001Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Okay, you're ready? Welcome to the business meeting of the Canyons Board of Education. Today is March, I mean March, May 19th, >> [laughter] >> um 2026, and we're meeting at the district office located at 9361 South 300 East in Sandy, Utah. Um this is Nybar. Hayes should be joining us shortly. She is not here right now, but she will be joining us. Um the first item on the agenda is to approve the agenda for tonight, and I will now take a motion to do that. I move that we approve the agenda for tonight, May 19th, 2026. Okay, is there a second to that? >> I'll second it. Okay, thank you. Is there any discussion to the motion? Okay, seeing none, I'll call for a vote. All in favor, say I. I.
002Any opposed? Okay, that motion passes unanimously. The next item on the agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance, and we will have that tonight by Draper Park Middle School Principal Chip Watts, and then after that, we will hear school highlights. Ladies and gentlemen, please stand and repeat the Pledge of Allegiance with me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Just go. All right, thank you for the chance to be here to represent Draper Park Middle School. At Draper Park, the Vikings have sailed with courage through the 2025-2026 school year. And I'm pleased to be able to shine a spotlight on some of the things that we've accomplished this year. Our sixth grade
003has worked hard to develop students Sorry, has worked hard to help students successfully transition into the middle school by creating a supportive environment focused on both academic and personal growth. Teachers have emphasized the development of important learning skills such as organization, responsibility, collaboration, and self-advocacy to help students navigate the expectations of middle school successfully. A strong focus has also been placed on peer-to-peer interaction and collaborative learning opportunities. Students regularly work together to discuss ideas, solve problems, and communicate their thinking through speaking and writing activities across content areas. Our seventh grade has done an outstanding job collaborating to support student success throughout the year. Teachers have worked closely to to expectations, share strategies, and provide consistent support for students across all content areas. This strong teamwork has contributed to significant academic growth with students showing improvement
004in critical thinking, problem-solving, reading comprehension, writing, and overall content mastery. Through targeted instruction, interventions, and high expectations, students have made meaningful progress and are better prepared for future academic success. In eighth grade, teachers have worked on cross-curricular activities this year in core classes. Using historical context from different times, students have focused on writing and critical thinking skills to interpret and explain their thinking about current events. These skills were examined further when students studied how past events have shaped current knowledge and policy in our society. These efforts have led to a successful academic year at Draper Park. Our students have exceeded their goals in growth and proficiency on both the MAP and the RISE assessments this year. We want to celebrate the hard work of both our teachers and our students. They've focused on their objectives,
005set goals, and made plans to achieve them, and gotten to work in ways that have really paid off. The Vikings haven't just excelled academically. They've also worked hard in visual and performing arts, bringing home multiple high honors from tournaments and competitions at the district and state level. A cast of well over 100 students put on a production of The Little Mermaid that earned rave reviews from the faculty and community alike. Our world language students have brought home trophies and awards from the BYU Foreign Language Fair. Our student athletes brought back a variety of trophies from their district-level intramural events. And it's been fun to see our debate team win awards at the Utah State tournament. Also, to watch a team of future chess masters represent us at the district level. Outside of these activities, we've
006been able to start an afterschool crochet group, publish a literary magazine, and establish a team of extremely fast Rubik's Cubers. Every Thursday, you can meet in Ms. Ali's room for the Rubik's Cube Rumble. I think the wide range of skills, talents, and abilities that exist amongst our students at Draper Park are what makes it such a great place to be. It's an honor and a privilege to work alongside these bright young people as we learn and grow together each day. Go Vikings. Okay, thank you so much. Um the board, we love to hear about our students excelling, and we do appreciate all the work of your teachers and yourself in leading that school. So, I will say go Vikings, too. Thank [laughter] you. Thanks for the chance to be here. >> Okay, the next item
007on our agenda is the Canyon Strong Student Recognition, and this will be by Jeff Haney, director, [snorts] and Kirsten Stewart, assistant associate director of communications. >> [clears throat] >> Thank you, President Shill, for this time to recognize the achievements of Canyon students. In just a few days, we will say goodbye to another school year. Buses will roll away from the schools for the very last time of the year. Bells won't ring again until August, and teachers will pack up their rooms until the fall. But until then, we can say that our students are finishing the year Canyon Strong. Now, this marks the 10th state championship in 15 years for Hillcrest High School. Their theater team again took the state title. It means that also means this is an incredible streak for Hillcrest High School. They
008have won the National High School Shakespeare competition at Southern Utah University for the past 4 years as well. So, what that means is this year's seniors have never lost a major theater competition in all of their prep years. In addition, all 46 of Can- uh of uh uh we have Corner Canyon's theater team, all 46 of their entrants received superior medals at this year's 6A state championship. They ended second overall among all over theater teams. The Chargers also won first place in the one-act category for fortress and the best actress award in the one-act category. Alta and Brighton finished fifth and seventh, and Jordan High's theater team had a banner year at the 4A state festival. They finished fourth overall among all other 4A schools. They had two first place category wins. We also want
009to congratulate the casts of Hadestown at Alta and Phantom of the Opera at Hillcrest. They both won categories at the recent Utah High School Musical Theater Awards. Hillcrest won best technical crew and prop design, and Alta's uh cast won best student sound design. So, congratulations to those students for winning state titles and the state categories at the Utah High School Musical Theater Awards. Now, the next honoree is our very own international DECA champion, the first in Canyons District history. Corner Canyon student Grace Christiansen earned the first place in principles of hospitality and tourism at the DECA International Career Development Conference. Now, as far as we can tell, this is our first ever international glass trophy from DECA. Congratulations to Grace and the other finalists from the Canyons District high schools. They rose to the top.
010They fought against 220 competitors from around the globe at this competition. The DECA International Career Development Conference draws top competitors from countries including Canada, China, Germany, Spain, South Korea, and Mexico. Canyons District sent 63 students to compete after they advanced through both the state and regional competitions. So, congratulations to Grace for being our first-ever International Career Development Conference winner. The next honorees are all of our students at our high schools, which recently were ranked among the very best in Utah according to the U.S. News and World Report. All five of Canyons District's comprehensive traditional high schools rank in the top 20 in the Salt Lake Valley metro area. In rating schools, the magazine weighs six factors: college readiness, state tests, early college opportunities, and graduation rates. The Hawks at Alta High School, the Brighton Bengals,
011Corner Canyon Chargers, Hillcrest Huskies, and Jordan Beetdiggers certainly are doing us proud. And we are never more proud than on graduation day, and the class of 2026 is almost ready to walk across the graduation stage. Friday starts graduation week in the Canyons School District. We'll have a completion ceremony at Jordan Valley. If you've never been, I encourage you to go. It's an incredibly special moment for our school for children with severe disabilities. When those kids graduate from high school, it's a special moment for the students, their teachers, and especially their families. Then we'll have our comprehensive traditional high schools all hold their commencement exercises on the 27th, and then Diamond Ridge, our alternative high school, will hold its rights on the 20th. Entrata Adult High School will have its graduation ceremony later this summer, but
012we want to say congratulations to all of the members of the class of 2026. They make up some of the very best high schools in Utah, according to the US News and World Report. Now, the next honorees are the Eastmont Patriots, the state middle school debate champions. The Eastmont Patriots won the first-ever middle school speech and debate state championship. Albion Middle School was right on Eastmont's hills. They took second place. The Patriots and the Knights both had students place in the top three of individual categories. Elementary debaters also competed in individual competitions recently, and we had winners from Draper and Peruvian Park Elementary Schools. So, congratulations to all of the students who competed at the elementary and middle levels in debate and speech. Now, our next honorees brought honor to Canyons' district with statewide awards.
013Butler Middle's Olivia Muchiar and Leo Nugent have been named two of the 20 state finalists in the 26th annual Do the Right Thing Essay Contest of the Utah State Board of Education. Their essays were chosen out of a field of 1,200 entries from across the state. They were seventh and eighth grade students who participated in the essay contest, and they were chosen and awarded a $300 scholarship from the state. So, congratulations to them. They're on the left, but on the right is Charles Purdy from East Midvale Elementary School. He is one of the safety patrol students, and he was honored as the AAA Safety Patroller of the year from the Mountain West program. And now the program spans 11 states and only nine students were selected. So, congratulations to Charles for that amazing award. You
014can see there that he is incredibly proud. He loves being part of his school safety patrol. And we also want to congratulate over the Corner Canyon Chargers. The girls track and field team swept the competition. They were back on top. They won previously. 2018 was the last time the Chargers won the girls side of the track and field competition and this year we are the champions. That means that we have brought home a state title title at least twice this month with a few more to go. Best of luck to our lacrosse teams and our baseball teams that are still in the hunt for state championships. Now, the girls of Corner Canyon, they did such a good job. They had a very deep team and they relied on some of their discus throwers and javelin
015throwers to come out on top. And at the end of the day, we have coach Alyssa Dalton leading her team to the top of the podium. The Corner Canyon boys and girls won the girls discus, the girls 400 meter, the 4 by 100 girls relay, the 4 by 100 boys relay, and the boys 4 by 200 relay. Brighton boys team finished third overall and had a champion in the 100 meter hurdles. Alta High claimed fourth place and they were powered by two first place finishes by Alta's Aiden Neal. That means he's a state champion in two of the events. And the long they were the long distance events and they also had a 200 meter girls title win. So, congratulations to all of these athletes, the coaches, their teammates, and the school communities on this
016incredible season representing Canyons District. Now, our next honoree was appointed to her new role in the last board meeting. Congratulations to Angie Holden, who is the next director of Canyons District Middle Schools. Angie is now the principal of Union Middle School. She has nearly three decades of experience in public education. And that includes time in special education, instructional coaching, coaching, school leadership, and district-level support roles. She's been with Canyons since 2009. She has worked as, like I said, Union Middle Schools principal. She's been at Vista Elementary School as the principal, as the assistant principal at Glacier Hills Elementary. She's been an instructional coach at Mount Jordan Middle, and the coaching coordinator and instructional specialist for the district office. So, congratulations and welcome to Angie in her new role as the director of Canyons Middle Schools.
017Now, our next honoree is ending his 30-year career in public education as the leader of Canyons School District. Now, last week, Dr. Robbins, our superintendent, was honored as one of the retirees that we bid farewell to at our annual retiree banquet. Now, tonight, per the board's tradition, we're officially saying goodbye and Godspeed to our outgoing superintendent. Now, he announced his retirement earlier this year, but Rick was appointed during the 2020 pandemic. That was a global health crisis with vast local implications, especially in public education. Now, as alongside members of the Board of Education and health professionals, Dr. Robbins helped steer Canyons District through the pandemic. And we support we focused on making sure that students had access to a world-class education during the one of the most trying times in the history of public education.
018That year, Utah students outscored their peers nationwide on year-end assessments. And in that year, Canyons District outscored their Utah peers on those same assessments. What that means is that Canyons District was the national lighthouse for academic achievement in the COVID-19 year. So, a lot of that is due to the Board of Education and the administration of Canyons District focusing on ensuring that every child had access to education either in person or via technology. During Dr. Robins' tenure, we also opened up a lot of schools and most recently, the Board of Education and the superintendency pushed to purchase the former regional headquarters of eBay, which we are now turning into the premier technical training center of the entire region, if not the state. So, there's just a few of the things that has happened since Dr.
