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they'll probably get there around 11 10 11 all day then the rest St at the park yeah St at the park then we'll check in at 3 nice good deal and what are you guys planning on doing if you guys don't raise all the funds how's that going to work if we don't like get enough money for it well we still don't like I don't have like a second but it's like we still have like seven more like fundraisers like bigel car wash and then we're planning to do a activity on March 2nd which uh with that maybe we'll work so it's like with that and then the the six more like b car we make it I think what you should also do is maybe reach out to parents to see if anyone would be able to sponsor a student who might not be able to come up with those funds I'm sure there'd be community members willing to sponsor absolutely students so keep that in mind yeah because I did the math if we split that thous that you guys will put like that you guys are short right now it's about $55 a student for each person so yeah I did the math not too long ago the it's as of January 31st that was the what we was in our account we've had two big sales since then yeah and I only included one of them but we were only short around $400 like almost 500 wow nice so the way it looks you guys are going to be able to raise the yeah and then we we also have some left over yeah because the right now with the hotel like taking the hotel we have 810 plus the jary big like something yeah so we have like a thousand something nice you driven that bus before yeah last you know one is none and two is one Rodney so two [Laughter] more hang on Coach Bree is driving the bus right now as we speak she has so situation might have to switch Rodney you had something always any trip should have two CH and you get over St going what's the ratio 10 10 to 10 to one okay or anything older than six grade seventh grade so so it's a 1 to seven right now right ratio right now 8 to one okay yeah she said a normal ratio is 1 to 10 so since it's 16 so 1 to8 right now anything below sixth grade is is 5 to one and anything below sixth grade is 5 to one hope you have a good time thank you ladies very much you all right any more questions on there and now we're going to move on to the uh we have that bu service for yes sir okay moving on to the 25 2425 budget report yes Mr K members of the board um TR professionals will present a first review of the fiscal year 24 2025 budget there's no board action necessary at this time than this thanks guys good night thank you this is an informational report only um we have on the phone with us uh he is the CFO out of Gilbert Higley Unified School District and serves as our consultant with two professionals Mr Tyler Moore Mr Moore can you hear us yes can you hear me yes hold on Angelina just stepped out she'll be right back in to uh to uh get the PowerPoint set up hold on hold on sh she's she GNA get it started everybody has this on their computers yeah Okay Tyler she's at the cover page and I'll just let you communicate with her when you want to go forward and stop then uh it's all yours all right all right thank you uh Soo and good evening president members of the board um like like Dr sotero just mention I'm just gonna present a a quick early very early look at the you f25 budget projections so you go next slide this will be the agenda um I'll look at the FY 24 revised budget number two I know I was just in front of the Ward um in December for the first budget revision um but there is a state statute that that does have one more revision to this current year budget um and that revises that's going to be budget revision number two that revises the budget to the 100 day ADM so that would be the final budget revision for the current year we we'll look at what those budget changes are projected to be to both M and capital or also known as daa and then I'll look at a very early budget projections for fiscal year 25 so this would be next school year starting July uh 1st 2024 going through to June 30th 2025 and we'll cover some of the upcoming uh kind of Hot Topics in the legislative process right now go next slide please there estimated budget highlights um just kind of some of this recap um what I presented in December but um AO has stayed above the minimum wage um as I mentioned back in December that increased to 1435 an hour back in January um the the Ariz state budget um at the state level is experiencing a about a 700 $800 million deficit however most of that deficit is going to be handled at the state um there's little to no impact at the K12 uh budget level looking at fy2 um there's a lot of unknowns right now um there's about 180 uh bills on the floor at the legislative office right now um only time will tell how many of those actually get approved and then um with those few that get approved we'll see how they impact case funding the two things I do know um inflation so this is inflation to the the overall M budget um currently right now inflation's running about 3.3% at the state level uh the state is only obligated to provide a 2% uh inflation increase so um even though inflation may be realized a lot higher um they are only obligated to fund 2% and that has been the practice for the last decade so that's what we're uh we're going to take into consideration the 2% increase when we're looking at the fi25 budget projection um the estimated daa or Capital increase I have at 4.6% this is because of Governor Doug duy's um he put intact a three-year inflation increase to the capital budget um we are in year three of three going into year three of three excuse me and I know that increase amount is going to be 4.6% I'll show you how that impacts the budget later in the presentation and again I already mentioned this but the budget revision number two is required by ad and that will be done prior to May 15th I'll look at some of the projections on the next slide so go to the next slide please so this should be the fy4 projected revised M budget so this is looking at your M budget and its entire entirety to your total M budget this isn't looking at the detail expenditures Etc we're gonna we're going to get into that detail as we get into March uh but looking at your total budget if you look at the revised budget column number one um that is what I presented in December that is what the board approved and is currently in place um how we're trending towards that second budget revision um we're seeing a slight increase in in average daily membership so ADM um but um the the RCL is decreasing so the reason for that is because there's some Group B weights so those Group B weights are all your um students that have special education those uh elll funding um you typically get additional funding for those students um some of the students aren quite classified yet at the ad and so until those get um classified that that funding doesn't come in place yet so we're going to watch that as we progress to that may budget So currently right now we're trending for $92,000 reduction in the total M budget um if that again we're going to watch that a lot of that would be coming from the budget carry for it can make that that deficit up we going to go to the next slide so this should be the fy2 estimated proposed ml budget so now we're looking at the potential July 1st budget so as I mentioned earlier what I do know is there's a 2% increase to the base level amount so that's that first line we should see the per pup amount increase about $98 and that's the equivalent of 2% increase um right now we don't know a lot about where enrollment is going to go and so we're going to keep everything flat in terms of this uh kind of estimate um on the bottom uh session versus add-ons you'll see a decrease of 143,00 000 um that mostly it's all attributed to the one-time funding that was appropriated in the in the current year budget um based on the uh state approved budget from um from this current yearr 24 so that was one as a onetime funding increase that will not be as of right now that will not look to be continued in the K12 budget bill um you'll see a total budget proposed Bud next year being 4.6 million again a slight decrease mostly all all of it really is because of that um one time add-on that's coming off of the budget if we go to Capital we go to the next slide it should say FY 24 projected revised daa budget number two a lot less activity here um you'll see the revised budget that we that we the board approved in December revised budget number one in the First Column and we'll look at the revised budget number two the slight decrease is attributed to the again the group b weight fluctuation in the in the budget formula um again we're not we'll watch that um and see if that that changes as as we move into May um but any if that decrease does come to bition on the May budget report we'll look at reducing the budget balance carry forward but it won't affect your current year budget we'll just reduce that budget balance carry forward to balance the budget looking at the next Slide the FY 25 estimated proposed baa or capital budget um again I mentioned the 4.8 % increase in the capital budget um being year three of three f25 will be year three of three for that increase and you'll see that increase reflected in that First Column the adjusted daa or unrestricted capital budget that Inc that increases the equivalent to about $2,323 and so we're still uh tracking for to carry forward $824,000 into next year um but as you know it's February we still have five months of spending for this current year and so I'll update those numbers as we uh progress in the year um and track that carry forward and then lastly if you go to the last the next slide please is the FY 25 budget initiative um again this is a first review of the FY 25 budget uh I met with Dr and uh leadership team and and we've looked at kind of identifying four targeted areas to um as initiatives for for next year and so the first one being the salary schedule adjustment um I noticed and and it's been brought to my attention that both your classified and certified salary schedules have not been updated in several years and so um I know a lot of changes have been made in terms of job responsibilities um there's been some or changes and so we're going to look at that holistically and and look at what um uh make some recommendations possibly for next year compensation increase um obviously we got realized inflation affecting every employee and so um we're going to look at the budget and look at uh what the district can afford in terms of compensation increases for next year I don't have any any numbers right now but uh we're going through that process currently insurance provider evaluation um as I as I spoke to Dr sotero I mentioned to him the board and the district's biggest costs are in salaries and benefits those are your two biggest costs and so um we're evaluating your current insurance provider uh to see if you're getting the best price or the best thing above um that process is is ongoing but the current insurance provider proves that you know they are the cheapest you know most affordable option but that's also giving your employees um options that they need for for benefits um and the services that they need uh will probably stay the course but it is good uh practice to review um what you're paying in Insurance um and have that review you know annually or semiannually so that is part of the fy2 budget initiative and last one there um we've talked to uh I've talked to a couple teachers and looking at the cost in sight fund plan it looks like we can make some some changes to kind of get those dollars into the teachers hands sooner uh but again we're gonna look at what those changes look like bring back a recommendation um for next fiscal year and that is all I have um just a quick budget update for fi25 again I'll be uh back in front of the board um in March and we'll look uh to provide some details to some of these f25 budgeting inies um and look forward to next year so with that if there's any questions I'll be happy to answer don't think you got any questions um wait rney just more of a concern I had talked to I mentioned this to Dr Sal on Insurance um one priority there is to make sure that it's an insurance company that has providers here in town because um we don't want to be saving money by making everybody drive all the way to Buckeye to get it's breaking up a little bit can't what what Mr Hopkins concern was if there's any changes to the insurance provider that they have contracts with providers here in AA so there wouldn't be any increased travel for the employees oh absolutely yeah so that it's not just cost and I try to allude to that a little bit but like the ease of use right we we want we don't want them yeah again employees traveling out of like that's an incurred cost to employees even though maybe cheaper plan that's not that's not convenient or or um you know conducive to providing a benefits package that's in the best interest of your employees so that is certainly something we especially with r District okay thank you okay anybody else any questions comments concerns all right I think we're good on that did I did I see the news the other day where they're trying to take more money out of the state land trust and and give it to school districts for increasing teacher salaries did did I see that right yeah I can I can speak to that so uh there is a proposed bill it's um called proposition 123 um it's an extension of that so that actually expires this year and that currently is pulling money from the state trust land uh to fund uh basically additional dollars for teachers uh for AO that provides about $30,000 uh but they're looking to increase that uh next year and then extend that out another 10 years so um there's some concerns whether that's sustainable or not but I'm watching that bill right now nothing has been approved yet but yeah that's that's one that's been proposed um going into next year so and that funding would only be for teachers right it wouldn't be for auxiliary Personnel that what I saw also that's that's correct it would only be for certified staff so um you know yeah it'd be uh kind of like the class saund uh similar similar kind of uh rules and regulations where that can only be used for the certified teachers or um anybody that's providing instruction or assisted instruction and so yeah that would be that would that would not be funding available for classified or Administration thank you okay that's it we're good on that all right moving on thank you very much sir appreciate your time thank okay Mr ker members of the board um the next item Emma Emma Vasquez has been interviewed and reference checks completed for the position of a special education secretary Emma pre recently served as the special education secretary from 2017 to 2020 there is no board action necessary at this time this is a study session item only any questions comments concerns no okay moving on the next one Mr C members of the board the administration and the grant coordinators are requesting the following individuals to be approved for title and tutoring after school from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m.

org I thought that was really cool and Miss Gibson mle if may I may add one of the takeaways from that and why I felt that was so important is that she shared the story when she was in class growing up that she didn't really feel part of her community or didn't feel engaged because the people who were creating that she was learning about light bulbs or you know all these different things did not look like her so she felt like she did not had no sense of community so what she started doing is getting even local people where even if it was music or people within her District or her neighborhood that started up something that were people of so those kids could have some kind of sense of connection instead of historically seeing the same individuals being the you know the runners of everything or the makers of whatever it was or the first one invented so Arizona doesn't really have a reach and I thought that would be so cool that our students can identify with people kind of and it it kind of brought me to the story that we heard about lar C Kennedy you know we had a Hidden Gem within this District that nobody knew so if we work with these kind of organizations like history makers I know here in Arizona um Cho bario stories is one that focuses on the Latin X um leaders of Within These communities so kids can actually start seeing people within their own community that they know or their grandparents or their parents know so they can start identifying other than just throwing them you know Martin Luther King or Cesar Chavez which yes those are big Idols in our communities but in reality what kind of sense of ownership do we have when it's just this you know Idol that we haven't met or that hasn't really impacted them on a level of at them so that's why history makers I think was really awesome to do especially because it's really not done here in Arizona and seeing how our kids can start identifying with you know other people of color that have been leaders within their Community lastly I also enjoyed Temple Gran's presentation thought she was pretty funny um and I think she I don't know if she's intentional funny or not I can't tell um but either way I thought she provided some cool accommodations I wish I remembered them all but she had lots of suggestions for like simple accommodations that then make you feel dumb that you didn't think of them after the fact um and so I wish I don't know if she has them written down somewhere or like a book but yeah I took a lot of pictures of her slides so I can share those slides were going very fast there was it was just like a very fast presentation and was more into laughing and the entertainment but um the one thing that she did harp on a lot I shouldn't say harp focus on a lot was um getting our youth and kids especially who maybe aren't going to um be able to pass like structured math classes but have a gift in a certain area like getting our kids back in the trades and so I know that's something that's been taken away especially at high schools because of funding issues I'm just I don't know what's out there or what Partners we could get engaged with with to have our kids get exposed to those things um at a younger age or here in in K8 so there's something on my mind after that yeah I think I think there's definitely opportunities for that and one of the examples that I loved because it was so simple was for some dyslexic students if you just put the material on like a lightly colored paper like a light green or a Golden Rod or something like that for some reason being on that colored paper versus a white background helps them read it more easily so that that was a good example of what you were sharing that she just kind of gave these tips that it's like wow you know we would have never thought of that but that's so easy I'm recalling there's something about the lights yeah the Flicker and yep yeah fluorescent are not good maybe that explains why I have lamps in my office yeah shouldn't be a surprise to anyone at this [Laughter] meeting just one thing I wanted to add about are if you were finish on the history makers they did interview some students and I think you kind of touch on this but you know they're like yeah all we ever hear about really at school is Martin Luther King maybe Malcolm X maybe fredle you know it's like the same handful of people so it was a it was eye openening to these kids who are you know young adults right now so I think it was really cool awesome um I can go last so Mr Man and Dr dupin you guys have the floor to give your perspective normally hand it over to Dr dupin first but I'm going to jump in here because I I have a I had a really good presentation I attended that led to what I perceive as a very entertaining story that I'm going to share so the presentation was actually by kraton School District about our Equity journey and its Pathway to the student outcomes Focus governance work that we're doing and it was our board president Sophia CIO and Dr dupin our assistant superintendent for teaching and learning and they abs and I'm not just saying this cuz I like both of them they knocked it out of the park like the people in the room were so into this presentation honestly it's the most engaged I saw anyone in any presentation the entire conference and um and the thing that taught me that it was super impactful was you know I've never been to this conference before um this is the first year I've been to cube in a bunch of places and after this presentation every place I went people were waving at me they were coming up and talking to me and I'm like what is going on here like I've achieved real rock star status and I was feeling like you know my well yeah I thought is it the hair you know my ego is starting to get really big which is what I'm known for and um and then all of a sudden somebody pulled me aside and they said hey we'd really like to come in t your district and I'm like oh wow that would be really cool that presentation was amazing and then I'm like oh it's not me they just they just saw me hanging with the awesome people at the presentation and so you know they were all like excited about what um president curio and Dr dupin had shared with them and I just kind of you know had a little bit of overs from that so the but I'm in The In Crowd finally for the first time in like you know 50 something years so um so anyway I apologize for sharing that story that way but that really was kind of what happened I'm like how does everyone here know me and then I realized That's How Deeply engaged people were in it had like a profound effect on people we've already had people reach out that they would like to come and visit they're asking us to send them more more resources and materials and it was not one of the things I really appreciated about the presentation it wasn't about how awesome we are and how perfect we did everything yeah it was about our challenges in this journey and where we made some progress and where we had some missteps and you know the struggles and the pathway that eventually took us to recognize that the student outcomes Focus governance was our best tool set for um overcoming some of the the equity challenges that we have within the district and um it was it was just really a great presentation I know I've gone on too long about it but it was it was so super cool to be there as not as one of the presenters and get to be in the audience and watch and actually participate in some of the group work that was done and see just how engaged everybody was so so that that was super super cool cool um and you know a lot of the things you heard I the other thing I really want to share is going with a group of people um people who know me know that probably right after responsibility my my top defining Gallop strength is input so I love just getting new information and tool sets but I also know I have my own lenses and so getting to spend time with different team members throughout the stretch of the conference and kind of getting their wisdom and guidance in what they were seeking really like I would have had no idea that Temple grandon presentation that that was a big deal and then you know Amy shared some background with me and I was like oh you know that sounds really cool I got to make sure I'm sitting in on that right and then I sat there and just it's like that old ad they used to have for one of the speaker sets where the person's face is like all pressed back you know by the I was just blown away by it it was just amazing and so you know everybody that was traveling together really for me and I want to appreciate them because they helped make the experience that much more Rich for me because they helped me step into spaces that I might not have selected for myself and so being able to use all of your lenses helped give a much broader perspective to me throughout the the course of the conference so and a lot of super super actionable stuff and then the chance to meet with the um the AIDS for the Congressional and senatorial folks um Mark k 's office was probably the most welcoming of everybody and just got to give a shout out to them they they were truly awesome to work with um and it was it was really nice to get to understand a little better what happens on Capitol Hill and how we can connect and have a stronger voice and advocacy for our students and our community so um appreciate the board for that and sorry Dr dupin I probably should have let you go first I went on too long it was funny during the presentation listening to people be shocked about politics and what we're not allowed to do in the class yeah yeah they were like what yeah when we shared some of the politics in Arizona like some people literally fell out of their chairs well and but I just want to Second what you said about um the the presentation that you guys did I meant to say that in my initial thing it was really good and and everything you said is so true Jay they were so engaged and I think it was very brave I mean we're being brave to share our goals we're being brave to have the goals that we made and they were they were like wow and I think they were really impressed with our with our goals and guard rails I really got that sense um from them and I witnessed um Mr man's start I think it was a phenomenon yeah I think also because the presentation included like not shortcomings but areas for growth um people were giving like pretty great input on what they think could be improved or suggestions for things for us to try on so I thought that was Co yeah well I would just add um I think one of the big pivots that we made in preparing we had spent a lot of time in our trainings up to this point as a district talking about being um creating safe spaces and so I want to give credit to president Kio because she you know was kind of sharing some new learning that she's had and she's like well really it's not safe spaces that we're trying to create it's Brave spaces because being safe can can also mean being kind of passive and and sitting back you know I'm safe when I'm in my comfort zone that kind of thing and so the new language that we introduced was creating Brave spaces where people feel not only safe physically mentally emotionally but also empowered to Share story to bring comments concerns bring their own experiences and so we tried to weave that throughout the message and it felt like a really appropriate shift at that time because going in you know just speaking from my own experience going into that space with Educators from all over the country board members from all over the country um many of whom were people of color and talking with them about the work that we had done and putting our goals on display talking about our our lack of impact with black students in particular or eighth graders in particular and just being really um trans transparent about those areas of focus and the work we feel like we have yet to do uh was was incredible and a real privilege so it was it was it was a privilege to represent the district and all the people all the voices all the work that got us to where we are and it was fantastic to present with president kuo who can really I will say Dazzle and room um was was was amazing so thank you yeah um for mine I mean that was huge it was an honor to be able to present at a national conference and have you know Schoolboard members and other administrators in the room you know to kind of dive in and want to know more we've gotten so many emails and in know superintendent um man has some people coming in that are really interested in the work we're doing so cadus to everybody here too because it's really showing forth all the work that we're collectively doing and um just to add up a little bit on what Dr dupin said about Brave spaces um you know it's something that I learned through one of my mentor mentors and this sofg cohort as well but at the end of the day that's what you want to do right you want to create as a parent I think about do I want my kid to be safe or do I want them to be brave and to me um that safeness and that braveness when they're feeling safe they feel Brave and when you they feel Brave they feel empowered and that's when kids can really get activated when they feel like they are empowered to do whatever it is that they need to do to provide the outcomes that that we them to do so that was really great um one of my biggest takeaways too is always um just because I have a background in community organizing I've been Community organizing since 2010 um when s SP 1071 Arizona so my favorite part of going to nsba is having conversations with congressmen about what they really need to get their act together on to better serve the districts so I'm going to go over three little things that we did um we spoke to them about McKinny vento McKinny vento We've ran historically into the issues especially with families that get served 72-hour eviction notices McKinny vento doesn't really do anything to help those families until they're actually out on the streets so we went out and advocated what kind of lenience can you give us as a school district to be a little bit more preventative versus you know flighting around last minute what we're going to do with these families that are displaced so that was one advocacy um we talked about the lunch already um another one that we did was the Federal title funds that are going to private schools in our community um we did talk to them about the esa vouchers um situation that we're facing here and how that's impacting public schools and to me it doesn't make sense if people if these private schools have an option of obtaining that type of money that's usually tends to be higher than the per DM that we get anyways um the ADM why are We additionally on top of that not only giving these private schools funny but we it's up to the district to follow where that money goes and oversee all that because the students are going into a private school so that was something that we advocated for too it's like hey with this Esa um funding going on we should have a little bit more leeway of not giving that money keeping the money here and obviously not buring our staff with kids that are going into the private institutions so those were a few um things that we talked about and like I said this is always one of my favorite things because they really get to hear from us um we sat with gigo's office um Mar Kelly's office and B bigs um and bigs was a really neat one experience just because they had no idea what mcken evento was so it was great as a colleague to bring some you know knowledge to that so they can actually move along with mckin vental and try to do something so that was good I know I know um okay well that concludes our advocacy and Reps in case any anybody else have anything else to add all right I would just say any I didn't get to go so if you guys do have slides or notes or anything if you can get those that would be amazing I just forwarded mine to Hilda and Jay thank you perfect and we'll try to make this a regular practice for future comp as well yeah and I like this better so we can discuss and go back and forth all right that brings us to 4A which is our student outcomes Focus governance update um the only update that I have from our end is that we're going to set forth our goals and our guard rails and we're going to talk about them are our next community council meeting that's going to be on February 20 let me pull second I don't want to give wrong info it is yes so it's going to be February 22nd at 6: PM LMA Linda school thank you for hosting us um so make sure that you guys come to the community council meeting we're going to be presenting the goals the guard rails getting feedback from the community I would love if all their I see a lot of principles here if we can start getting that information sent out to our community and families on take-home Tuesdays I know that's a thing in the district um just so we can get as much feedback as we can because once we adopt this we don't want to do anything without Community input first and the only update that I'm wondering is if we figured out dates after Community Council because what we plan on doing is hitting each school on its own as well for people who cannot come to community Council to give families from that specified school one more last opportunity to come and give us feedback on these guard rails and goals so I'm not sure where that's standing I'll defer to Mr Man yeah Mr Carvajal will come up and give us an update oh he's put on the spot thank good evening members of the board and president executive team uh we are working with principes and the CEOs to put together just a specific uh topic rather than a secondary or tertiary topic since this is so important uh for the community to provide uh specific feedback on the guard rails and the goals from the board and so we're putting together all of those dates I've been in communication with Hilda harez about availability and if it's not the board who else could could present uh since not everybody has been trained in in them and want want to make sure that we have uh clear materials and outs that help uh Gras the concept concepts of the guard rails goals for the members of the communi so their input is more aligned to what you you're seeking of so we're working diligently and as soon as we have all of the dates we'll give to Dr um Mr Man and Hilda so you guys have them in your calendar and just for Trans thank you so much for the update I appreciate it and since we have some of the principles here is just for transpar reasons the reason why we're asking for specific dates is that we had one set up um at CR Academy and it was in combine in conjunction with a high school fair but we weren't mentioned and to me that seemed then that was on our fault that had nothing to do with the school we kind of rammed it in there and shame on me because I was like let's get this out as I got excited you know I was like wo let's do this and I'm like wait a minute nobody even knows why they're coming they're thinking they're coming to one thing so I know it puts a little bit harder work but for us it's really very important to be able to get information and feedback from the community on these guard rails so we're just asking from one date to whatever date is we'll make it work up here that we can have that time and space open to the community so they can come ask questions and we can have this fluid conversation back and forth and get their feedback um but that's what we're asking for so sorry in advance but I am our community deserves to be part of this decision-making process as well and as far as those handouts that uh Mr Carvajal asked about we do have the English draft version now and they are working on getting us the Spanish draft version so by the hopefully by the shouldn't say hopefully by the time we have that Community Council we will have English and Spanish of the um I don't know what to call them like the infographic sheets that have a little bit more detail um and uh information on them and uh there was oh and Miss MC cheffrey is going to be joining us this Friday I think for um our student uh oh man words are failing me today kids Congress and I haven't had a chance to talk to Dr dupin about it yet but I'm hoping we can um take some time there to go through the outcomes focused governance with that group because they probably won't meet again before you know we're kind of in a position to start looking at adopting so we'll actually be able to get that that student perspective there as well so I think I think we've got a good lineup of multiple opportunities to engage with students Community parents Etc and we should have some better tool sets for you so you're not just going in with hi my name is and this is what student outcomes Focus governance is you'll you'll actually have some some resources awesome and I was wondering too because I'll be um out of town for when most of this happens which is fine I just I'll be curious to hear the feedback but can we put it out on social media as well like is there a downside to doing that I think as board members we don't want to engage in conversation on social media like but you know we can get feedback and read it that way yeah we what we can do is we can create like a you know like a fairly open-ended survey tool and something similar to what we did with Community Council last time and then we could go ahead and push a link out to social media with once we have the the infographic infographic in both languages we can push the infographic out there as sort of the um you know impetus and then give people the link to be able to then provide that that input that way if they're unable to make it to any of those other VES that'd be great yeah then I kind of have a followup um we definitely want the community input I love that it'll be talked about at kids Congress do we have a plan for getting more teacher voices like our staff at our schools we could certainly um try to find some time out of the principles out in the audience that can feel their hands principal to principal I'm sorry so because they you know they always struggle to have enough time time for what for what they have on their docket already but we'll we'll find a way to make some time and and just to add to that I'm I apologize but just to add that um I meet with somebody from CA on a regular basis and I'm giving the information to my CA member and hopefully through the union they can pass out information to teachers I know that not every teacher is involved in the union but Word of Mouth always goes around no it does I was just thinking in terms of you know even if it's just like the we could prepare something that the principles felt confident at least giving the background at you know a Wednesday staff meeting um because not not all teachers not all educators are going to hear from CA not all of them are going to watch the board meetings not all of them are going to come to community council so we just want to make sure when we're talking about making sure everyone's on the same page the adults that are working in our schools we we want to make sure that they're informed too so Y and and we can minimize the time impact by providing copy of the infographic and then perhaps a link to to a similar survey tool that's what I was thinking not like a 2our like PD by any means not a 45 minute drag through yeah well you have yeah and we cam push it out via the CR connection that would be a great place to put it we're actually filling up Emily's to-do list tonight so it's good keep hearing like a weird audio I know is there like somebody that is like unmuted I believe we have um someone who's part of an upcoming item that's online for us and may be slipping there okay fair enough cool we just want to make sure we weren't going crazy um so Mich I just have a really quick question so um when those dates are set for those sites um can we get that information um and hopefully some of them are in the evening um I'm just going to say right now I can't come on the 22nd my kids are going to be singing at gamage um cute yeah so um usually I'm really good at those things but I won't be in that one but I'll try to come to other ones if if I know I had of time yeah and definitely like if any of the at school events if there's any like first thing in the morning or end of the day it's more likely I can come I'll try to be as many as I can perfect um any other comments questions on sofg and once we get this settled in and we start talking about we'll talk about next steps too because we have some other coaching that we have to do with Dr Ramos um and on that note um I started the sofg cohort as well for implementations I will be in Kentucky this Thursday um getting it inperson professional development on this and it's a 9month course so it is very rigorous and I have to do homework assignments I'm just like what did I sign myself up for but here we are um so I'm really excited for that and give bring back what I'm going to be learning out there for the sofg framework okay oh yes I did deliver those to miss huarez okay so yes we have copies of the book and we got one for each board member and cabinet as well um whoever wants to start reading it great on their behalf if anybody else wants to know what book we're talking about which talks about all this sofg framework okay that brings us to our next item which is 5A public comments I don't see any regular public comment cards so I'll save the rest for when the items come up and that brings us to six which is approval of consent I move the governing board approve cons can we just pull a what's the the first one a yeah okay move the governing board approve consent agenda items B through G in accordance with policy bb- e all those in favor I I I and Miss Gibson McLean you have the floor for item 6A I just thought it would be remiss to like let us just continue and vote on that without giv a thank you and a shout out to Pam Burkhart for 47 years of service in this District that is a long time um and a lot of work and energy and service that she's given to our Our Youth and our community so thank you so much Pam I want to second that because she is amazing and like there's just not even anything to describe the quantity and complexity of everything she has done in this district and she is listening by Oh yay thank you Pam thank you Pam thank you Pam thank [Applause] you cover but all right and with that I move the governing board approve consent agenda item a in accordance with policy bb- e second all those in favor I I I all right that brings us to 7A insights and actions from the eometric survey right thank you madam president members of the governing board and executive team as you know the Craton School District uses several different types of metrics to capture data on on satisfaction and progress particularly around Health wellness and our Equity work this year we added a tool set called ecometrics to that mix for the very first time and so this evening we have a couple of experts who are going to join us virtually to explain uh the way that eometric works and to share some of the highlights of the data and then we are working on figuring out how best to take action um considering the information that we've received so far so with that I'm going to introduce uh dell Johnson and Joe bird hopefully you can hear us and see us and we're ready to roll good evening gentlemen good evening very happy to hear be with you tonight Katon ISD can you hear us yes yes we can hear you I'm sorry good evening thank you we can hear you perfectly yeah thank you so being here excellent well thank you again for for having us uh Mr Man and team have gone through this information so we're just going to share with you a a high level overview so you can see what um the eometric process looked like uh what we you know what data came out of that from the response throughout the district um and uh if if and again I'm not sure how much time we have so if there's time for questions um we can do that or we can certainly address those at another time as well so awesome thank you so we will jump in here so again we just want to walk through with you the some of the survey details I we'll talk about what the overall score means um what the actual overall score was um and then of course we'll get into the specific areas of focus um there's going to be some you know items that were higher and lower on the on the scale um as well as comments the things that came out the most or or mentioned the most in terms of comments um and some observations and recommendations based on on that um so again just to um just you know real quickly U this fall uh the survey was launched to all district all District employees all staff so it would have been about 720 people that um were sent an email um and they were able to respond in these particular areas and so we don't put this up here so that you know you can absorb all of this right now I just wanted to kind of share with you the overview of what we covered so the first four areas are going to be more about experience so diversity Equity inclusion cultural competency um how are people experiencing things here in Katon ISD um and then when you look at uh Mission Vision and values uh communication leadership alignment and policy and practice we're looking more at the structure right what's the structure that's in place what do we have um in our plan how is it being communicated how our leaders um taking ownership and and sharing the plan um and just what's you know what's in place now so um we we do have scores um cumulative score with all of that and we also have scores in each of those areas you can take a closer look at um you know which areas are relative strengths which areas are relative you know areas of opportunity um you know and of course what the priorities would be in terms of um you know what you'd want to focus on going forward so that's what we measured um here's how we measured it so uh employees that received the survey um each statement they read um they would rated a one if they strongly disagreed with that statement no we're not doing that we're not seeing that at all um 10 if they strongly agreed with that statement um and of course there's you know responses everywhere in between um but what we're really doing on our on our scoring system is zeroing it on the nines and 10 so the the score is a percentage of the nine and 10 responses um across the whole across the whole district and I'll call attention here to the the the rigidity of the scale um the nine and 10 is uh it's it's a high bar right it's definitely a challenge to get everyone on board to be able to say yep we're definitely you know strongly agreeing with this statement um you know but when you think about it in terms of uh you know promotion sharing uh of a plan getting all people on board with with a solitary plan um you know you really need people to be um strongly understanding uh strongly agreeing uh and really being able to carry that forward so um if you think about the net promoter score if you're familiar with that it's often used in like marketing or you know other you know kind of community um branding um exercises um your nines and tens are going to be your promoters right they're the people that um are on board they know it they love it they're going to share and get others to do the same um your sevens and eights um are actually uh neutral or or passive um and so while it's not a bad score to see a seven or eight on a on a scale of 1 to 10 10 um you know those are folks that are actually going to be um a little bit more uh you know not not quite on the fence but um you know having a an okay experience and then so that's we you know we use the example of a restaurant review right if you just have an okay experience you're you're not very likely to go out and um you know tell all your friends to you know hey you really need to go have this okay experience too I really want you to have that like I did um and then of course you're you're obviously as you go further down the scale you're getting a little bit more negative um but your six is down to ones um those will be considered your detractors so those folks um you know in the in The Branding marketing kind of Evangelical sense those folks would would be the negative reviews right they would be bringing out um not just you know I didn't have a great time but here's why um this is a place that I you know I wouldn't recommend um so again your nines and tens are really what we're focusing on um there's a a little bit of color coding that you'll see throughout the uh throughout these slides um what we're showing here is just the three kind of segments um below 35 um is going to be our red so anytime you see that color it just means that the percentage of responses is below 35 and that nine and 10 are strongly agree um somewhere between 35 and 65 it's going to be this yellow group and then green would be above 65 so that's kind of the the goal for for any of the areas of focus so our first piece of data is actually our response rate so we did have um again 720 emails went out um 474 um people um responded and completed the entire survey um for a percentage of 65.8% so about two-thirds of um of voices were you know heard people volunteered to share their information and um give suggestions and kind of you know let people know let leadership know kind of where we're at right now so that's definitely a good thing just to to give you a sense our right now our um our overall kind of average response is between 65 and 70% um so we really shoot for that 70 or above um we of course have organizations that don't get nearly this much but um you know this is definitely a good number to be able to take the closer we get to 100 obviously the more we can take that as you know a census um but in this case you know we're not trying to take a really small group and and you know project outward um this is actually a really good sample size to to be able to see what people are are saying and what they're experiencing so without further Ado here's our overall score 37.6 and so again what that's what that's showing us is that throughout the whole survey um all respondents all Focus areas all items um 37.6% of those responses are in that nine and 10 or strongly agree and if you go over to the middle here you can see the you know the large bar here um we're just over that line so we're up into that yellow category so between 35 and 65 um obviously you know good to not be down in the red um fairly uh you know fairly difficult especially early on to be anywhere near that green bar green box um above 65 so while we you know put that up there it's it's it's more it's definitely more aspirational um but we do see organizations continue to move up as they uh focus on these specific areas so um and as we continue over to the right hand side of the slide you can see our overall K12 score right now um is 29.1 so from a uh comparison um obviously um you know Kon you're you know you're doing better than better than the average and as we get another layer into um the resp responses we can now see um at the top here we've got our distribution so thinking about our you know our scale showing the nines of T the sevens and eights and the uh one to six responses um you know as you can see it's about you know a third a third a third um couple things about that obviously 37.6% in that N9 and 10 um another 31.5% though are in that seven and eight right so they're on the right side of the scale right they're on the side of the scale that you want them to be on the question would be how would we get you know this third how would we get them to start to scoot more toward this strongly agree what would things have to look like and then of course we want to get this number as as small as possible as we as we go and then over on our leftand side you can see our our Focus areas so each of these areas has anywhere from two to four specific items that are the statements that we talked about where people are responding to that statement um and then this just shows you the percentage of strongly agrees in that particular area so inclusion being our highest um down to communication being our lowest and on the right is is just more of a visual um you know zero being in the center so if they were all zero we do just have a DOT um if they were all 100 we'd have a nice big round wheel um what's really interesting as we go um year-over-year with organizations both you know you know obviously K12 organizations but also higher education uh Corporate America um law enforcement um we actually see that this pattern is is fairly um indicative of your culture so as as we move these things out yearby year um the shape actually does tend to stay fairly similar so while we can really focus on communication say we want to really work on that and get that way up as that goes up um so do all the other areas and focus so um we we may always see that communication uh gravitates toward that bottom but but of course we can keep you know keep improving that communication and moving that up um absolutely and then looking at it a little bit actually the next next couple slides are are are more um not that we've you know delivered bad news but this is you know really good news as you look at the next couple slides because number one um again is we expand out that scale the nines and tens you know it's again it's it's a tough bar it's a high bar um but if you include the sevens and eights together with the nines and tens um as you can see you've got quite a bit higher number here so you know almost three quarters of the district um is strongly agreeing on the leadership items you know not too far behind inclusion diversity um policy and practice Mission Vision and value so again um in that kind of middle group as far as nines and tens but if you add the sevens and eights to that now we're up into that green green area and everything except communication so that's that's kind of that good news where again this this group of folks is um is there how do we help them kind of ease into that nine and 10 strongly agree and the next bit of I guess good news for you um not so not so great news for for other districts that we work with but um this is just the the side-by-side comparison when you think about um not just the overall score but um each particular Focus area um you can see that there's definitely uh you're definitely definitely winning that competition here in all areas except the communication it looks like communication on the um on the average has been just slightly higher um but again that's moved up over the over time as well so it's good to see how that compares and if we get one more layer into the data you can see the particular items that we that we had employees respond to so um diversity um we had you know these are the top four so again what we're looking at is the um High the percentage of um nine and 10 responses these are the four that were the highest across the whole survey so we had you know again one of our diversity items one of our leadership items one of our inclusion items and one of our policy and practice items and so this is a place this is actually a kind of an exerpt from um the snapshot report which is going to show each and every item in this way so you can kind of look and see again this is what this is what people responded to um we you know hopefully these are actionable as far as when you you know read that you say yeah I I would hope that everyone saw that and ly agreed with it um if the number is not as high as we want it to be um what are some steps we can take to make sure that we're you know that we're moving that direction were participants required to answer all of the questions or could they skip some um they we only had completed uh completed surveys so yeah they the the data we're looking at now is is all responses everyone responded to the whole survey okay thank you wow so these are our top four and if we flip that scale over and look at the um we'll call it the bottom four but it's actually the highest percentage of one to six responses um so as you can see two of our communication items one of our cultural competency items and one of our diversity items which is interesting to see we had one of our diversity items in the top actually the top and then we had one of our diversity items um toward the bottom that's definitely something to something to think about and in each of the focus areas there was a place for comments so employees would um you know make their selection one to 10 and then they had a chance to offer some commentary on um that particular Focus area and so the these are um the the topics that came out the most we saw the most kind of cluster around each of these topics where the most comments were were shared in that particular area so um you know again we were able to to pull those out we do have uh we have sentiment scores uh we have summaries of each of the focus areas we have summaries around each of these topics there's a lot of information again that's why um tonight um you know we really just wanted to make sure you've got a high level understanding of of what the overall data looks like um hopefully this even would be enough to take a look at what some of the priorities might be um and again we you know we had a good good conversation with with Mr Man and leadership team to be able to um go a little bit deeper on this and take a look at um we have also data by demographic so um you know location um you know job type division um some folks were able to select um with prefer not to answer of course but they were able to select some more personal identifi S as well so race ethnicity gender um sexual orientation um disability things like that so um some of it might you know some of it as we as we talk through some of it might be relevant to um you know specific action in those areas others you know it's just showing that there's not a not a real difference in how people are responding based on these particular identifiers um so again more more from the team on that but um again these are some of the areas that that came out the most um again not to try to make everybody absorb all these right now I just wanted to make sure that some of those key terms were were highlighted because we did get a lot of really good uh really good feedback really good Insight people really did want to share um their experiences you had examples of what's working well you had examples of of things that are uh are challenges uh and so that's one of the recommendations that we would U really kind of put forth is um you know make sure that you're you know using some of these terms you know using this language as you are um sharing results outward and letting people know um you know first of all thanks for providing your feedback um you know people took took time to to share their not only the responses but you know to um you know put the comments in and really make sure that their voices are heard so um definitely good to see and again that's speaks well to the response rate as well that you're obviously doing some good things to you know have people that are invested and and and care to participate and and really want to make things as as good as they possibly can make them here at at Katon so um definitely good to see that um and then just you know again some of the observations you know obviously Mission Vision and values being one of the higher areas um what that's showing us is that um there is a connection right people are seeing the connection between the policy that we put forth um and the actions that are happening on a day-to-day basis um as far as you know again just directly policy and practice they're seeing that it's there right they're seeing that it's going to move things in the direction that um you know that we're trying to move it in um and then as far as alignment goes again we see some organizations that have great plans um and then you know it's really hard to get that into action right you youve got this is what's written down but um you know whether it's we're too busy we you know resources whatever it is you know we don't seem be um taking the actions that we've put on paper um so definitely good to see that that's one of the higher ones people are saying yes we have that connection between those things um as far as communication goes um we are again even even seeing that in in the bottom um there are some things that that are indicative of of communication being a strength for you because when you look at the comments when you look at some of the relationships between the scales um you can actually see that um the plan is getting out there um a lot of times what happens though is the second half of the um how you know we know what we're supposed to be doing but how are we doing on this today right are We Are we almost there are we doing well are we you know is it terrible do we really need to change what we're doing um so continuing to um kind of keep that cycle going of of we're going to share out what we're what our goals are what we're trying to do but we're also going to make sure we keep letting people know know where they are succeeding where those successes are happening and um what people can continue to do to make sure that that keeps keeps going and as far as leadership goes obviously um it it begins and ends with leaders um the more you can um you know have that ownership uh the more people can see that leaders care and and really want to keep things going the right direction um and then over time devel veloping more um informal leaders right people taking ownership and taking leadership in in these areas um whether they have a title of supervisor or you know administrator or not um there's a lot of folks that have been here for many years and and have done a lot of good things and um they've got so much knowledge to share um so if you can help those folks Buy in and and really make sure that you know they're um sharing with others um that's going to be really helpful as well [Music] um so as we mentioned as far as U you know recommendations go um the leadership team has this information uh you know I'm assuming already had some really good conversations around that um we'd love to continue to to be part of that dialogue just to make sure that we understand the steps you're taking um you know if there's other clarifications we can we can help with um we want to make sure that that's part of the process and then also um correlation so we have seen organizations uh we we actually have two survey tools orgam metrics is our other tool and that focuses on organizational alignment um to Mission Vision and strategic plan and then of course ecometrics that that we're looking at here now um we've seen correlation between particular Focus areas and other things that are happening throughout the district so for example um we have districts that that connect um you know they have different um pillars in their plans and among those pillars are going to be specific you know uh whether it's a survey that's in the community uh know a teacher evaluation number uh even student data um we would just would love to know and understand from a you know month-to month year to year um where some of those connections are uh and so you know when our inclusion number is X um um you know what does our um you know discipline number look like or what does our turnover number look retention number look like um and so um again just over time that's definitely something that we'd want to recommend you continue to think about um and if there's ways that we can help with that process um on the data side or even just organization of like what we think might be uh connected um that's you know we love to do that and and you know obviously the more more we can establish those connections uh the more not only can you be focused on doing the things that are going to make an impact um but as you're getting more people on board to be able to show them um this is what this is the impact your action is having um that again goes a long way to getting more and more people to to Really Buy in and and make sure that they're taking their part and running with it so that would conclude what we have to share this evening um Mr Man I wasn't sure if you wanted to say anything uh around this or if there's questions or yeah I first off I'd like to share um how much we appreciate the opportunity to work with with Dell and and Joe and the team and we feel like we're not just getting survey data back we're getting actionable information that will put us in a position to work to improve um you know how our how our employee experience is with relation to equity um f fascinated and interest interested as well in the orgam metrics especially as we move into this sofg work so we'll probably have some conversations around that um and see where where there may or may not be a fit um moving forward um and then I know there's some other tool sets that we'll be having conversations about through some of the Partnerships that Infinity systems has where they can even get us some additional actional inform actionable information back I also want to um he's a very good friend so I'm not going to share which district but we have a uh I'll call it a sibling District right next door who also participated in the same process and um it was very interesting being able to compare and contrast our data you know with with that other District we saw a lot of similarity you know and a few differences here and there so I'm one of my hopes is we may be able to leverage some of our Partnerships with other districts to maybe even work together and go in together on some of this work um because we have those strong relationships and um and then the last piece I will add because it ties into our conversation earlier about the um the equity conference is that unbeknown to me apparently Dell's nephew was in the audience at the presentation and so when we gave a shout out to Infinity systems he pulled me aside and said hey I was there and I just want you to know we were watching you and you you did the right thing and gave that shout out so so we were you know you never know who's watching wherever you are um and so that was actually kind of nice that that they saw that we were making that correlation about the benefits as well you know as part of our presentation so um with that if the board has any questions you know we're we're happy to engage in more dialogue with this as we move forward um one of our our two challenges in moving forward is figuring out next steps and really taking some opportunity to digest the data even more to figure out where where is our lowest hanging fruit and what things can we act on um quickly and efficiently while we're juggling you know all of the other balls at the same time you heard Joe talk about how some districts either because of lack of resources or lack of time they do the survey but they don't necessarily close the gaps on anything and we really don't want to put the effort into surveying and not close the gaps I had an opportunity at a at a prior District years ago to work with some folks from the wp car school at ASU and we were working on customer service and one of the things I learned from working with them is the only thing worse than not asking people what their experience is is asking them and then not doing anything about it so that's right I miss some people who could be listening right now should be people who should be listening am I one of my there you go so thank you for that board members do we have any comments or questions defer my questions and comments till the end yeah I may have missed this part but when was this survey conducted October okay would have been October 2023 okay um I mean I think this feedback is really important and I agree with everything you've said we've got to share it back and I think you know we could even again in in the internal newsletter you know I know we've been doing this but um and poor Emily I don't know if she's in here anymore but you know I've worked in the communic corporate Communications world my whole life so um the there's always room to improve and you're always going to hear complaints about not getting enough communication so that's um that's just a fact but I think with us that goes hand inhand with transparency too which is something we're all working on improving so I think since that one is like our lowest one I would think we could do a when we when we share this back out you know how can we improve communication with you what does that mean to you you know does that mean try work continue to work on being more transparent or what does that mean to you just an open-ended question you might get some some more feedback but I think definitely we need to Circle back um Can can I jump in on that real quick before you move on so one of the things I noticed as we drilled down into the question sets and I wish Emily was still here because you know it's you immediately see communication your title has communication and you and so you own it right and and and she's a very empathic person and so you know it's got to be hard to see when when I looked at the drill down on the questions that Joe shared with us what I found very interesting is they weren't low scores in relation to things like are we doing big you know is the social media pushing it out there is is the you know do we have a strong newsletter presence are we getting sort of this broad information out it would it look like to me and and correct me if I'm wrong Joe andelle it was a lot of loop closing about within small work groups like the smaller groups within our organization what that what those Equity issues look like in those groups and one of the nice things about the way the survey is structured even though some of it was voluntary um because we gave the opportunity for people to identify their work groups we should be able to drill in like are there is this across all work groups and we've got some big work to do across the board or are we being you know disproportionately affected by a handful of pockets where where this isn't happening and in any organization there's always you know those sectors that are that are more challenging than others we've got those groups of employees that don't regularly get into email we've got those groups of employees that have very limited work schedule so you know and I'm not saying that's where it is we need to do more deep Dives to determine that but I think you know kind of to the point of and I appreciate your sensitivity for Emily having worked in the field I don't think you know none of this is saying we have an Emily problem but what it is saying is that we have some areas in our district that need her amazing touch to help them be able to communicate more effectively within within those groups and where we've where we've seen her be very effective is in help not only getting the big message out but in helping other groups within the district do a better job of internal communication and we just need to figure out where we need her to drill down and help some of those other groups accomplish that in relation to the equity work so I don't that doesn't need to be right so D and Joe if I'm wrong please please correct me and set me on the straight and narrow here no that's absolutely right I was going to mention um you know we we've had the conversation you know hundreds of times where you know the the communications person says whoa this is uh oh um but but no it like you said when you drill down into the individual items we're really asking specifically about diversity Equity inclusion and the plans the you know the process the you know how leaders are doing with that um so it's really specific to this subject matter it's not how is our general communication um and so a that your spot on it's it's it's you know it's really specifically focused on um this subject matter but then also um and you you mentioned this the the demographic information is a good way to really break that out to say okay do we have you know a similar score across the board do we have certain Pockets that are you know scoring higher in communication we have certain Pockets that are scoring lower in communication um and then the you know the obviously you know what work do we need to do in each of those areas but then I would also add um putting some of those specifics in there um not only on you know where we are right now with these things but um you know what what people can do to continue to drive that forward um as people see um you know sometimes communication is not just you know we need to tell you what the plan is um oftentimes it's this specific action that this person did really helped us with this part of the plan or this you know this Behavior this action this this way of you know way of uh you know moving through the district is something something we need to see more of and so kudos to to this person for doing this but um it doesn't just mean they're a great person it means that they're doing this particular thing that helps our this part of our plan so really connecting connecting those actions um with examples um just to refine the communication right it's not just we need more communication it's we need to make sure that we're continuing to refine and and share the the specifics are going to help us move forward and then and then kind of as you spoke about trying to identify some lwh hanging fruit I think right there could be an opportunity to weave that right in and get started and then also Mr Man was talking about the importance of uh neighboring districts or benchmarking and things like that the Arizona ecosystem continues to expand districts like the Isaac's District have taken part now and I've got a few others that are going to be joining real soon here as well so we'll be able to compare you to others and obviously we can redact the names but you'll still get the the number comparison to see where things are excellent thank you no and I just one last thing on the communication I appreciate um you bringing it up and I appreciate the clarification because that is really common to say oh we're struggling with communication and then people just inundate with more and not the right kind and that can actually have a negative effect so yeah I mean that all sounds right to me yeah and I think just one other comment the most common topics page this data review I mean these are all things I've been hearing for the past decade and unconscious bias jumps out at me because I remember Carla Rivera Cruz brought that up and you know maybe it wasn't presented in the ideal way but man woo it got shut down um people were so offended by that term um and I'm just glad that we're bringing it back up again because it exists in every human being and it's not something to be embarrassed about it's something we need to talk about I think this is great that's like a 15 years ago we should have been there yeah thank you Miss MC cheffrey any other comments or questions Miss SS yeah so it was this has this data been shared back with like employees it it is not yet we brought it here so executive team reviewed it first um we did give a little bit we were a little bit out of sequence because we were part of a presentation at the asba winter conference with some of the preliminary data so that went out publicly ahead which would not normally be our practice but it was shared with executive team um recently we got more of the data a couple of weeks ago and then we wanted to bring it to the board before we pushed it out to all of the staff and so um you know it's one one of the things we're trying to create as a common practice is making sure that not only are we providing this information to the board but where possible you know we really want to do it in a public forum you'll see that later this evening you know when when we share some information about the Esser plan and you know some of the budget issues that that our team will share with you um in past years you know I think a lot of that's been handled and ex excutive session and there's really no reason for it to be behind closed doors if it's information it's information and there's really no reason it it can't be public so um so we're you know uh I don't know if it was Miss MC cheffrey or someone else mentioned earlier that transparency challenge you know the goal is really to kind of take all the curtains off that will create growing pains because people you know are not used to it and so there'll be all sorts of accusations about well why you know why why are we talking about this with the board why is this in public but the reality is until we get better about building our common practice as being able to talk about things in public openly and making it available to everyone um we're we're not going to get away from those challenges that create that are created by those blinders of things happening sort of in the back room you know away from away from that public view yeah um and think that's a great point I I bring it up because as a teacher in Isaac I did take this um eometric so um I'm familiar with the kind of questions that were asked also like one of those people that want to see the data back and um I know that we probably won't right at the moment but I think it's important as a as a staff member and a teacher that has taken this that we do get the results back y um and I think it's a topic of conversation because I just I know that after we took it um there was conversation that was had like amongst the teachers um already and so I just think it's important for that transparency like we've been talking about and just some people just want to know data like especially when we talk about so like communication sometimes is so subjective because some people seek that communication and they want to understand what's going on and some people could kind of care less they are those people that don't check their email or they are those people that just like go with a flow every day I'm one of those people that want to know all of the data yeah um and so I really like that that you brought this to us um but I do I would like to see it brought back to the staff as well absolutely and and that's been our attent Our intention all along I think the point I was trying to make earlier is that when we share it back like