School Board - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to our board meeting. We're really glad you're here. I will call this meeting to order. We'll have a Pledge of Allegiance given by Mr. Wyatt, followed by a moment of silence. Thank you, everyone. Item 2.1, I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda.

I'll approve the agenda. Second.

I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. Item 3.1, approval of meeting minutes, approval of, oh, this is the consent? We can do all this in one fell swoop, correct?

Yes.

Okay, so item, starting with three, consent agenda, I'll entertain a motion to approve and feel free to any conversation or discussion you'd like to have.

I'd like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. I second.

I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. Item 4.1, Copper Apple Award. Mr. Rausch, please.

We have Mr. Ken Rausch from the Arizona Department of Education, and he has a special announcement for Nicholas Homestead.

Yeah, that was a cheer.

Somebody was happy.

I know that baby.

Thank you for having me tonight. It's good to be back here and to talk to you about the wonderful things that have been happening at Nicholas Homestead. As you know, Nicholas Homestead was identified for COVID. targeted support and instruction for subgroups. That has been the issue that has been kind of the problem that we've been working on for the last three years. What you can see through from the PowerPoint is that through Mrs. Jones's strong leadership and all the hard work of the dedicated staff of the building, they have turned around Nicholas and it's doing an awesome job at teaching the students everything they could possibly teach them to be successful adults. So one of the ways that we've done that with the support of ADE, that's through me coming every year, six times a year and having conversations with Mrs. Jones bi-weekly, We have been able to support Nicholas Homestead with the Practical Momentum Framework, which is our new framework for school improvement. And we've offered grants which they've taken advantage of to provide professional development in the PLC process. So, As you know, it's probably a very comprehensive process. So it took two years to work and it really hit home with the teachers because last year they went to Mrs. Jones and said, we need to do more for our kids. And they were willing to put more time and dedication in. And for me, that is a huge success, not just for the kids, but also for the teachers because they became closer and collaborative and they have just done a fantastic job. So while they got the training and they strengthened their teaming, their consistency in building relational capacity with family members, community members, and with each other is really what has carried them across the finish line for that. So much so that you can see that they have exited identification and they did it under one year with Mrs. Jones. Last year they actually were no longer identified but because they had grant funding and the support that was dedicated from ADE, I continued to come last year. This year I will continue to come because they have sustainability grant funding so I'll continue to support as we have just to make sure that the processes remain strong and any additional things that we can do we will handle. What you can see on some of the results there are that there's instructional practices that are much, much stronger. And that happens to the PLC process with collaboration and looking at data and seeing what do we really need to do for our kids. They have had immensely improved student attendance. Parents don't send kids to schools where they're not happy and they're not safe. And that is something that is very palpable at Nicholas Homestead. You've seen increases in achievement scores, and you can see the chart there where I've indicated where some of those pieces have landed, and they are now an A letter grade school as of last year. The biggest piece though, I think though, is the positive mindset shift that the staff have had, and that has caused a rippling effect because it was a very positive, a very proactive, a very successful regional science fair. Just to kind of go over some of the data, One thing to notice is that there has been a positive trend in the subgroup achievement score for special education students from 19.59 to 20.89. The threshold to exit is 22. So not only did they exit, they exited with a considerable amount higher than what most schools have exited at. At least most schools on my case. When I broke out the special education versus all attendance, this is a critical piece, because we know if kids aren't in school, they can't learn. They're not going to be able to be there to get the content. So what I did was I broke out what does it look like for the whole entire school, and what did it look like for just that subpopulation. And you can see that there's been significant increase in student attendance and reduced absenteeism. So all in all, I could go on and on and on, but the bottom line is that Nicholas Homestead deserves every possible accolade because they've done so much hard work and it's just working for the kids. So for those reasons that I've outlined and some that I have not, ADE is awarding Nicholas Homestead Elementary School the Copper Apple Award for school improvement.

We're going to need a picture up here with the school board.

Congratulations.

Congratulations. Good job.

Thank you, Mr. Rausch. You're more than welcome.

Appreciate you taking time to come up and do this for us. I just want to say, I mean, this makes me want to shout. I think there's a song about this. This is good stuff. Considering where Nicholas was just a few short years ago, You know, I just believe about putting the right people in the right places, right? And this is just, considering recent communications that we've had, this is just awesome, isn't it? Kind of an in-your-face, if I may say so. Thank you so much. You've got to love this. Can we just quit now? I mean, do we really need to keep going?

We've got some more celebration.

Oh, all right. Well, after all the celebrations. All right, 4.2, summer staff recognition, Dr. Farnsworth.

So I'd just like to say a few words about our summer staff. So kicking off a new school year every year, it's a really Herculean task. And I just have a few words I just want to read on behalf of all the people that have made that successful. Launching a new year is a massive team effort, and so much of the heavy lifting happens behind the scenes while our hallways are quiet. A sheer thank you to our district office for keeping our vision clear and steady, our technology department for powering the tools that fuel modern learning, our dedicated staff at the junior high, high school, Linden Elementary, Whipple Ranch Elementary, and Nicholas Homestead Elementary for pouring their energy into prepping incredible spaces for our students. our facilities and grounds crews for making sure our campuses are safe, sharp, clean, welcoming, and our transportation team for ensuring every bus is rolling and every route is locked in. We thank you for your hard work, your summer hustle, unwavering care for preparing for this school year. So if it's okay, Mr. President, we'd like to bring groups of summer staff up to recognize. So what we're going to do, we have certificates for everybody. So if we call your school or department, if you could please come up, because we're going to hand you a stack of certificates and you can hand those out after we take pictures, if that's okay.

Perfect.

So first, we'd like to have all of the school staff, summer staff, that includes custodians, if you could come up from all of the schools, we'd like to recognize you at this time, principals too, so we can hand you their certificates. We're going to take a picture, too, right? Yeah, we're going to take a picture. Let's do a picture first, and then I'll hand out the certificates to the principals.

How are you guys?

Good to see you. In the back.

Thank you, everyone. Thank you guys.

You're awesome. Thank you.

At this time, if we could have all of the facilities, grounds, and transportation, summer help, please come up so we can take your picture. And then our last group, if we could have the district office, technology, and I think we have one person from Beth's office. Is she here? Is Dale?

Dale, come on up.

Come on, Candy.

Can somebody else take that picture so she can get it out? Yep, Charlotte.

Please.

I'll take it.

Oh, geez.

Scooch in, please. All right. One, two, three.

okay thank you all for being here have a wonderful evening we'll carry on without you Okay, item 4.3, policies and procedure changes. Dr. Farnsworth.

So in item 4.3 and 4.4, this is a first reading, so we're not taking any action, but these are all policy adjustments made by the trust from the last legislative session. So this is pretty standard. Every year after the legislative session meets, the trust will take the policies, all the statutes, and put them into policy. Again, there's no action on these items. We're just presenting them for a first reading. If you have questions or specific questions Comments, please let me know, and we'll bring these back next month.

