Work Session Board Meeting: June 15, 2023

001oh there we go on Bluetooth calling meeting to order 539 we vice president husky here board member secretary Wells thank you George present board member Montoya president foreign for and Sharon did you get that yes we're good thank you okay when Marion comes on I just let us know hello any comments no comments from the audience okay we'll go to reports item a mini claw requests were approval of gift donations to the elementary school or Subway gifts gift cards Instagram board members Central Consolidated board members and um I hope you're all doing well um and let me make a correction that's Mima and you're gonna have to excuse me I am fighting a cold and ear infection um so I am requesting um I know a while back we made a request for bike donation

002from from NECA and um that didn't go um the way we expected so my other alternative was to seek another um donation and that would be Subway um gift card and um this would be in regards to our second semester attendance and the kids would still also have their um name pulled out from a jar and I know there was a letter and I'm I'm actually on a phone so you won't I won't be able to read what was on there but um I understand that Miss keems had sent the information regarding um this donation and um since we since the donations from NECA fell through I don't know how many times I made numerous phone calls I've called May 8th May 11 May 16th May 24th um I talked to Jackie be gay with

003NECA and um I notified her as soon as we got the approval of the bike donation however I think because of the the change in the Navajo Nation leadership there was a huge change being made so there wasn't um also um there wasn't um there wasn't the leadership there to make that final decision and so also I understand according to Jackie Begay that she had mentioned to me that um the board members of NECA um didn't approve the name the donation which was 1072 for seven bikes and um so I started looking for another alternative which was the seven dollar gift card okay so uh you have all that documented that in your letter on the dates that you tried to contact and uh your we can't hear you some gift cards oh could you

004repeat that again yes uh in your documentation did you uh document all those those times that you try to contact NECA and I had I had an even that um like I mentioned March 8th March May 11 May 16th and May 24th um I tried contacting um the person in charge of this which was Jackie be gay and um I understand too like I said that they had a board meeting and we weren't approve of those bikes so my other altercation and I know this the Wednesday before I think maybe it was the 20 maybe the 16th of May I know it's the week before school was out um they had said they were going to set up a tentative meeting I was never notified by Mr Gay about the meeting good evening board president

005asked this this is Miss Keane hello can you all hear me yes um but before you go any further Miss Kim's um was there when when this was originally requested um how far back was this I believe uh Miss cloth correctly if I'm wrong I believe we made this request before this board um was it in January or February it was in February and the original request to NECA started last fall and then with the inner inner um changes that were happening within Mecca uh that was affecting the donation Miss claw had initially contacted one of the representatives from NECA who um told her to go ahead and submit a donation letter and she did that she followed through with their requests and went through that and then we submitted that request to the board

006for the board's approval for CCSD board approval back in February which was approved and um in some Miss claw kept calling and calling numerous she made numerous calls to NECA and NECA eventually stated that it was not approved therefore um that's when Miss Claus you know due to the to the timeline we were at the end of um um end of the school year they're right at the the second week of June when we had our awards ceremony and she just uh took it upon herself you know we had to recognize the students and um that's when Subway agreed to donate the seven dollar gift cards as far as um citing the dates that were citing the dates for calls that were made to Mecca that's not included in the letter that was submitted to

007the board we didn't add those details okay um so can you collect all that along with um Steve and and get that whole um paperwork to to Steve so that uh we can look through that and then also uh from this point uh so the donation or the fundraising request is changed to um Subway cards yeah the the donation from Subway in recognition of our students with high attendance rate during the second semester they donated 35 worth of gift cards so those seven students that we recognize with High attendance they were the ones that received a gift card the Pre-K to fifth fifth graders pre-k through fifth grade there was one student per grade level okay and um this is kind of a tricky situation um yeah if if you could just get get all

008the documents and the paperwork and work with Steve on this okay will do so at the the subway those have already gone through the process of um approval of the board no that that didn't go through the approval due to the timeline again the end of school we we were we were scrambling like the day of awards day the day before Awards day recognized the students and because the bike donation fell through that's when Subway made a donation at the 35 dollars and gift cards and gift card seven gift cards okay I at this point go ahead and fill out the forms that should have been felt uh filled out for a donation and get the necessary signatures and so it's right there um their five dollar gift cards is the value correct on there

009seven or is it I I think I miscalculated it should have been seven seven so that's forty nine dollars okay my background is preschool remember I'm still learning how to multiply they were seven dollar gift cards yeah they were kind enough they were kind enough and I guess because of the increase of the the sandwiches and the combo they gave us seven dollars and this is locally from um Shiprock Subway so forth president asked us I'm sorry okay go ahead I I completed the request for approval of gifts that that the sheet the one page sheet for requesting for Approved approval I completed that and I submitted that to miss Ray last week okay I'm not sure if it's attached yes it's it's on our it's on our presentation right now okay okay and um

010you'll have to clarify make clear the the cash portion of it okay I will correction and um and possibly a letterhead stating what happened what occurred and that and this is after the fact okay okay so how would she write that I mean essentially what what happened is an entity promised to make a donation and then pulled out that technically requires them to follow through on the donation potentially that's why I'd like the information so we can write them a letter and say we'd like you to follow through and this is a separate donation and it seems like they did what they needed to and all that done before um so I mean and after the fact is really about us expending money without a PO right and then getting reimbursed so it's a separate

011thing this this is essentially them giving a donation to the student before getting board approval so all the board would have to do is ratify that would you agree with that yeah refer back to your original approval that meeting whatever meeting they said February or January February and refer back to that approval and then just preference just replacement because it couldn't get better information I guess you're gonna have to follow up on this list and see what happened here okay president go ahead uh this is Sharon uh Marion Wells login at 5 51 and then I need someone to open the door for Suzette um thank you uh Jared's on his way Garrett that rabbit I didn't even see it she kept me too sorry okay so I guess we're done on this this item

012and uh miss keems and miss claw if you could um provide the necessary documents to uh Mr superintendent Carlson yes ma'am okay and all right we'll just go on from here thank you thank you thank you for your time and thank you for doing that for the students you know the I mean I I think incentives are always something that that it does good and and I really appreciate that you you sought other avenues thank you oh thank you thank you I opened it up to other board members comments questions [Applause] board members board member George yes any comment on the item a h no comment thank you okay any comments any comments can we write write a letter about that renegging on their well it depends on how their their properties because we can't

013make anything no we don't but we should but we should just send a letter because they um okay so we'll go on to Item B thank you request for approval of gifts donation for the Kirtland Central High School Jr OPC from Four Corners power plant Argus Contracting by Pedro Polaris yes ma'am good evening board members good evening board president thank you so much for allowing me to be here tonight and present in front of you um uh originally we had submitted this donation request uh and had an approval from the previous board meeting uh regarding a Broncos statue uh from the class of 2023 and the Four Corners power plant was uh helping us support that by donating money we received a follow-on check from Argus Contracting this is a sub entity of the Four

014Corners power plant and um we're just requesting your approval to go ahead and process that additional 500 from the power plant to support the purchase of the Bronco statute business Miss Ray can you scroll up a little bit on on the um okay any questions board members comments we're president go ahead board members I just I just want to thank him for all the effort uh for students and currently so I truly appreciate it thank you well thank you so much we do uh uh we love being there and and doing our most uh and like I said this one uh is going through JROTC but it's actually for the class of 2023 and um we do our best to do as much school support Community Support as we can so uh we enjoy doing

015it thank you any other questions comments board members I don't have any questions or comments but just thank you thank you so much okay yes um thank you you're always doing a lot over there especially with ROTC and and I'm just surprise board member Montoya didn't ask for a Chieftain on that Bronco so but thank you so much we appreciate we know that's implied when you go by there okay we're gonna head on to item C discussion of the MC JROTC program at Shiprock High School Stacy Gallagher video is really weird good evening board president board members Mr Carlson I am here my video is having issues on my new computer found it got it it was covered up do you wrestler your avatar I have been trying for over a year to find one

016teacher for and are now going to have to find an additional teacher we will not have a teacher um so is this position um well received email on on um on this matter and I forget the the gentleman's name and uh he was Mr bratcher yes and so he was really concerned about uh it going away and not being available and and I agree with him because you know this just as larvous has has really done a lot with with students with these programs I I think it's it's valuable and and so my my question on how to obtain a instructor I don't know if that's what you would call that person but um is that through the Marine Corps or is that through our HR okay so it's through the Marine Corps First our

017HR has a portion of it so I'm gonna kind of give you the steps that have to be gone through to find a JROTC instructor so first off there has to be a retired not to someone who's left the service a retired Marine has to submit an application through the headquarters Marine Corps and then a committee at the headquarters Marine Corps will determine if that Marine is a good fit to become a JROTC instructor if the Marine is considered to be an instructor they will be given a five-year certification once they're certified through the Marine Corps then they're able to apply for any Marine JROTC job opening throughout the world so they first have to be certified with the Marine Corps and then they can apply to our programs and at that point once they

018apply then it's in our hands to um interview and stuff so last year I've had a position open for over a year now because it was a it's a two-person program I've had a position open for over a year we had one person apply we interviewed um we recommended for hire he had to sell a home wherever he was at so um he was supposed to start October at 2022. he kept pushing his date back because he couldn't get moved and then by January he decided that his wife was going to take a different job and he wasn't coming since then we have sent out numerous emails our current teacher who just did his last day today has sent out emails he's contacted people he knows we've had like two people show some interest but

019then have um decided that they weren't interested to moving to the area and they backed out so we've really had a hard time getting someone interested you know one of the people who qualify through all these things with the Marines to apply here to you know take this position therefore the Marine Corps now is threatening to shut the program down but I would like at least another six months or a year to keep trying to find someone but I can't even put a substitute teacher in that position unless they meet the qualifications from the Marine Corps so I literally can't put kids in their classes um without a Marine Corps jarrow OTC approved person um question go ahead um I don't know if uh Mr uh larivas is there from the currently JROTC we're still

020on but could the city could the consideration be made to change it from the Marine Corps since you're having a hard time finding and filling that position of qualified individuals that maybe he might know somebody that would be willing to shift it and change it to uh um the army uh there's a couple steps I'm still on okay thank you if you'd want to switch the the Marine Corps program to an army program uh Shiprock High School would have to go through the process of uh applying for an army program and then waiting for the approval uh for them to make it an army program and then rehire uh two uh Army instructors through basically the same process that Miss Gallagher laid out they'd have to be certified by the Army first and then um

021they could apply and then go through the school process of hiring um one of the Alternatives that we've already proposed when we got um a little heads up about the closing of this program was doing a dual um program Under the Umbrella of Kirtland Central High School JROTC and um it's kind of been a discussion on how we can possibly utilize the transportation to bond Wilson to bring students down that were willing to want to be a part of a JROTC program but um we would still have to keep it under Kirtland Central High School's umbrella but I spoke with a couple schools already that are doing something very similar Coconino high school and Flagstaff High School have Coconino JROTC but um they get students from Flagstaff High School to come to their school for

022the purpose of the JROTC program so there's a couple options out there available I know nothing can really be finalized until the Marine Corps officially says like that's it the program is shutting down but um we were wanting to do something either in the interim or um maybe look down this path towards a dual School JROTC under the Kirtland umbrella I'm not sure what would work but we're definitely willing to sit down at the table and discuss uh what options we could have to to keep the program going because um I know the Shiprock program has been a stellar program uh and the community service events that they do and participate in um is it's been phenomenal and I believe there's still a strong uh uh request from the students like a strong want for

023them to attend a program like this very good because certainly would be my uh consideration to provide that opportunity for them in the interim while the Marine Corps figures out what they want to do and since it's been expressed that we're having difficulty finding somebody maybe the consideration also could be made to looking at the transition I don't know from your perspective if there's uh any more additional or there would be a deeper resource of instructors for the Army as well yeah the only way we get more instructors is if Shiprock applied for their own separate Army program uh then they would provide their own instructors at that point but if we're looking at making it a dual program under the Kirtland umbrella then we would just need to kind of come up with a

024memorandum of understanding as to how much support we're going to be providing would it just be classes that the students take or would we expect it to do be doing color guards parades uh community events at the high school or local area similar to what we do at Kirtland then we'd probably have to sit down and see uh how how much is that going to stretch us as instructors at Kirtland because as the Army views us we would still be just Kirtland instructors yeah I mean I understand that part of it but to me again the more important aspect is providing the service for the kids and trying to figure out what we can do to continue a program or whichever one is decided on and again obviously it's going to be incumbent upon the

025Marine Corps to decide whether or not they want to carry it out um but again providing those kids the students the opportunity yeah so we've already already fielded that a little bit discussion uh with Mr garola and Miss Gallagher uh Dr Benedict and what can we do in the interim while we're waiting to find out what happens with the program but um we'll we'll see uh you know what Miss Gallagher uh has to say it and then we can definitely re-meet and go from there all right appreciate it thank you yes sir and I really appreciate you know that offer um a handful of kids willing to give up all their morning classes because basically to travel over to bond Wilson and back between the 30 minute drive and then a class and then the

02630 minutes back they have to give up their entire morning just to go take the class I don't know that we would have very many we currently have about 40 or 50 members in JROTC but I think we would probably only get a slight handful willing to travel at this time what I did want to ask is if there's any possibility we could have a discussion on sweetening the pot to get people to consider coming to Shiprock like guaranteed housing moving incentives sign-on bonuses anything like that that would make it more lucrative to come to Shiprock than say grants or Gallup or anywhere else I mean it's a 27 year old Marine program and that's what Sergeant bratcher is very concerned about is because he built it and um I am sure that when he

027comes to the board to speak that's what he's going to talk about I would even like to maybe be able to offer him the position until we can find someone else if he would be willing to come back into the program for a while um because I think he's still probably certified to teach JROTC but um looking at all the options to be able to draw talented individuals to Shiprock to run that program and to keep it open at the level it's open as it is right now vice president husky any comments questions um I agree or if there's a way to stagger I rather have if if all else I rather have um this the instructor I don't know if it's possible to have like a morning session afternoon session something stagger and then

028in the interim I don't know something um it is a ROTC programs are really good so um we'll do what we can yeah thank you board member Wells Etc our secretary Wells I'm sorry I I think the program is exceptional I think it does a lot for the kids and I think whatever we can do to facilitate it I think we should do I think it's a tragedy that uh as much as many uh people that I talked to at graduation who uh participated in it and and we're moving on um I think it would really be a tragedy for them for that program to go away so I think whatever we can do to support it and see that it continues I think we need to do it yeah can I ask a question

029um let me call on board member George first board member George yeah come on board member George I think we lost her on Zoom thanks okay go ahead I was just wondering if there is any kind of possibility since there's two open divisions for the Marine Corps and there's been such a struggle if if one position could be closed with the possibility to open that one position up for the Army or continue with the Marine Corps position for now but explore that route for the Army for that other open position or if it's just you can only have one program at each school at any given time and I don't know something to consider do we know I I believe you can only have one branch at a school district in a school at a

030time and that even for us to go under the umbrella of Kirtland we have to shut our program down for our kids to even go over there yeah that's true okay what if um I have a question what if you made um Bond Wilson the central point where you would have um both um um two branches there both branches the Marine Corps and and um yeah I mean the army where they could um be bust you know from Shiprock or Kirtland Nukem to to bond Wilson was Miguel are you gonna try to respond to that yeah so the problem is and we even see it with our bond Wilson kids now if a student wanted to be in JROTC they would have to give up all morning classes so three hours worth of classes to

031go take one at Bonduel at to take the JROTC class up on Wilson because of the travel time and for Nukem it would be worse because it's that much further so it's just very hard your student interest wanes a lot if they have to give up other courses to be able to go if they you know have to give up their whole morning so I mean otherwise I think it's you know an okay idea it would be best if we could keep at Shiprock high school we currently have a shooting range we have all sorts of I mean really good things for JROTC we just need to find a way to entice a Marine Corps instructor to come in and that's why I'm wondering you know if there are some other incentives we can look

032at that's what the Marines ask me what are you guys offering as far as moving expenses what are you offering as far as housing and um signing bonuses things like that if there's some way we can look at those areas and try to get a Marine in there and not shut down a Marine Corps program because it's a process that doesn't even happen overnight that takes months for them to even shut down the from everything I keep talking to Mr Sergeant Cruz it takes a while to even make that happen well question I I I believe that we're offering already a lot which is our students and um so if we went with continue with with um Mr bratcher in all of this would continue as before right yes yes if Mr bratcher would be

033willing to take it on we could continue offering it as is until we could find the teacher mm-hmm okay question go ahead um Miss Gallagher has he has he stated that he would return he told Mr but he told Sergeant benali my instructor who just finished today that that might be the case that he would be willing to do that in order to keep the program open I think that's the quickest step this way is to have that conversation with him uh to sustain it and then in the end term obviously going search the the uh kills and uh beach front speech heads for uh for a marine willing to come back there are currently 250 D that are qualified and out of those we've been emailing again this week had one that showed slight

034interest and then once we talked once Mr Bernoulli talked to him once he hasn't heard back from him again so we may try to reach out and get into that person he's back east to you know um see the interest I think that with a highly I think it's pretty competitive right now the number of programs needing instructors yeah thank you but yes I would love to try to see if we can get brochure to take it on for a while so I can keep it going this next year at least and try to find someone okay um that sounds like that would be something that's um a lot quicker and um more feasible until we never know he might stay with it so um okay any more questions comments board members no okay thank

035you Stacy thank you have a nice evening so we're head to item d remember random memorandum of agreement between Fort Lewis College and Central Consolidated School District by Tanya Ameren Jared won't turn to cooler offices I'm funny hello board president board members Brendan Carlson good evening I had the um Fort Lewis mou and it's pretty standard I can render it pretty quick but the the really the only change is the dates that it's going to be effective for so starting July 1 for school year 23 24 and then also 24.25 um this is the mou that we use for our T-Fal coursework um and we've had a relationship with Fort Lewis for T cell for gosh maybe 10 years now um Sharon if you'll scroll down a little bit more down at the bottom of

