intern program so we are doing our best to grow our own uh the first recommendation uh is uh really interesting uh this person is an architect by trade and a current dlc teacher dr holmes will you share the recommendation thank you dr bales madam president

077uh members of the board pam folk is currently a science teacher and instructional coach at sunrise middle school with 13 years of experience in various instructional positions i shared a bachelor of science degree in stem from asu a master of science in middle school stem from the university of texas and a master of education in administrative leadership from gcu if approved she will receive salary and benefits in accordance with in accordance with the coa bargaining agreement and we recommend you approve ms folk to be the next crest and and stem coordinator may i please have a motion to approve the employment recommendation for pamela folk for the position of crest stem coordinator as presented so moved do any members of the board wish to make a comment or have questions i'm just going to say

078that we knew each other when our kids were at sonoran sky together so we go way back mrs falcon i all right uh all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed say nay motion passes unanimously and miss folk is here miss folks sam do you have any uh family with you this evening you would like recognize pam do you have any family you'd like to recognize [Applause] president mature our next recommendation is a familiar face and or name a well known for her work with dr bruyes although this rock star is not with us presently she uh will be here and we'll bring her back for a meet and greet but dr holmes share with us this recommendation madam president uh members of the board karen brown is currently the director of gifted

079and accelerated learning for the scottsdale unified school district with 40 years of teaching and administrative experience she earned a bachelor of science in elementary education and special education from nau as well as a master of education in special education with an emphasis in gifted education from asu it's a lot of education if approved she'll receive salary and benefits in accordance with the coa bargaining agreement we recommend you approve ms brown to be the next director of gifted education may i please have a motion to approve the employment recommendation for karen brown for the position of director of gifted as presented so moved any uh board member wishing to make a comment or question mr laney yeah thank you i do i would just like to say that uh the gifted program is why my family

080is back in the district and so i really appreciate this program and melissa's nodding her head because her kids were in my or in the same class with my kids at north range in the in the gifted program and it was kind of funny we were actually recommended by an assistant principal in another district to come to this program because my son was about ready to get expelled from school and so um and he's a really good kid and you know being expelled for doing his homework when he wasn't supposed to so i really appreciate this program and so thank you mr speaker i will say something too my um son's life was saved um by gifted education in in pv schools um so i want to thank dr bruyez i know we're not recognizing

081her right now but she i always say to everybody she literally saved my son's life because we were getting we're getting close to being really unhappy with one another but the other thing i want to say is welcome home mrs brown okay um all those in favor please say hi any opposed motion passes unanimously and as dr vales mentioned she is currently on vacation she was not able to be here but i will certainly text her and let her know though she's in several time zones away she has been approved thank you this is the first of four recommendations for principal positions uh this principal for sonoran sky elementary is a graduate of our administrative interim program and committed to working with collaborative teams at this school so we're excited dr holmes thank you madam

082president members of the board michelle fowler is currently an assistant principal at sonoran sky in larkspur elementary schools with 19 years of experience in various instructional roles she earned a bachelor of arts in elementary education from grandview college in iowa and a master of arts in education administration from gcu if approved she will receive salary and benefits in accordance with the pvp bargaining agreement and i feel like i need to stop and we have a connection to iowa here which always makes dr bales very excited i want to assure you that this is in no way shape or form influence the recommendation that we have before you here this evening we do think she will be fabulous for nor sonoran sky and we do recommend that you approve miss fowler to be the next principal

083at sonoran sky elementary school may i please have a motion to approve the employment recommendation for michelle fowler for the position of sonoran sky elementary school principal as presented so moved any member of the board wish to make a comment or question i got me to say something because sonoran sky is my old stopping grounds this is where my kids were raised so i'm really excited about this new hire mr laney sure um the the the whole iowa thing i won't hold that against you as i grew up in missouri and there's a rivalry between the two states so okay all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed motion passes unanimously and she is here this evening with her family uh miss fowler do you have family you'd like to introduce [Applause] president