Great. Thank you. Item 4.4, Policy and Procedure Changes, Part 2. Dr. Farnsworth.

So, yeah, there's going to be three parts to these changes. There's Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 we haven't received yet, and so we're just going to present these as a first read until next month, and then we'll bring them back as a second read.

Right. Thank you. 4.5, student achievement reform, Ms. Cosgrove.

Oh, thank you. All right, President Larson, members of the board, Dr. Farnsworth and community members. It is an exciting presentation that I have for you tonight because we have a victory for every student educator family in our school district. If you take a look at the slide, you will see that the Show Low Unified School District has reached a transformative moment in our community's history. For the first time, since we've been collecting letter grades, all five of our schools are projected to have an A grade for the 25-26 school year, which means we are an A district. So that's something to celebrate. You can see the score points up there, and these hinge on the state not changing their cut scores, which they haven't changed them for several years, so we don't foresee them changing them. That's always every year a possibility. We never know until they release the cut scores. But Linden Elementary had 90.81 points, almost 91 points. Nicholas Homestead at 89. Show Low Junior High, 85.58. The high school at 91.95. That is not what you would find if you went onto the state website, but with their updated CCRI points, that's what they will have. And then the White Mountain Institute will have an A rating. They are on an alternative model. So their points just look a little different. So I wanted to say that these historic grades really are, they're not an accident. They were driven by our core beliefs and our Cougar culture. We believe in empowering every individual to unlock their full potential. We believe in high expectations for all students and we believe hard work leads to success. And I believe that this is an indicator of us living and breathing those beliefs. You take a look here, you'll see that there are some campus spotlights that have really driven that A rating for the district. We had a near perfect math growth score at both Linden and Nicholas Homestead. That was a fantastic score for them. Growth is 50% of the pie when you're looking at your indicators for your grade. So having that near perfect of the 50, wonderful. Our ELLs at the high school and the junior high scored 10 out of 10 points, meaning they met their expectations. The graduation rate for 2025, the metric is always a year behind for graduation rate, was at 91%, which earned them their maximum points for graduation rate. And then if you look at the participation multiplier, the state awards a multiplier for testing 95% of your students or more. And that is, they offer that because If schools didn't have the incentive of testing all of their students and getting that multiplier, there could be a way to maybe hide students that you weren't really proud of that weren't going to be as proficient or show the most growth. So this really shows that SHOLO is showing this is all of our kids. This is everybody. We're not hiding anybody. We're proud of all of our students. If you look at the trajectory over the last two years, you will see that there is momentum that is evident. In ELA, This really is about our investment in our curriculum and in our instruction for teachers in ELA, in reading instruction. We've spent a lot of time on letters training and science of reading with our teachers, and I feel this is a wonderful reflection of that. So in third grade, our ELA scores went in 2025 to 34% proficient to last year, 47% proficient. Now, is that a place to stop? No, but that is wonderful growth. And again, that growth is the large indicator for us. I really attribute that grade three growth to what they're doing at Whipple Ranch. Whipple Ranch is really focusing on the ELA instruction, getting kids reading. It can't happen at third grade magically. It has to come up from K-2. And while Whipple Ranch doesn't receive a letter grade, we can attribute their work to the grade three success. In the middle grades, at eighth grade, they've really had a nice rebound from 2025 to 2026. And in 2026, they are outperforming the state. So that is a wonderful thing for them and for us. When we look at math, we see that we have some gains in our early grades. So our grade three math has come up from... Well, let me see. We are up to 52% proficiency in grade three math. And then if we look at grade four, you can see that they more than doubled their proficiency rate in two years. So in 2024, we had 20% proficient across the district and last school year, 43%. So that's fantastic. When we look at our kind of our bridge year, we have really high proficiency in third and fourth grade. And then we have high proficiency in the eighth grade. So we're really looking at that fifth, sixth, and seventh grade right now. We're attacking this with instruction, just like we attack literacy with instruction for the teachers. That's what we're doing for math. In fact, we just spent all day today in a training with ADE math department, and we will continue with them tomorrow. So we're really looking at that and trying to figure out how do we meet our students where they are. When we look at science, secondary grades are really standing out in science for us. The junior high exceeds the state average at 42%. And then at the high school, they've had a consistent three-year rise in their science proficiency. So that's fantastic. We're very proud of that. Again, I mentioned that White Mountain Institute has a bit of a different evaluation scale. Their scale is different because they have a different population that they are serving. And Ms. Roach and her students have shown that they are showing proficiency, they have the growth that they need, and they will, if things don't change, they will be receiving an A as well. Our ongoing focus, one of the indicators where some of our schools struggled was in that attendance. You heard Mr. Rauch talk about attendance at Nicholas Homestead. And attendance is an issue across the nation. It is not just in Show Low. And the conversations that we've been having in SHOLO are how do we move from being punitive and punishing for not coming to school and how can we build with the community and help them to understand why it's important for students to come to school. So we're doing community outreach, we're talking to parents, we're going to homes, and we're using the SROs in a way that is not necessarily, hey, you're in trouble. It's, hey, I need to check on you and see what's going on with you. So that's how we're attacking that piece of our grade pie. So moving into the 26-27 school year, we need to remember that we need to regard this great success that we're having not as an endpoint, but as a new baseline. This is where we are starting now, and we need to continue with that trajectory. I think we have some greater accomplishments ahead of us with all of the work that's being done. This year we're focusing very heavily on instructional practices and what does that look like for the first time students receive instruction. So that tier one good instruction in the classroom and can only lead to higher and better achievement for our students. I invite any questions, comments, or suggestions.

I'm just excited. I know. Isn't it great? Yes. Thank you. And thank you to everybody for jumping on board. You know, I know that we have the one kind of quote that we've adopted where every, help me out, where every child is included. Oh, all means all. Yes. All means all. And this is part of that. Absolutely. So I celebrate you all. Thank you very much. Yeah, this is great. Awesome. All right. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Obviously, you're sharing this with our staff, right? Oh, they know. We're going to have some sort of a party, right?

Once the official letter grades are released, it's usually about October, November, then we're going to party. Yeah. Have a good time.

Okay.

We need a big splash on our website, you know. Yeah, we need to. It'll be great.

Just make sure there's Orange Crush involved.

I know. Orange Crush.

Thank you. Most excellent, thank you, congratulations. Such great news. 4.6, EHP presentation, Dr. Wilkins. There we go, we got another perfect head in the house, what I'm talking about. Look at that, perfect head and good looks.

