Student performance the highlight at Winslow school board meeting

“Our students are good kids, they’re dedicated kids,” he said, explaining that targeted interventions, better test preparation and new instructional tools are being put in place to help raise scores. Principal Hernandez discussed the work of the school’s guiding coalition and professional learning communities, or PLCs and said the focus this year includes improving attendance, expanding the use of data to drive instruction and building stronger parent engagement.

He also highlighted the use of ChalkTalk, an ACT preparation program and RIS, an AI lesson-planning tool designed to reduce teacher workload. Principal Hernandez said a new ACT interventionist, Lonnie Leonard, is working directly with students to teach test-taking strategies and he credited the ELA and math departments for maintaining consistency in scores even as the school works to recover lost ground in science. Board members praised the presentation and discussed adding more resources for ACT preparation and intervention.

The meeting also included a lengthy discussion over a fundraising T-shirt for the WHS Spirit Line, presented by sponsor Katrina Hernandez. The design features a student wearing a WHS shirt and shouting “Bulldogs.” She said she got the idea from Googling “popular team shirt design” and picked what she felt was an innocuous design. Katrina explained that the design was cartoony but she later learned it was a reference to a design by Kendrick Lamar a hip hop artist.

Board members debated whether the design’s origins were appropriate for school use, with some expressing concern over the artist’s lyrics and others noting that the design itself simply reflected enthusiasm for the team. “It just looks like a kid screaming ‘Bulldogs’,” Katrina Hernandez told the board, adding that several people had mistaken the design for a cartoon peanut character.

A few days later during a work session several board members agreed they would never guess the shirt design was inappropriate. After discussion about process and policy, the board voted 3–2 to allow the Spirit Line to sell the shirts as a fundraiser, while agreeing to hold a future work session to establish clearer policies for approving uniforms and merchandise.

The meeting closed with reports from Superintendent Dr. Amber Martinez, who announced the hiring of new staff, congratulated five employees who all recently graduated with master’s degrees in educational leadership and thanked the district’s fall sports coaches and students for their dedication throughout the season.

Also last Friday, the board held a special work session to discuss 10 internal items ranging from staff leave and hiring practices, to school scheduling and software updates.

The board began by revisiting the district’s sick leave payout policy. Todd Wilcox noted the current $50-per-day payout for unused leave and questioned whether that rate should be reconsidered. Jennifer Sanderlin explained that the previous policy allowed payment for up to 18 days per year at a full-day rate, while the current version only pays for 10 days once a year. Boardmembers Todd Wilcox and Janice Childers asked if a compromise could be found to increase the rate and the board agreed to have Business Manager Casey Hancock research what nearby districts are paying before bringing the item back.

Wilcox also led a discussion on the hiring of staff and coaches, saying the district needs more consistent policies to ensure fairness and clarity. He suggested that the governing board should not be directly involved in approving or denying individual hires, particularly for coaching positions and that clear processes should be established for advertising openings. Childers added that positions should not be publicly posted while someone is in the process of being terminated to avoid unnecessary confusion for employees.

The board also reviewed potential training opportunities offered by the Arizona School Boards Association, which provides professional development courses on topics such as parliamentary procedure, board-superintendent relations and effective meetings.

A separate training on Open Meeting Law with attorney Jim Ledbetter is scheduled for Nov. 20. Later in the session, the board discussed conducting a self-evaluation and revisiting its districtwide goals, which include improving school safety, communication, academics and STEM education, as well as maintaining facilities and supporting individualized student growth.

Other discussions included scheduling future work sessions, which they agreed should be done quarterly, reviewing parent survey results and considering Amber Martinez’s performance pay criteria. Martinez told the board she narrowly missed a 90% satisfaction benchmark needed for the full $2,500 bonus, finishing just over a percentage point short. Board members briefly debated whether that requirement should be waived but took no formal action.

A proposed four-day school week was also examined, with concerns raised about hourly employees potentially losing income or insurance eligibility and layoffs. Administrators noted that starting it would require the school day to start earlier and could increase tardiness and absenteeism at the junior high and high school levels.

The session concluded with two administrative topics: clarifying the process for approving student fundraiser merchandise and transitioning from the school board’s BoardDocs system to Diligent Community, a platform rebrand that should not affect public access to school board materials.

In other business, during the regular board meeting the board:

* Authorized emergency procurement for Double J Contracting to repair drainage and replace a concrete slab at Bonnie Brennan Elementary School due to recent flooding that put the school out of use, at a cost of $23,358.

* Approved was the annual disposal of outdated capital assets that are too broken to sell off.

* Adopted the district’s updated Indian Education policies and American Indian Parent Advisory Committee bylaws, which largely states that the school will provide tribes with knowledge of policies that may be adopted affecting indigenous students to receive feedback before enactment.

* Approved a renegotiated lease with NACOG (Northern Arizona Council of Governments) Head Start, increasing the program’s rent from $1,000 per year to $700 per month for the first year and $1,000 per month for the following two.

* Accepted a donation of 50 copies of the book Make Your Bed valued at approximately $542 from art teacher Christa Knox to be used in her foundations class.

* Approved the hiring of Brady Needens as Facilities Project Manager.

* Approved the resignations of Michael Duran as a science teacher and Devin Bard as a maintenance worker.

*Approved transferring Doreen Tafoya from high needs paraprofessional to substitute.

* Approved Zachary Atkinson as assistant coach of boys wrestling and Tatum Estrada as assistant coach of girls wrestling.

* Approved Jace Hardy, Trey Hardy and Kendal Ybarra as wrestling volunteers.

* Approved the following fundraisers: student council, holiday candy cane grams; student council/honor society/Spiritline, Butter Braid sales; book club, Halloween dance and concessions; Winslow High School Band Club, Marching Band Invitational; Cross-Country Club, timing for Holbrook meet; Criminal Justice Club, mock crime scene challenge, Milo simulator Halloween shoot games and Red Ribbon Week activities; Growling Productions, digital and print design sales; Student Council/Anime Club, haunted house and movie night; Indian Club, powwow admission and vendor fees.

* Approved out of state travel for the WHS Honor Society to go to Anaheim, Calif., for their senior trip.