084mature governing board our next recommendation is a one of our best examples of grow our own this young man has been a member of the esp ranks certified ranks and soon-to-be administrative ranks dr holmes madam president members of the board jorge antovaros is currently the assistant principal at greenway middle school with 13 years of experience in public education he earned a bachelor of arts degree in elementary education from the university of phoenix and a master of arts in administrative leadership from gcu if approved if approved he will receive salary and benefits in accordance with the pvp bargaining agreement we recommend you approve mr ontoferos to be the next principal at greenway middle school man please have a motion to approve the employment recommendation for jorge antavaris for the position of greenway middle school principal as

085presented so moved oh are there any questions or comments mr antavares went from a security guard at horizon to a principal at greenway middle school how amazing is that [Applause] mrs greenberg i do remember sitting in your classroom one year at pal um and i knew then that someday we'd be here so looking forward to this vote all right all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed motion passes unanimously mr rondaveros [Applause] is there anyone you would like to uh introduce this evening [Applause] [Laughter] this next recommendation for sweetwater community school is one of the most experienced uh recommendations we have tonight considering that he has been an elementary teacher middle school high school special education and currently at sweetwater dr holmes would you please present this recommendation thank you sir madam president

086members of the board mark danner is currently the assistant principal at sweetwater community school with 17 years experience in public education here in a bachelor of arts degree in cross categorical special education from asu and a master of arts degree in educational leadership from nau if approved he will receive salary and benefits in accordance with the pvp bargaining agreement we recommend you approve mr danner to be the next principal at sweetwater community school may i please have a motion to approve the employment recommendation for mark danner for the position of sweetwater community school principal as presented so moved do we have any comments or questions from the board oh i'm gonna oh i'm gonna miss bacon i'm actually going to go to mrs case first to make you wait um i have personally experienced the

087fact that mr danner loves the student it's students that sweetwater and i'm very excited that there's going to be a principal there who loves those students mrs bacon all right all those in favor please say aye hi any opposed motion passes unanimously congratulations [Applause] mr danner do you have anyone you'd wish to recognize the green one [Applause] mr danner wait wait mr danner we we've served on committee together [Laughter] our last recommendation this evening for horizon high school this recommendation is committed to fostering a student-first philosophy academic rigor and listening to all voices dr holmes thank you sir madam president members of the board shelly strophus is currently the interim principal at horizon high school with 14 years experience public education sharing a bachelor of science degree in business from the university of south carolina

088and a master of education in educational leadership from boise state university if approved she will receive salary and benefits in accordance with the pvp part pvp bargaining agreement we recommend you approve mrofus to be the next principal at horizon high school and please have a motion to approve the employment recommendation for shelley strophus for the position of horizon high school principal as presented so moved any comments or questions from the board mr laney okay so my kids go to horizon high school one right now i've had two graduate from it i'll have another one that will more than likely go there so i have a real vested interest with this i have spent no less than 20 hours the last couple days speaking with people thinking about this i'm a person that i sleep just

089fine the last couple days um let's just say i didn't get much sleep um i even shared with dr bells um how poorly i did at my job one day when he was having a bad day so i could help him feel a little bit better um so i've given this a lot of consideration i've also asked ms chisholm mr chisholm to schedule times to go around and meet all of the schools as i get used to this position and i'm looking forward to finally figuring out where the pool is at horizon school because i've been trying to find it but i haven't found it so um i just wanted to say all of that and you know stress that my kids go there and that is what will that is what motivates my vote

090for tonight miss case thank you i could have commented on more people tonight but we don't want to be here all night so i have a few things to say and by the way there have been already been many incredible hirings for this district and i'm really excited um and i'm excited to see their successes in the future and often we grow our own in paradise um so with that i want to talk a little bit about the process of principle hiring and that was discussed earlier tonight um each time there's an opening to school i begin asking questions of the superintendent sometimes i know of which candidates will apply i bring up information that i know of sometimes positive examples and sometimes negative we as a board hire the superintendent then he hires everyone