You've got it all. Just like someone else I know. No, I don't know. Evening. My name is Dr. Wilkins. I actually used to teach here six years ago in the middle school. I'm going to take credit for all the scores that were low that we get to improve on in the last six years. No, I was actually really glad to be here. I'm with here with EHP, the employer's choice. EHP stands for Essentials Health Plan. I was prepared to have this conversation, but we actually have someone from corporate here. We have the marketing director from corporate. He actually lives in Michigan, but he's down here visiting his family in Flagstaff and says, D, can I come? I was like, yeah, I'm going to put you to work. So I'm going to go back to being eye candy. And we'll just turn this over to Brian. This is Mr. Brian Reinhart. Great man. So much value he brings. One of the reasons I have so much faith in this program and why I'm so passionate about sharing it with schools. I did teach for 20 years. And when I saw what this did, I'm like, our schools need this. And so just so grateful that Dr. Farnsworth and Shaley took time to have the conversation. And I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Reinhart.

Thank you, D. Hi, everybody. As D said, I'm Brian Reinhart, and honored to be here. Are all of your board meetings this uplifting? Or am I just on here on a good night? Because I've been to my share of board meetings, and I don't ever remember feeling so.

You're here on an especially good night.

It feels that way. So honored to be here. So Dr. Farnsworth, thanks for facilitating this. So as I said, D said, my name is Brian Reinhart. I'm the market director of the EHP. We're going to give you kind of a brief high level overview today. But before I get started, there's really, as D said, we're real passionate about. what we can bring to particularly school systems, but where budgets are always, budget shortfalls always seem to be a concern. We have a terrific solution for that. But beyond that, it delivers tremendous value and convenience. And what I really focus on, we're going to talk a little bit tonight about the financial side of this. It's a financial benefit and blessing for school districts. But where I think our true value lies, and I say this to employers, school districts, and I've kind of been the primary, the lead on the school systems nationwide, helping kind of introduce this. But what I think the real value sometimes might be hard to convey today, so I'll do my best here, is at the end of the day, what our goal is, is to help increase medical care access. You can make your employees and their families' lives a little bit easier by increasing convenience and lowering their cost for their medical care. And so I'll kind of show you that. And behind all that, there's a tax advantage where there's a financial benefit involved for everybody. So it's really the true win-win-win. So as Dee was saying, I'm not left-handed, so I'm going to do my best here. Okay, so the EHP program is designed as what's called a SIMR. It's a self-insured medical reimbursement plan. That is significant, but the significance of that for tonight's presentation is this. Being a self-insured plan, what that really means in practical terms is we are the self-insurer. This is really a wellness membership plan for your employees. That comes, as we said, with tremendous tax advantages. So with that said, one thing we'll touch on. The unique thing about our plan is it has a built-in reimbursement mechanism. So before we get into specifics, there are three kind of high-level takeaways I kind of like to frame the program with. Number one, so please understand, first and foremost, this is a voluntary preventative care health and wellness plan exclusively. It sits on top of the district health care plan, doesn't disrupt or interfere with it at all. We're not here to compete with or replace it, but merely kind of streamline it, take some of the cost out of it, certainly for the district, but also for the employees. Number two is what's perhaps most unique and what really kind of started our dialogue, and Dr. Farnsworth helped us advance this, It has tremendous tax advantages as we touched on. The plan is funded literally in real time through tax savings completely. There's no out-of-pocket expense and when all the dust settles at the end of the day, there's a financial gain for the school district, in this case over $125,000. In real-time FICA savings, the district will realize over the next 12 months. So given that it's FICA tax reduction, It's a tremendous tool to offset budget shortfalls. You can deploy that capital anywhere you see fit. So that's a real nice advantage. With the employees that are eligible and qualified based on ERISA and ACA regulations, they literally see an increase in their take-home pay. Now, that varies from the employees, but on average, $75 to $100 extra disposable income per month in their paycheck. So based on that, medical care reimbursement guidelines we utilize. Okay. So I'm going to... Move on. So before we get into the financial side, I want to touch on a few things. We have the numbers. Dr. Farnsworth was kind enough to help us get all that, so I think you guys have the numbers. But before we get to the numbers, let's talk a little bit about what is this. So a couple things. When we implement this plan, one of the benefits we have at EHP is we have tremendous resources and systems in place. And so when it comes to implementation, We have a 90-10 rule. We do 90% of the lift and the bandwidth. So I think we had a new HR director. Erin, I don't think she's here.

Oh, she?

Okay. So I always try to let them know, hey, we're not going to be a dirty word in your office. We do the heavy lifting. So when it comes to implementing the plan, we do the employee outreach, the employee education. We even do the enrollment. We just need HR's help to kind of... coordinate messaging, but it's not something that's going to bury the HR department and more work. So really, really HR friendly. And by the way, I grew up in an HR household. So I'm not beneath sucking up, I would tell her that. So I'm pretty sensitive to the HR demands. So with that said, what is this? So we're going to have a virtual care plan. So a couple of things, how we frame this, for example, when we introduce it to employees, is, okay, congratulations, you're eligible for this new tax-incentivized supplemental plan. We have a very unique or efficient system. We let them know. We understand the short attention span. Got to get it quick, right? Say, hey, you're eligible for this. By the way, your paycheck's going to go up. So that kind of catches their attention, right? And so when we introduce it and educate the employees on it, we really frame it as, okay, think of this EHP, and the app is actually called Revive. And you can use it on laptop, desktop, phone, whatever it is. It's very, very easy. Kindergarten easy technology. But we really introduced it as think of this plan, the EHP Revive plan, as option 1A for your healthcare. And here's why. Anytime you can use our app, it's going to give you a couple conveniences. It's going to be faster. It's going to be easier. But more importantly, it's no cost. So, for example... what is it so that all the employees who are eligible and qualified will get this plan it consists of urgent care prescriptions mental health primary care and weight health and so for example we understand they already have all that so oftentimes the first question we get is well our school plan has that why do we want that again and the simple answer is this our plan isn't designed to generate tax savings that's just a nice byproduct that we're able to deliver What we want to do, again, is lower your employees' health care costs and out-of-pocket spend. So for the employee, let's say urgent care, for example. When they can use our app, we're going to be able to, all of our physicians are board-licensed physicians, of course, but more importantly, they have a minimum 10 years experience. So we point this out. We do all the little things right. So in terms of efficacy. We're talking virtual. So, you know, certain things with healthcare just can't be done virtually. You need to see a specialist or go to a doctor, right? But you'd be surprised. Nine out of 10 of our consultations, we can diagnose. Six out of 10, we can treat without the traditional leave home, go to the urgent care, leave home, go to the emergency room, whatever that may be. And that whole experience for your employee will be Usually within 10 minutes, they'll be on the phone with the doctor, figure out what's going on. And 60% of the time, we're going to be able to treat that without them having to leave their home, other than maybe go pick up a prescription. But more importantly, that whole experience will cost them nothing. There are no deductibles. There are no out-of-pocket expenses. There are no co-pays. And so for the school district, on the back end...

I saw it for 20 years. And if I can take care of something on a break, or my prep hour, Subs. You guys probably have extra subs, but for the rest of America, less subs. Sorry.