036this page is the Matrix that we have for the the cost of the courses this has been the same for um that's also in the last mou that we have same amounts for this mou just details what we'll pay as we have our teachers enroll in the program and complete the courses that's the gist of it you have any questions how long has this um mou have been going how many years now I would be it was in it was in place for several years when I got here and I'm starting with seventh year so I would say maybe at least 10. possibly a bit longer and everything is up to date it's not just copied and paste correct okay I still think that was embarrassing when I Council delegate we pulled all that information

037Amber karate we saw that our our dates were conflicting and I guess the documents were all copied and paste for I don't know how many years yes well this one was embedded through Fort Lewis and their legal department signed and and sent to us all all ready to go and then yes of course we reviewed it prior to card bringing it today any questions board members comments questions time I don't have any either uh Cheryl did she get back on board member George uh yes no questions thank you okay all right well thank you Tim Tanya you're welcome all right and we're at item e update thank you everybody let's update um lights and warehouse fire system by Candace Thompson can we board president members of the board Mr Carlson um the first half of

038this report I will turn over to Jermaine and Rodney armenta to report back to you um bus stop lights and then I will continue with the warehouse fire system uh board president board members and um participants uh we have the attempt to reach agreement on the placement of the uh light with not only um ntua uh but also the land holder we actually met out there and have the exact area mapped out in addition to that um Mr Norm Begay is on the line as well um listening and I don't know if if he can participate by by Zoom or not but um the chapter house has offered to um install the light pay for installing the light um they've asked that we help with the cost of concrete and so that would be our

039our um expenditure in there um my understanding is that they have the white pole and the fixture as well um and so uh with that we should be able to move pretty quickly on getting the right-of-way approved or the the dish I mean the um essentially the carve out to the right away from from npua um Mr armenta do you have anything different to add to that hello can you hear me yes hi board members and board president aspis and Mr Carlson director Thompson uh Jermaine thank you um no you highlighted everything um having Miss Theodore there was a big help because she did tell us kind of exactly where the bus would be stopping and kind of where the students would be getting on and off which uh Mr Miss Lowe the property owners

040were very very kind and and wanting to you know if they had to put in a gate a walk-through gate they're more than willing to do whatever they have the the children access the bus as safely as possible and knowing where that light was going to illuminate to have the students to be able to enter on and off that bus safely I think it's going to be a great placement and I do believe that they said that they would maintain the light as well if I'm correct yes that's my recollection as well Rodney yeah and Tua would take care of the light they would do they already have the pole the fixture they would just like to help on the concrete yep that is correct just a quick clarification the chapter yes yes yes with

041Chapel yes menu and with that we stand for questions for president okay on the lights or the bus stop um I got word from the um the grandparents from from there they're they're listening and keeping up to date on on what's Happening so um they were they were actually at the meeting with us when we finalized all of that as was Mr Begay okay so hopefully by far we'll we'll have that light installed and things completed any questions board members comments no I other than I'm glad it's finally moving forward that's great yes I think excuse me Madam president go ahead uh I think it sounds good and I'm glad to see that it's moving forward that it's actually going to happen and um all parties are in agreement so I'm glad to hear it's

042moving forward any other board members with comments questions just thank you for the effort thank you all for the time and and thank you very much Jermaine for all you did for going out there and meeting and and I think it's going to move move very quickly and it'll move uh I think it'll go it'll be a good project thank you all for your time board member George uh no comment thank you okay and um the Mr Mrs Lowe would like to thank you Rodney for your report and you did a great job thank you very much they were very very helpful and we appreciate them very much as well okay I and for the warehouse would you like me to continue board president yes yes um today we had a design meeting today and

043received some good news the eight inch line in 6500 that we conducted a pressure test on is um the volume is adequate to relieve us of having to have 125 000 gallon storage tank so we will be able to move forward with just a jockey pump for both the old warehouse and the new Warehouse our designs are 65 complete with an estimated time um the RFP being out to contractors in August and then to the board in September for approval please and I I believe in the in the present time right now how is that situation um can you can you please expand on that void president for the employees are they working in the area are they working in that work area with with um um um with no fire extinguisher or no fire

044system safety no for a president they do have fire extinguishers and we did have our insurance Authority Palms come do a review of the warehouse we have all the um doors identified as exits um we're not required by our insurance company to sprinkle this building this is um a choice that we're moving forward with due to um because of covid and the amount of flammable uh hand sanitizer that we're having to store that's the reason for building a separate Warehouse is to get that flammable material out of our bigger warehouse and into a smaller um storage area okay I opened it up to um board members comments questions I don't have any comments or questions Madam presidents yes go ahead uh I'm I'm glad to see that this is finally taking shape I think it's

045well it's been needed for since the building was was built [Music] um and I'm I'm glad to see that it's finally taking um shape that it's actually going to happen so onwards and upwards I guess who came in another secretary Wells I know it seems like it's taken a while but we're just we're just dotting our eyes and crossing our T's and making sure we're we're making the right decisions in our construction documents okay we'll continue on thank you and this you're welcome boy president and we'll continue to item F discussion of Newcomb facility options by Candace Thompson um I'm not real sure Boyd president um what this discussion is um there are situations the we need to talk about in an executive um setting so I won't be able to really go into a

046lot of details because this is um going to be a bid process and we don't want to um give anybody the advantage in that bidding process if we were to divulge some contract items that we need to talk about in executive so I'm happy to do so in an executive session at a later date okay well this was an item that was pulled from the special meeting that we had last week and I I didn't know it was a bid process yes ma'am we also had it in an executive last week first president we didn't make it onto this and so I I I did not know it was a bid process so I born President we could talk about um the decision it's it's on the agenda about the sixth grade um you know

047we we can we can talk about that aspect of of this um this project and um moving the sixth graders that's the next item okay and so um on item F we'll go ahead and wait till Tuesday yes and we'll do that then thank you thank you for the president thank you members of the board okay we'll go on to item G CSD facility master plan and discussion of sixth grade moving to elementary school by Candace Thompson um board president members of the board again um the facility master plan will be presented um to everybody on Tuesdays board meeting um tonight our discussion um is once again considering moving the sixth grade back down um to the elementary schools so we would need um the board to take action on that and and decide what

048path we want to do uh with the sixth graders okay um all right open it up to the board any comments questions comment go ahead I believe um one of the main cruxes of this discussion of moving them has to do with um I think it wasn't a savings of an estimated seven million dollars is that correct Miss Thompson um Mr Montoya can you expand on that um I know in our application for Newcomb Elementary School it was accepted with it being a sixth through Pre-K um facility well part of that had to do in the um five-year um plan that we were discussing that that number was brought up in respects yes um Mr Montoya you you are correct we we did present that um at the last board meeting in in our five-year

049um master plan that was submitted we just didn't have um the board's approval to to make those changes I understand it that's why I'm stating that that would save the district uh seven million dollars if the ship was done and even the consideration when it comes to uh the junior high and shipwalk looking at the development of that and the cost savings that it would um give us in respects to building a smaller facility providing for two grades rather than three um it's interesting board president members of the board uh today I was reviewing a master plan from 2010 and and doing some research on civitai at that time in 2010 same attire was only a seventh through eighth grade facility so between then and the master plan done in 2016 the sixth graders were

050moved up uh same Italian so it was interesting to go back and see that history in a six-year time frame that change had been made has there been any feedback from the community about moving the sixth graders to the elementary school Miss Thompson for president vice president husky um we did have community members president and our five-year Master planning uh committee and that Community member was um very positive about having the sixth graders back down into an elementary setting have we put a survey out um I don't believe the district has I I was just asking the um when I was there in elementary school the sixth graders were with the elementary so I I wasn't aware of when the change occurred I just wondered if there had been what the feedback was from the

051community after the change if uh vice president if I if I was to speculate just going over um things that have happened in the facility side of things um we demoed an elementary school nataninez and I know the district at that time had to disperse those students to the remaining elementary schools I know our student count was higher at the time so I if I if I wanted to speculate I'm thinking that's probably why the sixth graders got moved into TBA because we had the room at TBA where in the elementary schools because of the dispersal of the kids from the Tony Nez that um we had to move them to TBA just looking at a facility um timeline and and this is just me um speculating that that was that was probably what um

052triggered because Kirtland is still um BK to six so only Shiprock and Newcomb are the two sites that have sixth graders in their middle school okay I can I can kind of concur with that because I was principal at the time that all that happened the school that if everybody remembers were k-3 and 436 and Shiprock and since they closed I believe natani Naz was four through six since they closed that they had to reconfigure everything at that time there was such a student account that it would have been difficult to put all the sixth graders in those buildings um but now since our numbers are I know how many years ago that was yeah so so we can easily fit the sixth graders now okay so and and again that we would save quite

053a bit of money Mr monitorious point of that is is pretty important by just building a school to house 7th and eighth graders rather than sixth Symphony yes ma'am sorry aren't there some studies too saying that it's better to keep sixth graders in the elementary setting for one more year before sending them to Junior High there are um you you can find studies to whatever your arguing is to support you too but there was a presentation made a couple years ago I have an open um it was actually I'm in board docs for the last meeting for that discussion the facility is a master plan discussion it wasn't put under for this one but we could we could open it up if you want the the other thing that was prevalented in that study was

054that all the sixth graders at the elementary outperformed the sixth graders at the middle school by Leaps and Bounds um because they're able to be with that same instructor for one more year so there are definite benefits in my mind there's a lot of benefits to keeping sixth graders discipline is another one at the lower level but we wouldn't necessarily be changing curriculum light from when we it wouldn't be a middle school anymore it would be more of like a junior high setting I believe we'd still call it a middle school since we still call we call Middle School for the Middle School it would depend on the you know the board can kind of dictate a little bit of that too with if you call it a middle school I think there's kind of

055a push now to have more of a middle school concept rather than a junior high which was usually Middle School means kind of more more pods kind of more seventh graders together eighth graders Junior High just is like a little high school you know that you just go with the plastic glass there's less of the kind of camaraderie with the group yeah I I yeah I've never seen a um Middle School which is seventh eighth grader Ava you know we usually sort of includes well and includes sixth graders usually so but I I'm in agreement there's still a level of maturity that needs to be gained in that last six the sixth grade year and I remember but to your point whatever your argument is you can find literature to support those areas too through

056that comment s is it do you important president I'm happy to yield the floor go ahead board member so you know the connotation of Junior High Middle School I think is more applicable to the seventh and 8th rather than sixth seventh and eighth but certainly the um research is out there that um keeping the sixth graders in the elementary setting is a lot more beneficial in respects to their maturity um and just as the superintendent alluded to discipline problems um and and again in regards to what we're looking at here as far as developmental facilities um that's also going to be a positive as well and certainly a overall savings to the district to be able to apply that somewhere else for the students thank you okay um and can you uh Miss Thompson give

057us a little bit more information on how this came about and it's important president it was a few years ago um during Miss Ben's um term it was brought to light then uh Dr Lopez Martinez um did a put together um a presentation on it and it at that time that is when I put in the application for nukemau under the direction that the sixth graders would be moving back to an elementary um setting so that's how that application was um submitted to psfa with that intent um as Miss Finn left her term um it's just been floating out there with um nobody really taking the bull by the horns and and making a decision that um the board making making the decision that this change um was either going to be made or not

058made if if we if we don't move the sixth graders into the new Nukem um elementary school then of course we again drop um to a student account lower than what we have designed the building for so there's also that aspect and um we can we can obviously discuss that in the executive um studying okay so it's been it's been several it's been several years for the president just nobody um has really brought it to the Forefront until Mr Carlson and I um had the conversation that this decision needs to be made of course you know there there needs to be a lot of planning on how we're going to move every everybody and notify our parents and our staff so there's a lot of work that has to go into um this action it's

059not something that's going to happen overnight um if if that's the path the board chooses tonight I just wanted to add to that that um Sutherland had to mentioned to me that once the board approves it it still has to be approved by the state of New Mexico before anything before all those plans can go through so um if it's if it's two years down the road or even a year down the road they should have plenty of time it's just that before the construction that decision needs to be made so thanks for the clarification okay any board members any comments questions if we have um can I make a last come or it's request um if we have that additional two years can we just find out what our community the community of Newcomb

060thinks with bringing the sixth graders back down to the elementary school I would like to read some of that I mean if the timeline isn't a factor thank you okay for the president the only way that timeline will be impacted is because we are in design right now we anticipate this project to go out on the streets either the end of December or first of January so it's not it's not super super critical but in some aspects it is well when when asking the community um I think that needs to be known up front about what you stated with Penn you know that it's really not up to them it's going to be up to the head process with ped is that anytime you reconfigure a School site that was approved for grade levels whatever

061you have so you just have to apply for authorization to reconfigure and it usually doesn't take up a long time but they have to sign off on it in order for you because they make all those changes that they're in too like stars all the stars information Everything Changes for the district dance at their level as well so it's kind of an information thing I've never seen them deny one but it's more of just information to let them know what the configuration of all the schools are okay I believe Jordan president if we go back to our um aspects that we did at both Newcomb Elementary School and Newcomb high school and middle school I believe there are some comments in there um addressing that also we'll go back to um if we go back

062to our ad spec that was presented to the board for both the elementary school and the high school middle school projects um those comments are also also in our Ed specks that the board approved and that was submitted to pssa okay okay any more questions comments board members um no other than I would like to see those results again if it's if it's there and if it's available already I don't think I don't see um a problem with looking at those results on Tuesday having them in four docs so thank you okay thank you Candace thank you board president members of the board Mr Carlson have a good night we're going to item eight save the children report by Peter does would the Third thank you good evening uh board president ESPYs uh vice president

063uh secretary and board members Mr Carlson any of my colleagues online so I'm just going to give an update of the save the children where we're at um I do have um uh Miss Alfreda online as well I also have um representative from see the children with us uh Miss yaha agu Aguilera so the Ron if they have any questions I can't answer so right now we're currently um proceeding along with having three additional uh staff help Kirtland Elementary School Ojo Elementary at Mesa Elementary so the cost that's going to be provided by save the children is about there's almost sixty thousand dollars this is for a position to help our schools to go out and work with the community kind of liaison between the school and the community to our our families who have

064uh who have Young Learners in the school so the part of that the district is going to cover is estimated about seven thousand some of it of course is a computer another of course is um travel but we did a talk with the various departments academic departments he came up with the game plan uh to for how this will work uh we also met with the principals from the three locations to get uh input from them have answer any questions about uh the see the children program and how it will impact their schools so Yahoo or Alfreda did you want to give any any other updates that I might have missed hi this is Alfreda thank you for your update and I don't have anything right now that I can think of I think you

065covered what it was you wanted to share yaha I don't know if you wanted to share a little bit about what you're doing with the schools yeah and from uh from my side good night uh all of you thank you for having me and yeah like uh Mr Pierce said we were really happy to join or with all the principal discussed about the program and you know some of the comments was what else is there for um all their grades because these program runs from uh prenatal to to five years old and we're really happy and excited to be working with the district and hopefully within the future we can bring more programs into it but for now we would like for you guys to know who we are how we work um and what

066is the outcome that we want to bring especially for the community we want the community to get comfortable with who we are and and learn more from each other and collaborate with um with the school collaborate with other agencies and other programs that are in there so um in other words this is just at the beginning of I think a really cool partnership between you and us and all the other programs that we are hopefully gonna bring later on so other than that board President we do stand for questions go ahead uh Mr desk what's your understanding of the educational process with say the children as far as the academic side yes so uh just from collaborating with yacht her colleagues so they're they're working like she said with prenatal uh working with them working

067with them and teaching them some basic skills providing them books to the families working on literacy early literacy basically getting books in the in the hands of families and provided them an opportunity to work with their their young Young Learners you know become readers work with them sitting down with them I teach them to uh to read very similar to to the process you know with the literature Rich environment students are comfortable with books Concepts that's kind of my understanding from the presentations and the collaboration that we've done with safety children so the other question to you um so that's what is this all done in English or is it done in the native language well from what I understand uh it will be done in English unless there is a a dinette language component

068I know yaha said they partner with Bloomfield as well so maybe she can provide context as far as if they provide reading and literacy in in our native language you know so the other question is is does this is this very similar to the uh Pat program that the school district currently utilizes uh yes and no so originally Newcomb was a community that was identified as well to to be a part of save the children from what I understand their the students that they have identified there were already participating in the parents as teachers so it wasn't ideal to be there in Newcomb because their program was uh you know was deeply rooted so we a third location was identified and that was Kirtland Elementary so with the program supplants or just work in support

069of the parent figures uh support of work with uh so it's it's it's an additional um staff to help reach communities uh you know like like we said we do have parents as teachers in these schools but it's it's an additional uh support to help and reach students that we may not be able to reach do they do the advertisement or is that the school district that does that uh yaha can you answer that question yeah and I can add a little bit onto that because we had a conversation with parents as teachers to see how we can collaborate together apologize if you hear my dog in the background um but we talk to them and see what areas will be best for us to help them um to support to each other and to

070answer your question about advertising the the people that will work in these positions will train them and help them out with recruiting advertising all of that um will be provided by us foreign thank you any other questions comments board members I don't have any comments or questions thank you no comment thank you one more one more question go ahead in regards to the funding of the individual that provides that support is that continuous through the life of the program that one or two years how does that how does that work in the middle of the district have to absorb that much uh so we did it we did talk about this question uh so do you know about this what will happen is like I said 60 000 is uh covered by yeah save the

071children but the finance department or whoever always use the grant the grandmother will uh will submit uh invoices to see if they see the children as we go through the year but if uh once everything is up it'll initially send uh an amount I think I believe yaha said it was about a third of the the costs to get the program started thank you okay so uh there's no um supporting uh documents for this report uh board president no there is because it was just an update of where we were at currently I just I want to uh Alfred and I just wanted to provide the board with updates of the progress that we were making to get this uh program or this project up and running so the updates are not documented well we've

072met and we've talked about it so if I if you would like to be formal report I can I can draft that yes please absolutely Madam president yes go ahead one more question so if I'm not mistaken I believe it was uh Dr Harvey is the one that brought this program to us is is that correct that is correct sir so I just want to thank her for those efforts for the consideration yeah I want to state that publicly for um certainly reaching out and diversifying the assistance to our students within this District again coming out of the Ico that's a very positive effort so thank you for that Dr Harvey yes thank you yes for archive reasons um let's get that those updates documented and so that we have that on hand uh esport