091else upon our approval we are always trying to grow our own sometimes we hire from without the district sometimes that works and sometimes that doesn't there has been some volatility in horizon this past year many parents have commented to me on the hiring of a new principal i've read all your letters both sides i have taken phone calls i've asked hard questions i have disagreed and agreed with thoughts of decision makers i've reached out to people i respect and asked hard questions i've listened to many parents concerns and thoughts some have even suggested switching principles in our high schools as a solution i do not rubber stamp who comes before me for my vote i'm thoughtful and considerate in my voting i weigh many factors with all of that said i believe that shelly strathus

092is the best candidate for the job at horizon at this time she has demonstrated that she is willing to listen to all voices she is a hard worker and she wants to make horizon student achievement first on her list and she cares for each student's success she wants teachers to make horizon student oriented and she is listening to all parents and includes them in her decisions i wanted to make those comments thank you mrs bacon yes i also wanted to comment um most of you know that my daughter graduated from horizon longer ago than i want to tell you about um but it was um a challenging place for us as a family and for her as a student and um there have been times when i i do think that that culturally things have

093to change a little bit and that's not just at horizon that's at a lot of schools it's not just there but like everyone who's already spoken i've spent lots of hours over the past few days talking with people doing some research talked with dr bales who um shared with me that our interim our professional interim administrator dr craig lollum um has been um working really closely with um mrs dolphus and i respect him um immensely so his input and his thoughts um weighed into my decision and i had the opportunity to speak with um shelly the other day and and we had a really great conversation and um i also want everyone to know that although we were excited about all of these hires we pay attention to who they are we do not rubber

094stamp anything that happens or anything that comes before us dr bales can probably recount many phone calls he's had over the past few weeks about lots of different things but these hires included so that's all i want to say mrs greenberg mrs bacon just said most of what i wanted to say except that my older son graduated even longer ago actually dr carson was the principal at that time so we go way back um but i yeah we are not a rubber stamp board we've never been a rubber stamp board we do our homework um we we do you know talk to many folk we do read letters that come and we each weigh our decisions individually but we also do appreciate that it is the role of the superint that we hire the superintendent

095and is the role of superintendent to bring recommendations and that's that's where we come in but um we have had made some you know great hires today and some great approvals and i believe that shelley clearly understands um you know what the community feels about horizon what horizon you know is has has um been dealing with over the course year a couple years and um she is committed to the community and you know like mrs bacon said the fact that craig who i've known for a long time feels that this is an extraordinary way to help that community continue to grow and help our students there i appreciate that this is the recommendation we've been given to vote on tonight okay all those in favor please say aye aye all those opposed nay any abstain

096um because i have kids that are all upstained thank you very much so motion carries four zero with one abstention congratulations [Applause] it looks like you may have some ones you would like to recognize this evening [Applause] and that and that concludes our recommendations for administrative we've run out we've run out of positions for the evening excellent thank you very much next on the agenda is consideration and approval for student participation in the arizona youth survey dr bales thank you president mature governing board members cabinet and guests and with a brief summary of the arizona youth survey which helps secure grants like our school resource officers mr long will present this item for approval mr long thank you good evening president matura governing board members and dr bales for your approval tonight i present to

097you the arizona youth survey also known as the ays this spring some paradise valley schools will be randomly selected to participate in the arizona youth survey the ays a statewide prevention needs assessment for 7th 8th 10th and 12th grade students conducted by the arizona criminal justice commission can you hear me you want me to wait let's pause for one moment and we'll we'll allow the excited participants the opportunity to exit before we continue i don't know if i choose my teacher voice or not so i was back [Laughter] all right should i start from the very beginning i'll start from the very beginning that's probably the best way to do that uh good evening president mature governing board members dr bales uh for your approval tonight i present to you the arizona youth survey also

098known as the ays this spring some paradise valley schools will be randomly selected to participate in the arizona youth survey a statewide prevention needs assessment for 7th 8th 10th and 12th grade students conducted by the arizona criminal justice commission the survey results are used to inform existing and future substance use and delinquency prevention programs in our community state agencies use the ays to determine where to allocate their limited financial resources for new prevention programs targeting teens more specifically pv schools has used the survey results in its grant application for school resource officers currently this grant has provided pv with 18 resource officers to the district questions in the survey covers youth substance use problematic behaviors and the risk and protective factors related to those behaviors the ays is opt in parents must give permission before