No, he's right. It's fast and easy is kind of where we're going with that. So that's kind of the gist of it. We want to give more convenient, quick, fast, easy, low-cost health care to your employees. So when they use us first, it's going to reduce the claims for the district. On average, we're going to be able to redirect 10% of your health care claims from your claim bucket to to our coin bucket and we absorb the cost on that. So it's going to lower your claims as a district as well. Any questions on that? Okay, moving forward, I want to touch a little bit, prescriptions. This is one thing I want to mention too. Convenience to me is a big part of what we do. Our prescription plan has almost 1200 maintenance meds, blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, ADD, cardio, you name it. So with that said, one of the real conveniences with a couple of clicks of a button, your employees who themselves have family that use monthly medications, click on our medications tab, type it in. We cover about 90% of the market. With a couple clicks of a button, they can refill their prescriptions on our plan and they drop their existing co-pays. And from that day forward, those medications show up at the house. We mail them at no cost, three months supply. So if one of your employees has three medications in their household, They don't have to pay out of pocket $14, $15, $20, whatever that is for a copay anymore. And more importantly, their life just becomes easier. They don't have to worry about running out. Oops, I'm out of these. I got to go to the pharmacy at lunch. It just shows up at their house like clockwork. And it saves them money in real time. So super convenient. Super exciting, actually. My wife saved $90 a month on her progesterone, switching the prescription over. Okay. So... Okay, when we talk about funded in real time through tax incentives and tax and savings, that's exactly how this plan is paid for. So on this, if you can see the screen here, on the left-hand column, this is a paycheck sample, a monthly illustration of an employee using our plan. This is a real-world paycheck. It's an employee in Virginia using our plan through their employer. So the left-hand column is just a traditional payroll. You know, gross pay, health care comes out pre-tax. Taxable income is $3,240. $822.96 comes out for taxes. Take-home pay is $24,1704. If you look at the right-hand column, this is what's going to take place on your employee's payroll. And we do all the education in informing the employees what this means. But at the end of the day, your employee's paychecks are going to go up, and here's how we do that. So although we are structured as a SIMR, that's for tax purposes. The plan itself is defined by the ACA as a section 125 cafeteria plan. The significance of that being cafeteria plans, we can have as many as we like, right? So with that said, you'll see on the front end of the payroll, we have a $1,220 deduction. That is the value of care, all the benefits, market value. It's actually about 62% of it. But that's what our premium is based on. Here's a good way to look at this plan. It's similar to prepaying for voluntarily prepaying for on-demand care with no out-of-pocket costs. for preventative care. So that's based on the value of the care, market value of the care. So it's $1,220 that comes out pre-tax. That's simply a 125 cafeteria pre-tax deduction. What's most unique is if you look at the bottom blue line, our plan allows us with the tax codes we utilize without your employees changing how they file taxes. So I want to keep that in mind. It's super employee-friendly. We are able to, by the employees' voluntary participation in this plan, activating their portal. Now, they do have to do a couple things throughout the year. They have to take a health risk assessment that's reviewed by a doctor, and then they get a plan of care. But there's very little... activity actually required from the employees. Okay, with that said, we have an instant reimbursement mechanism and it's non-taxable. So if you look at the bottom of the payroll, you'll see a non-taxable reimbursement under SIMR 1220. Now that's monthly. Of course, we prorate this. So if that were bi-weekly your pay frequency, for example, it'd be 562, 562. But the point is they're being immediately reimbursed by their active participation voluntarily in a preventative care plan. So what happens, the funding, obviously there's no such thing as a free lunch. So where does the money come from? Well, that $1,220 pre-tax deduction lowers the taxable income. So if you look at the tax withholdings, federal, state, Social Security, Medicare, the before and after, so to speak, and you look at that yellow highlight, this employee is... paying $309.88 less in taxes in real time. That's just extra pay in their paycheck. Now, how we actually fund the plan Pay Our Doctors is we utilize that tax savings, and we now have a wellness program membership fee of $149. What's really neat about the plan is that $149 doesn't change when the employees add their family. So we can add a spouse, five dependents at no cost. So think of all the prescriptions, urgent cares we can redirect our way and keep money in your employees' pockets while also making their life a little easier. So regardless, whether that's a single individual or a family of seven, it's a 149, but no matter what, that 149 is covered from that tax savings we've already generated. The really neat part for the employees is they're able to keep the difference. So whatever that excess tax savings is, the employees, the beneficiary, they're going to see an increase in their net pay. And we have a breakdown of every employee and how much exactly to the penny that is. And so we have those numbers. But in this case, this employee's net pay is now $25.77. And just to keep it as simple as I can, If this employee files a 1040EZ form January 1st every year for their taxes, want their refund as fast as possible, that doesn't change. How they file taxes stays exactly the same. They just pay less taxes. And they come out, they get to keep more of their pay. So that's kind of a nutshell. Now on the school district side, oh, forgive me, Dee, my apologies. We actually have special pricing for SHLO. So that 149, you will see on the numbers, is 119. So we actually have rural pricing to accommodate the income levels here, so we can increase participation. So you'll see, so there'll be a discrepancy there, but it's in your favor.

Okay.

Now lastly, school district. That $1,220, 125 pre-tax deduction, there's a simultaneous benefit for the school as well, because obviously the employers are not taxed on healthcare either, right? So that 1,220 is gonna reduce the taxable income, which is what the FICA tax viability is based on. So if you do the math, 7.65% of $1,220 is $93.33. So the school district is gonna save every month $93.33 exactly per employee per month, month over month, who's participating in the plan. Now, we do have an admin fee to cover our TPA costs, et cetera, to the school district. It's $40. But good news, we bill in arrears. So you get a full month savings of that 93.33. We will then collect 40 of it. The school district remains $53.33 net positive. There are no other fees at any other time. No renewal fees, no setup fees, etc. So it's a straight EBITDA bump or bottom line savings, if you will, for the school district of $53.33 a month. And the aggregate numbers we have for the district... D, where's that number?

Right there.

Okay, yeah. So if you look at the bottom right corner, there's $129,271.92 potential savings for the school district. Now that's based on 100% participation, which we do get from time to time. We average 95%. So when it goes to enrollment, we have a system that's, again, we do the majority of the lift, very efficient, and we're able to utilize what's called an opt-out. So everybody who's eligible and qualified, by the way, everybody's eligible, but some people are the beneficiaries of having it paid for through tax savings. Some people are not because we have to follow the ERISA regulations. So everybody can participate. Some would have to pay out of pocket. But the majority of the employees, 64%, will be able to participate and actually see an increase in their take-home pay. And so if we have 100% participation of those employees, the school district stands to net $129,000-plus in change in tax savings for the year. Does that all make sense? I know that was a lot in a short window. Any questions on that at all? You did great. Okay.

Yeah, I do have... If you're done with your presentation, I have a couple of questions.

Yes, I am. Please.

I apologize if I missed this, but just please let me know. So the cost to... So I understand... Our employees, if you go back one, two now, back where you were.

This way, the aggregate numbers?