073President we will work on that and get it uh submitted uh by Tuesday yeah um go ahead I'd like to also Echo one board member Martinez said thank you Dr Harvey for everything you're doing especially in light of the increase in um students being identified as making events and so I appreciate your hard work and your diligence in identifying the students and all your effort in helping meet those needs thank you thank you I I would also like to add to that um I I didn't know how much to to divulge earlier but with um McKinney vinto I am I'm told that we went to something like from 150 to to doubling and um about over 300 so that's the reason why I would like these documents and on hand and you know not only

074for archive but reference and you know support so thank you may I add to your comment um my comment or yes to yours go ahead certainly justification for um everything that is occurring and again the additional grant money and um whatever support that can help with our students again that's why I wanted to reference Dr Harvey's efforts and again because of the considerations of the district and the economic circumstance at this time and certainly to what you just alluded to as well so for that thank you very much yes okay thank you and we'll go on to the next item which is I end of the year testing report by Peter deswood III thank you board members uh president ESPYs vice president uh so I will you know a lot of the work that we've

075been doing this year a lot of the targeted effort and and support uh it was evident in in the data that I'll be presenting tonight um so this is third through eighth grade um I am SSA data again it's beginning of year middle of year and end of year and two areas to focus on are the the green bars the horizontal bars as you can tell and just so uh everyone's clear that there are three areas per grade level that are tested this is third through eighth grade and all areas show growth so that's 18 areas that we had growth some as high as 22 growth okay so again the the this the green bar for uh grade uh reading we had less than one percent to 13 mid-year to 24 at the end of

076the year also in another area whenever I meet with principals who want to look at data is looking at that red bar right that red bar was at 80 percent of our students I needed support mid-year went to 71 at the end of the year we were at 40. go ahead and go down because notice the green at the very bottom starts at 9 to 27 to 32 so we had growth as far as students who are on Target and then the Red Bar also went down and this is for fourth grade and then let's take a look at the next area started at 19 to 23 to 24. oh I'll go back up a little bit more and then the Red Bar also decreased 38 to 34 but that stayed the same so let's

077take a look at fifth grade it went from 12 to 14 and then go and go to the next page 12 to 14 to 21. so according to the public education department when 90-day plans are written they State growth a stretch goal is 10 or more so in many of these areas as you can tell we've met those stretch goals depending on each school's 90-day plan and this again this is District wide data okay so let's take a look at uh seventh grade went from 17 to 16. there was a dip but then it went back up to 30 so from the beginning of the year to the end we had a 13 gain so double digit oh and then the bottom which is eighth grade went from 18 to 22 and go ahead and

078go to the next page and that landed at 27. again 18 to 27 9 growth in On Target and very very similar this is just data that we're seeing across the board.red that red bar decreased from 64 to 59 to 46 so we're moving kits we're moving kids to the right our our students are growing we're seeing growth and that was uh for language let's take a look at the next area the third testing area which is uh language usage again 5 to 11 mid-year to 24. so that's almost 21 or 19 growth for that's for third grade and of course that red bar decreased as well looking at our fourth grade scores we went from 16 to 21 to 31 so again that's 15 growth double digit and of course you know moving kids

079to the right we went from 62 I think that says 46 I don't know 45 I don't have like glasses to 30. so again that side those kids are moving over to the right uh which is which is what we want we want to move our kids uh to to from needing to support to um you know moving them to the right so that they are on target let's take a look at fifth grade now go ahead and go to the next uh next page we went from 22 we stayed at 22 but then we went to 26. so some areas more significant than others right again this was four percent growth but our we went from 39 to 31 to 30. that's for uh fifth grade sixth grade went from 14 to 11 to

08024 again Positive Growth that's ten percent that's double digit growth so at the bottom we see seventh grade went from 15 to 21 to 27 so that's uh that's 12 growth that we saw in seventh grade and the last eighth grade tested area for this um subject or subject not uh unit 6 to 15 to 16. again we see uh 10 growth uh for eighth grade who went from need support and again kids emphasis on moving kids from that red bar to the I guess what is that yellow bar to green bar moving them to the right which uh historically whenever the PED looks at that we're moving kids we're the kids are growing the kids are improving okay let's take a look at our third tested area which is mathematics and again we saw

081a significant growth in math as you can see we had no green in this third grade and then I think this was one or two but up to 14 okay so that's from the beginning of the year that's 14 growth so our teachers are in there they're working hard hold on hold on so with that third grade plus Mr deswood um where's the tree the the beginning of the year do you have that data so yeah go ahead um I was just gonna say I mean looking at that the our students need a lot of support in third grade and fourth grade in math that is correct ma'am uh if you can tell that did that very top bar is you know this is 93 look 93 of our students were in red then we

082worked with them we dropped that down that's double digit growth right there if we moved double-digit percentage of kids up to so if you think about this ten percent of our kids is about about 33 so double digit our teachers district-wide moved 66 students from Red over here to uh you know need support okay so move or or or a protein okay so then nothing here and you're right and that's where like our 90-day plans aligning them making sure that our our dollars are our focused on on on the actions and improving uh student outcomes so if it's a green bar without a number that's usually typically one to two percent so one to two percent of this amount is like five or six kids but then we went to 14. so we had growth

083where they were on target but more importantly we went from 93 and we moved students so at the end of the year we only had 53 percent uh that worked on that weren't um On Target which is what almost 40 percent so that's about a hundred and twenty kids that are that are math teachers district-wide move kids to the right or to being on Target because at the beginning of the year we had no students On Target okay so that's very significant whenever you look at the data uh very similar uh let's take a look at fourth grade 93 percent it's needed a lot of support to 75 to 48. again that's almost 40 45 percent uh decrease or we moved kids to the right went from none to 5 to 18. so you think

084of that to know having maybe one or two or one or two percent uh On Target to 18 that's like that's 18 of our students moving to the right so if we if we figure 30 34 students 10 would be about 34 kids uh so almost 20 percent that would be about 68 kids that we got on target that our staff our teachers uh with support move those kids to the right okay let's take a look at our next area our next grade level fifth grade very similar 64 to 62 to 41 so 20 decrease and our kids who were scoring in the bottom uh like third so we on our top side we went from 6 to 11 to 22 which is 16 growth first to students On Target okay fifth uh sixth grade

085uh go ahead and go down a little bit Adam president go ahead I have a question go ahead board member Mr deswood um I truly understand and respect what you're saying but kind of to the point of uh with task is concern that these graphs these numbers in an ideal situation the orange should be green and the green should be orange and all the way down from third grade through the fifth grade foreign what would flip that what could the district do what could the teachers teachers do because this tells me that the fundamental arithmetics numeracy is there's there's a disengagement somewhere that these kids are not getting um the foundational math to do the arithmetic especially in these lower grades third fourth and fifth uh granted there's a bit of a bright spot here

086in the fifth grade where they move where they started on six and then went to 22 but overall I'm looking at the overall numbers um and quite frankly these overall numbers on the impact on the state assessment which we haven't seen we won't get until I believe it's August so in your professional opinion what would it take to entirely fit this flip this graph from third through fifth grade what can the teachers do what can the schools do to flip them well I'm glad you asked that question uh uh board member uh Montoya so one of the things of course we did root cause analysis on all of this so a lot of the targeted support that we're providing teachers I remember uh um actually I will remember the beginning of the year that our

087numbers were so low that anything that we try to do we're going to see growth well that's what we're doing we're systemizing some processes um some of the things that we looked at with uh talking with teachers being you know observing observing classrooms I did almost 160 uh walkthroughs with principles district-wide so seeing what's going on having an instructional Focus all year long this year we're having principals and teachers and what's our Focus going to be this next year having a focus from the top down those are some things that we can do um and and of course plc's professional communities kind of make you formalizing that process which is the justification for our welcome back PLC that we're doing district-wide and some of the things you know like Hattie states where teachers are collaborating

088and working what we see stuff like this this is this is evident this didn't just happen by happenstance this was very targeted support for teachers and principals and helping them grow professionally and most importantly helping students grow and that's what we're seeing here some other things that we're doing and from hearing the voices of our teacher is we don't know all the programs we need training that's why this year we're simplifying things not adding more programs but just getting better at the existing programs really had I don't know if you remember me presenting earlier or I said principles last year were I guess assessed and asked how many programs that are they currently working on there was 71 well we've whittled that down to right around 20 where we're going to focus and get really

089good at those 20 programs providing professional development so that instead of going a mile wide in an inch deep we're going to go an inch wide but a mile deep making sure that we have our our teachers are all on board and of course with a lot of turnover that we've experienced in the last three to four years a lot of the things that we did before we gotta on board we got to make sure our teachers know our systems we got to make sure uh teachers know our processes some other things is aligning dollars I know you all the board always challenges us are we are we are is our investment is a return on on our investment at its highest well those are things that we're looking at we're evaluating our programs and

090trying to figure where are we getting the best bang for our buck well our people investing in our people investing in the right people making sure they're supported trained and provided and opportunity to grow with these coaching and feedback sessions so those are oh one last thing is um a lot of times if you see your your um proficiency scores low a lot of times that's your your tier one or level one support you're teaching to the entire class so a lot of times when you see that one of the things is does do all of our teachers know where our curriculum is is that curriculum easily accessible to all of our teachers especially with the turnover that we see there are new teachers that are coming in know and can get access easily our

091curriculum so this summer in July we're actually we're bringing our our teachers back and we we need a really streamline our instructional materials or our curriculum documents so that a two-pager a two-page document where we in fact maybe in the next board meeting I can show you the work that we are doing with curriculum instruction and of course a lot of the work that we're doing is tied to root analysis we go through where we we ask what what are we doing wrong what are we missing steps so that we can prove and then we have benchmarks along the way that we can say here's where we're at here's what we're doing to so that we're not hoping for good scores where we will know that our scores will will will will improve like we're

092seeing in this data and of course this is these are just one set of data right there's other sets of data out there that can be used as well but this is what the PED uh gives the districts you know to look at and to for teachers to write action plans for how to improve uh sir I hope that answered your question no not really um but I'm seeing that from the perspective and trust me when I say that uh and try not to dissuage the positive positive said a few times and I know from the specific research that the teachers estimates of achievement when you look at influences and effect size um John Hattie and all the research that he's done teacher estimates of a assessment achievement excuse me scores of 1.62 which is

093the highest growth and then you have Collective teacher efficacy um that is also high 1.57 now in my humble opinion as an educational leader um entrusting the Educators and the tools that they need to provide and be to be more effective in that classroom and their judgment knowing their students and then building off of again that numeracy and arithmetic and the very early grade grades where it's introduced earlier and uh more stringent uh in my opinion would certainly help to drive that orange down and the green up because dare I say without having gone and looking at specifically I imagine there's quite a few kids who are moving up to sixth grade that don't know how to multiply and are very challenged in reading so what do we do and how do we do it

094to help them get to that point to where they can become a lot more functional as they move through Junior High that's to me is I mean again I see the movement I've looked through these documents um before and that's what troubles me is the very high numbers at the beginning which tells me it's not being retained or it's not being locked in through through the teaching there there's there's something missing and everything that you said again um I I've got a I've got a problem with it because I see a disservice to these students especially those that are now moving up to sixth grade and are challenged thank you uh board what president asked me I respond to that sure uh Michigan member of Montoya you're absolutely right and that's why what we're doing

095is very intentional um and like you said teacher efficacy right I think you said 1.57 so with that teachers knowing what their content is and being able to do it okay and part of that is if we have a teacher that is growing and producing the numbers one of the things working with principals saying stay out of their way they know what they're doing but not only that but leveraging those teachers remember I talked about making curriculum documents identifying which teachers across the district group kits move kids to the right which ones had growth bringing those in no matter if they're level one level two level three but bringing those teachers in who had tremendous growth and having them part be a part of that process because something they're doing is working well and a

096lot of times when I met with these principals when we had grade levels that had like double-digit growth a lot of the the most common theme was they collaborate they look at student testing data not just assessments they look at student work and they identify what's good work very similar for tesol here's and here's what quality work is let's make sure that our students know what quality work looks like providing them an Exemplar now this is what we need to achieve this is what we're working towards in communicating that to the whole class so a lot of what you just said uh Mr Montoya is embedded in what in is embedded in the actions we have taken this year so to your response if I may you said something that uh kind of jumps out

097at me about the efficacy of those teachers that are are pulling out those numbers and and they're it's sporadicness throughout the district I I understand that there's successful teachers in every building and it was a point that was made to the um Secretary of Education uh the current one and the one that he proceeded a couple years ago um that the answers to the problems are in our own backyard and to utilize that success in those buildings to build off that success in those buildings and again let's say you have a fourth grade teacher that is just knocking it out of the park pulling really good numbers and certainly has that open conversation with the third graders and the fifth graders that's the kind of collaboration that I'm talking about in respects to open ended

098conversation in those hallways in those classrooms and certainly unimpeded by a uh principles or a administrations do as I say not as I do or certainly imposed by the state and that was one of the points that I made to the current Secretary of Education like he was talking about differentiated um application at the state level in a collection of data when I stated that to him I asked him basically about using that data to impose and the Mandate or to apply it as the first order in this pamphlet to differentiate because each classroom is different as you well know and understand and those teachers in that classroom should know those kids and should be able to differentiate rather than having to follow a mandate of a specific strategy in that classroom when they have

099a an adequate toolbox to be able to do that I wholeheartedly agree then that's when they can be more effective in that classroom understanding their students thank you thank you for the the comments if we could go down a little bit further let's take a look at seventh grade so we went 7 10 18. uh 45 41 37 for the students who are uh I think that's red I must be my colors must be off because Mr Montoya sees orange and I see red so one of us one of us is uh has I see pink okay all right so we're all seeing differently I think that's part of it too right we need to make sure all our teachers are seeing the same color right and I think that's what we mean like we

100need to hear what teachers are saying and then we need to provide them that support um it it's interesting that your comments uh uh Mr montoy because I just met with uh do language teachers yesterday and going through the domains with them and having those conversations right the conversations our teachers are the ones with the kids we need to be listening to what they're saying and what they're saying is we don't know how to use how to get the data from our instructional programs the ones that we currently have so that that's why we said well let's let's take a step back and get new stuff but let's let's uh use these programs that we already have in in in our in our computers and in in our classrooms and get better with that so

101and then look let's take a look at eighth grade really quick and then that'll be the completion of uh my my report so 7 to 13 to 22 again 69 to 53 to 39 uh so that's what uh 20 20 decrease um in in those students who need support um I think one thing that last thing I wanted to make a comment about is um you know I'm not happy right we're not happy with that this red bar is still high right yeah we have we're we're patting our ourselves on the back for those for those little wins but big picture wise we have work to do right and that's why uh with the support from the board uh with the support of Mr Carlson uh with the support from directors coming together and working

102for the benefit of our kids you know making decisions based on data right what we're so that we're not hoping for good data so then we put stuff in place and we make decisions based on numbers and data even though it's one piece of data but we have other data indicators that we as well that we look at but being intentional with what we're doing not just going out and and now before we always say there's kids we're just not doing it like without knowing what we're doing there's a process to the way we're trying to improve our schools um and that's what's worked for me when I when I led my own school it's what worked for me when I was a teacher and most of all it it's what's working for our district

103but I want to thank you uh board members for for trusting uh Mr Carlson and the directors for us to do um you know this work so that our kids benefit so that so that our kids is future you know opens up and and so they're not um hamstringed by a math a language or a reading score so thank you and I I would like to add to that with um I'm not a I'm not a number person other than what I do for work um as far as data and I'm I'm just not that kind of person and so and you hit it just right uh Peter um we I as a board member have confidence I before I can say I didn't um to be honest and but I have confidence and and

104who we have in trying to make our students better um for them to to graduate and function um so I I like what I see you know as far as you know collecting that the the the data and and I hear what you're saying um and and I guess um my thoughts too is can some of this be put back on this can it can it be used against us um um as other organizations or other groups um try to figure out and address Yazoo Martinez um you know those are my questions and and um if if this could be used back against us and and um maybe maybe there's um a a different way of um relaying the progress board member asked us thank you for the question um I don't know of another

105way maybe an executive session to present the information uh but um because it you know well when you're looking at Reading and um at the top of your presentation um well not not that one I I'd say maybe the mass portion where it had 93 percent I mean that looks bleak yeah and um but I I see what you're saying and um is is there a different way this could have been shared um I guess we could have just done proficiency rates or the green bar uh but I think the the whatever the whenever we look at this information right here this is gonna be public information you can pull this a lot of this information off the public education website uh like uh you know our historical data is on the PED website and

106so you know I guess in transparency with you all that's why we wanted to share because I feel like what we're going in a positive direction uh we we we're hearing it from our staff this is just one indicator that we are moving in a positive direction and it in my opinion this is this needs to be celebrated because we are we are we are making incremental improvements and you know indicators aside from student test data you know we hear it from teachers we hear it from from our our principles about support teachers about support you know teachers like I say when I met with dual language teachers you know thanks for coming visible being visible in the buildings being visible with with the language teachers and supporting those programs but but I mean like

107this information is uh is moving in the right direction um so I'm not too sure I mean I guess I can touch base with with Mr Carlson and Mr venturina and then you know present this information uh in a more I guess uh um I guess I don't know how to say it but in a more appropriate manner but but I mean it's it's it's our it's our data and I think that's part of it is we're owning it and we want to improve and we're not satisfied right we're not satisfied with with those Reds but that's why we're committed to making sure that every one of our kids has an opportunity uh to learn yeah I I don't mean to to um not be transparent it's it's just then um I mean that that

108kind of looks bad that that first one on mathematics and that's third and fourth grade may I make a comment yes go ahead I guess that [Music] um this is in terms of the progress that we have made we were I think all the school districts in and including us were hindered by the pandemic something that was really out of our control and I think that as long as we provide the resources and the the training and professional development for our teachers to help them understand the data and then identify the areas of need that um I think that that would I think it would look a lot better um in terms of maybe in a couple years the comparison will be different but right now it just looks not so well post pandemic so

