November 9, 2010

Regular Meeting

Superintendent’s Report
Dr. Manuel Isquierdo presented the Superintendent’s Report (see PowerPoint).

Call to the Audience
Nineteen members of the Los Niños Elementary School staff stood while a statement was read in support of Los Niños and Principal Herb Springs.

Highlights of Consent Agenda

The Personnel Report included the appointment of Mark Doe as coordinator of Apollo Community School, and of Marco Rodriguez as 2010-11 interim coordinator of the Family Resource and Wellness Center.

Desert View High School was selected as a partner with Saguaro National Park in the Trips for Kids “Ride in the Park” after-school program. Ten Desert View students will participate in mountain bike rides in the park.

A grant of $9,995 from the Qwest Foundation and Arizona Technology in Education Association (AzTEA) was awarded to Sunnyside High teacher Barb MacDonald and librarian Ruth Soza  for the project, “Cinematic Books: Bringing Books to Digital Life.” Students are using technology to create movie-style trailers for books. Funds will be used to purchase items such as laptops, Ebook readers and a digital camera.

Highlights of General Functions Agenda

Study session on high school expansion
The Board approved scheduling a study session for 5 p.m. on Tuesday, November 23 to discuss high school facilities expansion. Dr. Isquierdo said that the district will have additional public meetings at the school sites.

EdJobs funds
Anna Maiden, executive director of human resources, reported on staffing – the district had a net reduction of 89 teaching staff. No classified staff were RIF’d, which is why the first step for hiring is for teaching positions.

Chief Financial Officer Hector Encinas said that the state of Arizona has received the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) Educational Jobs funding, but the Sunnyside District has not yet received the projected allocation of $3.2 million. Because of the uncertainty about when EdJobs funds will be received, the district is at the present time asking for approval of middle and high school positions and classified staff, and will then come back to the Governing Board with requests for elementary positions.

Bernie Cohn, executive director of elementary, presented information on staffing of office assistants at the elementary schools.  When EdJobs funds come in, a request will be presented to the Board to add six teachers at six elementary schools to reduce class size to achieve a student-to-teacher ratio of 22:1 for K-1.

Roxana Rico, director of middle schools, said that the staffing ratio at middle schools is 30:1. She presented information showing that, to achieve equity among the middle schools, a third interventionist is needed at Challenger.

The Governing Board approved, contingent upon receipt of EdJobs money, that 16 teaching positions K-12 that were hired after July 1 from Maintenance & Operations (M&O) funds will be funded from EdJobs money instead. The Board approved hiring 4.5 office assistants, to be funded from the M&O budget until EdJobs money is received, in order to bring equity to all elementary schools. The Board also approved hiring one FTE (full-time equivalent) for Challenger (.5 math and .5 science) and one math interventionist at Sierra Middle School. The Board approved the assignment of two substitute teachers at the high school level to assist four science teachers for the rest of this semester. The district’s intent is to hire two science teachers in the second semester. 

1-to-1 Status Update and Technology Strategic Design
Javier Baca, director of information technologies, reported on the district’s three-year strategic plan. Phase 1 infrastructure improvements include wireless capacity enhancements for high school Digital Scholars, fifth-grade classrooms, credit recovery, Reading Plus, attendance recovery labs, STAR and Sierra. Server capacity enhancements are providing private cloud remote access for teachers and students. Additional  IT technicians are providing increased support capacity. Phase 2 will include sixth-grade classrooms and 21st century classrooms. 21st century classrooms for elementary and middle schools will include interactive and 3D-capable projectors and document cameras for 5th-grade Digital Explorers, 9th-grade Digital Scholars and the Sierra Middle School pilot. Phase 2 of 21st century classrooms will expand to high school classrooms.

The district has made a commitment to implement one-to-one computing in grades 5-12 over the next three years. In Year 0, teachers were assigned laptops in May 2010. In Phase 1 of Digital Explorers, 675 laptops were assigned to fifth-graders in August and September at six elementary schools. In addition, carts were delivered to the schools in September, and training sessions have been provided.
 
The district is increasing school and community Internet access. In the short range, access is being extended through partnerships such as the Tohono O’odham grant, Cox Communications, Simply Bits, and Apollo Community School. For the long-range, the district will leverage e-rate program changes to allow SUSD to be a community provider of Internet access.

Infrastructure improvements built the foundation for one-to-one computing. The district has budgeted for three years of one-to-one implementation. Instructional technology support can now be addressed with EdJobs funds.

Budget update budget balance carry-forward FY2010
Chief Financial Officer Hector Encinas reported that the 2009-10 budget balance carry-forward is $2,079,912.

Dr. Isquierdo said that the district will prepare for community town halls to talk about budget, plans, vision, needs and challenges.

Executive session
Following executive session, the Board approved the concept of marketing the Digital Advantage program by using the Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) form prepared for this purpose.