That one right there, yeah. So 64% of full-time employees qualify for this. Yes. And then your numbers are on all 100% of those 64%. Correct. Participating, right? Correct. Okay. So what's the cost to the employee? Is it different per employee or is this a straight cost and what is it?

Okay. So thank you for that question. And it can be a little confusing. So let me revert back to the paycheck slide. And if you guys can see my mouse, I'll try to do this left-handed. $149? Well, it is, but we actually have $119. So forgive us, we didn't update that for special pricing.

I wanted to reiterate that. And then the district pays you $40?

Correct.

A month?

A month, yes.

A month per employee?

Per employee.

$40 per employee.

Now, I might add, too, those are our revenue streams.

That's obviously participating employees.

Yes. Okay. And so that 119 per employee, that comes from their paycheck out of their net pay. However, even with that 119 coming out, please know, their net pay will actually go up. So although there is a cost, there's actually a financial gain for the employee in their paycheck. Okay. Tax savings.

So are we committed to a time? Do we have a contract that we're committed to a time that we have to participate in this so many years?

It's a traditional Section 125 plan, so it's a 12-month renewal.

You've got to speak down because I don't know all the numbers.

Okay, 12 months. Oh, 12 months. 12 months, and then it renews.

So we renew this every year?

Every year, yes.

So if it's not working for us or our employees, we – okay.

Right. Perfect. If I may, just a little plug. Please do. We've never had an employer drop out of the plan, and it's something very interesting. We average – The last numbers we had, we had 92% participation of eligible employees. So 8% didn't. What I find most interesting is that renewal for year two, our employee participation goes up. Because of those 8% who opt out, oftentimes they just didn't quite understand. Some people knee jerk, say, I don't want anything new. And we don't call them and chase them and say, hey, you don't know what you're doing. We can't do that. But they'll find out through the grapevine, through their coworkers. Man, you're not doing this? Oh, my God, I got an extra $75. So we actually have an increase in participation year two over year one. So it's something that's pretty unique that we're pretty excited about. Did that help answer your questions?

Perfect. Those were things I just wanted to... Emphasize, thank you. My pleasure.

You answered one of mine, which was if the employees were able to opt out. Yes. So there is an option for that.

Absolutely. So, you know what, let me do this real quick. I know I'm probably over time. You're fine.

They opt out any time they want?

Yes and no. They are committed because of the ACA. That's an ACA requirement. If they stay in the plan, they have to stay in for 12 months unless there is a life event. Change in employment, anything that would qualify as a life event under the Affordable Care Act. So they are in for 12 months.

And the 119, is that a monthly? Yes.

Okay.

So it's not yearly?

No, that's correct. That's monthly. And we actually have a breakdown of the employees. I think what, Dee, do you know? So the average, now this is aggregate.

Is this our employees? Yes, this is. These are your numbers.

These are the numbers for our district here, this district. So the employees are averaging an excess of $103 net pay per month. Combined. Now, some of those will be north of 200. Some will be 30 or 40. But the mean is $103.42. So on average, your employees are seeing an extra $100 a month disposable income, even after the 119 comes out. So a little more than a tank of gas, at least if things stay as they are.

So you're essentially giving the employees a raise of over $1,000 on average for those people who qualify.

Yes.

So really cool.

Yeah, it's pretty neat.

Can they use this along with their FSA or HSA?

They can, absolutely. Actually, this plan was designed from its inception for self-funded plans, and particularly those that have HSAs, FSAs, high deductibles. It's a really nice compliment for that.

How long y'all been doing this?

About four years.

Four years. Yes, sir.

And our partner, Revive, has been doing this. That's an important point because once the employees are enrolled, the benefits are all through Revive Health. And so that's something else I want to mention. It's a single-source solution. It's very employee-friendly, one website, one provider. It's not different vendors that are white-labeled. They call different numbers, and I don't know how to use this. Incredibly easy. They've been in business 18 years, and they have over 5 million members on this platform. So A-plus customer service. I can't say enough about that. That's where we end up with increased eligibility year two is because it's really phenomenal. So it's super employee-friendly. They're going to love it.

So you serve only school districts?

No, we do this for... Any employer with more than 10 W-2 employees is eligible for this. So corporate America, small, mid-sized business. But yes, school districts are very popular.

When an employee goes to do their taxes, you know, it's easy. Everything's on the W-2. Everything's easy as far as for their tax preparer and themselves if they file on behalf of themselves.

Yes, and here's a good analogy. Again, I like using the 1040EZ form example. If somebody, you know, you've got kids out of college that have very simple taxes, they don't have deductions, boom, I want my money back as fast as possible, that stays exactly the same. But here's a way to think of it. Our plan is a Section 125 plan. So this doesn't change your employees' taxes any different than if they added a dental and vision plan onto their paycheck. It's the exact same mechanism, exact same front-end tax code. And so that obviously wouldn't have an impact on your taxes either. Same exact thing. So it's incredibly employee-friendly. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Great question. Thank you. I probably went way over. Okay, nothing else, we good? No worries. All right, thank you guys for having us. We're honored to be here. Thank you, Brian. Appreciate it.

Appreciate it, thank you.

I've always wanted to ask somebody, are you a youper?

Oh, no.

No, Sal, okay. Nice, nice. We're glad you're here in Arizona. Thank you. Come to God's country.

My grandson's here, so.

Good, good for you. All right, item 4.7, principal reports, Dr. Farnsworth.

You know, we had a busy summer, a lot of back-to-school events, and we were in our first full week of school. And I just want to thank all the principals for their hard work and getting everything up. And it is a task to get your building ready, teachers ready, onboarding, teacher induction. So I just want to thank them publicly for all that they do.

Thank you. 4.8, Superintendent Report, please.

Just a couple items that I want to just draw your attention to. Number one, I just want to thank the City of Show Low. If you haven't seen it, they paved our softball parking lot and it looks amazing. So I just want to thank the City of Show Low. They do a fantastic job of doing some kind of project for us and that's a well-needed project. I also want to call out the Sholo Youth Foundation. They had their big gala this past weekend. We have members in the school district that serve on the Sholo Youth Foundation, the board of directors, the volunteers. I think many of our principals volunteer their time Beth, Heather, I mean, everybody. Alfred Scott was there. Becky was there. I mean, all of our principals participate. So I just want to thank the Sholo Youth Foundation and the community and all the business partners. They do a fantastic job and just really, really appreciate what they do. Ms. Cosgrave, she did a fantastic job this summer on teacher orientation and welcoming and training up our new teachers. I just want to thank the board for allowing me to go to the National Elementary Schools Conference. I just saw some phenomenal speakers and presenters and learned a lot. And I also want to thank our keynote speaker, Representative Eli Crane, retired Navy SEAL. He did a great job, I felt, in our... Welcome back. Didn't talk about politics for people watching. He just talked about leadership, teamwork, collaboration, lessons as a Navy SEAL, and he did a fantastic job. I publicly want to thank Pepsi for donating drinks for that back-to-school event. Yeah, we just had a busy summer. Thank you.