019Robins became the superintendent, the fourth ever of the Canyons School District. So, please turn your attention to the screen for a look back at Dr. Robins' time with Canyons School District. Derek. So, you're thinking it's ending, but it's just begun. Your whole life is there right right in front of you. Life's a story that is all twisted and turns. All that matters is the lessons we learn cuz we roll. Unwritten songs [music] waiting for the best part to come along. Hey. Hey. And we roll. Pictures I've [music] drawn we can be anything we want. Hey. Hey. >> [music] >> Hey. Hey. Now, it's your time. It's your life. No one's living it but you. In your hands is your chance to live the life you choose. Life's like music there's [music] so much to learn
020[singing] songs. Make it magic there's so much still [music] to come cuz we roll. >> [singing] >> Unwritten [music] songs waiting for the best part to come along. >> [music] >> Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. And we roll. Pictures I've drawn we can be anything we want. Hey. Hey. You can write the song and [music] write the story and live all of this life in all its glory. >> [singing] >> Take the time to make the time to make each moment count. It's your life. It's your call. Grab your chance. Have it all. You can write the song and write the story Let's give a round of applause to Dr. Robbins. >> [applause] [applause] >> President Shield, in honor of Dr. Robbins' retirement, I do believe we have a resolution and some gifts that you would
021like to present to our outgoing superintendent, the fourth ever of the Canyons School District. Yes, thank you, Mr. Haney. Whereas Superintendent Rick Robbins has faithfully served as the fourth superintendent of the Canyons School District leading the district with vision, resilience, integrity, and unwavering commitment to students, employees, and the community. And Superintendent Robbins assumed leadership of the district during one of the most challenging moments in modern public education history. As his appointment was announced just 4 weeks after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. And despite unprecedented uncertainty, Dr. Robbins led with steady focus and purpose, ensuring that students continue to receive access to a world-class education through innovative technology, carefully implemented wellness protocols, and a steadfast commitment to keeping schools open and students learning. And under his leadership, CSD students outperform their peers statewide and nationally
022on year-end assessments at the end of the pandemic school year, establishing establishing Canyons as a national lighthouse for academic achievement during one of the most difficult periods in the history of public education. And Superintendent Robbins championed the well-being and professional growth of district employees through expanded planning and professional development opportunities, enhanced personal and maternity leave benefits, and the addition of assistant principals in elementary schools to strengthen leadership and support at every level. Dr. Robbins helped guide the development and implementation of the district's first-ever strategic plan, creating a clear and ambitious blueprint for student success and organizational growth for the upcoming decade and beyond. Dr. Robbins helped secure one of the most transformative opportunities in district history through the acquisition of the former regional headquarters of eBay in Draper, which will become the future home of
023the Canyons Innovation Center, which is being designed to prepare students for high-demand careers in healthcare, engineering, manufacturing, broadcasting, and other critical industries. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Canyons Board of Education expresses its deepest gratitude and appreciation to Superintendent Dr. Rick Robbins for his extraordinary leadership, dedicated service, and enduring contributions to the students, employees, and families of the district. Please join me in another round of applause. >> [applause] >> Dr. Robbins, I know that you have retired, but come on up. I know that they want to hear from you one more time. I'm sure. Uh I'm Rick Robbins. I'm representing a group. I'd like 3 minutes. I always wanted to say that. Uh man, it's hard to uh hear about yourself. I'm always pretty uncomfortable uh with all that, but um I I just
024feel so grateful, and my heart is really full of gratitude, and um you know, you think about how fast your career goes, and you come to this moment that you think will never happen. And um it's here, and I'm just I'm so grateful for the opportunity to serve with such an amazing group of people. You as the board, um everyone that's here, uh our employees, uh teachers, faculty, staff, you know, everybody uh that's contributed to the the great mission of this district, and um it's just been an absolute honor uh to be to be part of that, and um I'm I'm really grateful. I I think that's probably the thing that I you know, wanted to share uh the most. Um and in retirement, got to meet the love of my life. Uh so, you
025know, it doesn't get better than that, but um thank you for the great opportunity and thank you to our our parents, our uh constituents, our patrons, most of all our students. Uh you know, and I see those pictures of the kids, uh that's what it's all about, and I've said this before, uh but it's true, you know, our democracy is in the balance, and if there's anything left on on this planet and in this great country that should bind us and unite us, uh that's not, you know, political, uh that's our students. There's one place that we can still come together to unite behind one common uh cause that really is the great equalizer in this nation, and that's education, especially public education, and I I hope we don't forget that. I know we're in
026the throes of all kinds of issues and things in our in our country and in the district, but uh if there's anything that should unite us, that's our children. So, um I appreciate everything that's been done. It's been an honor uh to serve uh with such great people and to be part of such an amazing district, and you know, in my opinion, the greatest district in this country, for sure in this state, and I know it will go forward, and also just want to uh thank my partner in crime and you know, Batman and Robin, uh Dr. Robinson. Uh he's been by my side now as well as Leon, uh you know, during the entire time uh that I've been here, and um I'm grateful for their leadership. I'm grateful for their friendship, and uh
027you know, I'm confident in handing it off to to McKay to take the district even to greater places. So, thank you again uh for the opportunity, and uh wish you all the best. So, thank you. Okay, thank you, Superintendent Robbins. Um now the board, we each wanted to say a little something. Um so, we'll start with Mrs. Nybar and just go down the row. Okay, well, before I begin my comments, if I may, I noticed our former board president Nancy Tingey has joined us tonight and there is no one that worked harder through the COVID epidemic than Nancy and Rick together. Would you mind coming up to the microphone? I would love for you to share just a little bit about Rick. They were in the trenches together and they made a lot of decisions
028and spent hours and hours and I just I would like her to take up part of my time and then I'll say a little bit, too. Thank you, Nancy. Um yeah, push the button, I know. Okay. Um I had not really thought things through, but thank you for this opportunity. Um and thank you, Rick, for your words tonight as well as over the last 6 years, your leadership. Um I've been doing a lot of reminiscing about when you came to the district and how our everything was our world was kind of turned inside out and upside down and through your calm and steady leadership, we were all able to just keep putting one foot in front of the other and we we figured things out. Many of you on the board were there for that
029and we we figured it out, but even in the midst of that, we kept going and we kept reaching and striving for a little bit more, not just to survive but to thrive. And as we dealt with um different issues that came forward. We had differing opinions, but we did it together. And I really um am so grateful for that experience and um I uh I I will also say gratitude. I know um it was hard. It's hard to be superintendent. And especially during a time, not just the pandemic, but all the other um issues that came before the board and before the district. But I also want to thank you, Rick, for the time you spent getting out into the buildings, into the classrooms, and into the schools, and into the faculty rooms, and
030to listen to parents, and to teachers, and employees. I think um that helped the board also have a better understanding of what needed to happen. And so, I really thank you for making that extra effort. And while I'm here, I'm excited for Dr. Robinson. I think you're going to just be great. Um I've known you since I got involved in the district, and I'm just so impressed with all that you all all of your abilities and skills. And thank you, board, for all that you're doing. And um I'm just proud that I was able to be a part of this district and um for a lot of years, and that is very something very special to me. So, thank you. Thank you so much. >> [applause] >> Well, I joined the board about 6 months
031after Dr. Robins was appointed. And um funny, he would sometimes remind me, "I've only been here a a longer than you have." >> [laughter] >> Uh when I think about Rick, Rick is I I loved hearing him speak again. I I miss that. Rick is a very talented speaker. Um he has a great way of communicating his vision. And it's inspiring. And I think we all drew inspiration whenever Rick would share, you know, his vision of of public education or what needed to be happening, um as far as moving the district forward with the strategic plan. Whenever Rick spoke, you listened. And I And I'm grateful for that leadership that way. There's three things that I will always remember, well, actually four, but um the three things that I'll remember the most is the way
032he carried us through that COVID time. And you could see the weight he was carrying in his eyes and in his demeanor. And he carried that weight and was absolutely always invested about what was would be best for the kids, what would be best for our schools. And you could tell how much that mattered to him. And I'll always remember that. Secondly, the way he pushed forward for the strategic plan and that whole process. That was awesome. And I think when you look back at leadership, um you know, leadership of the state or the country, you always think of the things that they contributed. And that strategic plan, as Rick would always say, was our North Star that we could look to. And it's true. And I'm so grateful that he accomplished that while he
033was here. And then the third thing was his um he has a passion for innovation. And that's not easy to find sometimes when someone's been in education as long as Rick has. But he's not afraid of change. He's not afraid of pushing forward and and looking at things creatively outside of the box and that's really unique. Uh especially I I I think sometimes that can be really very unique when um you've been in education as long as you have. Sometimes people either really feel comfortable with things as status quo or they realize how long it takes to push things forward and sometimes they give up because you have to have a lot of patience, but Rick did a great job of pushing forward with that for the Innovation Center and this uh what what can
034be. So, I'm grateful for that. And then the fourth thing that I would like to speak about is um something Charlie Evans said uh in one of our meetings. He said, you know, as as the news spread that Rick was retiring, he said, "There is not anyone I have ever heard more celebrated than Rick from any legislator, um anyone in education across the state as far as everyone cares about Rick because everyone knew that Rick cared about them." He is a very caring person. He cares about everyone. Um and it's something that I think sometimes would keep him up at night, but he sincerely cares about every person and I just think when you think of leadership as it's often said, it doesn't matter so much what you accomplish, but how people feel when you're
035around them and how you treat them. And Rick always cared. So, thank you. We're We're glad that you're here with us and it was so wonderful to hear you speak again tonight. And wish you the best in your retirement. Hi, Rick. Uh I want to say thank you. Uh within my first week after I won my election in 2024, you invited me to the district office to get to know you more, not just to like get me on boarded but like to figure out who I was which I really really appreciated because I kind of I I to a lot of the people here I kind of came out of nowhere and you really did just from that get go you set a strong example for what an advocate and a leader in public education
036should look like you've left a lasting impact on on me. What Holly said is true you and that is something I've been reflecting on a lot recently is how you've taken in every everyone's voices when you made your decisions and that was very clear in the way that you did a superintendent's tour and I really appreciated that as an oncoming board member getting to have the opportunity to be in front of all of these people directly in front of the schools and what I came to know is that not all superintendents do that and that is just really a good character mark on you. You really do care about everyone involved and that's why everyone does care about you Holly again is super right about that. At least to me it was very clear that
037you cared about me and so I cared about you and from what I've heard from everyone else uh everyone cares about you too. So I just want you to know that your service here will never be forgotten I mean you're the man who signed my diploma so you're you're you're you're [laughter] your impact will at at the very at the very least you will never ever be forgotten by me for for that reason alone but you have left a much greater and much stronger impact on me than just a signature so thank you Rick I really really do appreciate you. You know we've we've laughed together we've we've fumed together we flown together Uh, and I really appreciate the time that I've been able to spend working with you. Um, you know, we're all here,
038right? Because because of the kids. And working with you, uh, was I feel the best focus, right? That anyone could have on why we're here and why we do what we do, right? Because you focus on the kids, um, which is evident by by by how amazing our district is, right? Everything that you've done, um, it all led back to how does this help the students? And I really appreciate the opportunity that I've had, uh, to work and to grow, and to do that alongside you. And I also want to say, as a parent, thank you so much, um, because my kids benefit so much already and will continue to benefit so much because of you. So, thank you. Okay. So, Amber and I were two of the original board that got to decide on
039whether or not you should be superintendent. And we got to pick you, and it's actually one of the things I take most pride in because I feel like we hit the jackpot. And we you were exactly who we needed. Um, little did we know that when we chose you that we had a pandemic around the corner, and how blessed we would be for having made that decision. I don't want to repeat everything everyone said. I I echo it fully. Um, one of the things I have to hand to you, Rick, is the fact that you are enormously patient. Like enormously. Like Getting along with seven very different personalities that are all extraordinarily opinionated with the kind of grace that you did is like otherworldly. I'm just saying like I um and you were also extremely
040patient with all of the varying perspectives of the district. And um I mean there were a lot of things. This is a very unique district. We have a wide range of socioeconomic um circumstances. Every school and every area has different challenges and perspectives and I feel like you balance those very well. Um It was It's easy I think to get into a situation of analysis paralysis and I think sometimes as a board we did. So I was always relieved when the quarterback side of you came out and you're like, "That's it. This is what we need to do. Push forward." And that did that would come forward when it needed to and it was extraordinarily helpful and it was reassuring for me as a board member. Um as you know one of the reasons you
041were chosen as a superintendent is your capacity to understand how public education can innovate. That was also my shared passion and and I really loved being able to talk through those things with you and to go and visit some of those other innovation centers and talk about how this was possible. And then when the EBay building it felt like it fell out of the sky. Happened it was like I don't know. It almost felt like you called it forward. I was so grateful. So thank you for that. But I'm I really is one of those situations where and I I shared this in a thank you note with an educator today. If there's anything I have learned while being um several years in this position it is that every single one of us in this
042room and in our community benefits in some way from quiet work, quiet, focused effort that has been done behind the scenes by somebody and that often times many people you don't even know. The things that your kids are benefiting from or what you benefit from in your cities or in the state at large, there are so many decisions and blood, sweat, and tears that have gone on behind the scenes that you're not even aware of and you don't even know who to thank. This is an unusual situation that you do know who to thank. Um and I can already see your mark is going to impact not only my children, but um generations of kids. That innovation center and where it's headed is going to bless generations of kids, thousands of students. And um I'm
043so grateful for that. I'm so grateful for your willingness to persist and to keep your eye on the ball at times when um the entropy of what you've always done keeps kind of bleeding in and then it started to kind of go off this way where it was like, "Oh, we're just going to do the same thing that public ed has always done." The quarterback came out, "No, we're going to push forward. We got to do this right." And I was so grateful for that. So, um again, we have been so blessed to have you at the helm. We'll miss you terribly, but um thank you. Thank you for everything. Thank you. I'll be brief. Uh I echo a lot of what my fellow board members have said and and we're thank you for your
044leadership. Um we wish you well in retirement and we will work to carry your vision forward. You know, I like to think about when we had young kids, they'd leave fingerprints all over the place and at the time maybe it drove us nuts, but um now you miss it when your kids get older, but we appreciate your vision and the things that you have pushed forward uh for this district that are going to have impacts for for decades to come. So, thank you. This is a hard one for me. I don't want to say goodbye. Um, and so I'm not. I just wanted to say thank you for the opportunity that we've had to work with you. And one of the things that I'm going to remember particularly besides the fact that it was really
045fun to sit next to you um, when we were here in our board meetings >> [clears throat] >> and your silent strength when when we were going through some hard discussions. Um, one of the things that I really I really appreciated is that you kept mentioning how important it was to you that you be a servant leader. You felt that people you always placed people the center of every decision. You always listened first and then acted second. And you spent hours and and hours and hours listening to teachers, principals, department chairs, community members, anyone because of your open door policy. He always had his door open and you knew you could walk in and interrupt him at any time and he would have an ear for you. And he listened sincerely, take notes. Um, he
046made every person in his presence feel important and and valued because They were listened to and they were valued. And I really appreciate that modeling and I hope that we can continue that and will continue that in the in our future endeavors here in the district. Um, I also appreciated the fact that he worked very hard to develop trust in education, trust in the process, trust in the people that are working in the process. Trust in our communities that they will um support and continue to work with us in partnerships. And then when he would hear these comments and and questions and concerns from our community, he would truly take them to heart and really think about what could be the actual action. And he did quarterback it very nicely. I I like that analogy.