109um I look forward to seeing what happens next year thank you a suggestion yeah Lord president made a comment yes go ahead um and you're right I think uh you know I guess the reality yeah that doesn't look good 93 but I think the you know whenever whenever you look at this that's when we went from 93 down to 53 that shows the level of support the level of commitment we have to equity and the way we are spending our funds we our funds are being targeted to support our kids in you know and then of course this coming year I mean with 90-day plans uh you know dollar we were tying stuff up right you know dollars that are going to be spent are going to have to be tied directly to your 90-day

110plan and based on the data that we see right we need to be focusing on these areas in fact we have a math program that we saw at one Middle School you know making decisions based on the data TBA had really good data for their math like tremendous like double digit growth and they were a part of a program called med school math or there was another program that were part of it but but they got they get targeted support so like being intentional that's why I said we're intentionally making decisions not just pulling stuff out of the air and trying it but based on what our people are saying and what our students need and the data and the data just use helps us make decisions but it lets us know where we're going

111from the beginning to the middle the middle if we need to make adjustments we better make adjustments to support our kids so that's kind of how we use this data so looking at that mathematics again and on the second column are the second line for third grade and so the green area shows no number so there's none On Target is that what what that means it means less than less than two or three percent okay I may make one more comment uh board president yes I think one of the other things too to to understand is math is one of those areas that is it proficiency is really hard to achieve um so as a math department and when I was a math teacher we we increase our math scores from 15 to 38 proficiency

112and we got like a state award right 38 but then you're like well what about the other 62 we fail those other kids right but in mathematics it's one of those subject areas where for if we're seeing growth and I'm not I'm not I'm not justifying what's going on but in relative to other districts like these numbers are pretty pretty uh common in fact we have some schools who who have probably um you know exceeded or the state and is also on the national level is you know you can probably ask Mr Carlson in his school he had he had students that would beat the national or classes and grades would beat the national average but still more than likely it was probably between 50 to 65 proficiency um so it I guess I guess

113whenever you look at to the big picture and the relative uh nature of these scores um you know it's kind of hard to compare how we are when we are just looking at ourselves as a district um okay that sounds better it so for president I think uh and to vice president's comment as well um Mr desert potentially what we could do is just asterisk or a footnote on the bottom so we can describe the pandemic concerns we also have testing gaps during that the pandemic times and so that way um with respect to what board president's concern was from an archive standpoint and also from a legislative reporting standpoint we have a little footnote there that just describes why we have those gaps and also describes how quickly we are making the gaps up

114and that that way then it's it's not you know taken out of context if someone does HIPAA it or find it in a presentation or on the internet somewhere um then they can't skew it because it's got the footnotes yes absolutely that we can we can do that comment go ahead shouldn't that asterisk be put over the entire State then when you talk about that imss testing and even estate testing my point really to say what I said a little earlier and kudos to Mr deswood for making the gains that you did in the school that you were at and I've made these comments before about having specific reading interventionists specific math interventionists and I understand as well in respects to some individuals having a harder time to teach the math uh we're talking about

115first second third grade where it should be um solidified when they come out to start actually learning the math and again the basic Foundation to be taught um that's for in my opinion my opinion alone where I think is the emphasis needs to be certainly the suggestion of having a math camp for your lower grade Educators so they fully understand how to engage as the students and teach the foundational math I'm not talking about bringing in York and Gage where you teach it for six hours and then expect your teachers to go out there and master it and teach it themselves when they themselves don't fully understand New York engage um I've made this comment before I wish somebody would come in here and show the board how to do New York engaged and see

116just how lost they would be with New York engaged math uh so my point again is as much as I don't like what I'm seeing in front of me because it is quite frankly and there's no other way to put it appalling because it hurts our kids that's why I say that and at the end of the day the five board members that you have in front of you on the screen and in that room are responsible for these kids and from a fiduciary's uh perspective the standpoint I don't like that I don't like the fact that they are the way they are and I think there's a whole lot more that can be done to ensure that those those bars are flipped the other direction I'm not talking about competency I'm talking about proficiency

117there's a difference you understand that correct I see you shake that not in your head and that's really where we need to be so whatever we can do and you've you've made the comment several times about going to the teachers going to the teachers um I'd like I'd like to know specifically you know what kind of questions you're asking the first grade second grade third grade teachers when it comes to math what how they need specifically what kind of professional development they need specifically to solidify the foundation for them to be able to teach that that numeracy so by the time they get into fourth or fifth grade then that's when the true learning of mathematics superbs um and and again we see the proof is in the pudding that something's locked and again as

118a as a fiduciary and being responsible for that education um I'm not very happy with those numbers thank you um as far as the asterisk over the entire State I think each board which district needs to come to that conclusion but um yes and I and I don't want that to be a cop-out either and it's but it is fact and um I don't know what this math that you're talking about um curriculum do you yes and sounds like the new math is that the uh it's a version of it um yeah it's it's when people say new math that's something that's kind of misconstrued it's a bit of a misnomer um it's it's just revamped curriculum not curriculum that um basically this style of teaching math incorporates more of AIDS is it like the

11950 to the zero percent I know what that is grading scale no no it's not it's it's helping students conceptualize their learning um and and instead of just giving them rote ways to do things um it actually tries to get them to understand the the math the actual map as a math teacher for many years myself um I'm a proponent of it um just because uh Common Core Mathematics is a change and this is an approach to teach Comfort math okay maybe we could have that as a presentation from one of the Math teachers to see what what what's what's what it is actually I like that Mr deswood real quick on the asterisk um conversation we might want to reference the fact that we had um pretty remote schools as well and very high

120incident um or impact in our area in that asterisk because that did come up at the LLC meeting and in that report and so wherever we can I do think just and and not in any way contradicting uh board member montoya's points but just from a paper trail perspective I I do think that's probably a great Point by for president and vice president to document yes ma'am any other questions board members secretary Wells I have a conversation has been interesting I have no more comments I mean no other I think from the data we can see that uh we've made progress and made substantial progress and good progress and does that mean that where we want to be certainly not but it shows that we're moving in that direction and I think that's a positive

121thing okay board member George yes thank you um you know it's it's really hard for these for the teachers to really teach you know with you know they have to come up with the m s SL is that what it is and um become the SAT chair you know not the SAT chairs but they have to do the set process along with teaching and then you know they just have so much on their plate that the head incorporates and then also you know um it just makes it hard to teach and I think our Common Core subjects you know it'd be helpful to have those subjects taught by a certified teacher um you know for math is actually certified in teaching math and um it's just really hard for the teachers um to teach during

122the day with all the other stuff that they have to put on their plate a lot of Behavioral issues disruptions in the class and um you know having to be uh just five people at one time you know but I do agree with um everybody else's comments I know they've made some strides but thank you okay any more questions comments vice president no no comments all right thank you Peter yes you're welcome uh board members okay we'll go on to the next item item Jane Johnson O'Malley Indian egg committee Indian education committee an equity Council report by Dr Linda Begay Julia Louis and Donovan Russell and we will let Donovan since he's in-house in person and his guests go first machine so good evening thank you for this opportunity and to the rest of the

123board members superintendent Mr Carlson and assistant superintendent Miss Charmaine Chappelle thank you for um and then as well as everybody else who are in the audience online listening foreign [Music] I work with the Intercultural Intercultural community outreach department and um so my position is the equity Council supervisor so um I just wanted to just give a recap of um what our year was like and um and so I just wanted to give you some updates of the Ico Department as well as the equity Council and so just going through the slides that um I prepared for you so under the Ico of the equity component was built to address the mandates from the state of New Mexico but encompasses all for Education ads which is the Indiana Education Act Hispanic Act um bilingual Multicultural Education

124Act and the black Education Act and so we're in the process of um as you all had um adopted the commitment to the equity policy and where we're right now in the process of implementing the policy and we have been conducting um to do this Equity strategic plan and then um just recently we um come to work with the new individual in our department which is our community schools coordinator who is implementing to provide services and support to fit each Community needs working in collaboration with schools and students and parents and um so this is basically just to enrich our learning our learning time for our students and the opportunity to um we're active family and Community engagement and um and then going on to the next slide um just sharing some of our experience

125and our first year as the equity Council program um we have really pushed on student voice and um and so and through the equity Council we're funded by the Indian Education Act and so some of the capable of the points that we've been working hard on right now is to ensure partnership with the district IEC and ipac and teachers and students in community and then implementing full inclusion um Equity um in District decisions and then developing and implementing the clri framework and it's a really strengthen our students and um supportive learning environments to ensure cultural and linguistic mandates from the Yazi Martinez lawsuit and then um and also to strengthen our students in parent leadership advocacy and then um and working really um to to help with the school policies and the State Federal Regulation

126and accountability and so among our team our members of equity Council we do have a representation of Multicultural student membership and students who are English Learners students who are who have disabilities and then those who face those challenges with economic disadvantages and currently we do have um 28 students who are on the equity Council um team and um we do have representation from all three regions and two from Newcomb and five from Shiprock and then eight students from Kirtland and five students from career prep as well too and um this is really a program that's targeting students who are secondary students but we do have some middle school students who have joined the equity Council who are eighth graders and went into the high school level and on the Newcomb we had four students and

127then Kirtland two and um from our adult Equity council members we do have seven parents and we do have representation from all three regions as well too that we are seeking more adults in this coming new year so um we definitely are out there recruiting to get more adults on our on our Equity Council and then just to list some of the accomplishments that we had this year um was of course the big one was passing the cohesive education opportunities and then um we also did our best to engage our students to be aware of their of all the other of all heritages in our in our school and each month has its own awareness to support um some of the different heritages that are represented in our school such as the um at the

128beginning of the year we had the Hispanic cultural celebration with their independence day and then um and then in November we had the Native American um month and then in February we did the black education or the black um African-American students and then um and then we followed towards the end of the year with a more of an Intercultural celebration with um which is like the Asian Community as well because we do have a Filipino teachers in our school and they brought their their children along with them and so um and then we did we did a lot of cultural presentations just because um 95 of our student population is now the hope and we want our visitors not visitors but our our other cultures that come into ours our school to feel welcome and

129um so we've shared a lot of our cultural cultural teachings with them so they feel welcome and that way they could um engage with our students more and and feel just like this is their home as well too and um we also have the equity council members just the members only Summit which we held that um San Juan College for two days and that was a really good turnout um we had our special guests who did participate in our our son and Mr Collison and he was able to just observe in what the students are doing and um with the equity council members are doing and was actually able to to um here's some of the concerns from from the student level and then um and we also had some student leadership voices and professional

130development trainings for them where we went out to um Phoenix Arizona to where they participated in the Sparks of possibility conference and here at the end of the month they'll be going to Washington DC at a more higher level and and just making our presence to represent our community and our school and our school district as well too and um we also been working really hard on the Yazzie Martinez ready nist assessment and also the in creating the clri framework as well too and as I mentioned student voice is something that we've really been pushing student leadership I asked one of my Equity Council students or student to join me today and at um if if you um Madam president would allow her to just um give her feedback and just um uh just a

131recap of um their experience as a student from their student level so so may I have your permission okay um um kind of going into what kind of member I represent from within our community um I would most likely place myself as a multicultural student um I come from two native backgrounds I come from Navajo and I come from Cherokee however when I introduce myself with my Clans I usually use my um cast on Father's Clans as he's the one who raised me up however I do believe like it's important to kind of clarify that I come from two um Native backgrounds I am also a member of the lgbtq plus students um I identify as a transgender male so I feel like my voice kind of fits within the Multicultural category um so just

132a kind of recap starting from the beginning when I was first being introduced into the equity Council kind of testing out the waters um I've been active with the student council at Shiprock high school for a little over two years now so about half of my schooling my upperclassmen years went towards Student Council planning events hosting hosting fundraisers um you know concession stands everybody comes into the games we're able to give everybody food snacks making sure that everybody's enjoying the game we've also hosted dances and so when I was given the opportunity into the equity Council I kind of was hesitant at first because with student council it was kind of like you're guaranteed to have a voice but as I found it hard to be able to communicate on the administrator level at least

133within my school um as we represent three regions it's it varies between the schools so I'm mostly talking about the Shiprock region so I found it hard to communicate with my administrators and you know if we had we were kind of shut down with a lot of our events if we had too big of an idea that we're fleshing out between what we call the Committees we split ourselves up among the class and we gave everybody just the kind of freedom to host what they wanted specifically within events usually we were shut down with things like this is too elaborate we need more fleshed out ideas and even if we had it well articulated have multiple students in the room representing each committee it was difficult to kind of communicate our wants and needs and

134then seeing like fellow students struggle because they didn't have the correct kind of Transportation things like being out of the boundary for buses and not being able to make it to school on time sort of things like that that kind of put them at an economic disadvantage um me and a group of students decided let's try out the equity Council and that's when Donovan became our mentor and at first we were all a little hesitant because again being told you have a voice will listen and not being listened to through student council it was kind of difficult to transition into that but with Equity Council as we were beginning Donovan was like okay what are your concerns and we had the floor it was kind of it was kind of a shocker to realize that

135we did have a voice and so being able to communicate one-on-one with Donovan through our meetings where he'd come in and he'd be like okay so what is the situation at you guys's school what can we do um being able to be like well we're looking for new water fountains because at Shiprock high school we didn't have good water fountains majority of the time none of them hardly worked or we'd hear that the water was a color and we're like okay we're just going to stay away from that it was difficult because because we have the teaching of Torre Ina water is life so so so being able to be like well can we start off with getting new water fountains because originally our teeth and pride Club tried proposing that but it originally it

136was shut down um and then finally all of a sudden a couple months later we see new water fountains in the building so that's when we're that's when we really felt like okay this is something we we can actually have an opinion on and have a say in and so that's when we began to talk about you know the political and social climate of our world and how we felt our education through history government classes and cultural classes wasn't enough because um at at the high school we only had two cultural classes that was Navajo government and that was Navajo language and everything Sciences through culture arts history economics government it was crammed into those two classes and was hard to keep up especially because we were on a block schedule of only having four

137classes each semester so if you were in the fall and winter classes for Navajo language that's when you got to hear cultural storytellings but if you were in the spring going into summer classes you weren't able to hear those stories because because you're not supposed to be talking about those stories through the seasons only in a specific season so it was kind of difficult so we brought up like we want to have more of a cultural experience because everybody wants to know who they are and culture is such a big and important part of identity it's kind of like well where do I stand in the world if my culture my language is dying so being able to have Donovan Mentor us and kind of be like like validating our feelings about okay yeah we

138understand that you want to better your cultural classes and you know again following the social and political climate seeing that our fellow students of color outside of our school district were being discriminated against and being discriminated against within the district we felt we felt we had to at least speak up for them because some of them hadn't even known of equity Council because at this point we're still farming we're still finding our footing so being able to be like well well these things don't seem right you know even though like like a small percentage of our students are black Filipino and Mexican they still exist so it's important for us to help integrate their cultures as much as we integrate our cultures being a predominantly Navajo School District and so being able to express those

139concerns like like a big thing that that I've kind of seen throughout the years is like the students usage of the ensler and kind of kind of having to teach each other we can't say that word just because our ancestors have gone through similar experiences doesn't mean that it's a word that we can say and now that we're able to have the black Education Act within Place students are able to understand and more about about Black Culture why they can't use that slur even though it just seems like a word it's not a word it's had a long and derogatory meaning just as much as other slurs happen and it's not right for our students to say that so being able to have these education acts kind of builds a community within each other again

140as Donovan was saying the communities and cultures should all be seen not just within only our culture and community and again it's it's kind of a experience where you have to ease yourself into but the more we got into it and finally wrapping up our first year we're able to understand the power of our words and how we can be leaders within our school districts um I've graduated since then so I've gone the whole year with Equity Council and I have to say that knowing that my voice has an impact and I am able to help out not just not just my friends not just my siblings but also like the younger generation it kind of builds a sense of Pride knowing that that I've been able to be a part of things as Donovan

141was saying with the Heritage Month awareness um me and one of my friends who is also within the equity Council Danica Donovan was able to tell us certain stories we're able to translate it and able to present it to our whole school the importance of traditional clothing the traditional skirts why the skirt is in three tears because the body represents the fourth world and from the first year it's the first world second world third world and now you the body represent the fourth world the glittering world and so being able to share that and then share the importance of the sashbo like you like you can kind of see and we saw in the crowd's faces how important that was for them because again there's such a disconnect with like our language dying that that

142we kind of do have to translate this in order for for our fellow peers to understand why our culture and Heritage is important and and it's just it's kind of been a heartwarming experience kind of being able to take these first steps and then now transitioning into being an adult member because I am about to go into college and I'm about to be an undergraduate so being able to know that even though I'm no longer a student here but I'm able to be a part of the committee and the council still it does mean a lot and it does it lets me know that even after I'm gone and I'm hearing my sister text me about uh the lunch food is still gross and being like hey can we focus on better lunches you know

143things like that knowing that I can just be like hey I'm still getting like text messages from my sister that she doesn't like the way the chicken sandwich looks we're still going to eat the chicken sandwich but it's it's a little hard on the eyes you know um so I think that it's important to kind of understand and continue to validate our students that they do have a voice they do have a say I've kind of just like been repeating it but I also think like like repetition is key we see like like different things in history repeating itself all over so you know if we're able to change that sort of repetition cycle into into presenting it as something different something we're able to change then we get into a new repetition cycle so

144to say so that's kind of just all I've had to say so so Louis here is graduating but has committed to continue to serve on the activity Council as an adult member and um we look forward to working with them more and um and so it just it's just like a heartwarming for me to understand that um he wants to continue to be on the council and so so going into the next school year um 2023 2024 our goals um we did have what like I mentioned we had our two-day Summit out in um San Juan College and this were a lot of our students were able to just voice and just write down a lot of their concerns and their ideas and everything and so immediately after that we started to do our Equity

145strategic planning and then so I did that the board Equity strategic plannings um we plan to have our stakeholder kickoff meeting and then um equity um so we plan to do that this summer and then into the fall and then have another stakeholders meeting in the spring and then having them all these holders meeting at each region and then um we also plan to implement the cohesive policy policy and then continue to have professional development training for our Equity council members both the students and the adults and just so they could learn to to voice share their voice more and um take that leadership skills with them and then we also use a plan to design our advertising recommendation of the clri responsive framework and then to share this with this already to share our