Thank you. 5.1, classified transfers, resignations, and terminations. Dr. Farnsworth, please.

You know, as we start the school year, there always seems to be some kind of a transition, especially with our paraprofessionals. So I know Mrs. Marsh is busily, busily? Is that a word? More busy? Busy? trying to hire new paraprofessionals, and so we would ask that you would accept these resignations, transfers, and terminations.

I move to approve the classified transfers, resignations, and terminations as presented. I'll second.

I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. 5.2, classified personnel employment. Dr. Farnsworth, please.

And as you can see, all the principals, Mrs. Marsh, they've been very busy hiring replacements, and I recommend that you would approve all those recommendations.

I move to approve the classified personnel employment actions as presented.

Second. A motion is second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. 5.3, certified transfers, resignations, terminations. Dr. Farnsworth.

So as you can see on the transfer, we did have a last minute resignation for one of our special education teachers. And so we are gonna transfer this individual who does have a CTE teaching certificate, they are a certified teacher, into that classroom. We also have a resignation due to family circumstances. And so again, it's up to the board if you would, either entertain the waiving of liquidated damages, but you can see the letter regarding that situation.

I move to approve the classified personnel employment actions as presented.

It's certified, Angela.

Sorry. I move to approve the certified personnel employment actions as presented. I'll second.

I have a motion and a second. Does this motion include, I want to make sure that we get the right motion to include.

If that's what the board's wishes is to waive the liquidated debt, you need to say that.

Yeah, you need to include that if that's what you would like to be done.

To remove the liquidated debt.

If the board wishes to waive the liquidated damages, so typically we have built into the teacher contract, if they break the contract or resign, there's a $2,500 penalty payment. And it's the board's sole discretion to either waive that penalty or to enforce the penalty.

Okay.

So how does she wordsmith that?

Right.

She's going to say something to the effect of, I move to approve as written waiving the liquidated damages or not.

Or not.

Or not waiving the liquidated damages. So you have to make that. That's your call, and then we'll find out if there's a second, and then we'll find out a vote.

Okay, I'm not sure how everyone else feels.

Will you do you, how you do you, how you feel?

I move to approve the waiving the written liquid, sorry.

Liquidated damages.

Liquidated damages as presented.

Are you okay with that?

Yeah.

No, so.

You want to say, I move to approve the transfer The transfers, resignations, and terminations as presented waiving the liquidated damages. Thank you. Beth.

It's a tongue twister.

I know. It's hard. I move to approve the certified transfers, resignations, terminations.

Waiving.

waiving the liquidated damages as presented.

That one's a hard one.

Second.

I have a motion and a second. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Aye. So that's 4-1. And can you do me a favor? When we have these situations, can you do a double motion example so that the wordsmithing is correct and we don't try to... Ring around the rosy here.

Thank you for the correction.

Yeah, no worries. 5.5, full coaches, volunteers, and interns, Dr. Farnsworth.

554.

Oh, I'm sorry, I turned the page. That was 5354, sorry. Certified Personnel Employment, Dr. Farnsworth. Thank you.

So we do have some certified substitutes who have a teaching certificate and a transfer, and we'd recommend that you would approve those employment actions.

I'll make a motion to approve the certified personnel employment actions as presented.

I'll second.

Motion to second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. That was 5-4, right? Now we're on the 5-5. Follow coaches, volunteers, and interns. Dr. Farnsworth, please.

So we do have some updates. We try to get all the coaches in before the season starts and so we do have some last minute additions and we would recommend that you would approve those if there's not any questions.

These are mostly junior high?

They are all junior high. Let me look at this really quick. Junior high softball, junior high cross country, junior high football, junior high football. Mr. Hofmeyer Bergstrand. That's a volunteer. Junior high football? Classroom volunteer, thank you. Thank you. So I missed that one. She doesn't want to coach football?

And we've already hired the heads, then, I assume. Yes, sir, at our last board meeting.

Yeah, we approved those in July. Kelly.

What are the interns?

The interns... So we do have, for example, I think we have a counseling intern.

They're both.

They're both counseling interns, which we love because they're here in our school district getting their hours, working through their school programs. And so this is a great way to, once they graduate, hopefully keep them here.

Okay, great. Thank you. I move to approve the additions for fall coaches, new volunteers, and interns as presented. I'll second. Okay.

I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Five, six, social worker job description, Dr. Farnsworth.

So as part of the school safety grant, they have very specific criteria about a counselor. And one of our counselors, there's some technicalities with their certificate and it wouldn't qualify under the school safety grant. However, working with Ms. Ramsey in our grants department, we can have them reclassified as a social worker. And so the individual that we have does have the proper credentials to be classified as a social worker in terms of the grant. And so they're fully qualified to be an employee and work with kids. It's just we're having to make this switch so that it's in compliance with the school safety grant, which pays for our SROs and our counselors.

The right people in the right place at the right time.

I move to approve the social worker job description as presented.

Second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. Item 5.7, EHP Supplemental Insurance. Dr. Farnsworth.

As you've heard the presentation by Mr. Reinhart, we would respectfully ask if there's conversation or discussion or questions that we approve this supplemental insurance for our employees as it's purely optional. And there appears to be some significant savings for the employee, for the district, and pretty cool access to healthcare. I call it Teladoc on steroids. Is that accurate, Brian? Teladoc on steroids, so getting quicker access. Legal steroids? Legal. Legal steroids. 100% legal.

Have we talked to employees about this at all or?

So what we've done is we've met as an administrative team. We've had several conference calls with our directors and principals so they understand what's going on. Before we rolled it out to our employees, we wanted the district leadership and then we wanted the board to see the presentation before we presented it to the staff.

Is this enrollment for next year?

This would be current enrollment.

They can enroll.

They can enroll. As soon as we approve it, we would coordinate with Dee and Brian. We would set up, again, he said he's going to do 90% of the heavy lifting. We would set up enrollment time periods where we would work with them to advertise, educate, make sure they understood what it was, what it wasn't, and then we would go through this process. It's going to take us a couple months to get up to the enrollment process.

Would you guys come out and make a presentation to the employees similar to this so that they have a concrete idea of how this works?

So we do have someone from corporate who does that. I was actually in Young yesterday. They were actually doing that there. The corporate person handled the webinar, and then I was there to answer additional questions. I'd be more than happy to come back up and do that. The process is really, really simple. It's going to take a couple hours of her time, an hour or two of Aaron's time, and EHP is going to do pretty much the rest.

Okay, cool.

I'm at your beckoning call.

For those watching, could we maybe mention a website or something that they can refer to to do their own research even before approval?

Was it Revive Health or something?

GetEHP.com.

forms of media, mailers, direct mail, and 24-7 call centers. So we have a very robust outreach education system.

We can hear you wonderfully, but I'm afraid that those at home can't. Oh, sorry.