047Um So, I just want to say I appreciate your trust not only in the community, but I really appreciate the trust you have in our board and our su- your support of our joint shared mission. We're kind of spoiled in Canyons because many superintendents don't work well or don't get along well at all with their boards. They have their idea we and the board has their idea and they're at at odds. But, I really appreciated the fact that we could work as a team. I think being a quarterback made that easier. Um some of us are running backs and I'll punt. >> [laughter] >> Anyway, um I just really really appreciate what we've learned from you, your example, and your willingness to learn from the people around you. You were never any better than any
048of the rest of us and I I know that we all could say that about all the people that are around us. Canyons is very very lucky to have the quality of of people supporting our schools and it starts with the superintendent and I really appreciate all that you've done. There are so many memories that we're going to have and I hope that you'll stay involved and keep an eye on that innovation center because we're so excited about how that vision that was just an idea is going to become reality. It's so close. But, I appreciate all you've done and good luck in your future endeavors. And I'd like to say thank you. Okay, I just want to add a few things. Um just like Amanda said, I was one of the board members that
049was here when we hired Rick and we saw what he had done at Juab and a couple of the things he had done, well, number one, a strategic plan, and also just very innovative practices, and that's what we wanted for our district. And I'd been on the board at that point about 5 years and the whole time I was on the board, I wanted I kept asking for a strategic >> [laughter] >> And I don't know what happened. No one knew how to do it, I guess. We needed Rick to come and um help us do it and this plan is really key to what everything we do as a district. We We have committees, we work together, and that's how we bring all these initiatives forward. And I I just really love that plan
050and the fact that it's not like a book on a shelf. It's actually a living thing that we're constantly working towards. Um also, I mean, we would have never bought the Innovation Center if without Rick. And he really did guide the board and get us all to see his vision. I mean, we traveled, you know, different people went to different um places around the country to see what had been done, and then that is what we are incorporating in this. And really, I mean, we wouldn't be able to do it without what you did to lay that groundwork work. Um also, I want to tell you guys that do superintendents read emails? Yes. Like he read he would read every email and I actually saw the effect of those emails. Like if you think he
051didn't care, you are totally wrong. Like that totally affected him. Whatever you said, and he he's also a very good leader in that he took a lot of voices and collaboration and then would make a decision. But every email, every student, every employee, he truly cared about. And that's probably the one thing I'll always remember and take from working with Rick. And I just want to thank him also for just everything he's taught me as a school board member. And now we have a little present, a few presents. Um first of all, Oh, Amanda, don't hold that. Uh we got some shoes for you. They They are Nikes and so you don't forget us, we have all the school emblems on them. So, we want to see you wearing them. You better send us a
052picture. And then also, we got the the glass. So, I'll just say real quick, too. I This is really embarrassing, but um I'd be remiss if I didn't thank my kids and I'm sure they're watching on YouTube, my son Nick and daughter Hannah, Megan and Raquel. Um I just want them to know how much I love them and appreciate their support and and love and thank you. This is amazing and thank you for all the nice comments. It's As I said, it's hard to hear about yourself, uh but it means a lot and I really appreciate uh each and every one of you again and all of our employees and staff and especially the students in Canyons and um I'm confident we'll continue to dominate like we always have and I'll be the biggest cheerleader
053uh cheering you on and especially uh my brother over here, McKay, as he takes the reins. So, thank you. Okay, thank you. Let's give one more round of applause. Okay, we have now come to the patron comment portion of our meeting. The board designates time in meetings to listen to the patrons of the district. Patron comment time is limited to residents and taxpayers of Kenyon's district, students and parents of students, and current employees of the district. Patrons may provide board members with written documents. These documents must be sub- submitted to the board's administrative assistant, who is right over there in the orange, or emailed to the office of public communications by noon of the day following the board meeting. Tonight, individuals will be given 2 minutes. Those representing groups will be given 3 minutes. Comments
054made during patron comment time are part of the public record. It is the board's practice to listen and take notes during patron comments. The Board of Education does not discuss matters that are not on the meeting's agenda, nor engage in public comment on individual students to protect their privacy, or employee issues. If a patron wants to comment on the district's employees' character, professional competence, or mental or physical health, the board requests that those comments be submitted to the board in writing. However, if the patron determines to verbally comment on those personal issues, the comments need to be civil and refrain from personal attacks, insults, defamatory, or slanderous comments about an individual. The Board of Education values input on all sides of issues. To maintain decorum and respect, we ask that those in attendance refrain from
055applause or other types of demonstrations during the patron comment time, as well as throughout the meeting. So, um I'm I'm going to read two names at a time, and if you'll just be ready to come up quickly when I call your name. And also, if I say your name incorrectly, please correct me as you come up. Um so, the first the first thing I have is ESP Association. So, I don't know who that is. Um maybe come perfect. Perfect, come and say your name for the record. And then next will be Michael Adams. Okay, thank you. So, Michael Adams and then Stacy Z- Zyskowski. Please correct that when you come up. I didn't need a mic. Okay. >> [laughter] >> All right. >> [clears throat] >> Um All right, I know that the school board
056has received many emails about over the past 2 weeks. I'm going to be that guy again talking about boundaries. Um at the school board meeting 2 weeks ago, many of us were shocked at what had happened when the Granite Quail Hollow proposal was tabled. I understand that the that the district now wants to complete a comprehensive study of all boundaries up to the high schools. Um this had this idea had been floated by various commenters last fall 2025 when this process was beginning, but was not fully heated at the time. The school board did make changes to the Granite and the Park Lane proposals in November or so, expanding the options to include possible impacts to Quail Hollow and also Willow Canyon. Um many parents have received messages these past couple of weeks talking about
057how the district doesn't want to impact Granite and Quail Hollow and the Raintree neighborhood. If this comprehensive boundary study would again impact those schools, and and I appreciate that concern. Um, however, I I hope there's the same concern now that Bella Vista has been closed and boundaries were realigned for various other schools within the district. And that was voted on in December 2025. Everybody loves their schools. Nobody wants their schools to close. I I do not doubt that, um, but a group of parents could see the benefits of merging Granite and Quail Hollow. And work with the school board to propose this plan, supported, and help it move forward. And now at the last minute it was halted, and we don't fully understand why this change can't move forward to create a solid, vibrant, combined
058Granite Quail Hollow school. Um Overall, many parents are really just concerned about what's happened during this process and how it's playing out. And having spent many months, um, speaking with other parents, school employees, and the school board, and that's really our concern. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Stacy, and then Jared Forsgren. And I'm representing a group, so I get a little bit more time. So, 3 minutes? Yeah. I want to begin by thanking you for your time and hard work you dedicate to this role. I understand that balancing budgets, staffing, and the needs of schools across the district involves incredibly difficult decisions, and I generally recognize the responsibility you carry. I'd like to reflect on the recent board meeting regarding the Granite Quail Hollow merger. While I appreciate the decision to delay the merger and
059keep Granite open, some of the decision felt less like a support for our school and more like a warning about the consequences of remaining open. While I sincerely appreciate the board's commitment to doing what is best for students, it sometimes felt as though accountability for the challenges ahead was being placed more on the community and teachers than on the board itself. This was ultimately the board's decision, and with that decision comes the responsibility to support it. I'd also respectfully challenge some of the reasoning shared. Several board members expressed concern about Granite maintaining a kindergarten class of 17 students. I understand that concern, but many that serve student decisions affect thousands of students across the district. Right now, Gold Miner's Daughter, which is a one-room schoolhouse up up our canyon, has seven students and a full
060FTE. This situation is inconsistent with what we've heard. Those students could possibly be absorbed into Granite, and that FTE could instead be redirected to our community. What concerns me most, however, is what happened after the vote. Prior to the meeting, Granite had been allocated 11 teachers for next year. By the following morning, there was already discussion and rumors their FTE would be reduced. I do not believe this was intended as a punishment, but I asked you to reconsider who bears the greatest cost with this decision. It's our students. If Granite loses an FTE, our fifth grade would be reduced to a single teacher with approximately 31 students with academic, behavioral, and all social needs. The current fifth grade group has intentionally been separated over the years to create successful learning environments. During the past 2
061years, this group has experienced firsthand how challenging it can be. In addition, there are extended core students that regularly push into this classroom, which increases it up to 35 or 36 students. As someone who has personally taught over 30 students a year, these large class sizes are difficult on its own. But now you want one teacher to handle the responsibility of planning, ordering, parent communication, meetings, conferences, problem solving, and student support on their own. Fifth grade also has Nova, Biztown, science fair, symphony, quick action time, young American student council, Veterans Day program, and all of this. This request is not about convenience. It's about providing students with a structured support and attention. We talk about putting students first. We talk about the mental health of teachers. Putting Granite with 11 teachers accomplishes both of these.
062I respectfully ask the board to re- consider what is facing our community and give us the FTE allocation we deserve. >> [applause] >> Okay, please please no clapping, please. Okay. Um Jared Forsgren and then New Newsha and I sorry I can't read the last name. Hi President Shaw. I come as a parent of a Mini Canyon School District students. Like many tonight that are concerned about the boundary boundary realignment study. I don't want to step on anybody's toes and talk too much about that, but I just wanted to follow up and remind you of the Canyon School District policies and federal law that require all the schools to provide educational services designed to meet the needs of disabled students as adequately as those of non-disabled students. As a parent of a disabled student under with
063a 504 plan, we were very concerned when the discussions about the boundary realignment were not taking into account the resources that are supposed to be designated to these students and were instead concerned about many of the other things that are important concerns of these parents. But it is the district's obligation under both district policies and federal law to make sure that these teachers are supported. Sorry, the pulpit's moving. We feel that the teachers of the Canyon School District and particularly at Quail Hollow Elementary School are amazing, but they're under-resourced. They're being stretched too thin and they're burning out because of the schools not being adequately supported. I'm sure you are aware in 2009, the board adopted a appropriate ratio and target for classroom sizes. Well, many things might change those numbers. It doesn't those numbers
064aren't even close to being satisfied at Quail Hollow. And regardless of the delay of the boundary alignment, that delay doesn't excuse the district of its obligations under the policies or the federal law. So, we just want to make it clear that it's very important to us as parents, it's important to the students, and it's important to everybody that the district is following the mandate to make sure that these students, including disabled students like my son, but more broadly that they're getting appropriate resources they need in the classrooms so that they're not overwhelmed with 30 32 students and the 504 plans are being ignored. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Now, Nusha and then Samantha maybe I'm sorry I can't the pen is really light so I can't read all the letters. Good evening, board members. Um
065thank you for lending um your time for something that's important to me and um my fellow students, recycling. Uh my name is Nusha Mohammedi and I'm a junior at Hillcrest High School and I've been a part of the Canyons School District um since third grade. Um since I've already sent out a few emails, um you know, they're very recent so I don't expect you have to have like read them through and everything. Everything. Um I'm just going to go through them briefly. Um the uh quite a few students were um disappointed by the decision to cancel recycling. Um I have a personal stake in this as a member of the Hillcrest Earth Club. We uh did um the weekly recycling and that experience helped me build a lot of connections with my peers, my teachers,
066and um my community and it helped me give back to the community that's given me so much over the years. Um I understand that you all had great reasons to cancel the um the recycling. You know, fiscal responsibility is really important. It wouldn't be up there as a tenant for the board if it wasn't. But um what we would like is more detail on the uh decision. Um the exact numbers for the fines, um the exact the details on, you know, where and why the fines happened, any um decisions besides canceling that were considered before um being thrown out and why. Um we understand um they have a responsibility to do this, and we understand this is the end of the school year. It's um really hectic um for everybody, including you guys. Um but
067we just like to, you know, maybe further down the line talk about this as an agenda point. Um thank you all for your time. Um I hope you all have a great evening and a great rest of your um week. Thank you, Samantha, and then Natalie Day. Hi, I wanted to thank the board and the district for initiating the boundary study to best support our communities as our student enrollment is rapidly decreasing across the district. My name is Sam Matte, and I'm finishing up my fifth year at Quill Hollow. Our school community was invigorated by the announcement to merge with Granite, and we were looking forward to a much-needed change that would bring with it a new building, smaller class sizes, more teacher collaboration, and the possibility of an assistant principal. We understand why the
068merger has been paused, but we are concerned about the support Quill Hollow will receive in the interim. Our school is drowning and needs a lot of support until the district boundary study is complete. We know that we cannot have it all, and it would be unfair to ask for things that other schools have not been granted in the past. We would like for our current full-time behavior specialist to remain full-time. We are also seeking three additional FTEs to be allocated to our building until the mergers are complete. Providing three more additional teachers in our building would bring second grade classes down from 28 students to 19. Third grade from 31 students to 21. And fourth grade, we would have 20 students instead of 30. Last year I had 33 students in my class and it
069was a disservice to their fifth grade education. It was impossible to give each student the quality time they deserved. On average, students are with their teachers for about 285 minutes per day when you factor in boosters, lunch, and recess. That meant that each of my 33 students would have had received 8 and 1/2 minutes of my undivided attention. That is without considering whole group instruction required for writing, science, math, and literacy. My students deserved better. It is extremely disheartening looking at class sizes in surrounding schools and seeing that our second grade class will have 28 students, while other second grade classes nearby might have as few as 17. How can this be a comparable education? How are we able to compare classroom behaviors, test scores, academic growth, and student engagement when our school might have
070nearly double the amount of students in their classrooms? That is not an equal education. Thank you. Hello, my name's Natalie Day and I teach third grade at Quail Hollow. I am talking tonight not to lay out all the reasons that I know you know how large class sizes affect student learning. We should all know that by now. And if you don't, ask yourself how you how you would feel or have felt when your child or grandchild has been in a classroom of 17 students, 20, 23, 26, 29. Which number would you pick for them if you were able to? Continue your your thoughts from that standpoint. The relentless back and forth between the lawmakers and the district is so old. When Katie and Karen visited Quail Hollow last week, they reminded us several times to
071reach out to our representatives, especially in the summer when they are in session. My question to the district is why can't we do this together? Why are we working in silos to get the same result? I've been a member of DAC for years and it is an underused committee. We could use this group that already exists to come up with a game plan as to how to get the legislators ears to change the formula that is antiquated. We have administrators, teachers both in the union and not on this committee. We could work together and present together. Another group that we had not too long ago was the elementary task force. We need to take that group off hold and talk about issues that pertain to having 25 plus students. For example, is the C test