146Readiness assessment results which you guys as well to the school board um coming into the the balls into the beginning of the school year and then um we also would like to create a two-way communication with our district leadership and the community and we are in the also in the process of um building our Equity Council District website and then um we also really really want to engage our student while we started with the students well I said well my plan was to start with the students and now we do plan to work more with our parents and our community members and build that collaboration engagement because we're only stronger together and the only way we can Bridge these gaps is to connect with one another and um I've taught these students to learn to

147help out one another to recognize each other's uniqueness and um if a student is um done with their assignment they know their peer is struggling um I would really encourage them to go over there and help them and and be teachers as well too and so um we definitely plan to continue the student Recruitment and to just build our student Equity Council much larger and so going into our Equity council's strategic plan timeline so like like I mentioned in April we heard their voices and we immediately started our our planning and then um I mean made through August we do plan to have our stakeholders meetings and then um in August based on those our stakeholder meetings we plan to prep for our fallen um just pretty much implemented and just strategize on all the

148the meetings that we we had and then come in in September and October our fall strategic planning stakeholders meeting again at all three regions and then compile those results and then um and then start planning in and implementing and and then um went on to our next slide so this summer our stakeholders meeting um as you all know school has ended on June 8th and um we began to identify some of these meeting dates which we plan to do in July and then um to establish public relations um campaigns and and just advertising it so we can get as many people to this stakeholders meeting and um and then um we would like to coordinate and include the Community Schools the student services curriculum ice IEC Johnson O'Malley the CEO clri and the equity strategy

149strategic planning and the safety team and then begin our analyzation results and data of the stakeholder meetings and then um in May to August um we like to hold one meeting at each region and prevention brought the new Newcomb and then um and then from that compile our outcome from July meeting and beginner plans for the next school year and then we like to coordinate with our board members our community schools McKinley vento homelessness and then student services curriculum instructions IEC jom the clri Community Schools and then our safety team and the guard and so that's um as much as we have as our Equity Council and I know this was our first year and we've been doing our best to um just bring up the the program and I really like your comment that

150um president the comment that you made to Mr deswood and how you find out confidence in him to um that he had that trust in him that he's gonna change these these um low scores into to to just better scores and I know this is going to take time as a equity Council and so I just highly encourage um that we do this as a team we collaborate with one another have everybody at the table and um very thankful that Lewis is here to support um the rest of the members especially the student body and I stand for questions and comments the question perhaps actually so um can you go explain a little bit more about the cohesive policy what is that when we passed in November Equity policy let him oh sorry yeah the

151equity Council well that was the cohesive act that was um we began last school year and that was um when I came in that was the black Education Act that was um actually being implemented and I have presented that and then um I presented it to directors in the the principals and that's when they voiced their concerns and why are we um implementing just the black Education Act when there's three other acts that weren't um in our policy and so this was a unique of its kind um the cohesive act where we combine all four education X to be one policy and um believe it or not it's it's one of its kind and no other districts has that and since the passing of it and um a lot of other districts and schools have

152reached out to to learn more about it and in terms of May yes in terms of the the equity Council I know I had heard um there hadn't been much training so how who has been providing that training the mission is it something the district took on itself to figure out the purpose and the mission and the vision or is it something that you received um more guidance from New Mexico ped um I had reached out to New Mexico paid but and they're really like dive into it and to actually experience it the equity council is actually different in all regions it's not going to be the same our Equity council is not going to be the same as Farmington it's not going to as close as we are and all that it's going to

153be we're different even within our own District as well too we had our students well we were planning our students to actually interact with other schools like to have that um what do you call like a like a chain student so Lewis can go to Kirtland and go to school there for a day and see the differences in that school and then go to Newcomb and see totally different differences over there on that school too so the equity Council to me it feels like we had to build it from what we have here what our soil here is and so but with the guidance from New Mexico um everything was virtual and which was really like kind of hard for me to to like really learn it but um we did have our first in-person

154training out in Chama just a couple weeks ago and so there um a lot of our region our district um we came together and shared in just collaborated with one another so I plan to do that more so I guess I just wanted to know because I know that when the equity Council that the whole concept of it was was introduced after the Asia Martinez there wasn't really guidance so what I'm hearing is that the equity council is more School District driven than anything I mean there wasn't really a definition given from the state we've kind of come up with the our concept of the equity Council not really what well there's there's really nothing coming really much from the state so it's really um driven by the school district to determine what where we're

155lacking and how to integrate different um acts into this Council right okay if I may just to kind of build upon Donovan's explanation um as you were saying it's kind of built upon the school district speaking from someone who is at a student perspective it's also built on what specifically the issues we want to Target and at our San Juan College Summit we were able to decide to Target we want to Target technology because due to the pandemic we've had to implement technology we want to also prioritize student mental health kind of taking care of our not only through all these different programs we've created but also like like through the mind because we've all um a good majority of us students from Kirtland students from Newcomb and I a student from Shiprock have all

156had different experiences with mental health counseling um one of my peers from kurtland was saying that your your mental health is usually a brushed off concern through count through your counselors unless there's a significant drop in your grades um from Shiprock it was more or less a lack of communication that we had these resources and from Newcomb it was more so due to the room the remoteness of the area it was hard to get in those resources and so we as students have all kind of decided Well here's what issues we've seen and what we want to Target so that's more of it from a student perspective we've kind of just communicated to our supervisors and our mentors this is what we're seeing and we don't know if you see it the same way we

157do but this is kind of what we want to start with our foundation because again we're not being told exactly what an equity council is and it being so different even like like just going to Farmington you see that their Equity Council functions differently from our Equity Council so from a student perspective we've kind of had to also give our own building blocks we'd like to Target this we'd like to Target that if so for clarification the the San Juan College the the San Juan College event was that internal driven by CCSD I was a regional that included the local school district and then who was who was presiding over it in terms of I'm just trying to understand um how much guidance because at the fruition of this of equity Council the the the

158whole purpose was for the state to provide they said each school district will have an equity Council and it's not it has nothing to do with you I'm just trying to understand um if the state isn't providing this guidance and and it's these Regional meetings if it was a regional meeting who's who's who's driving who's a driving force is it our school district to because we have a vision and that's what we're doing or is it by the New Mexico pad saying um you as Equity Council have to get together in your region and you guys have to come up and collaborate with one another and determine what your focus is going to be in terms of training and so that's that's the the direction of my questioning is how much guidance and how much

159information has been coming from New Mexico pet in terms of arts and Council to be to to to to um I guess towards the actual purpose of why it was created yeah I I would like to say um jump on jump in where where Miss asking is what she brings up um you know the history of the equity council at the time we were in transition with um a pet secretary and so uh Cara Barbara I think was the interim and and um being part of the board of directors um we were told she came in and she and we were told that um and I believe it's um she took advantage of the time that she was interim and and decided on an equity Council and there um the board of directors I mean

160there's probably about a good say 60 people sitting in there and and so um it was it was very it got heated because um not only we didn't know we didn't know what what the guidelines are what this meant or what we were looking at as board members but the quickly the um attorneys present which was about three of them um quickly said that this um is a uh um going to hurt the as far as board board decisions and and um so from there it it just it didn't die it didn't um it just sort of just lingered in a few people got a hold of it and one of them was our former superintendent and and then it was pushed and I and I feel like in our case as a district it

161was just to um justify a few things several things and and since then I've always wondered what are we doing what is going on who's and it wasn't until I watched that video and and um and I feel like through um covid it just took a life of its own and um um not really the boards it was just the initiative of maybe perhaps three people so that kind of gives you context so it's not I think you you know from the sounds of you're doing an amazing job at the tasks that you were given with all the limitations it's good that you're growing the program the way you're you're envisioning it um and it comes back to I guess the and that's where I I see there's probably a lot of challenges that you've

162had to deal with and um if if there's some that you can share with us in regards to the challenges that you've had in starting this program that I would like to hear those it definitely was challenging a challenge um it was sort of like a task that it's a new programs I mean based on your your own kids build the program they sit on their kids and that's the reason why I reached out to the students first it's like what is your concern how do you guys want this what shall we do and um this is your school and it's not it wasn't really a decision that I made up to the leaders at our school because we think differently from the way they think and so I went straight to the source and

163I went to the kids and um so it's not a building that I built myself but I built it with the kids with the students and um coming to your question about was it a Regional Conference that we had at San Juan College no it was one of its kind just like the cohesive act it's one of its kind that it's never been done at the district that these students have a summit for themselves and where we brought in a consultant to teach us a little bit more about what Equity means in in schools especially student voice and student leadership and so um but um we went on one trip to learn a little bit more about it and our students ended up teaching them over there and the next day the first day we

164were there they were already calling back to the Ico Department like we really like this your group of people down here and um and so um but we plan to do to continue just doing things like what we feel like the students want in their own school and and then and it's not like it's going unheard because as I as I said I viewed the video and um I think one thing that was shared was the novel Nation presidential forum on how some were asking about grass and and as we last week as we talked about um uh you know and um moving that to a new location to be built and you know that's one thing that I I did bring up and you know that why can't we have grass you know why

165can't our schools be surrounded with grass and so you know it's it's it's good feedback you know and and yes you know some of those things we I I mean if we're a product um of CCSD and and I think uh you just get kind of used to and and you don't even think you lacked you know until it's pointed out and and um so yeah but um you know I and I'm the one that pushed for this you know that that and I would really like because um we need to know what's going on what's happening there and um you know that's legislatively were asked were were judged on on those things and so um it's it's good to know and and um we should have done this long time ago but again you

166know I think all of um I think mainly I can speak for um uh Suzette and myself that we didn't know how it was organized and and really at a loss you know and so now there's a little bit clearer and um and and then it seems like whenever the subject came up and people would you know wouldn't wouldn't say wouldn't you know someone else was talking and couldn't really get a full clear story you know so um I appreciate this and thank you I I um Echo the same sentiments because um I like the initiative because there wasn't much it was just like you're you guys school districts have to create that an answer to Yazi Martinez and no road map no tools no anything so I really do appreciate the direction that you're

167taking it I really appreciate the voices and creating leaders leaders amongst um amongst your your your group of students I appreciate that um the ability to your ability to be Forward Thinking in terms of gathering information and and putting together a program that really represents the student voices in different areas instead of having the um the normal like this is the chess club or you know something um so I I really like that and that concept and um I guess I just want to hear more as time goes by and and um if you're going to have bylaws are you going to have bylaws and more structure policies that govern who's on your committee who's in your group because you have adult adult partners and I heard communities in terms of the Community Partners that

168you've been establish what the rules are going to be you know background checks things like that just to cover yourself and the the school district but I I really do I really do um uh I'm thankful that you're able to take on this task even even though there wasn't much um of anything on the deletion.neta you did it yourself so it's good so I commend you for that so I think as far as firewalls Steve can you jump on that are you sure either that or um until until something is created specifically maybe we could um use iases well thank you again and um like I was saying this um we like to partner with you guys we like to have that communication with you guys because we need that connection within our district not

169done not just um older cells as um anybody tells you that you have to hold on to your receipt by your computer your window or um if I may just kind of share my my perspective as a student when it came to overcoming challenges um as I mentioned before it was kind of a difficult thing having to to kind of put trust in something that we didn't know was just like a ploy to get like more students in trouble because um um again from my experience um at my school it was very much there's a lot of almost kind of an extreme focus on discipline so like so like certain surveys we felt as if like if we answered those surveys and we said something that our administrators didn't like in those surveys we'd get

170punished for it so and the lack of communication it felt almost authoritarian at least within like my school and kind of from my perspective and if there's anything my mom will tell you I hate Authority I'm not an authority person but yeah it's classic teenager things but just kind of having to feel like you're always being watched and there's always someone behind you in the Halls it's an unsettling feeling and so kind of having to put Blind Faith in what we're saying what we want to do within our schools isn't going to be used against us to create a discipline case it was scary it was difficult to kind of trust Donovan and the more like mentors we got in the council and you know there were some times where where we'd gather we'd be

171like do we tell them we've gone out what do we do about it and you know it's it was difficult within like at least for us Shiprock kids it was kind of difficult to to have this Blind Faith and not only just Donovan and our mentors but also within ourselves that we can actually make a change and make a difference you know hearing like internal issues from when I was as young as like not actually three because my mom was a teacher now she's an administrator at one of the middle schools you know just kind of hearing these things it kind of helped me form like thoughts being like okay well well my mom said this and I see that in my school and I don't like it so I'm able to do something about

172it and even then just seeing like like kind of how how like authoritary figures just kind of treated the students like like it was just not it's not a welcoming environment in a place where we're always told you can go to the adults you can trust the teacher you can trust the counselor but then in the hallways you're being you're being yelled at like like the two minute Mark hits for passing period you're being yelled at get to class or like or someone even looks like remotely suspicious they get pulled aside and asks where do they think they're going what do they think they're doing and then having to go through through locked bathroom after locked bathroom I cannot tell you how many times I've I've been put on the watch list for smart pass

173because a bathroom was locked so I had to go to the next one but then that bathroom was flooded and you know it kind of wasn't a welcoming environment so knowing that being able to voice something about this doesn't sit right with us we want something done about it again having to put Blind Faith and kind of having to speak out against their schools it's kind of scary especially when like we've been put in situations where speaking out and being like well we don't like this has just been used against us as students and I think that was one of our biggest challenges from the student perspective at least from the students in Shiprock I I hope Donovan's not trying to remove the authority it's more of like an equal communication pathway like the adults

174are like okay here's where we want you guys to be guided but just know we don't want to completely Dethrone everyone new neon eyes you know full of Revolution French Revolution style in the school district but it's kind of just like a you have to learn to have a little bit of Faith within your authority figures and also have a little bit of faith in yourself and now knowing that I'm able to communicate one-on-one or even just within like group sessions like board meetings like this kind of reassures me that maybe the kids will be all right well you know as as you're sitting here telling us and we're listening and perhaps what other adults that have lived some years you know share with you back that you listen you know and take in what

175they have to offer and um you know I I'm hoping that's that's one thing you know that that both sides I heard not just one and um you know I I've I've had um I've coached I've I've my daughter um she knows not to do that to me but uh you know but there's I've come into situations where you know I've had players that you know they're really withdrawn or you know um they just needed confidence and and then also just to be heard and and um so you know I think there's a lot of challenges out there and especially now under covid and and um this past weekend you know I was talking to family at a baby shower and and expressing that um I believe a lot of it you know it has

176to go back down to Hope you know and so um again you know I as as we've sat here and listen you know I I hope that you give that same time and that respect to to the other side and why things are what they are why they tell you go to your class yeah and you know I've kind of heard and understand like why like the administrators were the way they were but it's also kind of like it kind of sucks part of my language but it kind of sucks being told this is what you're doing if you're doing anything else it's absolutely wrong rather than being guided and being listened to just kind of being like this is unfamiliar to me I don't have the confidence Within Myself and I don't know if

177I have the confidence within my mentors my teachers my family to like kind of guide me down the right path and I believe what what one of our biggest messages is togetherness hope and just kind of being able to guide and to listen that's kind of what I do that Equity Council as it's an opportunity to help guide others it's an opportunity to hear the other sides out like hearing like different things about other schools that isn't just like awful gossip and hearing like it's not all bad kind of kind of like reassures you that okay even though things seem Bleak the way they are we know why they are they are the way they are and you know you know it's kind of like again you have to listen to both sides like from

178one side it can be a completely different thing you know hearing that our administrators on The Daily are always having these big cases kind of always being in like having Sheltering places at least once almost every week because another big situation happens so they're kind of just like we have to we have to kind of be strict with everyone you know understanding that hearing that out kind of allowed us to understand okay here's why things were the way they were and you know just kind of being like okay well we'd still like a little bit of different change you know you know just just loosening the reins just a little seeing how that goes not full-on all right I'm throwing the horse and it's rains away sort of thing but just kind of being like

179okay let's kind of hear each other out kind of discuss what's happening what's been happening on our side what's been happening on your side listening to each other I feel like I feel like God's definitely restored a lot of like confidence you know it's you got to know what more hours no I'm just kidding you know okay board members any more comments questions comment go ahead the New Mexico PD website lays out the uh Equity Council process what other documents talks about um full board and governance boards Equity councils Equity into action and um says while Equity councils are not decisions or policy making bodies they are responsible for one completing the Martinez Jazzy Readiness assessment and CLR inventory informing the design of the educational plan supporting the design of the culturally linguistically responsive framework

180for districts and charter schools and providing recommendations to districts and Charter Schools leadership as an advisement package so it's kind of spelled out exactly what their roles are per the ped and those can be accessed again on the um PD website but I certainly appreciate the fact that the Ico again with what they're doing and have been doing is providing um certainly the resources and the opportunity for the district to stay compliant um not just fill in a void or checking a box or um just existing for the sake of existing because someone says they're supposed to exist I mean that they're actually providing as we've heard um certainly much needed resource so again something else positive coming out of the Ico so I I appreciate that the question that I have a couple of

181questions actually is um and this is pointed to um Mr Russell what is your goal for attending the conference in Washington DC what do you expect to get out of it or not just you but you're attendees I should say mainly my goal to actually get the students out to explore and to learn new ideas from other tribal youth um collaborating with others you you and students and just bringing they like to they usually have workshops where they bring issues um that they have in their own travel communities and then where our students could actually be able to help other tribal members or troubled communities as well and then them in a way networking with one another with um with um with you with our youth and so um we do I have made some

182reservations to actually try to meet with our leadership there in Washington as well too and so um so not just taking their concerns to our Administration level but to to the National end to the to our leadership out there as well too and um and so it's to build their voice to build their confidence to build their leadership skills and um to just bring that back here to this history I uh certainly would appreciate a follow-up once they get back to hear from the students on their experience what they've learned because again this is an investment in their future certainly and the other question that I have is um when you look at the document the equity Council student voice and I know that the predominance is here within the district but Equity ends at