it's not an uncommon practice for us to go we took a survey we got the data here you go board here you go public here you go staff we're going to throw it in the connection and then that's the that that feels sometimes to leadership like we've closed the loop we took the survey and we've told everybody about it but that's not the end of the story right the end of the story is what actions will we be taking in order to make improvements based on the feedback we've received so we we will put the data out there in it's raw format which may create some consternation but we will then follow up on that with what did this data tell us and what will we be doing to try to create Improvement and then the gold seal standard from my perspective is for us to then come back again and share we committed to doing these things because of this data we received here's what was done right so just kind of that to me that's the final closure of the loop but it's not a loop it's one Loop in a chain and then the chain continues when we do follow-up survey work to see what are our results now and and I would warn the board and our community and our and our staff to not be shocked if we see an implementation dip going from first survey to Second survey because the other thing that the survey work does is it gets people thinking about these Concepts and when we share the results out it gets them thinking more deeply about it and when we share what we're doing to make improvements it gets them thinking more deeply about it so the second time they take this survey and I don't know if if Joe and Dell have any experience with this happening with other districts clearly this is our first go around but my expectation would be our staff become more informed consumers of the survey and as more informed consumers they are going to be harsher critics than they may have been the first go own and I will add they mentioned that at the equity conference that that does indeed happen with seal stuff too once people are more um educated about what it is they're being asked about then they're like oh actually we're not doing that kind of a job now that I know what you're asking me I thought we were great but I didn't know it should be like this yeah exactly yeah and sometimes it's as simple as you know you've now stated you've stated the goal so you've said you've told everyone here's the expectation here's what we want to be doing um and so if they've seen that and then you know we're just kind of waiting for that result to come um it can be a an opportunity to to rate it a little bit more harshly you're right well I think especially when like knowing communication is one of our harder pieces and and we need the specifics on what you know and how um but with that too like some of the the steps we're taking everything with sofg you know nothing happens overnight um and I think some of what we saw was you know oh our strengths or that people know there's a plan right right but they are going to be looking for as you said Joe the results right and so it just becomes that much more important when we talk about our benchmarks and those you know just like we progress monitor our kids right we're not going to see it all overnight but are we at least meeting those benchmarks and how are we communicating that out um because people want to see progress right um and I I just really appreciate I appreciate how in-depth this is um I'm excited we're doing this and I appreciate everything you shared about you know just doubling down because as an educator I taken culture climate surveys every year for all the years I've been in education and I have yet to see anything done with them um so I just really appreciate the intentionality behind this and um just want to publicly say like we're holding all of us accountable to actually doing that thank you um okay so I have a question I don't know if this is for Joe or Dell and forgive me for talking to you by on a first name basis but I can't read problem I can't last names um just so I understand them correctly um Miss pus are you able to bring up page 19 again where it has the E ecometrics data review and comments I don't know if you're able to pull it up here but if not on these com oh Joe could do it okay on these comment topics these are specific comments from the employees based on a peer-to-peer interaction right as an employee of the institution I just want to make sure that I have this understood correctly yep so yeah this would be this this would be the most common terminology that people used in the comments talking about those specific areas in there so yeah I mean some are going to be specific to other other ones okay and the only reason why I asked that is because and thank you for that clarification is because I'd be remissed if I didn't bring up the homophobia the racism and the ableism one of the things that we' just learned in this sofg framework is that student outcomes will not change until adult behaviors change and if our adults in this institution are acting this way no wonder our kids are behaving in the classrooms targeting each other calling them names and not respecting each other so one of the big culture changes with this sofg framework is that we're going to hold the adults in this institution accountable too and the fact that we haven't really moved on to see who's experiencing this homophobia or racism is a little alarming to me because I want my staff to feel Brave in their environment too and if our staff are not feeling brave then it's not going to trickle down and we sure as heck are not going to have Brave students in the classrooms so my ask after receiving this data and looking at it is I don't know if in a future board update I'm not going to put a time frame but I would really like to see what we're doing about these specific comments and it's repeated on here multiple times and for me for one staff to feel unsafe because they feel like somebody's being hobophobic against them or racist against them or creating some kind of ablism is something that needs to be addressed Within urgent matter so um I would like for our cabinet or superintendent to bring us an update on what we're doing to specifically help with that those issues and um also create a plan if you can come back and let us know a plan on how we're going to you know get our communication a little bit more up one of the things in this sofg framework as well if we don't have smart goals we have data but if we're not putting any action or attainable goals to it then all this is for show and just for fun um I am however very appreciative that we got this done I know it's the first time in the district that we actually have something that we can have sensible attainable data and work towards to see how we make this more of an inclusive Equitable workspace so I'm glad that our superintendent took the lead on this to be transparent and getting these issues fixed but if we can and I'll leave it up to you Mr Man to give us a time frame on when you think um that information is available but I I do want to send that sentiment all over the district that yes our student outcomes are not going to change until the adult behaviors change and by what I'm reading off of this of our staff is that adults in this institution are behaving with each other this way and that is not acceptable and it's it's a culture that shouldn't exist in this environment for our staff let alone our students I think it's very important that we set a standard of everyone modeling kindness the only way we're going to move move the needle with our students is if all of our adults are are modeling the behaviors that we want to see from those students absolutely so um whenever you have an opportunity to give us some feedback and see what we're doing um to make sure that our staff not only feel supported but actually safe and brave in their environment yep we I think what we'll do is we'll take a look at the data first before we commit to a timeline to see like what the lift actually is um and then and we probably won't get that for you in the next upcoming board update because it'll take more time than that to dig into it but by the one after that we should be able to have a timeline for you in kind of a course of action and then thank you for that and the only other question I have is how often do you feel in your professional capacity that we should be doing these kind of um surveys so we know if we're moving up if we're going down or if we're progressing or not how often should we is this a yearly thing is this every two years without survey burnout yeah without survey burnout but enough time to give us as an institution you know different implementation um methods so we can actually keep getting our scores going up or lower in some instances well and let me answer that if I can when I first met Mr Man at the cube conference I knew immediately he was a special superintendent when I met the school board I knew the school board was on board because of their energy with the presentation that we had shared and how much they got on board in terms of the relationship between the board and Mr Man very positive one of the best districts I've began to work with and uh Joe can attested this too because we did something extremely special we got a survey launched within six weeks to present at the asba school board we've never done that before so that's huge steps in letting me know and then also hearing some of the comments from some of the other board members tonight also reign supreme and you know double down and triple down on the efforts the energy of what crate ISD is doing so that said I have no issue in terms of knowing that the data that you have you're going to move forward with it we always recommend at least doing it once a year why because that should at least give you enough time to implement some of the changes excuse me and incorporate some of the professional development in order to continuously move that needle forward so I offer that up with with uh much uh conviction okay thank you do we one more question yeah go ahead going back to the just because you reminded me because you pulled the slide back up going back to that slide 19 I just had a clarification on how it's organized because on the right column the first five are repeated again oh yeah those are okay so it was just a question on like how are these organized like why is there a space between those just got duplicated yeah it looks like okay okay yeah thank you thank you for that clarification I didn't know if there were like different categories or I was missing something so thank you any other questions or comments for Mr Man or Dell or Joel regarding ecometrics data I guess I was just surprised by how many people actually responded I mean honestly it's kind of a good number um was it just an email that was sent out one time or how did that go so I I I'm a huge fan of um Maya kulpa so um sometimes we don't realize the wisdom of the partners that we work with so when we when we launched the survey um it was primarily distributed via email and um and and one of the things that we had given guidance was we've been doing all this fishing scam work and so please don't have this be a request from the superintendent because we've been training everybody you're going to get these fishing fishing scams with a request from the superintendent but the standard template that the team uses actually makes that request and it did indeed go out that way and I believe that I need to stand corrected because I do think it helped you know even though we had those concerns around fishing what we did did to mitigate that was Emily sent out a notice to everybody and then we followed up in the kraton connection you know to make sure people were aware this one's not a scam asking you to do something for the superintendent this is genuinely request because we really and there was a nice letter that went with it about you know the importance and that we want to hear your voice so so I could be wrong like I thought I was a rock star last week and I clearly wasn't um so I do have some delusions but I I do think the ask like the way the ask was was important and then we get a lot of push back on doing everything electronically people always want us to we create paper forms you know do this I think sometimes we water down you know sort of like when we create too many methodologies people get confused and they don't know like which direction they're supposed to go the consistency and then the repetition because the other thing that the infinity systems team did is they kept track of who had responded or not and then those who did not respond they did um multiple follow-ups with them so I think I I I what I have to say is they were right I was wrong I don't I don't mind admitting when I when I'm wrong um and then the other thing I would say is um the methodology that they used was really really effective and they're a good partner because rather than putting the onus on us to get an effective return rate they created the tool sets and the methodologies to ensure that we got an effective return rate so you can quote that in your advertising material J that's cool yeah I'm just knowing kind of what that looks like it sounds like it sounds like a chore to try to get people to respond so I was impressed even if it isn't above the 70% or whatever the target was now do you all have the fun little screen that rewards you when you find the fishing thing and you report it we I like doing that at work it's kind of fun yeah we even had I believe um since our since our esteemed it directors in the back of the room I believe he even rewarded some people with some actual Swedish fish early on when implemented I was gonna say we started giving out gold goldfish fish when someone reports what they think might be a scam so I was probably most reported this year for being the scammer so do do you get Swedish Fish just for that I'll just go buy a bag of them um um perfect do we have any other comments questions perfect thank you guys so much for presenting and thank you to all the staff who did it just know that I'm a True Believer that we're going to take all the feedback that we got and act upon it so you guys don't feel like your voices are just not being heard so thank you for bringing this to us thank you so much thank you y thanks for having us have a good night all right that brings us to our next agenda item which is 8A approval of compensation for emergency split class coverage and this says pilot so I'll turn it over to Mr Man Madame President members of the board I am going to hand this one to Dr Lauren um and I believe he has a presentation to share that kind of gives some of the background information on um what's being recommended and how we got here Madame President members of the board I'm uh pleased to present this information and I would be even more pleased if I could get it to project uh Russell I'm getting a red um I am so sorry before we start I um we have a public comment on this agenda item I apologize so I'm GNA have the public comment um read first and then we can move into the discussion of it um that's going to be from Daniel Lopez and it is for this agenda item and we have on his behalf Miss Ariel oh I know you always thinking oh dangel it must been a rough year for you changed you're looking good Dan I love your shirt by the way thank you also this is from Daniel Lopez members of the board as a member of the Mee and confer team last year and this year and a union member the implementation of compensation for teachers split classes sorry I'm reading from my phone my phone's cracked I'm so sorry this recommendation was P oh so I've been deeply frustrating this recommendation was passed last year and teachers are just last week being told by the district that they will not be compensated for split classes until this month meaning all of our SP classes from August to December are unpaid we have been told that it is up to the board whether or not we are back paid for our split classes so I'm asking you please order that teachers will be back paid for the split classes that we have documented going back to August of this school year thank you thank you for that okay and and I will proceed with the presentation and then if we have feedback off of that comment we can after the presentation thank you so uh just to give some background uh we are recommending that the district pilot a plan that will compensate teachers impacted by accepting students from a split classroom by dividing the daily substitute rate of $160 per day among the affected teachers that are impacted by that split so the number of teachers that are receiving students divided by 160 would be the amount of pay uh the compensation does not currently appear on existing adopted salary schedules so therefore it requires board approval uh the pilot that we are proposing would run from February 1st through May 23rd so just to give some little bit of a background on the story really on any given day our District's fill rate for guest teachers ranges between 49% and 82% U obviously uh there are some challenges with making sure that we have qualified guest teachers in the classrooms uh we do understand that emergencies happen uh there are often times when a substitute is established for a job for whatever reason they are not able to fulfill that job so maybe they have an emergency um Mondays and Fridays s tend to be the days where we have the most need uh Wednesdays are the days where we tend to fill those uh positions pretty easily we've had as low as 38% coverage and we've had as high as 74% coverage so it does VAR widely I think the consistency is that when a teacher is asked to absorb addition additional students for the day often time it's very limited in the amount of time they have to prepare um at as a principal I remember many many days almost every day asking teachers to take additional students um you know Miss Smith is sick we have 25 students can you take five of her students uh and that happens regularly and consistently across the district and I know it's not just a specific kraton issue um so the the conversation we've had in the meet and confer process over the last several years was how do we then recognize and uh honor the teachers willingness to help support and to be part of that solution to help students have a day with a teacher when there isn't one available if you look at the uh graph that I have posted we took this data from the fall U we looked at the number of absences or vacancies that need to be filled across the district we had a total of 1,678 from August through December uh of that we had 93 that were filled by a substitute through our ESI partnership that's the organization the contract agency that provides our substitute service so about 54% uh of our vacancies were filled not filled were about 46% mind you this includes teacher uh assignments that aren't filled because we haven't hired that position so sometimes we are you know fortunate to have long-term Subs that would be able to take on that position um but often there there's still that Gap and we still have that need to fill that position if you look at the bottom of the graphs sorry the table at the bottom talks about what that cost is reflected in that $160 rate so if we were to fill from last semester all vacant vacant positions with a guest teacher at $160 per day that would represent $122,000 expense if you add the cost of benefits to that which is a 21% increase over the regular pay then we're looking at 148,000 approximately and that really is to kind of frame for our employees that we pay benefits for that's the number that looking at so if we're looking at how do we budget for filling these positions with staff from the kraton district that that's where that 21% would come in I'll pause and see if anyone has any questions because I know sometimes tables need some conversation I'm pretty sure I understand but just for the clarity of public so when we pay subs from Kelly Services the district does not pay benefits if we are paying teachers a similar rate to cover split classes it's not like it's acting like a separate stien or something like that it gets rolled into the regular paycheck and so it does in percentage of benefit matching that the district is do yes that's correct that's exactly right I have a question yes where has the money been going the savings been going for when we don't have Subs before this so I I will defer to my partner but I think U most the money that we've been using to cover Subs over the last few years has been out of essr funds so they're not necessarily earmarked as substitute funds it's a pool of money that we draw from what we're saying with this position or this idea is that we're now going to start to draw some of that money to help cover for teachers who need that compensation so a lot of times it creates a cushion right so if we know that we're not funding these positions that are vacant then we have that ex that money from something to go to somewhere and and again just pointing out um what Dr Lauren Lauren stated for the last several years these monies have been just coming down as needed so there wasn't necessarily A a budget effect so that we had to carry forward or anything like that since it was coming from those Esser dollars it is something that um and I think a big reason why we're looking at a Pilot in order to see how much is it actually going to cost um and and getting some data as as we try to make a recommendation like this so we're trying to put together the initial and that's not even the is that the whole annual that's August to December that's the fall yeah yes so just to it's going to cost us $148,000 if we do this pilot program from February to April I mean what's the date August to December that would be the amount for August to December yes so if we were to include if we were to add August to December to the pilot then you're looking at approximately that much money the challenge is we don't know necessarily how well the record keeping has been kept for who had split classes who didn't if they did it equitably across sites so did one site keep really accurate records and another site not so those are other conversations for consideration that I want to bring up later in the presentation I say with that one thing you know as we move forward into full pilot so this is aside from the do we go back to August to December but moving forward into February is making sure that there's a system for that not just to document it but also how our sites Distributing that because that's going to skew a lot of numbers if I'm a teacher that because of how many sections we have in the grade level I always get nine or 10 kids but then at this school they have four first grade classrooms so they only get five or six kids you know and things like that and and I know that that's a lot of numbers and variables but we need some kind of guidance to make sure that it's being distributed properly and we're Gathering the data accurately do we know how much do we pay a um how much do we pay of a service fee if need to that agency that gets us the subs is there a fee Associated to the district for that service yeah I believe it ends up being another it's $200 per day yeah and and this is not part of the presentation but it's an important historical component to have because you might ask yourself why don't we just have these individuals as our own employees and the answer to that is Proposition 206 so when prop 206 passed most districts were pushed into a space to work through another firm because of the level of complexity of trying to manage the 206 required leave with individuals who work on a daily basis so for um for every 30 probably going to get this wrong so someone correct me if I'm wrong if this this doesn't have to be accurate but just gives the concept but for every 30 hours worked I believe the employee is supposed to receive one hour of leave time so if you have if you have Subs doing that now you create a brand new problem which is where I've got I've got a science teacher who's out I make a call to ESI they assign us a substitute and then the sub says Hey I've built up eight hours of leave time I'm going to call in sick today too that really doesn't help the district actually if you call ESI that doesn't happen but if they were our own employee that could be a scenario that would occur and so there you know no I'm not dissing in prop 206 there's a lot of wonderful things in it but one of the things that they didn't do when they built it out is they didn't think about governmental agencies and how the impact would be very different than the way that it impacts private companies is that the is that correlated to or maybe it is what covers um like they can only work 120 days out of two separate ESI so the ESI substitute program is what we were driven to by virtue of prop 206 the with the 120 days component has to do with return to work retirees which also ha our partner for that also happens to be ASI so there's often confusion between those two programs because they're both with the same partner but they're they're two completely separate animals and if I might add U one of the things that is not reflected in this information and that's something that we're going to need to track also as we're going to roll out this pilot is the impact of contract Subs because we do have employees at each campus that are permanent sub Subs that are Craton employees that are hired to be in classrooms so what you're seeing the impact you're seeing here is not even considering those positions on that campus right so some of that vacancy might have been absorbed by somebody on campus rather than doing a split so that's something that we have to figure out a way to disagre that a little more closely and just noting I'm I'm sorry Mr M cheffrey go ahead um so this this that we're looking at right now this isn't actually what we're voting on tonight this is just information it's just information yeah yep uh I will add though that since we've been Gathering the input from the sites over the last what today is the fifth um we've had 16 absences that have been covered by split teachers or by splits that sites have put in now it there's a timing of whether site has put it in immediately or they wait till the next day so there might be more that comes to it but we've already seen use of the uh input measure so that we can start to gather that information um one question I have and I don't know if you have a straight answer but we have various principles here do they usually end up using more of the split service in the classrooms versus the what is it called the ESI yeah the the preference from my personal experience um the preference is always to have a a substitute teacher uh the limitation is that there aren't enough Subs to go around so uh when I met with our esir rep a couple of weeks ago there are 90 substitutes that would be available to work in kraton District 58 regularly work in kraton District so we're part of our conversation when I was talking to our rep from ESI is how do we bolster that so what do we do to draw substitutes to the kraton district and help them feel welcome valued um supported what are some ways that we can maybe reach out more do some recognition programs things like that so that we can increase the number of Subs that choose to come to kraton rather than go next door to madis or to go to Osborne or baltz well it's hard too like I wonder they're not our employees but I wonder if there's a way that ESI maybe can do some I don't want to call it a survey but some kind of Outreach to get input because I know like I've been a teacher where I've had a sub you know that I was scheduled a month out and then the day of it was cancelled and sometimes you find out why and sometimes you don't but there were times when we found out why and it was oh well last minute I got off offered one that's closer to my house so I didn't have to do the commute that day you know like it's and I get it you know it's people's lives but it's often a financial like and a you know decision for them that okay this is better for me to do this day um so I would just be interested in how we could get some of that information not us specifically but you all in trying to do exactly what you're talking about is like let's bolster the frequency of getting Subs because yeah this is the splitting classes is never the ideal it's the last resort we want to compensate for when it happens but there's definitely a root problem right and it's not kraton specific yeah okay uh to give a little bit of background so there were discussions last year in the internet uh interest based negotiation process through meet and confir to recommend to the board that we created a way to recognize an honor teachers to compensate them for this work there was a little bit of um confusion in some of the language so in some documents it says uh to give leave time as a a payment for split classes some of the documentation was actual dollars so that when we met as a compensation committee to start to do this work in the fall we talked about what would the benefits of either option be the one that we as a committee decided to focus on was doing the um splitting the pay of the substitute rate uh comparing it to local districts we did compare to a lot of districts near our site or our school districts and most do some sort of monetary compensation I think there was one that offered professional development and one that was a little squishy about well we don't really do that right now in that way um so when we had that idea of moving forward with this then we started to do some of the work work of planning to have that implemented yeah because if you offer a leave you can accidentally contribute to that's right that's right you're just you're kicking the can down the road like you're you're incentivizing by saying take more days not that we shouldn't take days off but self-care is important but I wouldn't want to incentivize causing more strain on additional teachers yeah so just to give an idea of what our planning and vetting process was most of the work came through the compensation committee um we had a couple of meetings in the fall plus a subcommittee meeting that looked at this information uh we took it to executive team for feedback Triad if you're familiar with our Triad team that's our finance department Human Resources grants and payroll so it's basically the fiscal Services side of the house and we meet weekly to problem solve and triad was very helpful in developing some of the processes so that we wouldn't overburden the payroll department for instance because that's going to be a pretty heavy lift for payroll and to recognize from the business services perspective who Monitor and supervise the office managers from a site uh systems perspective is this going to overburden or over tax the office managers for instance uh so we also went to Leadership Council talked to office managers uh brought it back to meet and confer for additional input in January and then through catting connection uh this is just an overview of the people that were most involved in the compensation committee on this process uh there were some teachers or some individuals who are on the committee that weren't really involved in this process um but we have the teachers there for you to see and the other staff members so this is an overview of the pilot structure so from February 1st through May 23rd uh basically what's going to happen on a daily basis is that there will be at each site an opportunity to identify by teacher in grade level who needs the coverage determine the number of teachers that will be impacted up to nine so that means that for some of those situations there's going to be a much smaller payout if you're dividing by nine teachers and we also had that as a request from one of the principles because often in middle school and different situations there are different ways of splitting and it might vary from site to site so we wanted that to at least be an option currently the the information that I'm seeing on the spreadsheet is that most of the splits are between four and six so far so far um we talked about the rate so we'll take that $160 daily rate and we'll divide it by the number of teachers who are receiving students um there's a documentation through Google form we're also asking that the site supervisor administrator sign off on that process so that there's a verification of the expense for the payment uh and then that compensation will be paid out monthly so it's going to be off cycle for our payroll department so that they it it's not going to be an every paycheck implementation of the payment that'll also kind of give for lack of a better term this would give a a bigger pot of money at one time right so if there's a let's say I'm a third grade teacher and I get classes split to me four times then that's four times maybe $40 a day rather than one time with $40 which you don't see that as easily in a paycheck so yay for my extra $12 that in the latte right uh quick question so the daily sub rate is 160 but we pay ESI 200 is that right yeah I'll verify the amount but think that that's the rate because that's the rate we use we figure grants okay a couple of concerns so um one of the concerns that we heard earlier from the comment was that the pilot does not address split classes from August to January so we'll uh be interested to hear the board's feedback on that concern um I think part of the challenge as I mentioned before the documentation for that how do we make sure that we're being good stewards of public funds by knowing exactly what is accounted for in that since there was such a long Gap and it is frustrating I know that there's frustration that it took long a long time to get to this place with this process but I feel like we're we're on the right track as far as the systems we have in place and hopefully it'll be sustainable uh which is the next point that we can work with our business services with Miss Shapiro and talk about how we can forward fund the this through the future um can I ask a followup question there um I know that it's my understanding that through some of the recommendations from Mee and confer last year that we going to require extra time to implement there were like implementation calendars that were figured out for that is that my understanding for some of the items on the recommendations and I guess my question then is was there one for this and if if not why not I don't remember there being implementation count calendar or deadline specific um but I can go back and take a look I I just recently went through since we're we we have our meeting confer session tomorrow and one of the requests was to look back at all of the recommendations that have gone to the board and I know this is ancillary to this topic but the sentiment from me confer the team is that there's some duplication of effort from year to year or there are things that get talked about that don't necessarily get addressed and then how do we know it's been addressed or what's the time frame for making sure that it's addressed appropriately so I think those are really great points that I'll make sure to bring to our meeting tomorrow yeah I guess what I'm trying to get at is H having heard the public comment and hearing this I guess I'm trying to find out I know it's one comment but like was there an expectation I know maybe the expectation was as soon as possible that could be all dependent on a lot of things right sure but I guess how is this going to land um what were the expect what was the General expectation of people when and what information was I guess communicated from meet and confer people to teachers and I'm just wondering then like is that where this request is coming from I I'm just I just want us to not like um completely ignore the comment that was um maybe I can provide a little bit of insight on that is that last time if I remember correctly um this was put on the me and confer recommendations however that was at the same time we were having the discussions with the stips so I think what ended up happening is that we kind of all got into the honing in of giving the $10,000 stiens and retention so it kind of drifted away and maybe through both ends dropped the ball because it wasn't really talked about more but I REM I I vaguely remember being an executive session some of this stuff being t talked about and then us kind of swifted in Gears on that because then the topic became you know the whole stiens and doing the $10,000 back and forth so that's from what I recall um I'm more talking about like what because even if we had that conversation right there were still recommendations that were presented to us and I believe this was in that it was yes and I think that that what was lacking was a specific timeline uh and I will take responsibility for kind of being behind the eightball and some of this because you know transitioning and making sure that we're moving forward uh in a way that honors our process in our committee structure um to make sure that we're doing that feedback loop and we're making sure that we're engaging as many stakeholders we can uh to get some input um knowing that there's this this expectation that's kind of pushing it and I do I do appreciate app that and I do understand the frustration so I'm wondering is there a way or what the cost would be to meet somewhere in the middle like if we were to back pay from January I mean I'm curious what that looks like well and if I may add um I was actually gonna see if we could table this so I wanted to ask specific questions on budget what it looks like if we did you know that and give the information back to us and bring it up to the next board meeting so we have that budget numbers and that was one of the questions I was going to ask if we did do the back pay what does that look like because I know that we don't really have a system in place of who did what and who split what classes so if we tively try to do something what does that look like how much that's going to cost us and then I forgot the other question because I jumped the gun but um I I was going to propose that we table this for the next board meeting so we can get some of those questions answered and then we can make a more fiscally responsible decision in all parties just to clarify you're saying table all of this or just table the August to January part I would say table all of everything because I it it can just the way that my brain works I don't know and we can all decide August to January this is just informational the only thing we're voting on is to start the pilot in February so we don't want to delay that yeah if I and if I could make a suggestion yeah go ahead Mr Shapiro feel free to like reach this far and smack me across the face if I say something wrong I I I think I think the biggest challenge January and and um is that it you know I it was a surprise to me to find out that there was a site that had been tracking but we were unaware of that um it is my understanding and maybe some of the folks in the audience could help with nods of the head that is not universally true across the district so that so the the biggest challenge is the equity issue that it would create um I do believe and people will want to strangle me because this will create a work hardship on them but I do believe you know January 8th is so recent that we probably could backwards engineer that and there's absolutely no reason and I'm getting the face from Miss Shapiro so correct me I don't mind I I hope I've made it abundantly clear I don't mind being wrong but um I guess what I would say is I would want to vet the process um with the site leadership U and and probably run it through our Auditors to make sure that it is auditable oh good point um and that we could uh gather information like that what that should look like I want to get some guidance on that when you're saying that you're talking about back pay or back pay I'm talking about a back like a process to go back and gather information okay what should that look like and what does it need to have included with it to stand up for audit do we have the ability to pull that information working with our site leadership I was going to say like I as much as I think it's a valid discussion I think there's a lot of things like that that we can't even make a recommendation I know we're not voting but if not all schools have been tracking for the pilot we have a tracking system I would love to pay everybody back to August don't get me wrong I one from an equity perspective don't want to pay the teachers who split classes at one or two schools and not at others or five teachers at this school but miss two of them um and then also additionally if there wasn't a process in place like that's we don't we that could be sticky legally so there so there's an expression I love which is don't let the great be the enemy of the good right yes so um there is absolutely nothing preventing Miss Shapiro and Dr Lauren from looking into the ability of going back to any of that back pay you would not prevent that if you voted on moving forward with the February 1 pilot and I feel like we would be adding and I'm sure other people will be mad at me and there's always someone who's going to be mad at me but we have teachers out there that are splitting classes and I'd like to start getting them paid so I my personal recommendation would be to vote on the February 1 if you're if you're in favor of it we have we have the numbers and the statistics statistical data for that if we hold off too long yes we'll continue to collect the data but you know it it right that means people are waiting that additional period of time in order to get that payout and you know regardless of what happens with January 8th to February 1st or August to February 1st regardless of any of that I think it's important that we start compensating now and that we start gathering this data so we can get you a solid recommendation come like right around the corner where we're going to be needing to make recommendations about budget for next year yeah I think my request I didn't think it would necessarily involve tabling I think you know we obviously just talked all about areas for growth communication we've as a board and superintendent and leadership team understand the work that we're having to do to rebuild trust in this district and so I think that that's a big component in any time there's valid concerns like maybe and I'm just assuming the place that was tracking this is the same place where the complaint is coming from and so there was clearly some in in expectation that was misinterpreted and so I would hate for that to Fester into something that's unnecessary and so I would like for us to do the best we can to figure out how to address that yeah and one of the things I know we are doing as a practice now and others can correct me on this if I misspeak on it but the communication that goes out for me and confer is being compiled by Miss wasc so she comes to the end of the meetings to gather that from the group The Group reviews it she actually throws a draft into a chat and then that draft is reviewed by the members to make sure that everything in that draft is accurate so um so the beauty of that is that um everyone should have a common understanding of what the information is I will tell you as a human being who works with a lot of other human beings regardless of that fact there will be people who make claims that you know the information is different than what's you know on the black and white piece of paper and so I think it's really important for everyone involved in the process to make sure that they're part of that conversation at the end of the meeting they're ensuring that's what's reflected is accurate and that they're participating in that chat group to make sure that anything that's captured erroneously gets corrected before it's pushed out in the kraton connection you know at at the end of the day because that is is ultimately the public record that we have of what what's being recommended forward that and then the presentations and and the information Dr Lauren presented to you tonight came directly from what was presented by meet and confer as recommendations last year certain perfect any other questions or comments oh go ahead Miss SS so um my one question is about half day coverage yes um so are you going to do so like if a teacher leaves half day then are you going to take half of like the $80 and then do that okay yep that's an option on the forum for them to note that it's a half day coverage which is not the same as an early release I was going to say difference releas still a full sub right um and so just just for the people on the board that haven't experienced this um I think there are some great benefits to this um I think it creates value with people um and showing um you know that that they do deserve to have something when they take in extra students in their classroom um I've been lucky enough that I have a very small classroom this year so when my teammates are gone I take their whole class which I think also creates value because the teacher I mean the kids are getting an actual teacher that is um you know able to teach a subject and continue their learning on um and I think it also helps like our our problem with Subs um every district is going through sub shortages um especially after the pandemic when people are like peace out I'm done um so I think that's a benefit I think you've solved one of the deficits that I find in my district is that um how to capture the accuracy so I really like your Google forms I'm going to take that back to my team um because sometimes we rely on our secretaries to to to do all the work and then when they don't do it then we get upset and then it creates like a big chaos because some of us like in my district we haven't been paid like for all of our time and it might just be one or two schools because of that secretary so that creates chaos but I think you solved it with the Google form plenty of incentive to fill out a Google form yes yes and so um I I I just find it as a huge benefit I'm sorry that we can't like the back pay I think it would be a nightmare if everybody was doing it and it was Equitable yes I feel um bad I feel also that I totally understand um where they're coming from because as teachers we always have teacher friends in other districts and we know that other districts have been doing this um my districts have been doing it for the last three years and so I feel like we're behind everyone else and so I kind of understand that frustration because I feel like we should have been doing this a long time ago um but nevertheless those are just kind of my thoughts on those thank thank you Miss SS any other discussion or questions okay thank you so much for that presentation and um so if I read this as is it does not include the back pay yeah correct making sure so with this I move the governing board approve the pilot to provide additional compensation for emergency class split coverage from February 1st through May 23 3rd 2024 second all those in favor I I I and Madam president members of the board we you know Miss Shapiro will look into the feasibility of of other options um Dr Lauren will look into you know what do we have as far as recordkeeping and then we'll be able to bring back to the board you know if there's any feasibility of closing any of that Gap so thank you so much yeah thank you perfect that brings us to our next item which is 10A fiscal year 2425 budget projection and I will hand it over to Miss Shapiro Madame President board members and super an I am excited to present our initial budget figures to be used uh building the fiscal year 2425 proposed budget um this also is the process that allows us to calculate a dollar figure to take to our meet and confer which we will be doing tomorrow um evening I think we're ready for that presentation Russell somehow I get the best presentations I'm not sure that's planned but I'm excited about this one for being sarcastic not at all not even a little bit like if you guys knew me you don't I I very much goober over no numbers and I get very excited when I get into um a wonderful organization that has made very good decision making uh to plan for we're just gassing up Jay and I know no we're where I'm excited because I finally found someone geekier about these numbers don't get me going on account codes uh that's happy we need an exact session for that no not through an entire day with Trey before I was even on this this is a true story and you were hardcore in that session I don't like numbers so um I think I I did put a lot on this slide I apologize I probably should have cut this into pieces so that we can kind of go through and discuss a lot of this information has been presented to the board and to meet and confer in past sessions where I had a lot of information as opposed to Dollar figures so these are the dollar figures that come from some of those it that we've discussed in the past these are our inputs and uh decreases that would be going into our next budget year so if you'll take a look at that first item that's our fy2 24 adjustment for our 100th day ADM we have to project our enrollment our enrollment was projected very well um which means that when we do our budget Revision in may we are looking uh to go ahead and add back into our budget approximately $447,000 keep in mind these figures are preliminary and proposed um they are subject to change but these are numbers that I feel confident that um this is probably what it's going to be like unless something very extreme were to happen at the legislature which we would all be needing to deal with this is great um our thank you our um fy2 projected enrollment um we had discussed this before we're seeing a slight decline or I would say it's slowing down a little bit so we're still having declining enrollment it just isn't declining as quickly or rapidly as we've seen in the past I did make an adjustment in the budget number for that um a big factor when you're doing budget is you're going between two different data points so you're looking at enrollment which isn't how we're budgeted you have the ADM which is a a proportionate share of a students 100 days of membership they may have 20 days they may have a 100 days we get a factor of one if they have 100 days so there's a slightly different um calculation when you turn these into budget numbers and that's why I've put in there the 228 total weighted student count which is what would affect a budget um so with that declining enrollment I'm looking at a little bit at $1.1 million out of uh Less in our budget because of the declining enrollment we also have our 2% base support amount increase there which another good to the posit positive number then we're going to have to take a look at our expense adjustments we know that we're going to factor in something for inflation um right now it's tracking about 3.1% I'd like to tighten that up as we get closer to the proposed budget in June so that number can potentially change if inflation when I go and check the CPI numbers is uh increased I'm feeling pretty good with the 3.1 um again historically this is a process that I've used used for many years so I feel pretty comfortable in this um space some really good news um our minimum wage we not needing to make an adjustment in this next budget year because kraton has already brought the minimum wage base above minimum wage and we actually have a couple of Cycles we'll be get getting through before we have to worry about it since we're at $15 an hour and um projecting again it gets kind of projected with that CPI because that's how they base that calculation for the next increase iteration in January I'm anticipating it to be about 1480 again these are way out and as I get closer to those um dates uh those numbers will get tighter uh inflation to goods and services I've got at the 3.1 so that's an additional 195,000 coming out of our budget just for increased cost we also know that there is a utilities increase out there of 11.3% with APS um anticipating that around 200,000 um it's another one to kind of wait and see um throughout the year we do have where class sizes will get larger we need to um put out for another teacher or another staff member of some sort this is a very typical budgeting component which is a contingency fund for HR so that they can address those needs throughout the year I'm recommending to replenish that funding of um approximately $500,000 we also got um no I'm sorry I skipped past it because I my glasses on the medical cost increase was zero this year fantastic again a lot of great decision making from the administration prior to me getting here um we saw some uh good results moving from uh one program to our new program it did I believe cause a little bit of angst during that process and that turnover uh and it seems to be working very well and people have um been able to get the medical care that they need we had an asrs decrease of 0.2% I don't know why I just put it on there 5,000 to the good I know that that number never goes in our favor so I was just kind of excited it's usually you know taking more every year so that was interesting um through attrition again with that declining enrollment we will have natural attrition so that number goes back into our budget we have a couple of uh numbers here that are going to depend on some conversations that we have through the process and you'll see a little more of that in the Esser presentation will be happening right after this one where we have some existing positions that had been moved for funding purposes into Esser with the anticipation that those would move back in some of those are uho funded positions and that's the cost there some of those were Grant funded positions so the intent is to move those back into those grant funding sources if available we also had some new Esser created positions um specifically those contracted Subs uh there was an IT Help Desk position and a plant manager position um I have those coming back into the M budget there are some conversations going on with some additional position so that number potentially could change um as we go through the other presentation I know they'll be speaking to that we also have that budget balance carry forward which has um been targeted to be spent down and that was collected over those several years of Esser in order to prepare for this year um we also have some information that's coming out very loud and clear from the auditor General's office that fund balance uh fund balance management is something they're specifically going to be looking at in performance evaluations or performance audits so you want to make sure that you have a very um uh a clear and concise plan with your targeted spin down um and with the management of your fund balances so I will be bringing additional information in the future as I develop that plan for kraton and um uh provide that information to the board of how that plan will look like so when we're audited it'll be nice clean and transparent um that brings us down to the bottom which is a black number that's great it's in the plus that's two two million with a little bit of change and um if we can go to the next screen I'm so used to that number being read I'm just number is never not read um that's why I was so excited about this presentation so what that means is uh we're taking approximately $2 million of emo ongoing salary support to meet and confer tomorrow ongoing salary support are the dollars that would um uh be used to provide salary increases and could be ongoing so those would be percentage increases in salaries of whatever that looks like it could be um percentage increases of longevity um it'll be up to the meet and confer group to kind of make determinations on The Best utilizations of the those M ongoing salary supports based on the direction from the board the other U monies available for meet and confer this year is the 1.2 million of one-time funding that was uh Governor hobb's uh state aid adjustment that was made into this year uh that we've um G to that would have carried forward in our budget balance carry forward uh that we're going to pull out as a one-time it's just onetime monies so uh that would be the stiens retention things that are like one-time only cost it's not something that's going to be carried on into future ongoing monies we also have about 600,000 of onetime funding coming from those fund balance adjustments so about 1.8 in um onetime funding I went ahead and put um it's kind of like a menu so me and confer will make some determinations after their uh conversations and their interest and um so I give them the amounts of things so 1% salary cost which would be something that could be funded out of that ongoing salary support is $347,000 so however many percents they want to use out of that 2 million I believe it comes out to be about 5.7% if we just do the math but again if there's a an interest to put some of that towards longevity or to put that in different areas however that looks I just won't know so this is not to say what we are doing with those monies this is just to give some information of what a 1% would cost and M pero that 1% is for all staff that 1% is for all staff that would be funded from general fund so when I calculate that um I will say that I do include Grant funded positions because grants can't necessarily take on the increases that we bargain for um so we do need to calculate that into our number we do try to put those increases in the grants but if not we're not going to not give increases there so it would have to be supported from the general fund okay um also the cost of a $1,000 retention stien and those would be one-time funded dollars could be used in that area is um 874 th000 and that is based on the recent $5,000 stien that was just paid again just math thank you for that presentation board do we have any questions comments concerns hearing none the only one that I have is I I feel like you it's very nice to see this not being in the red um before I got on the board I would come to these budget meetings and I was like red everywhere what going on so it is really nice to see that so thank you for the information yeah it's almost a wash for the M basl budget adjustments so that's exciting and I will say that based on some of the conversations tonight I would have to bring in um when we're talking about uh the split compensation those dollars would you know uh could affect that two million so we'll start with that and and uh any effects to that um we would bring back to let you guys know what the final dollar figure was of what Mee and confer had um to negotiate with awesome thank you so much for that information all right um that brings us back to 10B and we do have a public comment for this so I will go ahead and call up Miss Ariel up here first to give us a public comment and then we can go into the presentation thank you board um Madam president uh my name is Ario Williams I'm teacher in the district um I would like to speak to a dis agenda item so the greatest asset of a school district is a students and teachers so today I'm here to ask you if you care teachers have been screaming into the void for years about what they need watching leadership jump through jump through hoops to find funing for cja at the expense of their teachers has been mind numbing teachers who once believed in cat and District are walking away and it feels like no one cares hearing teachers say I can no longer I no longer have the personality for teaching and creating School District my personality is too playful why can't our kids have teachers that are playful teachers spending hours of their personal time planning and prepping but nothing ever seems enough do you care if we call ourselves cgas will you jump through ho through the same Hoops to find the funding for smaller class sizes elit teachers who have become essential to providing quality EOD pullout and an additional two teachers on every site to provide reading intervention for students fourth through 8th grade 70% of the middle school students at Gateway are testing high risk for phonics if we start calling our fourth through eighth graders cjas will we find the funding to provide reading interventionist for them so there is hope after kadon so the teachers who once believed in kraton people like Tim no will continue to believe in Katen Esser funds are gone and CGA need to follow we want smaller class sit to make students behaviors more manageable we need academic support for struggling students we need a cell curriculum and time built into the day we need more adults in the building they can provide academic supports thank you Miss Ariel I'm going to keep you up here for a few seconds because I have a question and I don't know if the other board members have a question and this is why I appreciate you speaking to this item because we can have this honest dialogue back and forth um it in your professional opinion what have you noticed the CJ have done and have you noticed that since cjas have been on campus any behavior issues fixed gotten better um no for I only can speak to what I've seen um for example I have asked many times for our CGA to go into address bullying like Duke l daily do groups do something to address bullying and racism that happening and he has nothing's happen um it's just basically the kids run out of the classroom to go spend time in the cja office room um if you go in there kids are laying on the floor for example a first grader hit my one of my fourth graders in his private area and I went into the room and I saw him laying on the floor you know snacking on the iPad and I was like you know he just hit a kid in the private area yeah I know he had a rough morning I'm like yeah my kid did too but okay but I just I don't feel like we've seen a change in behavior in the past two years to justify cjas and I understand the purpose behind cjas when it was first built was they were going to provide professional development to teachers they were going to teach teachers how to do community circles they were going to help teachers implement social emotional learning and none of those things has ever happened when was the last time you guys had a community circle at the site that you're at what do you mean like um our principles sometimes leave one on Wednesdays where we all separate into two circles and they ask us a question and the teachers pass them around and we answer it if that's what you mean but nothing integrated with students no not really not that I've seen okay yeah of course and then I'm going to defer it to other board members if they have any questions I'm sorry but thank you so much for being bold and having this honest conversation with this because it is important and maybe this question can I just point out just I'm sorry just a housekeeping thing the last time we did this I don't know if you remember oh you weren't here that day Lori bird who isn't who was our replacement attorney for the night said we were we are not allowed to do this Q&A do you remember Hilda I was scolded and yelled at um and yelled at and yelled at by her because supposedly it's a violation of open meeting law so just I appreciate your if it's agendized even got it thank you for bringing that up Miss MC cheffrey I would just just stop and say I would rather have you know reading interventionist for fourth through eighth graders on a site and EIT teachers who can provide EOD pull out on every site ra if I had to pick over cja positions I like the idea of what it was the purpose behind the idea was behind I think it was great but I think there there's just so many bigger fires that needs to be put out first and a lot of that has to do with instruction and students having the ability to access the education in the classroom so a lot of their behavior could be stemming from the fact that they just cannot access the curriculum because either their reading is too low their writing too low their math is too low and I think we should probably try interventionist especially in that 48th band to see if we will have a decrease in Behavior if students start to feel more successful in the classroom thank you did you just want to my question wasn't really for her my question was a was just a question in general I suppose with c cja um are they are they teachers like or are they counselors like what's their background I guess I just want to know that was my question and if it's not appropriate have to answer you can tell me it's not appropriate but that's just a general question that yeah I just had that general question and Mr duban before you proceed um Miss Ariel thank you so much for bringing that information up I appreciate you coming up and speaking go ahead Mr dupin um the child Justice Advocates are um they're considered teachers on assignment so they are funded as as teachers they do work extra days Beyond a typical teacher contract so their scope is similar to say an instructional coach or an effective schools coach the credentials that they have vary depending on the role so some of them do have teachers certification some of them have a background in um like um like social emotional learning support or counseling I I believe only one of the people in that role actually has full um like a master's in social work or that kind of credential they're not counselors they are not social workers because they're not cred credentialed as such thank you all right and with that in the public comment um we will go ahead and turn it over to Dr dupin um for the presentation of this transition planning of sr3 funds as soon as I get on to the screen we'll get started that's loud I'm oh I don't think it's F if I use that in the courtroom I think you're fine don't have any shame okay well this evening we're going to share with you just an update on where we are with the SR funds in terms of the overall investment and then recommendations for the transition away from use of those Sr funds for key priorities whenever we talk about us or funds oh I want to point out really quickly I'm going to be supported in this conversation by Miss Shapiro and I want to introduce if you don't know uh Miss Jasmine hayatt Dominguez Jasmine would you mind coming up just take the podium Jasmine is a coordinator in our effective schools department and she's been really instrumental especially the last last year and a half in making sure that we're we're managing effectively our grant funds and she's been a huge support to miss Burkhart and the other members of that team so um we're we're bringing her forward this evening to assist us um in this conversation can I can I add to that she came in absolutely clutch when we ran a foul of delays at ad in order to get the $5,000 stien work through the system in time to get it paid and so um without meming we probably would not have managed to pull that off and it would have been a mutiny and well I would probably not be sitting here with you today but um and so I'm not sure whether I appreciate her for that or not I'm just teasing but I um I just wanted to take the moment because I think sometimes people don't know what people do in the district and they also don't know how critical they are to some of the important things that happen and um to me that our our staff really deserved and needed that $5,000 and um Miss Dominguez was one of the key people who made that happen that's really helpful that term effect of schools is pretty Broad and big well we were reflecting today as we get into this we manage Esser through certainly there's an intersection with our finance team our HR team um the payroll team but but a lot of the overall oversight happens through effective schools and it that team has been set up to manage the existing entitlement funds that we've relied on for many years and with the Esser funds it you know the way we kind of thought about it this morning was like you know the regular system was kind of like draining a bathtub when the Esser funds came in it was like trying to drain a lake with the same number of individuals the same kinds of systems and so some of the challenges we've encountered internally have been based on just that infrastructure so Jasmine in this role has been is an example of a change that was made to help move those funds along and her expertise has been uh very critical so we're grateful and thanks for being here tonight your re Ward is a board meeting do a good job and you come to the board meeting good evening so whenever we talk about Sr funds we always try to bring back to the original purpose that was established by the original Task Force at the you know at the outset of the availability of the funds and this is repeated information so I'll be brief um just the idea that we wanted to use the Monies to address much of what even was described in the public comment where we're looking for you know supporting empowering the community because at that time that was a huge huge issue um connecting with families and neighbors making sure that we're holistically nurturing mind body and spirit um reading was identified as a as a fundamental priority in making sure that all of our students had what they need to read fluently and inspiring our teachers to use the best best methods and the best resources so all the all the Investments all the work has has been intended to align toward this broad set of purposes as you know the SR funds came to us in actually four different buckets but we're currently in that sr3 period and we have until September 30th of this year to draw down the remaining funds and with that Jasmine's going to work her magic perfect uh good evening Madame President board members executive team so this is a a chart to represent where we're at with our current Esser expenditure um this is only for Esser 3 you'll see that there are um a really large portion of blue funds light blue and dark blue the light blue funds are um our current percent about 73% of our funds that are have been encumbered or expended which means that those are funds that we either have open purchase orders for or have already spent down in our total S3 allocation so remember that this allocation spans three years um and so it's any any time within that three-year period um the remaining funds the dark blue the 5.2 yep those are obligated which means that in our budget we have budgeted them for a specific purpose that aligns with um the plan set forth by our Task Force at the beginning of our s allocations those funds would only be changed if we went through an amendment process because they've currently already been approved by ad our last approval was in December the 15.4 and the 6.4 those are part of Lea set aside funds Esser has a requirement where 20% of our funds go to mitigating learning loss and so those funds have a specific purpose we have 15.4 that have been obligated toward you know items such as summer school or our elit program Etc things that specifically we are doing to mitigate the learning loss and the 6.4 are is the portion of it that's already been spent down so this is just a dollar amount because I think sometimes it's really helpful to see what does that translate to what portion of our 30 million allocation are we talking about so our again light blue that is the funds that have been already expended or encumbered at just over 22 million and I should say to you this is as of uh the approval of our Second Amendment which was in December and this also the blue also includes the second half of the ABS stien payout for the end of the year yeah that blue is our entire stien pay out which is about 9 million um so that's all been encumbered because we already have you know it's already set up in our system to go to all staff that will qualify uh both certified and classified the 1.5 is the remaining funds that have been obligated but not yet spent down so those funds have been approved by ad but are you know could be amended uh if there was a different purpose and the remaining you know comes out to just over six million is our uh Lea set aside so a portion 4 million has already has been set aside U as part of our obligated amount and the 1.9 gosh it is really hard to see right here and I have contacts uh but the 1.9 is what's already been expended did you want me to take that one sure um there had been a a request to kind of have an an overview of where those dollars are actually being expended um the total there of that 23 million on that prior slide is the light blue and the yellow so it's the portion uh that we've spent and encumbered this does not include anything obligated these are actual expenditures it's the same number on two different slides it broke this out into objects objects being the the thing that we purchase and so salaries and benefits you can see are taking up the largest portion of those dollars 88% um next is those purchase services and this you can kind of see the alignment of that um expenditure breakout does match a lot of the Esser language of um what we were prioritizing and and uh it did go into salaries and benefits because teachers are what make the biggest effect on students um and then we have some uh smaller areas of some instructional materials I know I believe those were Jasmine do you remember the instruction materials piece was that part of the so the 167 a big portion of that was for our sips program which is a supplemental a supplemental material we purchased to support our reading Intervention Program um we have currently 15 reading interventionist across all of our sites and we didn't have a common program for them all to implement so sips was purchased that's a big portion of what that is including also um like embedded coaching to make sure that the materials were being appropriately used I have a quick question the rating interventionist that you just talked about what grades do they target primarily K through three so we have nothing in place for the upper grades a few of the sites do uh like Flex their interventionist so for example if there is um you know because of the way the master course schedule is if there is an opportunity to have let's say this interventionist these classes are all at you know recess prep DA they might also go serve fourth grade let's say but um it's not intended to serve the the higher grades it's where possible Right the model is primarily for uh early literacy thank you of course and then the next slide so these are the same expenditures but we're detailing these by function objects and functions are part of an account code string um that's set to us in statute of uh we all as school districts have to use those similar account code strings I knew I could talk about account codes um it is a puzzle and a story it is amazing to me that you can have a string of numbers and know so much and this is another piece of it is a function so incredibly important uh classroom function 1,000 that means those are direct dollars into the classroom uh and you can see that that percentage is heavily weighted over there at the 43% direct student support that's another um function that's a 2100s I could go through all the numbers but um those are uh the the student support where that comes in direct contact with students uh I'm I'm so sorry because in Esser I don't have all of the backend knowledge of what is happening there in my mind when I talk about budgets I'm talking about nurses and um uh OTS and PTs and speech and things like that those tend to be those direct support areas in the grant so we that is where the CJ live it's also where the we have um specialist uh CGA specialist so some classified pair professionals who are also supporting in that capacity uh originally in the grant we had um assistant principles which I believe also kind of lived there in the in the student support bucket there's a variety and I could you know we could generate a list and I think actually on the slides coming up you'll get a a clear idea of what specific positions are are headed in there and then uh I have aor I apologize um clarification you said assistant principles are being paid out of essr funds sorry originally they were in Esser we we moved many positions into Esser to create capacity in our m&o and other budgets that's part of the carry forward that you saw on the previous presentation and I think it's important to note it didn't just generate that carry forward it so there was a decision that came forward from Mee and conf first several years ago to implement and I can't remember what the real name of it is I'll call it what everyone calls it the parody study we did not have adequate funds to implement that in one year we would have had to roll it out over four years rather than doing that we implemented a plan where we rolled it all out in a single year with support the the recommendation for meet and confer was to use Esser dollars to help support it Esser dollars were not eligible to directly support that pay increase so the way we did it is we took groups of positions that were eligible to be paid out of Esser and move them into Esser to create capacity in m to provide all of those rat es and it was it was a significant increase across most positions throughout our district um and attempted to do some correction of the uh compression although we were only able to solve about 15% of the compression it is also how we got those um we were the first district to get our minimum wage up to $15 an hour we