072taking into account up to 10 extra kids we are teaching? When the district compares RISE scores, are we comparing apples to apples with only social economic or class size as well? Professional development can be catered to large class sizes. If the district can understand that a teacher at Park Lane or Granite is the only one in her grade and would benefit from another teacher for planning, etc., and go ahead and make that happen for that school, why is the inverse scenario, large classrooms that need another teacher, not given the same consideration? And just a side note, if the thought or plan is to take a not to give us an FTE and just take a teacher from lower grades to upper grades, I can say that I feel that most parents and teachers would say
073no to that and we would rather have larger classrooms upper grade. Okay, thank you. Uh Aaron Hilton and then Kelsey Roberts. It says push. Is it on now? Okay. Push three times. It needs to say that actually. But I do want to genuinely thank you for the time [snorts] and effort that you give this community. These are not easy decisions that you face and make every day and I recognize this. I am a Quail Hollow parent. Three of my children have graduated from Quail Hollow and moved on to Albion. My youngest is there now in first grade. My wife teaches there. I have volunteered in classrooms, chaperoned field trips, and watched my wife come home night after night grading papers and planning lessons for nearly 30 students. Last year two of my children sat in
074classes of 33 and 34 students. This is not a new problem for our family. It has been our reality for years. I understand and support the district's decision to conduct a broader boundary study. Population is shifting and those decisions deserve careful thought. I also recognize that Quail Hollow is not the only school in the district carrying heavy class sizes. But, among the schools in the consolidation plan and the surrounding community, we are clearly the anomaly and we need some support now and not just in the future. Next school year, our second graders are projected at 28 per class, third grade at 31 per class, fourth grade 30, fifth grade 28. The state of Utah recommends grades three through five not exceed 26 students. We're already over that. Meanwhile, Granite projects 17 students per second and
075third grade. Park Lane and Willow Canyon sit between 19 and 22. Quail Hollow has 366 students, 91 more than Willow Canyon with only one additional teacher. We also have no additional assistant principal despite running both a preschool and full ABS program. Our behavior specialist is being reduced to half time in two schools and our principal or previous principal spent between 1 and 1/2 and 3 hours every day managing this. We recognize that staffing and FTE decisions are not solely in the board's hands, but we are asking for your support in pushing the district to act on this intermediate request while the boundary study is completed. Your voice on behalf of Quail Hollow matters. Okay, thank you. Please do not clap, you guys. There's other people that may have an opposite viewpoint of you, and it's
076to show respect to all people that are here. Um so, the next person is Kelsey Roberts. She is representing a group. I've got my 3 minutes. No one's ever accused me of being brief. Um first I want to say I love teachers. My dad was a teacher. Teachers, you're amazing. Quail Hollow and Granite, we love you. Um my love for teachers runs as deep as my minivan because it has a permanent pickle smell because of Teacher Appreciation Week. We needed more pickles for our sandwiches. I ran to Jersey Mike's to get those pickles. They spilled all over in my minivan, but I will take that smell if our teachers felt appreciated. Um so, in the two short weeks since our last meeting when it was put on pause, Granite is already feeling the slow, painful
077bleed out. Um as you heard from Stacy Zaccas, it sounds like we're losing more FTEs for fall 2026, and that's going to leave two grade levels without team teachers, making a hard job even harder. Uh it's more uneven class sizes. Morale is dropping quickly. More families are discussing transferring out, and others already have done so. There's lots of uncertainty, which is affecting our kids. I'm really sad for these teachers. We When we moved to 11 FTEs FTEs, we lost an exceptional teacher. And by moving to 10, we lose another amazing teacher who really doesn't deserve to have this happen so late in the game. It's just not fair. If she had known in March, she would have done something differently. Um, and she really doesn't deserve it. And it's it feels extremely unfair as a
078daughter of a teacher to watch her go through that. Um, one of the moms I'm speaking on behalf of has a little boy who's entering fourth grade in the fall. The uncertainty surrounding this these possible FTE cuts has already caused him significant anxiety. Um, one of the fourth grade teachers is currently out on leave. The other might be transferred because of the staffing reductions. And his mom has intentionally not discussed these things with him, but he's hearing them at school. So, that alone speaks volumes about how deeply this uncertainty is affecting our kids. And how does this affect our teachers? How are teachers supposed to provide exceptional care when they're not even sure if they're going to have a job in the next coming months. It's also hard on them to have to change grades
079every year. If we have one teacher in some grades, they're going to have to constantly be changing. Split grade classes are also aren't ideal. You have to learn two curriculums. It's makes once again a hard job even harder. >> [snorts] >> Um, and I know more that are leaving and who are talking about leaving, and it makes me sad. This uncertainty is really hard for all of these kids. Also, having only one class per grade level means there's no flexibility if students need to be separated for social or behavioral issues. And parents lose that ability to request teachers that would be better fit for their kids. I understand we need a larger district district study, but that's not mutually exclusive. You can still help Granite now. It's not a win for our students or our
080teachers or the community to drop a teacher every year. Thanks so much. Okay, thank you. Juliana Jackson, then Cassidy Olrich. >> I'm Julie Jackson, parent of a student and PTA president at Bella Vista. We should have swapped transition timelines with Granite. Um we are tired of the political theater regarding our school closure. You keep saying this was quote the right decision, but I personally know of over a thousand people through various petitions and organizations who vehemently disagree. It has been heartbreaking to watch you give the Sandy community the time and attention that closures require while our community suffers these new realities. Lack of long-term safe transportation guaranteed for all students. Larger class sizes without additional teachers. Only one remaining non-DLI elementary option in Cottonwood Heights. Staff has not been replaced as promised. No new school
081identity because the transition was so rushed. Curriculum disruptions where our students will be forced to repeat subjects they've already learned. An overcrowded facility despite the fact that there are still enough students in our area to fill all four neighborhood school buildings at 90% capacity. There is no public preschool left in Cottonwood Heights. There is no equitable long-term plan for the Bella Vista building. But there is triple the workload for staff and volunteers unpaid because of the rushed closure timeline. And the emotional impact on students has been enormous. Students are upset and rebelling at school because their learning environment is no longer stable or predictable. Many of whom are your top academic performers. Dual immersion culture divide is real and hard on our first through fourth grade students who cannot participate in that program. My daughter
082left a Chinese event because she couldn't understand a single word. The volunteers are amazing, but there is a major culture divide. Special education students in Sandy were kept together, but ours were scattered. Hundred Ridge Crest students are no longer welcome at the school. You've essentially dropped a bomb on our school communities instead of a thoughtful merger. Academically you also disrupted programs that are working. Our split classes tested close to 90% proficiency. Our STEM initiatives have been unmatched in neighboring schools. Further, this costs us money as we're paying taxes for a building we no longer can access. We lose access to a park and have to pay millions for new construction. Unsafe transportation will also cost millions more. Families continue to pay more taxes with less access to neighborhood schools. We have been obliterated and we
083deserve better. Thank you. Cassidy Olrich and then Lisa Bezjian. Let's move this microphone down. Okay. Hello, my name is Cassidy Olrich and I am a parent and PTA member at Quill Hill Elementary. I have three kids at the school and one on the way. I have a degree in special education with an emphasis in severe disabilities and a master's degree in curriculum and development. I say this to bring understanding that I have training with an at-risk with at-risk students and students with behavior challenges. This year I have gone in to teach Junior Achievement for three different grades at Quill Hollow. When I went into one of the lower grades with a smaller class size, I was amazed with the amount of individual student attention that was necessary to teach a 20-minute lesson, which included students
084unable to sit, keep their personal space, or students needing excessive reassurance for their answers. These behaviors have increased over the 5 years that I have been teaching the program. I have also taught Junior Achievement in two other grades this year with 30 students and additional students from the ABS program that attended. I was unable to execute the lesson as it was laid out because of the lack of space in the classroom um and attention the students required. The redirection that some students required for behavior management took away educational opportunities from the rest of the class. As someone with training in behavior management and students with specific learning needs, something needs to change. The schools are operating under a model that worked 20 years ago. Having 30 kids in a class meant something different 20 years
085ago than it did it does today. Technology, mental health, parenting styles, and world circumstances have changed how kids are behaving. These students and teachers need more support in school, either through more FTE, a behavior specialist, or more admin. When I talked to teachers of all grades of Quail Hollow in my role in the PTA, I have had multiple teachers break down in tears and question their longevity in the profession. We need to offer more support or we will lose the teachers that are making such a difference in our children's lives. It is not fair or equitable for students in Canyons School District to have different experiences with their classroom size or behavior support based on the school they attend. Thank you. Lisa Bezjian and then Elsia Forsgren. >> [clears throat] >> My name is Lisa
086Bezjian and I have a son who is in second grade at Quail Hollow Elementary. I'm here to request and plead that as you evaluate the FTEs for Quail Hollow for the next school year, that you increase the amount of teachers we have at our school in order to have class sizes consistent with what is published on the Canyons School District website. In two of the three years that my son has attended Quail Hollow, he has had classes of 30 students. He excelled in kindergarten, partly because of a very invested teacher and thanks to her, but I also believe because he was coming from a very successful preschool program that helped him start kindergarten with a strong foundation. In first grade, he had a class of 20 students and thrived both socially and academically with test
087scores to match. In second grade, however, his test scores dropped dramatically and he has struggled far more than I anticipated based off of his previous school years. When I spoke with our principal about my concerns, he stated that our school's test scores were not reflective of our kids struggling in large class sizes. I respectfully disagree with this assessment. To mitigate the academic decline of my son, I have a spent additional time and money on a tutor to help him get back to grade level, to which I have to check him out early twice a week to accommodate her schedule. We have amazing teachers at our school. They are invested, kind, and want to do all they can for our kids to succeed, but they're exhausted and burning out. Our class sizes are a disservice to
088them and our students, and it's disheartening to see the class sizes that our teachers have been asked to work with when most of the surrounding schools in our area have been running with smaller class sizes and some with the support of an assistant principal. However, because our school's test scores show proficiency, I do think it has been a reason to believe that our teachers and students are doing just fine in class sizes around 30 students. But, I'm not the only one that is putting forth the effort to get my student additional help to be successful in school. Our students are suffering in large classes, and not all proficient test scores are because our teachers are able to compensate for the large sizes. It's my fear that without the merge being tabled, my son will continue
089through his elementary education experience with a classroom size of 30-plus students, and I ask that a solution be found now to alleviate the strain on our school and not wait until the boundary and enrollment study is complete. Okay, thank you. Alicia Forsgren, and then Amber Hendricks. That doesn't even want to work. Hello, my name's Alicia Forsgren. I am a former SCC uh member, PTA member, soon-to-be treasurer at Quail Hollow Mandarin. I substitute substitute teach for Canyon School District. I want each of you to come to a class size a class that we deem fit for you guys. Come substitute third grade. Miss Day's class. Come substitute them. See what these behavioral issues are happening. Because I was there for 2 days today this week, I'm exhausted, and that's just 2 days. And I spent half
090of my degree going into education. So, I thought this was going to be I I This is the There are more classes over 30 and close to 30 at Quail Hollow. In your FTE on page 69 of the rough draft budget, we can see that the teacher ratio for the past 10 years, K through 3, is calculated at 22.3 students per teacher. Fourth and fifth is calculated 26.3. So, that doesn't Lisa just talked about her class. Her son's class is second grade is at 29 students. That is Let's see, what do I have? That is 7.8 students higher the third grade will be 7.8 students higher than what your calculated FTE is allocated for for these classes. Third grade is also at 29 students. That's an That's another seven students higher than what your allocated
091FTE is. It's exhausting. It's not sustainable. You're going to lose great teachers, and we don't want to lose any of these great teachers at Quail Hollow or at Granite. We Something needs to be done. Thank you for your time. Thank you. So, Amber Hendricks, then Krista Pippen. Okay. Okay, Krista Pippen, and then Sherry Sadasuke. Good evening, members of the board, uh Superintendent Robinson, and Leon. Um I appreciate uh having a moment to speak, and I'm Krista Pippen. I'm the current serving president of Canyons Education Association, and on behalf of CEA, I would like to sincerely thank the Board of Education for approving the ratified negotiated agreement. We appreciate your support of our educators and your recognition of the important work that is happening in our schools every single day. I also want to express appreciation
092for district administration for their collaborative efforts throughout the negotiating process. While there always challenges, um, difficult problems to solve, difficult conversations along the way, we appreciate the professionalism, the communication, and the shared commitment to supporting students, educators, and public education. Strong schools are built through collaboration and partnership, and we are grateful for the opportunity to continue working together on behalf of the students and the families we serve. So, thank you. Okay, thank you, Sherry Sedowsky. See, there we go. Um, a lot of what I want to say has already been said, but we just we cannot wait another two to three years to address these issues. We have teachers who have retired early, left the profession, or are considering doing so. Teachers who love their job and went into teaching to make a difference, connect
093with their students, meet their needs, and watch them grow and improve. And lately, they feel like their students are being herded through the year, almost like a number instead of a name, simply because they don't have the time or resources to do it any differently. There are families choosing other education options or switching schools because they also feel like their child is just a number, lost in the mix, and surviving instead of thriving. We continue to have good test scores and returning teachers despite the flaws in the FTE system and classes that are way too large, but it's because our teachers are working longer and harder than ever. But you can't say the system is working and doesn't need fixing. Just like a dam hit with floodwaters that does its best to hold everything in,
094eventually the strain and constant pressure beyond what it's designed for will crack and disaster will happen. We have amazing teachers in our community and they have done fantastic job dealing with overcrowded classrooms, more students than ever with IEPs and 504s and inadequate supports. But it's unfair to them, to the students who are not getting the time and attention needed and to the community who tries to be supportive when they feel like they're not being heard. Just because you can make it work doesn't make what's been tolerated right. It is not sustainable or fiscally responsible to keep all the elementary schools open. I totally understand that change is hard and nobody wants to lose their school community. However, more studies, more time and additional evaluations aren't going to change the gross inequalities in classroom size throughout
095the area. Combining resources, teaching staff, support staff, parent volunteers and spreading out the classes is beneficial to everyone for more efficient, collaborative and effective education experience for all. You talked about trust. Help us trust Canyons. Help us trust the board. We cannot wait another two to three years. Okay, thank you. And thank you all of you who are here for patron comments. We do appreciate you coming and speaking to us and the board really does listen. So Uh the next item on our agenda is the consent agenda. So I will now take a motion and please read each of the items. I move that we approve the consent agenda with items A, approval of the minutes for May 5, 2026, B, approval of hire and termination reports, C, approval of purchasing bids, D, approval of
096April financial reports, removing item E, approval of administrative appointments, and then including F, approval of land trust TSSPM amendment for Quail Hollow Elementary. Okay, thank you. Is there a second to that motion? I'll second I'll second it. Okay, is there any discussion to the motion? Okay, seeing none, I'll call for a vote. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Okay, that motion passes unanimously. Would you like to talk about the item you pulled off, Mr. Edel? Should we do a motion first? Sure. Go ahead. I'll take a motion for that next It's item E on the consent agenda. Okay, so I'll make a motion to approve item E, approval of administrative appointments. Okay, is there a second to that? I'll second that. Okay, thank you. We have a motion and a second. Is there