183a quality what are we doing for the other voices the other ethnicities that are represented throughout the district whether that's Filipino whether that's black according to the black educational act or the Hispanic educational act all those what are we doing specifically within the district to address and give equal time to in respects to them and their populations and their students as well um like I said um we've never really had this Council and um one of the more diverse um Community was Kirtland to begin with when I just first started and we did have um representation from the Hispanic group and also from the from the angle that the white group as well too and then we also had a Filipino student who was represented there um and so they shot out their ideas with

184um some of the different things that they wanted and um so this past year there was actually um things that the teachers have never seen done there at Kirtland and um and so bringing that more to our region like I stated um earlier we want to make them feel welcome we want to make them feel like this this is their home is to not only just the student but the teachers as well one of my goals to keep that retention here um here at our school district um to just have a team that stays just for a little while and then moves on it's it's not my goal is to keep everyone here as one team and that way we could work together and um to just Bridge these gaps that we see here in

185our district and so most definitely we do plan to continue to make them feel welcomed and continue to have these celebrations and awarenesses of their Heritage with perspective to the to the month and all that and so we do plan to do more and um and not just at the Kirtland region just because there's more of a diverse group but um to actually do it here at Shiprock and Newcomb as well too again um Mr Russell I appreciate that response but again Equity ends that equality I'm sure you understand that and uh again equal time equal representation because if I'm not mistaken uh board Brown versus Board of Education in respects to what that lawsuit was about and key words here the equity Council you know what is equitable how do we incorporate everybody into

186the process of having equal voice to the outcomes and we've gone the school district's gone out of out of our way to incorporate um again the implementation of commitment to equity policy under the Ico of equity component was built to address the mandates from the state of New Mexico which encompasses Indian Education Act Hispanic Education Act bilingual Multicultural Education Act in the black Education Act when I see bilingual Multicultural I think of all that are represented within the district so again what are we going to do other than making them feel welcome what tangible things are we going to produce as a district from your office to address the equity inequality of that student voice thank you before you answer them for some of the questions that came up from board of directors and um

187and you know the because there's there's such a diverse um you know ethnicity within some some districts how how are you going to be fair how's Equity supposed to be equality and just just as Montoya brought up and and I believe um I was not one of them that pushed this Equity Council um mainly because of some of the uh arguments heard at the board of directors and and and it seemed like it was going to be costly and and to truly to me my opinion is to truly take in what board member Montoya is saying then you would have to have different for each each race and so I I thought that was the whole purpose of this cohesive policy or whatever it was drawn them and to to make it that way um

188but I guess even that policy doesn't guarantee that yeah I think they would like to just in my response to that I want to build that trust with um our other groups I I want them to trust me because I do put out that invitation to them and um but um I just feel like um this is kind of like a trust barrier right there but um I would like to educate myself more about the Hispanic culture and also the African-American cultures in the Filipino all cultures because um I've asked questions like what can I do what shall I do and um and there's at some points where it it wasn't it was like I guess I crossed the boundary and some of the things that um I had envisioned but it was out of

189my my whole heart like to do it for them but um and so I I just want to educate myself more and to do it the right way and and also he brought up about how ped has this on their website do you go to that to follow or yeah to get information yes if I may may I add a comment to the conversation below uh board members do you have any comments or questions secretary Wells I don't have anything okay board member George oh yes um let's ask this man president yes go ahead first of all I just really want to give um terrific job to um the equity Council and Mr Russell I remember when you first gave this presentation and you had all the um you know all the uh uh what

190do you calling the the name Max for all like the black equity and you know Spanish yes yeah you had that all in your presentation you educated us about it and um you know hearing this hearing all the goodness and um you know the students speaking for themselves reporting to us what they learned what their accountability was and what's going you know what's important to them in the school because they're the ones that are there and they're the ones that um are in the environment as to what's going on in their schools how they're being treated by by faculty how they're being treated by other students and how the administrators are treating them they're the ones that's where it counts and to to train these young kids to use their voice in a in a

191professional manner and to teach them that you can rely on yourself and you can make a difference in your environment in your school whether that's going you know um the student I'm sorry I forget your name but um you know you're going into college soon and you'll be able to speak for yourself you'll be able to have Clarity and you'll be able to know where you come from because you got a foundation of who you are what your tradition means to you what certain things are meant for your Prosperity you carry those with you when you're out there and that's what I what that's what our students need especially when they leave the reservation because they're you know they're among other diverse diversity diversity um once they leave Navajo Nation and those you know some

192of those people will challenge you um just knowing that you're Native American and you come from a reservation they're going to challenge you but if you know how to speak your mind and you have passion and you know what you want and you know what what is you know right for you and you have the right the right people behind you your community behind you you're going to do well you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna push forward and you know you're not gonna let anybody tell you what you can't what your limits are because you can speak for yourself and that is something that we need to give all the students and I especially like the accountability that you saw in your school that you know um kids using the n-word and you know that

193that's um inappropriate and not cultural it's not respectful and you and the council among your peers have addressed that because I heard it when I was um at TBA and within the schools um you know some of the kids using that language and so those things are really good that those are real world teachings that you students need and I'm very proud of the the way that you're articulate the way that you communicate and you can just hear it in your voice you have a strong voice and you're so young so I hope that this Equity Council moves through all of our CCSD school districts even down to the elementary you know the little kids they're little but they know you know they ask so many questions about what's going on what's going to happen

194next what are we gonna do what's gonna happen during the day and if you take the time to explain even even to the little kids in kindergarten you know and you you tell them what's gonna happen they're they're pretty much their anxiety kind of goes down because they kind of know what to expect and if we start to teach them young in elementary and then Junior High and high school how to use their voice and you know just everything that um that you guys have talked about tonight you we're going to build strong leaders and us adults we're not always right you students are the ones that teach us sometimes and most of the time you guys tell us how you put us in our place and that's good us adults need to listen to

195that no matter if you're in elementary because I know there's some elementary kids that will tell you just the direct truth you know and it's sometimes funny but it's the truth and um so I I really um commend um Mr Russell and your team for really going to the students with this it's just like you know the adult version of the the um the wellness policy where they have the shack where it's made up of adults and administrators and Community but this is for the students and I'm really impressed and very happy that you reached out to the students to see what their needs are and to hear from them and then have them come to and report to us about their environment what they see how they see things in their school and one

196thing that I would like to challenge the equity um uh is that how would the students see fit for their safety in their schools what do you guys want to see around your schools regarding safety to make you guys feel safe with all the recent shootings and stuff you know how is that how would you like to be what would you like to be seen or done to make you feel safe um but I just I really come in you know you you young kids you guys are leading you guys are learning to use your voice and that's your biggest thing no matter people if people agree with you no matter if they if they don't agree with you most of the time people won't agree with you but you stay strong and you stand

197on what you believe what you were taught where your foundation comes from and you'll be fine when you go out into the adult world and you face different um trials and and and challenges and you're gonna get through it so I'm really proud of um the equity Council program and um so thank you I appreciate it any more questions board members comments okay um um so kind of going back to um board member montroyo's question how else can we follow the other education policies um kind of from a student perspective what I believe we could begin to implement now that we have the cohesive policy past is um implementing Latino and Chicano studies um because you go to college and those are classes that are offered uh majority of colleges and universities now and same

198with both black history it's mostly taught uh historically black colleges and universities however I believe if we bring that down towards the middle school and the um High School levels students will be able to learn about about cultures languages outside of their own you know not only do we need to develop but cultural classes we have already at the middle school and high school levels but also developing for those that are not Native American those who are not navajos specifically and you know if we're able to to include more cultural studies that fit within our demographic for example Kirtland could be one of the first to implement these studies and these classes within their school because they have the more higher percentages of of diverse ethnic groups at the school and then slowly just build

199that into our other schools so that way the more students we bring in throughout the years the more they're able to to not only connect with themselves but to connect with each other and so I think that's one of the first steps we can start taking um and also continuing to to find and build relationships with those who who know what they're talking about for example we could start looking into hiring more black teachers in order to properly teach black history classes classes and um black language classes um here in the United States we have a interesting dialect for um for our black people um it's called African vernacular English also known as African-American vernacular English aave you know you hear with the kids they're slings you know how they tell each other slay or

200like using the word period to like finish off like like some kind of like roast and such you know being able to bring in a black teacher who's able to to be like all right here's your black history class or bringing in more Latino teachers to teach and to teach the Spanish classes to teach the Latino Chicano classes and and continuing to bring a more Filipino teachers to help teach you know filipino-based classes at Shiprock we had our Filipino students and teachers come together and they created what they called the Filipino Club where they shared to other students Tagalog Filipino foods and you know the kind of cultures they go through and and their versions of cultural ceremonies so I think that's something we could start trying to do you know again we could begin

201to implement it at Kirtland because they're the they're the um school that fits that demographic the most and then we can slowly waterfall that into all of our other schools within the district and you know um just going back to um your comment board member George um I do appreciate the comment but I believe that that I kind of shouldn't be held at the pedestal because granted I feel like me being at the pedestal level kind of defeats you know the purpose of an equity Council you know um my peers who weren't able to be here today are just as talented and amazing as me so so I'm just kind of the one example of of what our students are capable of and I do greatly appreciate the comment but I also believe that we

202should look into what our other students have to offer as well um as I mentioned one of my fellow peers Danica she's incredibly knowledgeable with indigenous culture so her being kind of like one of the leaders for our Native American heritage month was just important to to not only her but to our other students as well because because she knows a good amount of people and she was able to bring more students into the equity Council as a result of that and then my other peer lamford Lee who is also not here he's incredibly talented within the Arts and he actively encourages and speaks up for those within the arts program and kind of being like well this is the way that some people are able to express themselves here's why they should we should

203continue to advocate for that and and you know all of my peers shine just as bright in different ways I feel I shine bright most when it comes to public speaking and being able to articulate and communicate with the adults but but again all of my peers are incredibly talented at what they do even if they just come in sit in for a meeting or two they still provide a lot to the table and you know I think that keeping in mind the challenge you gave us for this upcoming school year I believe at the adult level we're able to kind of think a little more rationally about it rather just kind of figuring out okay how do we make our students feel safe you know including like students about to transition into the adult

204member category so so those are just a couple of the comments I have I don't want to continue to check out our segment any longer than than anything else so so feel free to continue board members okay I think we're we are done um we are officially done so um thank you you're welcome and I'm more enlightened and um look forward to the next your report your report next month yes oh yeah I forgot to mention that I'm bringing up the safety in schools they were invited to be a part of the safety Summit um we will be on travel but we're gonna make time to um tune in virtually and so but I hope that doesn't take away from from your trip because there's a lot to see and you know it's actually the

205day where you're settling oh okay um we'll be there the fourth so it's very patriotic that's very awesome okay so we'll go on to the next good job thank you thank you you want to talk less ons I know that's what I keep saying oh it's the dust in the vents yeah and you know a big huge thank you um I'm fine with nowhere I said okay yeah remember one I think it's the bottom words need to be bigger than outlined and like black and underlined just remember anytime money leaves from that bag or goes into that bag tell the board same proposal I asked Steve to make stickers um bumper stickers okay so much thank you um everybody thank you next time we're on to put five minutes okay um Johnson O'Malley report your

206suits good evening board president aspaz vice president husky members of the board superintendent Carlson assistant superintendent deswood my name is Mia sientes and I will be providing a Johnson O'Malley June board report this evening and starting with my first slide I have an introduction and I just wanted to again highlight our accomplishments of school year 2022 2023 in our district receiving the exemplary award from National Johnson O'Malley we've set aside some goals for school year 2023 and 2024 that are based more on our parent portion in terms of more IEC parents fulfilling their seats in the regions of Kirtland and Nash titty we wanted to highlight more parental costs applications for those students in need in collaboration with the safety net program um on to the next slide please upcoming events and activities Johnson O'Malley

207has been in collaboration with the cni summer school department and are providing the following Services clri related materials and artifacts cultural presentations cultural food demonstrations and any additional activities and workshops such as sewing classes the second highlight is jom is co-sponsoring the unity student field trip that Mr Russell has just presented on um next slide please Ico Administration we have some JLM announcements that were recently shared with us about the next school years professional developments we have our Navajo Nation jom IEC workshop and orientation where our current members and new members will get to meet with other subcontractor iec's [Music] so um the next one we have is the national Johnson O'Malley Association for 13th in Chicago Illinois and then finally we have our Navajo Nation JLM annual regional meeting in Spring of 2024 next

208slide please our Johnson O'Malley finances our current contract and 15546 we are currently closing out and finalizing all our finance expenses um per the finance deadlines we've been addressed we've we are currently addressing concerns that dream dinner had brought to our attention in getting their students uh dream but now we'll get carry forward funds from them so I'm not sure what else needs to I mean board member of those students it's better now okay and then our current application has been submitted for school year 2023 2024 we've just had our Navajo Nation negotiations meeting with our Jun IEC and staff on June 14th and in the negotiations we discussed that amendments Corrections and or revisions will be made before the 164 process begins and then for this contract as well June to now will get

209funds for their student account next slide please again I have some timeline highlights in June we've just concluded our last regular IEC meeting on June 13th we finalized um end of year um concerns our agenda items and then leading into the next school year in July we've we've set aside two days for jom staff strategic planning for the next school year to address processes protocols and procedures and one of the main contributions that we did was the Vector training that all majority CCSD staff have to take and so far we've gotten pretty good compliments and feedbacks on the processes of jom what who it serves what it's intended for and how to go about it and who to contact in August um we're going to begin streamlining 2023 2024 to the schools and communities we're

210going to explore opportunities for collaboration with local schools meaning our own CCSD schools and giving them more involved with our events and activities such as um a business bull a knowledgeable um we're looking into spelling bee we're looking into Language and Cultural festivals singing and dancing and currently we are still in the planning process but we're looking at Spring 2023 for that in September our IEC members will return for their duties and responsibilities our first regular meeting will be on September 5th and the IEC decided that our meetings will be the first Tuesday of every month our fall monitoring visits will begin in October and end in November and the file monitoring data will be used to address the concerns and needs of the schools parents students and the application for next school year 2024

211next slide to keep up with our jom current events I've provided our district website again I do try to update the website weekly um and then next slide please I stand for questions from the board thank you for allowing me to present s I have a comment I believe last year when the um exactly I don't know what you call it the um the clothing what do you call that maybe you're talking about the uh the naval Nation um clothing program yeah you have a nation travel clothes tribal clothing when um when that was um the due date for the application it seemed like you didn't you didn't see it the Flyers and and things um going out until I think a day before or a couple days before and can you um make sure

212that those go out as soon as you hear about it and that people have time to apply yes absolutely I do recall receiving a memo and posting it to our district website and as well as um the um uh Facebook social media outlets and um I could definitely add that to our strategic planning on how we plan to advertise more and we currently have an ongoing um planning meeting with our public relations to ensure that our staff are getting out there in a timely manner and then reaching the parents effectively and then also um can you go back to the slide about your IC members so this is um goals on that top goals were 23 24 and one of them is more IEC parent seats fulfilled I still haven't seen where um and then

213I I also receive a complaint about one of the members and being dismissed um I I I don't know what the story is behind that you need people to to be a part of that solution and why are we letting go people that have come forward president 10U please expand on your on what the question you're asking yes your goals for Sy 2324 is to have more IEC parents what to me that sounds like we don't have enough and what are we um and then I brought up about the complaint um of a member being dismissed and why are we doing that if we need people okay um the answer that I could provide is that we as an IEC meeting during the IEC meeting we followed the bylaws and in the bylaws it has

214specific guidelines on how many meetings a member can not attend and without a reasonable excuse as to why they were in attendance than um in the bylaws it states that their membership will be brought up at a duly called meeting to discuss why members aren't logging on or participating in the duly called meetings in order for us to reach a quorum and then the jom program currently has nine chairs and we currently have four fulfilled seats majority in the Shiprock area we've been advertising for 10. Newcomb area and we've had a few parent recommendations and and explaining to those potential candidates those parents they want to learn more about the program they want to know what what jom is and sometimes the the length of the meeting or the distance from Newcomb to Shiprock and

215Kirtland to Shiprock keeps them from joining as a as an IEC parent and we've discussed ways where we can help and one of the solutions was to offer these IEC duly called meetings in all three locations so one month we'd have it in Shiprock the next month we'd have it in the South area and then that way it's more convenient and fair to members that are coming from that area foreign when you do that please come to the board and and let us know okay thank you board president aspas vice president husky members of the board superintendent Carlson board members any comments questions asked this may I go ahead um can you uh Mia um repeat the information about dream donate Charter that you had mentioned please yes absolutely so um we've collaborated with dream

216the nav they had a few concerns that our district is a parent entity to their school and we've provided services for dreamed enough like we do any other school in CCSD as that was the description we were told is that dream dinner falls under us and so we've provided services and extended PD opportunities to their Navajo language teacher in terms of buying them cultural related items um offering professional development registration expenses and on their end they asked for more documentation for for their for their auditing purposes and in doing so we've met with both Supreme Danette and Navajo Nation jom program to discuss how we can address the concerns that they've been dealing with and how in the in the next school year we could um provide an allocation award letter so that way they

217have that documentation to support them since they are a smaller School in the district and we've come to an agreement that we will provide carry over fundings from the previous year for their 36 students and then going forward into the next school year those same students will get funding from school year 23-24. and it makes more official when it comes to their auditing and with this they'll get you know when it comes to finance they'll get their own account lines they'll be able to spend the money on their end and then once their funding is completed or once their funding is depleted then that's their amount for the whole school year whereas um if we didn't do the allocation part for those 36 students it's kind of like a first come first serve as long

218as funding is available they can continue to request from the JLM program without that tapped amount but this is the decision that both parties agree to and moving forward we're going to provide a award letter for carry forward funding and next year's funding and they'll be able to expend the carry forward funding up to December 31st of this year and then next year's funding up to June 30th of 2024. thank you you're welcome board member George superintendent Carlson yes ma'am so um and and all that um was was just talked about just while ago and um how involved are you would die with with dom um I do go to the IEC meetings um and I participate and give reports at them um as far as involvement um not real super involved other than just