funded that by moving those positions into Esser so they were never meant to live there they were kind of placed there it's kind of like when you have a balloon with ballast right so when you want to go up you have certain things you're throwing them overboard you know you're going to go back and collect them up later you're still going to have that weight but in order to be able to get that lift you've got to get them out of the balloon we move positions out of the balloon so that way we could create that lift of those raises okay that just makes sense and I just had that clarify question because it was my understanding that when we originally ran bonds the and principal and principal supposed to be be paying out of those bonds so that money should have already been living somewhere they are listed in the maintenance and operations override and so there is that is the primary funding source for our assistant principles our nurses Etc in this case you know we we are not a district that typically plays Shell Games with money but in order to be able to meet the needs and what so part of eser was also working with that pandemic relief group that was actually specified in sr3 that you needed to have certain people at the table in order to make decisions about those funds the combination of that group and meet and confer had a very clear message of prioritizing some of those things that we were doing with compensation and there was no way to get there other than saying what can we move into Esser in order to be able to support those priorities thank you um and then also uh teach support another big chunk went to um that piece and then the rest is uh much smaller percentages but again I think the takeaway there was that the majority of these monies have been spent on salaries and benefits and the majority of these monies have gone directly into the classroom which we appreciate and those are just numbers straight out numbers simple so moving forward and knowing that these funds are going away at the end of September um you know we we've really taken a hard look at what the continuing priorities are again much of what was expressed in the public comment this evening um social emotional learning and behavioral support stands high as a clear and present need um and that comes out of the board committee that's working the assistant principal's group much of the teacher feedback that's received it's evident that that is really a high priority in addition to that the academic achievement gains that are that are prioritized in our student outcomes focused governance work with very targeted populations and as well as what the Strategic plan calls out in terms of growth goals for everybody and the 10% increases that we're working hard to achieve we've begun to make equity and Justice and advocacy progress that clearly is not something that we have concluded um my only one of the thoughts I was having while we were going over the equim metrics data is I wish we had it from you know like two years ago it's so hard to look at it now and see it in that yellow and and think of all the things that we have yet to do but we don't really have something that we can say well what did it look like before we started this work over the last two years what did we what did it look like before we used Sesser funds to partner with Wade and Benji what did it look like before child Justice Advocates and I don't really have a good data set to show that what we have now is something that says hey you know we're a little bit beyond where peer peers are across the country but it's hard to make a direct correlation so but we know that that priority remains family and Community Services through our through our Family Resource Center and our um Community Education team remain a high priority technology for learning before the pandemic we weren't quite yet one to one for all students now we've got technology all over the district in every child's hand and and it it requires a tremendous amount of um infrastructure support not to mention the professional development associated with using those tools effectively and then oversight and continuity of services these these resources still have to be managed they have to be accounted for there's completion reports that have to be done there's just a lot associated with using the money and then showing how the money was used so what we want to talk about now is thinking specifically about positions um the kind of the two buckets of positions that exist within Esser at the present time um there are there remain positions in Esser that were that did exist prior to the pandemic but they were moved into Esser to create capacity and and carry forward in ml so much like what Jay described oh sorry no it's okay um so some of those positions still exist they haven't yet been moved out um and then there were positions that were created new in response to the pandemic based need so there two kinds of positions that remain in Esser so what we want to share with you tonight are three recommended sets of action steps based on those categories of of positions um the first action step is to move the remaining positions that existed prior to the pandemic back into their original funding source so Vanessa Miss Shapiro referenced several of those in her M&L budget update um so the list is here we've gone through we've combed through um everything in order to ensure that those positions are identified to move back into their original funding source which can either be M some of them existed in our in our title entitlement grants that we had before so we get Title One title two title three title four which is outside the prview of this particular conversation but we could certainly bring additional information back about those um because they're significantly smaller than Esser and so what we're now trying to do is get go from the pond back to the bathtub but not the same way we were before but with the right or the tools and the strategies that are going to impact those those existing priorities go ahead Miss Michaela um are all positions that existed prior to the pandemic returning back to their original funding source that is the that is the intent of the recommendation yes um one of the questions I mean one of the things that I think would help me understand this a little bit better too and I don't know how my other colleagues feel curriculum coordinator what does that look like how much is that money how much is it and how much of it is going to be starting being taken out you know how much are we paying Rec curly curriculum coordinators what what is the price of the the two so I I only included in the budgeting process any of those positions that were previously funded out of memo um so these were previously these are basically like the safe positions that we were already paying for these before Sr funds kicked in exactly and most of these I would say most of these positions were paid out of a grant funding source so I don't necessarily have or I have obviously I have the cost of all of them the only dollars that I grabb to pull into the budget process were the ones that were going to that were in M before and are going back into m um if we were are do we have a safeguard uh that these will be covered by those grants or those We believe We do have capacity to address these positions what I what we can do we can absolutely give you dollar I can't do it off the top but right give you dollar figures associated with each of these positions that's relatively easy to do um we are actually in the process at at this week of going through all the existing federal grants that we have and evaluating the capacity of those grants to accommodate these recommendations so that that is absolutely work that's happening in fact it's happening tomorrow and Thursday and until it's done got it thank you uh a couple of these positions too there like you'll notice the 4.2 teacher on assignment instructional coach there are some things associated with um addressing one of our schools that was in very comprehensive School Improvement you'll recall a couple years ago we actually had a school that was in f- status and so it needed a little bit of additional support um kraton Virtual Academy has a portion of an instructional coach and a portion of some U well that's what it is a portion of an instructional coach so the rest of that instructional coach is paid out of regular Title One funds so that's why some of those numbers look a little strange so then these are the this is the list of positions that are being recommended to sustain um based on available alternative funding sources so either the additional capacity that exists now in M or additional capacity that exists in Grants due to carry forward um so the contract Subs which we address those had high impact high value uh and are perceived to be very effective the effective schools coordinator um I can speak to that directly because that's Jasmine um but the continuation of that role is is essential to making sure that that department runs well there's also um the child Justice and advocacy programming is in there the you know the thinking around that and I recognize that it's a controversial role what we've done in our data collection has revealed that the perceived value of the child Justice advocacy role is is is appears to be very Personnel dependent so the more and I would say that that's true likely with anybody on that any role on that list the perception of the value directly correlates to the experience we have with the people in that role so there are there's that's why the little asterisk at the bottom indicates that everything we would put here has to would have to to some degree be realigned in order to fit within an existing title one Grant or within an existing Federal grant um if we're using federal funds so the best example I can give you is with title one right now or even Esser it's really hard to get anything approved that speaks directly to social emotional learning because it's just such a hot button politic politicized weaponized body of work so will'll need to be able to get whatever this is ultimately through the grant approval process so we're looking at systematizing the work of the child Justice advocates in a way that draws on things like executive function um peer-to-peer relationships and um communication all of those fall under the umbrella of culturally practice they fall under the umbrella of equity and inclusion but they they have the right label that match the what is likely to be possibly funded so just to clarify some of these positions they might stay the same in name but the roles and responsibilities and expectations of them might have to be changed due to sorry to step on your the funding that they're coming out of essentially I would say yes and the like some of the names might even have to change if we can't get them through a grant approval process but the intent and again I'll go back to child Justice and advocacy because it's such a top it's it's so present um the intent there was to create a role that could support the intersection of social emotional learning behavioral support and Equity so we tried to create a a different concept and way to frame that body of work as it would be needed to be implemented in schools to improve outcomes for children and to support teachers there's lots of ways we can I think talk about that without losing the intent I don't know that those terms will make it through Grant approval at this time do you do we currently have um a full service Community Schools Grant through the federal government or no we do not I think that's one to look into as something that would probably not that would probably be encompassing of what you're discussing I think I mean it's like wraparound Services it was during the um Obama administration obviously went away is back now in the Biden Administration um full service Community Schools Grant thank you well that's a whole other um element to this conversation is seeking alternative options for funding sources which is which is important though and that's the kind of feedback and ideas that we're looking for I have more at the end of this presentation yeah and Dr dupin just to add real quick since we're talking about the sustain uh um um positions I think what would be helpful for us too especially since a child Justice advocacy um positions are in here effective schools coordinator I'm not really sure what that role is if we can get information on the last two years what these positions have done how they've progressed have we seen any progress is there any data attached that you know what we originally attended these positions for have actually done the outcome that we expected them to have just because I have a hard time voting yes let's sustain this positions where I'm not even sure what an effect a schools coordinator does or what their role is or what they have done in the last two years that this position has been created so if we can get a little bit more information on specifically the the um positions that we want to try to sustain is how they've what outcomes do we have from those positions yes absolutely we might want to hear from the teachers as well on their perspective on it as well because I feel like sometimes we might not get the true picture without their their voice as well is what they because sometimes like as a teacher I the district may have a different standpoint from what I actually see happening within my school um and so it could be a different perspective so that might be like some good data to bring back as well not just and I'll defer that to our cabinet to figure out how to make that happen I think that too helps because I know as you were mentioning earlier we don't have as much as far as the numerical numerical data right um for specific correlations but there are ways we can get feedback from teachers I think it also helps in providing guidance if some of these positions might need to change kind of what they look like in the daytoday maybe that feedback not just on is this position valuable and having the impact it is but also okay in areas where you're still seeing gaps maybe if we're reframing some of these positions the feedback from teachers could help guide that as well I think that's valuable I think the other thing that it would be helpful for us to provide is um sort of what are the other funding opportunities and what are um what are the intentions with the position so um I'll use the cjas as an example there are a number of grants that are available out there that those positions are eligible for um you know we heard advocacy for reading interventionists we'd love to find a bunch of extra funding sources for those reading interventionists but they they don't fit into things like um the the some of the federal safety grants and and some of those pieces they're very specific about what you can use those dollars for um we are just as concerned about the effect Ness of those positions and what we've gotten out of them over the last two years as the people that you've heard speak today but we're also working from a fairly large data set that tells us that one of the number one concerns from our teachers is behavior so to eliminate the position if it's not effective is fine but we can't give up on finding solutions to these Behavior challenges and one of the things that we've come to realize is we really need a program and we have had the opportunity in some of the conferences that we've attended to see neighboring school districts using programs that are quite effective and so we we want our committee that's looking into that to look at those programs the concern and the challenge that we have is let's say we selected we went to one of the neighbor districts and it's like oh my goodness this is the answer to everything um if we don't restructure a position like that to support the implementation of that program then all of that burden falls on principles and teachers and what we're really fundamentally trying to do is not put more burden on those individuals so I'm not advocating specifically for that position um and if it if it quacks like a duck and it walks like a duck then it's a duck so you know if we end up in a position where we have a funding source to retain something similar to that and we use it in a different way you know what I would ask people to please do is watch watch whatever this creature is and then if it quacks like a duck and Walks Like A Duck all of our doors are open tell us it's walking like a duck and quacking like a duck but if it Soares like an eagle and it's actually making an impact then let's not just throw it out because I think moving forward we need to be intentional and we can do more like I I know I worked in high schools I was in wraparound Services I worked in programs where all we did was te two and tier three interventions and pulled kids out of classrooms and did home visits and like it was just like hard work every day and we had to keep data we had to be able to present why we were so valuable on the campuses we were at and earn my salary like I had to earn my salary every year I was hosting Grant people and walking them around and being like this is what we've been doing here's all of the results I've gotten um and and I ran a pro I developed and then ran a program at three different high schools in Portland because of the success I was able to show through data now I know so often times it's really hard to quantify some of those successes in in this realm but there's a way to do it but you got to have to plan it ahead of time and be keeping that data because then we're in this position where we don't have anything to really measure things with right again then you have this this like issue of individuals in the positions right obviously there's going to be issues with what kind of quality you're getting and P and how that all works out but you know um I mean I could just go on and on about this I I think that obviously there is a need for this I would hate to see all of that fall back on tier two and tier like the tier two and tier three things can't just be dumped on principles and vice principles and whoever um and if this isn't working correctly or people are just like slacking like that's not cool either so we have to figure it out and figure it out fast we don't have time time to be wasting to figure out is this working and I understand the need to like take our time and evaluate I there just has to be a sense of urgency with that because I would hate for us to continue to waste time and hear that that this things are not being implemented in the ways that they're supposed to be I would love to see some data moving forward if we were to continue to keep this program for the next year to like make it very clear that this is what our expectations are to see what happens from the beginning of the school year to the end of the school year I don't know what those metrics look like what those measurables would be maybe they can tell us or maybe teachers and staff and principals can tell us but I think there's something there that has to be shown if then there's a long-term conversation um I know I I just mentioned that Grant I don't know if we get any 21st century dollars um we do do some schools like I've said before you know in in my and I I I know I'm not the end I'll be all of this but like I saw how we could integrate being we my my program was existing we also integrated becoming an americore Vista site into that we integrated BSW and mssw interns into that so they weren't like because you can't replace obviously with the Vista you can't replace existing positions but there's so many ways to leverage resources and make this work um and and integrate that and then also still have those Partnerships with the Community Partners that we already have in the schools to kind of have things working cohesively um and I I know that some of that's happening to some extent it's just there's not a lot to show for it in terms of data is what I'm trying to say and so it's hard to hear that not see any data and then decide trying to have to decide well what are we going to prioritize when we don't don't know what value to place on things yeah and and I think I think something that's important to clarify so um this team's been working on this for seven months now yeah we have identified that when we don't have strong data sets to bring it back but we have the anecdotal data like what was shared with you tonight we know the program is not universally effective so we're not coming to you saying this isn't as effective as we'd like it to be we'd like to continue it what we're coming to you and saying is what we're doing isn't working the way we want it to work but we can't just say let's just eliminate those FTE and say good luck teachers right we we need to fix it and we need to make it work and so it is my expectation and I think this team's expectation that we should be looking at everything with data we've implemented a new sips program for reading intervention how effective is our reading intervention we should know that if it's effective we should double down on it if it's ineffective we need to change up what we're doing with reading intervention if we bring it if we bring into play reading or math intervention you know at that 4 through eight level we should be tracking are we getting results ads from it or not so we're you know we're on a process we're on a pathway to student outcomes Focus governance the goal of the team is to be able to track all of this and have it be accountable but I can't my challenge is I you know I'm hearing a lot of people's frustrations from prior years and I yes I was here and and I was in at many times as frustrated as people you're hearing share but I can't go back to the past and change the way things were done ear where we're implemented the only thing we can do is make certain that we're bringing data forward as we move forward it's why you saw the equim metrics data toight you know we're trying to become very data informed in what we're doing we are blessed and fortunate to have people like um Dr pombo with us now who are teaching datawise to our our leadership teams at our sites and we're Drilling in on student data in ways that I mean I don't the people in the audience could tell you better than me but I don't think we've drilled down in that way for more than a decade so um none of this is going to happen overnight and so if people are frustrated because we're seven months in and it all hasn't magically been transformed what I would say is look to the changes that are being made incrementally those will have an impact over the long term and and we can't you know some of these things that are water under the bridge we've got no way to go and go back and fix what happened but I also don't want to just give up and say oh well I guess we can't affect student Behavior good luck I hope I hope things work out in your class I 100% agree with the comments that we heard tonight that first best instruction is an effective Behavior strategy every child in every classroom is engaged all the time what I'd like to see them engaged in is the instruction if they are not engaged in the instruction they will be engaged in something else and you'll and you'll end up with incidents like the incidents we heard shared with us tonight so it is definitely a key factor in what we're doing but I don't think we C when I talk to our neighbors and I look at these programs that they've implemented they're having the same problems we're having they have much one of those districts I worked for in the past I helped Implement some of the the um strong first tier instruction in that District they are strong in that area already they are still dealing with behavior problems implementing these programs they're putting staff Behind these programs and they're starting to see improvements in some of those Behavior challenges so I just don't want to give up on trying to fix the problem because what was implemented hasn't been as effective universally across the board as we wanted it to be and I apologize if I'm speaking in I also don't want to see a divisiveness between like we like a one or the other y thing like we need reading interventionists and we need people who are providing these supports to we need both yes it has to be a multipronged approach and that's why I brought up like the clarification earlier like we can we can be renaming these position we can be reframing them even if the name is the same because I agree I don't want to get rid of FTE if we don't have to especially because that does fall directly back on our principles on our APS and it also falls back on every teacher who is dealing with that and feeling like they're not as supported because there's one or two less humans on the campus to support them regardless of what their title is um but yes moving forward because we are not Time Travelers making sure that we have some data because there are going to be difficult decisions and at the heart of all this like we're looking at titles these are humans so we also need to keep that in mind um I don't know if I'm jumping the gun but I'm looking at the conclud and going back to the sofg framework that we're taking right and kind of bringing up Miss Ariel's point is that I understand everything however for example conclude crayon Virtual Academy office manager conclude principal at crayon Virtual Academy um I'm not sure why in these slides in the bottom where it says priority I remember our online school being one of our priorities and before but it's not in here I must have seen it some on another slide or maybe I'm jumping the head to next in the append okay um but what I'm seeing um here is that um we have we may not have had data on the behavior issues but what we are hearing still is that for the past two years whatever stuff we have implemented hasn't really been working we're still having the same behavior issues but here we have data that shows our student outcomes aren't where they're supposed to be and whether that was an oversight on the board or administration of we should have funded our Online Academy a little bit better or not we're so quickly to conclude that when we have 32 students that are basically going to be left with oh this is it whatever um and that's I feel personally what has gotten us to the data points that we have right now that we're always leaving it up to like oh well we didn't do our job well enough or we weren't stewards of our money so now we're in this position let's oh well let's let's move on to the next and from the points and from the feedback I'm getting from these slides that's what it's seeming to me as we're prioritizing um people's position over the students and if for the past few years we've had certain positions that till this day we have no data or we have no concrete evidence that it has implemented or worked in a certain way then we need to to miss skips and McLean's point is we need to act fast because our students are suffering from it especially those 32 online students and I know that's a different um kind of conversation but it's it's just daunting to me to see that we're so quick to get rid of um you know a system that has 32 kids that are going to be left with no other options but we're willing to keep other jobs that maybe in the two years from what I've heard we don't really have any concrete data of behaviors increasing because of these positions and that's about if I read correctly that's about 8 nine 10 they have assistants they have a universal coach and eight that's like about 12 positions just for one um I know the yes stewardship and maybe we haven't really talked about that the work that corwell um and way did that's a huge implementation of creating that positive behavior culture so maybe we emphasized on that I also know that we have one um specific school right now that's operating almost at a 500 school capacity without an assistant principal while all the other schools have an assistant principal too so there's a lot of stuff that we really need to start focusing on and making sure that our budget is aligning to what we're saying if we want to bring up these student outcomes then maybe we should focus on rating intervention we have nothing higher math one of our you know goals is to make sure that our eighth grade students can pass math we have no intervention in math so there's a lot of stuff that we do have to talk about and I think we do have an urgency and it's not well let's continue to see if this works we've had the two years if the data is not there then we're going to have to start making some difficult decisions it is what it is and I just want to I just want to correct something that that I'm concerned might be a misunderstanding here this shows the office manager and the principal for the kraton Virtual Academy as reductions that is not intended to be that we're closing that program out it's just that a principal to support 31 students is not a full-time position and an office manager to support 31 students is not a full-time position so um originally and I know we're a little behind the eightball with bringing back information to you on on the possibilities for future Virtual Academy but when we get to that presentation and I believe it might have been included in the information in the last board update part of what's built into the cost models for each of the options is a percentage of a principal and a percentage of an office manager and so they're they're backed out as full positions here because they're coming out of the Esser funding but if we maintain the the ongoing programmatic element of the Virtual Academy we would then have to budget in that I don't know if it was a02 or a three for a principal and an office manager and we're not going to get a point two or a point three so we're going to need to look at where do we have other things that are happening in the district that don't require 1.0 and combine some things together and there may be some synergies in combining say a a smaller School principal with that person also having oversight for that Virtual Academy so there there may be a way to accomplish that where the smaller school is okay with a point8 and that person's always physically on grounds is okay with the point8 office manager and that person's always physically on grounds but 20% of the time they're helping to support that Virtual Academy so I just I just don't want to create a misconception that this is assuming closing the Virtual Academy those conversations have not happened yet okay thank you for that clarification can I get clarification on just because it's a term that can be used very broadly the 13 instructional Specialists yes so when we did the literacy intensification role one of the components of that role was a par professional position so at the present time there are 13 pair of professional positions that exist across the district that are deployed to support a variety of of purposes some of them do indeed work within the reading classroom to lower group size some of them do other things they they exist to fulfill a variety of par professional roles across the campus so it was part of the literacy intensification priority so and essentially it's not that we wouldn't have PA pros at all this is just the 13 additional ones that we created to provide additional support that is correct okay and there may be further conversations about these as we look for ways to sustain them because we had you know we've had conversations in in Leadership Council and some other spaces there was I believe this was one of the positions there was strong advocacy for so it is we it's not like we're ignoring the feedback we're getting this is where we're at at this moment in time we we're trying to figure out how do how do we effectively absorb that feedback the challenge always becomes and and this is the challenge I had to throw out there for people if we want to keep this then what are we giving up instead right when you have a household budget and you decide you want want to add another streaming service does that mean you're giving up some Starbucks or a different streaming service or you're not eating out one night a week so you know it's the same thing when you deal with the school budget if you want to have 13 instructional Specialists that you hold on to that the funding source has gone away what else is it that we feel like we would like to give up in order to support and also just to add um a quick side note is that we are losing some staff due to these Sr funds I know that we just recently lost a great um parent Le on to our neighboring District which I'm excited for them but we really do need to act on this because um we have certain employees that are starting to get scared and I would hate to be in a position where we're doing this last minute too and they don't know I do not like I would hate it if I didn't know if I was going to have a job tomorrow or the next month or whatever so we really want to be cautious of that too before we start losing more staff because of the unsureness of what's going on we need to be very proactive I mean yes and not reactive I said that correctly with that um Mr man I'm I agree with you I think you know yes if if Specialists are a priority then there is something else has to be given up so my ask would be only because as a principal I've been in these conversations for six months where my district has come with a plan based on the numbers based on what you know was created as as her positions and as principles we've all come back and said no these are non-negotiables these are priorities and yes I am willing for my site and it's varied at different sites you know at my site we can do with one less of this um so I just ask that that is the principal's feedback is taken very seriously and that those conversations are happening very frequently especially right now um as we move forward into making these decisions because no offense to our district level cabinet but at the site we we see things that are prioritized differently and it doesn't have I bring up that it's different it can be different in each site too because that's important it does make it a little Messier but it's important that each site has the priorities for what they need and we're working well what yeah and with ultimately what the students are going to need and that we stay away from you know what's going to keep us safe but what's going to be the better outcome for these students and I would yes and that to say as we work through this process one of the things that we're getting triangulated feedback around is the idea that there does need to be consistency so I'll revisit the child Justice advocates for example some of I think what we're hearing is based on different approaches to implementation and support So when Mr man's talking about programmatic alignment or implementing a program that whether it's reading intervention or child Justice and advocacy or tier one instruction there need to be some common elements elements that are just to you know for that non-negotiable piece and recognizing each campus does have really interesting and delightful challenges so we're trying to to balance those pieces so this is our timeline just sorry I just wanted one more clarification on the last one um the last bullet like what does that mean okay so this speaks to you know at any given time we have a number of vacancies and we have people right now to president koo's Point people are making decisions about what they're going to do for next year so we anticipate the ability to absorb all these positions into other existing vacancies it may not be the exact same role I'll use the intensification class size reduction and flex teachers there's 15 positions we typically hire 65 to 80 or more teachers in any given year so the ability to find um um assign roles for these individuals is is highly likely without anybody losing their their job okay so the last bullet doesn't mean we'd be removing positions that might increase class sizes because class size is a conversation that'll be happening at meet and confer so at this moment in time our current class size ratio is 27.5 to one that remains unless we get a different recommendation from me and conf just when I read the bullet it to me it sounded like we have 15 positions that were meant to reduce class sizes and if we get rid of them they'll go back up and I I think I misunderstood your question because the when we started with the literacy intensification priority we kind of rolled out Literacy intensification for K5 and then an El support role for 68 that was the initial intent and then what happened was the need was actually around like needing to provide some of that school level flexibility and some buildings just really needed to reduce class size so they so we added flexibility to allow the principles to use those positions in different ways so some did do class size reduction some stayed with that original model of literacy intensification and then the flex position was a you know kind of a way to fill gaps and holes and or create new kinds of programming so that's an an example of how fun priority turned into three different types of implementation and in actual practice the majority of these individuals correct me if I'm wrong gentlemen but the majority of these individuals ended up being plugged into V position vacancies so it wasn't necessarily that you know there's 15 extra teachers it wasn't necessarily that each of the eight schools had two extra teachers they had these two people hired for these positions but then they had two holes that didn't get filled so these individuals filled those two holes so moving forward this is the intended timeline that we have in place and this may need to adjust based on our conversation this evening um tomorrow's meet and confer the same conversation is going to be part of that uh interest based negotiation discussion and then we're looking at being able to Pro to on the 13th provide preliminary Staffing allocations to the sites and to the principles in particular and what that is is your list of how many teachers you're going to get next year based on a projected enrollment and then with that then you kind of know you can start knowing where you can where people can slot into from that list on the slide prior and then also factoring into this is the is the idea that we're opening Kennedy School next year so back to that slide people who may not have an Esser funded position we're opening a whole new building where there will be vacancies that we anticipate staff will be able to move into um and then moving forward with a goal of issuing contracts by March February 23d so it's a it's a closed timeline yeah and and and to to your comment about like how does this timeline align um within the last six or seven years in Arizona because of the teacher shortage districts have moved up when they do their contracts over and over again so it used to be normal to do contracts in like March April time frame like I remember you know in the early 2000s we did most contracts in April it is more common place now when when I talk to my peers like several of our neighbors have that same February 20th 23rd date so that is everything's kind of moved up it's kind of like when people started competing for kindergarteners used to be kindergarteners had all their info sessions in March now people are doing it as early as December most people do it in January or February and it's just a lot of that also has been affected by the school year moving back into August to accommodate the testing window so so if if I can summarize just some of the feedback and takeaways for the team in the next two weeks what I heard was a desire to get more information about what those positions cost any of the impact data that we may have it sounds like the greatest interest is really around the child Justice and advocacy role um including teacher perspectives might say with that the impact of some of those instructional Specialists was their significant positive impact got it I think the impact of all of it is important and then framing that I and please tell me if I'm on the right track kind of framing it into some structure you know given the capacity of our existing grants how much of that could actually be sustained because like our title Title One budget for example is we anticipated it's going to be somewhere around you know three and a half million dollars I'm being optimist so you know you're going from 32 million down to three that's that's the scope of the of the of the challenge so is does that sound accurate for me it does I don't know if anybody else has any other questions comments feedback sounds accurate and I know it's sounds weird but moving forward even if it's a pain in the butt but if it means we can have the positions that we need I mean even I've been in positions before where we've had to like almost like billables you know as the employee explain what work we did that would fit into what Grant I mean if it has to come to that it has to come to that so that we can make things work as a puzzle but I think that's an a thing that could be done as long as people are trained correctly especially with the wound Services I think I think we do some of that now with time and effort logs is I think the current parlament that's used for it so that's correct for then for the again going back to the fact these are humans for the notice of position discontinuation um One have any of those conversations started informally and then two were all of those positions were all of those humans told when they were hired explicitly that it might very much might be temporary so I'm gonna I'm going to say based on our expectations yes and yes there you know everybody who was hired into an Sesser funded position the the direction at the time was to ensure that they were aware that these were positions funded with one-time dollars onetime funds is how we talked about it I think where it might be a little shaky is with like those literacy intensification features if they're filling a regular third or a fourth or an eighth grade class it is possible that they may not even know that that the accounting behind their role is tied to Esser so I would say that's the one area where it's that's why I asked because I've seen that happening in other districts where people were moved into Esser who had been with the district and were not aware that they were moved into Esser but but what I will say is for for most of those individuals if you were moved into a third or fourth or fifth grade position even though the position you were originally hired into was funded out of Esser and is going away fourth or fifth grade position still exists right so you know it's not like there's a line of teachers waiting to come in and take that job away from that person so you know I I don't know you know the extent to which that's going to have an impact on those individuals and what we really need to figure out very quickly is you know how do we how do we find which groups maybe don't have Clarity and make sure that we provide that Clarity to those groups and the only other question or feedback I have is that a February 20th is the notification of position discontinuation but our board meeting is that day isn't that a premature um a premature date if you haven't even heard final feedback from the board I think it is that's one of the adjustments that we could could make yeah if you can just do the discontinuation of the posting of notifications until you have that conversation with us after the 20th so you guys have the feedback of what the board is thinking one of the things that we had talked about that in terms of procedure is it's not just like you know a letter that says here your position is no longer continuing it would be intent is that it's a conversation so next week we're having a principal meeting to talk about you know like to provide a list like here are the positions that exist on your campus that are tied to Esser so they can look at it and make sure that they have that accurate understanding and begin to then prepare what those conversations might look like so it's not just a because the approach is going to be different for different kinds of positions future it's just a matter of hey you know the the accounting behind your position is different now but here's the thinking next year have this same job exists it's going to be different funding source but it still exists um some cases the the funding for the current positions going away but here are a list of positions we anticipate being vacant that you were qualified for that you could apply for in the transfer process okay I mean it says finalize ction process for principal at Kennedy School on the 20th does that that doesn't mean the board is voting on it that day we're working very hard to bring to you a recommendation for that role on February okay we have anticip we are working on interviews for next week okay at a robust pool of candidates and a robust interview team and a robust interview team and we have a zalot testing happening right now which is sort of colliding getting all that input into the decision but our objective is to bring a recommendation that night I would just say if the position discon continuation notification is delayed at all it needs to be delayed very minimally um yeah like two days or three days I'm just saying until we have our feedback and you know there's a way of having some informal conversations you know from Principal to staff member and things because and I do think that a lot of those informal conversations have been having what I can't guarantee is that they've had that they've occurred for everyone or that we've reached all but this has been coming for three years and we're kind of just at that point where it's painful and but it's but it's present and okay well do we have any other questions comments perfect I want to thank everybody I know this is a really hard conversation but just know that first and foremost we're putting our students first and our money and our resources needs to really put into the kids so um just keep that in mind as we're having these conversations um and with that said that brings us to Future agenda items do we have any future agenda items I have um a couple if we can do a family resource update I would love to hear from our Family Resource Center have them present talk about the awesome things they're doing our Community Education as well at s point and um oh and I would like to put Bond conversation to have a bond conversation at some point that one may need a study session so oh yeah and yeah a study session for the bond yes and you just made Vanessa very happy been working hard for that study session awesome just flagging the one that I put on opening campuses after I'm looking at all the other ones other than the one for the update for CVA in March I think mine probably has some budget implications that we should consider before like if we could get some information so that maybe we could try to see what that would look like and then I thought it was my understanding to that the sorry go ahead and finish that I sorry I was done oh yeah um and it was my understanding that the future Craton viritual Academy needs to be put on the next board meeting just because we've been pushing that so so much we're trying for that March meeting we just need to confirm the availability the presenters so it'll either be that one or the following one depending on presenter ability okay um this has been on the board for two to three months is there a reason why we haven't reached out to them in the last two to three months to make sure they could be here for the 20th I thought we had recent conversations okay um I think that needs to be ASAP but we'll have the discussion in our 101 okay anything else all right I move the governing board adjourn all those in favor when noes thank you everybody for coming I got

uh the last part of 2.1 I did three examples of my own background recruiting hire and retaining exemplary staff this is a grow your graduates example I knew I had it in here somewhere I just couldn't remember where it was so early in my career this goes back into 2005 six and seven I worked for the Brighton school district Brighton was not that dissimilar than you are it was a growing District um it was out there all by the Denver International Airport area where all the land was vacant and they are building schools uh in that process we realize that we simply in one high school town one high school town growing at 12 14 16% per year they were they were and still are scheduled to grow one elementary school every year a new middle school every three years and a new Comprehensive High School every five years and I was there in 2005 and six that they added their first High School their first other High School I mean talk about and you all have this history here you had one high school splitting the community and just the difficulty of that but the challenge was Staffing it as well and so as you're building those making sure that you have graduates um out of teacher colleges and that's always a challenge so we did a growe own program where we partnered with Colorado State University and developed scholarships and internships for high school juniors and seniors um and in the senior level and as a Juniors they were um being began doing almost career in tech ed courses they were sponsored by the the color State University and given Associates and bachelor's degree credits and they were pipelined in we received a grant uh that we had written they were pipelined to come back and work for us after they graduated so we covered the cost of their tuition and then two years later as an associate they came act as a par professional and four years later they came back as a teacher and worked for us for three years and so that was kind of the contract exchange like we would help them we set up the relationship with Colorado State and they would in turn come and work for us and they were the best staff ever because they knew us and they knew who we were they had grown up through our system um and really had a very successful program first generation color students of that cohort uh because the community was a a fairly agricultural Community where 67% of those students were going to college for the first time bilingual placements and uh language courses were provided because many of them were first uh uh Second Language Learners and so we spent a lot of time helping them transition into being ready for college as well as going to college at the same time long-term commitments U reduced our overall turnover I'm sorry I don't have those numbers but over 30% of program graduates completed bachelor's degrees and 50% created uh uh obtained Associates degrees out of that three-year program more than a 100 classified employees uh came into the fold or came into the employment in two years and that was a fast gross district and we were desperate for those employees and they absolutely made the connections I'm checking on my time I have no idea thank you five minutes I was going to hit my stopwatch and that didn't happen so I think I only have this one left um NOP because I have 2.3 after this one resources professional development U what are we doing to train our staff I had an opportunity working with my 11 schools as superintendent to identify strategies for positive behavior um huge problem with discipline I don't I wasn't blessed with a 96% graduation rate um had a problem with attendance had a problem with bullying in the hallways and so we looked into different programs to help our second language Learners and our disciplined students and our all students for that matter and we landed on a a a program called positive behavior intervention and supports PBIS helps students understand what their behavioral expectations are in the hallway the playground the classroom um it really sets a and you have sources of sources of strength um The Leader in Me Leader in Me is what you use thank you took me a minute I was seeing CV's name in my mind and I couldn't remember his work you you have stepen cvy leader and me um positive behavior intervention that supports is very much a similar program uh but working with our students well working with our staff first to set a vision for how are we going to support our students addressing the big why and what is this massive change initiative in every classroom and every teacher and every student would adopt massive change to three-year development cycle ended up with every classroom having having a set of norms parents and students um understanding what positive behavior innovent mention was not that dissimilar to Stephen Cub's work again uh we've had one of the authors come out George sug was one of the original authors for PBIS came out and helped train our teachers uh we trained 900 teachers in this work uh parents support staff U as well we had atome kits for how do you manage positive behavior at the house I did videos of me with my seven-year-old at a time in the Neil house we have positive behavior expectations I spent a lot of time working on this project as a district over 3,500 parents were trained they came through this process of learning about PBIS and 900 staff um it was iterative meaning it happened every year it wasn't a oneit Wonder it's still going on today uh 11 10 years later um it's localized at the school level so principls own it and when uh students go from elementary to Middle they know what it means to be behavor behave and to have expectations on them in middle school and then likewise in high school so we're now seeing students that were first second third graders there are 10th 11th and 12th graders knowing what again leader me type behaviors should look like in every classroom uh generational meaning um student to student They carried it up through their system to all 6600 students the reduction of suspensions was incredible in three years we reduced 280 suspensions to less than 50 and in a culture that um we we had some serious challenges with discipline uh habitually Trent uh uh our habitually Trent students reduced by 53% this is prior to covid an increase in in student L leader Solutions so our students in student council and National Honor Society and leader programs really grew because all of a sudden students saw this as a area for growth and promotion and learn learning and not always on the discipline side of the work hopefully that makes sense I think these slides made a lot more sense last night about midnight but hopefully that translates okay this this ties into a little bit of the work that you all are already doing one minute I'll go I'll go quickly through my Charlotte daniels's work developing peer coaches Master Mentor teachers um that's the work that I've done in that supporting staff internally with a 20% 7% uh increase in promotions because they actually did the work of growing and then my eighth grade team wouldn't H be happy that I put that up there but all grades except eth grade were green for growth and math and language arts um only e8th grade needed a little bit more work the following year last slide uh meaningful and strategic feedback um so I've LED monthly Zoom calls to all staff District walkthroughs and protocols helping teachers learn about um how they're going about their teaching we allowed all teachers and staff to do a 10% carry forward for their finances helping their culture of spending and investing in student um um stuff the word that came Stu student content student resources that kind of work um I'll say one more number five I'll illustrate that we because I spoke to the board about this briefly I launched a a teacher creativity Grant where all teachers were allowed to apply for a th000 2,000 or $55,000 Grant um this was out of the superintendent's budget we had put this aside because I believe the teachers really needed to have access to resources to do what they did great and we worked really hard to make sure our teachers uh had at their fingertips the ability to innovate so we had uh 28 29 teachers that were approved in that category over a period of two three years we had more than 100 teachers that received creativity grants to improve improve the academics in their classrooms in a very real way putting again the resources in the hands of teachers and that's all the H time that I have today we're going to shift my questions thank you thank you Dr Neil um the first question we have for you this afternoon is hegley is currently an a-rated District as you pointed out a-rated from your research on our district what do you see as the top three major issues facing our district and how how would you begin to handle them in your first six months okay top three major issues uh teacher recruitment is is right up there um how do we recruit great teachers coming through covid again I'm married to this we have tears in the Neo house on tough days our teachers are tired our teachers are working really hard right now we have students that are trying to come back from an attendance standpoint but they're not yet here okay we're experiencing some of this postco returning behavior and that pressures a lot of our teachers U some of my wife's second graders and third graders just can't stand in a line they don't know what it's like to sit in classrooms and be disciplined and so that's making it harder on our teachers and so how do we build a culture in the district where our teachers feel appreciated and our support staff feel resourced and appreciated that's a that's a very large issue with today's student population number two Higley um you're working through this growth Dynamic and so um when you looked at the numbers Mr Moore was explaining there is a flattening or a deterioration or a lessening of the numbers of students we're going to have to get A110 value out of every dollar invested and so we have to really look at our finances to see what can happen now you had a a $23.8 million carry forward from last year to this year a lot of districts don't have that but we're going to have to look at how do we make that money um spread over the next few years while we're doing the dip because with 125% growth in one area town and I think 25% in another um and it was on one of my earlier slides you've got growth that's coming how do we hold our breath long enough for our finances to cover that third area um I would say leadership um leadership development continues to be an area I I know at one point there was a a u principal and assistant principal leader development cohort um I don't think it's being done anymore how are we developing tomorrow's leaders how are we as a board and a superintendent developing our leadership how are we setting the example through communication and building trust H you know how are we working together to set that example those those are big opportunities for us to lead the way as a board superintendent collaborative and to help our principles leaders um academic leaders come up through the work and step into that role thank you pleas what does transparency mean to you and what would what would that look like if you were the superintendent transparen is asking the answering the hard question um I do a a monthly uh parent and superintendant online zoom and cabinet does not like this they we sit around the I'm the guy on the camera and I'm the one that is reading the questions as they pop up on the screen and then five cabinet members are handing me sticky notes on how to answer these hard questions this is being transparent with our community is being present answering the hard questions I was going through the process with a a school district that I'm working with there's closing four schools me standing in front of those parents and explaining to them why are we closing those schools right those are those are transparent those are hard conversations to have but communication uh building uh connection with our community um I actually was in I did a teacher uh teacher superintendent coffee in conversation um in every one of my schools last year so really being available and present um and supporting my principles um I don't expect to do to take over your school that's not my job that's that's your job I want to support you in your leadership as a school principal and so that means means defending you and that means standing up for you and that's what that's what transparency um yeah answering answering the hard questions even even when they're uncomfortable and I know you had some conversations with our Chief Financial Officer of you didn't get the information that you were looking for at the last board yes at the last board meeting and so that he was I want to make sure that our staff are providing our board the answers that they also need and so transparency is me owning that and saying we can get that to you we can my job is to defend and support the board and as their employee and I want to really make sure that I'm transparently doing that thank you what are some ideas you bring to the table so each student is seen heard and valued equally oh isn't this the $10 million question I've done it in several different ways I'm not sure that I have the answer to this question let me be transparent but students follow each one of their Pathways and we as a board and a superintendent need to ask the questions so we have a a a superintendent uh student council I sit with them once a month we have a um on during our strategic planning we made sure we have students in the conversation uh we have twice a year that the board sits and listens to our leader student leaders and so they have a voice at the table um but we're interviewing and we're spending time and we're engaging um a lot of those are just how we do our daily business as as a school district I have students that write letters to me as a superintendent and want something changed or that kept the same or don't close the school I work really hard to make sure each student's voice matters and I respond back to them personally and I expect our staff to as well and so making sure every student voice is heard is is really a broad question I don't know that you can answer it one looking at the data making sure that we have opportunities for our um underachieving students that aren't showing up that they have a voice at the table even though they're not representing themselves there's just there's just a lot of ways to do that thank you what style of communication do you prefer how would you communicate with the governing board parents teachers staff and community in an emergency and Non-Emergency okay what style of communication do I prefer a lot and and and I would say probably more than most superintendents um just mechanically monthly Zoom calls with um all staff monthly Zoom calls with all parents um I expect our principles to do the same and either sit with me or have their own digital Zoom conversation um I have a weekly video that I send to the board about 12 to 16 minutes and it updates the board every single Friday on what the workings of the district are are uh we obviously have the coffee and conversations I have lunch with our city council U members individually and I speak to the city council once a month and so we communicate that way with our County Commissioners I communicate that way uh we host a lunch and conversations with the board once a month uh for specific groups of constituents or stakeholders in the community such as a realtor lunch such as a pastor's lunch uh such as the Business Leaders of the community lunch so we're really happy having those conversations throughout the year I have specific group conversations with the board and parents so we have the special education dinner of the Year where we we listen we have the bilingual uh parents dinner of the Year where we listen to what parents are needing um so we have those conversations in a very regular way crisis communication um I'm pretty proactive um on both on social media as well as planned I'm a little bit let's plan this out um two years ago we had a forest or a a uh yeah forest fire in the school district the County Commissioners called me at about 11:00 at night and said we don't have enough firefighters to do what needs to be done to stop the houses from burning and so I canceled school the next day so our employees could go and help firefighters out right and we had enough relationship and it was awkward right we were serving food and we were giving out gloves and we were supporting the community and it was all over the newspaper School District employees stopped for a day to give back to the community and it was wonderful there were those crisis moments that I think we come together as a community about um pretty quick in that communication and I'm I'm probably texting while I'm speaking to you right now I mean I text all the time okay thank you as superintendent fostering authentic connections with the governing board teachers staff students and the community is Paramount for the success of our school district fostering what I'm sorry so sorry can you say that the beginning part again sure as a superintendent fostering authentic connections with the governing board teachers staff students and the community is Paramount for success for our school district additionally creating a psychologically safe environment is critical for collaboration and Innovation provide examples of how you prioritize meaningful relationships with your current Community sure um at the first thing that came to mind was leader and me of you know watching that work happen with our students while that's not necessarily the question I think there's a lot of how the solutions happen in the work that's already happening in schools my work as a superintendent um and our work as a cabinet and a principal cohort is to connect to our community so each one of my schools has a business leadership advisory Council I we talked about this with the board a little bit um when we interviewed you have four or five parents that are engaged with u as Business Leaders and when it comes time to work on a bond or to build a playground uh we're already well connected in our business Community uh each of our cabinet leaders and I have regular weekly one-on-one conversations uh we talk about uh how I can help break down barriers we have you know um cabinet conversations that are U very much intense and that we all agree to gree and we work it through so that's authentic communication I sit on the board of uh directors for the Chamber of Commerce I mentioned earlier that I work with the city council uh monthly conversations with our County Commissioners and then I drag along our leaders our principles our academic leaders um so that I'm not the only one here in the story and that we can all share in that responsibility um mayor and I have lunch and talk about what's going on with our own student in my high school and and um sometimes I talk about what's going on in her City and we kind of compare notes and how do we how do we improve things as a district and so I'm pretty relatable I'm pretty direct as a communicator um so and my community says that right we like seeing you there having you there being at ball games I try to go to every sport at least twice a year um so just being present was the MC for the musical you know that kind of thing Dr Neil share your experience with bonds what was the nature of the bond and the results okay so I've done six Bond elections I have failed two and been successful at four um over my career um and I wish that was the track record was fail to fail and and pass pass pass pass I think you learn as a bond what your community will tolerate so I'll give you the example that I did earlier in the Brighton Community we're adding a high school and we really needed a bond to be passed for us to build the new $65 million comprehensive school it failed in the first try and it was really heart wrenching because we were busting at the seams um we had been trying for two years we planned it well it failed at like a 62% failure rate unfortunately the following year we had to go to a split schedule so we had students coming in at 6:00 in the morning and students coming in at 12:00 noon we had football practice before school for team for the first half of the team we had football practice for the X the B team in the afternoon and then they combined together to play Friday night I mean it was a very difficult season as a community I'm going say the bond passed pretty well the following year as we went through that process so so part of this is timing and making sure that you you understand both the language and the need need of the community um what the tax burden is feeling like um when we're going through uh kind of this um a little the the financial struggles throughout the United States and through you know Arizona is going through a really strong growth cycle H how are we timing some of those purchases and do we have other options like your lease option to be able to build structures to be able to buy buildings there's there's a timing to this work I've been successful at passing four other Bond elections um in the 40 to 55 million doll range and learned a lot learned a lot on the timing and who to be involved with and and when principles need to be involved um but U again I think you learn more from the ones that you you don't pass and you kind of go back and you regroup and you figure out what what you did right and what you did wrong this question is about safety can you explain how you will handle student safety in Higley what will you do to reassure parents and children that their school is a safe place to learn sure so having built new schools one of the number one mandate between schools is we have Equitable safety procedures across all schools so you have some schools that are dated some schools that have different Technologic technological advancements and so we um when we build a new school we have to make sure that the rest of the district comes up to that standard right and so uh we will have Equitable safety procedures in our schools will have appropriately trained staff and a uniform application of our safety uh protocols those are pretty key components in how do we develop a clear safety program for all of our schools I I had a school that um the governor came in and he was so excited about this brand new school this governor of the state cut the ribbon and he pressed the button on the front door and all the doors in the school locked and then we realized that all of our old schools didn't have that feature and so I to go back through and retrofit all of our older schools to make sure we had Equitable safety procedures in in all of our schools that's my commitment as a superintendent that no parent is going to have a less than school from a safety and a security standpoint a lot of this is communication a lot of this is training of our staff a lot of this is keeping current with best practices and that's the work that I've done in the past thank you we'll do one more question so school choice describe your experience with school choice and having charter schools in the same area as our district schools sure so I've done quite a bit with school choice uh in Colorado there are independent schools that are separate from the district and there are charter schools that are um Innovation schools are managed or Independent Schools are managed by the district but yet at arms length and then charter schools and so I helped develop uh some of the charter evaluation Frameworks in Denver public holding CH charter schools to that kind of that renewal cycle I think when you look at schools meeting the needs of all kids you have to have charter schools because those are different needs for those kids and in some ways when I had a language immersion school and the district didn't provide it and the charter school did or a classical education and the district didn't provide it and a charter school did those provide options for parents and I I think those are very successful collaborative processes now the nuts and bolts of how that works we'll have the charter school principal join us for training on Safety and Security right we we're going to be of the same mentality and of the same family on some topics we'll open our doors to them and if they want to again they don't have to um but when we're having a challenge inside our district and a charter school is able to um or when the charter school is having a challenge or we're able to help fulfill I had a charter school last year that said we lost our oven today do you guys have any ovens so we went in storage found they couldn't get an oven for 6 weeks they couldn't serve kids hot food we went went out we grabbed the oven out of the storage unit and we put it in the charter school it wasn't our school but we have that relationship enough to know what their needs are and to see how we can support and the reality is going back to the previous question Bond elections are all of us together with Charter Schools and the district the time to become friends is not when we need something from the charter school that's our work today tomorrow before we ever get there and it's not it's not we're all Educators educating again whether we have kids we have students that transfer from a charter school back to a public school and from a public school back to a charter they're all our kids they're Al we're all here to support them regardless of who they are thank you Dr Neil and that is all for today we appreciate you being here thank [Applause] you thank you for the honor I appreciate it we will bring our next candidate out at 6:00 hello we will get started again now with our next candidate for superintendent Dr Nate Carman [Applause] thank you you're welate got it thank you all right well I think now the technology is cooperating so good evening I want to thank the uh Higgly unified governing board for this opportunity to get to meet with you this evening tell you a little bit about myself uh appreciate those 10 minutes to to talk about my 30-year uh career in public education I know you're looking up here thinking there's no way that young guy's got 30 years in but believe it it's true including 11 years as superintendent of K12 school districts and have the Battle Scars to show it so thank you Higgly Unified School District um Higley is an outstanding high- performing School District doing great things for all students as evidenced recently um I think by the 12 a districts in this are campuses in this District the um highest graduation rate of the large school districts in Arizona and if I'm looking at it correctly with your 13,500 or so students uh not County Charters and private schools 18th Lar School District in the state of Arizona uh so it is definitely an honor and humbling to be considered for this position get the opportunity to share a little bit about myself um first and foremost I'm a teacher I started off as a teacher and coach in farman to New Mexico had the opportunity uh to work with junior high students and if any of you have had that opportunity I have no doubt you'll remember it uh a lot of good things a lot of learning along the way but I taught uh Science and Mathematics and I coached football and wrestling in that District I then had the opportunity to move to the high school I worked as a high school math teacher I was a head wrestling coach and football coach at Pedra Vista High School opening a new campus gave me some new experiences uh again a learning opportunity from there I relocated to Dallas Fort Worth area I taught and coached in ARL Turner High School part of Carolton Farmers Branch had some good success in the classroom had some good success as a wrestling coach took a program for example that had not qualified a student for the state tournament in the past two seasons and finished tied for 10th in the state tournament at that time there were about 250 high schools competing so my heart is there as a teacher as a coach and I continue to support our teachers because they are the ones making the impact directly with our students while I was in RL Turner as a teacher and Coach I was fortunate to be able to work on and complete my Master's Degree passed my principal certification test and then I took on the next challenge of administration I started as an assistant principal at a middle school in Lewisville ISD which is in the Dallas Fort Worth area I have had the opportunity to serve as an assistant principal at the middle school level the high school level and as a principal at the high school as well fast forward to uh 2007 I was working in Grand Prairie ISD a district the time with about 27,000 students this is my first opportunity at a district level position so I had the opportunity as a director of K12 mathematics to be able to provide support to our Math teachers through professional development to making sure they had the supplies materials to an align curriculum to help them be successful with our students during that time I was fortunate to work under the tutelage of a superintendent named Dr Susan Simpson and Susan was fantastic with systems and systemic implementation I look at her as one of my first true mentors in terms of how I am as a district leader she didn't look at things in isolation she was able to see the big picture and then look at those parts that be put in place place to implement successfully it's easyer to discuss what should happen What could happen in a large organization it is