097discussion to that motion? Mr. Edel. Uh so, I'm going to be opposing this and I wanted to state why. Uh the reason is because with this administrative appointment, it reallocates an assistant principal from Copper View Elementary uh with no replacement. Uh my concern is with Copper View, its particular community, uh and the unique challenges that face Copper View. Um I'm not comfortable with that reallocation and I'm unable to support it this time. I do want to say specifically that I have um the utmost faith and confidence of each of these administrative appointees and that I am not opposing the administrative appointees themselves, um and we continue to have the best administrators within the district. Um and so, I wanted to make it clear uh the reason why I am going to be voting uh against
098this administrative appointment. Okay, thank you. Is there any other discussion to that motion? Okay, seeing none, I will now call for a vote. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Nay. Okay, so six in favor, one against. Okay, we will now go on to new business and um item A, the approval of policy updates. There are a whole bunch of policies, so I'm not going to read them all. Um but this will be by Jeffrey Christiansen, assistant legal counsel. Thank you, President Shield. Uh these policies were presented at our previous board meeting on May 5th. Um what I would like to do is just go through them briefly to put them on the record. So again, these are matters we studied in the policy committee and then brought forward to the board. Uh so
099we're adding some additional language to board governance to address situations where there might be uh a physical location of a board meeting and then member is not present and how they will be recognized in giving notice prior uh to that meeting. In uh on board docs, there was one line that we struck uh that was in the section that dealt with a board member could uh could not uh chime in just to vote and we struck that as you'll see on board docs. Um and so we're proposing that those items be adopted in the board governance policy as outlined. Uh the disposition of real property, this goes in our property or our um financial section where uh the district will have now a policy and a committee to discuss disposition of real property as we
100move forward as they review purchases and also the sale of property moving forward. Uh in in terms of the legislative updates, the data privacy and governance policy was updated to designate a chief administrative officer for privacy and then also the required data breach provisions. Again, a a new policy, cybersecurity. Again, this is in response to legislation. So, this policy will allow us to designate a district contact for cybersecurity issues. And then, as new directives come from the Utah Cyber Center, we'll be in a position to help move those issues forward. Some clean up for our non-discrimination policies for both employees and students. We're aligning our definitions for bullying and staff bullying in Utah code. And then, removing language that was vacated by a decision in federal court. In our workers' compensation policy, we're adding language
101to clarify when and the time period for reporting of injuries. And then, also, if an employee's claim is denied by a third-party administrator based on the workers' compensation statute, we're providing notice to employees that they may need to address the medical treatments not covered by workers' compensation. Or, they'll be able to to submit a claim to their own insurance. And that notice wasn't previously in the policy. Termination of employment administrative personnel. We're adding just a definition of an administrative intern. That's where a temporary administrator, other than a career or provisional, whose assignment is just a one-year contract. And we haven't had that term defined. And there are occasions where we have someone that assumes an administrative internship for a period. And we want to have that language clarified in policy. Board reviewed non-discrimination. This is
102for students, but it's the same rationale for employees. In our student conduct and disciplinary process, we have a number of state statutes that required additional language for investigation reporting of drug offenses and updated language for reintegration plans. And then, also to clarify language for recorded incidents of bullying, hazing, cyberbullying, and abusive conduct. And then also, we have um additional definitions and provisions for nicotine offenses and definitions for adjudication, arrest, and charge for sexual offenses. School fees, uh in this policy, there was a school fee waiver amendment um for fee waivers, specifically um students um can develop an action plan once they've been on one trip, then they're required to enter an action plan if they are looking for a fee waiver for a second trip. And it's an agreement between the administration and the student
103to provide um services at the school. And so, this places this language in both our school fees and our student educational travel policy, and there'll be an associated exhibit outlining what that agreement will look like. School open enrollment and school admissions, here we have um definitions under attendance for um requirements to enroll in school requiring uh toilet training for um students before they're able to enroll in school, and we're adding that language to our enrollment provisions and policy. In our graduation requirements policy, uh we have removed the differentiated diploma language that was included, and then we've updated our standard and basic and alternative diploma language, and then we've also added in the policy provisions for earning credit, original credit, credit recovery, and grade replacement as outlined in the in the redline. In our instructional materials
104policy, we've added language for classroom displays that they're not public forums for um promotion of political, religious, or personal viewpoints, and that's just clarifying that um in the classroom and the walls and the displays for government speech under the First Amendment are subject to review and approval by the district. Focus graduation pathway, uh, this is allows a student that may be deficient in credits to still obtain a diploma uh, by um, passing uh, the GED and this outlines how they can go about doing that. The policy is required by USBE rule and we've adopted a policy for those students who are are a junior or senior that may be significantly credit deficient based on the credits outlined and then they're required to participate in GED preparation. If they pass, then they're awarded credit and can
105receive a diploma. Study of controversial issues, uh, this policy was in our instruction section and we've determined to update both the board language and also uh, the definition for controversial issues as they're studied in classes. It the policy outlines the definition for controversial issue and then lays out uh, both some guidance points for instructional expectations for our educators and then also um, how to address situations um, in the classroom when there may be different viewpoints and how to address that. So, this is uh, a lot of a lot of policy this evening and a lot of catch up from legislative issues and other work that's been reviewed by the policy committee. I can answer questions related to a specific policy. Okay, board, are there any questions for Mr. Christensen? No, okay. This um, this is
106second reading possible action. >> [clears throat] >> So, we can move forward with the motion. Mr. Edel? Uh first, thanks. Thanks, Jeff. This is the most unremarkable set of policy changes. Like, it's it's pretty boring. Uh so, I appreciate your work on that. I'm going to go ahead and move that uh we adopt policy 100.01 board governance new policy 200.07 disposition of real property, policy 300.13 data privacy and governance, new policy 300.16 cybersecurity, policy 400.02 nondiscrimination, policy 400.10 workers' compensation policy 400.42 termination of employment administrative personnel policy 500.01 nondiscrimination, policy 500.02 student conduct and disciplinary process, policy 500.22 school fees, policy 500.24 student educational travel, policy 500.30 open enrollment, school admissions, school moratoriums, policy 600.01 graduation requirements, policy 600.02 instructional material, new policy 600.07 focused graduation pathway policy 600.16 student study >> study study of
107controversial issues. It looks like that's it. I'll second that motion. Thank you. Okay, [clears throat] we have a motion and a second to approve all of those policy updates. I'm not going to read them all again. Please. Um is is there any discussion to that motion? Okay, seeing none, I'll call for a vote. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, policy committee, for all your work, as well. So, now we are on to item B, the approval of the 2026-27 Canyons Education Association negotiated agreement. Action requested. This will be by Leon Wilcox, business administrator. Thank you, President Shill, and thank you, Jeff. That's a tough act to follow there. Uh We're going to go over items B, C, and D. All relate to
108negotiations that we have recently wrapped up. You've heard from some of the association members here today. We certainly appreciate them. Uh I just want to emphasize, just go over a couple things that are common to all three. So, when we get to that agreement, we I won't repeat it, if that's that's okay. First of all, I just want to talk about our insurance. We all know insurance prices just keep medical costs just keep skyrocketing on us. Um what we have done is through the insurance committee, and that has been approved or adopted in negotiations, is that we will be increasing premiums uh a total of about $1.4 million between the employees and the district's share. The district will be picking up about 1 million 117,000 of that, and the employees will be picking up about
109281,000 of that. Uh so, that's that is a 5% increase for the employees. Uh because the dollar amount's more on the district's side, it is about a 3.6% increase there. Uh the district will still be paying for teachers and those on the licensed salary schedule will still be paying 89% of the premiums. Those on the ESPs we will still be paying 91% of the premiums going forward. Uh the deductibles, co-pays, out-of-pocket maximums, they will all remain the same. Uh we increased those last year but did not increase the premiums. We're doing a little bit of these act opposite this year with the the premium increase there. So, that is common to all three groups uh as as we get to those. Also, uh there was this change in state law that requires us to adopt
110a foster care policy. So, in our policies uh uh that we will grant 20 days of paid leave within 6 months of a foster child being placed in a home there. So, for all three groups and so we will be working on those policies. Also, want to emphasize that uh with and we'll talk about this in the item on the budget update, the the a new state law that was enacted by this legislature this past session, House Bill 236. It's truth in taxation amendments. Um basically, what it says is that if you're going to increase taxes or property taxes, you can do that but you have to give notice, which we're going to do tonight, and you have to put uh if it's you cannot actually spend that money until it's it's approved. I mean,
111until you hit go through your truth and taxation hearing. So, part of this is we're granting a COLA increase to all employee groups but that in COLA increase will be greater once the tax hearing if and when it's approved on in August, okay? So, just want to make sure that's clear uh going going forth. Again, that's a House Bill 236. Uh so, we'll just hit the highlights of the the uh CEA agreement. I want to acknowledge uh Rebecca Allen from Albion Middle, Mitchell Atencio from Corner Canyon High, Julie Bean who is here from Jordan High School, Natalie Day who you've heard from from Quail Hollow, Katie Nelson from Esmont Middle, Kathy Smith who is retiring, but we're grateful she's here from Altara. And you've also heard from uh uh Krista Pippen, the president of CEA
112tonight, and their representative Eric Blackham from uh the Jordan Canyons UniServ. They were their committee. Uh that was Dr. Robinson, myself, our outgoing HR director Steve Diamond, our incoming HR director Tiffany Midgley, uh Dan Harper, and Charlie Evans uh uh working with the CEA. We certainly appreciate their all their willingness to negotiate and uh the issues we were could discuss there. I should say the whole negotiation agreement's about 50 pages. It's found on BoardDocs. That's what you'll be approving tonight. There is a summary there that I'm just going to go over the summary highlights fairly quickly. We will be granting uh increment increases to all eligible employees. That's a $950 increase for those on the 186-day sal- salary schedule. That costs about $2.4 million or about 1.19% from this year's base salary. We will also
113fund a one .85 % COLA uh on top of that. Um it will be based on step 20 and calculated from there. Uh we will also, as we always do, we will lessen minus out the educator salary adjustments in the TSSA uh state-funded adjustments as well. So, uh I should note that 1.1% of that COLA will go forward on July 1. However, .7 .75% of that will be contingent on the tax increase occurring on in August, okay? So, uh that is about 1.325 is what we'll be looking at at that tax increase to fund a .75 increase on the cola for for teachers moving forward. That will put allow each teacher, if the tax increase goes through, each teacher would receive a $2,575 pay increase next year. That does include a three $311 from the
114uh educator salary adjustment. That would put our teachers to starting salary at about at >> [clears throat] >> at uh 65,825. We looked at what we started out in 2009 and we are now over doubled where we were many years ago. Of course, cost of living has gone up so much more since then. Uh And and it also should be said that this year's average teacher was making about $79,120. This increase would equate to about a three and a quarter percent salary increase for each teacher. Uh On board docs on the agreement, you can see the salary schedule with the two and a quarter percent increase or the 1.85 increase. And if the tax rate doesn't go through, the 1.1% increase. Again, we have to put them both out there. We will continue to fund
115education enhancements, the 32 hours of paid professional leave. We'll give a thousand continue with a thousand dollar stipend for title one teachers that we paid in on uh September and April payrolls. And the scope of negotiations will remain in effect for all other or negotiated policies. Uh Uh, Dr. Robinson has put out a statement on regarding PLC's during the week of parent-teacher conferences that has been sent out to employees. And, uh, we will also annually fund up to 5 days of substitute coverage for our our teachers who go present at conferences. We think that's a great opportunities. You know, we want to, of course, share out our knowledge, and we have a few teachers who do a great job of that. So, with that, I just want to, you know, as a dad, I certainly
116appreciate all the great work as our teachers do have do every day here. And, we heard from some tonight and the parents who support them. Uh, we know it's a a tough job, and we certainly value everything they do. It's all about our kids and all about our teachers teaching the kids, and we try our best to support them. So, we hope this package reflects that. So, with that, I'll take any questions or comments you may have. Okay, Glenn, are there any questions or comments? I'd like to make a motion. Oh, great. I would like to make a motion to approve items B, C, and D, approval of 2026 Well, we've got to do them separately. >> Oh, we have to do them all separate. Okay. I'll just start with the first. Approval of 2026-2027
117Canyons Education Association negotiated agreement. Okay, thank you. There's a motion. Is there a second? I'll make that second. Okay, thank you. Is there any discussion to the motion? Okay, so we will now vote on the approval of the 2026-2027 Canyons Education Association negotiated agreement. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that motion passes unanimously. Now, we are on to item C, the approval of the 2026-2027 Canyons Education Support Professionals Association negotiated agreement. >> [snorts] >> Action requested also by Leon Wilcox, business administrator. Yes, thank you again, President Shield. Just want to acknowledge our ESP Association group here tonight. Angie, uh Paul you heard from, Brandon Wolf from facilities, Brett Marcus from uh our custodial coordinator, Keta from uh Draper Park, our assistant custodian, and Richard Moore from Silver Mesa, our AFM there. And
118the district's team was the same. Uh we certainly appreciate them and them working with us today. Again, I'll just hit the highlights. The document there is on Diligent. Uh we will funds step increases to all eligible employees. That's about a $1.9 million cost, or about a two and a quarter from this year's base salary. We will also grant a two and a quarter cost of living increase to the base salary of the ESP schedule. Uh we'll do that by adding two and a quarter to each step, and then each step will subsequently increase by those amounts shown on the schedule. Uh that will put our starting wage for our lowest position at $16.05. So, we're excited to ex- eclipse that mark there. That $16 mark. It should be noted that as well as with the
119teacher agreement, 1.5% of the COLA will go forth starting on July 1. However, 0.75% of of 1% uh will be subject to the truth and taxation hearing in August. That's about $631,000 that will be held in a restricted account, if you will, until the TNT. Uh We know we have many ESPs about uh Let's see, we have about three 140 ESPs who have been with us a long time and are topped out on the salary schedule. So, for them, as we've done in the past, we will grant a $750 one-time stipend on their November 30th paycheck. We've done that the last several years. That is a cost about $397,000. That will be prorated on their FTE status in in Skyward. We will also grant for our hourly ESPs who are topped out, again on step
12010, will give them a $200 stipend on that same pay date, regardless of the number of hours worked, but $200 across for them. Uh we've hit the insurance. Uh We will maintain the same number of working days and hours for contracted employees. We will increase what we call the shift differential. These are essentially graveyard employees from $1.50 to $3, mainly at our high schools to try to get to have get head better more help in cleaning up after nighttime events in the This would be in basically after 10:00 at night as our high schools basically are open until then. And we're hoping to attract that. And again, as I mentioned, the foster care uh uh policy. So, just want to thank you all our ESPs, whether they're driving a bus, working on our buildings, cleaning
121our buildings, maintaining our computers, working in our cafeterias, you know, they're the backbone of what makes it happen here. So, so grateful for all of them. With that, happy to take any questions. Okay, board, are there any questions or comments? Okay, I will now take a motion then to approve this agreement. I will make a motion to approve this agreement, item C, approval of 2026-2027 Canyons Educational Support Professionals Association Negotiated Agreement. Okay, thank you. We have a motion. Is there a second to that? I'll second that motion. Okay, thank you. We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion or comments to that motion? Okay, seeing none, I will call for a vote. All in favor of the approval of the 2026-2027 Canyons Educational Support Professionals Association Negotiated Agreement, please say I. I.