099students can participate in the survey participation in the survey is voluntary and students may decline to participate at any time or skip any question they do not wish to answer this will be made clear to students prior to the administration of the survey this survey is completely anonymous no personally identifiable information is collected as part of the survey and no school officials are allowed to view students responses while they are completing the survey our students will be taking this survey online the online survey program does not collect any information that can be used to identify the specific computer that was used to complete the survey these protections make it impossible to link individual survey responses to a particular student with that i will be happy to answer any of your questions may please have a

100motion we'll start with a motion and then we'll move on to questions and comments may please have a motion to approve the student participation in the arizona youth survey as presented so moved any questions or comments from the board mrs greenberg look like oh mrs case um i don't when i got on the board i didn't understand surveys and things and what they did you cannot give a survey to students without board approval and i look through the surveys i've questioned them i've come to understand why they do i remember having long discussions with dr lee why are we doing this survey it seems whatever i have found that this survey is fine in the past i will continue to look at the questions but just to give you some background how that works you

101cannot give a student a survey to a student without board approval just to let you know for future reference anyway i wanted to give that information mrs bacon and you can't give this survey without parent permission approval um more importantly um or most importantly how how will we notify parents that they need to opt in will there be various methods to do that so that we're covering all the bases of how our parents we will be developing information yes we'll be developing a clear process there will be an opt-out opt-in letter that will go home and once that's returned we'll begin to figure out exactly how we're going to get our kids through the uh the online survey so and we'll be working with principals to do that yeah so hopefully we can include it

102in other things too like district newsletter school newsletters um the occasional maybe phone message to parents something that um is more than just one letter because i know what happened to letters that came home with my kids they never made it to me so um i just want to see that we're doing more than just one thing to get the information out certainly thank you um i had another question i'm sorry um when is this going to be done upon your approval hopefully tonight um we will notify the department that we are able to participate the random schools that will be selected will open up the registration process for paradise valley and then we'll meet with principals to begin with those selected schools the process for uh getting the opt-in letters out and the communication

103uh to the families regarding the survey and how long have we been doing this survey do we know it's the survey is every two years and i can think that it's been probably close to 20 that i can recall i've been in the district 23 years and we've done it as long as i've been here that's what i was thinking that i've been approving this for a lot of years okay thank you um and so not every school will be participating not every school will be purchased okay and the schools that do participate will every student be or be given the opportunity to participate within those grade levels that you explained and then those that opt in will be the ones that finally do take the survey that is correct with the parent approval okay

104and i um i do appreciate i read through the entire survey um i'd seen some things posted on it and i did some research and looked at all the different grants that people use this information to get grants to get things to help our communities to help our students student things that are really needed for our students are we're able to get grants now to uh provide for our students but no having this knowledge of what is needed so i am so i appreciate that it's an opt-in opportunity and i i do hope that people will opt-in so we can get this information and and use it for grants and and getting help where it is needed so thank you uh all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed emotion passes unanimously next

105on the agenda is consideration and approval of billboard lease agreement with fox point interactive llc and paradise valley unified school district dr bales thank you president mature governing board members cabinet and guest with a very brief summary and additional information about a very unique revenue generating a proposal ms berrigan will present this item for approval thank you dr bales president mature and governing board members i have what i find to be an exciting and interesting new opportunity for the school district and that is a lease agreement with a billboard company we apparently have some prime real estate right north of the 101 in our transportation department that we're not technically using it's an area of retention and it will not interfere with our bus uh ingress and egress nor parking in uh that area and

106this is approximately what it would look like on the 101 it's a double-sided electronic billboard and so it will have uh both east uh bound traffic and westbound traffic uh visual to see each of the advertisements that are on there uh there's currently a billboard it's if you see it's very very tiny past that uh the green street sign there it will look very similar to that one if you pass the 101 there in terms of the pole it will have a brick facade over it and it looked very very nice for us i also want to share the location if you see in the first picture on the left there there's the big transportation department in the bottom right corner you'll see sort of a v that is the location of where the billboard