more difficult to put those pieces in place systemwide so you can do so successfully from there uh I finished my doctorate at WS in Grand Prairie ISD and I took on the role of assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction in Pine Tre ISD and there I was fortunate to meet my second Mentor Dr Maran Strauss Marian was very different from Susan in terms of her strengths she was big into relational capacity she helped me hone I think some skills that it's good to know what needs to happen within a school district it's good to put the systems in place but if you don't have people on board moving with you nobody's going to get there Mar was great in that so I I looked at those two mentors that really helped develop I think a lot of my skill set as an aspiring District leader based on my experiences to that point um I felt like I was was ready to step into the chair of superintendent let me tell you nobody really is for that first time but I was fortunate to be named superintendent in teag IST located in Central Texas uh Teague was the smallest if you're local it's TIG uh smallest School District I had worked into that point in fact ever with about 1,300 students I worked there four and a half years very pleasant School District but they were okay with being okay so I brought in an align uh system for instructural implementation we saw increases in scores learned some things and we did some things financially that impacted positively our fund balance and I will tell you the experiences I had in a small school district as superintendent can never be replicated you don't have people that you can delegate to do things for you in a small District you could hands-on experience in areas you might not have had prior maintenance and operation Transportation my goodness Transportation uh Finance Federal programs things that coming up traditionally through the school system not everybody gets the chance to to have hands-on experience with so I respect that time I appreciate that time from there I thought I was ready for a bigger challenge so I was named superintendent back in 2017 uh superintendent of San Bonito CISD San Bonito is located in the real Grand Valley area of Texas far southern part of the state 99 plus% of my students were Latino almost 80% of my students were economically disadvantaged I walk into a school school district who on the eigh through of accountability system was scored a 74 in two years we turned that around to an 85 prior to my arrival to add some of the challenges I came into a district where the long tenear superintendent Mr glone had left four and a or sorry three and a half years prior during that interim period there were seven acting interim or actual superintendents so you can imagine the disarray n b had a common Vision not was headed in the same direction so I worked there 4 and a half years I believe I was the consistent leader that they needed to move forward just to add to the challenges there I will tell you that during my tenure there it's a locally highly politicized area with a governing board of seven trustees I worked with 17 different trustees during that four and a half year period but the Student Success was there the increases with our finance were there the ability to support our Educators was there in terms of raises Reg ly and improved Healthcare benefits for our our teachers and Educators following that I felt as if I was ready for one more larger Challenge and I was fortunate and I'm currently serving as a superintendent in sakoto ISD sakoto is located in El Paso Texas we have over 47,000 students we opened Campus number 51 this year when I arrived um Soro was known to be a high performing High achieving School District similar to Higley unified two years prior to them having an interim superintendent they were rated back-to-back a rating in the state of Texas High performing did good things for students during the interim year they dropped to an 88 I'm happy to tell you that after a year of successful instructional implementation we have raised those scores up to a 90 back to an a school district and in the process opened up six Elementary acmis so I'll wrap up on my experience there um but I'm happy to say that I believe my experience 11 years of superintendent is what Higgly deserves I don't think that higgle unified is a school district where a new superintendent comes in and cuts their teeth so I'm happy to explain and give you examples of my experience that I believe align with uh where higgle is headed and I like to finish with this one because they're just beautiful people but two I actually have a point um this is my family my two lovely grandchildren uh my son there with the beard my daughter on the far right hand side most of those pictures are current with the exception of my daughter uh she is currently 29 years old this picture is taken one of her senior high school pictures and I put up there intentionally um at that point in time she had been a dancer from three years old ballet tap Jazz all the way through high school I have the bills to prove it um graduated blonde hair blueee buck5 so when you look at someone like that by human nature we have some preconceived notions right at first First Take on what we think people are who they are so as you look at her you might think based on what I told you that when she U graduated she went to college maybe she was a dance major maybe she became an educ educator like her old man attorney maybe she graduated with a business degree just take a second if you look at her play along with me show of hands any of you when you first look at her and hear what I say about her think yeah she was a mechanical engineering major and she's now working with a row Construction Company in Dallas Fort Worth as an engineer anybody there we go my point is this as Educators we have students come into our classrooms our hallways our buildings our district we have some preconceived notions based on what we see about them or how they first act or behave in our classrooms our job as Educators my opinion is to give them the ability to pursue their passions while providing them with the skills and knowledge so they can be successful when they walk across that stage in the career pathway they choose based on their aptitude and interest I bring that lens to you if I'm lucky enough to be your next superintendent and I will encourage all of our Educators and eally unified to look at our students in that manner thank [Applause] you here we go all right for this next portion uh we were tasked with looking at the hly unified uh strategic plan and identifying two areas that um maybe I've had some experience implementing in the past and then share hopefully some successes in in doing so so I looked at the Strategic plan in the area of your first anchor teaching and learning Student Success uh being strategic in that in that area specifically indicator 1.1 to provide exceptional opportunities for personalized instruction including differentiation acceleration Innovation and Leadership opportunities I'm going to talk a little bit about really the Innovative part of that when I was superintendent in San Bonito Consolidated School Independent School District I had the opportunity to take three traditional elementaries and over a period perod of two years reimagine them as Elementary of choice we're able to develop a steam Academy at Dr R Garza we were able to develop a Fine Arts Academy at at downs and an environmental Science Academy at Sullivan Elementary and the thought behind it a couple of things um we're facing some challenges I don't think unlike maybe what Higley and other area school districts are facing Charter Schools um are taking our students um I believe as a 30-year veteran K12 all the way through we provide more for our students than any Charter ever could but parents want choices students want different opportunities and we felt like it was important to offer those in place of strictly traditional Elementary campuses so we looked at their districts I'm not going to lie we stole some of their ideas we went and did site visits um didn't poach any of their employees just um got some ideas on what we could do systemically to reimagine and reinvigorate some of our campuses and and as it turns out it's not rocket science if students have something that they want to come to school for they are more apt to come and they're more apt to come more regularly and more prepared to participate during the day think back many of us for some of us it may have been that favorite Home Room teacher that you had could have been your PE teacher could have been lunch whatever it was got you into that building got you excited about being there and so we tried to really build upon that with this Academy idea first Academy we opened there we go was a Garza uh we turned this over from a campus that um boy I wish I could read that back screen a campus that uh had many open seats it was an area of town where um there was a dropping enrollment in fact our district as a whole in sanito have been declining enrollment for over a decade so we put programs in place you can see them there such as robotics our engineering lab a Minecraft lab uh we did some 3D printing we had drum drones we worked on some things with coding with our students things they had not done the units mostly were taught in a thematic manner so that they were writing about the things were working on the lab so things connected for these students we saw some pretty good success year one so the following year we decided to move forward with two additional Elementary acmis we opened up a Fine Arts Academy at what had traditionally been Ed downs elementary and you can see the programs in place we put in that campus as well now I put dance up there I have to brag about this a little bit I probably should have put a picture of this every Fine Arts Academy at the elementary level that I've opened uh we have a true dance room so you have the hardwood floor you have the mirrors you have the bar uh true piano Labs so we have 25 pianos set up with an instructor we have 2D and 3D art in our 3D art classrooms the teacher uses Aon but kids get the idea what the concept of that is there aren't many elementaries that I was aware of that are on fine artsies that offer a kill to kids um we have violins that are size appropriate for the students I don't believe prek and K were allowed on those but starting the first grade about this big um so it's cute but they're learning skills at the same time the third Academy that we envisioned and opened there it is uh Sol of Environmental Science Academy so throughout this campus uh we changed the landscape of it quite a bit opened up a greenhouse we have Hy ponics we have raised gardens kids were raising food that they would then have parent uh groups come in they would serve the parents I mean they were actually seeing this entire process had a chicken coop and they got to see the whole lifestyle process um we took in Old cafeteria building that have been kind of vacated turned into a large Hands-On lab for their science classes and I had to include uh well they had class pets which in terms of student Behavior incredible uh you would go in and they wanted to be sure their behavior was how it needed to be so they didn't scare the rabbit for example um the rabbit would sometimes run around as they were sitting on the on the carpet on the floor Chang the entire climate of that campus and I had to put crispy bacon on there Krispy bacon was the name of um kind of their CL or their school pet it's a pot belly pig and depending on when you go into the building you might be walking down the hall with Crispy uh wasn't harmful at all but it was it was such an experience it completely changed the tone the climate of that campus uh kids love being there parents loved coming in we saw an increase in in Parental involvement and objectively there it is oh this is going to be hard to read objectively um these are some of the successes we experienced Dr R Garza uh we opened up you can see the numbers there on the screen I wish I could see them on the back screen but I think it says something like we went from an enrollment of less than 400 to nearly 600 a growth of about 196 kids a decade of San Bonito CISD losing enrollment this was the first year in over 10 years that the district as a whole saw small growth and I attribute it to the nearly 200 students we gained at GZA increased attendance rate first of all the fact they had 96% to begin with is is very positive but that they could improve from there while adding 200 new state new students up to 96.7 I feel like is impressive State assess at that point in time there were eight Assessments in the state of Texas for third graders through fifth graders scores improved in every one of them and while I thought the improvements of that campus would be more math and science related I was wrong fourth grade reading which had suffered a little bit the prior year grew by 21 points Ed downs and Sullivan I can show you the increase in the enrollment they were smaller it's kind of based on where they were on in town um but I can't give you full year data because that was the year I hope everybody remembers the uh the pandemic so I didn't have a full year of of year-to-year data for that for um attendance or for the accountability no State tests were taken in 20 excuse me and no accountability ratings were given in 21 in the state of Texas continue down this vein so cororo ISD when I arrived I challenged our cabinet and our board with opening up two of our elementaries asies in year one second year four additionals and you can see them there uh there's a repeat steamies fine artsies and a couple of new ideas same challenges Charter Schools but unique to Soro ISD we had one side of our district that was the older part where we have buildings with open classrooms the newer side of the school district growing full to the brim including Portables so to try to encourage in District and out of District students to attend the older part of our town we renovated many of these facilities into Elementary acms program is going to be similar so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it um poso Del Norte Fine Arts Academy opened up in year one and I will tell you there is a clip of The Lion King uh presentation that our our students did from this campus it's amazing to see those students stand up there and be able to act as they did speak as they did and sing as they did was just incredible second Academy we opened same year was another steam Academy esri steam Academy similar to the steam academy uh that we did in San Bonito CISD we didn't just change it in name we didn't just put a new sign up there slap some paint on the wall and say now it's a steam Academy absolutely not we believe that we had to change the climate the culture the instruction that took place and it started with a lot of Prof professional development um so similar to Garza earning the um National stem certificate our teachers our Administration trained at escontrias and they became the first El Paso are area to have this National stem certification and it has changed completely what happens on that campus year two of implementation in Soro included the addition of Environmental Science Academy again the programming is very similar added an outdoor learning lab and a walking trail it's on a very large property OA kellerer this was a new one for me I didn't have any knowledge or any background um with this type of Academy but when I challenged my cabinet um to begin discussing with principles options that might attract our students this is one they came up with and I have to say it's one that we received a lot of positive feedback on um but IT addresses the whole child making that child healthy through nutrition social emotional technology available to them we have a discovery Hands-On lab that includes um some stem activities as well as some technology activities and then physical health so it focuses on making an entirely healthy child we open opened up an additional Fine Arts Academy and an additional steam Academy this past year I know it's going to be small it's real small in the back screen um I can share with you year one data for pte and escontrias um the other four this is year one of implementation so posal Norte went from a situation with 86 students where we had over 200 empty seats to being completely full with a waiting list once we opened online registration within 1 hour um they now have over 1,000 students on that campus an increase of over 2% in the attendance rate we saw overall growth on the estate assessments on six out of seven including third grade math gaining 20 points uh in passing rate from one year to the next as contas we saw a growth of about 60 students increase in attendance and five out of seven assessments we saw some some improvements in prompted us to change our plan a little bit the master schedule for that campus has changed a little bit we kind of feel like maybe some of the engineering lab time is interfering with some math instruction um I'm hopeful we've worked through that and we will see increase across the board this upcoming year the second area of the Higley strategic plan that I looked at and wanted to discuss with you is indicator 14 to develop and Implement a comprehensive relevant curriculum that is align with State academic standards fortunately I have been doing something similar since I became an assistant superintendent for cni 15 years ago here is an overall look at start to finish from the time that we plan with our teachers to time we Implement and assess where our students are uh kind of an overall road map to success if you will we start with our scope and sequence uh year to glance we put the the SE Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills similar to your Arizona standards broken up by unit within the nine we grade nine week grading period it's a pacing document it helps keep our our teachers on task on pace so that they are able to teach the entire curriculum that's required by the state in the time that's allotted to them if you can see some of the color coding on this year at a glance um in Texas we have Readiness standards and supporting standards they are similar nature to for example your math major clusters and supporting uh clusters one way this is used at the beginning of the year looking at the entire calendar takeout days for example that are used for assessment take out days that are used for field trips those are the true number of days you have for instruction by nine week and then cumulatively for the entire year back that down to your your yag your gear to glance and you have an idea of how many days you have to teach each each of these Concepts we don't get into a situation where we run out of time at the end of the year we haven't made it through all all 12 units because because we plan that pacing from the very beginning going in this is an instructional Focus document or example of one uh the IFD includes components including the overarching ideas it has potential misconceptions things that students might understand correctly it has vocabulary we include performance indicators methodologies the student or the teachers can use to see if their students understood the material there we go this is a continuation of an example of an instructional Focus document depending on the unit this can be rather lengthy so we have developed a one-page notetaker in this notetaker as you can see they can take the information from a multi-page instructional Focus document break it down so that it's easily manageable for that teacher we break apart the text's Essential Knowledge and Skills we look at the noun for the content the verb for the action idea um similar but much smaller and more acceptable in a one-page document once our teachers have taken the time in their PLC to study the unit look at the IFD we even include a checklist these are the things we have posted in every one of our PLC rooms across our district all 51 campuses want to make sure that our teachers have thoroughly reviewed the units prior to writing their lesson plan and before they go in front of our students then we unpack the student expectations so unpack the standards here in Arizona would be very similar again breaking apart that text is Essential Knowledge and skill uh what have the students learned before how do we know they learned it before we move on then they look for well aligned resources and activities whether it's textbooks whether it's methodologies from Le forward instructional programs provided by the district or that they have the campus level looking for aligned materials and activities we use one lesson plan template in Soro ISD we have over 3,000 teachers they're teaching over 47,000 students every one of those teachers teaching those kids uses one document we think it is Broad enough in scope um and gives them the flexibility to insert what they need to without being too intrusive in the amount of time it takes to write the lessons they can certainly include attachments to this they can add to it we use one form formal common um lesson plan template makes it easier we believe as they work together as teams when they come together in our district plc's as well as for our administrators to review prior to doing their instructional walkthroughs instructional walkthroughs every district has some type of evaluative walkthrough that aligns with the evaluation of the teachers not every district has a separate instructional walkthrough plan that aligns with if we're telling the teachers up front these are the things we want you to put into your lessons and your plc's then that's what we as administrator should be looking for when we go into the classroom it's not all about evaluation a lot of is about gauging that instruction are the key Concepts being taught to the depth and rigor they need to be taught and are the students understanding it of course we base um a lot of our student achievement on assessments uh we have standardized assessment protocols um for example the nine weeks assessments are district created in between their formative assessments either the four and a half mark or three and six mark depending on on the subject area or Campus based um so that then determines whether they are unit specific or if they are pacing specific and but included in some of these protocols we include the percentage of questions that are Readiness standard based supporting standard-based and is similar to what our state assessments reflect and very similar to Arizona 65 to 75% Readiness 25% to 35% supporting um but we have a blueprint we know what to expect we train our teachers we're writing those assessments there's consistency across the district so our data is valid as we look for areas that we need to improve upon whether it's successful or not I'm share some data with you this is the most recent data on state Assessments in Soro ISD fortunately you can see that most of these numbers are green the difference between the percentage of students passing in Soro versus the state of Texas the one assessment you see up there 8th grade math where we are 10% behind the state of Texas it's a byproduct of what Our intention is we know that Algebra 1 is a great indicator of having our students ready college career ready when they graduate high school and we know their success on that test is very important as well in the classroom over 90% of Soro ISD 8th graders take Algebra 1 so the 10% who take eighth grade math are there either because they transferred in and did not receive that accelerated instruction or they've struggled with math or their IEP might call for it but over 90% of our eighth graders take algebra one so we're okay if our passing percentage is not where the state is in eth grade math because we know the positive impact we see when our kids take Algebra 1 again the vast majority of those kids taking eligible one in Coto are eighth graders and we're still passing at a rate of 8% higher than the rest of the state so on 19 out of 20 assessments we are above the state passing average I believe that's a direct impact of our systemic instructional implementation model I will tell you the year prior uh they're at or above on 16 out of 20 so we're seeing progress It's a high performing School District it's difficult maybe more difficult to maintain or improve when you're high performing than when you're low performing low performing you can throw just a couple of ideas anything that is structured and and gets people moving in One Direction can be beneficial but when you're an a performing District it can be a much greater challenge so I'm happy to share this with you I haven't seen the two minutes yet oh I have so wasn't sure if I'd have time to share this so I did not include it on a slide but I do want to share this this shows one year worth of data from the systemic and structural implementation model in Soro previous District sanito when I arrived in 2017 they were at or above the passing percentage on only two out of 22 assessments there was an average dis uh difference in passing of 88.3% lower than the state average when you average the passing percentage for all 22 assessments and on one assessment the Gap was 22 points one year after implementation we were at or above instead of two five out of 22 assessments the average percentage dropped to 6% largest gap dropped to 15 second year in 2019 last year before the pandemic add or above on eight out of 22 assessments consistent progress the average passing rate had dropped to an average of 3% and our largest gap stood at nine points so evidence to to support that this type of implementation can be successful in terms of student achievement and I am hopeful that it aligns to what heily unified Bel light to see going forward as we serve all students thank you thank you Dr Carmen now we'll start with the Q&A your first question Higley is currently an a-rated district from your research on our district what do you see as the top three major issues facing our district how would you begin to handle them in your first six months all right so I will tell you this my uh Research into Higley is still in an initial stage and I would anticipate during my first 90day of Entry to school district I will learn a whole lot more about higly unified um the information that's available publicly is good um but a lot of it's from for example last year's assessments um when you look at year end prior year I mean it's kind of like uh it's an autopsy it's done it's over there's nothing you can do about it I can't see right now what's happening inside of the school district what are your scores looking like on your internal documents um at the end of your grading periods are students progressing as they should be showing the progress we know that they're understanding um the academic standards that are being taught to them so I can give a partial answer based on on prior uh information one of the biggest challenges uh whether it's for Higley any school district in Arizona most school districts across this country uh look at our teacher recruitment retention most districts have a shortage in key areas whether it's bilingual special education math and science secondary used to be the big one maybe not as much but keeping the teachers you have is crucial and then recruiting quality Educators is crucial as well and in my experience the recruitment part has to be done in conjunction with local area universities um for example where I'm at now we have developed a one-year Residency program for ASP aspiring teachers instead of doing the traditional one semester student teaching and then here you go you're in a classroom on your own they partake in a year-long residency with a mentor teacher three of the days they work with that Mentor teacher one day they received training from utap one day they are in a classroom substituting uh on their own with children we think that helps develop their classroom management skills one full year of that because they provide a service to us substituting into our classroom on Fridays those of you who have worked in school districts understand that's a rough day to get subs sometimes because we seem to have a higher percentage of of teachers out but they serve a purpose for us so we're able to pay them so they get a year-long worth of experience some direct classroom management on their own we feel like they're more prepared as they enter the profession so there's one area your teacher Recruitment and Retention second School finance and it's not that is not specific just to this school district school Finance is a challenge across the board um it appears as if higly unified has been proactive you're bringing together a community group to review your existing maintenance and operations override I believe set of 15% begins to Sunset I believe in a year so it looks as if Higgly is well on the way so I don't know that I would need to change anything learn what's going on Monitor and uh see it as it goes forward the third thing um you've had some change in leadership so I think that in order for a district to move forward you need to have the cabinet level working with the superintendent moving forward and working with the governing board moving in one positive POS Direction varying viewpoints are great and they're fine but if we are all focused on improving the student outcomes of every student in hler unified whatever challenge is thrown away can be addressed so I believe those are three at least that are important thank you what does transparency mean to you and what would you like what would it look like if you were the superintendent well transparency in my opinion means that um anything that should be public knowledge is public knowledge um Finance spending putting reports to where they're easily accessible um for the public we think we put them where they're accessible um but then reporting on that in our in our meetings um I'll give you I'll give you an example our strategic plan currently it's qud is very similar to toly unified and it's very similar to most strategic plans I I have reviewed and seen as I've developed a couple in a couple of different districts but um what we are doing differently to be transparent and to show the progression the work that's being done in every one of our board meetings we present on two indicators to our board in public it's live streamed out there so people don't have to go looking and searching necessarily on our web page because we're going to present on student outcomes we're going to present on what's being done for our staff we're going to present on what's being with our facilities and we're going to discuss what's being done with our finances two of those indicators every single month realtime data what's happening so to me being transparent is one communicating what's happening in the district but then two how you decide to communicate it I think is important seems to be effective where I am that may not be the strategy used here but I'm open to investigating because most districts put that information available to people but I think we need to look at how we're communicating that to make people make sure people who want that information are receiving that information thank you what are some ideas ideas you bring to the table so each student is seen heard and valued equally well I can go back to discussion on my daughter um I we look at all students I look at all students through that that perception that perspective um we want to make sure every one of our kids as they graduate and walk across that stage are ready for that next step in their life and we follow kids and if we're using the data we can determine where they are excelling the challenges they have um we can determine what career Pathways they have an interest in what they have an aptitude in but we need to be consistent um beginning very early on we can't wait till they enter a CTE pathway in high school for example um more like in Middle School to determine where they are what strengths they have what are they interested in and then how we can help them build along those aptitudes and interests so that when they graduate they are ready um but it comes back to me a lot in how we use data if we know where the students are and we know what they're interested in then we can design plans individually for our kids and help every one of them be successful in what they want to be not 100% of our kids when they graduate and leave here are going to head to a four-year University and that's okay many of them will go into trades they may go to a votch school that's great have any of you looked at what you pay a plumber when they come to your house financially there are a lot of careers that don't require a four-year degree and that's okay if we find what they're interested in we give them the support the skill set knowledge to be successful but that starts with the data know where our kids are what style of communication do you prefer how would you communicate with the governing board parents teachers staff and community in an emergency and in a non-emergency situation emergency and Non-Emergency okay with the um the governing board I I give a weekly update a weekly report on Friday that includes information I believe is important and responds to any request the board has for for information for our board to be effective in making decisions they need to know the information at hand so there's a formal weekly communication that goes to them um and I'll I'll stick on the board for for a moment anytime inside of that week that there's an emergency if there's a fire truck at a campus if there's a police car call to a campus outside of what we have there already um I send a text text to the full board letting them know what the situation is and then I let them know when it's resolved um additionally if there is a situation that comes up bus driver got into a large accident a student was accusing a teacher or other employee of some inappropriate action I inform the board so they are aware because the last thing I want is for a media Outlet to reach out to one of our trustees and they have no idea what they're talking about so as soon as I get that type of information they get that type of information for um for the staff uh newsletters is what I'm used to sending out regularly with information but we also have advisory groups I have advisory groups of our students advisory groups with teachers advisory groups with our parents so we have two-way communication we have information we're prepared to present to them but at every single one of those meetings we open up two-way dialogue where myself and my cabinet answer the questions those individuals have so they can take that information back to their families their campuses people stay informed in that manner for the community at large I've done a few different things um one is a a mail out we put together an actual newspaper in one District some success maybe not where we wanted it social media I think is important when I came into Soro ISD um I was told directly that if you don't tweet it it didn't happen so I worked in smaller districts I worked in a district over 10,000 students when When I visit campuses um I'm with the principal I'm walking into classrooms I'm seeing what's going on and I enjoy that smaller District I actually help gauge with our instructional walkthroughs with our principles but uh in squo ISD if I'm on a campus I get to tweet it out so that everybody sees that it happens so social media um is a good communication tool I believe that many people rely on it um you make sure it's valid I guess when you look at it but social media certainly has to be used um Additionally you can do videos whether it's with your superintendent your board president um monthly putting out that information so people can listen see what's happening within the school district um all those are examples of communication that I've used in the past I think what would be important is during the N9 day entry plan to determine what type of communication is considered effective uniquely for for Higley unified thank you as a superintendent fostering authentic connections with the go governing board teachers staff students and the community is Paramount for the success of our school district additionally creating a psychologically safe environment is critical for collaboration and Innova Innovation provide examples how you prioritize meaningful relationships within your current Community that's a great question um so SE several means I believe I'm an authentic person when I go to campuses I take the time if if a student stops me if a teacher stops me to talk with me I take the time to listen if I'm at a basketball game parents stops me I don't tell them I'm I'm going here I'm going there I need to do this I don't get on my phone I take the time I shake their hand I look them in the eye and I let them tell me whatever it is drill team moms I'm at a football game they want to relay to me their concerns or cheerleading moms I'm going to hear it I'm going to listen to it I'm going to give them the time and the respect that they deserve um so I think that's crucial I think we can talk about mass communication and that's important so people have facts and information but I think when you're given those opportunities to engage face Toof face oneon-one you take advantage of that um you can never be too busy to talk to people that you work with or the people you work for so I try to set that time aside um I many times with 51 campuses I will tell you my plan this year was to visit all 51 in nine weeks I did so if you don't believe me check my Twitter or X account or whatever it's called now uh it's there it happened but um The Challenge was we had a certain amount of time set up for those visits but because of my Approach we never made it through the four campuses or six campuses that we're supposed to make it through because if a a principal has a concern or they want to talk or brag about something that's going on to me it would be silly foolish of me knowing that I'm not going to see them on their campus again for another nine weeks to not stay there take that extra 10 or 15 minutes and interact and engage with them so authentic communication when you have those opportunities but then intentionally set setting up some of those opportunities specific to uh governing board um I will tell you this I still have um trustees from previous districts who will text me ask me questions call me I see them at conferences they approach me I have good relationships with many of them um some of the texts I wouldn't share publicly but some of them are specific about school business others are just to check in I know their I know their families I know their kids um I know if they're in football if they're in band and so we have discussions that are on a personal level and I think if people understand that you're interested in them as people it's much easier to make those connections and move forward professionally thank you the next question is about Bond share your experience with bonds what was the nature of the bond and the results so in my last three superintendencies three separate districts I have had the opportunity to work with Bonds in varying um varying levels varing degrees first superintendency in TIG uh they had approved the bond they were nearing completion so I got to see the finishing out of that project uh the warranty work make sure that everything that supposed to be in place was in place in San Bonito um a district with 10,500 students they had not passed a bond in a number of years and there was a desire to add some facilities for our students we took to the public with a a $40 million bond which may not sound large but it was the largest they had done in a number of years and we passed it with nearly 70% success and I attribute that to the communication um I can't tell people to vote one way or the other but I can certainly tell them and inform them what it is here's what it's going to do to the impact on the tax rate be very thorough very clear and take the time to answer questions I must have presented in that Community probably 100 times um to the campuses to different groups with within the community chamber rotary Lions Club Etc um to make sure people understood what they were voting for then how they vote is up to them uh but I believe it was successful and I will add to that it was a bond that included zero school buildings it was three extracurricular co-curricular um buildings we built an indoor facility at our high school campus that included 90 90 yard indoor turf room and a 10,000 square foot weight room we passed a bond that included a fine arts facility and it included an auditorium not a single School building not a single classroom and those of you who have experience with bonds understand those are not easy bonds to pass but we did so and again I believe it was through the uh the communication process in Soro ISD came into a situation where they had passed nearly a $500 million Bond and we were nearing uh we're still nearing that completion probably the last year coming up so I got to be part of the last three years of that construction so some of that was value engineering some of that was making sure what was taking place with change orders aligned with uh what was necessary for those buildings not a want from the architect but a need for the end users so I think had some experience one experience as a superintendent passing it but then two different areas where I've had um experience in implementing the bond fall through thank you can you explain how you will handle student safety at at Higley what will you do to reassure parents and children that their schools are safe place to learn so I heard student safety and reassuring parent and students a safe place to learn thank you um well I it's no secret um school safety has become a huge topic and a necessary topic for people to address uh I can tell you that security assessments are important in terms of perimeter security are we able to keep people off our campuses that we don't want on the campuses off the grounds and out of the buildings I can tell you I have worked to develop protocols so that we ensure doors are closed and locked as they should be and then a lot of lot of the things we do we communicate to our parents to let them know what's taking place to keep their kids safe in Soro um part of the desire there from the community and the governing board was to have sro's on every campus and two at our high schools so we budgeted appropriately in addition to our security guards we do have licens sro's on every one of our campuses I'm not saying that's the Magic Bullet that's the answer but we know that does reduce the response time if you have a licensed police officer armed police officer on on a campus should anything transpire where one is needed additionally um I do have experience looking at technology as a solution um the cameras are important to know what's happening in campus um we're actually investigating right now an AI solution that works with our existing cameras and can identify as people approach the campus if they're carrying a firearm it's able to pick that out apparently uh we're piloting it we're testing it um but if we can work smarter in that manner why wouldn't we additional technology um there are alarms you can put on exterior doors uh that make a noise when the doors open but there are others you can connect to your Wi-Fi that can alert the office so you know that they are open where that location is and to take care of it um Vape sensors are another solution that can be used um to provide safe environments particularly in restrooms in our campuses um but using technology is important having your personnel on campus that's needed as important and then training your personnel uh we still have Educators probably not here um but we have Educators who still will think I'm going to run out to my car for just a quick minute to grab that one thing I left out there and they'll prop that door open with a rock or something they have there to keep it open creates an unsafe environment um fortunately we've not had any negative repercussions from that happening but part of that's training we need to let everybody on that campus know because if we have all eyes paying attention to what's happening and doing their job much easier to keep a safe environment than it is if we delegate that all to one SRO or one administrative individual so those are some ideas describe your experience with school choice and having charter schools in the same area as our district schools well I have a little experience with that um sanito CISD that was one of the driving reasons why we developed the elementary academy uh model we knew that we could give our students choices within our K12 situation better chance they're going to stay in our schools if they're happy they're doing things activities they like to do they enjoy to do um they're going to stay with us but it's a challenge parents want choices students want choices um our job as a K12 school district is to make sure that our programs remain remain top-notch and that we do the best we can to communicate that out to keep kids in our campuses and not going to Charter where I am now in Soro uh we have a number of students who will leave um Elementary and and really even in s Bonito they would leave during the elementary years um knowing or at least I knew that many charter schools have a much higher ratio classroom ratio student to teacher in Texas at least than K12 schools do so part of what we have done is educate we have a um roster by Campus of students who have left our district for Charters we do a Saturday walk where we knock on doors if they answer we give them the information we have a pre-prepared flyer that gives the stats of what happens in terms of student achievement in our campuses versus these Charters and we try to have a conversation with them not everybody answers the door but at least they get a flyer on their door we make the effort um to have that that positive impact in both of the last two districts I've worked in secondary campuses is when we get a lot of those kids back my experience with chargers in terms of competition for students is they do not offer the co-curricular or extracurricular activities that we're able to offer for in a K12 setting so again communicating those opportunities the CTE programs the Dual credit the co-curricular the extracurricular if we communicate that to those people we'll get a lot of those kids back into our building where we're doing what's right for students thank you Dr Carmen that concludes our forum for this evening we thank you for joining us and thank you for joining us tonight

78% increase in chapter 78 I mean like a little less than $90,000 um that I I call New Growth anemic I mean this is this is anemic and um I could use a few other descriptive words for it as well um but uh that's probably the highlight of state aid right now so just to let everybody know that's the governor's numbers um both uh branches of the legislature need to meet and go through their own budget process hopefully that number gets increased during that that process and we will see that figure um figure Rise um total state aid in general is going up uh you know $125,000 so out of 13.5 million that's all it's going to go up um local receipts we have you know a moderate modest growth of 4.5% um about $200,000 uh as you can see here we are not planning at this point in time to have any transfers in from the spe uh special education stabilization fund and uh basically after you total all the other funds and you know you add those to what I had talked about before um we get a revenue figure of 78 million just a little over 78 million or 1.29% Okay so let's move to the expenses now focus on the top here everybody the top top figures um you can see with all of the general government requests um our Collective departmental budgets are going up 12.42% um you know to $15.3 million we have the school department going up our standard 3.75% um I should tell you and warn you that um that is probably not where the school department is going to land but uh that is the number that we're using right now until we hear otherwise um we do have non-excluded Debt Service going down which is good um but you can see that big benefits and insurance number um totaling 727 th000 in terms of an increase um and then if you factor everything in together we have expenses of $8,800 th000 which represents a $2.7 million deficit so any questions questions how do we close that how do we close so I don't want everybody to freak out um believe it or not in we were in almost the exact same situation at this point last year now what came and kind of saved us last year was a big Hefty increase in chapter 78 um which I'm not even if it goes up through the legislative process it's not going to go up that much I think it's safe to say so Britney and I have already started talking and looking at different uh different options that we could utilize um and we will put together like a more comprehensive package um looking at reducing the departmental requests we'll get a little bit more Fidelity into what the school Department's going to request um we're still going to look at ways that we could potentially reduce our fix costs although um we might be out of options there and uh then we will look at utilizing either our revolving funds or onetime revenues to probably close this Gap so that is where uh that is where we are Mich can you just expand on onetime revenues a little bit more specifically what we have in mind there um well there's I mean the the easiest one to look at is the stabilization fund um but there's some other things that we're looking at I mean if we potentially have some an overlay Surplus that we could potentially tap into um we've actually generated some solar credits uh more than we can use that we can potentially tap into um and utilize those um and then like I said reducing some of the requests that we have as well so those are those are kind of the the horses we're looking at riding into this Sunset so the request the list that you showed before that's kind of the wish list if you will yeah it's the it's the wish list um but like I said at the very beginning of that second slide I mean if there's opportunities where we can add services and it makes sense um we'll look at doing that in some cases we might be able to accomplish some of these goals without going to the general fund and utilizing grants potentially um or you know things like that to uh to be able to accomplish that goal without necessarily hitting the general fund can you scroll back through the slides for a second Cas get certified there okay and then forward again did you give I guess I was trying to figure out the 727 is that does that include s of the benefits line item like from what you discussed does that include sort of the retirement assessment do that include the health insurance yes so that appears there so includes retirement includes health insurance and includes the other insurance as well okay the red is there anything you wanted to add there we go there we go so if there's confusion with the the line item the benefits and insurance it's only going up 5% or 6% the line item I think that's what's causing you confusion so we were able to realize some Savings in our other insurance lines so workers compensation we were able to reduce um over 100,000 unemployment and then we also had some savings last year in health insurance so it didn't go up as much so we were able to to take out some of that savings but we're still going to see a substantial increase this year so the net increase in that one line item is is showing a little okay the five six% and not the full 8 n% okay perfect I was wondering if it was showing up somewhere else so that explains it Bry while while you're up there are the are our unfunded benefits numbers in that as well or is that a separate line item which unfunded benefits the uh the acronym is escaping me um OPB OPB thank so the yeah we have an OPB line in the health insurance budget yeah so that has increased about 50,000 but we are still including that into and factoring that into our health insurance budget okay thank you welcome um and then it it just I mean I mentioned this before this is just a a look at the new growth number and you see how it had reached a peak of um 1 Point almost $1.3 million um in 2019 and as the results of that Slow Grow policy have come into effect you've seen it steadily decline um and then you know I do just this is my favorite slide you know the one that's coming up um which is expenditures per capita I can't Hammer this home enough you know because I think so everybody for those at home that don't understand what this is so we're looking at objective measurements to try to get to look at efficiency and Effectiveness and so obviously you can't compare budgets across towns because the the city of Framingham is going to have an extensively large budget compared to a town like Ashland um which is going to have a substantially larger budget than some of these smaller towns um like Holliston so how do you get an accurate measure of your efficiency well the most accepted measure is to divide your budget by your the number of people living in your town and you get an expenditures per capita figure and so that normalizes things so you're able to compare across the different communities where you stand and you know obviously we're third from the bottom and uh there's quite a few communities here in the region um but and it's not just you know it's not just the Sherburn of the world or the waylands it's you know marbor Northborough so it runs the gamut in terms of wealth let's put it that way but um you know people everybody has to understand like so Ashland is competing for the same people to work in our Municipal ranks and also our school ranks as well so we're competing for the same people we're buying the same Services you know an asphalt price is probably going to be very very similar uh in another town as it is what we what we're paying for so we're when you're able to do things efficien efficiently like this it should give confidence that you know the money is being spent wisely um because again we're we're paying the same thing as everybody else um we're just doing it better let's put it that way so do I sorry go ahead okay um do I recall that we add into this chart EXT other fees yes this includes Enterprise funds as well that was going to be my question okay um and that's the presentation you have any any questions in general or any questions on what I presented be happy to answer them not right now but thanks for the good news oh you're welcome got like I said I don't want people to freak out we we've been in this position before and we figured out how to make it work but you mentioned it like the Commonwealth last year they had a surplus and they're trying to figure out what to do with it this budget situation doesn't look too good on their end no no so that they find a way to keep spending Scott way got last year you're not going to get this year I don't think so I agree I agree um so so that being said I um believe the first presentation we have here is the police department um do you want to just segue directly into the departmental budgets any questions to Michael no all right let's do it good thanks and uh so I'm pleased to introduce deputy chief Michael ventula here who's going to go over the um police dep Department budget all right well he took my first line out of my presentation my name is Mikael CH the deputy chief uh for the Department here in Ashland in case anybody doesn't know me um and Michael touched in his presentation on our three big ass you know those two officers and dispatch supervisor but I'm going to go into some more detail um about the why um and what the Department's facing currently um so the again for those of you who know know me my name is Mike J the deputy chief here um and thank you all for having me tonight to present to you our fiscal year 25 budget request and as you know the Asal Police Department is a 24-hour day 7-Day week operation responsible for the protection of life and property within the borders of the town of Ashlin men and women who make up that department are dedicated professionals um both sworn and civilian alike a modern police officer is more than just an enforcer of the law there are medical mental health responders peacekeepers caretakers and more running an organization such as the Ash police department requires strong Community relationship and support and I thank you for your support tonight as we look forward to fiscal year 25 so the organizational chart shown here for the action Police Department it represents our current deployment of personnel as well as our goals as we work towards becoming fully staffed in this chart here the blue represents funded and filled sworn positions the yellow are are funded but unfilled sworn positions and the rep represents our reacquiring or our new positions for fiscal year 25 as Michael mentioned our fiscal year 25 budget represents requiring two Patrol positions um that were initially budgeted in fisc year 24 but absorbed as part of that agreement for leaving Civil Service um and also you see up in the top right hand corner that uh our new dispatch supervisor position so currently we're budgeted for 27 sworn officers eight full-time dispatchers one executive assistant and one records Clerk however we are currently operating with only 22 sworn officers and working diligently to fill those positions we've also recently taken on eight new civilian traffic constables for a total of 16 in that organization chart you can see we have one full-time specialty officer she works as our police prosecutor and our Evidence Officer she works with the town social worker JDP commiss and Community Services Department she's part of the hoarding task force does follow-up work with Elders Youth and other vulnerable population and sits on the middle sex DA's high-risk domestic domestic violence team okay so Staffing all of our asss are around for the most part are around Staffing so I'm going to talk to you a little bit more about that Staffing is the number one internal struggle for the police department law enforcement in general quing the Department of Justice police departments Nationwide are grappling with a historic crisis in recruiting retaining qualified officers ashin is not alone Recruitment and Retention in law enforcement is not what it was like 20 years ago when I joined departments now compete on salary benefits and incentives in order to attract and retain qualified Personnel our current Staffing level requires majority of our prol ship Patrol ships to run at minimum Staffing this requires coverage on overtime when someone is in need of time off for family or other commitments law enforcement has been become increasingly aware of the strain that forced overtime extended to of Duty plac on an officer's mental and mental mental and physical well-being with those Patrol shifts running at minimum Staffing it does not allow for concentrator or what we call directed Patrol to address specific citizens concerns traffic enforcement and education remains one of the most pressing issues in law enforcement in both large and small communities our Specialties are operating at part-time investigations such as the ongoing uh ring of stolen Motor Vehicles or more recently um the solved arm robbery must be investigated on overtime again extending the officer's hours further we've been unable to staff a full-time school resource officer for many years our school resource officer currently spends time with the schools again on overtime or when call volume allows to step away from his Patrol duties through dedication and hard work of the men and women of the action Police Department they' have managed to maintain a high level of professional response with our staffing issues seemingly going unnoticed by the community however this is not sustainable ensuring that our Personnel are properly compensated and increasing our staffing levels back to 29 sworn by methods of aggressively working to recruit and retain qualified dedicated law enforcement professionals we will EAS The Strain on our officers and their families by minimizing am of overtime required and extra duty hours we will be able to fully staff our specialty positions work closer with the schools and the students to the level they deserve and be able to dedicate fulltime detectives to thoroughly and effectively investigate reported crime against our community we will also be able to dedicate officers mainly during our day and evening shifts as traffic enforcement with the sole purpose being to address the concerns residents and educate the public in traffic safety okay so that's kind of all the bad that's going on but here's a little bit of the good during fiscal year 24 as was mentioned the town was successful in negotiating with the Union to exit civil service we were then fortunate enough to receive Town support at special election and we are now a non- civil service department this has opened up new and exciting exited opportunities in regards to recruitment a few months ago we partnered with a company called get badged to assist us in testing recruiting and hiring additional staff get badge also assists in getting as the as police department I'll say out there marketing our department to qualify candidates and letting them know we're out of civil service and we're ready to hire I am happy to report that we are seeing a steady amount of resumés and applications from entry-level applicants who have been tested and vetted through get badged we have received several lateral officer applications which would not have been an option had we still been in civil service we were actively conducting background investigations on several potential hires we have one student officer currently in the academy and our first lateral officer who came to us through get badge joins the department on the 20th so I'm confident that with your support with the town support that we can fill our remaining vacancies and continue to build our Department to the highest level okay so our requested increases are based off our requests from last year I should say that because sometimes the numbers look a little different but obviously our biggest increas is in Personnel Services with those three positions so I'll start by re reviewing that largest area growth growth which you can see is approximately uh by our figures $156,000 in our proposed our requested budget line 511 13 that covers all of our swarm Patrol officers and Specialty officers so in that line item we have our contractual increases again for as U part of Le negotiating leaving civil service we also had seven several positions replaced with new officers at lower hourly rates due to promotion or resignation and this is where those two reacquired positions from fiscal year 24 um are found so even with those positions we see in that particular line item um a degree a decrease in the overall requested amount line 51110 I think I might have had too many ones in there but uh covers the Command Staff including the the chief of police the deputy chief lieutenants and sergeants so again we see contractual increases and also uh an increase to maintain an appropriate salary separation between ranks Deputy Chief's position and and open Lieutenant's position were filled with sergeants and those Sergeant positions were then back and we're then filled with two Patrol officers who were promoted line 51120 this includes our Public Safety dispatchers executive assistant records Clerk crossing guards and animal control all those positions including the executive assistant records Clerk rossing guard and our full-time anal control did see um an annual pay increase as determined by the town and that's reflected there as for dispatch Communications Union Su Union successfully negotiated their first contract with the town with that again came contractual pay increases which were reflected in this year's budget currently we employ eight full-time dispatchers now in our initial 5 year 24 budget request that did include a ninth position that position was absorbed when the union negotiated for 12-h hour schedule running 4 days on and four days off our fiscal year 25 request is that that position be reinstated as the dispatch supervisor and this was touched on a little bit but in 2023 we successfully combined our police fire and EMS dispatch operations into a CO one cohesive division which falls under the compan and control of the police department currently the public safety Communications division again is staffed by eight full-time but also four per DM employees the Communication Center runs 24 hours a day 7 days a week and is staffed during all of that time with a minimum of two certified e911 Communications professionals currently there is no full-time direct supervision of the communications division up until recently I was actually in that role I can attest to the time and effort and energy that it takes currently Sergeant rodkey who's actually in the uh audience with us today has taken responsibility and oversees operations of the communications division on a part-time and overtime basis I can't stress enough that Public Safety Communications is a specialized position requiring very specific training knowledge and mastering of several complex systems Public Safety Division comprised of 12 employees running 24 hours a day requires full-time direct supervision and Leadership to maintain the highest level of service to the community the dispatch supervisor would work under the direct supervision of the police administrative Lieutenant with with guidance of course from both from both police and fire departments they would supervise all Public Safety dispatches in the performance of call answering dispatching and all other operational duties within the communications center to ensure that call taking and dispatches services are performed effectively they would ensure compliance with both police and fire department policies as well as the policies of the communications division itself the dispatch supervisor would be available to serve in the role as a public safety dispatcher on a regular basis should there need uh arise in support of Brakes Training relief Peak load conditions emergencies and special occurrences such as the marathon other responsibilities of a dispatch supervisor would include but are not limited to scheduling of course processing time off requests and just overall ensuring continuity of operations at all times which is no easy feed I can tell you quality control both in radio records C entries 911 calls and they would counsel and correct Personnel on those quality control issues they would work with both the police department and the fire department liaison to ensure training meets or exceeds their needs and expectations they would act as a 911 and peap coordinator with the state they will be responsible to apply for and manage all of our state and i911 grants they would coordinate and schedule ongoing required 911 training so this new position was calculated and requested at 9% above our TOP Step dispatch rate to again maintain an appropriate separation between rank good news is there is an annual support incentive grant that we are currently awarded to the Ashen to the Ashen Police Department through State 91 the amount of approximately $56,000 that could be utilized to assist in supporting this new position which is um expected to be around $667,000 all right any questions on any of that I know that was a lot of information okay how many years would that Grant uh cover salary for it's it's uh offered annually sir we we receive it every year okay thanks yep okay so other Personnel Services kind of just group those together um lines 51310 through 5182 again as a result of our contractual increases these line items show the subsequent overtime holiday sick training education other expenses the expenses to that time has also increased I picked out a couple of of the larger line items um you see 51420 the holiday pay um had a larger increase and part of that wasn't due obviously again contractual increases but also um we had to add some hours to that with the dispatches going from an 8 hour to a 12-h hour shift um it just increased the amount of hours and U their overall holidays paid increase so that that um was was partly a reason why we saw a little bit more of an increase in that one line item just quick May pause here just want to make sure we're following the columns here oh yes I apologize so the left to right yeah left to right but your your far right is going to be the difference the next one in is fiscal year 25 and the next one was fiscal year 24 going back and so forth okay my apologies I didn't put the headers on there okay okay um any again uh so let's see five line 51 441 the Quinn bill um we do see a presented increase in that um and actually when I we were reviewing the fisc year 25 budget we realized that there was an officer being paid the Quinn bill that hadn't been reflected in our previous request but they are being paid so it is showing an increase but we've already we're already paying that so all right getting outside of personnel um our other bigger line item increase is in um computer software hardware and maintenance um and that's under uh 52420 um that line shows a requested increase of about $15,000 a little bit into that first we've seen an increase um in the cost of our current systems our major increase being our um IMC system which covers our records management computerated dispatch um kind of the backbone of everything we do we're also seeing an increase in our payroll scheduling systems DTS things like that um as we continue to settle into our new state-of-the-art Public Safety complex that the town was uh provided us we decided to bring begin the grueling but rewarding task of becoming an accredited Department this will ensure that our policies and procedures are up to date that our training and practices are consistent with the law and Industry best practices as well as identify the town against legal liability so new in 20 in 2023 we partnered with power DMS for accreditation management policy compliance training and performance evaluations power DMS has partnered with the Massachusetts police accreditation commission is actually a required component of the accreditation process with all the advancements and changes with law enforcement profession and the world we are obviously very much in need of accreditation being a top priority so that system represents about an $8,000 increase in this line item and that's all that I have again I thank you for let for taking time for me to present to you tonight this budget requ Quest it not only represents our financial plan but um it is a reflection of our priorities values and aspirations and trying to use Service as a road map uh in to guide us in making informed decisions for the benefit of the department and the community so thank you sure questions for me I just maybe for me I just wanted to make sure I got all the the people right here so back to the original org chart with the colors yeah so the yellow was the vacant but not filled or funded but not filled funded but not filled yes sir um the blue is the funded and filled positions y uh the gray positions are our non-s sworn personnel gotcha and the red is the the new and the red is is there our three new positions yes um or reacquired as as I like to say um it sounds a less little less harsh that way um but yeah and again including in that under the administrative Lieutenant we have our 16 traffic constables and I just grouped under the dispat you have your eight full-time dispatchers four PDM dispatchers under the dispatch supervisor okay so so with the recruiting efforts that you talked about and these five unfunded or sorry funded but not filled positions I guess when do you anticipate those being funded or filled I should say so you talking about the yellow positions yes well so again so we have we're doing pretty well okay uh we have one uh student officer in the academy right now we have uh another um potential that um new hire that signed a uh conditional offer with us that should start in April okay uh we have our lateral officer starting um on the 20th and we are doing background checks on two other lateral officers right now so we're we're doing well um I'm I'm happy to see you know but we are it's negotiations it's not like I said it's not like what I saw 20 years ago yeah I hear um these officers have many options as Mr Herbert alluded to you know we're competing with every town um so we we're doing our best to to make ashin somewhere they want to be and and stay um and make a career so we talked about that quite sorry quite a bit last year I think about the recruiting troubles and things like that with u the chief and it sounds like at least that's you know looking up a little bit nothing nothing is is a 100% fix right um but I will say that the move from civil service has just opened up different paths different Avenues and we're able you know law enforcement is aligning itself a little bit more with the private sector as far as our hiring recruitment strategies it wasn't like that before you got a job and you were happy about it and that and that was it you know um so having that flexibility you know obviously working within guidelines and and making sure everybody's vetted properly um has definitely opened up some some new avenues for us thanks thanks sorry no I was just trying to clarify so the the the one that's in the academy and the lateral are they sort of already blue on here no they're not they're not blue because so there they fill they're filling the yellows there there some of the yellows yes okay yes um it's just they're not sworn in on the road yet so they we they weren't counted as as filled fair enough so could you go to the slide that shows the account line item for uh FY 24 versus FY 25 salaries please thanks and it says difference fy2 and again remember as was pointed out to me we we're operating on our requested from fiscal year 24 to fiscal year at 25 so and it says here even with the two required reacquired positions yes that so that's the 51130 you see there's a negative $113,000 difference in that line item so it's just the overall is on top and then I just broke it down into the three different sections that one particular section saw a decrease and that was mainly as I stated due to the fact that we had we've had senior officers unfortunately leave that were filled with lower paid positions okay are being filled with lower Bay positions understood so does that fy2 is that what the ask of the two the three additional positions included yes and and we we see because of the attrition you've experienced yes okay okay and that 3151 Michael is in your budget again this is our requested or in your it's in what you just showed us yeah right okay it's good but it's still requested 24 over 25 not actual 24 yeah right down we had those in there for requested do do you remember where did we end up last year Michael the actual actual budget about $500,000 less less than that okay okay that did I believe get increased a little bit with the moving of the sil service what 2 something like that is okay that's yeah thank you that's why I felt a little okay gotcha all right that with me I think so great job thank you so much thank you thank you appreciate your time that you too all right we'll have H have Chief Roby all right there you go Chief thank you thank you um Chief Roby ashin fire department uh the fiscal 25 budget just to give you an overview of where the department is today so right now our staffing is a chief a deputy chief a captain who's in charge of training and maintenance he's so the three of us all work days the rest of the department is shift which consists of five firefighters and one liutenant so a total of 27 uniform firefighters uh just some of the highlights of the pitches up there that is the whole department photo from last year um the dedication of the public safety building which we are honored to be in today and thank the town for the support uh the middle picture there is our newest recruit graduating from the fire academy Thomas Kirk and then also to uh Lieutenant duer up there he got a citation from the State Fire Marshal this past year for a rescue unfortunately it was a fail fire but it occurred in Hopkin in but he was assisted in getting one of the residents out so our calls where are we today uh this is 22 verse 23 calendar year so we're up uh we did 28 10 and 23 22 we did uh 2747 fire calls are up a little bit uh they they jump around I I know people look at that number that that many houses burned no that's not all house fires I mean if you looked at an average house fires are probably 10 to 15 for what I would call a real house fire that most people relate to a lot of those fires are kitchen stoves uh medical responses definitely are our biggest impact as you can see we did uh 1,887 medical responses last year and transported 1,448 patients again going over the pictures there it's just some of the things we've we've done over the past year uh Deputy Moran doing a fire prevention program she's done a lot of Outreach with the uh class classes in the town uh the second picture there is a fire we had a kitchen fire so we're just venting third photo is