Come on up to the mic real quick, just real quick and restate that. Yeah, throw the two website.

Okay, yeah, so a good website to go to initially is getEHP.com. That is our corporate domain. You can also look at Revive Health as the provider, although we ask that all questions be directed to us at EHP. But we have a very robust employee outreach education system. We use multiple mediums, direct mail, text, email, phone calls. We have a 24-7 call center. So we will do, again, I'm HR friendly, but yeah, so we have a real, it's a very simple education introduction process. The employees who want to try it out, they get a 30-day trial period. They can opt out with no penalty. It's very, very employee friendly, very simple, but very robust education system.

Yeah.

And it does take, as Dr. Farnsworth said, we literally take about 60 days for that process for employee outreach, education, et cetera.

So how big is your company?

Well, we have over 100,000 employees and companies on our plan right now and less than a million. It's somewhere in there, but yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. Our parent company is a $1.7 billion insurance carrier. Your parent company is? X Benefit Group is the name of it. Yes. Good question. Thank you.

I'm sorry.

What's that?

I have one more question. Yes. Almost interview question. What is your biggest challenge that you find?

Are you referring to on the employee side or on the employer side?

Servicing all of these members.

Honestly, it's probably outreach. The phrase, you can lead a horse to water, if you will. So as passionate as we are and as all the benefits that come with our plan, unfortunately, some employees just don't take the time to review it or look at their email or open their direct mail. So it's just engagement. So, and that's, again, fortunately for year two, word of mouth is our best friend. So the employees say, you're not using this? Oh, my gosh. So that's probably our best solution for that. But just a matter of getting everybody's attention. Some people just don't take the time to look. Thank you. My pleasure. Thanks for having us.

Thank you, Brian. I would also just like to add, so I heard about this for the first time probably 18 months to two years ago. I do have a colleague in Texas. He's a chief financial officer. He called me and said, Joe, are you aware of these plans? And he was trying to put me in contact with his contact in Texas. Things just didn't work out. But this is, especially for school districts, it's really a pretty cool incentive savings program. quick access to health care that many, many school districts, not just here in Arizona, but my only reference point is in Texas, it's happening.

Well, I guess I'll make a motion to approve the EHP supplemental insurance as presented.

I'll second.

I have a motion and a second if there's no further discussion. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. 5.8, ratification of longevity stipend. Ms. Davis.

So when we were finishing up stipends and the stipend contracts, it was brought to my attention that we did not add the two individuals that hit their 15 years for their longevity, and then there were four employees that had reached the 20 years, so we didn't increase theirs. So I'm bringing that ratification to you today to include these individuals for their longevity for fiscal year 27.

I move to approve the revised longevity stipends for fiscal year 26-27 as presented by administration. I'll second.

I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. 5.9 ELL contract, Dr. Farnsworth.

Well, this is for Ms. Alsobrook. She is our ELL coordinator. And as Ms. Cosgrave mentioned, we saw some tremendous gains across the district. Well, she is our one person that does it. So we're asking you to approve her off-contract time that she does spend in servicing our MANY OF OUR ELL STUDENTS AND COORDINATING AND PLANNING AND DOING ALL THE LOGISTICS AND I WOULD ASK THAT YOU WOULD APPROVE THAT. AND I DO WANT TO MENTION THE FUNDING SOURCES TITLE 3 WHICH IS ELL FUNDING.

I APPRECIATE THAT BEING INCLUDED.

WONDERFUL. I'LL GO AHEAD AND APPROVE The measure to strengthen overall student and family support ELL contract renewal for the fiscal year 26-27 that will be paid for by the Title III funding as presented.

I'll second.

I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. 5.10, new library titles for Nicholas.

So this may be Ms. Cosgrave who's kind of shepherds any kind of new curriculum. And there's, of course, there's a board policy that says the public has the right to look at it, access it. It has to be on display, I think, for 60 days. We notified them. It was displayed over the summer. And now that we've satisfied all the criteria for the policy, we are bringing the books to the board for formal adoption.

I move to approve and add the attached title to Nicholas Homestead Library Collection for the 26-27 school year as presented.

I second.

A motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. 5.11, gifts and donations. Ms. Davis?

So we just have one gifts and donations tonight, and that's the Show Low High School Student Council donated $2,000 to the Show Low High School grad night from last year.

That's awesome. I move to approve the gifts and donations as presented.

Second. I have a motion and a second. I would like to, I just wrote myself a note to express gratitude to the City of Show Low again for the parking lot construction there by the softball field. Just super grateful for their willingness to be so generous and helpful. So with that, motion is second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. 5.12, procurement over $100,000. Shaylee Davis, please.

All right, so as you know, we received our forest fees money for fiscal year 24 and 25, which came to over $400,000. So with that, we are purchasing two buses, they're 2027 Bluebird buses, both over $200,000. We are getting those from Canyon State Bus, which is through a cooperative, which is where we get most of our buses. So I ask you to approve the purchase of these two buses through our forest fees fund.

I move to approve the purchase of two new buses as presented. I'll second.

I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. By the way, wasn't Eli Crane significantly involved in us capturing these forest fee monies? Okay. That was great. Appreciate that. Shout out to him. Thanks. 5.13, high school, let's see, Show Low High School and District Resolution for Provision of Food and Beverages, FY27. Ms. Davis.

All right, so we do this every year. But with the new changes to the USFR, they have brought a new format in the form of a resolution. And this is part of the new policies and procedures that you did a first reading on. But the form that we're using as the resolution is just a form. So we can go ahead and do this even though you haven't formally approved the new policies. So this is the approval of using food and beverages through funds. The high school has their list of events that they will be having food and beverages with. And so they will be using their gifts and donation money for theirs. And then through the district, we have our list. And it's a pretty lengthy list, which is now allowed. which was never allowed before. And so this is, again, part of the new policies and procedures. Again, we will use the majority of our gifts and donations, but with the new USFR guidelines, we can now use some of our other funds as well. So we ask that you approve these resolutions to be able to use have food and beverages at certain things as long as they are used for the purpose of education through these resolutions. So I ask that you approve both of these resolutions tonight.

I don't remember. Was there a total amount, you know, a limit?

No. And we don't have to have that as long as we use the current Arizona guidelines for travel. And so only using however much is allowed for food and beverages for our area.

And does These are the gifts and donations that are received with tax credit money?

No. Just gifts and donations. So if like the high school gets a lot of gifts and general gifts and donations. So he uses that. So like he has his vending machines and then he just gets regular general donations. They're not outlined for a specific class or... club thank you um so then he uses those for those uh for those things as well as like during thanksgiving he'll get donations from a specific uh ven not vendor um

Donor.