219acknowledging the process and being part of that and watching what happens at the meetings um I I don't feel like since there's parents an Advisory Group that I intercede a whole lot into you know the discussions about spending especially then that funding because then it becomes kind of my own priorities or my own wishes and we have other things that we do like they're funding are we have other ways to utilize funding now without JLM so I try not to get too involved in that process I hope they're just not out there doing whatever they still need a superintendent you better you bet no and I'm I'm there watching me they're very I'm very careful about I mean there's funding requests they talk things through um there's a a parent or two who when I

220give my reports they uh tend to ask some pointed questions which is good I mean it keep keeps you on my toe it's just like you might well you know I I did view the um the application when when um the um Window Rock people came down and seen that video and then seeing how that interview went um there was you know which I thought key people and they can answer some questions and and they're not I mean these these uh the people from Window Rock were pretty much they they pretty much know what questions to ask and and it seemed like um we were unprepared we were um for whatever reason we our people couldn't answer those questions and so you know this is a big service and and um so yeah and and

221because of that I asked if you could put a letter and asking you know to give the letter grade of how well that interview went and and it came back with an ugly d ude someone was a DS and and I you know I was prepared for like the C but a deed you know so I that's that's why I'm asking um you know how much you're involved in and then also um as a new superintendent as well you know I believe you know you're you're new to and and probably don't know what questions to ask and and um but um we need to get our hands on it and and um make sure that the next time an interview takes place it's and then you know you have somebody like Jermaine that jumps in

222and wants to help everyone and but we can't have her all over the place and then when you look at you know these people are in those positions for a reason so you know and actually I do I really appreciate it the fact that you asked for the the letter grades and no not only did I but so did our entire team because it wasn't just here you know she gave like a B minus for something to see for another and D for this area she actually said why and the kind of things we we could do better so I can tell you that that our people will 100 be better prepared I know most of them are on this call right now I don't know if drier is going to speak or not but

223she's taken it upon herself to say okay so here are the things it's good to know exactly what we're looking for now because I think sometimes it's sort of like what do they want to see we'll just sort of we'll decide these things but with with those grades that you asked for and more so the explanation just to why let's grades of what they were I think that we're gonna be much better prepared for the consultation next time um and I think we're going to be very able to answer any of those kind of questions that come my way yes and you know with the iec2 we need to get better at filling those seats and and um I don't know how much longer we're going to get away with um using new math to

224come up with quorum that's the way I look at it um but our devising our bylaws to come up with quorum um we really need to get in a handle on that and try to get people recruited for those and and um I was asking the question you weren't here but I asked a question of uh there was one member then there that was dismissed from the committee and um but you were there no she has a question and then um since it's gave your response about attendance that and I yeah I don't know the the story to that but other than you know one was was dismissed and so yeah we're still coming into the same problems and you know meaning the um the number of participation any questions comments board members okay I

225guess we'll thank you I don't I don't have any I don't have any comments all right thank you secretary Wells Ken thank you board president aspas Miss haskey members of the board superintendent Carlson thank you for allowing me to provide my presentation and enjoy your evening thank you we're going to item K permanent cash transfer by Darice Sutherland thank you board president um I'm here to on behalf of the finance department to present the finance documents for this evening um I'm assuming the process is that you have these on your board docs if you've had a chance to look at them so um we our first item is the permanent cash transfer that needs to be approved by the board this permanent cash transfer is relating to our audit finding that we've got um this

226for this last fiscal year that we just got and I I had them attach the audit finding so that you can see how that ties to the prevented cash transfer um what took place over the years and it's probably not just one physical year but as you submit reimbursement for the grants sometimes the the reimbursement is disallowed or there's an adjustment to it and that expenditure should then move into the operational fund and that didn't happen at some point in the years so it ended up that they had a balance and they should never have a um a cash balance it should all go back to um to operation you need to move that expenditure out of the grant since it didn't qualify and you're not going to get your money back so you need

227to definitely move that expenditure over so that's what this does this moves um cash from operational to cover the expenditures that should have been an operational all those times to actually clean up the clean up that those grants and start off this year without having that um liability with a cash being there that shouldn't be or vice versa another question go ahead the the audit finding this is from the previous year right this is the audit we just received yeah and we allowed to from many yeah has it been released he's coming Tuesday I think okay I haven't seen the agenda for the regular board meeting but he should be here Tuesday to get the board approval okay and make the presentation and once that's done then yes you can you can release the audit

228not to share any of it but I just want to make sure that right because we were told exactly yeah the state auditor has approved it and we did get that so why he's going to be able to come to the board and present it to you once he received that and he's already scheduled time to start on this year's audit so we had no really much time there to get but this isn't this is a finding that shouldn't be repeated this year because we're able to take care of that now as we go along this year so we've been working on that so and definitely this is the permanent cash transfer to clean up those accounts so that we won't have that again this this next at least next year so that'll be on

229the board of agenda for approval on Tuesday um the next item on the agenda was the procurement over 60 000 and you've had that list there were three this time um on the report most of these are construction or uh well one of them is construction one of them is fuel and then the other one was textbook curriculum so these are expenditures getting ready for next year questions on those okay um the next are we able to ask how you're correct how does that mean corrected oh for the first no the 60. uh over 60 000. well that's not that wasn't an odd in finding that won't be corrected this is just for your information to show we're supposed to bring uh information of any uh purchase over 60 000. and so that's what this

230is it's for information okay then we have all the um accounts payable I'm sorry I probably should wait for you to tell me to go to m or no I was on a roll here okay Dr Tan is that's free talk fast okay um so accounts payable disbursements you have that listing the total out of operations 4.6 million activities 54 000. um we have our own checks from operational of six hundred and sixty thousand eight thousand which is an uncommon because you you've paid a lot of checks out in the end of the end of May for teachers and most of it's payroll that they're just um oh my God one of the other findings that they did get this year that I wanted to bring to your attention um that's on this audit that

231we are correcting is that anything over a year old needs to be voided so that was one of the findings so we're going through there I'm having them go through and and get those voided so we don't repeat that finding again so hopefully that's two findings that we that we clean up okay um then we have the expenditure reports and these are going to be the expenditures these next two months because we're trying to clean up everything and get all the invoices paid um and so we had four million 4.1 million out of the general fund out of Grants 2.3 million and of course capital outlay and Debt Service is 7.1 um million so those are your big expenses when you start into construction projects so the revenue that the district received was 5.6 million

232in operational 1.5 million in Grants and 395 000 in capital outlay foreign expenditures were forty two thousand two hundred and thirty two dollars so that's the breakdown of the accounts payable information that's presented to the board also you have um budget entries that you received and journal entries those adjustments um are made and you have the explanations on the sheets mostly but those are just to um clean up different if something's paid out of the incorrect line item we have to make that adjustment it's the college journal entry and the general ledger so that's what these These are or budget General entries if they need to um make a transfer within them within their budgets so those are the budget journal entries um you'll see that there's a big bar a lot of bars which

233is pretty typical at the end of the year because what you're trying to do is clean up all your most of these are called maintenance barge you'll notice that most of them zero out if you look in the amount the adjustment amount is all zero because you're just moving um money within their Grant or within their program to make sure that they have sufficient funding to finish out the year not going to negative so those are the majority of these at the end of the year are maintenance sometimes you have to make um an actual budget transfer if you're moving money from like instructional to support or Capital you have to make those adjustments to give them to ped so a lot of these bars take care of that at the end of the year

234too um that's all I have unless you have any questions on any of the documents that you've had before you so any um if they the board members go back and look are they free to follow you check I mean sure additional information correct um if they want to contact Steve and he can reach out to me we'll do it okay and that's through Steve or superintendent Charles [Music] [Laughter] board members any comments or questions no just thank you let's say thank you for clearing up those two audience thank you I was I've done a lot of auditing in fact I worked with Byron auditing some school districts so we have it kind of get a rapport but um yeah those those two could have been could have been handled so it's been pretty easy

235to fix so hopefully we can clean out most of those for this next year we didn't have a lot of time to work on them after the audit came out but a lot of them will make progress on definitely so he'll see that when he comes back do you ever get him to change your finding um he I've never had him audit my districts but I have audited other districts with him and they have some people can convince him to change the finding yeah he's a very good and I'm I just want to say he's very good at um teaching like he he teaches you as you are he's added to you he's strict he's very strict but you learned you learned him and you learn from him as you you as he comes through

236the processary yeah right [Laughter] oh I have a good time for president okay each individuals do I need do you need one of these oh I've got that pretty much down I have two more items yeah that's why I'm not asking Go part section by section [Laughter] thank you thank you for that confidence so we'll go on to item o Open meetings at resolution and work session regular school board meeting schedule for school year 23 24 by Jermaine Chappelle and Sharon Ray thank you good evening we're president board members and um helps online we have made a few changes to this year's open meetings act um because the Navajo nation's Health order was rescinded so we have modified um that the rest of the resolution stays the same um board president would you like me

237just to read the portion that we changed okay just the one who changed so the section or the paragraph that we changed is the paragraph um the third paragraph the third whereas Clause down and as you'll recall in the past um we were following the Navajo Nation health order and having uh closed meetings um and and virtual only when on Navajo Nation um and so I'll read this to you and then you can let me know if you want me to make additional changes whereas the mask mandate and social Gathering restrictions have been lifted by the governor of the state of New Mexico and the Navajo Nation as a result the board will resume having meetings open to the public additionally given ongoing health concerns and public support of continuing to provide meetings via live

238stream the board will continue to provide that option as well the board further reserves the right to return to Virtual only meetings should covid-19 infections or other other health or safety concerns be present therefore public meetings conducted by the board will resume with in-person public meetings the district will also continue to live stream the board's public meetings to accommodate those persons who may be reluctant to resume attending meetings in person given the fluctuating status of the covid-19 pandemic or other health safety concerns the board retains the ability and flexibility to continue implementing social distancing practices during its public meetings as it seems necessary um and then the only other change was to change it the the date um upcoming school year and that's it for president and board members I stand for questions any questions

239board members comments questions so um when did the social Gathering restriction list was it in the same order uh that was a few months ago no for novel Nation I can pull that out okay we had a report on it by the board meeting I know we had the mass [Music] it also reduced I mean it also it lifted both the mask and the Gatherings [Music] hmm okay I cannot pull that up because I know we're we're not going to office then we lifted the mask so that's when it was addressed and but I didn't hear nothing about the social Gathering uh word president if you go on to the next topic I can find that for you and let's go back to it I'll be helpful okay for my agenda okay here this is

240okay budget adjustment item no no no no item P that's the discussion and placement of do we need any more discussion on that board members do we need any more discussions comments I'll do a Wi-Fi Madam Madam president yes go ahead uh has there been a decision made no this is just a discussion well I think from my part I think we discussed it out pretty good last time that's a special meeting yeah this is just it just in case I have nothing further to add okay board member Montoya what do you remember an email going out from Steve regarding the lifting of um the restrictions for the nomination president's office so anyways that's I do remember that book um what we're talking about right now is p item p the discussion of the placement

241uh and that just included on on the agenda just in case there was any more questioning no okay foreign discussion of early Bond repayment by Darice Sutherland um board president I think Eric Harrigan who's RBC is going to be online I think hopefully he's still alive good good well good evening uh Madam chair and board members hopefully you can hear and see me yes excellent well good good evening so um tonight I guess I what I wanted to kind of preface a little bit on this presentation um you know we're going to talk uh um we're going to kind of talk a little bit and get a little bit sort of micro and just talk about the the school district's Geo bonds and the district's Geo bond fund um and just to kind of you

242know sort of caveat this no um no federal impact Aid or none of those revenues actually come into this fund and so we're really going to be just be focusing on property tax revenues uh related to the mill Levy that's imposed just for the payment of the district's uh Debt Service really not focusing on any other of the other districts funds and um I've spoken with uh Jermaine and Darice and they and they've uh you know really helped me and kind of bringing me up to speed um and so really what I'm here to sort of talk about is where the district is right now um options that the district has going forward and then um uh being able to answer questions from the board um about this process or anything that I talk about

243so if we want to go on to the next page these are going to be pages that you have seen uh in the past um these are this is information that talks about your tax base and this really is the Crux of the discussion because there are obviously some significant um uh things going on in your tax base um with the uh you know closure of the San Juan trauma generation Generating Station and so we're going to kind of focus on and talk about those impacts and and what that means to your Geo bonds your outstanding General obligation bonds and the district tax rate so we have provided a history of your assessed value um your your assessed value has actually grown over the last five years from about uh 746 million in total value

244to um 810 million but this is really um your your tax base is heavily impacted by what are called centrally assessed values and these are values that are determined by the state and the vast majority of those values really come from Electric generation type of properties so if you go to the next Slide the next slide talks about the major taxpayers and we have provided here is a three-year history and the change of those of those major taxpayers um so APS Arizona public service has grown in value from about 376 million to about uh to a little over 400 million they currently represent about 50 percent of your tax base um the public pnm portion of the San Juan generation station has gone from about 185 million down to about 50 uh 154 million and

245there are various various other electric generation you know Salt River Project and so on and so forth and they've remained relatively stable but really the uh Arizona public service and the pnm electric generation utility are by far the largest components of your tax base so let's go on to the next slide please so when we take a look at the you know and sort of pull out the electric generation components only um you know of of your tax base uh total electric utility is about 168 million of your tax base um and Total Electric generation is um uh 478 million um so it is a substantial amount of your 800 million in tax base um so it is uh it is fairly substantial if you look at just the pnm related component of it it's

246about 204 million as I kind of mentioned earlier Arizona Public Service which is about 400 million is almost 50 percent of your tax base uh next slide please you know just to kind of as as a as a reminder um the district has several different tax rates that it has imposed um you have your operational Mill Levy you have your two Mill Levy um which uh understand the district has approved sending that question to voters in November to con just to continue that uh tax rate and then the other tax rate that the district has outstanding is your Geo Bond tax rate and these this is the tax rate that is Levy to service your Geo bonds um your debt service and that's at about 6.81 cents and it's it's remained very level um over

247the last five years it's been very very consistent in fact your total your total tax rate has been very very consistent over the last five years and so what I want to do is just kind of you know draw your attention to that Geo Bond tax rate because that's the thing that we're really going to be focusing on and talking about as we talk about your debt service you know uh fund balance and sort of the options that the district has uh going forward next slide please so if you take a look at the next page this is your outstanding General obligation bonds and what I mean by the these are bonds that have been voted uh and authorized by voters for the district to issue you've got four series of bonds 2012 14 15

248and a 2020 Bond um but all in all the district has just a little over 20 million of General obligation bonds that have been issued and those bonds are serviced by that that service tax rate that I was mentioning earlier of 6.81 cents and so if you look at the table um there on the right your your annual Debt Service um you know is about 3.8 million roughly a year um and then it drops down to about 3.1 million in 2026 and then in 2029 it drops further to about 1.8 million and at that point in time um your your bonds will have been paid off and and if the district does not issue any additional General obligation bonds by that time your your tax rate effectively goes to zero next slide please so um

249one of the uh so so just to kind of uh looks like there was a uh a slide in here in my apologies that it didn't it didn't get in here so uh my apologies about that but just to kind of explain where the district is right now um so right now in in the district's Debt Service fund there is um a little over 7.3 million dollars in that in that account um and um under under state law those funds that are are generated by the um The Debt Service tax rate goes into a fund and res is restricted only to the payment of debt service and so you have uh an August one payment coming up um this year um and that Debt Service payment um is uh is a is about um 3.7

250million dollars but due to the substantial amount of cash that the district already has in your debt service fund once you make that payment your the district is still going to have about 3.6 million dollars in your debt service account um and that's while it's not equal to it's pretty it's it's fairly close to The Debt Service that's going to be due next year and so the challenge is is that the public education department is going to use what that that amount of funds in your debt service account and count that towards your debt service payment next year um and so the district could be facing a significant decline um in your debt service tax rate um however I'll say this is that you know because of the challenges that your tax base is experiencing

251it's going to be important to keep to hold on to some of those funds um so that you can manage that tax rate over the next few years and so we're going to kind of talk about some hypothetical situations of what happens to your tax base and what will the resulting impact to your debt service tax rate be so on the page that is before you if we assume that all of the pnm related centrally assessed values go away beginning in 2024 your tax base is going to go from about 810 million down to about 606 million and that's about 25 decline um in in your tax base now if that were to happen um you know uh you the district would still collect sufficient revenues to be able to pay your debt service your

252tax rate is expected to be in and around 6.50 in 2024 and 2025 around 6.80 and then it will drop as your debt service drops um this is a that this this we're we're not we're not taking into account any of your your debt service fund balance at this point so um if we go down to the bottom chart there if if the district were to see all of San all of um San Juan Chama or see excuse me pnm values go away in their centrally assessed values as mentioned above your you know your tax base is going to drop from about 810 million down to 606 million if we assume an additional 10 decline in your tax base um so a cumulative decline of about 32 percent um you'll actually see that your tax

253rate um in 2025 will go up from your current debt service tax rate of about um 6.81 cents to about 7.61 cents and so being able to you know hold on and maintain some of that cash that you currently have and there's going to be important if some If This Were to be you know the case to your tax base so if we go to the next page um and let's say we assume that if this were to happen we would we would need to use about 415 000 of your currently 3.6 million of excess cash in your debt service fund to keep your tax rate level so you wouldn't see that spike in your in in your tax rate um and so the the the last table that we have here is really kind

254of sort of what what I'm describing as kind of the worst case scenario is that if you had to use all of that cash in your debt service account to be able to maintain the tax rate should you experience should you experience very very significant declines in your tax base um there is ability to be able to manage and maintain your 6.81 tax base even if your tax base were to drop by you know 40 in the next couple of years and even as high as you know say 50 within the next three or four years so clearly holding on to some of those some of that cash that is sitting into your debt service fund is important um The Challenge though is that the public education department because you're sitting on so much cash

255in that fund effectively almost enough money to pay next year's Debt Service payments the public education department is going to want to drop your tax rate um and and use those funds and count those towards towards your next Debt Service payment so I think the goal and the discussion that we wanted to have here is um one we you know you can use some of that cash to be able to uh redeem and pay off some of your debt early what that does is that reduces your interest cost it reduces your future Debt Service payments so that you uh don't have as much debt service going out into the future um but at the same time you're also signaling to ped that there is a willingness to be able to manage your tax rate and