training that we do in house again next picture would be another fire we at assisting the residents displ you know who get displaced helping them out of the house what they're going to do and that's followed by a photo that we assisted in whing at a big fire that you might have saw in the news not too long ago when the service station right y yeah yeah so that's from there and then uh the last picture there is our amulance working at a stone parket we're airlifting a patient out for trauma so overall looking at the budget our biggest increase is that looking for more manpower um I feel every time I'm up here I'm asking for more men um it doesn't happen every year I I don't want people to think it does happen every year uh the last time we added a position was in January of 23 when we added the depuy's position that has been a great resource for the department but the actual last time we hired a firefighter on to shift to increase shift load was back in January of 2020 and just as comparison that year we did 22 just a little over 2200 calls so we're doing over 2000 2800 now so our calls are increasing how else does that impact us well we're seeing multiple calls calls just they aren't laid out nice and even we clear one go to another one so 1,15 times we had two two or more calls going on in the last year 313 times we had three or more calls going on at the same time four times we had 71 calls going on and 24 times we we get five or more calls all occurring at the same time so when we're get to that number we're not handling the calls we're calling outside Mutual Aid uh people are getting delayed responses the other increase we're seeing is medical calls uh as you saw 67% of our calls are medical based so when we transport a patient today we're finding a lot more patients don't want to go to Metro West Medical Framingham they go Newton Welsley uh today went into Boston I think already once the yeah to the bi I mean so when that ambulance goes to thebi when you're looking at a crew of six those two have gone close to two hours out of the shift so that's really impacting us we're relying on off duty people to come back and today's world we're not finding that that's I mean call departments in a town like here don't exist anymore you not you don't see the back feed I mean when I came came on 20 years ago there was 20 people at the door when you called we're lucky if we pull in one or two now so looking at the budget again this this page here is all the Personnel Services the biggest increases on this page are related to hiring the four people so as we've talked that's our Dream request that's it's really what we need but I we know it's a burden to the town but um looking over a few of the line items that are show up as a little bigger there uh 51300 there's the recalls again that's that's trying to call back people back filling shifts if the ambulance goes out um if we send both the anes out we we tried to bring back in we always try to have at least three members in the station for any call that can occur so we're even when we get to that five we've tried calling people in sometimes we get them sometimes we don't uh 51310 is vacation that is all adding on the new firefighters uh 51 320 sick and personal time that one's probably been it that's based on averages uh the hardest thing is it's to judge how many people are going to be out sick this year we never know um we do drop the first one but we back fill from there on that's where it it gets us and I always have to backfill the duty officer um we've also founded a struggle since covid um people have been told you get a sniffle you don't feel right don't come in so it's it's it's increased I think over the the time um that line item also does include a little personal time for the new firefighters again uh the last one on that page is uh the holiday 51420 and that is adding in the four firefighters all of these have a little contractual increase to this year's increase to the contract and any questions on the personal yeah maybe just I know we I we talked about this before but there's a threshold right where you have so many calls and we're basically empty right we have no extra capacity if those is it two Crews or three crews are out at the same time what is that number depends depends on first call I mean if first call is a chimy fire you're not going to have anyone at the station for for the medical that comes in yeah so that Mutual Aid when people come over I guess what is the cost of the town on that so mutual Aid does not have a cost but okay we reciprocate back too so yeah so your cost does come back to you it does yeah because we give to them and then we're back filling those days uh maintenance this is our purchase of services and equipment again our biggest cost here or cost of Labor repair work um overall cost of supplies so on the maintenance contracts that that covers things such as our A dispatch software the maintenance cost as the police refer to I mean we our annual fees just to keep those that software running and support to it that also includes keeping our trucks certified so the pumps on the trucks have to get certified every year to make sure they follow nfba guidelines um we have we also have re required medical equipment that needs to be serviced so under our state license to have a an ambulance we have to certify that our equipment is checked annually such as the monitor we such a vital piece of equipment we have to have someone come in test it every year sign off that everything's within calibration um that includes our stretchers the all the equipment for lifting inside the ambulances and the other increased item really there is uh 54700 and that's EMS supplies a lot of that again is the supplies that we're using and everything today is disposable nothing's reusable those days of reusing stuff is gone which is a good thing if you think about it but it does increase all your costs and just medical supplies themselves I think the T the price tag is over the past couple of years has really increased a lot anyy questions on any of that stuff I guess I had a question I noticed here that we're going down in equipment and then a previous page also going down in training so so training I just I it's because it's average based um we're also doing a little bit online too so that's kind of saved a little bit on the overtime um I actually glad you brought a purchase of equipment so the reason that's going down a little bit we bumped it last year 40 huh yeah so I think it was so we we brought it up to get a grant and we actually were awarded a grant this past year for a million dollars to replace our seba our breathing apparatus so that was with town of South bro town of Hopkin and and Ashland but that covered our match to it so we built it into there knowing we had a good chance of getting the Grant and again this year we're actually shooting for another Grant under that same line item for to replace our turnout gear which is has 10year life and it's coming up on the 10 years okay so for the training though you're not it's not less training no it's we'll say it's different well it also helps having uh the captain's now working days yeah where before I was paying him to come in on overtime to do all the training he can actually be on all the hit all the groups so it's reducing it a bit what's the rate we currently charge for an ambulance pickup drop off how is that being built is it competitive it's it's it's it's compared Statewide we've we've done it it's all comparable to other towns okay um again the biggest problem is it comes down to Medicare I knew you going to say that yep y yeah I mean I I have the act the numbers here are Medicare accounts for between Medicare and Medicaid almost half of what we collect in Revenue so yeah mhm and that that's our biggest impact so a lot of people who see the the tax bill go holy crap this is cost to me but it's a lot of that money we don't see right that number so about 50% of that revenue is Medicare Medicaid versus what we can build an insurance yeah I mean to be exact it's probably like in the I'm going to say in the 40s it's not quite 50 but it's Clos y okay related to that I think when you talked about the mutual Aid do I recall also that sort of disproportionate with with hollist our helping of Holliston we are we do actually provide ALS support to Holliston right now but we actually started bilding that I think almost a year and a half two years ago now yep so we do have Revenue coming into that to reimburse us so we we get roughly about the Medicaid payment from them every time we go to them okay which it's brought in some money to us it's at least it's supporting our supplies too and stuff like that where before it was a we weren't getting anything to when the ambulance goes out the only person that can Bill a patient is the the ambulance that actually transport you mhm so in Holliston we actually provide the paramedics they don't have paramedics so our paramedics get in their ambulance provide all the care but it where it's physically in their truck by law they're the only ones that can build that's what it was so now we're building Holliston for that service interesting okay please continue that's it I think that's it yeah so the only last thing I do is I have a little shout out to somebody so at the new public safety building we moved the fire pole from the old Main Street fire station into the new building we put it in the corner of the building and we researched some help from Ed har who built us a staircase so the kids can actually go to the top stair and actually slide down the pole that's awesome nice job Ed and that was all his design and he built it all are those dations did you carve those yourself or I figured out a way to cast them to mold them okay yeah no it's a awesome job thank you awesome jobed thank you it was a lot of fun oh nice job Ed we're good yeah thank you thank you Chief thank you appreciate it this is this is Doug's favorite night of the year I know it used to know don't let Doug fool you looking forward to trying this out speed here don't let Doug fool you he loves this stuff the big difference between DW is we have hand outs thanks yeah thank you thank you like let's go hi everybody I'll make this brief tonight um thank you for having us I have Becca Navaro with me uh Becca started with the town uh back sometime around July I think and uh she's a civil engineer and uh her main uh uh job is to support the water and sewer department and uh she's made a significant difference uh positive difference ever since she's gotten there and uh uh anyway she's been terrific and all this stuff so it's I think she's to be she has already proven to be a game changer for us especially in the water and sewer side of things um so what we did is we took the annual report and we just these are just the cliff notes and all this stuff so uh many details are not included in this which is uh probably good news to you um so uh let's see so all right so the overview so the DPW uh consists of uh the general fund and the Enterprise fund a bunch of different different departments uh water sewer rubbish recycling Highway Cemetery parks and trees athletic fields uh storm water uh facilities and uh we also have the administration to to kind of administer everything but uh you know is is pretty much where we do the uh uh the bill processing and permit process and things like that all right um uh so on the general fund side of things um so like I said I'm not going to focus on the Enterprise I don't know if I said it but we're not going to focus on the Enterprise side of things tonight um so just on the general fund so that's the DPW admin the highway department uh snow and ice um street lights fuel Cemetery parks and trees and um facilities all right uh so a quick summary um so the proposal overall if you add them all up together we're looking at 2 2,769 232 so right now we're looking at uh a request of a 16% increase and as you can see in red um under Cemetery parks and trees that's where the big ticket item is and I'll get into that a little more as we go um so PW admin um so over the course of last year one of our key members uh was out on medical leave for uh for the majority of the year and so pretty much the the DPW Administration the staff itself um took care of a lot of his responsibilities by committee um and also some other areas so uh it's a it's a we have a couple senior clerks in there that are very good at what they do um and then of course Roy out in the field helping a lot with a lot of the stuff the field calls to help get us through the year as well uh let's see so on this one here the the the the 10,000 we have a $10,000 increase in the salaries and that's mainly because of the Union contracts obligations um same with longevity INF fringes um so on the highway side so we have six full-time employees over there um see if you have any information here so this this is pretty much the the gives you an idea the the the the amount of work that would they do over there so as far as the work orders and all this stuff so in FY 204 looking at uh 200 so far we' had 200 work order request in the last 6 months or so compared to uh FY 23 they're 385 so we're pretty much online so looking at somewhere around 400 for the whole year and then the pothole report reported the crack seals the amount number of gallons as far as townwide goes and all this stuff very exciting stuff um let's see uh Highway budget so there are no major uh request a lot of it most of it is based on Union uh negotiations uh contract negotiations um if you go down to uh contracted Services which is uh 5245 we're looking at um it's only a $7,000 increase but uh so over the course of last year we've had a lot of lot of activity with the weather with u rainstorms and wind storms a lot of tree damage things like that so um I don't know it's just tree work itself is very expensive um it's something we really can't control um so let's see anything else important there uh not really and the highway budget continues um so you'll see at the bottom we have training uh looking for an additional $4,000 uh for next year and the the main the driving force behind that is for CDL training for um the commercial vehicles um and it's something I'm working with with Katherine HR director and with Michael on trying to figure this one out it is harder and harder to find uh new employees that actually have their uh CDL Class B um the rules have all changed um I looked into it over the weekend as far as going to a class just for one person it's it costs over $5,000 to get your class B now uh not too long ago we could do all the training in-house uh but the feds have changed the rules and all that so I put a request in there for $4,000 and I know it's not $5,000 but it's because the the difference comes from other other departments as other budgets as well um snow and ice uh let's see indicator so so looking at four or five uh plowable snow storms a year so far we've had two um so this one here so for this year uh currently I think we've already spent close to $400,000 this year um salt prices are about the same um it's it's more uh anyway salt price is the same one of those storms was you know had to be I don't know close to 18 hours as far as having the contractors on so um and then the rates continue to go up just to get uh private contractors to work here in ashin um street lights this is something out of our control uh utility expenses we you see an $11,000 increase based on current uh costs um fuel it looks like we're in good shape here we're not increasing increase at all here that's for an increase um Cemetery parks and trees so as everybody knows there been many projects over the years and the number of properties continue to increase every year and these properties need to be maintained so we're if I feel that we're pushing the current staff uh to the breaking point uh there's five of them there's it says four up top for full-time employees but there's actually five five because uh this department also takes care of the the uh the school Fields so there's a total of five of them that take care of all these properties here so once again I'm working with Michael trying to find ways we can um provide the maintenance for all of these properties moving forward um you know it it could be a combination of hiring um additional employees or uh farming some of the work out um we haven't quite got there yet I've had several conversations with the staff on what they would like to do as far as what sh what could be farmed out and so on and so forth but um as you can see it's a long list um you know then eventually this dog park is going to come online the Valentine property I'm sure is going to be a weekly type of thing Cadillac Park I'm not sure right there the level of Maintenance that's going to be needed uh the downtown project with all the new plantings uh The Corner Spot so on and so forth um let's see um so this one here so so here's the actual budget itself and then this we also so up at the top that's where the $100,000 is if we request if if we were able to uh come up with two more new employees um and then there's also the line below that it's the parks and wreck department for an additional $100,000 and so we already have the wreck as everybody knows with Kelly rund so this would be the parks and this is more for basically managing the field rental program and the school schedule as well so uh it's something uh Becca was able to say it so much better to me earlier today on why and all this stuff but it's uh it's many communities around us already have a parks and wck department and it's something where we actually generate revenue from and it's it's uh maybe it's time to actually pay uh put the right people in place as far as managing it and all this stuff and maybe increase the revenue that comes out of it um let's see so Doug pause right there I guess the $100,000 ask for the new Department I guess what does that actually cover is it people that would be people that that's more Administration okay yeah talking one two people I'd say it's two people yeah yeah it's seven days a week you know a lot of night hours and weekends so would any of the field maintenance be part of that department or would that be truly just managing who can use it management itself really I think the DPW would continue to do the actual maintenance of you know the grass cutting and all all that stuff so this is more of the managing bookings Billings um disputes things like that yeah policies there's a there's a lot to it um okay so then contracted services so that's another option was contracted services for $50 ,000 you say we were able to find a landscaping company to come in take some of these properties off our hands where we would still manage these contractor these landscaping companies but they would actually do the work themselves um and the tree shrubs replacement the reason that number is so high is these trees that were just planted out here on Main Street um we're they're they're not I mean we're talking $2 to $4,000 each I mean they're very expensive trees so if we ever had to replace any of these trees so it's it's a big number but um anyways that's that's where the 24,000 came from those trees are expensive um on the facility side of things so facilities so we basically have two full-time employees and this is another area that has been developing over the years um with all the uh it it's like Evolution or whatever that this whole this facilities department and all this stuff I mean we've come a long ways in the last 20 years or so um so we basically have Jeff and Marley so Jeff handles a lot of the maintenance stuff with the HVAC the plumbing the electrical and so on and so forth Marley does the cleaning and she also oversees the cleaning services um so and as as you all know we just added the public safety building to this which was a whole whole new level as far as facilities goes um so on this one so facilities so permanent positions based on salaries a minor increase uh being proposed um purchase of services that another minor increase this this is all based on actual um utility expenses out of our out of our control uh that to see an increase of uh of uh 37,000 there almost $38,000 contracted Services uh pretty much seeing like a 2% increase across the board in hbac electrical things like that um and miscellaneous supplies based on actual you know uh with the public safety building coming online this year we did try to uh put in enough funds to cover it this year but we were we were off a little bit but um anyway so that's pretty much it um I mean there's a lot more obviously but that was kind of just the cliff notes of on the general fund Department of Public Works I miss anything Becca all right good questions for Doug sounds like we need a Park and Recreation Department hey do you want to pull the microphone over oh sorry yeah sounds like we need a Parks and Recreation Department yeah I I I think so um right now we handle the DPW staff handles the bookings and the scheduling and then these miscellaneous things come up on the weekends or at night um and a lot of the bookings they do actually are for the school department and some of it's private but it's kind of a tough marriage you know as far as those type of services occurring at the DPW I'm not saying between the DPW and the school that's uh but as far as having something in place Kelly run so we have this new software we're using called myre and Kelly Run is I mean she's a master at it she's awesome at it but uh in the meantime we're still using School dude which is uh a little tricky uh to figure out and all this stuff so Patty will end up doing a lot of the booking herself when the customers call in instead of the customers actually figuring it out themselves and being able to to uh maneuver through the the school dude software but um and then the billing the pro the whole program itself needs to go to the next level I me we're running into situation where people don't pay us and so what we do is we just don't let them book the next year um the policies are all in draft form still since 2015 uh it's a major major undertaking it's a major commitment um we do the best we can with this I mean I actually have do the trash after the Thanksgiving Day game this year you know there's nobody else there so um Ashlin it's you know like Michael said I mean it's a desired Community now look at look at the cost of the houses and all this stuff and it's and all these cities and towns around us have a parks and wreck department it's like Ashlin it's time for Ashlin to to get there hopefully hopefully I you know and this isn't doesn't feel like the right year to be asking for this with all this you know negative stuff going on with the you know the economy you know yeah yeah I know don't volunteer yourself to be cut yeah yeah yeah so any anyways it's it would it would be nice to I think Ashlin yeah no I agree Doug I think yeah I I've seen it firsthand some of those challenges with scheduling of the school Fields yeah and I think I mentioned this last year my wife was a scheduling coordinator for youth lacrosse and right and she' love you working with Patty and Patty's very responsive and you go going above and beyond because let's face it this is her night job right kind of the scheduling and the Staffing but but I think there's opportunity there like you said to number one make sure people pay right right and pay on time and I think that was one of the things is we wouldn't get a bill till like months months later you know what I mean it's like I don't remember what I booked you know what I mean yep um I guess maybe a question along with that I don't know if this is you Michael but you know it seems like you know this is tied into some of the revenue that goes to the fields fund right Enterprise fund I guess is there a chance that some of this could be funded via the Enterprise fund you know if if at least part of the position or how have you thought about that yeah there's always a chance um you know it's I mean the need for a parks and W department has been there for years but really the the planning for this is just kind of in its nent stages and um you know like we're starting with you know a couple of of people that doesn't necessarily mean that the structure that's going to be the be all endall structure of things but yeah I mean it makes sense if we're going to take on the athletic fields that you know the athletic uh field revolve or Enterprise fund becomes a source of uh Revenue okay but just to clarify right now there is nothing planned in the 25 budget from a revenue perspective from a revenue perspective no no okay get back um any other questions for Doug I don't have any Doug thank you though all right I have a comment yes I've mentioned this to Doug before and I mentioned it to Mike last time um I travel around a lot in in my occupation you know i' sometimes many times towns away and I was coming back and I've noticed that the roads in Ashland when this a snowstorm are much better conditioned than the surrounding towns one big storm I came back from Welsley and I'm driving down Route 16 to WS I'm going about 30 miles an hour because it's the fast as sh could go I get into natic and it's down to about 25 I get in sh I'm going about 15 miles an hour and I come over in the ashle in line and the roads are clear there it's like didn't nothing happened to all and I think the spent 400k well they do a good job they do a real good job especially compared to the other towns surrounding towns and it's it's keeps the keeps the road safe in in uh dangerous situations you know and those guys do a good job and they're out all night long you know working they do a good job yeah there's a handful of guys down there that are really good and dedicated and they get it and you know they've been around for 20 years with us and it's like automatic to them so but yeah I really appreciate that yeah it was true yeah it's very impressive able to get the schools open when other towns have a right right 100% true yeah we like open schools it's good or bad depending on who you are I guess we can change that all right thanks dog thanks thank you appreciate it I mean that's really our presentations for tonight I don't know if you have um any other questions or any other thoughts I mean we can talk about next steps if you want to yeah I I'm just curious you know I don't I don't have the numbers in front of me I don't know if you do but if we let's say did a level budget from last year would revenues even cover that this year would you still be at deficit or no yeah we'd still be at a deficit yeah level funded yep no increases which well with no increases no we would be we would be okay what do you mean yeah if you're saying like School in town There's No increases at all I'm saying even like even contractual increases like just level from last year's budget pure dollarwise schol yeah everything everything possible that you're still out of deficit yeah yeah I mean it's it's not the most ideal position to be in for sure and I think you know part of um part of Britney and and my job is to find solutions to these problems and um that's one of the things that you know we're good at I mean I say that in all you're going to get out your Band-Aids and duct tape and you're going to pull together for 25 right yeah about 26 27 28 right I mean and you know it's funny a resident not too long ago two or three weeks ago basically said you know Mike you guys are too good at your job like like you need to let people feel pain uh to understand kind of what the long-term prognosis is of the situation that we're in and that's just not the way we're built um like if we see problems that we feel like it's our job and and we're paid to to fix it but part of my job is also to let you know like the overall Financial condition of the town and once you start looking at onetime revenues to start plugging gaps you're going down a slippery slope right now one of the things I didn't say is that next year we should get a couple of new developments online um so 100 Chestnut Street um and then hopefully 501 pwn Street which is a 120 unit you say next year you mean fiscal 26 next fiscal year yeah next fiscal year yeah you know and that will provide a big injection of Revenue but then you get the push against um adding residential you know that's that's not a popular thing especially dense multif family developments um well I think we've all we've discussed in committee meetings we can't kick the can forever right and uh certainly that's the first thing I thought of when you started talking about one time Revenue that's usually the uh the beginning of you know us starting to kind of

28% of the budget and you're sticking with the same Council or right now we have the same Council we actually have a an RFP developed and almost ready to go we're actually meeting with the purchasing agent on Friday casc to go over that and the board itself we've been in communication on that process and how long has the current Council been working for Brookfield I want to say 2012 or 2014 general council's been the district we I think that all that information is actually provided in the Q&A budget document there's links to the engagement letters that we have with the firms there's historical information that there might be 2008 and a 2014 depending on the the the firms are different the engagement years but all that information is in the Q&A document with links to the to the Dr Data thank you yep and Terell just add a letter that we were did receive I saw that as well yeah I caught my eye um M on yes it is it's it's on um it's about the $20,000 piece of that budget it's not about the bigger one the bigger one I mean from my history is mostly driven by Union negotiations right and anytime you anytime you talk about a small budget number like that when it go when there's an overage it it comes out as a large percentage an eye-catching percentage increase which is why I think it's caught some people's eye but it's not a budget driver so um I I what caught my eye in the presentation was the increasing electri cost um and uh and I know I what I heard you say Rosa was that it's higher than we expected what the engineers had told us but the but it's more efficient than uh when we had the two schools before technically yes but why why is the curve going up as much as it is that year to year so can I can I just the December bill was [Applause] $52,000 one month bill was $52,000 30,000 of that was off peak hours it makes no sense whatsoever this number even in this budget makes no sense because it's based on a 502,000 center school and I don't know Mar what was Center School and uberry combined 12,000 for the month I don't think okay I can I can speak to that um the the last bill that you saw it did have a balance forward we were going back and forth between the MBC and and and actually with constellations trying to lock in the rate so the 52,000 was for two months um so wait hold on so but this is where we're losing this because when I speak to Paul czecho 5 minutes before I walk in the meeting he tells me that's a one month bill so how are we even fighting the problem if we don't know what the the problem is if that Paul czecho doesn't know that that's a two-month bill so he has the last two he I sent him the last two months of bills one was the 52,000 which was inclusive of the last month Bill and then the balance forward and then he has the other electric bill which shows that balance forward so the last two months was 2,999 69 and then the very current recent month month was 26271 59 so that's the two months the one really big Bill that we saw that sort of set off alarm Bells was the first bill that was forwarded to us from the MBC once the school open and students were in there which was um early OCT October uh I think that bill ran through um middle of October and that was 33,44 so that was and that was one month of energy usage it did have the um um air conditioning running there was still a lot of weekend work and over you know after hours work so I think there was people in that building constantly um so we were sort of waiting to see is this a true is this a true month of electricity one month in this building we did see that the next month it came down to $2,453 that was um October to November and then like I said the last two months it's it's tend tending to level off the supply rate the problem is the supply rate that that we're using in these these bills here is um is not locked in so all the other buildings are locked in with constellation the the bill for CES was still under omg's name so when we got this bill we could not lock in with constellation because it was not under the board of education's name that has since you know we're now it's under the Board of Ed and our purchasing agent is reaching out has reached out to Constellation and we should be locking in at our at our contracted rate with constellation which is 0833 cents um you know per kilowatt hour the current rate the FL the fluctuating rate is averaging .17 cents a kilowatt hour so it is a massive um it's a a massive change in in the one month it's it's a difference of 7 $8,000 but isn't your rate in 6 months going to go to17 anyway so in six months the the rate that we used in this El in these projections was based on you know the point in time when we put this together in you know November the rates we got um that our purchasing agent received from his contact at constellation was .11 so we do so this bill or this projection for next year is using 6 months of energy at the 0.0 831 per kilowatt hour and then the second um 6 months January through June at 0.11 cents per kilowatt hour are we sure on that number because I got a different number I got 1.5 I thought because we were talking doubled Mara from point8 to remember we talk double the rate you were talking so we were that was the going rate that um um because it was off your email that um um but that was the going rate and and we we've heard the same thing on our side that that we should be getting better rates than the going rate um that we're paying we're thinking more of a 32% increase in the supply which is 0.11 point the going from 0.831 to 0.11 is about a 32% increase so sorry a I was going to say I asked a nice General you went right to the December bill I give you full no this is you and me man so also from feedback I've gotten on the fuel side the school gets beneficial rates and on the electric side the town gets beneficial rates why can't we combine them and figure out special rates for all of us why can't the town take on all the electricity for the schools and put it under our umbrella so we do have one contract for all of us for electricity we do go out for fuel together um there's some um problems this year with the fuel in that um um the school buses came on at Candlewood that are gas used to be Diesel and so we're using more than our um contracted uh contracted amount of of oil of gasoline um we're sharing the pain on that that um um so that but we are doing all of that together but are we getting the same rates across the board they get a little better rate I think it's on diesel because they've got bigger tanks that um one of the fuels they get a bigger a better rate because when they fill it they've got a a big a bigger tank so it's cheaper by a few cents yeah but oil and electricity and regular gasoline it is the same the same pricing sorry about I just don't understand that bill well I think quite frankly I'm listening to your question and it kind of goes with my question I'd love to see it all L out right on a piece of paper right um just P * Q how much usage what the rate is by time last year this year next year because to me building the new school should have had year-to-year efficiencies it may not be what we expected but it should be somehow paying off for the town because of the modernization of our utilities and it's not jumping out and I don't know if it's masked by the rates or something else but I'd love to see the usage y in the budget and how that's trending and tracking and what was hooked up by the construction budget versus not so we can show see how that behaved but somewhere somewhere in Here It just strikes me that we ought to be seeing a notable decrease in electric usage and if it's being eaten up by rates that's a different discussion right and I couldn't tell that from your chart so I can absolutely have that I actually do have that in my cheat sheet but I can share that out with the boards for sure really help absolutely the uh including the netting that was out of the construction project oh yeah flag where that happen y um the second question I had was on substitutes um you had a notable exposure this year for substitutes and into next year um and I guess the question I have is we've seen overruns of the substitute budget over many years over all eight years I was in the board we over in our substitute budget but it was often offset by the fact that teachers were on leave and we weren't paying salaries so I know you don't budget teachers that way so it was budget here and we're going to end up underrunning due to absences and leaves on the on the salary line and intended to offset the substitute costs have we budgeted the full amount of substitutes we are budgeting the full amount of substitutes um in this budget it also does have so it's interesting like the teacher turnover cuz my concern teacher turnover well but my because my concern also was well if this has been overrun historically um in the past so where is that savings coming from and what I've look what I'm understanding and I'm going back in the historical budgets is that it's probably due to teacher um leaves and vacancies right from them taking FML leave or vacancies that are not filled um and so so that's why when I when I look at when I was thinking of this teacher turnover which I know is something that we need to talk about if we keep it in or not whether we call it teacher turnover or just salary savings because of leaves and absences and teacher turnover from retirements um I think it it may be safe to keep that in there because of what you say is that we've always been able to cover that substitute cost I think it is because of those leaves and vacancies from salaries because we worried about double budget I guess and and that and that's why I think keeping it in there does alleviate that concern because while we do budget the full cost of salaries for the staff that we know to be returning at you know at this point in time um we do know that historically there has been leaves in in vacancies that we find savings from and that's different than turnover exactly so while we're not realizing the savings salary savings from turnover we haven't done that this year and and and not last year or very close um I think it's safe to leave that 200,000 in there because we will still see savings and salaries from leaves and vacancies am I clear so are you so I'm going to say it differently than you did are you advocating for a zero negative contingency for teacher turnover and call all of that for leaves and vacancies I I I don't I guess I'm not I it doesn't matter to me what it's called whether it's teacher turnover or savings from it does matter I'm sorry just so for us to understand the budget you can't keep moving around in there right so I think we need to I think we need to really be precise y on what are we assuming are we going to assume we're going to have a much higher substitute budget because grow gross spending actually have over exceeded but we've assumed this much leav in vacancies that's an offset or are we going to assume no Lees at vacancies and and kind of the net cost of of substitutes so it just struck my it struck me that the way the budget was constructed when I looked at it that somehow we were getting we weren't getting the reduction on the leaves and vacancies but we were getting the added uh cost and that that was confusing okay I I understand I I guess my thinking is that um the salaries are budgeted whole right with not any netting down due to any anticipated leaves and vacancies because we're budgeting what we know salaries will be for next year if all teachers come to school um there knowing that there is I I so I would not Advocate to put that $200,000 back into the budget for teacher turnover because even if it's not realized in turnover it's likely going to be realized in leaves and vacancies so that's what I just the way I said it advocating of a zero for teacher turnover and put all that negative -200 for leaves and vacancies of just said to me we just don't have a leaves and vacancies budget line so what's been the history on leaves and vacancies um it's last year was about 285 um it's usually anywhere from $2 to $300,000 okay a year so it does cover that overage in Subs um and so so I I I would be more than comfortable leaving that reduction of salaries in there um whether whether we actually call it salary savings from turnover and leaves in vacancies do you know what I mean like it's it's a salary reduction line um and so it is I think I think it is important to leave that in there um we probably won't based on the last two years see it in turnover but we likely will see it from leaves and vacancies and I know I know you feel like I'm conflating those two things but they're both they're both impacting salary lines but in the past two these this two-year anomaly not withstanding past we've had the the leaves and vacancies and the turnover savings so it was let me I'll just give you some of my history here and so to me it I think it makes sense what this conversation is making sense to me okay um the when you've got you talk about substitutes um there sometimes you need a substitute because the teacher's been pulled away for a day or a sick leave or something like that you're still paying their salary and you have a net incremental cost for a substitute you have other situations which actually become the bulk of the substitute cost is people taking like a maternity leave and they're out for 6 months and it's an unpaid leave so those you tend to have a substitute uh and a cost and a offsetting savings in the salary one um so what you're when you budget it historically substitutes you're really trying to deal with that first C right which is much iset incremental substitutes and if you look at all the reports we've ever done we've always over over spent the substitute line by a couple hundred, and leaves in vacancies has been in fact often a little bit more than that right because sometimes you do you don't get a sub or you can't get a sub right that's to me very different and and that's been consistent right if I remember and I'd love to see that leads in vacancies versus substitute overruns and how that l out over time because I think it helps with precise budgeting then we also have the issue of teachers who retire and get replaced and I want to go back in time we went through four or five years where we were saving hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars and you can't go back in time happening again things are just different now no I understand let me just finish my thought right we went through a period of time where we were saving hundreds of thousands of dollars and we were retiring a lot of teachers each year and we could readily hire every teacher we wanted you could get a lower band teacher and you'd have a a group of um of 50 75 teachers applying for every single job that we had right there were very few teacher shortage uh situations um that changed in Co it really did I so I was going to the current situation and the two things that changed is all the retirement that happened happened there's not a lot of new retirements coming there were some and we say I saw in the sheet that you the chart you put up we saved money on those when we replaced them the issue that I know we struggled with is what do you do with those areas where there's no teachers to be found in the specialty and and that's really hard um and so my next so that's why that's been eating up all the savings we we probably would have met the 200 if you just gone straight with retirements that shart but I saw that all those blue lines it um it ate up all of the savings so I guess John this a question for you is is it even possible to change our hiring so that we can get more like for like bands and those shortage areas or is it you got to take what you can get I guess that's the question I have just management and and I think it it's really alluded to it it it's a combination um but in the shortage areas specifically and you can see them in the chart in your packet the um finding those teachers many times their unicorns to to find a bilingual teacher in a particular language to find a physics teacher to find even Math teachers now are shortage jeries World language special education speech and language very challenging to find um particularly in the times we're now nationally and around the state in our shortage area we've got a lot of Educators at the table and people married to Educators they can tell you um we're all we're all going through this um the principles um are very deliberate with their hiring committees um as part of our process in the summertime when we're looking for new teachers or when an opening happens during the school year and we have a uh electronic platform where um uh applicants put their uh their candidacy candidacy materials and they really go through those with their committee members and who are often teacher colleagues and so forth um and other admins and do the best they can there is often one or two applicants for some of these shortages areas it is really really there is just a dir of candidates in fact in a non- shortage Area English language arts this past summer you'll see in your chart there were a couple couple uh higher paid more veteran employees teachers that were brought in because for whatever reason unbeknown to us we can't tell you why there was not a lot of newer maybe um uh less experienced teachers in the candidate pool and so we had to go with what we had so to answer your question Bob if we get a converging on less experienced teachers who we believe are the best fit in our school then honestly that's where we go um and frankly when a higher experienced te a higher uh salary step teacher comes to us Anna and I we actually do a little bit of an evil eye at each other and go let's go check the candidate pool just to We Trust our principles but we want to trust and verify and we go in there and double check and they will tell you it is very very challenging um we don't have the traditional 200 applicants for an elementary position anymore when one opens you know there there are more Elementary applicants that's more of a generalist type teacher not so specific in a shortage area but we do not get the candidates that we used to get in either kind of the inexperienced just out of college younger teachers um or even in some of these specialty areas it's getting harder and harder in those areas and it truly is an employees Market um many Educators um were a bit of a victim of our location being in Western Connecticut um our teachers many of our newer teachers actually grew up in New York went to college in New York and or came to Western and they get a job with us and what we're seeing is some of the younger teachers after a couple of years they train up they're moving back to New York where the salary is a little bit better um that's just the way New York is and they're not commuting 45 minutes or an hour and we just lost a social worker over at Candlewood Lake because of this exact situation um who we did not want to lose we love her and so that's what we're dealing with the other opposite effect we're dealing with is we're in Northern Fairfield County South it's again shortage areas every every town is facing the same thing those teachers if they can get a more competitive salary um and add a little bit to their commute and leave uh bethl or Brookfield or new town and go down to new Kanan or darianne they're making that commute um and making that decision so it's uh it's a challenging situation the great thing is about this is we are actually fully staffed with our faculty you know we're not operating so like some districts where they're they're missing three or four special ed teachers they can't find a physics teacher they're spreading kids out all over they're not running classes at the High School we're not in that situation so that's that's a real positive for us and the reason we're not is we have a very competitive uh salary uh for our faculty in Connecticut we actually through the last teacher negotiation actually um worked on consolidating the steps and a lot of work by the board on that and working with the teachers unit um but our veteran teachers that help fill those shortage areas that we brought in that are higher on the salary schedule that you'll see come from a little bit east of us typically um because there's they're getting paid a little bit less on uh east of us to the center of the state so they they're coming West like this is an opportunity in the way our teacher contract is written um we basically um bring teachers in on their experience level um so like if a teacher comes in with 13 years experience we do not have uh if we're going to bring that person in if we'd be breaching the contract if we put them on step two for example or something like that they would come you should you should follow the contract yeah you have to follow the contract so as a long answer to to to a a a complicated question with a lot of pass and if I could just add one thing one of um the goals that we have with this the HR supervisor um that we thank you that we've created and that we're looking to hire is to come up with um kind of some as creative as much as we can creative approaches to Recruitment and and retention obviously um there are some mandates that are that are requiring us there's a um increased Ed Equity educational diversity plan that has to be be put forward to the state this year so that person will also help us with that but in as part and parcel of that we're looking to get new and and interesting ideas on how to recruit I'm going to change change gears on you thank you for that that was very helpful um and it goes back to recruiting bus driver recruiting right I I see I saw in here a number of places where Transportation costs are just going up a lot right and it struck me in special ad and Athletics probably more than anything so the how much of that is driven by bus driver short um that that that impacts um athletic Transportation primarily it doesn't impact your special ed or your regular no okay no fortunately we um we have enough bus drivers to staff all of our regular bus routes to get students to and from school on a regular basis um and so we don't have any problems there which is which is fortunate the problem is the after school activities having enough drivers to to finish to complete the runs at CES and because we have buses we do have extra buses to do some um after school uh athletic runs but we don't have the drivers to fill them because all the drivers are still compete in the CES run so um Deb Jones at Allstar is has been working non-stop since the beginning of the year um I think she does have another candidate all these candidates get you know so far in the process and then something happens and they fall out or they it's just hasn't hasn't materialized um it's also important to note that even when she does get a backup driver it is important to have a backup driver um for drivers that call out that Roots need to change that we can you know get get our um our kids so how many more drivers is it going to be required to keep get us out of going to uh contract yeah I think she's I think she's diligently looking for at least three drivers and with that all then we wouldn't have to get I think it would alleviate and again we do we do have um we do use Allstar for some of our athletic Transportation it's not 100% you know outside vendors they probably do about 50% of our athletic runs um so I think with just a handful more drivers it would really alleviate that even more okay and and and she she's how many is she trying to recruit I mean I think she's actively been trying to recruit two to three since the beginning of the year that's lots of districts well trust me some of the other things I heard from other districts are much worse than we have exactly they can't even get regular bus RS we're very fortunate um you know with Deb as our Depot manager I mean as always it's so all about the people in in the right position and um we're very fortunate to have Deb who knows the town so well and so committed it's very different than some of the other stories I'm hearing with Allstar specifically uh in some of our neighboring communities so we're doing really well with that regular Transportation but is it is it hard to recruit in those drivers John what's the reason it's so hard I think it's I is it pay is it uh just people don't want to do that anymore so I did I did ask Deb um you know I said are they are your salaries competitive is it is it a lack of advertising is it a pool like what what is the issue that she that she might have any insight to um I believe that the the employees her employees through Allstar did just vote on a a new Union change so there's some shifting there I don't know if people were unhappy with previous I represent I'm making assumptions I don't know but she did she does believe that that the rates are competitive um at least for the area for uh what All-Star is paying our drivers um it's just finding interest finding the people that want to commit to doing that job and I don't know if it's um you know the hours of the job are just you're looking for a very particular person that that can fit that life that lifestyle right um but but and people get get along along the way and then you know um don't seem to be able to complete the process so okay how much of the budget increases the outside buses is that uh is that is that yeah so we're we're anticipating about 30,000 30 to $40,000 increase um in athletic transportation and it's and it's related to to those outside vendors and it's important to note that we have all made uh on on the education side of things uh made a very conscious decision in supporting our students to make sure they get to those away um competitions yeah um we we are um it's not all that common for Middle School to have sports we do have it we're fortunate enough to have it here in Brookfield and we want to make sure those those students are getting to their away away competitions and so um Mr baldman worked very very hard to make sure they have transportation as well um a number of our neighbors um who um also have Middle School sports and can't can't find drivers for their middle school sports um have just canceled or have parents driving and we're trying not to do that to our parents as well we want to support the you know having the drivers and then of course you know we have the whole High School situation so there's a there's a lot of runs I mean it just you know so we've made some conscious decisions as well that we're going to support our kids to get to their a away gam and we have a tiered layer right so Allstar who we contract with um they are certainly the most economical uh first choice if we can get our Allstar buses to take our students that's our first choice there is another vendor that is while while more expensive not astronomically more expensive so that's always the second call and and I would say more than half the time more than probably 3/4 of the time about 3/4 of the time they and even better later in this year they're able to take those runs and so we're building a a nice relationship with that vendor um and so so so half of the time we can do it with Allstar and 3/4 of the remaining time you can do with this relatively inexpensive so that one4 of 1/2 or 1/8 of the total buses is driving the $30,000 yes so it's it's cuz those for those that bus run if we have to go to that third tier Last Resort is is $1,200 per instead like instead of like 4 instead of 300 or 500 it's it's significant wowow so it's our last that's why it's always Our Last Resort yeah got it yeah um next question I'm sorry I'm going to jump around a little bit you mentioned that there's new news on the health benefits how much is that worth about 150,000 150,000 reduction yes in our in okay from what's what we see in the book okay that's why it's yeah um and then lastly on special ed uh tuition and transportation I mean you showed a dramatic curve of what that's H what's happening to that the year-to-year growth is it rates it's not the numbers of kids it what's causing the year-to-year growth is it the rate of outplacement is it the Staffing we have in District is it the um is it Staffing on buses is it bus costs what what is the underlying drivers of the year-to-year growth do want going to take yeah um so with in in regards to tuition um tuition costs there were for this current year over last year's or or over the the budgeted this year versus actuals um when we made the budget last year at this time uh we budgeted for just one less outplaced student okay but important but important to note five of that PO five students from that population that known population at the time either moved out of District or exited the program and came back to Brookfield and that saved us um it's in your chart it in the charts I saw that so so so I think that saved us about 400 uh $340,000 something like that six new students be uh became outplaced the per pupil cost for those six new students was much higher than the five so while while the number of students being outplaced only went up increased by one that cost was I think it's um $110,000 at by that that makeup of those said differently the kids moving into the program are have high needs higher needs very high needs correct and then the um in terms of the transportation those students required additional Transportation some of the students I believe that were outplaced and it's in the in the chart but um either didn't require it didn't require uh Transportation or the transportation was much less expensive um and so those that again it's that mix of students the costs were just that much higher there also were um rate changes so we went um we contracted with Ed advance for a transportation Consortium this year other area districts we figured if we all had um the same students going to similar schools we would sort of carpool right and cost share those expenses um that contract um does state that if if for any reason the rides have to then go become individualized then that the towns that are continuing those rides sh um would absorb that burden of the extra cost so we did have a number of runs for whatever reason um had to go to individual runs and in that in a case like that if it was split between two towns or even three towns we would then double or um or more uh our cost for that one particular ride so that also had an impact um there were also some instances where um um we got into the year and it was understood that a a student would need a parah you know to ride on the bus with that student so that added to that cost did we add a lot of Paras on the buses there were a handful and that is it's noted in in the um rate changes in other um section of that table um so it's it's it's a few it's not it wasn't um you know all all of the rides but it was it was enough to have an impact um on the budget for sure okay yeah all right I wanted to change gears a little bit away from the year to years but um I want to talk about the mandates right so could you there's a couple of items that you noted as mandates here that in the budget request one was the K3 literacy one was the bilingual teacher could you expand on those a little bit and uh and talk to me a little bit about for example on the K3 literacy is there any room for dealing with our timing on when we roll that out that would allow us to spread that c over years I had the same question on the so just third mandate that I had written down was the up to age 23 for special services another mandate that's there as well I'll turn the K3 reading over to Dr M sure so um as you may remember last year it was supposed to actually be implemented this P this current uh school year was the K3 um reading mandate and just as a quick uh synopsis you know this is the Mandate from the state of Connecticut where um all districts are required to m a um science of reading based program for K3 uh reading um for literacy teaching and those uh there's a menu of choices that the state is approved so the state is pre-approving these programs so it's not like you can kind of go on the open market and do research uh on your own you basically go to the state um originally it was supposed to be five or up to nine uh approved programs at this point um and there were options for for districts last year they could either submit a waiver or submit a request for for postponement or just adopt um we submitted a a request for postponement so we've already postponed for a year um and based and the way that we rolled this in is that we actually adjusted along with the program you also had to adjust your assessment tool um so we use this year to bring in a new assessment tool for our um K5 students and next year we're looking to uh roll in the new K3 reading so while there isn't actually another opportunity to say let's just say kindergarten and then first then second um what there what was made available um was were grants grant funding to uh help defay the initial cost and so we um over the summer applied for that it's called the right to read Grant um and there are a variety of um caveats associated with this grant including some professional learning throughout this year and um you know kind of obviously making sure that you're sticking with the the plan um to purchase the new the new program we are in the midst of researching out of those nine which program will best fit so we have and we've gotten some um some different proposals so we have an idea of kind of the ballpark of where we're going to land but the grant that we received based on our size of District um was $85,000 so it is taking off it is defraying the cost of what will roughly be $190 to $200,000 cost um it will take off 85 of th000 of that initial spend um and so that is that that's a benefit to you know not having submitted a waiver and not having um kind of you know decided that we're going to do it last year um and so that's kind of the work that we're into so there's actually not an opportunity right now to postpone that K3 um and in fact it would be so they don't allow for a roll out type of approach it's do it all at once that's not how this mandate has is written man it's full sale adoption are our teachers ready for change CU if I remember last time you and I had spoken this is a pretty significant teaching change yeah and I I would love for Debbie to um she's the one right in the on the front lines if she in terms of the work that we're doing but so Debbie has been our spearheading the K3 I'm sorry the right to read group so there again part of this is you have to go through a series of trainings so part of the grant is that they provide regular training monthly um for a team of of Educators and in addition to that we've been using grant money um for title 2 money for letters train for training um to help uh prepare teachers for instituting the science of reading so the great thing about that is that it is not tailored to any one particular program it is you know professional development based on science of reading um and there's a Cadre of about 21 Educators that are going through a 2-year um professional learning plan for that I don't know if you want to add anything yeah I mean our teachers are actually very eager to get a science of reading program um we're using Teachers College units of study right now k38 and um while it's has some alignment to many of the standards it is really not aligned at all with um the science of leading so we've been you know supplementing and using our open court um foundational skills and word study uh units in K5 um but as you know we have invested a lot of um you know professional learning uh time and also instructional coaching um to be able to help teach in the sence of meeting honestly for the last probably about six years so the teachers are really eager for this um new progam and in and in fact um when we were so last year um the K through five who was at that point K through four instructional coach in literacy uh Julie vaugh is the one who brought the letters training to me um while she and de Debbie were working on it because she had participated in the letters training prior I think about when you first did it about six years ago right um and you know just looking down kind of the pike of all of this um so uh because she thought it was such valuable training and really set set everybody up so um it would allow her to again kind of push into that that ongoing embedded professional learning as instructional coach but everybody be speaking the same same language um in the s of reading approach okay how about the uh thank you sure um how about the uh uh bilingual teacher sure so um there is a statute in Connecticut that if a school has 20 students who speak the same home language they must the following year develop a bilingual program in that particular language um two years ago I think here in town um we had at Huckleberry umu enough students speaking Spanish as their home language where we had to bring in a um multi a bilingual teacher excuse me specific to Spanish um that population is way over 20 now at C somewhere in the range of 40 plus students so we have that program up and running knowing we were getting ready to consolidate to um Candlewood Lake there was a chance this year that Under One Roof we would have um we hit that threshold 20 of students speaking Portuguese and as it turned out on October 1st we did our census and we literally landed it on 20 and I did ask Katherine Our World Language coordinator sure it's not 19 and she said no it's 20 and so um we for next year have to have a bilingual program in Portuguese and so we're looking for a part-time teacher now is that an incremental requirement or is it in replacement for the ELA teachers that we have can you can you guys just swap in one to the other it's a special certification it's a special certific very special certification and they have to speak that particular language so in this case it'd be Portuguese and they have to have the bilingual certification as well um we going talk about a shortage area to find that the the Spanish speaking bilingual teacher um we were very lucky we had a real Pro come to us a veteran teacher from Waterberry two years ago who's been with us now and is's doing a heck of job so it's really hard to find those folks okay so it's it's a shortage area at the state yet they're making it a mandate yes okay and it's just just as John said but just to clarify it's based on that October one attendance corrent um report for this current year so even if we are below 20 students next year which we probably won't be but just let's say we were we still are required to offer because they go on the year before but you can't substitute out a Ela teacher it's not a one there's not a chance for a one to one type of swap it's a truly incremental is there a certain proficiency that the students have to reach before they graduate or is it just set on that number of this is a Portuguese at home speaking family and there there that's why we have our um the specifically certified teachers there are specific assessments that they have to pass to be exited from the program um differently than bilingual or multilingual Learners one of the charts that uh Wendy spoke to showed 16 more in October of this year 16 more students um that qualify as multilingual Learners uh in our um in our schools the real number is actually 36 more students because 20 tested out wow because we're doing great work with them our staff is amazing so 20 tested out so 36 move in so really the net is 16 more so you can see the diversity of our community is really changing yeah the numbers can't can't represent that dynamism you know what I mean so it's important that people understand that story okay and the third one we talked about was was the Mandate for mandate on the 23 age 23 if I remember we had to get them to almost a 23 before or was like part of the year of age 23 I'm going to let Bill speak to this a little bit champ the bit we got to give him a little air time knew this1 22 23 that's what deal there was a a as as those of us who who've been in special education or or know education it used to be 18 to 21 was the trans I time and the exit date was the day before they turned 21 then the law changed to the day before they turned 22 the question of equity then came up of a student who turns 22 in September and has exited the day before that isn't getting the same benefit as a student who turns 22 in June and has exited the day before so when we talk about 223 really we're talking about the school year in which the student turns 22 which then impacts the the capacity of those programs it impacts the um tuition of those programs the ability of us to place them in programs that are appropriate for them and we have to kind of cast a wider net and look for that but really what it comes down to it is small history lesson it went from 21 day before they turned 21 22 the day before they turned 22 and now the year in which they turn 22 they get to finish the school year and and so my first question when the law was passed for July was so a student who turns 22 in July I thought well they they finished in June they should be all set no it was anytime after July 1st if they turn 22 they get that they get that entire school year oh my God so that's where the idea of a student could be on the verge of 23 if they turn 22 in July July 1st let's say they get that entire school year which again is a is a response to a student who turned 22 in July before would be exited the day before that but a student who turned 22 in November or March or June would get that much more service than the student from July and that caused the legislators to change the law to 22 inclusive of everybody who's 22 in that school year and these are all outplaced students no or they for us because we don't have an 18 to 22 program so we send them the Danbury if I recall and there are there are um again speaking of capacity in some cases because of this law programs that used to have a turnover during the year of a student who turned 22 in September there's now an opening there not me more that student who turned 22 in September is there for the rest of the year so a student we might want to place in the fall that capacity is not there for that particular program so we looked at other programs as well to try to find appropriate services for them but also programs now are holding on to the students by law for that entire year so there's a capacity issue it's a capacity issue born of an equity issue born of an age issue okay so so I misspoke a little bit it's not yet I misunderstood the law a little bit so it's not their third their 23rd birthday but their no I appreciate that but that year can be Bill how many how many how many students do we have in that situation roughly uh it's really not that many it might be you know it's somewhere around 10 to 15 students at any given time um and again there's a rollover of that because not every student is going to qualify for 18 to 22 services so if we look at our 365 students of of all ages with IEPs it's specific students with specific needs that might need that extra year 2 years 3 years four years and just to put a a fine point on it even though they may be eligible until that school year of 22 some students may just do a year and then they move on to let's say a community college or college or work or things so it's not that they're getting all four years but they could depending on their need and depending on but we're budgeting based on known people who are going for that year correct and and again that's a year to year just like with an annual um IEP you're assessing that every year of have they mastered their goals are they ready to go either through DDS or BRS or estate agency or outside to adult adult work or adult College that's helpful so I mean you called it out that's why I brought it up but it doesn't sound like it's a major driver to an in I mean it's variable so you never know but okay and it was implemented effectively this year July July 1 of this year so so now we're feeling the initial for the upcoming year or is it we're seeing it this year It Started From the Past July 1st 202 so we're seeing it in the current year corre and carrying it Forward got you thanks both I'm going to quit ask any questions let other people ask questions all right can we all go to this page please is it okay if our doesn't have so much writing on it next year it's how I think all right all right let's let's let talk about this he open up the meeting say we have to educate the town on higher budgets and increasing however we haven't passed the budget over 5% in 25 years at the to of Brookfield so we got to keep reality into place and people voting if you also look your increase the people needing reduced and free lunches has gone through the roofs so we are also bringing in people that can't afford 6% tax increases along the way and got to vote out of necessity so we also got got to keep in mind B ofed ask we got fire and EMS asks we got police station asks how much can we go to the town and get them to pay for and keep this reasonable this board of Finance has supported the Board of Ed immensely over the past four years since we've all pretty much been involved this is a huge ask so we're all on the same page here I was always brought up in the the budget process of you have to control what you can control you can't control what you can't control you have to squeeze down on what you can't control so looking at this if you take the number one item a mandate we can't control a mandate a mandate's put on us it is what it is we have to understand the Mandate and Bob you asked all the questions however that's something that okay before I go into this also Casey yes did you budget 100% out on all of these numbers like to the maximums pretty much in on all of these I mean like your 31 I mean uh your 31,000 for the just using it just so I understand the numbers your $31,000 for athletic Transportation which you said was driven by The Last Resort of 1% of 12200 per run that's 25 trips are you planning on that being the 25 trips this is outside of the 7 or 99% of Transportation so this is this is absolutely based on I took the schedule of I believe the first two years two two years two months of current um current athletic transportation and I I determine what percentage are we using Allstar what percentage are we using the second tier what percentage are we using the third tier I'm not telling you straight to your face right now that that that mix can't shift because it was slightly different than what the mix was in the previous year um but I tried to get as precise an estimate as I possibly could based on you know the the current mix of uh Transportation um s sources that we used at the time that this was created yes so then speaking to the budget process you've done history you've looked at this but you are new to this too absolutely so these numbers are a new process to from our old Ken knowing the numbers so this is a new look at this so some of these numbers realistically and I understand cannot be quite what they're going to land on because again your new look at this and it's hard to judge some of these so let's walk it through the Mandate we can't change a mandate line one line two can't change a mandate line three we can't change the excess cost Grant because that's the formula right Bob you looked at that formula in fact I think we both wrote to the state to get an understanding of that formula uh was that was the uh the educational Equalization Grant that's a different thing than the access cost Grant but we spent a lot of time on it can't change yeah those are formulas so now we get down to the Arps or phase in uh this is something this board of Finance agreed to uh it's something that we bought into the three-year plan on this I know there is some resistance even at the board of ed level on these and what I would like to see is what is the total spend on this whole program the curricular program with the teachers uh I looked at it I'm coming up with a number of about 1.3 million so is there a structure that we can get on what the cost of this is uh again I know this is total the salaries yeah I'm just saying I don't yeah and it's also summer school and some other pieces so we could put that together I just want we're getting letters from the public about this I know two of your board of ed members had questions on this and I'll go back to and so we all understand and Dan you can kick me if I'm wrong we agreed to support that Arps or Grant so this is just to understand absolutely the basis behind the whole makeup the structure of this curriculum the whole like hierarchy who's on the top the next three the next five and the next three under that because like I say I when I did quick math it came up to like 1.