Business, thank you. That's the word, business. And so then he'll use those, and that's a gifts and donations. Same for us. We could get a donation from a business, and then we'll use that for our things. But again, we can use other funds as well. What other funds would we? Any of our cash funds. We are allowed to use now some of the M&O funds as long as we have defined what the purpose of the training so like um charlotte's new teacher orientation because there's a educational purpose for that we can use mno funds for that so as long as there's a purpose an educational purpose for those trainings we can use mno but we try not to we try to use gifts and donations or we can use indirect costs for those which we we do try to do that instead we i really try not to use mno

I just don't like having an open-ended

ticket you know what i'm saying right and that's why there's a list of what we can do and it's pretty specific on what you can um and again we can't amount yeah but we cannot um go over again the arizona travel guidelines so it's usually um 13 for breakfast per person 17 for lunch per person and then i think it's uh 20 some dollars or for dinner if you're doing a dinner And that's what we chose based on the policy for doing the amounts per person.

I move to approve the Show Low High School and Show Low Unified School District resolution for provision of food and beverage for the 26-27 school year as presented.

Second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. 5.14, Delegate. Superintendent approved student fundraisers. Ms. Davis.

Okay, so based on again- Or delegate, sorry. Based on the new policy 3-102, We are now allowed, again based on the new USFR guidelines, to allow the superintendent to pre-approve fundraisers, the student activity fundraisers, so that it doesn't hold some of them back from doing fundraisers till the next board meeting. But we've all agreed that this would only be in case of emergencies. Because we'd rather bring them to the board to have them approved instead of that. But this would just be in case of emergency. So we're asking that the board delegate the superintendent to pre-approve fundraisers if need be. But even if he does, they would still come to the board for final approval. It just may be a month late.

So what does that do if the fundraiser happens between the time he pre-approves it and it gets to us? What does it matter?

That means it's okay.

Okay, well.

The board still, again, just like with the vouchers and stuff, we do the vouchers, even though by the U.S. of our guidelines, you have to approve all expenditures. But you guys approve them after they're done.

I understand. I understand. If someone's going to plan something, they better be ahead of the game is all I'm saying. And sometimes we drop the ball. I get it.

Yeah. Well, and so for a good example is right now robotics and FBLA have put in their fundraiser, one for concessions. but they just put it in yesterday because they just gotten their officers and their clubs together to meet. So they were unable to get it in before this board meeting, but concessions start next week. So that's one where... The superintendent is going to need to sign that so that they can do their concessions and start raising.

We're going to serve water and crackers for concessions.

Perfect. Tell them they got a plan better.

We have a deadline date.

Yeah.

Well, you're always going to have some of that stuff. I know.

Because they just started school, so.

The good thing about it is we got a pretty good guy looking over it.

Yeah.

I move to delegate to the superintendent the authority to approve student fundraisers based on emergencies.

Motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. 5.15, media broadcasting, IGA, Dr. Farnsworth.

I wanna start off by saying, Mr. President, I apologize. When we met to go over the board agenda, we were gonna double check to make sure they were all squared from last year. And I didn't remember that until just now. Do we know if they're squared or do we need to table this?

We probably need to table it.

Okay.

Yeah, I'm serious. I don't want to give somebody a new contract when they still owe us money from last year. I mean, if I can get that gig, let me know. Anybody out there that I can continue to owe you money for as long as possible.

I apologize. Yeah, my apologies as well.

All right, so I will motion that we table this until next month, hopefully, or whenever.

I'll second it.

I have a motion and a second. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Thank you.

John, that's the American way.

No, I don't live under that. I mean, when they want their money, they want their money, right? I mean, if I don't pay my water bill, they don't keep my water on.

No, you're right. I wish it was all as simple as that.

No, I hear you, though. Okay, 5.16 SROIGA with Navajo County. Please.

So we've been blessed to have a number of our SROs funded in a second round by the state through the safety grant. And one of those was the Linden SRO. But Linden is not within the city of Show Low, it's county jurisdiction. And so we've been working with the county, our attorney to have an IGA kind of like a three-person IGA. We're in agreement with the city of Show Low, with the county, to give county permission to have the city of Show Low put a police officer out at Linden, even though it's county. And so we're asking that you would approve that in terms of the school safety grant.

Do you have a question? No. I move to approve the IGA for the SRO through Navajo County for the 26-27 school year as presented. I'll second it.

I motion and second. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. 5.17, qualified evaluators. Dr. Farnsworth.

I'd like to bring before the board all the evaluators to get board permission that they are the authorized approvers for teacher evaluations, classified evaluations, and et cetera. And you can see the list there. And I would ask that you would approve those.

I move to approve the qualified evaluators for the 26-27 school year as presented. I'll second.

Motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. 5.18, placement charts. Ms. Davis.

Thank you. So when we were reviewing the new paras that Beth had hired and reviewing the placement chart, we realized that the para professionals pay was far below the market rate and what we were paying even a beginning para last year. So Erin and I and Beth sat down and we reviewed them and we created new placement charts for the para. So we created an A.1 for gen ed paras and placement chart B, we revamped that one and that will be the SPED para chart. And so we did a whole new criteria for them for their scope. years of experience and certification in degrees stays the same, but the scope of work for a gen ed para and the scope of work for a sped para are two different things. So we revamped that and then we also changed the hourly rate starting and the increments. So for the A1 for the gen paras starts at 615 and goes in increments of 15 cents. And then for a sped para, it starts at 1630 and goes in increments of 30 cents, just because of the scope of work between the two. And so we revamped that. It looks much better. I did an Excel spreadsheet and saw what that would do with all of the paras from what we gave them as of July when they started and what that would do now. We're going to replace them, and it will add about $88,000 to the budget, but it puts them where they really should be. We were losing paras. Paras didn't want to come here, so it was the right thing to do. So I ask that you approve the new placement chart for the paras and then we'll get them replaced and it will be retroactive.

I'm glad to see an improvement to the placement chart. So with that, I move to approve as presented. I'll second.

Motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. 5.19, Superintendent's Employment and Related Superintendent Employment Agreement. Who gets this one?

We talked about it a month ago and you have the contract and I would be honored if you would extend it for another three years.

I move to approve the superintendent's employment and related superintendent employment agreement for July 1st, 2027 through June 30th, 2030 as presented. I'll second.

I have a motion to second. Any discussion or comments? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Item 5.20, future board agenda items. Does anybody have anything? I have one thing. I'm curious how the summer lunch program shook out. Could you possibly, we don't necessarily need it for the board meeting next month, but maybe you can shoot us all an email showing us.

I planned on doing it next month. I needed to wait until the end of the fiscal year.

Okay, cool.

Until we get all the expenses and everything in, but you're going to be pleasantly pleased.

yeah cool great um i appreciate that any anybody else for future work okay 6.1 called to the public i didn't receive any paper so there's none thank you and i will entertain a motion to adjourn until our september 17th 2026 meeting So moved.

A second.

Motion and a second. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you, staff, for being here, sticking through to the end. Thank you guys for coming and seeing us, taking time from your family. Also want to thank our SRO for being here. Please express our gratitude to all of our SROs that are working hard every week. Please.