256so um essentially you know what what I am I'm kind of recommending to the board is that if you are comfortable with it for um you know for us along with uh District staff to visit with ped talk to them about the excess cash that the district has in hand um and the concern about the drop in tax rate in the uh expectation that we will need these excess funds um to be able to manage that tax rate and then come back after we you know visit with you know ped to come you know and get their sort of input on what they uh uh on what they see from The District's tax rate and and have a more concrete recommendation to the district in terms of whether or not you know we need to

257redeem bonds or whether or not we're able to hold on to as much cash as we can I know I covered a lot of information um fairly quickly I'm certainly happy to answer any questions of the board well um because it's after 10. I don't know in your time zone I was kidding I'm an Alba I'm in Albuquerque I know I just fill in a little bit that and then I would like Jermaine to draw it out [Laughter] I have them here we're not all title loan people can you please explain by drawing it out so Eric why don't we kind of go back a little on a couple points um I think maybe hoping understand the concept of what happens if if ped wants to lower the tax rate uh maybe maybe from a

258consequence or an implication standpoint um yes yeah happy to do so so the the way that ped operates and this is the same way that the Department of Finance and administration works and as they set tax rates um the way they do that is they take a look at um your annual Debt Service that's coming up the amount of money that you have in your debt service fund and they they effectively um you know they effectively will calculate what is the tax rate on your tax base necessary to service that debt so um Jermaine if you want to if you want to kind of ride up on the board if you will I can kind of walk you through this um I need a marker so actually before we do that Eric what I would

259recommend is we um step back just a quick a little bit more than that and and that is what what he's essentially saying is the same conversation LLC had with us about having a high cash balance who kind of applies to our that funds or our debt service cash balance and it's kind of a use it or lose it situation so remember the legislature gave us 100 of our property taxes whereas before we only got 25 so that's why Eric correct me if I'm wrong on this that's why we have a little more than we thought we would have in that fund because the law changed right well it's it's we're so it's really about 25 percent I know that's property tax we have 100 of property tax now but your debt service you've always

260collected 100 okay so that part's a little confusing for me where did we see the increase in when when the law changed Eric where did that go that went to operations um it didn't impact your debt service fund um so so all of that all of that uh money from the from the from the change in law really impacted the operations and general fund um but not Debt Service because the way that your debt service fund and your tax rate works is that the County Treasurer levies those taxes collects those taxes and deposits those monies Into The Debt Service fund and really where that money has accumulated is that the tax rate has been higher over the last few years than necessary to service the debt in part because there has been this expectation that

261the tax base in the district is going to fall which in certain instances it has fallen for example for the San Juan Generating Station it has fallen but for Arizona Public Service their tax base is actually gone up so if you will there has been a over collection of uh taxes property taxes for Debt Service in anticipation of a decline in the tax base okay so Eric I just want to pause for a second we've lost our board president but she'll be back okay um let's see that means we actually don't have a quorum right this second sorry about that Eric no that's okay but that did help me because I've been confused about that discussion item anyways I think so yeah all right so how would it happening to make sure the tax card

262didn't change too much and have that happen was that something that the board made a decision on previous it or is that the Financial Consultant that's it I mean it's partly um are we see consults with lots of folks including the legislature and has really good relationships with LFC for example and ped on this point right planning ahead it's planning a ish so but they do listen to these issues I don't think they were planning ahead with respect to our tax rate on on plant closure I'm sorry I won't go there but and I'm not saying our board wasn't planning ahead I don't think the legislature was planning ahead let's start it that's just me though um nobody has to agree with me on that well that's it that's an awesome presentation thank you I'm

263sorry I just wanted to summarize a little bit Eric and the three the things that the board asked me to make sure that we addressed at this meeting and one of them was that you and I talked about was um the use of the cash balance applying it to the to the prepayment and not being able to service that debt in the future so you've addressed that on that table saying you know every year you can use that um excess cash to hold your tax rate which applies to the other issue that they had was keeping that tax managing the tax rate and keeping it steady so that if the district did want to go out for a do bond in the future that it wouldn't be going the taxpayer wouldn't go from zero to

264six point whatever percent Mill to pay for the debts they would not didn't want to have to do that because at some point the cash is going to run out and the capital money that they have um they're going to have to either go out for a Geo Bond or just not do any major construction and we had that discussion saying that it's short-sighted to say that we're never going to have CCSD will never have to go back for a Geo Bond because there's going to be um major you know um attention that needs to be paid to a lot of facilities and after we get the five-year master plan next on Tuesday I think they'll be able to see that we can address these issues but look at these big issues that are down

265the line that we're not going to be able to address and not having the the tax rate and staying pretty steady then that would be a big shock to the taxpayer to go from you know zero or two to six mil and so that was the other concern that they had and then also I like that you the taxpayers are used to that tax rate right now the taxpayers are used to that rate it's pretty steady if we can hold that and that's the goal of most districts is to keep that steady so that you have the ability if you need additional funds it doesn't impact the taxpayer by drastically completing your taxes on their next tax bill so that was the goal one of the goals that they had and also I'm glad you

266addressed the process of you know how can we use um how can we keep the money without lowering the tax rate and we need to get that um discussion going with ped in order to allow us to to do that and uh and and you all would help us with that right okay absolutely yes so if I'm hearing you correctly your recommendation is kind of a hybrid approach which is to potentially pay some of that debt down but not all is that is that what I hear you say that that is that is correct and and so what what I what I recommend is um that you know we visit with ped um uh with the goal of maintaining that tax rate at 6.81 cents seeing you know and talking to them about the challenges

267that the district you know is potentially facing in their tax base and the and the need to be able to hold on to some of those funds maybe not necessarily all of them that I don't think they're going to let us hold on to all of them but um but but it's effectively then come back to say okay we can hold on to you know x amount of those funds and the remaining funds we will use to prepay um some of the district's bonds which will reduce The Debt Service in the future and reduce those obligations to The District in the future which actually Pro it does a number of it has a number of good benefits uh one of them being that it in it reduces your interest costs that the district has to

268pay and the other is is that it it does increase the time in you know that the district could go back to voters should it need critical capital investment that it could fund through General obligation bonds and and just uh um tease that point out of that right Eric the reason interest payments would go down is because your principal would go down correct and and you're no longer having to pay the interest on those bonds that you paid off kind of like in a way paying your mortgage off a little bit earlier you're not you know you've now paid that principle off so now you're not paying the interest associated with that part as well and so what I also hear you saying is that the board doesn't have to make this this decision right

269now and instead what you're recommending is that we have a team go to ped which includes you all um negotiate essentially uh hold harmless raid on our um that service just kidding I'm being funny now because it's late um but that we negotiate with them kind of an a soft approach here so that they kind of leave us alone understanding what we're going through and then once we have that um negotiation and a an agreement with ped come back to the board um with recommendations on action is that what I hear you recommending correct I did ask Eric if this if any other District had had that waiver so to speak or exemption and he said they have but it's been with oil and gas with the volatility in oil and gas some districts you

270know are getting fresh so I think that we kind of can relate to that as tcsd and say this is a unique situation for CCSD as well and even if we can hold on to it for a year like Eric and I discussed until we see the revenue coming in on a tax base for another year um then we can revisit it if they'll allow us we can revisit it again and that could be part of the negotiation the next year absolutely does that help our president I um I don't know if it was shared with you Eric that uh with with our district um well whenever we have these um votes um come up for for bonds and and um it seems that the majority of the voters are from the reservation and therefore

271um you know they're not the ones um directly impacted by the you know the the tax part portion of it and the smaller minority group is is the the ones that are and and I don't know if you're aware of that yeah no I I I am uh and those are all the things that need to be taken into consideration um when the district if and when the district does want to consider a bond issue uh those are important things to think about um and um you know I I think what our goal here is is to make sure that um your debt service tax rate doesn't drop and you use up all of that excess money that's in your debt service account and then two years later you're you're task-based drops and then you

272see a significant spike in your tax break so I think that's really our ultimately our goal here is to keep your tax rate managed so it's not going it's it it's not going to go up in the future you got a comment go ahead so basically in respects we're dealing with the situation that was initiated by the state causing this and really putting this in this predicament of having to make these decisions based off of their own actions um and again you've alluded to the fact that that's or uh Miss Sullivan has alluded that it's um common in respect to the volatile pricing of gas and oil um but certainly this here is more substantial in effect because this is a long-term investment that has been taken from our district and then even blooming in

273the very near future um APS went away so certainly what I hear is maintaining of that um Geo Bond for continuity and consistency sakes to the um taxpayers and obviously utilizing the excess judiciously without getting rid of it all at one time but incrementally um so as long as those rates stay constant and consistent over the next six years once it's re um instituted yep that that's exactly what we're proposing is to you know make sure that we're not seeing significant volatility in in your tax rate and and being you know very mindful that we don't want to use all of those funds to redeem bonds we want to keep some of those funds set aside to be able to manage your rate in the future so that you don't see a spike in your

274tax rate should you see significant declines in your tax base and again the reality is that's what we're looking at that's what we're facing especially if APS goes down sooner than expected for president just by way of reminder and I know we've talked about this before but in addition to the comments board president employment's making don't forget pnm has indicated they want to transfer their share of Four Corners to in Tech and when that happens that will come off our tax rolls as well so we will likely see a pretty dramatic decrease before APS leaves okay any other questions comments board members yeah one last comment go ahead I think it's pretty clear what we need to do now it's just a matter of getting the state to understand ped um what we're facing and

275hopefully allow us to proceed in that manner um quick question board president go ahead do we need a board vote to to do to have a delegation go to ped and so we should do that on Tuesday my recommendation how soon we I would recommend we start that during the intern before session comes well we have to do it before they set the tax rate in August um so we have to have the discussion of ped pretty well okay so maybe could we put that on the agenda Tuesday maybe um do you hear that Sharon and how do we work that how are we I'll just I'll always return I think Eric did you recommend um would you recommend that we do a resolution maybe the board do a resolution authorizing the negotiation to just

276show support I'm not I'm in that was in the discussion at some point what do you think yeah um board president and members and uh no I I I don't necessarily know that we need to do a resolution at this point in time um just to go and and talk and we we could have um I mean we could have informal conversations with ped we we actually do that quite often so don't necessarily know that it needs to be um you know uh I don't necessarily know that the Board needs to take you know action on that because we we do this quite often with ped um for you know other clients and so we're you know happy to have some informal you know discussions and to the extent that you know um those discussions

277get to the point where we need to um you know kind of and enlarge the group that's having the discussion we certainly can um but um you know they have in my experience as of late ped has been you know um very accommodating to um District situations Eric to negotiate on our behalf at the beginning I mean it formally or the beginning uh you would be doing that anyway I would recommend a team with Eric Eric got the 30 000 foot level but the on the ground issues the plants what we're seeing as impacts with homeless I would recommend we have a district team and with Eric and you would be my recommendation yes okay thank you Eric um any other questions comments welcome [Music] thank you Eric have a good evening Madam president yes

278go ahead secretary Wells I'm uh the only one on the board a this fact actually affects um I can see the wisdom and in uh keeping the tax rate is it a same um then have it go up uh although I still like to see the district pay office debt there's a kind of expect 22 for me I think we can do both tell you so um I don't know if you if you were on on the line um the last meeting the special meeting we had and then it was really um clarified um where you know when we talked about sb9 we we talked about how um I thought that was going to impact the Portland Community as far as property tax but that has nothing to do with it um however if if

279you go to the go bond which is short for I don't know General Obligations that's General obligation Bond okay and and whereas um if we don't pay that loan and that's essentially a loan to the district and if we don't pay it then that's where the state can come in and and up taxes for the Kirtland Community even though they caused yes I I did get in on that discussion um the only part I missed was the last part of the uh executive session yeah I I say that um you know that it's kind of it's kind of crazy at that point if if that should happen because um had they left our Industries alone you know that wouldn't be the case you're absolutely right but it was a political move and there's nothing we

280could do about that now it was just right no I I agree but it makes better sense for me logically if the district pays down that debt or pays off that day yes [Music] board member secretary Wells um I think what I'm here well I'm not I think what I'm hearing Eric recommend is a hybrid approach that would do both pay off that but also keep open the option of being able to go back to to the voters if we needed to well I understand that that option is always there but uh by I don't know maybe I didn't understand but uh the state could come in and come back and increase the tax rate did I misunderstand something there yeah only if we can't pay our debt um secretary Wells and right now we

281can pay our debt so the the concern that we have right now is that because we have extra dollars in that that account ped may actually lower and take and in a sense take some of those dollars and so what we're trying to do is balance that so that we maintain the same level of property tax that voters have right now without either going down or up and also start prepaying some of that debt but right now we're not in jeopardy of having a tax increase well from the very first one I when I realize [Music] excess money and the state wanted to um when we met down in Albuquerque now in Santa Fe um the state wanted it seemed to me that they wanted to know how can we had the much money and

282and they had their eyes on it so uh I was I was for using that money back then to pay down the debt it makes better sense all the way around yes secretary Wilson I understand uh we do have some excess funding some of it is non-discretionary some of it is I mean some of this discretionary some of it is um operational Etc and I I think as we discussed in the special board meeting it will be up to you all the board to decide what the priority is whether you pay down the debt or you also um start chipping away at the historic underfunding the facilities so so you're right that is where you all are and that that will be a board decision on that priority well and that's why I said it

283to me it's a that's funny too I'm the only one on the board who certainly pays properties Act anyways that's just a comment foreign okay any more questions comments board members okay I guess we'll um he's already gone we'll go on to um our discussion probably prioritization of impact Aid cash balance I think we just had that there is a big score right yeah and that's just just in case just in case so for president I don't have any additional information as far as the cash balance than what we discussed earlier in the work session so I would recommend that we have the discussion after we could get presented the facility master plan on Tuesday that that comes up again when we start prioritizing the needs of the district as far as facilities and how

284we want to use the cash challenge okay we'll go on to item four items for the June 20th 2023 regular school board meeting so we will start with uh vice president husky I guess the only thing that I would ask is if we need anything um to approve anything for the schools safe to Summit I know that um our district was asked to help provide lunch on the first day um that would be the only question if there's anything that we need to approve I think if we let Jermaine cook we should go have more dates [Laughter] do I get to vote on this I think I need to vote on that [Music] so I think um that's that's a good idea to put that safety Summit on the agenda just in case uh Sharon

285D do you get that Sharon yeah I got that thank you and then with that um I I believe they're what needs to go out too is a a letter saying a possible quorum for an attendance to that 29th and the 30th safety Summit is that for June yes it'll be June 29th and 30th yes oh um vice president husky was that was that their only thing that's the only thing I can think of right now thank you okay and uh secretary Wells uh I haven't heard anything about whether or not we have presented our superintendent with a uh um contract did we did we look into that and have a report on it next week or next Tuesday okay the end of the month is coming up and if we haven't given him a

286contract I think we need to would you like your own legal representation I think that we did fine board attorney yes and I think she's you're ready to go with it I think you gave her the Walking Papers and she's just been a little busy okay secretary Wells we well also we'll have that and we'll have a signing ceremony who's gonna bring the cake or bring a smash cake hahaha maybe I can maybe I can talk my wife into a carrot cake yeah the way it should be I think vice president is uh is back to eating sugar now [Laughter] yeah did you get that vice president husky no I didn't foreign secretary Wells says he thinks you're back at having sugar now well he is correct if you are secretary asking maybe I can

287convince my wife to make another carrot cake that would be great thank you well we'll have that for the signing ceremony how about that yes sir Representatives what's it he said how about that superintendent I would love some carrot cake that's delicious he's all for it well wish me luck I'll see if my wife will do it I better I better president is is that is that it just just that contract secretary yes ma'am okay let me go on to board member George we're on item four [Music] uh yes um can we have um the a report on safety procedures that are followed for like the maintenance for their aerial lift the um the what do you call that the man man lift or it's an aerial lift that they use in that basket yeah

288yes and then um if their harness is in you know good condition or then when they get into the basket and their certification on all of them all the man lifts and the forklifts that they use and also if they have a fire extinguisher when they're using the man lift in case of emergencies um and um I I'd like the Mr Carlson and we may have a report of the employees who drive a district vehicle um like if they're living in Aztec Farmington Bloomfield and they drive into Kirtland and pick up a um employee vehicle and they drive it into Shiprock um where they're clocking in at as well um for instance if you're coming in from um Farmington and your work site is in Newcomb are those employees clocking in at Newcomb or do

289they go to Portland and clock in there and then if we can get a report on that Mr Carlson [Music] okay um board member month for you uh probably first request is make sure you have this right away board meeting go into two days with all the information that we're going to be getting but um probably a uh a list of all the grants received and how they're applied in the district every single grant that this school district receives and how it's applied throughout the district um it was just a quick summary I heard we could do it by right now and also I'd probably hold off on a celebration for Steve until he hits three years considering our uh record just saying well I pushed for a two-year contract with nobody go with me

290thank you [Music] my point of order I know it's late um sarcasm can turn into something else so regarding the links and and what's all on the agenda coming up Tuesday um let's just be mindful of the time you know I really wanted to hold and keep the student at five minutes but you know things tend to leave from here as I'm not recognizing or not hearing the students either so I don't want to be accused of that so but you know I I think we need to um hype on there Sharon that we hold our presentations and and because of the length of the subjects um I I would say even the board members if we can um um but it's uh you know I really don't like kind board members because this is

291like once a month and this is not only the time for them to get or gain information but also the audience that is listening and um those they they learned from these meetings as well and and then they're informed so I know it's um where we declared candidacy we didn't ask the times the time limits the hours so um keep that in mind okay so we got everyone's input and I I don't have anything more to put on the agenda for Tuesday other than just put put that on there that we keep presentations to three minutes and um so we'll go on to item five adjournment I move that we had during this meeting hi second okay roll call vice president yes yes secretary Wells yes board member George yes board member Montoya yes and

292I will yes meeting it is adjourned y'all have a good night