you ready 22 23 47% so again you know what are they doing where we our our other schools can learn we learn from right that's one of my Pro uh power points also the percent of Early College Programs students seniors completing 30 or more units in 2122 was 70% 22 23 81% so we are progressing so we just need to um figure out you know where the percents are low and what we can do to improve it or what are we doing where the improvements lie how we can help the other so that's my report thank you all right thank you goal number four okay um goal number four through a collaborative Improvement driven approach auua USD will ensure all students achieve at a grade level on California state standards and that achievement gaps are reduced we will prioritize emerging multilingual students language acquisition biliteracy reclassification and academic achievement so um a couple of the things what did I see what stands out to me and what patterns or Trends so one of the things that I notice is that the English only students um maybe this is I'm starting with the negative things here first but and but there's always room for improvement so there they need to strengthen in their math skills so and what was interesting though is that we noticed that the multilingual students had strengths in math which is really interesting to me I was like wow I could I I needed like a to take a deep breath because um it just it was something I didn't expect um and the lowincome students have some math strengths as well so that was really uh noticeable to me and then it also talked about um well you know what I want to I want to just go back and highlight on the math strengths um let me see if I understand this correctly so on the math um one of the things that we noticed is that all the students were at 16% and the lowincome students were at 25% English English Learners were at 10% and 6% for special needs um that was for the 2023 assessment um in December so there's there's progress to be made but on the other on the on the flip side there's there's other strengths that azuza does have like when we looked at the percentage of a through C grades um our Benchmark was 75% and when you look at the table and that's for the whole the whole student population in 2021 22 it was 66% in 2022 and 23 it was 68% and in 23 24 it's 75% and we that's we are at 75% so we we're there yay so um what are the areas of most significant progress you can identify that we can be proud of that was one of them how can we maintain and build upon these successes um we talked about the students meeting the a through C grade expectations um and we also talked uh we need to look at the reclassified students how they exceed 75% of the rate for the AC for the AC category at was there because they're at 79% so when you look at the a through C the whole school is at 75% but the reclassified is at 79% so they've already exceeded that so that was that was really a highlight um it says here identify areas of greatest opportunity what can we do to address the areas of opportunity uh we talked about we need more emphasis on working with students with disabilities um we have a great need to focus on math and then math Readiness and then we need to focus on English learners for both math and reading so those are the areas of opportunity prepare to share ideas of progress and ways to maintain or build on that progress areas of opportunity and ways to support areas of opportunities we thought about maybe strengthening our structures and monitoring in areas of math and reading like monitoring the pace the time and then who's going to do that monitoring so that we ensure we're meeting our benchmarks right maybe doing it more frequently um increase instructional tools and then how to use them having ensuring that our Educators know how to use the tool so that they can show others how to use those tools because if they don't know how to use the tools and with technology you know it does make it a little bit more um challenging sometimes sometimes I have a hard time learning how to use my iPhone so it says F and then focus on professional development and of inst of instructional strategies and tools so that's I just feel that there's a need for that um because we need to ensure that our educators are well trained and that that we're also focusing on professional development so that they could bring that to the classroom that's it all right thank you for goal four and moving on to goal five back to you Adrien so goal five through a collaborative Improvement driven driven approach ausa USD will address diversity equity and inclusion for all students including diminishing systemic barriers and racism in our community and evaluating culturally relevant teaching and learning so so when taking some some time to look at this what what stands out here on on it's this first graph it's on page 53 if if you have the full document but just the discrepancy between perceptions of the district valuing diversity among parents students and staff and so when we when we look at at these numbers uh it's 68% um parents are saying that they believe that the district values uh diversity 33% from students saying that parent that the district values diversity and then it's 81% for staff and so it's a it's it's such a higher number for staff as compared to the other other two groups that it's that's just one of the the maybe maybe areas that's just glaringly obvious for for us to to take some additional time and and some initiatives to be able to address um something that's significant though and looking at at the graph and some of the results from the youth truth service is that there was a met there was a Target set for families parents and families to to kind of increase their understanding or or or their their their perception of the district valuing diversity by 10% and that goal was actually hit so if you look at 2020 it was at 58% and then there has been a swing up to 68% and so it's important for us to to celebrate the not not only the iterative growth but the fact that we set a Target and that Target was met and so as we look ahead how can we continue to move on not not uh simply say we've hit this goal and so now we're done but but how how do we continue on unfortunately in the other areas and and on the survey we we don't see some of this same growth and in most of the areas we actually see a decrease um and so where it says in 202 for example in 2020 uh it did that 53% of students perceived the believe that the district um valued diversity and that has gone down uh to 33% over the course of the of these past couple of of years and so so again it just it just pushes us to continue to ask why and and if we look at some of these other other areas we see very similar um very similar numbers as we consider though what what might we do how do we what what is the district doing what could the district do about it uh one of the things that came up is is continued staff development and making sure that there's time spent with with staff to to to see these things and understand these things I me even recognizing the fact that there is a discrepancy even informing the staff what what are what are what are families and parents seeing and staff seeing and and how do those things reconcile with each other um uh and then on on the kind of on the grounds uh talking about the the the Community Schools initiative and and what's happening with the Community Schools initiative and how that just makes so much room for us to to imagine and and envision ways to creatively um approach and address some of these things and and and the ways in which the Community Schools initiative is now really expanding and going into uh to full force here um where that wasn't there in previous years um and and then there's also a conversation recognizing that prior to the pandemic there were some things that were that were being focused in on like for example uh uh PBIS and looking at PBIS as as a as a as an form of implementation and how um how do we how do we bring that back and and increase some of that and with that some of the things that we're doing like peer mediation and and uh the work with the uh Western uh Justice Center um so it seems like we need to take some time to imagine some new and we do have some new things in place to to be able to do that um bring back some some old um and in some ways uh stay the course hello thank you very much I'm going to turn it over to our assistant superintendent Norma kamacho so thank you very much for engaging um with us in the elcap lounge um we we really wanted to give an opportunity to kind of shift what we usually do in the ways that students are experience instruction are experiencing instruction in the classroom so I'm going to call out for you some of the instructional strategies that you engaged in in this short activity so the first thing we did was we clearly articulated a a purpose for what we were doing today the purpose was authentic this was this is your work as the Board of Education um we also utilized a structured note-taking guide that walked you through the process of what you were looking for and um how you would move through the resources that were provided for you we put you into expert groups so each of you had an opportunity to become an expert so to speak in a goal or two we also made sure to tie your new learning to prior knowledge you have had opportunities to engage with the alap goals um the actions and services and some of the data so you were linking some of your new learning to your prior knowledge additionally we gave you opportunities to engage in four domains of language listening speaking reading and writing which is always a critical um instructional strategy particularly when we talk about English Learners and how they learn best is giving them those opportunities to to move through those domains of language we also put you in small heterogeneous groups you had some people at your table who may have known a lot about something um and so you had an opportunity to learn through dialogue and discourse um with those in at your table we also provided differentiated resources for you you have your big lcap update book then we gave you just your goal and then we also gave you your elcap overview um and then you had an opportunity to kind of dig through those and kind of find which one worked best for you so providing differentiated resources is another instructional strategy um and also the prompts were again to provide some opportunities to engage um in some critical thinking around the outc cap so as you engaged in this um learning opportunity with us this is how we see our students engaging in their learning so instead of us standing up here talking to you um about goals the metrics the actions and services um gave you an opportunity to to do some digging um of your own um and also our p plus our student advisory committee have been LED um by Miss Adriana Garcia mardina through um similar kinds of learning opportunities so now we open it up for any questions any questions more of a comment okay that's fine yes I think I I just want to say you know I appreciate um the thought that process that went into putting this together because um I I feel like you know it really and and the work really because you know just all the metrics and that's a lot of work but it does it kind of provides a snapshot so it gives you an overview of you know the progress that's been made um through years and and I really do you know appreciate everyone's time thank you for for putting this together and and I wanted to add that um we had great mentors by us too our teachers and I appreciate it because I think this is a a great exercise for all of us because you know there's a lot of numbers and a lot of things but it it helps you understand it I I'm I'm an onand learner and that helped instead of just reading it but I was doing it at the same time then my teacher was really good helping me understand the questions that I had you know and and that was really that was good we should do one of those more often just I I I enjoyed it and next time board president you can uh do two no you could keep him yeah he did great doing two actually I was like oh I don't know he's gonna do two one one was good but Adrian did great he he did but he had the easy ones though that's not fair so is this something new that a new technique that was introduced to the board for the first time or we have initiated you all what's up we have initiated you to a new practice yeah yeah yeah no I really enjoyed it I thought I thought it was good because it provides the Hands-On training like um board president P stated thank you m great thank you so uh now we're moving on to um adjournment can I have a motion move to adjourn motion by board member G do we have a second second second by board member Benitas any discussion seeing none colle colleagues please place your vote and this meeting has been adjourned at 7:18 thank you

buen noes good good evening buen noes thank you for everybody to being here and we're going to go ahead and get started the crane school district understands that a community of schools is located on the ancestral land of the oam Jude and Akim oam people who descended from the hokam and have inhabited to this land since time in Memorial the oam whose name translate literally to people are a vibrant culture of community spanning countless Generations into the past continuing to thrive in the present and carrying a powerful Legacy for Generations into the future with this acknowledgement the Kayon School District forly recognizes that the traditional care and keeping of these lands by indigenous people is an aspirational model of community stewardship that we are committed to honor with our practices policy and human relations and with that Dr dupin will lead us into the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you that brings us to roll call all of us are here U Mr Man Miss Gibson McLean Miss SS myself Miss Mev and Miss MC cheffrey we want to welcome everyone to tonight's meeting and remind the audience of the request to address board cards that must be completed and submitted to the board secretary if they wish to speak to an agenda item board policy provides for two cards White cards to be submitted in order to speak to an agenda item and blue cards to be submitted in order to speak during public comments due to the open meeting law board members are not allowed to address items that are not on the agenda and that's per policy B DH that brings us to the next which is 28 approval of agenda a move the governing board approve the agenda as presented second all those in favor I thank you all right and that brings us to governing board reports and I am going to start with Miss MC cheffrey I do have one thank you um Miss MB um I I don't really have one other than I know it's a really busy time for everybody a Zella testing's going on all the fun things so um and lots of rain all week so please stay dry and stay safe thank you Miss SS yeah just a couple things I wanted to um say congrat uh good luck on the aill test I know people are getting ready for them I know our students are getting ready uh for them right now um so good luck on those and then just a personal note I finally um got all my stuff together and applied for my adminer today so hopefully done with that so I'm happy about that congratulations Miss Gibson mle um I don't have much other than um we had another committee meeting last week things are going well another one coming up you're always welcome to join us things are going great um and went to the equity uh and advocacy Equity conference advocacy Symposium last week in Washington DC um it was a lot smaller than some of the other things we've been to I mean Cube may be comparable I guess um and so anyway I just I found a lot of the stuff at the equity Symposium very relevant and helpful to kind of the work that we do here the advocacy thing was like a lot of information but not a lot of discussions so I did appreciate kind of the the breakouts in the equity Symposium better but that being said I thought it was still valuable information um that we can use to our advantage here and I don't I don't I I guess I could come back with some more specific things I definitely walked in here like two minutes before we started so I apologize but thanks thank you I just have a couple of things um I want to congratulate the builtmore prep Tigers yesterday in their girls basketball game and my son has a daugh a daughter my son has a best friend that plays there so we were at the game yesterday so yay that was nice to be there um also um the family Resource Center thank you for the food distribution that they just did this week we had 64 families um that were there so that's awesome our food distribution keeps getting bigger and bigger so um shout out to them for holding it down and you know there's only three individuals there and they make it happen for a community so that's awesome and yeah that's the only board report that I have and I'll switch it over to Mr Man thank you so much I'm um I'm gonna withhold any comments on the conferences because I think we had were posted for a discussion on on kind of our takeaways from that after this superintendent report but I um I do enjoyed the conferences and uh we'll share some more at that point um had the opportunity to be one of the judges along with let me make this back back out of the way um some of our compatriots on the executive team and a few others from our curriculum team um for the District spelling be on the 26th and so I'm very excited that uh one of our students from the kraton academy will be representing the district at regionals so um and we will uh we will endeavor to bring that person to a board meeting so that way we can more formally recognize them so um and then speaking of formally recognizing people we actually have principal Fisher with us this evening who has brought a very special student that you have read about in the Epic kids publication and so we'd like to take a moment to recognize her for her great accomplishment and with that I'm hoping principal Fischer will be kind enough to introduce her in her family um to the board and share a little bit about she had a compatriot who couldn't be here this evening we're still working um getting her to be able to be here thank you so much Madame President members of the board and executive Council we are very excited to have Arlin ail this with us tonight one of two of our students who had art representative at the State Fair ourin won third place in her category it's called Dragon ey and tiga kab won first place in her category called Golden dreams and we're very excited to have these both displayed at excellencia for their great work as well we'll make make them a permanent purchase eventually so anything you want to say about the process okay we're excited because not only has our art program been able to do some really Stellar art pieces and have them compete both in the community um as well as in the district but we will be having a student art displayed at the tempy arts fair coming up so please take a chance to look at some of those as well um just some great things happening in the art world can we would it be okay if we took a moment to get a picture with the board okay awesome I warned her that was coming yeah yeah you you were wise don't grab your P I'll hang by my do we need like SC um can I get you to just in the back that's [Music] perfect y [Applause] congratulations congratulations on your artwork and and one of the things I'd like to to point out about this and I think it's something we need to do more of you know we've had our student outcomes focused governance work discussions and I know we're posted to have more conversation on that tonight and one of the things that's come up often in the district is you know even though we may not be fans of the way the testing's handled it's the only measure that we currently have and we're always looking for those other measures that we can use to see our students being successful and so I want to thank our student this evening um and our principal for giving us another type of measure that we can look to which is our students success in the Arts which are absolutely as important as all of the other measures that we use so so thank you very much to the family and thank you to our wonderful student graas and with that I will conclude my comments for this evening thank you Mr Man and that brings us over to our next agenda item which is the nsba equity sypnosis advocacy and Institute reports myself Miss Gibson mcling and Miss MC cheffrey along with Dr dupin and Mr Man attended this National Conference and we're going to give you guys some feedback of stuff that we liked I know that Miss Gibson mccan kind of already talked about it but I'll differ over to miss MC cheffrey if you want to go ahead and get us started and then I'll turn it over here yeah so um uh I'm I'm going to start with the advocacy in um Symposium because that was the most recent part that I went to it was cool because we got training from some lobbyists on um kind of how to approach our Congress people um and Advocate um with them and so they had nsba has some talking points that they would like us to talk about but they said most importantly they really it's really important from them to them to hear from their local constituents and especially um the impact on children in their District so I think that um we did a good job doing that Mr Man Miss CA and I went and um spoke to three different um Congress people um and I'll let them uh talk a little bit more about what what we advocated for but some of the things that end nsba wanted to us to advocate for was um funding idea at 40% I learned that it's only funded at 133% which is really sad um also um healthy School meals for all which we're fortunate that we we will be getting that for our district because um because of where we are financially correct um but that's important for kids Nationwide to have that for a variety of reasons and one thing learned is that um the nutrition guidelines are so strict that they also do not want those um being changed anymore the sodium levels are so low the um whole grain is so um strict that it's really hard to make the food edible so I appreciate our nutrition team for doing what they can do and um using their talent to make the food as tasty as they can um knowing these challenges so anything we can do what we're doing with Gardens is a great way to kind of supplement that because that teaches kids the love of um vegetables and fruits um using it with their hands being able to harvest it that's that's one of the most fundamental things you can do um to to supplement I think it was wild to hear about how much food went to waste and how nobody would buy it during covid and just because it wasn't something anybody would buy because nobody's going to eat it outside of a school which is kind of depressing yeah there was a statistic that they even like tested it out on prisoners and they didn't want to eat it so it's it you know we're feeding garbage cans when we make the requirements so strict um we want them to eat healthy obviously but if they're not going to eat it what's the point in doing that yeah so um Temple grandon was one of the um keynote speakers I don't know if you know who she is if if you don't know anything about her HBO has a film called Temple grandon it was she reference it so I think she's a fan it's a it's a a bio biopic of her um she's a genius um but she's also on the autism spectrum she's um she was a very unique speaker and kind of um off thewall a little bit but it was really great and um she just had some wonderful things to say about you know how people learn differently and and the types of things you can do um to work with people who learn differently and gosh they're important to this world because because they contribute um uh to many in many different ways I have a family full of them so I know and it's sometimes really hard to work with people who don't learn the same way that you do um but they're obviously incredibly important to our world and and many of them are incredibly brilliant and she was just amazing so what find the movie if you can because it's it's really good um there was a presentation on AI which I thought was really interesting um and Mr Man I may have even written this down wrong but they said 50% of teachers are all in 50% are not there might I may have heard that wrong no you heard you heard it right I think they flubbed their okay because the normal curve is you have 20% early adopter 60% who are sort of your nervous people waiting to see how it pans out and 20% are who are pardon the expression hell no we won't go right so that's sort of normal distribution they used like I think it was like really large numbers that seem to Total to more than aund so I think that was just an error on their part but the concept is I think very valid that you've got your folks that are out there running with AI and they may be the ones that are kind of testing the limits of you know the tool sets and the and the systems that we have um and Maybe not maybe ahead of where we're prepared to be and then you have your folks that are taking that weight wait and see approach and then you have your folks who um you know they're they didn't really like these new fangled computer things to begin with and that AI thing you know is not happening for them right and I kind so some of the takeaways I thought were it's kind of like when the internet was introduced which seems like a million years ago now but um they did say there is no reliable AI predictor so if you think someone is cheating you know there's no way to really tell um so you know don't Panic about about it I think at the moment there um the takeaway was it's kind of about the learning process and not necessarily the end product which I think you know that's kind of an internet thing too and learning you know what are reliable sources um there is an AI for teachers called defit it's free um and it just helps I didn't write all this down but it helps with you probably I think it helps with the development of lesson so it auto it automates a lot of those components which is kind of near and dear to my heart because many years ago sorry for this sidebar I had a startup and one of the concepts behind it was why do we build curriculum but we don't give teachers sample lesson plans they end up on you know what is it teachers teachers teachers pay te teachers so um so having an AI tool that could help automate some of that sort of grunt work I think is a really powerful and useful thing so so if you're curious that sounds like a good tool diff it dfff it um and then just a couple other things I mean I went in the equity um conference I went to a couple really good seal um sessions and you know that's overwhelming obviously and some districts are getting a lot of push back on on the termal and also the word Equity but obviously there are many things that live within that you can use those words instead or just pick one or two you know it's there's hundreds of words that fall within seal um there was I'm G to just read one thing to you um oh the benefits ofal which I think I think we all know this but I thought this was impressive 11% Point gains in academic achievement 42% less likely to be involved in physical aggression in schools and an $11 return on investment for every dollar spent onal programs long-term decreases in violent and Drug crime convictions and lower in Risk Ry and lower risky sexual behaviors and long-term increases in college readiness Career Success positive relationships better mental health and engaged citizenship so those are the benefits so I appreciate that we have a huge focus on that um in this District so um that was really good and then lastly there was somewhere I just thought this was so cool um something called the dignity index that's something you can just Google it's eight points and I don't know if I'll find my have a there you go thank you Jay yes I think I've got those at home and I forgot to bring them here yes I think that's fabulous and I think it could be a really simple thing for our district to adopt it's just kind of a a goal a way to live life and get to number eight you know and and they give a set of skills for dignified disagreement yes and I think it would be really powerful for us to integrate that into some of our youth Equity stewardship work and you know conversations around uh restorative practices and things like that so yes yeah I thought that was that was my favorite takeaway so that's all I have but I love that we're agendized for it because sometimes when someone brings something up it'll trigger my memory so thank you yeah that way we can have these fluid conversations back and forth um one of the things about that with Miss MC cheffrey is like when you go into the dignity index website the first thing that you see is is We Believe words have power so it's sets away from that saying that we all learn as kids and we go around saying that sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me I'm so glad we're staying away from that kind of language because there is power in words and just like a child who is consistently told that they're not good enough or whatever it is they start adapting to that and learning into it so words really do have power and that index really teach us us on how to make sure that we're better with our words because kids are you know constant sponges and they're just picking off on what we're putting out there in the universe so we all need to be very mindful of what we're putting out there and saying but that was just another takeaway of that that I had as well can I add on what you just said if anybody um because it's a really great metaphor for that and I love that you brought up like let's stop using Sticks and Stones quote um if anybody hasn't there's videos of them online of teachers doing this but where they have students crumple up the paper and then talking about when you uncrumple it you can never get rid of those creases right it's the paper will never be the same um and so it's that that's what words can do so um I'm looking forward to learning more about the dignity index yeah awesome um Miss Gibson McLean do you have any other takeaways any other information things that you would like to add on yeah so there's a really good um Workshop I went to um called cre schools where transgender and non-binary students Thrive and um there was a presenter named Rebecca cing who um is the education director at the national Center for transgender rights she had a presentation that basically kind of went through how anybody who works in a school can be help make more inclusive spaces and so the kind of four phases she went through were educate affirm include and disrupt um we had a good conversation and you know talked about how you don't really need to be an expert in all of this to be an ally um and to help kids feel included and safe um on our campuses um oh gosh I'm remembering something I wrote down and it's on a piece of paper and now I don't have it with me um but it was a good statement I'm forgetting but anyway there is a book that just came out called The Advocate Educator's handbook creating schools where transgender and nonbinary students Thrive it came out on the 31st she's one of the authors and the other presenter who wasn't able to make it is the other author and so I just wanted to put that out there as a resource there's also an article on um kind of an article to go with it on the nsba website I thought she had sent me oh no she did if anybody is interested in the slides I think she did send them yes so and she also has a resource list that she sent so I can share that um with the admin here at the district as well um I just thought it was very interesting and um also interesting seeing maps of like legislation in different states and where we're at with all that um yeah so um anyway I thought that was a great Workshop I know we were all present for the lunchtime um hold on there was this cool uh presentation about the nation's largest African-American video oral history archive called the history makers and if you go to the historymakers dorg uh it's essentially I don't know if it's the last 10 or 20 I me the last 10 years right I can't remember how many years um that they've uh this gosh I can't even hold on she's probably here hold on let me get her name off of this I'm on the website okay I think it was Janelle was her first Juliana l Richardson sorry okay so Juliana um has been going around the country Gathering stories from um black leaders in all different states and across all kinds of fields from Arts to stem to military music politics whatever and she has gathered all of these in like a digital Archive of video and audio recordings to access um they did provide a sample uh lesson plan but it sounds like there's like a way to subscribe we already brought it up to obviously Jay and Dr dupin about what it could look like if our district got that as a resource because we noticed nobody in Arizona was subscribed even maybe we could even try to um talk to people at ASU about a partnership and in getting that resource because it seemed like a really great one um and so yeah the history makers.

there we go good evening everyone we're GNA go ahead and get started here with our first forum for this evening uh my name is Karen Johnson if you don't know me I'm the Executive Director of Human Resources here at the district and I want to thank you for attending tonight um this evening and all of of course your active participation in this superintendent selection process I'd also like to thank Ry Associates for who have led the superintendent search for us with integrity and professionalism throughout this process the board made it a priority to take input from our parents families community members and partners for this important role that we're about to fill in November Higley families and the community members were surveyed to determine the top qualities for their ideal candidate the top qualities were used for recruitment materials during the search and they'll also be used for the survey that you'll have uh later on this evening this has been a competitive process with highly qualified candidates from around the country 30 candidates applied for the role 11 candidates were presented and out of those 11 six candidates did um a first interview with our board members we also invited three candidates as finalists and I can tell you two people accepted our invitation for this evening to compete in the Forum leading up to this event we asked our community to submit questions for future our future superintendent tonight our finalist will will provide introductions do a presentation and then we will have a Q&A for uh our our uh candidates this evening based on the questions were submitted I just want to do a disclaimer though not all questions were selected uh we had many responses so I did pick about top 10 12 questions and we'll get through as many as we can this evening after the Forum we encourage you to provide feedback there will be a QR code or you can take the survey on our website that is now available but we hope you'll visit with or at least listen to our candidates before you do the survey please without fur further Ado I'm very pleased to introduce our first finalist and that is Dr Matthew Neil there it goes all right perfect good even I don't know why I bring notes I I'm going to get so nervous I'm not going to read any of them just kind of skip over um vice president V hook thank you members of the board for having me this evening I'm Matthew Neil um I know we have several members of the board as well as administrative staff I know you've put in a long day and it's uh only Tuesday and so thank you for having me uh my background um I thought about this question I've got 10 minutes and you think about how far back do you go and so when you ever hear people tell their story and they start before I was born or when I was young you kind of roll your eyes when I was a kid um my father uh grew up on a farm and ranch um my grandfather was a sharecropper very poor family U my father uh did not go to college um in fact uh the one of the greatest memories of my life is when my late father came to join me at USC for my uh doctorate graduation because he had never um seen that side of education and that's really a driving factor for me to get into education I started as a substitute teacher um at the very beginning when I was getting my degree uh with a kind of a vision to teach business uh to be in leadership uh to step through the the system I was really a systems thinker um later on I'll probably say that I'm a data nerd um I like the data and I like the numbers had a chance to step in and support School principles as a really as a young professional I did miam MBA at Colorado States and when I when I started doing the business work I realized that my brain in my way um was really numbers and really systems and structures and so U had a chance to uh be an assistant superintendent or an executive director for about 14 years um supporting new schools mostly new principles um my notes said baby principles and my wife told me to take out the word baby principal but but just young uh leaders that were stepping into the profession uh in Colorado and I found that kind of the operations and the uh financial and the HR side um it was really new for principles you know you go through being a teacher and you go through being um an academic and you learn how to teach really well but sometimes the operation side is really difficult and so over my career I've had a chance to hire 54 principles as an assistant superintendent or as a superintendent and start 11 schools from scratch and and I've done that in a couple different school districts both as an assistant as well as as a superintendent um growing up uh through the ranks so to speak I had an opportunity to work for Denver public schools as their instructional superintendent and the coolest title I've ever had even Beyond superintendent was director of strategy and Innovation I could do anything I wanted to with schools that was Innovative it was a really it was an absolutely fun job started schools that were Expeditionary Learning schools uh bilingual magnet schools or um dual language emersion schools had a chance to do some um IB schools and at the time stem schools which my wife reminds me as a music teacher we had to add the a for the Arts later for steam schools right and so had really had a chance to build schools from scratch um learning what it meant to what is the side of your bus say I just watched it a District 60 60 bus just drove by and it said something like imagine all the possibilities or does anybody know what it says Limitless opportunities you know when you're building create creative schools you start thinking about kids that are kind of on the edge maybe they don't fit the standard educational model and so I was really helping develop Limitless opportunities and had a chance to um go overseas lead one of the largest system of schools in the Middle East um as a elll 100% El school system so um uh mostly uh all all Arab speaking students being taught by American teachers um did that for six years and really enjoyed it as a superintendent um then covid hit and had a chance to re-evaluate what it means to be an American and all the rights and privileges that we have here for access to um Medical Care and to I guess grade a food so a lot of a lot of times overseas expats end up not always having those rights and Privileges and so um came back to the United States to help out the Woodland Park School District as a transitional superintendent uh they had been through uh two superintendant in two years four board presidents during that period of time and so really small district and got to really enjoy small town living and and kind of help them set the pathway for their next superintendent to come in at the same time I had a chance to open two new schools um one was for the New Mexico Military Academy in Roswell uh how many have ever been to Roswell New Mexico yeah not a lot out there but I love nimi it's a great school um they opened at their first public school for the community so uh traditionally nimi has been a military boarding school and got a chance to help them do that and open that school uh currently work for the state of Colorado on their turnaround efforts uh for schools that are in corrective action and schools that are deemed forclosure uh pretty tough work and looking at um students that again a lot are on the periphery maybe some of our high poverty schools uh in Colorado um I go in two weeks to a school that is slated for closure and um try to help them come up with ideas and strategies to keep from being closed by the state and so that's a lot of the work that I do today I also work with a college um helping them become accredited for the first time and uh large Financial projects like endowments um some of that some of sometimes colleges don't get a chance to really see that work and so just think back over my career and been uh just pleased privileged um to be a superintendent now for 13 years and uh in executive leadership for 25 years um I've been married 22 years my wife's watching on this video so I better get it right and I have two children and uh look forward to exploring the district I got here a little bit early today uh I think we drove and saw every school around the district just to kind of see where they were and whether you were a shark or a hawk or a panther um or Knight I drove by the sign just now and um exciting to move my career excited to move my career to Arizona and to be a part of a district with a grade A uh acclamation by the state um a 96% graduation rate I'm just phenomenal um and even our neighboring high school and A+ school in the state just really uh neat things going on in Higley and consider it an honor to be here tonight thank you now let's see if I remember the slides I put together I noticed it did not leave me a laptop up here so I wouldn't spill my water on it and destroy it um they kind of know me well before I've even started I put a disclaimer on this so um I don't presume to know your District that's part of my my Learning Journey and um I've learned what I can online um if there are things that I'm wrong then help me learn those and so um I'm glad to be here and this is this is these are pictures from your websites thank you to the IT team for whoever takes great pictures um I just kind of cut and pasted them um don't presume anything by owning them they're yours and so I want to just give that caveat the other caveat is um as we get into the slides I come up with some ideas that are mine in my experience for my years of leading um you may already been doing them I I just may not know that you're in the midst of doing that and so I illustrate Charlotte danielson's um evaluative work which is pretty much a brand name in teacher evaluations uh last night late I saw that you already had Charlotte Dan Danielson listed in your strategic objectives and goals and so um some things are already aligned in the work that we would do together and uh so some things may be unique and different I removed the caveat that said anything on here is just for suggestion I'm not your Superintendent at this stage and so there's no uh guarantee that this is even a great idea but I did put some interesting ideas out there and I'm controlling the slides sorry uh before we begin any any presentation uh as a leader as a superintendent I really try to remind the board and remind the community of who we are I think keeping our discussion about kids Central whether it's a finance conversation or whether it's an academic conversation it doesn't really matter um I want to make sure that we're talking about kids and we're our work is connected Ed that way okay I'm supposed to point this towards the it guys okay that's right uh we have currently have 16 schools uh you all know this again this is reiterating for maybe members of the public that were not part of the strategic planning process I'm going to illustrate some strategic planning objectives that some of you in the room may not have seen and I think that's again my continual work uh we are currently uh 13,500 students um our Chief Financial Officer Mr Moore um he corrected this in his financial presentation and not necessarily funded pupil count and and all I'm not going to get into though he can correct me later but uh 13574 classrooms 50 buildings in the district 1,600 plus employees um a $231 million uh funding um utilization factor and so it's beyond just what we get our our general fund budget but also our building funds and other funds that He's listed and 11.7 in classroom in our classroom site fund our future State um 25% growth in Gilbert and Queen Creek I was able to again see almost all the schools today um just by driving around phenomenal buildings I mean just beautiful space um I'm a lot of a details person and cameras at every entrance and landscap I couldn't go in I didn't bother going in I'll do that tomorrow in our tour um but just really beautiful spaces um the thing that continues to strike me um as I have probably the world's greatest eighth grader watching this tonight on TV in Colorado is that my own kids will go to these schools and so when we have a 96% graduation rate that's a little bit of a sure thing that my kid's going to make it and so I I I put that on there to say that's really future thinking like our responsibility is to hold um accountability to maintain and what we've already got going on and for me as a superintendent to keep the good rolling um that's a that's a just a tremendous graduation rate I think highest one of the highest in the state just something really to be proud of uh your again vision for the district an Innovative District that prepares learners for Limitless pop opportunities on your buses thank you again for reminding me of that Limitless pop possibilities looks different for different students again my grandfather was a sharecropper he worked his entire life just to make this year's money on crops my father was a farmer Rancher he never went to college that was his opportunity our students have different opportunities and I know in some of my notes um we'll talk about some of our um career in Tech edpro we have over 40 CTE programs in one of our high school that's just phenomenal those are educational opportunities that are not traditional College Bound but those are Pathways for our students and milit military the portrait of a graduate again trying to make sure that we're staying focused on why we're here before I talk to about strategies of the one of those four strategic plan components uh we are developing responsible citizens with empathy again I have an eighth grader this is a really hard concept sometimes um we put them on the phone this morning and asked um if they had um tripped hit or pushed each other before breakfast and they both said no and so we're again training empathy in our in our own students in the Neil house um developing awareness and Global uh Global awareness and Community engagement um College and Career ready sorry for the the connection between words sometimes my designs don't always land here perfectly well but that our students would possess the knowledge and ski skills to be Su successful that is possess that is have it inside of them to be successful it's not I mean our if you're not in school and you're dropping out and you have our re positivism rate our our Dropout rates um are not allowing our students to return and our attendance rates are down those aren't kids being successful and so we need to continue to push for our students and at 96% um kudos to the amazing team that's doing a great job already lastly Innovative Learners that think critically that they just don't take an a a spoonfed answer but they can actually prepare their own thought process as our students they think creatively again I'm married to a music team feature Music Arts bands I can assure you she's evaluated marching bands like four times between one school or the other school and and who has the best program this is creativity um and how do we communicate effectively the district already communicates very well okay we have four components of our strategic plan um that are laid out um I will be tackling one of them uh these are the higher high arching uh statements of the Strategic plan pardon me as I don't dive into a lot lot of detail um many of you obviously know this work the word that came to my mind was that you have it tattooed but just kind of the thought that you do this work every day like this is your daily work so I again I'm humble enough to say I'm trying to scratch the surface on some of the work that you're already doing I tackled highly effective Personnel um in part because um I help with a lot of schools still today recruiting hiring motivating retaining is a really big uh opportunity Unity I don't to say challenge but a really opportunity for us um then bullet point 2.1 to recruit and retain bullet point 22 is to provide necessary PD resources and bullet point three is to ensure employes feel valued three very different components about recruiting necessary PD and ensuring our employees feel value the fourth the third one is was really about culture um how do we support our staff how do they feel the second one is really about are they learning and this is just these are teachers custodians um facilities workers you everybody in the district that they have appropriate and necessary professional development happening in their world so I I I just kind of took you through some of the things that I've done uh in my own work uh when I opened um a bunch of new schools as a superintendent I had to really look at our recruiting process we and so I'm shifting from your strategic plan at this point in presentation to the work that I've been asked to to explain that I've done in alignment with kind of your strategic plan I had a chance to increase our recruited Personnel our teachers that were coming into the school uh from 265 to 1260 lots of different ways that we did it um we were primarily recruiting in you know one or two uh colleges and universities we really broadened this effort out we looked at qualifications of teachers we looked at grow your own programs uh we also increased our speed to hire from 28 days to three I know Mr Moore talked to you as a board this week about your financial plans and your um your finances and wanting to get those approved by the board so we be quick to hire our teachers really important to get that process going so that you can be first to Market that was a lot of the work that I did in the schools as a as a superintendent uh worked cleanly to uh recruit out out of multiple countries and so oftentimes we don't look to our H1B visas or other countries that are doing really well particularly our math and our science very difficult positions I know that you currently have a $2,000 stipend for those positions hard to fill positions and so how are we recruiting teachers uh through maybe an excellent College in the UK I've done this work before and so that broadening the perspective of how we recruit and where we recruit from I know the University of of Iowa has an an incredible uh special education program are we going there are we spending time at Magnet um schools that are really producing great teachers I know in the state of Colorado there are 6,800 graduates coming out of Education colleges there's over 9,000 positions available there there's almost one-third more posi more positions in the state than our colleges are graduate I know I teach at the University I teach uh leaders how to lead schools there are more jobs than there are teachers so how do we broaden that a 1% promotion to 23% uh we our internal process of how do we grow a pair of professional or support staff how do we walk them through the associates programs how do we help them with tuition reimbursement um I have another bullet point here that I had over 430 new teachers hired and wasn't the bullet point I was trying for sorry there's one more uh we increase our qualified teachers from 73% to 99.8 eventually I'll get there sorry come on there it is nope I must have skipped it for the sake of time um when I looked at the numbers of teachers that were just coming out of schools I knew we had to develop our growe own program and so working with our high school juniors and seniors to get them to go to college to become a teacher to become a PA professional to step into that role was a really large part of that work I was able to hire 438 new teachers in three years increase their qualific they're we call it highly qualified from 73 to 99.8 I had one teacher that was not qualified and that's just part of it she was a fabulous teacher did an incredible job and today she's qualified she went through the coursework to become qualified um parent satisfaction so in my district I had sent a parent satisfaction of the teacher um some districts do this some districts don't uh it comes with a lot of responsibility when you ask parents their opinion of their students teacher I wouldn't always advise this um because it's a lot of work U but we asked our parents what they thought of our their particular teacher and we were able to increase our satisfaction or the quality perspective of our teachers by a percentage that was very notable and then we reduceed our turnover rate from 27 to 19% and so what we did is we assured teachers that the teacher sitting next to them was qualified and we built the teams together from one teacher to the next and that really helped reduce our turnover rate our teachers felt the success of our efforts and the work we are doing in recruiting overall k12 and this is the real number if you want to talk about recruiting teachers that's great but over a a four-year period of time I was able to raise um academics as ranked by an nwaa map from our map scores from 53 to excuse me 52 to 7 3% of language artarts that came from great teachers doing a great job and us being really smart about our hiring on the front side making sure that teachers were ready to teach the content that we needed them to teach highly qualified teachers impact students in a highly qualified way and just that's just the reality of recruiting um 48 to 58% in math in all of our 11 schools so these are aggregate SC scores for those grades tested in n Bea map second topic on uh recruiting retaining and hiring excellent staff is developing a principal Leadership Academy um every Wednesday afternoon I had a chance to meet with our teachers and develop those teachers into Future Leaders we're always in this business of looking for principles assistant principles and and others academic officers Mentor teachers Master Teachers how do we know who they are are so I put the word out to principles and said who are they and we started a two-year leadership development cohort uh where I covered the cost of their training and their development um they met with me personally as a superintendent then they met with our chief a academic officer on the off weeks um and had a chance to take them to Harvard University in their principal preparation program um we were able to get a grant to do that and really developed a teacher leader cohort um I had gone through the the Harvard uh preparation program myself I knew the quality of the teaching so it was something that was really a carrot at the end of the two years that our teachers were able to go through um when you train teachers and when you develop teachers into your mode and how you are leading um they catch your vision before they ever become a leader so we looked at how do we look at data how do we look at our Ells how do we look at our minority and our um poverty populations we trained our teachers to become the leaders that we needed them to be as leaders and over time um and again academic assistant principal not every teacher is ready to be a become a principal not every teacher wants to become a principal a lot of our principles don't want to be principles um and and we work with them too to just kind of help them you know come along but it was VE a very experiential we put all of our teachers into um cohorts they had a principal Mentor they shadowed once a month they kind of followed the principal along or the academic Chief academic officer or the uh director of Grants we had a grants coordinator that just an incredible job and so they had a hands-on experience and we covered the cost of their seven days a year for them to be out of the classroom teaching uh out of I think there was 26 per year happening at one time um out of the 26 all 26 were placed into a leadership role Within in the two years 100% of all teachers hired came through of all teachers excuse me 100% of all leaders that were hired came out of our leadership cohort and so this train your own program kept us from having to go to market and look for principles and leaders that didn't know us and didn't know how we were doing things they came directly out of our promotion ranks great partnership with our Union or with our association um promoting from within very positive and really training opportunity for teachers to step into that um and the program's still going on today and it's really great to see actually broaden this I don't think I'll talk about this in a later slide broaden this to our classified or our support staff and so we had junior level beginning custodians first second year on the job that wanted to be leads lead custodians we worked them through a leadership development program we had mechanics U that wanted to be lead mechanics we worked them through how do you lead how do you manage how do you coach other employees how do you hold people accountable we did this in five or six classified support areas uh and nutrition services and I saw Chartwells uh vehicle out today I presumed you use Chartwells um great friends of mine in Colorado they bring me free food all the time it doesn't help me a lot but I eat their free food we had actual our own employees um previously that we went and did this process through all right 2.

all right thank you all for being here this is the only time we actually get a crowd both at home and and live but um anyway um what time we got 5 something 51 501 called finance committee meeting to order um agenda item two approved the minutes from our November 7th 2023 meeting in the agenda there was a link to those draft minutes and Jen thank you for filling in as clerk for that meeting um and get in and post it in draft form comments questions on those minutes no okay I'll make a motion that we approve those minutes second second but we'll call it John all in favor all right those minutes are approved um so any public comment I don't see see Department Representatives but no public um so with that I'm going to before we get into the the budget presentations Michael um I think you know and I'm going to maybe just inform the committee so as of now we have two vacancies on the committee so um I think you know Ryan you know is is resigning and I guess I want to publicly thank even though he's not here for his time on the committee I was reflecting back I think he recruited me to this and you know I'm coming up on 10 years on this committee so he was likely just a bit longer so um you know certainly thank Ryan for his time on the committee and everything he has um you know given to the town and and to this committee I think he he was a he was a as good questions and um you know always a just a different voice right so and then I received notice yesterday and I think I don't know if she's notified um Adam but aswe is going to resign as well so Shantal um emailed me on the train ride home that she was sick today I'm like I hope everyone else shows up otherwise we have to postpone this meeting so um but yes so I think you know for the members and anyone listening at home you know obviously with with two vacancies doesn't leave a lot of room to have a quorum of four people so U be great to fill those as as quickly as we can and um I think you folks know but for anyone else listening the process is would be to go to the town website grab a talent Bank form and U complete that and submit it to the town and um the process is that our town moderator you know would review those and appoint a member to the finance committee so um and I told Shantel oh well do some recruiting so so um but anyway yeah so we're we're down to um to five members now so anyway with that I guess we'll move into the budget Michael and I don't know how you want to start this but um we was just start with an overall presentation okay and then we'll move into the departmental presentations if that uh if that pleases the the committee yeah that works and while I'm pulling this up I I too want to Echo your thoughts about Ryan and aween and their service um Ryan would would always ask questions and um you know he did he did what he was supposed to do which is ask questions made us think made us go back and and sharpen our pencils just like the rest of the committee does and make sure that we have good answers uh for the things that we were asking for so uh again kudos to them for for their work so yep so just for I think everybody here knows but for those watching at home that might not know my name is Michael Herbert I'm the town manager here uh I'm also accompanied here with our finance director uh Britney I Capon as well as members of our uh police department our fire department and DPW and uh tonight we're just going to go over uh the general fund budget for fiscal year 2025 and um I'll give you a general overview and talk about give you basically a context um for the budget discussions this year and then our departments will will come in and give you a little bit more detail and drill down a little bit more on their departmental budgets so first um I just want to let everybody know this is going to be a challenging year and um so this goals page is not as robust as I would like to have it usually um it's it's pretty sparse this year but it's pretty important so you know the first goal that we have this year is to even even though we're in a tough budget year we want to maintain existing services so we're not at a place where we can cut Services uh without having a major impact to the public and the people that we serve um second yes if we have an opportunity and it's affordable we will look at strategically adding to Services if it makes sense again I think once you see the number here you'll see kind of the challenge that we're we're faced with but um I just want to say that that uh we're keeping an open mind to that third what we're committing to doing this year is to do it without an override um you know that's a discussion that we've been having a lot more recently um in terms of you know is this something that we need to look at as a community in order to maintain services and I will say that for this year we don't have to look at an override however I will just put it straight out there we are in some ways just kicking the can down the road um our our budget is such that it's exceeding our revenues and so we're actually going to be looking at probably some one-time revenues to make the budget work this year and then finally uh something that I'm very proud of and I know our departments are very proud of and I think the finance committee should be very proud of as well is to keep Ashland one of the best values in Metro West today and that's based on objective metrics that's I mean obviously I'm going to say that because I'm proud of the work that we do but I think it's important to have objective data to back it up um I used to be a data analyst that was my entry into municipal government so it's something I'm still familiar with and see a lot of value in I also just want to remind everybody that we're our staff in addition to the services we're we're still supporting a number of capital projects and you you know everybody thinks of the public safety building and the minda school and yes there are a few loose ends that were tight uh that were having to tie up with those two projects but for the most part they're done that being said we have all of these other projects that we are still working on namely downtown we got to get those poles down or else it won't be complete Pawn Street 126 that still has about a Year's worth of work the Warren District which accompanies ACC companies the the hall house as well as the Warren Barn that still has some work left to be done um the hall house was finished uh late last year but the waren barn is still incomplete or actually incomplete doesn't exist anymore we're looking at building a replica of that uh the Valentine property we just had uh we just finished up well we still have a couple loose ends with the barn itself but for the most part that is finished and and last week we actually had a forum on the future use of the Valentine property and what that might look like and and to get some feedback on that as well we've got another phase of the Riverwalk that we're we're looking at which is the direct connection between the train station and the existing Riverwalk that we have the quiet zone is still uh on our list which is basically making improvements at the atg grade Crossings on Cherry Street and Main Street uh in order to have it such that the the trains are not required to blow their whistles now I just want to caution and temper everybody's expectations that doesn't mean they they won't blow the whistles it's just they don't have to um Cadillac paint not too long ago the select board got a presentation on turning that into the Ashland Arboretum Ed har was uh very much involved with that and we're looking forward to the springtime and and moving moving forward for with that a lot of the uh the trails and everything have already been been done we're just looking now at some plantings and and more of the vegetation uh stage or phase of things uh next is it's not really a capital project but it's going to inform all of our capital projects moving forward and it is a big project and a big lift in and of itself and that's the comprehensive plan uh or what we call or what you could call a master plan for the town and this is an initiative that's going to take uh well we started last June actually we started a little bit before that but we're now in the public engagement phase and so I want to just use this as an opportunity for uh to let people know that if you're interested in the future development of this town and what kind of services we provide and what kind of services that you'd like to see the comprehensive plan is the place to basically make your voice heard so there's going to be surveys there's going to be focus group type meetings that basically anybody can participate in we have some Bridge work that we need to do um just like all cities and towns in the Commonwealth our bridges are are falling into disrepair the upper Charles Trail is has moved up to be a priority project for the town and that's the uh multimotor path that connects the towns of Hopkinson and Sherburn through Ashland and then finally we're working on a dog park at uh or off of Memorial drive so these are some of the existing Capital initiatives that we're going to try to support this year I'll just give you a high level overview of some of our F FY 25 budget Staffing requests uh so we have a senior clerk position in the town clerk's office um that position is necessary just because of the elections that are coming up just things like mail-in ballots and stuff like that I mean it's a great idea and it certainly expands voting access for people but in essence it's an unfunded mandate for uh for cities and towns and so we we we have a lot of trouble accommodating those uh those mandates we have a senior accountant position in the accounting department um Britney is there anything special you want to say about that position okay that's a no uh it stands on its own one from last year yes same one from last year that you didn't fill right correct yeah so um also in the police department we're looking at three positions one being a dis dispatcher supervisor um to oversee our uh dispatch operations this past year we recently essentially combined uh dispatch operations we previously had separate fire and police dispatch units uh those have been combined moving into the new facility and then the I I don't want to call it an addition of two Patrol officers last year if you recall we did not fund two officers because we wanted to make room for um you know compensation that was adjusted for getting out of Civil Service uh and so the commitment I made to the department at that point in time was that uh I would definitely put those back in for fy2 additionally we're looking at for firefighters um the as you will hear from the chief the calls for service um especially medical calls have increased significantly and he's like I said he's going to have more in-depth data on that um for our Public Safety departments in general we're looking at covering more you know with overtime and uh shift differentials and and things of that nature so we are um requesting 246,000 for that um in our library we're looking at a couple of things so first uh two Library assistants two additional library assistant positions then also increasing hours of some of our existing staff which would bring them up from part-time well it wouldn't bring them from part-time to full-time it would make them uh go from non-benefited to benefited positions uh I think you all know the great work that Mina does at the library and all the programs that she runs and this is something that she felt needed to continue that uh number nine uh is Parks and recck Staffing which you'll hear more about from Doug and Becca um we've been talking about the fields for years and how it's you know considering the resources that we have in DPW to maintain it we definitely need to have a dedicated resource for our athletic fields and so this begins that conversation and starts to um budgetarily address that concern in need looking at also increasing the hours of our part-time conservation assistant now we actually funded the conservation assistant position last year she's been an excellent addition to uh our town staff and we're looking at increasing her hours this year um the program coordinator position in the Departments of prevention and Human Services uh we are losing some grant funding so we need to find a way to make up that grant funding and so that's what you see here and then I've put $275,000 again in salary the salary contingency line so we have four unions that we will be bargaining with this year uh we also have non-union employees that we have to think about and I can just tell you that the the market for municipal workers across the board um is getting hotter and hotter meaning you know salaries are going up and up in order to retain to attract and retain qualified Personnel um we're going to have to look at keeping Pace with our surrounding communities we also have some non-personnel requests uh number one really if you look at Human Resources uh increased utilization of our financial system which is called munis um so we would be looking at adding on electronic um onboarding for employees that come on also a new time attendance model as well as what they call Tyler's content manager so we're the hope and the desire and what we think will happen here is that if we make this investment of $330,000 we will actually reap rewards in terms of efficiencies on a day-to-day operational basis um people you won't have to use as much paper um people won't have to spend as much time chasing signatures chasing spread chasing spreadsheets and time sheets Etc um also this year we're looking at adding $110,000 to uh our conservation department and that's for the treatment of was and pond uh wasum as most of you know is uh on the Eastern side of town and it borders Framingham we we essentially share the the pond or or lake with Framingham and so that needs to be treated for invasive species and then finally just in general we're looking at increased cost and supplies of over $400,000 and that includes everything from contracted services all the way down to dues and subscriptions um you see electricity on here I'll get a little bit more in depth into that yeah question before you so you talk about the last two non-personnel and Personnel requests are those actually in the budget now or those kind of yes the budget figure I will present to you includes all of these so Balan budget it's not balanced not balanced okay it's it's not balanced Scott Britney's like no no we're a little bit out of balance let's put it that way okay we're just teasing you to to give you uh basically a preview of everything that you could get if if we did have a balanced budget um but just getting back to utility expenses uh so uh we had to renegotiate our contract this year for because our current contract with an electricity supplier actually expired we had had a four-year agreement we had an incredible rate of a of nine cents um unfortunately all all parties must end at some point and so that train stopped for us uh late last year and so we had to go out to bid and so we actually got a really good price compared to what you see in the market of 12 cents um and there's actually a bit of a premium uh attached to that because if you recall uh back in t town meeting in May of 2023 town meeting passed uh a law bylaw which required all of our Municipal energy use to be sourced from renewable energy so there's a bit of a a premium attached to that as well um other than that we're looking at some really really big increases in our fixed costs things that we really have no control over but you'll see is having a very very big impact on our budget our retirement assessment went up 6.5% um or $258,000 Britney nor nor it's what four 4% yeah four to five four to five yeah but you know 6.5 it's a little bit more than what we were expecting but the big one the big one has been the health insurance um Britney was estimating 6 to 7% Max um we got word from the GIC that it's actually going to be 8 to 11% um and as you know that's that's a big big number number already and so when you start adding double digit percentage increases to that it just becomes an even bigger number and becomes just squeezes other parts of the budget that's just what happens um and our other insurance actually increased significantly as well so we had a revaluation of our properties um just like you experienced probably a little bit of shock when you opened your tax bill and you probably bad shock when you looked at your tax bill and then hopefully good shock when you saw valuation you'll see that valuations uh in the Pro in the town are going up uh across the board and uh that's a good thing that means ashlin's becoming more desirable uh uh more people are wanting to move in there and so there therefore the values are being raised uh and then obviously we're adding two substantial new buildings um being the public safety building in the MZ school so is everybody ready to get into the big overview everybody good I I'll start with revenues first we'll start with revenues um so our prior year Levy um is going to be 53 million um you add the 2% increase 2 and a half% increase on that that's 1.3 um we have an anemic New Growth number of 475,000 and um I have said this for the last few years um well even more than the last few years as as we adopted this approach to basically thwart I don't think there's a better word for it thwart development um we're seeing that impact on our new growth numbers so as we have bought property you know that's a double Financial hit on us in the sense that we have to expend money to purchase that and acquire that property but at the same time we're Lo we have opportunity costs associated with the future development of that property so once we buy it and it comes off the tax rules we no longer get tax revenue from that property um and there's no building that happens on those properties which a lot of people will cheer and say yes yay that's a that's a good thing the thing is is that Massachusetts has structured you know Municipal Finance so that basically you have to keep building in order to maintain services or you have to pass overrides um that's why Sherburn you see is a nice bucolic 2 acre per a lot zoning and a tax bill of $166,000 you know compared to to where we are um we do have some excluded debt um actually that looks like it's going down but that's only because we're subtracting the 750 that we had um carved out uh out of the existing Levy to offset the public safety building so that's why you see that decrease there and so we have an allowable Levy limit of 58 million um getting to our state aid numbers uh we God we I mean Britney is usually very very conservative um on our state aid numbers but uh we really got caught off guard this year by the governor's budget which had um only a 76.