122Any opposed? Okay, that motion passes unanimously. Okay, now we're on to item D, the approval of the 2026-2027 compensation package for Canyons School District Administrators. And this is action requested also by Mr. Wilcox, business administrator. Yes, want to just acknowledge those administrators who came and talked with us. Uh Cena Saline from Granite, Shawn Walker from Canyon View, Chip Watts who was here tonight from Draper Park, and Amy Borker from uh Diamond Ridge. Uh it's just to hit the highlights again, this agreement's on diligent. We will fund step increases for all eligible administrators. This will cost about 238,000 with benefits, or about .87 of 1% off this of this year's base salary. We will also grant them a 2 and 1/4% cost of living increase on the base salary schedule. Uh should be said that is
123attached, both the one salary schedule with the two and 1/4 and a 1.5, both attached. Now I also want to go back to the ESPs, both the 1.5 and their two and 1/4 are both attached there. Again, both contingent on the tax hearing going forward. As with the ESPs, uh 1.5% of the cola will move forward on July 1 with the remaining .75% being subject to the TNT hearing in August. Uh we do have 57 administrators been with us a long time. Certainly grateful for all their years of service who are on step or who are topped out on the step 10 on their top step whether that's a test step 10 or step five. We will give them >> [clears throat] >> a 1.25% stipend increase for those and that will cost us about
124129,000. Uh so for the total package for these for our administrators is just under a million dollars or about 3.6% increase from this year's base and then we already hit the insurance and the foster leave there. We're certainly grateful for all our administrators for what they do leading our buildings day in, day out. Uh you know, they never get any time off and we know that. We know they're working hard and really uh doing it all for our to support our teachers and students. So, grateful for their service and I'll get any questions on this agreement. Okay, board. Any questions? So, just so the public knows we have the board has discussed this for many hours before [laughter] before tonight. So, anyway, it's not that we haven't talked about it. We have. Um so, seeing
125no discussion, I will now take a motion. I motion that we approve item D, compensation package for Canyon School District administrators. Um yeah, that's it. Okay, for the year 20 >> For the year 2026-2027. Should have did that first. >> Right. Thank you. Okay, we have a motion. Is there a second to I'll second that. Okay, is there any discussion? Mr. Eda? Um I just want to quickly say thank you to our associations and to the administrators uh that participated in the process. I appreciate your advocacy for uh the best employees anywhere in the whole state. So thank you for advocating for all of them. Okay, thank you Mr. Edel. I think the whole board agrees with what you just said. I will now call for a vote for the approval of the 2026-27 compensation
126package for Canyons School District administrators. So all in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Okay, that motion passes unanimously. Okay, now we are on to item D. I mean sorry, E. 2026-27 budget update by Mr. Leon Wilcox, business administrator. Thank you President Shield. This is our first reading on our budget. Our budget is big. It's over $600 million comprising multiple funds, multiple areas. The biggest is what you did tonight is that is our employee compensation. That's our our biggest part of our budget. We're going to actually hit more of that next in 2 weeks on our June 2nd meeting, but we're going to hit some of the other funds tonight and uh some of our capital projects and also our property taxes. And that's where I'm going to start right here is maybe. Is that
127going going? Oops, sorry. It may have gotten The clicker is not working. Clicker is not working. It may have gotten Uh-oh. Yeah, why don't you go click? Uh-oh, everyone's running. You were you're very good at that. I don't know if you were as ever be as good as Rick was. He he had to click a few times and so. >> [laughter] >> But we'll get you. We'll see what you can do there. Okay, Leon. You never have a joke when you need a joke. I never have a joke. You need You need to have some in the pipeline. >> I just just so you know, I I just bought a a couple weeks ago I bought this sweet car online. And I even found out it was even better when I found out it used
128to be owned by Neil Diamond. Think about that. Sweet car online. >> [laughter] >> Sweet car on Is that Is that all I'm going to get? That's That's a good one. I I Did anyone get it? You need the flashy pants. I need the flash I need the flashy You got to have one of his outfits there. Okay, is it working or do you just need to tell them? Okay. It is working. >> Thank you. Let's go ahead then. All right. I want to start off by this statement right here. Again, some of this is under HB 236 under the truth and taxation. And I want to start off by saying our proposed property tax impact statement. And I may ask you to put this verbatim into our minutes so we have this documented that
129the 2026-27 tentative budget for Canyon School District includes a proposed tax rate increase. The increase will be for approximately 6,871,000 and the percentage increase will be approximately 5.8%. Uh >> [clears throat] >> we have on diligent what we have to provide to the public starting the first minute when we discuss our budget the property tax impact statement. Again, it's on diligent. I do have copies outside the door if you those in attendance would like to get one. Uh here is what we are proposing to do with that 2 million I mean that 6 million 6.8 million dollars I just talked about. 2 million 161,000 of that will be used for 0.75% cola increase for all employees. Again, that goes back to the negotiated agreements we just approved. Uh we will look to hire two teachers
130for the upcoming Canyons Innovation Center about 105,000 each or 210,000 there. We will also be looking to increase our capital fund to generate uh for to pay general obligation debt. That will be 4 million 500,000. However, we will be doing a corresponding decrease in the debt service fund so that revenues we expect to get in that fund from property taxes will go down by that amount. Uh as the debt retires over our next few years, we're going to use these funds to rebuild renovate our aging elementary schools. Again, we've talked about a during this process of boundaries. We have 50 elementary schools I mean we have 12 elementary schools that are 50 years old or older and another six that are 45 between 45 and 50. And part of the process we'd like to look
131at is rebuilding some of these as we go forward. This is the first step in going down that path. Uh right here I have a sample property tax statement. This is just on an average home. Very few people have an average home. Okay, you're either your home value is either above it or below it. But last year our average home in 2025 was 200 and I'm going to point up here, but it was 200 I mean $740,000 in value in the home. I'm projecting it to go up to 762. I don't know what the average is. We'll probably find out in a week or two from the county assessor. It's probably going to be higher than 762, I'm thinking, but I put in 3%. What that does is based on what we're projecting here, again
132a 5.8% increase, that would be roughly a $72 annual increase on the average home there. Okay, and so you can see that's what uh individuals will see if this has when the property tax notices come out. I wish to notice though, if you look down here on the next line, the debt service, that amount was >> [clears throat] >> $430 is what we're proposing with the rate incre decrease in our debt service. Last year people paid $475 towards our debt. This year they'll pay 430 or about $45 less. So, based on the total impact of the taxes, if you net everything out, it the home value will go up or I'm projecting 22,000. I'm thinking it's going to be higher than that. The total increase in taxes owed from last year to this year on
133that average home will be $32.65. Some of that increase is just because the state's basic rate, the third line down, will go down a little bit, but it's not going to go down as much as the value of your home goes up. So, it'll be about a $5 increase there. And also, as I noted, be about a $45 increase, I mean decrease, on the amount you pay on the debt. Again, we'll be using this money from our capital income to still pay the service of debt for the next few years, but that will start to give us some options in a few years out to when we look to rebuild elementary schools. Uh this would probably be the first year we do this and we'll probably have to do it four or five six times
134going forward to accumulate this debt as as our debt starts rolling off. Have a couple short charts going forward on that. Uh Couple things on uh our tax our proposed tax increase, uh they have to be held in a restricted account. So, you can see right over here in our budget, if you look on page 13 of the budget that we have out there online, we have held those, meaning we cannot spend those until the truth in taxation hearing. I have committed from the county and the state that we can hold our truth in taxation hearing on Tuesday, uh August 4th. That's when we were scheduled to hold the board meeting anyway. Uh Keep in mind we just approved the negotiated agreements and we can't pay the whole raise. So, for those employees who qualify
135for a check starting in July, uh we'll have to do what we call retroactive pays throughout the rest of the year once the truth in taxation occurs, if that makes sense. So, they'll get a smaller amount on their July checks and maybe not first one in August till we can get it all programmed in and then the amount that they were short in that period of time will be made up for the rest of the year. It should not impact our teachers as their first check under this agreement would be September 15th. So, we should have everything in done by then for them going forward. So, just want those are some new things again on this uh House Bill 236 going forward. Uh I do have our statements out there on uh they're in draft
136form. Our total budget this year, 610 million dollars is what we're expect we're going to be asking you to approve. We're working on an executive summary and we could make a few minor there's still a couple minor changes we're going to likely occur uh we'll likely make before we actually have you approve it on September 16th. Uh here are some just some general fund updates. I'm going to hit these more at our June 2nd meeting cuz that's uh where uh cuz I wanted to get our agreements approved tonight, but uh there was a 4. WP2 4.2 WPU increase that brings it up to 4,870 per student. Uh that is just what the inflationary factor was. It did not go above that uh like we were hoping to. They did increase the teacher salary adjustment for
137each of our teachers uh by $311. That was part of the negotiation agreement there. Due to the uh 20 24 constitution amendment to the uh land that was on the ballot land trust money did does go up as the dividend increased from 4 to 5%. So, we got about just under a million dollars there. Uh our literacy interventions will go up for the new literacy bill that we Dr. McKay and our MTSS team is working on. Got 1.3 million for that. A big one two big ones though that are going to hurt us I think long term and that is our TSSA. There was a property tax provision in that that got capped the last year and so it's capped this year and based on our student enrollment we're actually going to go down 200,000
138district wide in that. That's going to hurt us. And another big one is our uh DTL digital teaching and learning. That whole grant was eliminated. That's about 834,000 to us. So, some big hits. We're grateful for what we got, but we also took some big hits as well. Again, we'll hit some of these at our next meeting. Uh so, I'm going to go through some of our our other funds here, and if you have questions, uh and I have the pages of the budget right there uh if you want ever wanted to refer to those. Uh we are going to propose a lunch price increase for this upcoming year. Uh the last increase occurred in 2021, but it did not go into effect until 2022. Uh the 2022-23 years, in those 2 years we were
139in COVID, lunches were subsidized by the federal government. So, in the last 2 years, we're projecting to draw down our balance by over $4 million. That's last year and this year. If you look at what's the cost CPI food index, you know, it's about uh it's been about 16-17%. Uh so, we you know, it's something that we have not captured there. Uh we went out and looked at a couple of our neighboring districts where their increase where their lunch prices are they are looking to increase them as well. Uh that's Salt Lake and Jordan. Uh you can see where they are going to go next year and where we are proposing to go. I'd probably pay more attention to the lunch price than the breakfast cost because only about 10% of our students participate in
140breakfast. That includes those on free and reduced breakfast as well. So, that includes everyone. Uh so, we are looking to go to on elementary lunch go looking to go increase by 50 cents to $2.50. And for secondary lunch by 75 cents from 2 and a quarter to $3. And also increasing our adult breakfast and our adult lunch. Now, I know that's a hit and it's an increase. We we acknowledge that. We also now acknowledge if you go to Chick-fil-A or McDonald's and you buy a value meal, you're looking at 10, 11, 12 dollars. So, you can see the the costs there. And so, that is why, you know, that's part of that CPI index with that. Uh as I said, roughly half of our students participate in school lunch daily, whereas 10% maybe 3,000 participate
141in breakfast daily. We serve about 190,000 paid breakfasts every year. Uh we have schools that were still eligible for the what we call CEP schools or community economic provision schools. They will remain uh they will remain the same next year as they are this year. Those schools are Midvale Middle, Copper View, East Midvale, Midvale Elementary, Mid Valley and Sandy. They will have all students will still receive free breakfast and lunch at those schools. Uh should be noted, I'll just bring this up in Congress back in DC last week, there was a bill brought forth by about a two brought it forth, a senator and a and a representative and was supported by about 100 uh congressmen, men and women, but it was to provide universal free lunch to all students nationwide. Part of it is
142because of the ongoing lunch debt issue that you hear about on the news. So, we hope that maybe go to through. We don't wait and see what happens with that going forward, but uh I just wanted to tell you about that. Uh going to go on to a different fund now, but is there any questions on what we are proposing here with our lunch prices for next year? Mr. Lewis. Um I just have a couple of questions. sir. Uh what is the current balance of this school lunch fund and what what about how long do you think we have until that fund becomes critical? It's on if you go back to those pages, I don't have it right here in front of me. I know in about 3 years we're looking at drawing it down
143to about 1.8 million. Okay. That's pretty getting pretty critical there. Okay. >> Uh, it's about 8 million now. I I want to check that. Mhm. Uh, but uh, yeah. So, it's it's healthy but and we we knew at the end of COVID we had about 12 million and we've drawn down four. At at you know, projected draw down four at the end of this year, so. But we are just you know, the price of labor and the price of food just keep going up on us and that's the issue we're fighting there, yeah. Yeah. Uh, I just have a couple of points to make uh, cuz this is going to be a discussion that we're going to have for a while um, because we're not going to approve this tonight. Um, specifically on the breakfast
144portion, I want to us to consider who are these students eating this using this service. Yeah, only 10% of our students are using this daily approximately, but who's showing up that early before school to use our services? It's It's going to predominantly be young students with limited means because they cannot eat at home and their parents are working more restricted schedules because they're showing up so early. I would just like us to consider especially with the cost of living yes, it's going to cost us significantly or cost us more to feed our students, but it is also costing significantly more to find alternatives to feed for parents to feed our kids their kids in our schools. It's pick making sending their kids to school with these current Canyons prices is a lot cheaper than sending
145them with a cold lunch every day. I mean, that's what we called it. Uh but if we increase these prices, I'm just concerned about the increase of cost of living over the next couple of months. Our our community is already pretty strapped. And I just have a hard time looking at a lunch price incre- increase just in general. Okay, Mr. Ettle. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. Hey, just to answer one of the questions just cuz I had Gemini look at the at the sheet. Uh it was uh a $7.2 million nutritional fund balance. Uh and uh so this is all just just AI. So, just as a as an asterisk there. Um but it looks like uh uh it's a deficit of uh 1.6 million. So, so anyway, yeah, when he was saying it was it
146was going down, it's um it would go down relatively quickly over a couple years. Um and I do appreciate your comments. Um my kids eat lots of meals at school and they get to school earlier than any kids should um because they get there before the doors open cuz that's who my middle schoolers are. But, yeah. Uh Mr. Wilcox, could you bring back just the breakdown of I mean, just the question that Mr. Lewis asked. Like, who are the students that are eating? Do you know that? Is it mostly elementary Are you talking breakfast? The breakfast, yeah. >> Yeah, specifically breakfast because it's such a small portion of our total served population in terms of our nutritional >> Uh yeah. And our just also the the the increases on breakfast are pretty substantial. Yeah. Yeah,