107will be it says proposed billboard placement so you can note that it's out of the way of all of those buses that are there and then that is an image of approximately what the sign will look like if you don't like coca-cola we can maybe ask pepsi if they'd like to advertise on the sign but that brings me to a point that is on the second page of the agreement that i um i was concerned about in having a billboard on school district grounds ensuring that the content was in line with governing board policies and ensuring that it wouldn't be anything that we wouldn't want as content on the billboard so we included all the provisions in ars 15 342 27a to ensure that and then added some additional language and then perhaps the most

108exciting part of this is it brings us five thousand dollars in rent for that particular space each month but maybe more exciting for mr droghi is the fact that we also get free advertising uh and advertising is very expensive and increases in expense uh yearly and we will get an eight-second spot every five minutes over a 24-hour period that means that our eight-second spot will appear 288 times each day uh on both sides of the billboard uh so it's excellent advertisement and uh mr drogy helped me evaluate what that would potentially be if we had to pay for that and we're talking about somewhere between 60 to 80 thousand dollars annually for that advertisement so in addition to 60 000 a year we will receive that free advertisement so we're very happy to present this

109to the board and i'm happy to answer any questions you may have man please have a motion to approve the billboard lease agreement with fox point interactive llc and paradise valley unified school district for 1296 square feet of allocated space for the property located at 20621 north 32nd street in phoenix arizona 85050 as presented so moved any questions or comments from the board mrs case how long is this agreement for it's uh noted here in the terms of the agreement we did a 40-year lease agreement and that is a great question in order for the governing board to be able to do more than a 20-year lease agreement generally you would have to go out to voters to ask for that but that is only if the value of the property is more than 50

110000 the value of this property at 1 296 square feet is less than 20 000 so we're permitted to do a 40-year lease but we do have the option to terminate within 60 days that's also in the terms because you never know what may come up so it was important to have that in there as well thank you mr elainey sure thank you so i actually read this lease because i was concerned about some of the things you already mentioned um the so some of those things in there so the public know the ads can't be false misleading or deceptive relate to legal activity promote acts that violate law school rules or disrupt orderly operation of schools are explicit in sexual material obscene material or material harmful harmful to minors as these terms are defined

111in title 13 chapter 35 so those are some of the things that are in this so it's it's totally protecting the environment of our our district and the other thing that i wanted i was concerned about the rent that we're receiving you know 5 000 a month and um and inflation right now and i noticed that there's a provision in there that it increases by the real rate of inflation instead of just a set amount like our budget is set to so i had to put that in there excellent point and then the only thing there's no homes in this vicinity there's no it's residential yeah it's mostly commercial encampment it's very much a commercial commercial sort of industrial area so um as as much as i'd love to have a billboard up knowing we

112can make this much in rent at every one of our schools i recognize that the they probably communities billboards i also had questions and i'm glad mr laney read that out loud because that was my first comment when i heard that this was coming up i said wait a minute what might this look like on our school property and and what could be on there and so um i appreciated that it is actually the board policy that is lifted and put into the lease agreement and i loved seeing that there so and i was assured that this would be addressed in the presentation that night so um so i definitely liked seeing that in the the actual uh information in the lease agreement so that was uh nice to have that covered so thank you

113very much you're welcome all right all those in favor please vote aye all those posts say nay motion passes unanimously uh next on the agenda is ratification of vouchers may i please have a motion to approve ratification of vouchers as presented so moved all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed say nay any abstention mrs matura i'm going to abstain like i always do when there's a payment to asba motion passes 4-0 with one abstention next on the agenda is gifts and donations we had we had pages and pages of donations uh this month so that is fantastic and wonderful and we appreciate everyone who donates to our school district um and to our schools i did want to point out a few this evening we have uh at liberty elementary school ann stevens

114donated two thousand four hundred dollars to their site discretionary fund uh at uh paradise valley high school their booster club donated my money to purchase the theater rigging of over seven thousand dollars uh to the district premier copper products uh donated some adjustable face masks valued at twenty five thousand dollars for district use for pinnacle high school lori's bridal donated some special occasion dress gowns valued at eight thousand dollars to the theater department we had at sky crossing elementary send a doctor donated model airplanes for display in the library at their new school for decorations uh and the amount of four thousand seven hundred and sixty-five dollars and at sunset canyon uh martin w rito donated a thousand dollars to the site discretionary fund uh the thunderbird foundation donated to shadow mountain high school's girls