to order welcome back can thank you yes so would you all please join me um in St [Music] for the United States of America to the for it stands Nation invisible liy and justice for [Applause] all right so um uh to speak to the folks at home there's our main camera do we know um they're on top just Catches Us in Round Table okay great we want to move the microphones down um then when it's time to move um for when it's time to move for focus on the slides um I'll just head over to the side um because everybody got the print out too all right all right so let's kick off first of all uh we apologize for our delay as you know we were uh down in the gym um watching the BHS um uh dance team do a hip-hop routine which was inspiring they were great it featured our own um a Canton and it it was cool to see them do their thing um so thank you for joining us here this evening and for the folks watching at home thanks for making Tak time for this important part of Civic information sharing uh we're happy to have you with us our purpose here tonight is to share the board of education's adopted budget I will introduce the process and Rosa Fernandez will walk you through the nuts and bolts of the budget we are happy to take your questions uh please wait until the end of the presentation for that as some questions May resolve themselves along the way uh further our entire team uh Dr John burill um Mrs Casey di Dr Anna man um Mr Roland and principles Banda uh Renda and Pepsi are here to field questions that pertain to their specific domains um I think it's important oh next slide can we advance the slides please go ahead thank you okay I think it's important to start off with a reminder of our shared why um I pulled these two from the mission uh these two bullet points we know that particularly for small towns uh the public schools are a source of Pride um of shared experience and community in many ways they're part of the Town DNA um these two bullet points um speak first to what we want to facilitate for the kids in our community this is a a life promise one way we use our public schools to launch children from Brookfield um onto their own respective Journeys the second bullet point is more about the students experiment experience what skills and capacities we hope to develop in them um the mission helps us recall whom we serve and it's you know it's important to Center our kids in everything that we do here okay U next slide please backing up a little bit uh it's really important to acknowledge the path that previous boards pursued to get here um and the range of measures they took to manage finances responsibly they really did the town proud with careful management of funds during very turbulent time uh during the covid crisis the district received a substantial infusion of funds from RL legislation together with the boards of Selectmen and Boards of Finance the Board of Education developed an incremental three-year plan for these funds in so doing they avoided the budget Cliff facing so many towns and cities around our state some of the phased Investments are easy to recognize summer school offered for regular education students math tutoring the higher iring of uh security monitors a05 occupational therapist and a social worker to assist in the district goal of supporting students mental health finally the funds were also used to invest in our professional core instructional coaches were added in science social studies for K8 levels and technology for K12 to further develop the capacity of our teachers as you know teachers are at the heart of children's academic success and we want them to continue to grow professionally to connect with Inspire and educate all our kids all of our initiatives and Investments are aligned with the Board of Education strategic plan okay next slide please thank you here are our enrollment projections or our enrollment numbers for this year and the projections for next year um you can see that they're holding pretty steady I'll give you a second to look at those um in total we expect between this year and next year we expect about a 2% decline in aggregate numbers but spread out over all the grades um that that's not a lot if you look at the bottom you'll see some important Trends um the number of identified students with special needs is largely unchanged the next two figures show that the needs of Brookfield families are changing we are welcoming more families with multilingual or multilanguage Learners and this has budgetary implications we are also seeing more families accessing services for free and reduced lunch our school stand stand our schools stand ready to respond to these shifts and demographics and we trust the other boards do too okay next slide thank you this slide gives you a breakdown of class siiz averages for our K to eight Learners you can see that the y- AIS gives you a historical overview while the x- axis shows grade level the projection for next year's classes is in the bottom row the red squares indicate where class size exceeds board recommended guidelines in the areas where we might be a little over at least in the lower grades teachers seem comfortable uh so we expect to keep Staffing levels consistent one particular note and I'll give you a second to keep up with me because when you're new to this uh slide it's it's a little bit uh challenging so you can see for the 19 oh sorry for the 2022 23 um line when we were planning for class sizes um for CES the kindergarten and first grade numbers were a bit higher than guidelines this is 22 23 K and one teachers and administrators decided that keeping class sizes a little larger was what they wanted it was beneficial because with that they'd have a full-time pair of professional in the room um teachers like this Arrangement uh and having one or two kids over the guidelines rather than having the um Paris support reduced and having um the number of kids Within the guidelines and so the um boards were able to respect that desire from the teachers one of the district goals for next year involves redistribution of staff to accommodate a larger class uh for example the current grade four is pretty large so we'll be moving a teacher from another grade to meet this need this way we maintain High teaching professionalism with existing staff okay next slide um so while most of you are familiar with the budget development process we have a couple of folks watching um who might not be and this is an apt time to mention that this presentation will be posted online many of the points mentioned at least in my introduction uh can be found in much more detail in Dr Burl's budget proposal slideshow from the December 6th um Board of Ed meeting more information on how we are accomplishing this year's goals including tie-in to the Strategic plan are in his presentation this slide is a reminder of how lengthy the B budget development process is it's notable that there are new members of all three boards so there's been a bit of a Changing of the Guard uh newly elected people have been digging in to get up to speed and we appreciate everyone's efforts in that regard you can see the highlighted Point here we're very deep now the yellow line we're very deep now in the budget process and we look forward to getting your feedback before we take the next steps okay next please all right to give you an idea of the Board of Education education's engagement with the budget this slide shows dates when we held public meetings to discuss the budget members of the public attended the budget Roundtable in December um also a special meeting to discuss the budget in January and a meeting of the finance subcommittee also in January and we are grateful to those folks those members of the public for coming out to learn more and to share their thoughts all told we have had 11 public meetings about the budget Mrs diot is the architect of the budget Q&A document that you each have in your binders here Folks at home should know that the budget that that document is hyperlink at the bottom of this slide and it's incredibly useful for people who have a lot of extra time and a whole bunch of curiosity this is the most um I think revealing document about the budget process um how we've we as um sub Finance subcommittee members uh executive team and Board of Ed members have have sought to uh scrutinize and inquire about various budget items and I would encourage you to take a look um it's useful for understanding not only the actual spending versus the projected of this year's budget but also how we arrived at projections for next year's budget some of this process is fixed and predictable much is not the dynamic parts of the budget are pieces that Rosa will talk about at length Okay um next slide here's an articulation of what we hope to achieve with this budget and I'll give you a second to read through these items you can see that these goals are trim and focused on Essential Touch points okay let's go that to to the next slide thank you okay and what's important uh for you to know is that this budget is the result of a transparent and rigorous process uh we are accountable to the community we're all accountable to the community and we have adopted this budget with that considerable responsibility as our guide so um to our fellow board members here at the table we understand that this is a big ask uh this budget represents how we can best achieve our operational goals we know that your job is difficult and that our request may not fit with your goals for the town that's your conversation to have in your respective groups we are here to give you answers uh that you need to have informed deliberations um if the board of education is faced with having to contend with a lower budget we will strategize uh the best use of the funds that we have available as you know that is our conversation to have and it's not for this meeting so with that I turn it over to um Rosa and thank you okay um on all right so tonight I promise to discuss next year's budget plans but it is important to speak to historical trends that will all help us understand how we got here so I'll be doing that also tonight and for now I wanted to start with this snapshot of where we're at in this current budget because it is so much a part of that story and also hopefully maybe after this I can maybe take a board of Finance meeting off my calendar but um but we are currently about 49 ,000 over budget and some specific areas of the budget that are contributing to that are special education outplacement and transportation which is difficult to forecast teacher turnover savings this is the second year in a row that we've realized none uh substitutes absentee rates are up everywhere athletic Transportation uh there's a nationwide bus driver shortage forcing districts to hire private Charter companies water uh small but noted Miss and budgeting for CES electricity more on that later and vag tuition so this is likely a true anomaly there were just some students that were not expected to return that did and we do have some offsetting Savings in leaves and vacancies though of course we do still actively attempt to fill most of those vacancies so we will continue to report out on that um an increase in special education excess cost Grant decreased enrollment at the magnet school AIS and other adjustments throughout the budget due to a recently implemented budget freeze so the highlighted blue items here should come as no surprise because we've been discussing special education tuition and transportation via a town and school agreement uh for years what is new is the second consecutive year of not realizing teacher turnover savings um that's a risk the town and schools took together so I'll talk more to both of those points later what remains highlighted in yellow are in a different bucket they're important to understand in the context of next year's budget as there's some areas with particularly High increases that we don't anticipate changing anytime soon so sorry it's cut off there but in the upcoming slides I'm going to review each of these in detail but I wanted to give you an overview of some familiar areas of the budget our new requests as well as what are called anomalies in your binder and some are uh but other are more potential trends that we'll be watching now and in the coming years and you should note that most of the funding for new Investments as well as for special education is either mandated or has been planned for and discussed with the ARP eser Roland the areas highlighted in yellower items seeing a particularly large increase and whose increase I felt significantly impacted the budget request so these are the same items that we'll be seeing as problematic for this year this is a continuation of the previous slide and it points out new or significant items being affected purely by contractual or obligation inflationary we are able to reduce the budget somewhat with a reorganization of the HR department there was an opportunity with a retirement a reduction of one counselor at CES a consolidation of some technology platforms with uh use of something called parent square and a continuation of decreased enrollment at the magnet school and at the the bottom you'll just see a summary of all of these bucketed items so the reason I started talking about our current year in relation to next year is because one of the drivers behind the in the inescapable increase to next year's budget is a reflection of the cost that we're already seeing this year and we unfortunately believe that that might be the start of some concerning Trends I'm going to speak to more on each of these but when you look at the new requests and increases for next year in relation to the projected actuals for this year it paints a much different picture and the conversation that I would like to steer us towards is one of an understanding behind each of these areas yeah sorry it's a little cut off but uh I wanted to start with a catchup for new and returning board members on what was a cooperative strategy to use Grant monies uh that became available in the wake of the co pandemic basically federal grants became available to schools Nationwide to help deal with the educational and mental health effects of covid and many districts took that hundreds of thousands of dollars that became available to them and immediately reduce their next budget request what we and Brookfield did instead and in cooperation with the town was construct a schedule to use those funds over the three years that we were required to use them and partially pay for some Investments slowly taper in those costs into our operating budget over time uh these were Investments that would not have come forward so quickly had it not been for the availability of these funds but the plan we devised avoided a budget cliff and gave the district a great opportunity to capture resources that would have otherwise taken much longer to accomplish so this is the exact slide that you all saw last year at this joint meeting the only difference is that our original Rollin plan for this year is smaller than what you were told last year the cost for summer school given interest and need is reduced the occupational therapist that we hired came in under budget uh we were unfortunately never able to find a math tutor and many of the other costs were able to be absorbed in this current Year's budget uh resulting in about 70,000 less rolling in than what we had all planned Building Maintenance so in addition to our planned Investments we do have a sizable increase in building repairs and maintenance needed for our older schools the condition of our facilities has been a very prominent part of the public conversation and we do address concerns that are actually brought to our attention last year we invested in a building condition study with Mark zbo and we are now following up on various maintenance items that they felt had fallen behind schedule or that needed more immediate attention these improvements will be part of ongoing maintenance and so we felt they didn't belong in our capital budget request the total cost for these repairs and Replacements is over 100,000 but if they are done uh they will supplant other building repair line items that were already in this account so we've reduced our request to only what we feel is additionally needed to get that done and going forward this will um this does catch us up on a lot of Maintenance but we do expect that the cost for staying on a better schedule of repairs and Replacements will remain heightened and not return to previous budget levels all right so teacher turnover um I wanted to discuss the current risk that we're taking in teacher turnover savings uh for the public and new board members you'll see in the budget details this line is recorded as a negative number because we have for a number of years assumed some of the savings from teacher retirements and resignations and the hiring of less veteran teachers that risk has increased incrementally over the years uh but the last two we have not achieved the level of savings that we budgeted for and when we don't we're over budget budget in our salary account now it could very well be that these last two years were true anomalies or reflections of the current economy and we understand that teachers are not going to work forever um so perhaps next year we will see these savings and as such we're not asking to reduce the risk uh but we will need to budget for our known teachers which increases the salary line by a net of $25,000 um it's an opportune moment to note that we fully recognize that there are many times when a teacher lower on the pace scale leaves and a teacher higher on the pay scale is hired and we've actually seen a lot of that this year however we have valued giving our administrators the flexibility to look for the best teachers for the job and not the least expensive and sometimes those two are one and the same but not always especially in high demand areas that are highlighted here like science language and special education of course if the board is forced to consider advocating for a different approach uh due to this budget being majorly cut or it faing at referendum you know that might be something that we explore all right substitutes so when I first made this graph I thought I would see something quite different since we've been contending with being over budget on substitutes uh for since the pandemic instead what it's showing is that over the last eight years the cost for short-term Subs has been a little up and down but overall there's not really an upward Trend you see the dollars are mapped in blue with the values on on the right Axis um Additionally the overall percentage chunk of the budget that short-term Subs has taken up has been fairly stable if not decreasing slightly that proportion value you'll see mapped in yellow with values on the axis on the left the takeway here though is that although we're seeing a sizable increase in this account year to year it's more indicative of a TR up of this account's true expenditures rather than a major change in how we use Subs um though as I mentioned before absentee ism is up and we're dealing uh with that and hopes that it doesn't contribute to some forward um upward Trend all right electricity so costs are going up for electricity naturally but most markedly within the last two years those dollars are the ones in blue um historically the percentage of the budget that this has consumed has been fairly steady but there has been an upward trend for electricity being a larger andar larger chunk of the budget in the last couple of years and it alone is responsible for 26 of the new requests 2.26% of the new request that proportion is mapped in yellow uh with the values on the left overall the rise hasn't been as significant as compared to the rise in the overall budget but this may be an area to watch now that clas is online and the dollars are large the especially large increase that we can call out here year toe is due to CES and we can talk more about this later if you have questions but basically to sum it up CES is using less kilowatt hours than Huckleberry and Center combined but less than the engineers originally thought um the increase that we see here is mostly due to increased Supply rates so for next year we have a better gauge on our usage at CES our run rates um but just keep in mind that a full year of electricity is in the 2425 budget whereas for this year our electricity responsibility only came on Midway through September all right athletic Transportation so we're requesting a significant bump in funds for athletic Transportation so I wanted to bring attention to Transportation as a whole and the sub account for athletics since it was over budget this year due entirely to a bus driver shortage and our forced use of private Charter companies unfortunately we don't anticipate that changing anytime soon so so looking at the graph on the left you'll see that since Co the cost for athletic Transportation has risen dramatically and is around 6% of our overall spend on non-sp special education transportation preo we used to spend about 125,000 a year and it has not only returned to those levels but surpassed it and I know that there's a sealing effect to this because assuming that the sports that we offer don't change dramatically we may not Contin continue to see it climb Beyond inflation um but in the years ahead we don't anticipate those numbers falling back to pre-co levels uh we do anticipate increases being somewhat unpredictable and affected by private Charter price changes um we do not and we may not be able to have contracts with these firms but that is something that we're looking into and exploring um looking at the graph on on the right you'll see that this plays a big role in transportation as a whole which over time has only grown um you'll all remember that even during Co we had to pay our transportation companies so you don't see a major dip um in those years uh but since then the costs have risen more sharply uh looking at the Yellow Line non-s special education Transportation went from being a little more than 5% of our total budget to now around six um those are big numbers when considering a budget of our size and what I'm seeing is that we can contribute some of that um including its effects on the entire budget to athletic transportation all right so status quo when we talk about status quo and what affects it what we're really talking about is salaries and health insurance and health insurance is the largest factor driving the increase in the status quo it is becoming a larger and larger part of our overall spend and we're not just talking about small dollars looking at the yellow line You'll see that health insurance was around 12% of our budget 7 years ago and it is now over 15 the total cost of that growth growth over time which you'll see in blue is over $3 million so this is one area of the budget that is growing faster than others take for example salaries which is still by far the largest part of our budget um but not only are the increases in salaries far more predictable but the proportional growth has been consistent with the remainder of the budget for health insurance the unpredictability of the estimates during this very budget approval process coupled with the sheer numbers of dollars and the year-to-year increase that's not in line with inflation means that this Factor alone puts one of the greatest pressures on our other budget goals and obligations now typically we are given conservative estimates for health insurance and we've already gotten some good news on that front uh with hopes of more in the coming months and the numbers in this presentation don't reflect that because I wanted to make sure you have the numbers that are in your binder um but it remains true that our actual spent on health insurance is growing significantly and it will continue to be front and center when we're back here asking for more funds in the future all right special education next year we will spend over $1 million on special education that is 20% of our entire budget what I really want to draw your attention to is the proportion of the overall budget that has been allocated to special education despite very minimal fluctuations in the number of students being serviced in just 5 years the expenditures have grown $2.7 million with a little less than half of that growth seen in this request Alone part of the larger than normal growth we're seeing this year isn't due to major changes in programming or to the number of students that are being serviced but due to a new mandate that requires us to provide services to students until their 23rd birthday we do get reimbursed somewhat from the state that offsetting Revenue which is that bottom line uh from the EXs cost Grant has been compara comparatively stagnant it doesn't apply to all costs for students with special needs and it has never come close to truly offsetting any major part of this and that's really what the problem is now this is a sensitive subject because we're talking about our students who have a wide variety of needs and deserve these services and I'm not up here advocating advocating against a single dollar of it but we also have to have a very honest conversation about how poorly special education is funded in this state and how its structure forces some municipalities like ours to squeeze other areas of the budget or contend with massive budget increases for local taxpayers what's worse is that this system is widely considered to be unsustainable by Educators and at the local level it pits families directly against um districts try as they're trying to advocate for their children and District dists are touting extreme costs and budgetary pressures both of which are valid points and both of which deserve the attention and solutions oriented approach from town leaders like us what we and other boards of edge struggle with is being both advocates for vulnerable students who deserve all of these Services as well as advocates for our budgets that continue to increase I want to make it very clear that while I don't speak for the board I'm confident each member is here to serve every child in this District equitably and we don't view these B these costs as burdens on our budget but we still have the responsibility to understand and communicate what is truly happening to the overall budget and be honest about what impact that could have on our other budget goals if we're not willing to fund it all a subsection of our special education budget is particularly unpredictable and it makes up around 7% of our entire operating budget and a significant percentage of the special education costs overall so what you see here is a summary of expenditures for our outplay students these are a relatively small population of students with needs that were unable to provide services for within the district the per pupil cost for tuition and transportation to various specialized schools is significant and we're predicting that these we're predicting these specialized Services a year out so really should circumstances for just one student change really and anytime after this meeting our budget can be greatly impacted in either direction our request includes over a million dollars that we will spend to fund just outplacement Transportation which is up 50% over this year's approved budget and 2.8 million that we will also spend to fund outplacement tuition which is up 11% from this year's approved budget but what I want to further point out is the effect that these growing requests have had on our our overall budgets the historical swings in outplacement tuition and transportation expenditures have been as much as a 3,000 three $300,000 savings against the budget to exposures close to a million having 7% of our entire budget be so volatile makes this a very impactful area perhaps more importantly the proportion of the overall budget that's been allocated for special education tuition this is just for a handful of students being served and it's profound 7 years ago these costs were a little more than 4% of our overall budget it is now 7% so if you want to look five or 10 years down the road having special ed out placements be 10% of our entire budget is not an unreasonable thought and if the goal is to come here with three or 4% asks it's going to be nearly impossible not to squeeze out other areas of our budget so uh since I talked a lot about history I also wanted to look to the Future when we look at our discretionary and some mandatory Investments the availability of arester funds made it possible to FASTT track what would have taken any District um any District much longer to accomplish through small budget increases in those areas and we thank the board of Selectmen and board of Finance for their cooperation and commitment to our rollout plan because of that the district has a lot of work to do and we're primarily focused now on how we capitalize on these Investments and continuously improve so what you see on the left most column is our widely publicized strategic Plan Focus areas and what we felt might help you understand given the size of the increase we're asking for this year what you might expect in the coming three years as far as investments in Staffing programming and capital again because the Arps are funds we invested heavily in the instructional coaching model and I won't go into details of that but we have discussed it at several of our own board me meetings over a number of years and I do encourage any of you to go back and watch any of those uh for tonight I'll simply say it's a structure that the board supports as a means of adhering to our strategic plan the biggest takeaway here is that we do have a lot of work to do and we have no anticipated needs for Staffing or large programmatic investments in the near future but the Marx aubo study did highlight that although we don't need new school buildings which is great uh we need um Energy Efficiency upgrades as as well as building envelope fenestration and security improvements at whis skiner and the high school totaling $12 million over the next 10 years all that said I wanted to remind you that one of our budget goals is always to remain responsive to changing organizational needs so should new mandates become known or should existing mandates change as they so often do or should the will of the board change or should students come forward with an investment request as they have in the past or should we experience the leave in a key leader or should anything else happen that would require us to rethink reorganization of Staff or programming this Outlook May absolutely change our focus is to change in ways that are best for students and advocate for whatever budget we feel does that but for now we don't foresee um anything known affecting our Outlook in that [Applause] way so thank you um we want to provide you with whatever information that you need that can be helpful so if this presentation was lacking in any way I just strongly encourage um an open dialogue and I know everybody is more than happy to provide you with whatever information you need on the budget details so thank you very much that was great no questions great you want to leave Steve uh one of the things that I am concerned about you know with the school budget coming in where it is and there's increased pressure on the town side also we're seeing increases just like you are and my concern is our ability to put together a budget that will get asked MH um we need our residents to pay attention we need our residents to understand these budgets and I know our residents are busy uh the good thing is there's I don't see any parents here tonight and that there any parents here today and this is much like when I first moved to Brookfield in 1983 I was working in New York City the schools were great my kids loved them the streets were paved the streets were plowed it was safe my kids could go out at 7:00 at night run down the street to a neighbors with no worry it was something I didn't need to worry about so I didn't pay a lot of attention to town budgets I didn't everything was working really well and I've heard we had great people running our schools running our town and it seemed to be really really good but back then the increases were in the 2 and 1/2 3 3 and 1/2 4% for the budgets that has change and I don't think it's going to stop changing given the increase in fuel given the increase mandates from the state all of these things are pushing our budgets to the breaking point and in doing that I'm trying to figure out a way we can better educate our residents so they understand what they're getting for the money that they're spending I think very often people go into the voting booth and look at it and they just look at that number that percentage increase and they're saying wow I got a three and a half% raise last year and they are asking for four and a half that's a difficult sale if we can't educate everyone in town and what I struggle with is how best to do that how do we get to our residents so they understand what it is we're doing I think the budget that the Board of Ed has put together is a good one I don't think there are any crazy asks in it I really don't I think this was well done as it has been over the past years one of the things we look at 87 of your budget as of today is money that we kept on the town side for special education transportation and we keep it on the town side if you look at the increase right now it's 585 you're looking for is that right effectively it's effectively it's down there under if we had put the money that is sitting on the town side in your budget last year for you to spend we're really looking at a 485 a 490 and that we have to educate our residents we've done this on purpose to make sure that the schools get every dollar they need but also to protect the town and putting money in the contingency and this has worked some years we had money sitting there that you did not need and every time the board Ved came to the town and ask for increased funding the board of Finance has per agreement per understanding um provided that but it kind of skews the number a little bit if we had put all that money for special ed and transportation in your budget originally we'd really be looking at like a 4.9 something increase and that's important for residents to understand and for right now that's all I have to say but I want to thank you guys the work you did as usual is excellent It's understandable I know that there's a lot of work and input put into into this the number of hours spent on budgets in Brookfield is just phenomenal the points you raised are really important um and even people but I think we have to say you know some elephants in the room even for people who understand the budget and I didn't even air quote that like even people who understand the budget may have a hard time voting for it because it's it's it's a big increase and the the thing that as a town need to contend with as the bigger elephant in the room is what Rosa was talking about what we've spent hours talking about the trends this the the the things that we by law have to pay for we have no choice and the children deserve it those expenses are spiraling and so it's it's a challenge to us as Town leaders to figure out what what can we do what can we do as a town to use our our our brain power our resources now we can't answer that here here um will the voters say gosh this budget is a big ass but we understand that you are trying to work on systemic Solutions I I don't I don't know I don't know I mean as a person who's new to all this I don't know what's feasible what's viable I don't know but but your questions are really important did you want to go next go no could been let the board of Selectmen finish off how's that I have a couple of questions and thank you all this has been really informative is this on yes it is um first of all I saw in the budget transmittal letter that um I think you had stated Wendy that there was uh creative ways of addressing the HR vacancy what what exactly does that mean that sounds like the first of maybe many questions that I will be passing passing along to the executive team so yeah thank thanks thanks for the question ter so one of the things we're looking at we actually are at the point now for a new HR supervisor and offering a contract and getting ready so we'll be able to uh announce that person hopefully in the next week or two um background checks and everything kind we're waiting for input from that person but one of the things we're looking at is consolidation um and to be very uh honest about uh the folks in our office and consolidating um while we have some ideas we're waiting for this HR person to start so we can get their input um once they land uh in the district so um we don't have a definitive plan yet but we are looking at some consolidation strategies that's just within the Board of Ed correct that's Board of Ed okay um yeah regarding the the increase you said it was a 7% overall increase for the special education is that correct um what did I say it was I remember it was 11 % just for tuition 50% for transportation overall um I do we have that Consolidated number I think you said that 7% of the total budget yes yes okay yeah and and the the part of the point of that is that it's incredibly volatile that you can see um slide number three from the end um that when the dollars are so large and the volatility is so great um and it's not volatility that's going down either that's that's the challenge like if we if we staunch the bleeding this year or if we you know pull a rabbit out of the Hat this year what about next year so that's that's really the challenge that faces all of us and that's that's just the out placements special ed as a whole like including the students that are serviced within the district is 20 like that whole thing is 20% okay so are you mentioned other towns are having similar problems right so have we talked to like Cog just within our Council of governments to kind of see we're on I think in a wealthier cog but um if there's any kind of relief that they're addressing as part of the 18 towns that have similar problems or that's really good question um there have been numerous conversations with the Cog about how to particularly uh special education special education transportation and unfunded mandates um many people at the Cog have been pushing the Cog to push the state to uh have the state take over the expense of special education therefore a child and a parent can take their child to any school in any district and know that they're going to get a good education there is some CU I know parents have told me this um shopping of school districts it does happen if a town is perceived as having a slightly better special education program though the state mandates everybody do provide the same levels of service the question comes in mind to me and it's understandable do I want my special education child in a school with 4,000 kids in the school or in a school with 800 kids in a school and I think most parents would say i' prefer an 800 student population for my students so that they don't get lost I would absolutely and I've advocated with our state senator I've advocated with our state representative who happen to be the same person right now um to have the state take over special education the expense of special education it kills School budgets it does and it's so variable it can go through the roof one year through no through the fault of no one and we have an Administration and a school district that I think works really hard to meet those needs of those those students and therefore we're going to see this volatility and as you said it's not I don't think it's going to change I think it's going to get worse I do know that other districts are they're having the same exact conversations that we are it is it is a it's a point of frustration for for districts because um and it's it's they're very frustrated mostly with how the state is is funding it or I should say not funding it but um there's a number of different ways that towns other towns are dealing with it some of them um have contingencies in their budget for things like this um out placements and things like that others have true non-aps accounts um so any surplus that we would see would go into instead of the town's general fund our own sort of non-aps account um and so that over time you see at least like the increases are a little bit more steady and smooth as opposed to what we're seeing which is constantly okay we're over budget we take money and now that brings our you know our sort of art increase like way up compared to the previous year's budget so it looks very Jagged the way we're doing it um I mean I not just say I don't think it's working well I just think it's it's a matter of communication that we um the boards change but the communication still has to stay the same is are we holding True to this plan because that's a strategy that we're all using together to fund our special education and you know if we're going to continue doing that we all kind of need to put out that message um yeah maybe something that could be beneficial is a is a joint letter or if we can join forces with other towns who are in similar situations and then send it to the powers that may be I don't know who that is but um we we did a letter last year I think it was for the health insurance to the state controller and that seemed to be pretty effective so it's just an idea I think it might be worth it but this this I mean that's a great idea and and any action as the committee I think we'd all be willing to to launch this is Regional probably National but I don't have the numbers Anna you might know more about that I mean I don't know about nationally certainly conne and unfunded mandates general in general and and to your point Tara our superintendent group caps is doing the same thing advocating at the state level as well that's a bear and I did have another question about um there was some recent correspondents from the public addressed to all of us um and the item one of the items was about town count uh Schoolboard Council um Can somebody kind of touch on that I don't know if it's in the binder I haven't looked at that yet but the amount we're paying for Town Council for the Board of Ed or I'm sorry not Town Council Board of Ed Council um just for the board or the total board of education budget there it's in two categories one for is it spelled out in here it's yeah $150,000 for general counsel and then 's $20,000 budgeted for special ed Council 150 and what was and is that is that um typical of a school district or yeah I I actually did um survey uh my uh my group casbo group and it was very much in line about.

1285 million but I could be wrong I mean I I just did it off of my notes what's the 1.25 uh you have salaries of the six coaches the three admin level curriculum Plus benefits there's Al no that's no benefits yes this is then you have in your in your salaries you have another curriculum ml teachers and then I know Debbie farious is involved in curriculum what percentage of that I mean just give us a breakdown of what this whole program costs so we can again the board of Finance stood behind the SR implementation which is the basis of all of this but it's no it's not it's actually a a small increment I was I have I have that question when it was not it was definitely not all of it right we've had killing people for a long time right I just want to understand the whole structure so it's not a matter of I will just add like for the record I understand that that that you may question sort of the the value of it and and and all right okay but as it stands right now it is still something that the board that's our position is that's how we adhere to our strategic plan there has not been in this entire budget discussion before we adopted this budget a single vote to remove any of it so so the board's position is still the same I just wanted that on the record it's that a value question this strictly is not a value this is strictly understanding the structure we are getting letters uh and and need to the letters should come to the board if people have don't value I think this one can all of us well so just I just need to want to understand it Glenn Glen I just want to be super clear so you want the total cost of of the arer investment the fund curriculum right the whole anybody involved in curriculum all Coes Coes correct the value is posted online back in last year's budget and it present has a whole letters in there and there was a presentation two or two boards ago on the value I'm not questioning the value I need to I want to understand the costs that's all okay uh ARA phase in the town Grant I'm okay and again you all the board of Finance you'll get a chance it's just me going through real quick the salary line we can argue debate and everything else that's a controllable I mean I I know we talked about the teachers it's that we have so many hurdles in front of us that's got to be a controllable we got to do a better job that's my opinion and only my opinion but that's one of the only line items here that we got to manage in my opinion uh you know last year and semantics not semantics misunderstanding shame on Glenn like the Dina students wasn't in the three-year plan it was a savings line on a salary that you were able to afford it because it was a net zero cost but yet we're absorbing that cost this year if we had the Dena students out that line would be lower on the salary say I know that's mixing you're saying the salaries but to me it's still a savings of we wasn't in the three-year plan and I'm saying to me it's my opinion only managing these things is this is where we have to manage this if we have needs we still got to meet the needs but if we have a chance to get a teacher at a little bit less we got to try to manage that and really get it down you're mixing the I'm mixing but it's still in a big pocket no we we I'm going to defend what the board did a year ago we traded off a teaching position for another teaching position we did not add a single position to put that dean of students in so it was in the long-term plan it just it was a different role it wasn't part of our besser it wasn't part of our our besser it wasn't part of teacher turnover it was we reduced the sign uh reduced the Spanish teacher and and use that savings to fund this it was a very simple straightforward Staffing thing and it what therefore it was in the Baseline plan we can agree to disagree because you can ask three other board the board of Finance members and they saw it different as well we put it explicitly on the charts I built those charts I presented those charts I can just only say again even I took two phone calls from two board Finance members just today okay and said this is a position position that really we didn't understand and that's shame on me I said that when I preluded this question but this is where we got to figure out ways to create the savings if we can short-term Subs is there a way to think out of the box now we have all these curriculum leaders and teachers can you utilize one curriculum leader one day a week yes in these substitutes so so there's there's kind of two areas so one is in the the pure sense of our our curriculum specialist that we've um essentially they've become coaches and we've added this responsibility of coaching um to their role um they're not supposed to and but we know when the principes are in Dire Straits and they're faced with covering classes our uh coaches step up and and do that to your point for life so that is something that happens um the other piece to that is we are looking into partnering with uh you know Sacred Heart Westcon Fair of you um with intern programs so we can have um you know and there's a cost initial cost for the intern but usually it's a little less expensive than a full year sub and you have a body who's learning how to be an educator and then they're um part of the fabric of the school and have a one-year interview essentially with us because they're working toward their certification as well so that's another area we're looking to try to have more subs and find some savings so we are working on that as well as and that recruitment piece yeah yeah I was going to say that that would potentially alleviate two areas the short-term sub area having that constant body in the in those in the buildings and also the teacher turnover because if you have this brand new year one step one teacher that's been in in Brookfield for a whole year having this Mutual interview process that could alleviate um you know having to go out and hire um at those other levels so to go back to my point I forgot to also bring up uh again I know it's a hardship by this way we can manage if you take your year on-year salary percentage increase for average teacher for the average teacher back in 2021 it was 79,000 it increased the prior from the prior year 1.59% if you go to the next year it increased to 81655 which is a 2.53% increase then the next year it went to 84169 a 3.08 increase and in 2023 20 24 we went to an average salary of 87 743 which represents a 4.25% increase this does follow the storyline of bringing in more experience your step increase is also increased from the prior year 7% your step and I know you Consolidated but your average Step increase increase and again this is where that line is creeped up as well and that's where I'm saying if we to manage that salary line is key to this process from the point of view is these numbers are going up and in history they were not as high the increase average increases because of the turnovers and and I understand and Bob has did a lot of work on that but we've slowly crept up to a point of we got a in my opinion Glenn Rooney's opinion nobody else on this boards is to to manage that number I mean we have so many things ahead of us that these are some of the areas you can't control much of your budget you can't control 90% so what we can't control I I think we have to look at controlling uh going back electric athletic transportation we talked about that electricity that's just mindboggling to me I can't even wrap my head around to do and it's it's mindboggling I I don't get it I I I understand a lot of things there's still wor to yeah there still work to be done that we while we talked to Paul and provided him some of the bills and we have not sat down with him uh our purchasing agent has started to do work on that so we are ready to roll up our sleeves on this so we're already rolling up our sleeves we we want to get a handle on this too and it's very disappointing what we're contending with now because going to CES we were building in savings there and so it's shocking to to get those uh initial invoices can mandate can't do anything about uh on your K3 literacy program you say partially funded by the right to read Grant now is that an annual fund we're going to get or is this now going to roll into operating next year one time so how much money is rolling into next year's operating well so um and I don't know Debbie if you have an idea of the of what the ongoing cost would be but this is essentially when you when you purchase a program like this you purchase some initial startup pieces with kits that are reusable so you it's not the same cost every year that is rolling forward so this is again an attempt by the state this is an an originally unfunded mandate that they then found grant money to help partially soften the blow so it's the the there would not be a full $200,000 roll in necessarily to the following year that it would only be a one-year um reprieve the initial year reprieve would be the initial year of the largest expense so this now Falls and yet well I mean you have any idea of what this cost is next year is it 100,000 the 25 26 yeah uh it would probably be um I don't know what do you think I don't we don't know that yet we we didn't the program consumables I'm sure potentially some digital licenses we also I we also have I know but it's just trying to understand what's behind the doors no just to be fair every program you have has annual costs right so that's a going rate type of thing that happens so the bump costs tend to be when you have to buy all the new kits and all the new textbooks right that's what kills you and the training right and we have we have some current um M you know ongoing costs that would be swapped out right so we wouldn't necessarily it's it's not like like Bob said we have current regular costs that we but we won't know the net impact of that until we understand like what we need which program what we need to buy what but the other thing to to Mr room's question it's really important to say is um and Rosa had it in the slides that she discussed um we're comfortable and confident with K3 as we roll that out during this time next year the K3 program is is very logical for us to roll into fourth and fifth grade right so there there could be an investment cost there and throwing round numbers out here and we'll all record this but it could be in the in the realm of maybe $100,000 or something like that you know when you think of sixth grades and and we're spending two-thirds of it to to start up now and that cost what were two more grades of fresh materials cost in 25 26 year unless there's also more grant money that I can find uh I am math okay it's know college algebra not a big number the maintenance number now we're looking at 82550 and I understand why you didn't put it in capital because it's like painting and all of that I get that but then you're rolling out a 1.2 million per year roughly $12 million need over years where' that number come from from so yes so we did so the building facility building condition study of VHS and WMS does propose an overall investment of about 12 milli million over 10 years um the the one of the first things I did when I got here I think it was the second week here I sat down with the facilities our facility supervisor I we combed through these um two studies and we pulled out those items that really truly would be like a capital investment a larger project and we put those into the 10-year Capital plan these other items that this year one investment um or increase in maintenance of $882,000 addresses some of those um some of those items that can be rolled in we felt could be rolled into operating and can be done sort of Peace meal over time such as repointing of um brick mortar and some like out exterior envelope things that just sort of have fallen by the wayside over time but just to start it on start these buildings on a program of of continuous upkeep and maintenance so that we don't you know become faced with having to replace an entire section of um you know if if we have an whole section of rooms that have you know or or windows that have totally dilapitated because we haven't been resealing or recocking or doing some of those repairs so it's really sort of getting these buildings on an ongoing maintenance plan proactive maintenance plan there are a couple of items um in this $882,000 request that are sort of a larger you know one-time fix um there's some um repairs and maintenance to um fire protection um areas that are that should be addressed there's no it is not an emergent thing that has to be done immediately but and and most of them have been um already addressed but we just want to close that Loop um Marx zbo has um an estimate of $155,000 for fire maintenance repairs we're estimating we only need about 5,000 of that because a lot of those repairs have already been done um there is a lot of sections so that comes from your 100,000 down to your 880,000 is that how that number 15,000 we don't need it all no the total the total request from Mark cugo was 17,500 I I we brought that down already to 104,000 we've also reduced other areas of Maintenance that don't need to be you know um that were in last year's budget that we have taken out um and that brings us down to the 825 the 825 is the net it's on yeah it's on the slide yeah I yeah that's where I was that's why I asked the question I just want to make sure yep um other things like um there are exterior sofits around um the athletic wing and the entrance of BHS so there is um a you know a significant um ask of about $7,500 of that 82,000 is to do some repairs on those sofits um a steam steam heating um there's um a hydronic heating system at in this and again I'm not a facilities expert so please forgive me um trying to say say this in layman's terms but all of this really is in this study and we've truly pulled out these items that we said these could be good year one fixes um uh the steam trap survey and repair is $25,000 of that $ 82,500 um there the plumbing at um at uh the high school is a lot of old copper plumbing and so this study has recommended year over year um replacing sections of that plumbing so not doing one foul sweep of placing all the plumbing in the building because that would be astronomical but just taking sections so that it's more manageable but addressing these things so we don't end up with a major problem um at the end of you know five years or 10 years um and so I hope I hope that that answers your your question so on this 82,000 which is an increase from prior years yep do you anticipate using all that 82,000 again each year to maintain M this or is this a one time we're going to catch up and then it's 50,00 I mean have you talked about this going forward so this increase of the 82,000 brings up the ask for building maintenance and repair to about 231 um and and I don't anticipate I think I think that if if we can get there and stay there I think that would be a manageable thing I think there's there's plenty of things in this building condition study that we can pull out year-over-year and just continually address um to keep these buildings maintained because like you said like something like the pipes or something if that's just a section and like next SE another section exactly uh so it wouldn't be an additional increase of another 880,000 on top of the 231 as this year if that's what you're but the base would be the base would increased and then stay yes yeah the enrollment study it's a small number but just out of my past history is how accurate was the last one we did because if I remember right that really was not close haven't we changed a lot I mean the we a pandemic there was a lot of movement um yeah but that wasn't based on the people moving into Laurel Hill or the people moving into the the condos we haven't done one in about five years we Haven an ex there Ros the number in there I think it was 2018 or 19 the um so I mean with the new Elementary School having births during the pandemic here you know it's March 12th will be for years since the beginning of the pandemic um I'm not a health teacher I'm not going to get in or a sociologist get into the whole thing there but um you know we really need to have a very detailed study um there are there was a medium-term a couple years ago uh enrollment uh study for $1,500 that we did it's actually pretty accurate but really doesn't dig deep on some of the data that um uh some of the firms can do when they really look at housing Trends and birth rates and really um dig deep under research but again it's not a mandatory kind of thing um if we really have to sharpen the pencil we can wait another year but the question was just basic what are we looking to get out of it I mean we really want to get an accurate sense because um it's been a while and you know again we're all looking at projections and we want to see down the road we want to see around the corner those help us do that obviously manage our staff to match the cas thank you all right I'm going to go in no order here but Dan you want to ask I'm going to go down Line This Way May I'll I'll be quick most of my points or questions were asked more eloquently than I would but can we turn to the the rfer rolling page I also took notes I just want to this is to clarify some stuff and ask some questions because this is what I'm focusing on we not all I'm focusing on but the three-year plan of rolling in Investments is important to me the what I I you probably brought it up Rosa but I don't F didn't follow what is the incremental column represent what is that what are those numbers so those were the amounts that were supposed to it's so the 2425 column is the amounts that we're supposed to roll in the incremental is the amount above the previous year okay and then the last column is the so it's not it's not incremental to the threee ass it's incr it's it's it's year-over year okay IA done that Ma that's good okay um not not um making any as Glenn said any value judgment on coaching or not coaching or that model that's not my job or my expertise and I have no idea but you guys do but this you rolled in two coaches during this time period but there are six coaches in the in the in the Staffing so just to confirm that there were four coaching positions on staff prior to this period so in the 21 22 period there were they were called curriculum Specialists they were called curriculum Specialists they were familiar with that okay and there were four of them at that point so and and so that the we're really e English language arts and math at the elementary English language arts in math Middle School essentially it's how broke out so if we if we mapped out and I'm not asking you to do that because titles Chang and things like that but if we map if we took the time to map out status quo 21 22 22 23 23 24 those those those four positions would be status quo from pre ressor to today yes yes okay okay and just to clarify there are three instruction yeah there's a thing that's called technology consider I want before you I clarify one thing before we go I apologize just so we all understand too is when we're talking about this and we're not going back back so I'm not saying that under your contracts all of your coaches are teachers so if we not we say wrong qu if the town vote this goes arai and we don't want to go arai the savings aren't really what you're going to see here because these teachers are going to replace the lower end teachers so you're only going to gain the less experience not lower whatever I don't know the te so you're going to take and I'm going to use numbers I'm not say 100,000 to replace a 60,000 that 60,000 goes away the 100,000 moves into that position because of of the way the contract works and Rift Lang achieving of savings is minimal compared to the big overall number correct correct yes so I just wanted to clarify that when we're talking about this that you can say oh we're going to get rid of one point whatever we're not getting rid of I just say it's not truly that number because when it Cascades down it's it's it's really the old last in first out the way the teacher contract to clarify sorry it's okay problem no problem and then my last point and question um and this is not to go back and reargue about the Dina students but I want to use that as an example to ask a question and prove and not pro to ask a question um so I did I I was one of the board of Finance members that Glenn was referring to uh who questioned that and I went back and watched last year's meeting um to re familiarize myself with it and the way I'm seeing it now is and again this is to illustrate you there there were really two different decisions in that swapping you were able to absorb not having the Spanish position that's one discreet decision that created money that could be used as a savings could be made a SE a second decision to bring on the Dena students the offset was coincidental and and and nice but it was two separate decisions to eliminate or absorb one loss position and add in a new position with that savings that's the way I am interpreting the order of events so I do see that dean of students as a new investment decision that was made discreetly of where the source of those funds came from I kind of agree with that I it's more link than you know fair enough because we we actually talked about it in our budget proceedings about the fact that we were going to have the savings on the one side and put in this new position that was needed right so in so in the spirit of I understand your point yep so in the spirit of managing through through all that my my question is it was our understanding my understanding that this list was the full extent of new positions so as we as I just said I I believe that the dis of students was added as a new position with with the the stipulation of the offset were there other offsetting in this 3-year period are there other situations where there was a position that was eliminated a position that was added absolutely every year we're going to add a third grade teacher we're going to reduce a fourth grade teacher that's I take that that's different no it's not different it is eliminating a Spanish teacher and creating AA students is different than reshuffling somebody grade to grade the other position that was eliminated in this current year from last year into this current year was the center School principal position so that is and that there was no replacement there there was another area we found savings okay I take your point of of of shuffling things but I okay good yes so I understand where Dan's coming from if you don't mind me jumping on that and I agree um I think it's important especially to Steve's point if we're going to try to communicate to the town that this is a solid budget you know not to talk to value but you know the need that person has now been in place for what 6 months so how do we articulate that it is a necessity yeah well a little bit of history on the Deon students and and Mr Renda provided a presentation um and it's up online so you could see the activity of that individual and how much they do in the school um just as a reminder when we talked about the transition of whis andir becoming really a different school now is a true middle school instead of having 800 kids down 600 kids with three grades we had um in our structure uh an assistant principal two assistant principles at the middle school when it was four grades and each assistant principal had a direct responsibility for either fifth and sixth grade or seventh and eighth grades they had 400 students under so in the case of and I'll just use her name Mrs Gordon who was the the 56 assistant principal to make sure kandlewood lake with 1100 students in upper school and a lower school was properly staffed we moved that assistant principal uh position and specifically was wonderful that Mrs Gordon and had all that Center School experience over the years um to be our lower school assistant principal um that still leaves 200 students the sixth grade um without an assistant principal or someone supervising them directly and so working with Dean working with Ed um and really the whole team brainstorming some ideas to find a cost effective way to have a proper uh licensed body supervising students to maintain to start with maintain a safe and orderly environment it was critical that we figure out something to make sure we were not going to have our administrators running around with their hair on fire and chickens with their heads cut off trying to manage student Behavior trying to conduct teacher evaluations running professional development engaging with parents and all the things that go into the day of of a middle school administrator so the decision was was proposed and made that we have a dean of students in the teacher contract and maybe the name is a misnomer to be very honest with you it sounds sounds administrative I guess in a way um but the dean of students really is in charge of student uh management throughout the day um and there's a lot of other pieces there um but having said that we saw the cost of uh the consolidation with World Language so we didn't need to have the additional Spanish teacher um so this cost- effective option we knew we weren't going to have to um uh have the additional principal position from Center School we knew we had some savings and said hey if we want to maintain our safe and orderly environment we want to keep our school as safe as possible and have our administrators in classrooms more um doing the professional development they need the evaluations they need to do the family engagement they need to do we need to bring in kind of a if you will a lower level um uh administrator even though they're not administrator they are a teacher they don't supervise teachers someone who could be an authority figure in the school to work directly with students all day long whether it's the cafeteria whether it's pushing in the classrooms uh whether it's in the hallway whatever it might be in all the IND idual work that goes in and also engage with parents so that was really where the DEA students was born from and so that's what we have and we also looked at I remember there was some slide when we were talking about the um the Staffing with the new school and and the changes that we were making the ratio there was a ratio yes we were talking about um how schools should have an appropriate administrator or upper levels type teacher somebody supervising students and that ratio what that should look like to the student body and it was is that we didn't need another assistant principal at whisking but we needed something there that that was that would have been lacking and so hence the dean of students but we felt that that was especially since it was budget neutral I mean it was kind of a Nob brainer for the board to do that I'm not arguing the I mean yeah I'm not debating the nether I'm just debating the budget neutral asting it's not budget neutral budget neutral it might not be no that that that particular decision was not budget neutral the fact that there was a decision to offset it made a budget neutral well it wasn't a decision we didn't need that other we didn't need the Spanish teacher when we moved to CES so it's not like we eliminated a position in order to get the need of students that's not how it happened but I think that goes to the point of we've really got to manage this to get through this these are the I get you had a need and I understand that but I think the point Dan and I are trying to prove is where we can achieve savings we got to grab them now when we're talking about 6% increases we can't live on the side of luxury we got to live on the side of leniency and when you have an opportunity you can't control so many aspects of your budget I I I full and I fully appreciate that the jobs you guys have is incredibly difficult in that aspect but you have to understand that we're looking at it as as a different lens like we cannot we're here to advocate for the the budget that we feel is best going to serve our students it's always going to be that it's not going to be from a perspective of well let's figure out what the town can afford and only put forward that it's just a different we understand that that's a conversation that we have to have and we will work obviously we always do work as best we can with the funds that were given um but that it's it's it's a different job that we have and I I think I just want to say I to to validate this I think this is a really necessary and healthy tension that's inescapable if we're if we're going to you know follow the important points that you're bringing up Glenn I mean they're obvious we we have to um as a as three groups uh come together and do our parts um for this and I think you can appreciate what Rosa is saying is that it is our responsibility that we hold very tightly to um to to use our particular lens um in this discussion and so I and this is my I I know that it's impossible and it's my seventh time going through this but I I and if there and this is rhetorical if there were a way to say if this then that sure sure that would be a great way to educate people but I understand I don't understand why but I understand it doesn't happen so and I think I think the best job that we can do and I think we we try to do it is to say you know when we can achieve the same results at a cheaper cost we do that and I think that that's that's something that I hope that over the years we've shown but that doesn't mean that we're not going to increase costs if that's what we feel is best or at least advocate for those costs is is really before I pass it down I I understand that and and I can relate to all of that my problem is I don't want to get into the 11th Hour like we got into last year and we start making decisions in a week on cutting numbers and and making what I call 11th Hour decisions that really you're not thinking them all the way through we could only meet one time after the budget failed last year I'm more of a preactive proactive type of personality of planning ahead and getting to a spot where and we have really State neutral of not dictating money to the Board of Ed and that's where I think we got to you know you stand behind that line of we're advocating for the children but we got to all Advocate together to the town and come up with a solution together cuz when it gets to 11 hour it's not going to be $125,000 cut this year it's going to be something that you all are going to go back and say Where Do We Stand now we don't want to get to that point of where do we stand now we we I think standing behind that line of we're going to advocate for the children I get it I understand that I actually respect it however we got to find a way that this is going to pass not where they come back we vote it down we're not going to look at we we take 125,000 out of next year's budget if it fails we're going to get run out of town it's got to be 250 to 500 to make sense to some of these people that are voting no so we got to sell a budget that makes sense and so some of us are going to have to come to this middle of the table and some of us are going to have to come to that middle of the table and Bob's going to have to get in the middle of the table we're going to have to figure this out Dance all right and that's where it's not a tension it becomes a reality I think I and I think I mentioned like if you like I know you you want to like focus on salaries a lot as like a sort of and and I mentioned that if if it comes to that if we have to change our approach we don't feel that that is the best approach but if that is something that we have to look at then that is something that we have to look at um and that's that's okay but thank you n fresh face know welcome you being the to oh thank you so much for all the hard work it was really impressive I'm still learning and trying to figure things um but I have a newbie question solar with electricity yeah have we great question good that's one of the things in the study that there with the studies that are in the capital request which I didn't over Capital yeah but the design studies um that are in our Capital request for both um well for for all of the schools um will look at um well not the new school just whis BHS but look at the possibility of solar what that would cost and you know sort of the the net value of it is thatc that would be involved in that I mean I keep thinking you see the solar parking lots where they have the shade so you I think if if we go back like eight or nine years if you remember when we redid the high school 20 years ago we didn't do the roofs we're now going to be finished with that and this is last project is the last roof section that's being done no we have we have we just we just did finish uh the roof section on the guidance Wing but we do have plans for roof replacement large the library here part of the thing holding up solar was the condition of the roof you do not want to put solar on a roof that's got a 5year life yep right now I know also at CES all the um infrastructure is there already to put solar on the roof you know the access points the chases to come down I think that's something we really should look at I don't think I I know my last I made a mistake and I did not lock in on my electric and I got an electric bill last January that was literally equivalent of a one-year bill in my first house it was unbelievable so solar be continues to be a very viable option it continues to be less expensive to install so I think it's something that we really should look at it and I think all our buildings are situated in a way that it they're all flat cruise for the most part and would be incredibly good sites for sold so that's a very good point and that is in the S it's in yes it's in the which is in the capital and in the short term maybe a creative campaign switch off the lights you know like you said off I think there are on automatic time so what about when glun said off peak was really high they're looking into that they don't know yet they're they're doing they are doing a study right now they don't know if it was construction and you can John and and kick me if I'm speaking out of school but they don't know if it was overnight people working that plugged in things that Drew a lot of juice they're trying to figure it out it's everything that I've been told and again correct me is there's settings on the switches the windows there's dimmers there's everything that should be total energy efficient tools to manage if someone's not walking in and Bob you correct me too if someone's not walking the hallway the lights aren't on they come on if someone there's all sorts of mechanisms bu this I abandon that building when the lights turned out on me so we are that's why the number is aggravating and that's why it seemed aggravated aggravated for all of us absolutely because it's not understandable we also need leadership from our eversource people to really help us understand that and reduce it properly because it's frankly it's not what the engineers had so it shouldn't be that it's very frustrating Mary hey um GL this been a really great robust discussion thank you for all your hard work on it um so many questions from ask answer already I don't have anything new thanks Mary Brian um maybe two more comments than questions uh a lot of great stuff here I'm not going to get into some of this detail you guys know the details more than me as I've listened to all this two things I've heard first is um when you think you kind of started out with this the special education stuff is the biggest driver and it's untenable and unst strategic and and you know I know a lot of smart people are thinking about it but I didn't hear any strategy on how we're going to deal with this other than maybe someone out of the blue help comes helps us right so if there is a if there is a I think we got to get a strategy on what we're going to do about that Maybe not maybe we can't solve much on this budget or do much different but we just can't let this be hanging over our heads right so I think that's something important can I comment on that of course I think that's a really exciting idea I don't know what the possibilities are within the town I think there's a lot of Goodwill of willing to investigate probe how can we use existing talent and resources including spaces um can we transfer some of those costs to local programs but this is that's that's the end of what I can like say because this connects to so many people and other decision-making levers that are beyond my perview but I mean we would love to do something about this such a big percent of overall budget gosh and getting bigger every year yeah I think it's it's important John by the way um we we had uh two separate phases of special education program reviews um and uh I'll send you I'll send it over to you I me on line but I think it's important for the folks here to take a look at that because in there uh Dr corvo Who was from C who did the analysis for us really uh gave the gave the district kudos for a lot of the work doing whether we have in-house programming or the the the way we're looking at out placements um always areas to improve of course but there wasn't a lot of room or ideas in there to address the things you're thinking about and we are all thinking about that new all over the state uh you know Monroe came in with a 7.1% ask from the superintendent uh you know a month or so ago I mean uh five 58 59 in New Fairfield it's and and it's the same kind of drivers there really isn't a different story John I'm going to go back cuz that's that's a nerve that you hit with me sorry come back to Monroe why did Monroe increase 7.1 can you come back to the when you present us they might have a a budget clip thing there 12% increase in students yeah they had to add a lot of teachers they added 200 students so that 7.1 was driven by sure that's right we got to be careful when we say other towns are 7.1 we we are decreasing students and Monroe increased 12% so that number is driven by Hands-On teachers MH they they're fcing the same battle we are yeah but they have a big driver of 12% and that's why I don't like when we throw out numbers I know yeah we can't trying to make that point I'm just having a conversation but I appreciate where I I appreciate it call me on it that's fine all right and so you almost yeah jump right on kind of the second point and maybe Steve a little bit to you how do you explain this to people I w't say sell it but explain it um you know a lot it's very easy to say our student population changed you know there's roughly one tej for every 20 students goes up or down that's you know that's easy I think the thing and I don't I hadn't I haven't studied the data yet I'm not sure it's in here the thing that people focus on you got into one Deep thing was is infrastructure creep right so is is our infrast and I won't even Define infrastructure because I don't know what it is in an educational environment I'm not trying to get that type of debate but are we growing our our Less Direct stuff faster than we're growing our direct stuff and I don't know but we shouldn't be right so I just and I didn't see it laid out that way I don't know if you think about it that way um when I heard kind of where we're getting some savings it was some of the infrastructur kind of things so that was good production of the principal position and HR reorganization so we're watching some of the Investments are infrastructure things are mandates okay it's not like we have our our say but have to watch those um and I think we need to look at it from that lens um because I think that's that's one way people can understand it if we say hey we need a lot more money because we're adding a bunch of infrastructure that's not a great story to to have to tell so I just think that's something that'd be good and that's all I got so I'm going to follow up on that before we go any further that was one of the questions I sort of been asking is at what point are we administrative good now and we are going to get back to because we've added administrators and we like not administrators but like curricul I'm just saying I'm using a choice of bad words I don't know the right word and Brian was said it in a way I didn't understand I had to have Bob explain it to me even uh it's the overheads where are we at with those and how we grow we have we have an enrollment that's flat Bob that showed us last year it's declined or been flat for four years now not long quite a few years it showed a good Trend now I understand we're doing an enrollment study I get that that might change us but if we are flatlining on enrollment and I'm speaking more in layman's terms sorry Brian then worries I tried to L is uh why do we keep having to add support staff if the student level is maintaining and what point does that support staff say we have enough for the students that we have and now we're pretty much at the point of if the enrollment isn't going up we have teachers in place your class lines are pretty much in line they weren't that far off even the Reds were Min are off on the teachers of your your class sizes so so where do we stand so we're actually in a really good place we're we're down in administrator position just talked about that um we did add uh the de of students position is a big let's give ourselves a little bit of credit here we had a massive massive change in our entire Community we went from the four schools to the three schools Brand New School uh start times I mean all kinds of things um we're really in a good place the um addition uh in terms of talking about the the curriculum Specialists that became instructional coaches we've had those in place now this is this is year two and a half right we're right there um so it's just paying for it on the on the phas in now we've had that in place so we haven't added to that so you know talking to you know Dan's uh terminology in terms of that ad of the dean students position that's that's really it um when we bring you a mandate like a bilingual teacher or something that's it Rosa showed the last slide there really there isn't anything in there except maybe $100,000 worth thinking for the fourth and fifth grade reading program is a big ask in the 25 26 budget so we're thinking we're settling into a good place provided to your earlier point when I talked about enroll that enrollment stays you know stable you know en goes up you can't change that that's another thing you can't change we really we've got you know we've got technology covered digital tools is a big part of our strategic plan we've got our language arts our math right science social St we've got the big pieces covered and those are always been covered at the high school with our stem and our humanities people and our