147uh so I broke that down. So, if you take 190,000 and you divide it by 174 school days, which is what we have, and you have uh divided by you know, our 41 schools, I can't remember the number, but it's about 15 or 20 a day eat breakfast at each given that they all eat the same at each school. Does that make sense? Now, I'm sure some schools eat more and some less. But, uh that's about what it That's about what it is. It's about 10% >> 20, 30 students a day uh getting I being on a paid breakfast. I want to emphasize that. Again, all these schools right here are receiving breakfast. But, and they're getting it in the classroom, but it's free. So, that's it That's the difference right there. So, uh We
148can break I can try to break I'm sure we have the data to break it down by elementary and middle and high school, and I can bring that back next time. Yeah. That would be good. Yeah. That would be much appreciated. I really appreciate that, Leon. >> Okay. Yeah. Okay, any other comments, board? Okay. I think we can go on. Okay. Going to a whole different fund now out of our lunch fund, that's our what we call a pass-through taxes. These are what we've agreed agreements we've made with our cities on development. We haven't done one for over 5 years, which is actually good. Uh but, we also on the property tax line that I showed you earlier, there's a a portion that we have It's calculated by formula statewide on what our patrons have
149to pay towards charter schools, and that number is right there. If we expect it to be roughly the same going forward, that's this blue line here. You can see fortunately the biggest factor in what we owe charter schools is the number of students who reside in our boundaries who attend our charter school. And that you can see there that blue line has remained relatively stable over the last few years. That means the number of kids who reside here who attend our charter school has remained fairly stable over the last several years, so which is good that we can keep them here with us. And also the amount we contribute to the redevelopment again has been relatively stable. Again, no new agreements recently. Again, one of the things that we're looking to do is this long-term
150as we convert our debt property tax to capital is when these agreements roll off and and starting in 2034 and 35 are two or our three biggest ones, we want to be able to capture that property tax moving forward as an ongoing source of revenue. It would be about $2 million towards towards our capital needs as these roll off. So, that's a big deal, so we want to capture that. If it remains in debt once our debt rolls off, we lose that. So, we want to be able to capture that going forward. Again, the three biggest ones are the Midvale, uh Bingham Junction, that's where the Topgolf is. Uh and well, everybody I think knows where Topgolf is and around there. The Sandy City North, which is where the Mountain America building and Hale Center
151Theater is, and then Draper FrontRunner, where our innovation center is, but also all the buildings around that. Those are our three far and away our three biggest ones and starting to start see the end of those in a few years out. Uh just want to hit our general obligation bonds bonds or debt. Uh you can see where we were as far owing debt, 334 million at the end of last school year. We did some refunding back in August, and then we're going to make a payment this year, so our debt will come down to about 300 million uh at the end of this current year. We'll schedule to make another payment of 300 333 million next year, so we'll be about 266 a year from now. Uh we as you can see there the red
152this is our graph of our outstanding debt the red is from our 2000 bond election the blue is from our 2017 bond election. We have a pretty rapid pay down with nearly 70% going off in the next 6 years and then the other 30% going off in the final 6 years. Again, we are if the tax increase is approved and we move that money to capital it will still go towards debt. It will not go towards any capital projects, but we'll just have to make a transfer into our debt fund to pay the debt going forward. So you can see there starting to starting to come down with that. Uh these are our lease revenue bonds. They uh they go out just a little bit further. You can see our balance as of what we're
153going we're going to pay this year brings us down to 118 another payment next year will take us down to 112. The three colors there uh 2021 we issued for Glacier Hills and Peruvian Park to rebuild those schools. In 24 we did the yellow which was for uh Jordan the biggest one, Eastmont, Corner Canyon, and and Hillcrest. You can see the yellow there that goes off in 38 and then the red I mean the green is what we issued for the new for the Innovation Center about a year and a half ago. Again, 37% due within the next 5 years. Bond raters like to see that that we're not going out real long time and then the next 5 years another 37%. If you put them all both together, this is what it looks like
154with our total debt combined. But this is probably more of the schedule we want to see that we've shown out there. Uh looking to two in again I'll bring attention to the purple and the red. That would be new debt we issued where we could start issuing bonds and start rebuilding some elementary schools. Looking to possibly start one in fall of '28. And then issue some more bonds in '29 and maybe build up to three more. So, I know when we heard and are listening as we went out there on particularly our open houses, people were concerned about, you know, not us not having the financing. Totally get that. Totally agree with that. I think I'm not too concerned about us being able to get there. I'm really not at this point. I Well, we
155can get there. One thing that scares me is the legislature a little bit with this with action and that is uh they may restrict the use of lease revenue bonds going forward. There was a bill out there. Fortunately, did not pass. 332. And so, I hope our patrons pay attention to this and will watch this. And all districts will going forward as we really need that tool in our toolbox to issue debt to pay down these uh you know, to to rebuild some of our schools. I'm just going to move over to our capital right now and hit the highlights here. This would be more of that capital update. But these are our projects coming up uh for next school year will be heavy on the Innovation Center. Uh we do plan on 27 million
156going towards that next year. Jordan High, we're not a whole lot as we're finishing up there. We did have nearly 16 million in this year's budget going towards that. Uh just to give you a brief update there. We have three areas that are really going to be the focus this summer. One is the auditorium, the black box theater, and the field house. Uh I feel you'll see that August 17th date a lot in the next few slides. That is the first day of school. We feel confident, I'm going to use that loosely as I can, but confident that the black box theater and the auditorium will be completed by then. Uh, I'm excited about the auditorium with the new lighting and sound system they're going to have in that. The field house, I'm thinking is
157going to be a few weeks later. I think it's going to be probably 3 weeks later. Around Labor Day. Uh, Esmont, we had about 7 and 1/2 million in this year's budget to do that. The elevator, all the restrooms are complete. The big thing this summer is the media center and finishing up the tile, but we think everything should be completed by the 17th or the start of school. Uh, if you remember 3 years ago, we were debating how we were going to do stuff at Corner, Hillcrest, Jordan, Esmont. Now, 3 years later, we issued those bonds and now 3 years later, looks like we're wrapping those projects up. It's It's exciting to see. Uh, we will have contractors fixing minor issues probably for the rest of this calendar year, but come September, we should
158be in and using all the spaces that we want in these buildings, so we're excited about that. Just a reminder on the Innovation Center, we got that 17.2 million Catalyst Grant. And we also have two properties under sale, the C-Tech property. They had their neighborhood open house yesterday. I think it was It went well. We're going to have a call on that next week, and they're taking that to the Planning Commission of Sandy next week on June 4th on that property. And then Sandy City, I know they're excited about the Crescent View property. Been on a contract for almost 3 months now. Uh, with the due diligence time they should have We should be looking to close on that in March. So. Just some pictures here of of our project. You can see the inside
159of the innovation center and moving the raised floor and starting to do lots of uh electrical work there, both sides. Uh Here you can see they're actually removing the stairs on the side of the building. And you can see the big crane out back getting ready to work on the tilt-up buildings and the very first tilt-up went up today out there. So, you can see a picture of that. I know some of you may be going out tomorrow and they'll be doing one or two of these every day. Just hoping that one's still standing tomorrow. So. Uh but uh uh But that's they'll go up That's going to go up pretty quick, this building for our home construction building and our uh diesel mechanics. Here is Jordan's Here is a couple of pictures of Jordan.
160To my right here is the black box theater. I kind of focused on that because those windows got put in last week. And you can see the in new entrance here coming in uh from the parking lot. Should be a nice another nice entrance into the school. Here is the field house. >> [clears throat] >> This picture here with by these trucks is looking south towards the parking lot. The opposite is from the other side looking north towards the tennis court {slash} football field. You can see those trucks how they fit in there and the big crane. That's a big space. I know people have come driven by and said it doesn't look that big, but you get inside there and it's a big space uh with that. So, uh again, excited for that to
161come along. There will be a You can't see it, but there's a still I mean, a concrete pad over here where they will be putting in weight equipment and treadmills there. So, it'll be a nice space once that's all up and going. Here's a couple pictures of Eastmont. Again, the media center right here. Glass going in on the top floor, but we they have to do all the inside and the bottom glass right here and this is more of a finished look of the They have these breakout benches in the flooring here and the lights. I'll have to see with Eastmont, the biggest difference I see there is the lighting. I think that's made a big difference. Just that building just didn't have a whole lot of natural light in the LED lights we put
162in there had a made a big big difference in that. So. Here are Now, with that, we're going to move to some of our smaller capital projects. These were either going on or beginning going on here soon. Uh we talked uh you approved all and you have approved all of these going forward. The Jordan High baseball turf and lighting. Uh it will start within the next couple weeks. It's going to take about 5 months to to do that as we replace all the outfield grass and the turf and install the lights. The Alta High fax room. That's going to be one of those that's going to be tough to complete. They actually gave up the room last week, so they have actually started demolition in that as they're just holding the class in a different
163room. That will be tough to complete, but it's going to be a nice space again. Something that really needed to be remodeled and we're glad we can get that done. Uh these elementary door locks to comply with the school safety bill. 19 of them should be complete by August. We've done about 12 already. I hear they've been a big hit cuz teachers don't have to open and shut the door every time and it just takes care of it. So, I think this has been a really big thing for our our teachers. We're also going to look to add a couple more uh as well to try to get them pushed through those. We have uh HVAC I should have put HVAC upgrades for these three schools, Albion, Copper View, and Oquirrh Elementary. The parts should
164be here soon if they're not already. And we don't have an issue we don't see an issue completing those upgrades again on the ventilation systems at those three schools by the start of school. We're replacing the turf at Alta. That will actually be paid from our 28 budget. Uh should be be tight, but should be ready for the first game uh there in um about mid-August. Creek Ridge Crest will be replacing all the carpet starting on Mon- uh a week from this upcoming Monday, June 1st. They will be over there removing all the furniture from the classrooms and then that going down, they should have that down by middle of July. The boilers for Canyon View uh they're in route and they should have those installed. We're not too worried about those. And then we
165have cell phone repeaters at Midvale and Union. They're both nearly complete now. Uh but the biggest thing I think is our going to be our capital wise is our limited water usage this upcoming year and we may want to give you more of an update at an upcoming meeting on what we're trying to do. I know that we've been somewhat holding on till the governor makes uh declaration on water conservation and but uh we I think maybe next meeting we'll give you a brief update on what we'll plan to do, but that will be a big challenge. Just our budget timeline. The budget will be finalized with an executive summary and posted uh hopefully well, it has to be posted next week, week of May 25th. We'll have a second reading with emphasis on the
166general fund and we'll also go over that tax impact statement again that has to be brought up every time we discuss the budget from here on out according to the bill. Again, that is found on Diligent. And then June 16th we'll have our budget hearing again with a tax impact statement. And again as our truth and taxation is held for August 4th it's at we're scheduled it for 6:00 that day. A couple changes that can be the only meeting we have that day. In the past we used to be able to have a study session before we can no longer do that. This has to be the only meeting. We also have to allow for virtual participation meaning we have to allow for comments to be read virtually or patrons to make comments virtually just
167not in person but virtually so we'll have to work with Jeff and Justin to get that set up. And then we also have to read written comments into the record that we receive. So they have added some more requirements to TNT hearing. So with that any questions you may have. Hey board are there any questions or comments? We have to think of Mrs. Neibar. You mentioned how the as we know there's the assessor that determines the value of homes that hasn't come out yet and you're saying that you anticipate it be a little higher than that. Just for the public interest I thought it'd be good for you to go ahead and say when that comes out. So I should get the average from the county assessor next week. They have to have them assessed
168your value assessed by May 20 second. So if you go on line if you go on to the Salt Lake County's assessor website and look up your property after May 22nd it should show the new value there. Now they may be a few days after that. But that's when it has to be under the state law it has to be completed by May 22nd and they then they calculate the average home for us. And then that's what we report on. Yeah. Perfect. Thank you. And so just as a I'm just going to repeat what you said. So the next time in June when we go over this, you'll have changed that to what the the median is. I will have changed that to what the county assessor reports. >> Assessor says, yes, yeah. Reports back
169to us, yeah. >> Then thanks for that additional information. So everyone knows they can go online. They can go online and you can look that up and see what the And you can start appealing it then if you feel like the value is not correct. The actual statements that they mail out, then we have to do our certified tax. It's right. Cities, counties have to do theirs. That has to be done by June 22nd. Then they have to send the statements out by July 22nd. So that's all good. >> And isn't it isn't it right? There's two different ways they can appeal as in appealing that they don't believe that their home has increased by that much value and then there's also a way they can submit like a like if they're aged population of
170financial hardship, right? >> Yeah, they have Yeah, the two if you don't feel like your value is correct, you can appeal that. But then they have multiple times uh income, age, if you're a veteran, if you're uh sight impaired as well. So they have about five that are on the state treasurer you need to look on the state treasurer's I mean not the state treasurer, the county treasurer's web page and that will show they will show you how to appeal that. Yeah. Awesome. Thanks. Okay, thank you. Any other comments or questions? Okay. Um Mrs. Oaks? I had a patron recently asked me about the state of our lawns. And I've They were [clears throat] concerned because it was over at Bella Vista. He he has a mother that lives adjacent to that property that he
171wondered if because we had closed Bella Vista as a school whether or not we were allowing [snorts] the lawns to burn out. And just [clears throat] as Mr. Wilcox was pointing out that um there are so many water restrictions right now. I don't know if how many of you have noticed this is happening in our city parks right now, too, because of how little snowfall we received over the winter. I just want to put that out there with the community. We are really trying to prioritize the um, the lawns where that are going to be heavily used for our athletes and and other groups that come and rent those spaces, but if it's looking less than ideal, we're trying to be good as citizens along with everyone else and trying to be very water wise,