115golf a thousand dollars and the kiwanis club of desert ridge also donated to shadow mountain high school key club at shadow mountain and this i saved for the end because i was i had to call and ask about it and i was really interested in and how this worked but the shadow mountain high school booster club actually made donations to their own school as well as other schools in our district and i thought this was fascinating and really nice of the school to be supporting programs throughout our whole district so i wanted to highlight that in addition to donating 650 to three of their own clubs the shadow mountain high school booster club matador parent teacher club also donated twenty two hundred dollars to pinnacle high school's journalist filmmaker club and uh sixteen hundred and

116sixty seven dollars to skills usa engineering program and tv and film program over at horizon high school so i just think that that was fantastic sharing uh sharing across our programs across the district so i really appreciate that and everyone who donated so thank you very much and uh may please have a motion to approve uh gifts and donations please so moved all those in favor say aye aye those opposed say nay motion passes unanimously next on the agenda is items for discussion dr bales thank you president mature governing board members cabinet and guests and with a brief summary of some kind of consideration of festival sports fee increases for the 23 22 23 school year we present this for discussion it's a first reading no vote necessary mr long will you share with us

117a summary and proposal thank you good evening president mature governing board members and dr bales tonight is the first reading for you to consider a rate increase for festivals festival sports fees for the 22-23 school year the recommendation being brought forward proposes increasing fees for festival sports from sixty five dollars to seventy five dollars and all stars from twenty five to thirty dollars although this increase does not balance the budget it does offset some of the wage increases that have occurred in recent years for coaching staff nurses referees and school resource officers there was an inc a rate increase in 2012 2013 from 60 to 100 dollars for festival sports and a 50 fee for all stars after that rate increase participation plummeted the following year so in 2014 2015 that fee was reduced to

11865 dollars for festival sports and 25 dollars for all stars this would be the first increase in eight years with that i will be glad to answer any questions miss case i have to say that the value of that money is great my kids have participated in all those sport activities and it the dollar use is very good and i'm glad we're keeping it as low as we can and but we have to pay for the teachers involved and it's a fabulous program so thank you mr laney sure i have a question that just came to my mind if we had such a drop off last time with uh with an increase and i know it was a bigger increase but do you have plans in place to help those that might not be able

119to pay for it to get into it even with this increase we don't turn any kids away our principals work with families there are some scholarships available as well okay awesome thanks okay and mr elena you stole my questions so uh i appreciate that uh that mr ladies and gentlemen my question yeah so we uh yes it is it's nice to know that our our schools are able to uh and district is able to provide for students to make sure that this is available to everyone and i uh pointed out as well i noticed that the bus routes also provide transportation home from these programs so students everyone is able to get a ride home after the program even so that's an appreciative option as well we will not be voting on that tonight for

120discussion only so next on the agenda is a call for executive session may i have a motion please uh move that the governing board called for an executive session in accordance with arizona revised statute which reads as follows arizona revised statutes 38431.03.85 discussions or consultations with designated representatives of the public body in order to consider its position and instruct its represent representatives regarding negotiations with employee organizations regarding the salaries salary schedules or compensation paid in the form of fringe benefits of employees of the public body our purpose is to meet for instruction and direction all those in favor please say aye aye aye all those opposed say nay motion passes unanimously the regular meeting is recessed at 8 50 pm to go into executive session and we will reconvene after we return from executive session

121thank you we are reconvening our regular meeting at 9 58 pm uh next on the agenda is instruction to administration may have a motion please move that the governing board instruct the administration regarding negotiations with employee groups as directed in executive session all those in favor please say aye aye aye well there's a pose say nay motion passes unanimously before we adjourn i would like to remind you that the next regular board meeting will be held on thursday march 24th at 7 00 pm that will be after spring break uh may i have a motion to adjourn so moved all those in favor say aye aye hi all those opposed say nay motion passes unanimously meaning