172so. Well, yeah, we're focusing on our play fields. However, all the other areas, the park strips, non-play fields, if you will, are going to they're going to look brown this summer, yeah. So, I wasn't going to say anything in the meeting, but I did drive by Bella Vista today and it looks yellow. It looks dead. So, I don't I don't know if you could go look at it. I'll have our guys look at It does not look good. Um, I was going to mention it to you, but anyway. Okay, thank you, Mr. Wilcox. We appreciate all you do for the district. Okay, we are now on to item nine, which is staff comments and we will start with the superintendent report. So, Dr. Robinson. Push that three times. Oh, there it went. It worked. It's
173He has this cord. Just have to press it 17 times. Um, It'll wake it up. Thank you, President Schill. I appreciate the opportunity. Um, just wanted to highlight a a few things as we were discussing tonight, um, with Dr. Robinson's retirement, um, we had a great retiree banquet the other night that um was truly a great celebration of all of our employees and I wanted to give external relations team a a huge shout-out for all the work to truly make all of our employees feel extremely special. Um, I had one uh a friend of mine that's um we became friends over the years as he his wife was one of the teachers at one of my schools and he was like, "Holy cow, this is taking forever getting through all these celebrations." And I said,
174"Well, you you most certainly can step out." And he's like, "Are you kidding me? We only retire once. We're going to enjoy every minute of this." I was like, "Good for you." Um we also had several retirement open houses that have been really fun. I'm I just want to extend my heartfelt um appreciation again to all of our employees that are retiring and some that I consider very dear friends and I'm going to miss you all um very much. Um, I also have to give another major shout-out to our local police um in all the different cities, the SROs, our school administrators. We are faced with some pretty challenging times and oftentimes very difficult decisions and it's the help and the partnerships that we've established uh with these community partners that have truly made those
175decisions a little bit easier to make, but um I just I can't express my appreciation enough um most recently with our Sandy Police Department and the uh men and women that were showing up and helping support uh one of our schools in particular, I I truly am grateful and appreciative of that. Uh the Teacher of the Year event at the Real soccer game was outstanding in every way and then just some of the other events that I've attended recently. We had the Latinos in Action banquet, which was awesome. A lot of my students benefited from that at Sandy Elementary and are now paying it forward and and are uh providing that service back to um students in our elementary schools. Haiti's Town, as mentioned before, was awesome. Um, Jordan Valley special ed um Special Olympics
176events have been really fun and heartwarming in every way. And then our superintendent awards, being able to step in for Dr. Robbins and and do that for all the students that are recognized throughout our different schools for their exceptional um, work in overcoming challenges. It's not just about data and high test scores. It's really overcoming different things and being able to celebrate them and their families was truly a blessing and an opportunity that I did not take lightly and I'm still very grateful for. So, those are just a few things. I do want to thank our patrons once again for coming and sharing their comments and and appreciate their passion for their schools and our teachers and our students and and that's all I have for tonight. Okay, thank you. We will now have the
177business administrator report, Mr. Wilcox. Just up talk too much tonight, but I just want to congratulate uh, Terry Brown for winning our the state's bus rodeo contest uh, Saturday at Crescent View. She's one of our drivers. First female to win it in several years. So, congratulations Terry. She'll represent the state and Canyons at the national rodeo uh, contest. I think that's in Houston coming up in a few months. I want to just thank our negotiation groups, Paul, Angela, Angie, Cada, Kathy, uh, Krista and all their teams for working with us. I know negotiations is not always easy. It's a can be a challenging time, but I appreciate their professionalism and especially all they, you know, keeping the focus on the kids. That's what important about. And speaking of our kids, uh, just congratulations to our
178class of graduating class of 2026, our 17th class since we've been a a district. These kids were just 1 years old 1 year old when we started back in 2009, but it's exciting to see them grow and progress. And so, congratulations to them and great things are coming. I'm looking forward to graduation ceremonies next next week with them. That's all I have. Okay, thank you. We'll now have the board comments and we'll be starting with Mrs. Pederson and we'll have the 3-minute timers going. Okay. Um I just wanted to again thank our communications department and how beautiful and well-organized our retirement banquet was. It ran well. We had a lot of people and a lot of joy and happiness we were there and they just made it run so smooth and the breakdown was so
179fast. I couldn't believe how quick they can pull things down. So, I enjoyed being there. Um I also wanted to celebrate and wish great luck to Jordan's Jordan's baseball team in their chase their chase for state. So, let's hope that they were able to make it all the way. I'm proud of Eastmont being the first um state championship in debate. That's impressive. I went on a field trip with them and there was a debate um competition or a debate event following this field trip and they kept asking if they were going to "What time do we need to leave so we can be at debate?" They would rather they were worried more about debate than they were about the field trip that they were on. So, you know how dedicated those kids were. Um and
180then the best one of the best parts of the whole year is graduation and we're all going to be able to share in the joy of wishing well our our graduates and I too want to offer our congratulations to the class of 2026 and I look forward to hearing of their great event their great achievements. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Mrs. Dolly. Thank you. I'll I'll be brief since uh are running long tonight. Um I just want to thank our our teachers and our administration and our staff. There's been a lot of great events uh this month as we culminate the end of the school year. And just want to thank everybody for all that they've put into this year making another great year for our Canyon students. And we hear you. We understand things
181are getting harder in our classrooms. Kids have higher needs. And I wish I had a money tree and we could have classes of 20 kids in every single one of our elementary schools, but the reality is we don't have that money tree currently and we'll continue to do what we can to support our teachers and uh work to, you know, one of our tenants is fiscal responsibility. And so we're really looking at at how we can best manage these funds that we're entrusted with and Leon does a fantastic job in overseeing all of that and and really making miracles happen and and I know our teachers are making miracles happen in in our classrooms every day and it's not fair as a community, as a state that we're we're asking our teachers to continue to
182do the amazing things they're doing in our district, but at the lowest funding in the nation. Uh you know, this is it's just crazy what is being asked of our teachers day in and day out. And so um I agree with uh Mrs. Day's comment of, you know, we got to find a unified voice as community members, as teachers, as parents, as students to work with our legislators to to help them value education cuz education really is the foundation of our society. This isn't just an education problem. This isn't This is a community problem. This is a workforce problem. And as a we need to all get behind supporting our schools. Um so thank you for the work you're doing. Thank you for another great school year. Okay, thank you, Mrs. Oaks. I wasn't planning
183on saying anything about this, but I'm going to follow up with what Katie had to say. I wholeheartedly agreed with that teacher, too. I do think we need to be more creative about how to work together. Part of the difficulty is that our hands are tied um as a school district that we can't be financially supporting our own employees to go up and advocate for a certain issue on the hill. If they go up there, they have to do it on their own dime. They have to get a substitute. I wish that is something that we could shift or change, but um something to talk further about, which brings me to the next point. Parents, we need you. We desperately need you. If any of you are interested in being able to have more of
184a voice, please come talk to us. We will get you information about how to most effectively do that if and it doesn't matter what the issue is. I I think a lot of members of the public think that what they have to say doesn't matter and they don't really know how to be able how to navigate at the legislature. You'd be surprised how much they do listen to constituents and and members of the public who come up and speak. Speak particularly students. They really really love to listen to what the students have to say. Um on that note, I've had the opportunity to go to a couple incredible artistic um presentations um this last week. Corner Canyon High School had their final orchestra concert of the year and one of the things that was so
185amazing. Well, first of all, one of the teachers uh two of the teachers organized having full choirs and orchestra on this unbelievable piece. It felt like I was in stereo sound and like I'd been lifted to heaven. I don't think those kids will ever forget performing that piece. And the other was that they had two student composers who premiered original works for full orchestra and um brass and whole whole nine yards. To do that is an unbelievable amount of work and I was super proud of um those teachers for taking that up and giving those students that unique opportunity. Um I want to to all of our teachers for this year more than any year I've ever seen really focusing on teaching their kids to the very end of the month of May. Over the
186years I always get some sort of a complaint or frustration from teachers about this and I know that our administrators have been really working hard to make sure that teachers are having creative um experiences, field trips and other things and I'm definitely seeing that. I was so excited when my 13-year-old told me he had homework that was due tomorrow and I was like, "Yes, we're doing this. This is great." Um so kudos to all of you principals and teachers. And one last thing, I got to attend the senior awards night for Corner Canyon and it was beautiful in part because there is a an award there and as well as at Alta High School that um rewards students that show astounding resilience in the face of difficult circumstances. That was a really powerful and moving
187experience and um everybody in the room had a deep appreciation for the bigger picture. As we celebrate our kids, it's wonderful to celebrate all of them and I could feel, it was tangible, how much those counselors love their kids. It was such a great advertisement in my mind for the power and the potential for public education to do so much good. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Eddel. Uh I got to meet with the Navy Cadets over at Jordan. That was a lot of fun. They had such great questions, great conversations. Um and then just a shout out to nobody who's listening, but that program's open uh to kids from from all the high schools. You don't have to um be enrolled in Jordan full-time to do the the Navy Cadet program. Super cool. Kudos to everybody
188who's still here, including me, but especially these two students who are in the front here. Um because you guys are the real uh MVPs of tonight. So, great job on that. Okay, thank you. Mr. Lewis. First, I want to congratulate Hillcrest's production of Phantom of the Opera for winning best tech crew and best prop design. It is well deserved. That was a spectacular show. Uh I also got to attend the retirees banquet this weekend and I'm bringing that up to celebrate uh a good friend of mine, Charlotte Graham, who has spent 47 years at East Midvale. She's a staple in our community. She lives just around the corner from East Midvale Elementary and she is beloved not just in that school, but in the entire city of Midvale. She uh there was a joke that
189the retire retirees banquet that she's basically the unofficial mayor of Midvale. Uh I also this last week went to the Mid Valley clap out. It was an opportunity for graduates of Hillcrest High School, this year's graduates, to come and be celebrated by the elementary school students there. Uh this doesn't happen in all of our elementary schools. It just happened here uh because our the principal there decided that this was something super important for our students to be able to see that their work will one day pay off. That one day this will all be worth it and someday they'll be standing in robes, too. Uh lastly, I also got to attend the RSL Canyons night. Uh it was great to celebrate our teachers and I wanted to say thank you to the Sandy City Council
190for continuously letting this board into their suite. Thank you. Thank you. Mrs. Neubar. Well, I'll be quick. First off, I really enjoyed watching Hadestown at Corner Canyon. That was a fun production. Uh I too am grateful for teachers um and their awesome lesson plans. My fourth grader is so excited about this special event. They are um like frontiers of people and they get to do trades with beaver furs and I know it's called rendezvous. It's this big deal and I'm going to see it on May 26th and he is very worried he can't miss any part of that. Um he was a he had a little cold. I had to check him in today and he was like, "I hope I don't miss the fairy tale um project." And I was like, "What is that?"
191And he's like, "Oh, well, we pick these fairy tales and then people go like like they're on court to trial like who did it did the did the big bad wolf?" Anyways, this whole thing and you get to ask do these question answers interrogations and he was super excited about that. Um I am blown away by his teacher. She is actually um uh leaving after this year to spend time with her family. She just had a baby, but she is fantastic. She's taught them currency, they earn money and they have to pay rent every month for their desk space, but then they can earn up for other things. She has been phenomenal and it's been awesome to watch my son not want to miss even a minute of her class all year long. So, I
192love I love our teachers. I'm grateful for them. Um I also was grateful to be able to participate um at the at the Real game. I was in the stands and I just loved watching those teachers march out on the field. That was awesome. It was fun to meet Karen's grandkids, too. Um I'm grateful for this time of year. Thank you. I want to say a big thank you to the negotiations team for all that they did. That's a that's a big that's a big project and it's a lot of meetings and they're they're awesome and I I think that they um you know, they make us look really good up here because they assess the needs and then they come and communicate to us and I'm just so grateful for all of their efforts.
193Um grateful for the communications department and we just had a retiree banquet and I one of my favorite nights of the whole year. I just always feel so inspired hearing about these teachers and or ESPs, all the different types of of you know, employees at Canyons, how many years they've dedicated to the kids. It's just an inspiring awesome night and I just love that as well. And that's it. Thank you. Okay, thank you. I just want to add my thanks to our communications department, external relations for the retirement banquet. I know we all talked about it, but it is really special and I have a neighbor that's a teacher in neighboring district. And their district did nothing for them and she worked for like 30 years. And that just made me really sad and also
194made me proud of what we do because it is I mean, it is meaningful and they have made a difference in so many students' lives in many ways and so I really do appreciate all the work that goes into that, which is a lot of work. Um I do also want to talk about the legislature and some of the teachers talked about how we need to be united and this is the thing. Parents, we talk to the legislators all the time and they hear from us and they hear just that we're begging them for money. And so they get kind of tired of >> [laughter] >> But what will make a difference is if parents if parents actually go and say, "Please lower our class sizes." In fact, I would love our board to consider
195one of our legislative priorities as lowering K through three class sizes, especially since we have this literacy initiative that they want us to do. And I know it's not going to solve our problem, but it will help. Like it will help if we could get them to do that next year. So I hope you guys will consider that. We can talk about it more in the future. Um and then lastly, I just want to thank all our our employees, like everyone who's here, the teachers, the educational support professionals, our administrators, because I do believe we're the best district, but you know why? It's because of you guys. It's not because of us up here. >> [laughter] >> It's because of every single employee that is helping a child every day. And I will now call
196this meeting to a close. It is before 10:00. It's before 10:00, so >> [laughter] >> thank you. >> Mhm.