world language people across the district so and I think we all just have to like remember that the the arer funding like what we're looking at is just like a Super Hyper fast implementation of it because it would have taken a lot longer so you're kind of seeing like a lot of like new positions or new titles I should say like all of a sudden but it's really kind of just because we were capitalizing on that we bought into that I mean that wasn't all of us bought it I mean I one at this table I bought a tera you weren't around when we first did this agreement so you can say you didn't buy in and respectfully that's respectfully saying that I mean I'm not I think it's a solid plan I wasn't opposed to it at all I think we did better than most towns so we did do that I think my angst you answered my angst my angst is Big ask this year what follows it because if a big ask follows relatively in line ask the big ask isn't so big right you know in the point of view of hey you take this and then you say we're going to be smaller of the so you average it over to three years and you're averaging in a relatively um small increase that's why I was driving for what's behind it because if it's when Brian asked the question like you say if we have more overheads or whatever behind this we're going to keep going the wrong way in my opinion so thanks Brian you you clarified more of what I was trying to say but I didn't ask just a little bit more on that so um I saw what you said answered Glenn are there any other mandates coming down the pike or anything big that way there is a lot of mandates well so if you say if you just gave him a good feel and then we have a huge mandate there is I can actually send you we have a we have a little uh uh planner document that we put together all the mandates coming down the pike um and I use the the uh the terminology I use with the board on my weekend update to them on Friday which is we really get through the majority I mean the super majority of the mandates that come down without a lot of fanfare we operationalize things it's it's extra work here it's a new policy here it's a a little bit of a training and we move forward on it um it's a it's a meager minor investment um that can come from maintenance or something like that um it's changing of our practices it's a lot of that um but when a mandate such as the reading program comes in we need to ask for money for that to to make that happen because they're unfunded mandates for the most part so um there isn't anything coming down the pike that is so scary that it's going to be a major jump in the next couple of years so um but we're again that we know that we know right and some will get delayed because of push back from local communities and and Joint letters and all that kind of stuff that they may get pushed pushed a little bit to give more time and thought to implementation and some of just if I could just add in some of the mandates that are um that do come to fruition um don't impact the operational costs of a place like Brookfield because of the forethought of boards like this and the Educators such as personal finance is now a requirement for students um right it has has been so it's a graduation requirement many school districts have to add in teachers because you if you have every kid who has to take personal finance um but we don't have to do that because our kids already take personal finance and frankly that was a mandate That was supposed to happen in 2018 which is one of the reasons Brookfield planned for it back then and then it got pushed got pushed and now it's supposedly on the books for now but that could change but those are the kinds of things that also balance those things out my opinion on it as long as there's a legislature there will be unfun probably know if there's any that we knew coming down the pike right y you don't no you don't all right alen you want to close us out from the board of Finance sure um so I mean to piggy back on you know we we look at board to finance people we look at numbers a lot and you know we look at the numbers of students but I think the other thing we need to keep in mind and this is why you guys are the experts at the table is the needs of those students are changing I mean the the contrast between a pre-pandemic and a post-pandemic kindergartener has got to be Monumental and you know if we're making Investments and looking at the students that we have coming in or the kids that had gaps in those time periods and making sure that we're catching them before they become and outplay special education because we can meet their needs in house that's a cost savings it's an investment um you know things like the dean of students while not everybody had the same opinion and I understand when you look at numbers maybe that seems like it could we get excited when we hear about potential cost savings but I also realized that having a Dean is a need that you guys saw and that was an opportunity and I think that's important that we we use our skills where we use them um so for me I think the budget presentation was fantastic I'd love seeing the the trends I think things were presented a little bit differently than we have in the past sitting on the um the finance committee have had seen these numbers evolving over time so not much of the I mean not that anything was new to the existing members but I think we had you know we've been seeing a lot of these Trends and we've been looking at it but to see it in a graphical format it was great so kudos to all of you who put that together um in other minor things just do c uh quick questions like so with the um with the K3 literacy program will those teachers that getting trained maybe offset a future curriculum are coaching position later on if they're you know if they're brought up to speed will they be able to possibly replace a coach that is currently doing literacy so just to kind of start us off and Debbie at any point jump in um one of the things about the coaching uh positions in general um and the literacy coach in specifically is that with any of these mandates it almost um reassures the necessity for a coach because Co what the coaches provide is ongoing embedded professional learning and so it's not so much like train them up and then let them go um if you think about it more of as kind of you know uh someone who is you it from an athletic standpoint um which debie kind of brought to light the at one of the board meetings is that you know you wouldn't just say to an athletic team okay I'm going to coach you in the preseason and then good luck right so um the idea is that you know you want to make sure that you are embedding that professional learning on an Ono going basis and obviously the needs of kids change the needs of programs might change um and the other thing is that actually one of the other changes which is I wouldn't call it an unfunded mandate but it is an adjustment from the state is that there have been new guidelines set forth for um teacher and administrator evaluation which many you may or may not remember the seed model which was very you know kind of heavy-handed and focused on Summit of evaluations for teachers for evaluat for educators um it has shifted now to a more ongoing and embedded professional learning program and so um the coaching cohort will be integral to that because what teachers will have to do is set uh kind of long-term goals for their own professional learning and then realize those goals over time whether it's the year or two year or three year or four year um and so actually utilizing the coaches to help set those goals and then help monitor those goals and help teach into those goals is that's going to kind of it's going to be another way that that investment that you spoke to is going to be actualized um because we already have them built in and then the other simple things on the capital request um the design service for the energy envelope solar and security are there I know for residents there's like the energy audits that can be done and they give you proposals and that's all free and then there's like a bajillion rebates do the schools have any possibilities like that to look and see you know you have the potential you have the the roofing structure to be able to handle solar panels or you know and if we do that you know is that something that is offered for for municipalities and schools to to do free one yeah I mean yeah so there is a there is a um a vendor that has been in actually Tara when you were first select woman you put us in contact with um with someone to reach out to and Dan has been um setting up meetings with them so we are working on um exploring all those different options absolutely our roofs many many sections of our Ro dude still need to be replaced so I want to caution that you know there's there's probably not um a ton to work with at this point but um as you saw on the capital plan there's there's um requests for sections of roof to be replaced so we hopefully could get up to that point where it could be all utilized so but yeah we're certainly looking at all those absolutely good all right uh a couple things uh for to close out our side of this is one it was a great presentation Rosa it it was well thought out and John and Casey it was easy follow uh as well it showed things that we it was a different way as eileene said and she brought forth a good point it showed Trends and allowed us to to you know take notes and ask decent questions uh also we talked about mandates and was there is there a mandate on the 5-year-olds and is that going to have an impact that's another mandate um we actually we're we're planning for a full compliment Dave's got the uh da de have the kindergarten registration out there um there is a waiver process that's part of of the law so the September 1st you must be 5 years old by September 1st is actually um there's a wave a process it's not like December 31st January 1st that we're all used to where they're a cut off and that's it uh parents essentially who believe their child is mature enough and ready to go to school even if they're not meeting that September one uh being five by September 1 have the opportunity to write to the principal requesting uh the waiver opportunity and an assessment um and so we're engaging that right now um I would say um Dave we around a dozen maybe at this point or was a little less than that L yeah so we are we are anticipating full compliment and we're going to continue to monitor that monitor that just like we monitor if we need you know one more teacher you know because all of a sudden we have this surge of kindergarten students if we're you know seeing that it's very light on students there might be some decisions that need to be made there too so we shall see we're we're preparing for a full compliment which is in that 167 and 170 kids range then on another note as we've invested in these curriculum leaders and teachers we're looking to increase our our excellence and we do have Excellence so let's my daughter lives in hopkington Massachusetts they were rated the number one school district in all of Massachusetts and one of their things that they do for enrollment is every two years they make proof of residency do we have anything like that in place or can we put in that because once you gain excy you find students coming in from out of district and you find these things can we implement the program as we're growing here say every two years you got to show proof of residency so we make sure that we are we've actually at District leadership been talking about what our protocol would be and so that is something we're we're developing right now we're doing um um I guess you would call this a little more randomized um or need based based on the things we're seeing and things we're thinking about um but to your exact point we're thinking of putting in a protocol there that's a big part of working with Eric and our our team with power school and U demographics they do it every two years and every student every two years and they found that they've weeded out a lot of uh out of District students yes Dean and I were just working on one the other day Okay uh from my point of view a board of Finance you all good you want a second crack at this right now or no all right from our point of view thanks uh appreciate it question anybody have any further issues no thank you very much thank you thank you anybody from the Board of Ed want to speak sat here and absorbed a bunch nobody wants to speak all right um let me just say before we close out um first of all thanks very much you know sometimes Tuesdays could feel like three days this this might be one especially for Eric who's been skiing um this these conversations are really really important and we're going to continue to have them um and so so thank you very much for being willing to walk into the messy Waters with us um and we look forward to continuing the conversation and the back and forth it's it's essential so thanks drive safe wait we got to adjourn who we got to adjourn Steve no other business I adjourn the board of s Board of finance will also adjourn and the Board of Ed will also adjourn

the live stream has started okay thank you um good evening isua Community students parents and staff Welcome to our regular board meeting study session I would like to call this meeting to order at 5:30 pm we're on the first item roll call board member Greer here board member benas here board member Bo here and I am here and board member adanas will not be present today so we are moving on to item 1.3 approval of the agenda do I have a motion move to approve motion by board member Greer do I have a second second board member um second by board member Bo any discussion see none colleagues can you please place your vote motion passes 4 Z if we can please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance ready begin I pledge rep of the United States of America and to the stand One Nation indivisible we're in item 2.0 items from the floor by public comments on agenda or non-agenda items do we have any cards anyone online Leica we have no hands raised online thank you we are now moving to item 2.1 we're on item excuse me we're on item uh item 3.1 approval resolution 23- 24-15 National School counseling week February 5th through the 9th 2024 Mr Chang I will turn it over to you Mr Frank Chang good evening good evening board president I'm Rodriguez Peña members of the board superintendent Ortega cabinet members and the zusa unified Community thank you board of education for the resolution recognizing our counselors and the hard work and dedication that they demonstrate I want to make sure to recognize them by name um in the audience right now at Sierra High School uh Karina Solano um at Glo Middle School Dominique Perez Steve Scott Karen yabo and Maricella Casas at our adult ed Center Daniel Sano at ausa high school Jackie H Maria Christie Calderone Joy Leon Laura Ortiz Crystal Mahia and Anna Sanchez I would also like to recognize Lori Madden who is at ausa high school she is our career center Tech um she does a lot that is very similar to counseling um supporting our students helping with the FAFSA doing College and Career Readiness activities um she's always very helpful so I just wanted to recognize hers as well our counselors advocate for our students and ensure that they can realize academic achievement and explore postsecondary opportunities all the while supporting students in their social emotional well-being counselors collaborate regularly share ideas and offer support to one another they present important course registration information develop four-year plans review grades and credits review a through G and graduation requirements review transcripts and college applications discuss post high school college or career plan plans and work with teachers to support students they make mental health referrals take risk assessments and facilitate peer mediation they lead or support parent meetings participate in IEPs ssts and also support newcomers dealing with language barriers they have had heart-to-heart talks with students parents and even staff each and every day our counselors share the message that our students can they can persevere they can go to college they can explore greater opportunities and they can do better our counselors are an invaluable asset and resource to the school for staff teachers and administrators their expertise dedication kindness and empathetic nature have always been so critically important to the success of our students thank you for the resolution recognizing National School counseling week thank you do I have a motion to adopt this resolution motion to approve resolution 20 3 24-15 motion by board member benas to have a second second second by board member Greer any discussion any um thing that my colleagues would like to say on behalf of the councelors board member Greer just just echoing the the the thoughts that that were shared um around our gratitude for all all of the work that goes on from each each of our counselors in in our schools um just just invaluable work um so thank thank you V yes I'd just like to extend um you know thank you to all the counselors and for their hard work because I'm sure it's not easy um and I'm sure that um there's a lot of sensitive information you know that's shared by the students and share it with parents but nevertheless I know it's not an easy job but I want to say thank you and I appreciate all your work thank you one remember thank you counselors for being a trusted set another set of trusted eyes and ears and an invaluable part of the school home team thank you for all you do and I um would like to thank the counselors the counselors are asset to our schools for our students tricks of a of a counselor good listeners be patient provide guidance have a sense of humor and many more I want to thank them all for going above and beyond to help our students succeed at a unified school district we are now moving on to item um 3.2 reviewing of government's PK budget proposal Mr J mul I turn president um your vote please thank you motion passes 4 Z now we'll be moving on to item 3.2 review of the government's tk12 budget proposal Mr Jamal I will turn it over to you thank you um good evening board president miss Yolanda regisa fellow board members and colleagues and staff um tonight I'm going to present um the impact of Governor new's current proposed budget that was presented in January and the impact on isua Unified School District specifically um just for contacts we utilize our same numbers that we presented in December which is our first um interim numbers so I'll be utilizing the first interim actuals Plus a projected for the um two subsequent years so Governor newon um measures a 37.9 billion budget shortfall in his budget projections um we also are showing that um The Proposal attempts to ensure that the education profession remains active career choice um the goal this year for Newsome is to stay away from cuts from public education um we are excited that we will not rece um right now it's proed we will not have to realize deferrals which means that we would the money that we're slated to receive in the subsequent years it's not that they would cut it but they would just pay us in the out years um where that becomes risky for school districts is that if you don't have enough cash in the bank you'll have a hard time making payroll during those months so here is some of the goals of the budget as I shared um the main good news is that the historic increase of proposition um 98 will continue and that's been true since 201920 fiscal year um the not so good news is the $26 billion shortfall in tax revenue that the state is having to realize due to 2223 um tax returns that have not been submitted um despite some of those um cuts the one thing that we are still happy about is that we will receive a projected Cola though that is not the cola that we uh were anticipating the 3.94% but if we're being honest the 76% Cola is actually the normal Cola that we will receive prior to covid-19 funding so here is just a depiction um so despite everything that we thought was going to happen we are actually grateful so the prop 97 um prop 98 cuts um despite this um significant drop in Revenue um Governor newon is continuing to contribute um his portion we are excited not to have the realized deferrals and some of the sweeps of the one-time funding that we have already received was projected to actually have to be returned back and so we're grateful that that is not going to be materialized here is just giving a depiction of what categorical funds that we currently receive that will um benefit from the 76 Cola um we have Child Nutrition Services special education and mandated block grant what is different from last year at this time is that this also included our preschool State preschool funding and Governor news is not going to apply the cola for this year I mean the next year nor the subsequent Year and that is because of the additional funding that he has already allocated for our preschool programs so this is just showing how our budget cycle work as as a relates to our lcf funding and the cola so we receive the cost of living adjustment so that will automatically increase our grade um grade span adjustment that will also increase the amount that we receive for supplemental concentration funding and lastly the cola will also increase our unduplicated pupil percentage rate and so now we're going to talk specifically the impact for isua so here is the change in Cola so at adopted budget um our Cola for this year was projected at 6.56% that continues to be true um at adopted budget we projected a revenue of a CO that included a cola of 3.94% that is now dropped to 76% so that is now a decrease in revenue of 3.8% projected um we were projecting to receive a cola of 3.29% that is now lower to 2.73% and then um the last subsequent year which is 2728 we projected Revenue based on a 3.23% cola and we're projected at 3.17 the reason why this is important is that every time you receive a cola and it increase the revenue that becomes your base for the subsequent out years so that means if now the cola is dropping that base that we thought we were going to receive not only impacts that actual fiscal year but it impacts the subsequent years as well because that was your based that you were building on for the next subsequent year and so this is to show the change in funding excuse me Mr Jamal yes ma'am can we ask questions as we go on yes you can I most definitely yes so just just a question you stated that the originally the col that we were anticipating for 2425 was 3.94% and that's now dropped down to 76% that is based off of numbers that that were providing Ed to us from from the governor or or this is a this these are still projections that that we're anticipating for the for the future year these are projections based off the new state dart board that that states that the cola will be at 76% and how often is that accurate this far out um it's it's never finalized right now we won't actually know the actual Cola until he signs the budget in January um but typic in June that we reive it in J I'm sorry but typically we um the cola would normally go up or down less than a percentage um so I would think the cola would either be on the low end of a 1% point something or we will realize either the 76 are a little bit less but rarely is it exactly that they project in January that we actually realize okay thank you all right and my chart is showing a different line so let me there we go it just had a chart and it's Graphics I don't know what's going on today so this is to show the change in Cola so the green is where we were at adopted budget so this was the revenue that was included in our adopted budget the yellow is where we projected our Revenue at first interim and now the red is to show how our projections of Revenue is going to change in the subsequent years due to the change in colas and just to put a dollar value so at first interim we projected a drop in revenue of $1.9 million due to the change in Cola now with the change of cola from 1% which was in first interim now to the 76 that's an additional $161,000 though 161,000 may not see material when you're looking about 72 million but remember that's compounded so that's 161 million and 24 23 2425 25 26 and it just continues to Compound on any questions here all right here this is just to show um our Revenue um I'm sorry our Ada in enrollment and only reason why this is important is because we're going to talk about our lcff funding and our lcf funding is um formulated and calculated based on our projecting enrollment so we're still using the same enrollment projections that we had during first INR so we're going to start with we're going to dissect the entire lcff calculation so this is our l CF base Grant um and so right now for 2324 we're receiving for each grade span the um dollars that's allocated here so for our TK through um third grade students we receive $9,99 per average ada8 for grades 4 through six we received $1,697 through eight that's um, 367,000 and for grades 9 through 12 is 12,15 this is based on average daily attendance so it's not if the students are enrolled we receive it it's based on their average attendance if we receive the full allocation with the cola the amounts are going to increase between $75 per Ada to $91 per Ada question yes ma'am is so the Ada so that means if if they attend a full term of during school that's there's no absences so 80 um I'm sorry let mean drop I apologize um Ada is calculated for P1 and P3 from the first day of school to April okay yes and that's how we get our average attendance okay thank you yes ma'am and also my question is so the daily attendance which also means that the child has to be in school not if they have to be in their seat in school yes ma'am body yes body's in the chair yes not uh if you have 30 kids in the class and you're missing three students then they not not in the kids are outs right I'm sorry I I I said if you we'll say if you have 30 kids in your classroom and you have three kids that are absent they're not included they're not in that ad that that means those three students that are abson does not help that calculation of average Ada that we receive for that day okay what happens so attendance is important yeah okay so what happens in remote learning I was reading the governor's budget in the education and it talked about remote learning and how now if there's emergencies they're going to allocate some time for remote learning how does that impact the Ada so it does it actually helps the Ada so um right now if there's no leg legislation I apologize passed if a student is not present they're just out but we also have independent study that we also have if a student is out or a family member and I don't want to cross over on Ed service but if a family knew they're going to be out they can um contact their School site and they can go on independent study and then we will still recoup that where we lose Ada is that if we're just absent and there's no communication to the school and there's no option of actually providing instruction so if we did virtual learning meaning you were out for more than five days or bu a state of emergency if we were able to show the cours workk um provided to that student and it's submited back in we could submit that and then recruit Ada for that I have a follow-up question to that just because I I was interested in how do we notify the parents if or do they notify us because that's what it sounds like too but um but let's say that there there is remote learning what's the length of that that they could stay on remote learning so right now there is no barrier or no limitation of remote learning um so we have the independent study and so then you will contact UM Educational Services Under the direction of Mr Paul uh director Paul and um or Mr Hernandez I apologize be formal um and then you will communicate this is how long my child would be absent they will um sign a contract uh educational contract and then it was based on the work and the time frame you're going to be out but there's no limitation you just have to communicate with their department and work with them okay perfect thank you member B thank you Mr Jamal what ada8 percentage do we use in our budget projections currently using 90% And that started as of last um fiscal year during Second interim when we realized our Ada was lower um we're doing a lot of efforts I'm partnering with educ services to increase and educate our families and our um employees of the importance of of ADA to boost that and a follow up pre pandemic what Ada percentage did we use in our budget projections 95 we were our average Ada prior to the pandemic was always 95% thank you you're welcome and I have a follow question regarding so do we um have Saturday school at this time to recoup the um students that are absent our goal every year is to offer um last year we um did have a challenge of getting those to um um to actually facilitate it um but we will be starting that again to see if we can have the interest we have to actually have the Staffing to actually hold it but every year that's one of our goals to offer and and also so um how do we count tardies if a student is tardy so many minutes does not complete a whole day do you have anything having to do with the tardies or we I would not want to speak to that I know that a tardy um You Can Be Tardy and you still will be included in an attendance um because we have a time frame of when we actually submit the attendance um so but I wouldn't want to speak to um tness does not take away from the Ada that's what I can't answer so so what I mean is if a student com to school at 11 o'clock I mean tardy I'm not talking about 8:30 or uh 30 minutes I'm just what if someone happens to come in at 11:00 and they're missing the majority of the morning just the afternoon that's not a full day is it considered a full day still you can still receive a full day of attendance if you go to the front office and have your tardiness excused and the excus are so like for example if I had to take my child to the dentist in the morning and I brought that um dentist note then that would be excused and then we'll have the full day as far as for funding for 88 yes yes ma'am yes but but okay what I'm talking about the students that just come in and they don't have an excuse so we cannot count them for the full day or do we it well that's um let me see the best way answered if we're at a secondary and we're taking attendance and it based on the time that we're reporting the attendance no it would not but at the elementary level I wouldn't know to how to answer that as far as Ada I know that if you're present if you're Mark present whether you're tardy or not we actually are able to recoup Ada even if you just came in at the last part of the day and we're able to amend and um identify that the student actually came on campus that will count towards Ada okay thank you you're welcome so here's how our base Grant um allocation works so again we have our current um 2324 base allocation when you add in the cola our new um base Grant um allocation starting from TK through 3 will be 9,944 going all the way through 9 through 12 $1,116 um the funded Ada that is the Ada based on how our funding is calculated so right now BAS B on our funded Ada our projected Revenue will be 67.6 million and this is the base Grant and the point um the part I want to emphasize is our funded Ada is based on the current um legislation that states that they use the three-year average um so it's not just this year's Ada that will impact you it's actually your Ada from the two prior years as well that's included in the formula so here's our grade span adjustment um we receive a grade grade span adjustment only for um two grade spans and that's TK through three um third grade and 9 through 12 um So based on the cola it will go from a $1,032 to $1,040 it's $8 increase and for grades 9 through 12 it's going to go from 300 um $312 to $314 and this slide is to show um the amount just on the grade span alone that we receive um based on the funded Ada were projected to rece received $2.6 million and this is looking at our lcff base Grant including the grade span adjustment so just the base Grant was 67 million now that you add in um the grade span adjustment our um allocation of Base Grant plus grce ban would be $7.2 million and we also receive supplemental concentration um supplemental concentration is offered to all all districts that have a unduplicated pupil um up which is UND duplicated pupil percentage greater than 55% um if you have that greater than 55% in addition to supplemental dollars you receive concentration dollars um we have always been uh unduplicated pupil percent greater than 85% um and so here is to show our projected um unduplicated pupil percentage as well as the projected Revenue that we slated to receive based on the current um budget from Governor New so we have for 2425 our supplemental allocation is projected as 12.5 million our concentration allocation is 12 million and then the new allocation that came two years ago which is called the con concentration add-on we're going to receive an additional $3.6 million and can you give us an example of the unduplicated students yes oh no problem that um that's our lowincome our foster youth those are populations that earn those dollars homeless and Foster use and low income okay thank you you're welcome so here's our projected Revenue including all funding from lcff with the cola so for 2425 we're projected to receive 100 million um where you see in 23 24 we're we're receiving um 106 million so that's also a drop of $6 million already projected um in 24 um 25 26 we're going down to 96.7 Mill ion all the way to 2728 the projected revenue is going to 96.5 million all this can change if the cola goes up or down in any of the subsequent years or if our Ada um increases or decreases so additional state revenue that we receive we receive lottery funds um we receive per average annual Ada um the cola has been increase for just the 24 um the cola is not being applied for State Lottery funds and so we will continue to receive $177 per um average Ada and for restricted we'll receive $72 um Lottery funds could be used for instructional materials and for the restricted Lottery It could only be used for textbooks then we have our mandated block grant Governor Newsome has allocated the 76 Cola to be applied to the mandated block grant the mandated block um grant funding is to um help districts some of the financial I'm not going to use the word burden but some of the financial cost for all the mandates um so for 2425 we're going to receive for grades K through 8 $380 and for grades 9 through2 we receive $733 um I would like to share the story to put in perspective the last mandate that we received last year was putting all the senary bins in our restrooms which cost the district thousands of dollar the mandated BL grant for that we receive 6 cents so it's not that they give us do for dollar for the cost but it's the state way of giving us something for the mandates that they put on the district here's our Cal sters and Cal Pur this is the district contribution for every employee that is in Cal Pur assignment or in a cal St assignment Cal Pur will continue to be Cal St will continue to be at 19.10% unless um that percentage change um cow purs will continue to increase um currently we're paying 67.6 8% per employee and it's projected to go all the way up to 30.3% per employee and this is what the district pays every month to um based on the gross amount that each employee earns now we're going to look at our NP so this is a chart from school Services just to give us a depiction of how the cola looks versus on our um the financial increases that we receive so we have our Cola that's coming in but we'll see that the amount of the change in revenue does not outweigh or um cover all the demands that we're going to have so if you take in consideration step and column the cost of inflation the the increase in special education cost the amount of the point 76 Cola doesn't even come close to covering that and that continues to be true in the out years and here is our projected nyp um so 20 um 20 324 continues to be the same that we presented at first interim um where we see the change is a reduction in Revenue which is the $6 um $1,000 for 2425 um in 2526 with the change in Cola we now will have to have the uh required adjustment of $756,000 um in 2627 it is projected in order to have our 3% Reserve we would have to have a reduction of $13.8 million in 27 um 28 in order to meet our 3% Reserve we would have to make an additional reduction of 1.1 um for this we have already started the work um we talked about this um previously um we are currently looking at our budget now to see things of how we can save um so we're truly looking at assignments as they become vacant we're currently looking at our current expenditures and looking at all those things because every dollar we save today will help us um realize the 13.8 million that we will need in 2627 we also know that these are all projections um so if anything changes right now as we know is our Ada is at 90% if we have a change in Ada that increased Revenue if that goes up and with that I will say thank you and see any additional questions member B hi M I had a question on um one of the previous slides that stir and Pur slide just so that we're clear on on uh slide 22 so between the 23 20 23 24 and the 2425 year the projected increase is $49,000 so that means that each year the the the increase is cumulative so if we add it up 49,000 31,000 177,000 and 62,000 that would be the the last row would be if you summ the last row that would be the cost increase compared from this year to the 27 28 year is that accurate yes ma'am and this is utilizing um the number of employees that we have today based on the salaries that they have today does it take into consideration um increase in salaries or is it static static salaries of today and static salaries throughout the next four years it is static just for the purposes of showing what the increase will be if everything remain the same this will be our projected increase thank you you're welcome what remember yeah just looking at the 2627 and seeing 13.8 million for required adjustment um I do see beginning beginning fund balance um but 31,000 of that is restricted can can you just maybe speak directly to that I know you you kind of did and said we there's there's things that we would need to do but as just as we look ahead at 20 26 27 um what what are what are some of the things that that from your perspective we should be looking toward as we prepare because that if things played out this way that would be a pretty sharp um uh need to make some some shifting so can you would you be able to speak to that yes yes I can um so one of the good things is that we have an amazing um cabinet team that was already working on this um so the first thing is as we can see is that we have a strong restricted any fund balance and so the first thing we're going to do is look at all of our current expenditures that is hitting the general fund the unrestricted side to see if there's any type of expenditures that we currently have that would actually qualify for restricted so that' be our first to see if we could shift over from unrestricted to restricted um and then the second is we're going to be looking at um some of our onetime expenditures um um sometime of um some of our Co funds that we um like the largest things are some of our deferred maintenance so what are some things that we know that we already have in our budget that we have planned that we can utilize like we have our Co funds that expire September 2024 there may be a need to say hey let's come back to board education we know we said it's going to be all agac let's look at some other things to do so we have time um because that's literally that'll be three years away um so we have time from looking at current programs we have time to change some of our operation processes um we could start doing some more energy savings things there a lot of things that we can do before we actually have to look at people you're welcome any further questions yeah I have a qu kind of a follow-up question so um I think member Bo asked about um the percentage for the Ada is 90% yes ma'am so and prior to covid it was 95% so is that just for us or is that across the board oh across the board across the board um we've seen it across the board there is a a drop in both enrollment and Ada um to the extent that chronic absenteeism um there 's a lot of assembly bills that's currently being written to see how they can help districts um with that because the um the tendance of students coming to school just cons I'm not gonna say coming to school but the reasons of not coming to school daily continues to drop since Co and I sced Latasha the other day um because there was a study that just came out that's projecting that the effects of covid on chronic absenteeism are projected to linger all all the way through 2035 um so you know if that materializes or not uh we don't know uh but it is a national pandemic uh chronic absenteeism and the spike in chronic absenteeism uh we have had pockets of glimmer of hope uh in azuza um the school sites I know Ed Services the department is working really hard on campaigns on per uh thinking about attendance not just focusing on perfect attendance but also looking at improved attendance Ence and rewarding that and um and so we do have some pockets of glimmer of hope um as I am meeting with principles and and we're looking at uh we start we are starting to see a decline um but but nonetheless compared to what it was before covid uh it is alarming it's interesting because I was listening to a psychologist today and she was talking about how the pandemic actually because people didn't go to work and so it just it cre it created like a atic effect for us as adults and I was thinking wow imagine if that study shows us going through trauma right to some to a certain extent um children how they have to cope with it you know just the change and and things like that um I also have another follow-up question on the 0.76% when the go when they approve the governor's budget if that changes then You' make the changes to to to the budget as well here yes yes and so what we'll do is that we will have a public hearing where we're um where we'll go over the adopted projected adopted budget for 2425 and we will utilize um the cola that is in the governor's enacted budget um if the cola drops lower or maybe increases um what we have is it's called the 45 day budget once the governor actually signs all school districts has 45 days to actually present another budget if it's a material change okay and then another thing I was noticing it says here that that um 98% of the general fund right then and so each pupil will get about 23, 519 per pupil that's what his budget was stipulates it says um the budget includes total funding for 1.26 eight billion 76.4 billion general fund and 50.4 billion other funds for all K12 education programs K12 for pupil funding total 17 million 653 proposition 98 general fund and 23519 per pupil so those numbers are highlighted in this yes because you were talking restricted and then the general fund yes ma'am and so what these number what our numbers are showing is our share of those numbers that you have there so that's based on um 100% Ada in Governor new's budget and the population um students serve for those for the average of California and so our numbers here are specific just for our district okay okay thank you Latasha and then just if this if this were to work normally right now this is just a proposal that the that the governor says this is the budget I'm proposing for California between now and April May there's negotiations that happen at the uh at the legislature level and then this budget that the governor proposes if it works out the way it's supposed to in May gets revised correct right based on all the negotiations and you know whatever happens because right now we're just talking about education but to to fund California right there's so many other things yes sir then based on that then that's when we get that's when they go through the process of adopting the budget if it works the way it's supposed to yes sir and so and just like how we had a workshop to learn these numbers which is called the January Governor's budget Workshop we have another Workshop that's called called the May revise where we're actually dissecting the budget to see the impact on public education as it stands in the month of May okay thank you board member B hi Mr Jal where does property tax revenue show up in our budget uh property tax comes in um from lcff so that'll be considered um our base grant funding thank you yes ma'am no further questions thank you Mr ma thank you uh we are on now item 3.0 presentation of the 2023 24 local control and accountability plan um for January update Miss Garcia Medina I will turn it over to you all right uh good evening president Rodriguez paa uh board members superintendent Ortega and cabinet and audiences with that's with us here today on this rainy day we're excited to be here with you uh to present to you the January update which we do every year around this time um we present progress uh that our district has made on our local control and accountability plan um this happens to be year three of our elcap plan so a very important year as we're reviewing progress but also thinking ahead three years and thinking about what um input we're going to receive from our educational Partners uh to create our new plan uh to establish goals uh to align metrics to the goals and also to align actions and services uh today uh as you notice there's a a little uh change in Pace for you we want to get you out of your seats we want to get you engaged with the ELC app update report um through a protocol we have uh the directors of Educational Services here that are going to help facilitate this process um we're excited to do this we're going to take a Hands-On approach um as we work through this protocol and we anticipate that this opportunity will give you some time to really dive in to each of the goals um and for you to take a look at some uh areas of strength for our district and also some areas of opportunity so we're going to take this opportunity to use this protocol also to highlight our academic success drivers which lead our instructional practices in our district uh we hope that you'll have an opportunity to participate in cognitive rigor which means that you're going to dive in you're going to have to think you're going to have to synthesize you're going to have to analyze um based on the January update report we're also going to have you participate in academic discourse and collaborative practices with the educational services team um and thought Partners uh we're going to have give you some focused questions for you to uh dialogue around um each of the goals um through this uh uh study session we hope that we will also be able to highlight instruction practices that we see in auza Unified School District classrooms and at the conclusion of of our study session we're going to highlight what those instructional practices are that we see in our classrooms uh and that hopefully you'll be able to experience here with us how does that sound fun all right that's right that's what we're doing already okay so first thing I'm going to do is I'm just going to give you an overview of what we'll be doing tonight um you'll see that there are some tables set up we have a table for each of the goals but because we're short one board member we're going to have a lucky board member that's going to have double the fun and they will be working on goal one and five together but don't worry we have an ed services team that's going to support you with that um we have uh at each table we have different uh resources for you the first thing I want to highlight is that you'll have the January update report which um includes all five goals it highlights actions and services that are tied to each of the goals metrics um and expenditures that are tied to the goals within this report um we also have the most current metric data okay so uh this has everything for you in terms of all all five goals for you to refer to um and like a a a good classroom teacher we wanted to simplify things for you so we also have your specific section pulled out um so you can refer to that specific section depending on what goal you get assigned and we also have multiple sources for you we have the lcap overview document which is a document that um summarizes synthesizes the lcap into a user friendly uh format that has um visuals graphs and all the information uh here so you're welcome to peruse in either of these um based on the goal that you're assigned okay the next thing I want to share with you is we have a not catcher so we have this uh large document um that has some guiding questions for you to think about as you're working through the report and looking at your section and assigned goal um it has a space for you to write some notes um and for you to uh think about what you will be sharing out because at the end of our time uh each uh board member will share out based on the goal that they are assigned sound good no warning right we're here to help it's going to be so much fun all right and I'm going to ask uh Mr Sanchez our director of uh who's going to support us in assigning some goals to you with our randomizer all right Mr Sanchez can you go ahead and spin the first person Mr Greer congratulations you've been assigned to goal one and five round of applause for him all right Mr Sanchez another spin and Dr Bo congratulations you will be at goal number two another spin please all right Miss Rodriguez p you'll be assigned to goal number three and let's just spin just for the fun please yes you get confetti all right there's a confetti and you will be assigned to goal number four so if I can please ask our board members to come to their table you can bring a pen highlighter that would definitely be helpful all right so we are going to give you each 10 minutes of individual work time where you can start to look at the multiple sources take a look at your not catcher this will give you some guiding questions so you're looking um at your assigned goal uh think about what do you see what stands out about that goal are there any patterns or Trends and most specifically are you can you find any areas of progress uh that we can be proud of as a district think about how we can maintain and build that progress um identify areas of opportunity and what can we do to continue to address those areas of opportunity and again just start to think about uh sharing out I'm going to ask our directors to join uh the tables so you could be available for support we will have 10 minutes for this section here ask a question what five minutes you have five minutes e two minutes two minutes seconds all right we're going to move in case you haven't started that collaborative conversation with your thought Partners we'll give you 10 minutes to continue that conversation uh feel free to ask questions make clarification observations 10 minutes conversation part they going to for that's all one yeah all hope you all right everyone that concludes our collaborative conversation I heard some great clarification questions you're going to have 10 more minutes and this 10 minutes are allocated for you to prepare what you will share with all of us based on your assigned goal so think about the areas of progress and make some suggestions on WE how we can maintain that progress uh go forward please pay attention think about areas of opportunities and how we can um improve those areas of opportunities so this is your opportunity to give us input because we can take this input as we're thinking about the next three years and our uh new elap that we need to uh write uh this will give us um some good insight and some feedback Okay so will take 10 minutes to do that we can help be nice know to hold I saw them all right as our board members make their way uh back to their seats hopefully um that gave you an opportunity to engage with the data a little deeper um and to really process it on your own uh we're going to have each of you share out um about your goals and each of you will have three minutes so for a total of 15 minutes actually Adrian you'll have six minutes all right we won't time you how about that yeah all right I'll turn it over to you for goal one all right all right so we have lcap goal one which is uh through collaborative improvement improvement driven approach a USD will provide students engaging relevant rigorous and Innovative 21st Century Learning environments by cultivating School site systems programs and practices we ensure positive safe School climate supportive of student academic growth Wellness emotional resilience and attitudes of empathy respect and acceptance within our a USD community so in looking at this when to kind of go through and starting out with areas that that we can highlight and and celebrate um just recognizing some of the trends one of the things that's noteworthy that has been across the the board and across the over the years is that the percentage of students with standard at line instruction materials you can see this on page six of the document if you're looking at it on table 1.1 that across the board there that has remained consistent that 100% of our of students um have their standards aligned instruction materials and that is a definitely a great thing and so I would want to see that continue uh a couple other highlights that we noticed as well is that um and this came through through some um just some some anecdotes anal information um shared out is that uh we've actually shifted and moved from as we can we've shifted and moved from having only one nursing staff um on our within the the district to um having four uh nursing staff members within our district and the ways that we have nurses that provide some of that care um for for our students in real time on on campuses that affects how students feel about the safety um uh that they that they have there on their campuses um another thing that was noteworthy if you look at the bottom of table 1.1 is that the PLC outcomes we see a consistent growth so the metric Target is 100% that's what we're we're aiming for and if you look under 2122 and 22 23 up through this update all of those categories have moved up to 95% and so that would be both for the monthly imp implementation as well as the percentage of plc's using data as well as a percentage leading to instructional outcomes and so some of those reflect significant shifts from 78 to 90 95% from 82 to to 95% um as we continue on our way toward 100 um an area that stood out just as a where where there's just some need for growth is looking at our facilities inspection results we have targeted 96% at being what we are hoping to arrive at and yet we're seeing that as of this the January update we're at 73% and so when looking at that and trying to understand what we are doing to address uh those things one of the most significant things that was brought up is making sure that we're informing our sites and site administrators what are the areas that are being measured I mean sometimes it's said what what gets measured gets done and so if it can be communicated this when the site inspections are taking place these are the areas that are that are are are being evaluated and so therefore are needing to be addressed uh Latasha came over and shared that they've gone over with uh site administrators looked at walked through campuses took pictures and and made observations over over various aspects of of campuses to communicate what are the things what are the expectations what are the standards uh and next week even uh there's there's going to be some uh conversation around what were those areas that were addressed last year and discussed last year to make sure that that those um targets have been hit here for for this year so there's definitely more work happening and more work to do um but we're wanting to see that we need to see that 73% hit higher much higher and much closer to the the 96 uh% uh Target all right thank you very much Round of Applause all right we'll move to goal number two good evening lcap goal number two is through a collaborative Improvement driven approach isui Unified School District will ensure engagement and Leadership growth of parents families and students we will provide opportunities for collaborative relationships supporting Student Success and Partnerships with our families and our community so to begin uh I think the the best thing that I've seen in terms of overall Trends is more kids are showing up more kids are showing up um across the grade levels um we see that as evidenced by increasing attendance and notably a decreasing chronic absenteeism percentage um at this time last year we were at 30% chronic absenteeism and snapshot this uh this month as of December we're at 20% so I think that's um notable progress and I appreciate the opportunity talking with District staff about some of the ways that we are following up directly with families um at all levels to connect with them provide resources and um have very authentic Outreach with families so the the proof is in the pudding with regard to mitigating absenteeism uh another uh shout out I'd like to give is something great is happening at Gladstone Middle School uh we talked about uh districtwide our budget is based on a 90% Ada Gladstone Middle School is consistently at or right right hovering right at 96% and it has done so consistently um so something great is happening at Middle School it's consistently outperforming all of the other sites and traditionally we we know we see higher attendance rate at elementary schools pre elementary schools are at 98% so something good is happening at Gladstone middle um I'd love to be able to dig in further to understand what is happening um especially with it being a a Consolidated Middle School um another uh shout out is the decrease in our dropout rate um also is um I think a testament to what we've been doing in terms of looking at the a through c um rates um as well as overall attendance and again going back to kids showing up we're able to get some of these results some of the areas of opportunity um I think that stood out to me we're looking at the suspension rates um spefic specifically of our African-American students at isua high school um they're at 6% um and the trend line is about 3% for other subgroups and the school overall um so knowing that we have less than 2% enrollment of African-American students um is is concerning to us um having our African-American students be over index and then the suspension rate is concerning as well as uh the suspension rate of homeless students at our two high schools at isua high school as well as at Sierra um so I'd like to better understand what's happening with those students um it may be again more resources or more um connections with um with those families and then um I think the last big area of opportunity and this is something that we've talked about as a board in terms of our overall budget position um declining enrollment and how we can frontload resources so that we're building a pipeline of students is um well I'll go back to a correlation one of the correlations that I saw was a correlation between parent involvement in decision making and uh would would parents recommend isus Unified Schools so as the um parent involvement in decision- making or parents perception of their involvement in decision- making decreases from elementary to Middle to high high school so does the percentage of parents that are recommend that would recommend isus Unified Schools um hovering at about 54% of our families at the high school level current High School families saying that they would recommend isus Unified Schools is certainly an area of opportunity um for us to focus on um as we are promoting our programs promoting our facilities promoting our achievements um if our own School Community is not willing is not comfortable for whatever reason and that's what we have to figure out to um recommend a friend um that's something we've got to figure out and I think that is uh ultimately an existential question when it comes to student enrollment um and our uh and our budget um but I I should have done the other way where I talked about areas of opportunity and then um positives um I I so I'll say it this way I really appreciate the opportunity to dig into the data uh in this way and to report it out um as a a gallery walk um because I think what we learned in school is if you can talk about it you kind of know it so I appreciate the exercise that uh you made us go through tonight oh you're welcome all right we'll move on to goal number three okay so I'm go number three through collaborative Improvement driven approach ausd will address the unique needs and ability of all students provide high quality instructions and course offerings in narrow College career Readiness gaps between students groups to ensure students are prepared for college enrollment and career transition so what stood up to me uh where we I'll start where we need our improve where I feel we need improvements is the percent of graduate earning the California state state seal of by literacy and uh 2122 it was 20% and in 2223 it's 11% % and that's a big drop and that's a concern to me um and also um I I move on to the percent of graduates completing a CTE course pass pathway in uh 2122 was 15% and 2223 was 12% but also the question lies is you know is are they including glassstone High School are they included in here you know as of now so maybe we'll see a difference if we knew that for sure right and also I feel as we discussed earlier regarding the pandemic pandemic students returning uh it seems like the test that they're taking now it's affecting them when they came in when we all returned I would say you know um and that probably has to do also with the attendance rates also so I I think we need to look deeply into the attendance because the students must understand how important is education you're not here you don't get educated and you don't have you don't take the test so then you know that's how our test scores also here shows it shows right here why um but I do have some highlights I have the AP um exam passing U the rates percent of total AP um test takers with score of higher than three the Highlight is Sierra High School our alternative school so proud of uh 2021 um excuse me 2021 yeah it was Zero %.

28% of the budget and you're sticking with the same Council or right now we have the same Council we actually have a an RFP developed and almost ready to go we're actually meeting with the purchasing agent on Friday casc to go over that and the board itself we've been in communication on that process and how long has the current Council been working for Brookfield I want to say 2012 or 2014 general council's been the district we I think that all that information is actually provided in the Q&A budget document there's links to the engagement letters that we have with the firms there's historical information that there might be 2008 and a 2014 depending on the the the firms are different the engagement years but all that information is in the Q&A document with links to the to the Dr Data thank you yep and Terell just add a letter that we were did receive I saw that as well yeah I caught my eye um M on yes it is it's it's on um it's about the $20,000 piece of that budget it's not about the bigger one the bigger one I mean from my history is mostly driven by Union negotiations right and anytime you anytime you talk about a small budget number like that when it go when there's an overage it it comes out as a large percentage an eye-catching percentage increase which is why I think it's caught some people's eye but it's not a budget driver so um I I what caught my eye in the presentation was the increasing electri cost um and uh and I know I what I heard you say Rosa was that it's higher than we expected what the engineers had told us but the but it's more efficient than uh when we had the two schools before technically yes but why why is the curve going up as much as it is that year to year so can I can I just the December bill was [Applause] $52,000 one month bill was $52,000 30,000 of that was off peak hours it makes no sense whatsoever this number even in this budget makes no sense because it's based on a 502,000 center school and I don't know Mar what was Center School and uberry combined 12,000 for the month I don't think okay I can I can speak to that um the the last bill that you saw it did have a balance forward we were going back and forth between the MBC and and and actually with constellations trying to lock in the rate so the 52,000 was for two months um so wait hold on so but this is where we're losing this because when I speak to Paul czecho 5 minutes before I walk in the meeting he tells me that's a one month bill so how are we even fighting the problem if we don't know what the the problem is if that Paul czecho doesn't know that that's a two-month bill so he has the last two he I sent him the last two months of bills one was the 52,000 which was inclusive of the last month Bill and then the balance forward and then he has the other electric bill which shows that balance forward so the last two months was 2,999 69 and then the very current recent month month was 26271 59 so that's the two months the one really big Bill that we saw that sort of set off alarm Bells was the first bill that was forwarded to us from the MBC once the school open and students were in there which was um early OCT October uh I think that bill ran through um middle of October and that was 33,44 so that was and that was one month of energy usage it did have the um um air conditioning running there was still a lot of weekend work and over you know after hours work so I think there was people in that building constantly um so we were sort of waiting to see is this a true is this a true month of electricity one month in this building we did see that the next month it came down to $2,453 that was um October to November and then like I said the last two months it's it's tend tending to level off the supply rate the problem is the supply rate that that we're using in these these bills here is um is not locked in so all the other buildings are locked in with constellation the the bill for CES was still under omg's name so when we got this bill we could not lock in with constellation because it was not under the board of education's name that has since you know we're now it's under the Board of Ed and our purchasing agent is reaching out has reached out to Constellation and we should be locking in at our at our contracted rate with constellation which is 0833 cents um you know per kilowatt hour the current rate the FL the fluctuating rate is averaging .17 cents a kilowatt hour so it is a massive um it's a a massive change in in the one month it's it's a difference of 7 $8,000 but isn't your rate in 6 months going to go to17 anyway so in six months the the rate that we used in this El in these projections was based on you know the point in time when we put this together in you know November the rates we got um that our purchasing agent received from his contact at constellation was .11 so we do so this bill or this projection for next year is using 6 months of energy at the 0.0 831 per kilowatt hour and then the second um 6 months January through June at 0.11 cents per kilowatt hour are we sure on that number because I got a different number I got 1.5 I thought because we were talking doubled Mara from point8 to remember we talk double the rate you were talking so we were that was the going rate that um um because it was off your email that um um but that was the going rate and and we we've heard the same thing on our side that that we should be getting better rates than the going rate um that we're paying we're thinking more of a 32% increase in the supply which is 0.11 point the going from 0.831 to 0.11 is about a 32% increase so sorry a I was going to say I asked a nice General you went right to the December bill I give you full no this is you and me man so also from feedback I've gotten on the fuel side the school gets beneficial rates and on the electric side the town gets beneficial rates why can't we combine them and figure out special rates for all of us why can't the town take on all the electricity for the schools and put it under our umbrella so we do have one contract for all of us for electricity we do go out for fuel together um there's some um problems this year with the fuel in that um um the school buses came on at Candlewood that are gas used to be Diesel and so we're using more than our um contracted uh contracted amount of of oil of gasoline um we're sharing the pain on that that um um so that but we are doing all of that together but are we getting the same rates across the board they get a little better rate I think it's on diesel because they've got bigger tanks that um one of the fuels they get a bigger a better rate because when they fill it they've got a a big a bigger tank so it's cheaper by a few cents yeah but oil and electricity and regular gasoline it is the same the same pricing sorry about I just don't understand that bill well I think quite frankly I'm listening to your question and it kind of goes with my question I'd love to see it all L out right on a piece of paper right um just P * Q how much usage what the rate is by time last year this year next year because to me building the new school should have had year-to-year efficiencies it may not be what we expected but it should be somehow paying off for the town because of the modernization of our utilities and it's not jumping out and I don't know if it's masked by the rates or something else but I'd love to see the usage y in the budget and how that's trending and tracking and what was hooked up by the construction budget versus not so we can show see how that behaved but somewhere somewhere in Here It just strikes me that we ought to be seeing a notable decrease in electric usage and if it's being eaten up by rates that's a different discussion right and I couldn't tell that from your chart so I can absolutely have that I actually do have that in my cheat sheet but I can share that out with the boards for sure really help absolutely the uh including the netting that was out of the construction project oh yeah flag where that happen y um the second question I had was on substitutes um you had a notable exposure this year for substitutes and into next year um and I guess the question I have is we've seen overruns of the substitute budget over many years over all eight years I was in the board we over in our substitute budget but it was often offset by the fact that teachers were on leave and we weren't paying salaries so I know you don't budget teachers that way so it was budget here and we're going to end up underrunning due to absences and leaves on the on the salary line and intended to offset the substitute costs have we budgeted the full amount of substitutes we are budgeting the full amount of substitutes um in this budget it also does have so it's interesting like the teacher turnover cuz my concern teacher turnover well but my because my concern also was well if this has been overrun historically um in the past so where is that savings coming from and what I've look what I'm understanding and I'm going back in the historical budgets is that it's probably due to teacher um leaves and vacancies right from them taking FML leave or vacancies that are not filled um and so so that's why when I when I look at when I was thinking of this teacher turnover which I know is something that we need to talk about if we keep it in or not whether we call it teacher turnover or just salary savings because of leaves and absences and teacher turnover from retirements um I think it it may be safe to keep that in there because of what you say is that we've always been able to cover that substitute cost I think it is because of those leaves and vacancies from salaries because we worried about double budget I guess and and that and that's why I think keeping it in there does alleviate that concern because while we do budget the full cost of salaries for the staff that we know to be returning at you know at this point in time um we do know that historically there has been leaves in in vacancies that we find savings from and that's different than turnover exactly so while we're not realizing the savings salary savings from turnover we haven't done that this year and and and not last year or very close um I think it's safe to leave that 200,000 in there because we will still see savings and salaries from leaves and vacancies am I clear so are you so I'm going to say it differently than you did are you advocating for a zero negative contingency for teacher turnover and call all of that for leaves and vacancies I I I don't I guess I'm not I it doesn't matter to me what it's called whether it's teacher turnover or savings from it does matter I'm sorry just so for us to understand the budget you can't keep moving around in there right so I think we need to I think we need to really be precise y on what are we assuming are we going to assume we're going to have a much higher substitute budget because grow gross spending actually have over exceeded but we've assumed this much leav in vacancies that's an offset or are we going to assume no Lees at vacancies and and kind of the net cost of of substitutes so it just struck my it struck me that the way the budget was constructed when I looked at it that somehow we were getting we weren't getting the reduction on the leaves and vacancies but we were getting the added uh cost and that that was confusing okay I I understand I I guess my thinking is that um the salaries are budgeted whole right with not any netting down due to any anticipated leaves and vacancies because we're budgeting what we know salaries will be for next year if all teachers come to school um there knowing that there is I I so I would not Advocate to put that $200,000 back into the budget for teacher turnover because even if it's not realized in turnover it's likely going to be realized in leaves and vacancies so that's what I just the way I said it advocating of a zero for teacher turnover and put all that negative -200 for leaves and vacancies of just said to me we just don't have a leaves and vacancies budget line so what's been the history on leaves and vacancies um it's last year was about 285 um it's usually anywhere from $2 to $300,000 okay a year so it does cover that overage in Subs um and so so I I I would be more than comfortable leaving that reduction of salaries in there um whether whether we actually call it salary savings from turnover and leaves in vacancies do you know what I mean like it's it's a salary reduction line um and so it is I think I think it is important to leave that in there um we probably won't based on the last two years see it in turnover but we likely will see it from leaves and vacancies and I know I know you feel like I'm conflating those two things but they're both they're both impacting salary lines but in the past two these this two-year anomaly not withstanding past we've had the the leaves and vacancies and the turnover savings so it was let me I'll just give you some of my history here and so to me it I think it makes sense what this conversation is making sense to me okay um the when you've got you talk about substitutes um there sometimes you need a substitute because the teacher's been pulled away for a day or a sick leave or something like that you're still paying their salary and you have a net incremental cost for a substitute you have other situations which actually become the bulk of the substitute cost is people taking like a maternity leave and they're out for 6 months and it's an unpaid leave so those you tend to have a substitute uh and a cost and a offsetting savings in the salary one um so what you're when you budget it historically substitutes you're really trying to deal with that first C right which is much iset incremental substitutes and if you look at all the reports we've ever done we've always over over spent the substitute line by a couple hundred, and leaves in vacancies has been in fact often a little bit more than that right because sometimes you do you don't get a sub or you can't get a sub right that's to me very different and and that's been consistent right if I remember and I'd love to see that leads in vacancies versus substitute overruns and how that l out over time because I think it helps with precise budgeting then we also have the issue of teachers who retire and get replaced and I want to go back in time we went through four or five years where we were saving hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars and you can't go back in time happening again things are just different now no I understand let me just finish my thought right we went through a period of time where we were saving hundreds of thousands of dollars and we were retiring a lot of teachers each year and we could readily hire every teacher we wanted you could get a lower band teacher and you'd have a a group of um of 50 75 teachers applying for every single job that we had right there were very few teacher shortage uh situations um that changed in Co it really did I so I was going to the current situation and the two things that changed is all the retirement that happened happened there's not a lot of new retirements coming there were some and we say I saw in the sheet that you the chart you put up we saved money on those when we replaced them the issue that I know we struggled with is what do you do with those areas where there's no teachers to be found in the specialty and and that's really hard um and so my next so that's why that's been eating up all the savings we we probably would have met the 200 if you just gone straight with retirements that shart but I saw that all those blue lines it um it ate up all of the savings so I guess John this a question for you is is it even possible to change our hiring so that we can get more like for like bands and those shortage areas or is it you got to take what you can get I guess that's the question I have just management and and I think it it's really alluded to it it it's a combination um but in the shortage areas specifically and you can see them in the chart in your packet the um finding those teachers many times their unicorns to to find a bilingual teacher in a particular language to find a physics teacher to find even Math teachers now are shortage jeries World language special education speech and language very challenging to find um particularly in the times we're now nationally and around the state in our shortage area we've got a lot of Educators at the table and people married to Educators they can tell you um we're all we're all going through this um the principles um are very deliberate with their hiring committees um as part of our process in the summertime when we're looking for new teachers or when an opening happens during the school year and we have a uh electronic platform where um uh applicants put their uh their candidacy candidacy materials and they really go through those with their committee members and who are often teacher colleagues and so forth um and other admins and do the best they can there is often one or two applicants for some of these shortages areas it is really really there is just a dir of candidates in fact in a non- shortage Area English language arts this past summer you'll see in your chart there were a couple couple uh higher paid more veteran employees teachers that were brought in because for whatever reason unbeknown to us we can't tell you why there was not a lot of newer maybe um uh less experienced teachers in the candidate pool and so we had to go with what we had so to answer your question Bob if we get a converging on less experienced teachers who we believe are the best fit in our school then honestly that's where we go um and frankly when a higher experienced te a higher uh salary step teacher comes to us Anna and I we actually do a little bit of an evil eye at each other and go let's go check the candidate pool just to We Trust our principles but we want to trust and verify and we go in there and double check and they will tell you it is very very challenging um we don't have the traditional 200 applicants for an elementary position anymore when one opens you know there there are more Elementary applicants that's more of a generalist type teacher not so specific in a shortage area but we do not get the candidates that we used to get in either kind of the inexperienced just out of college younger teachers um or even in some of these specialty areas it's getting harder and harder in those areas and it truly is an employees Market um many Educators um were a bit of a victim of our location being in Western Connecticut um our teachers many of our newer teachers actually grew up in New York went to college in New York and or came to Western and they get a job with us and what we're seeing is some of the younger teachers after a couple of years they train up they're moving back to New York where the salary is a little bit better um that's just the way New York is and they're not commuting 45 minutes or an hour and we just lost a social worker over at Candlewood Lake because of this exact situation um who we did not want to lose we love her and so that's what we're dealing with the other opposite effect we're dealing with is we're in Northern Fairfield County South it's again shortage areas every every town is facing the same thing those teachers if they can get a more competitive salary um and add a little bit to their commute and leave uh bethl or Brookfield or new town and go down to new Kanan or darianne they're making that commute um and making that decision so it's uh it's a challenging situation the great thing is about this is we are actually fully staffed with our faculty you know we're not operating so like some districts where they're they're missing three or four special ed teachers they can't find a physics teacher they're spreading kids out all over they're not running classes at the High School we're not in that situation so that's that's a real positive for us and the reason we're not is we have a very competitive uh salary uh for our faculty in Connecticut we actually through the last teacher negotiation actually um worked on consolidating the steps and a lot of work by the board on that and working with the teachers unit um but our veteran teachers that help fill those shortage areas that we brought in that are higher on the salary schedule that you'll see come from a little bit east of us typically um because there's they're getting paid a little bit less on uh east of us to the center of the state so they they're coming West like this is an opportunity in the way our teacher contract is written um we basically um bring teachers in on their experience level um so like if a teacher comes in with 13 years experience we do not have uh if we're going to bring that person in if we'd be breaching the contract if we put them on step two for example or something like that they would come you should you should follow the contract yeah you have to follow the contract so as a long answer to to to a a a complicated question with a lot of pass and if I could just add one thing one of um the goals that we have with this the HR supervisor um that we thank you that we've created and that we're looking to hire is to come up with um kind of some as creative as much as we can creative approaches to Recruitment and and retention obviously um there are some mandates that are that are requiring us there's a um increased Ed Equity educational diversity plan that has to be be put forward to the state this year so that person will also help us with that but in as part and parcel of that we're looking to get new and and interesting ideas on how to recruit I'm going to change change gears on you thank you for that that was very helpful um and it goes back to recruiting bus driver recruiting right I I see I saw in here a number of places where Transportation costs are just going up a lot right and it struck me in special ad and Athletics probably more than anything so the how much of that is driven by bus driver short um that that that impacts um athletic Transportation primarily it doesn't impact your special ed or your regular no okay no fortunately we um we have enough bus drivers to staff all of our regular bus routes to get students to and from school on a regular basis um and so we don't have any problems there which is which is fortunate the problem is the after school activities having enough drivers to to finish to complete the runs at CES and because we have buses we do have extra buses to do some um after school uh athletic runs but we don't have the drivers to fill them because all the drivers are still compete in the CES run so um Deb Jones at Allstar is has been working non-stop since the beginning of the year um I think she does have another candidate all these candidates get you know so far in the process and then something happens and they fall out or they it's just hasn't hasn't materialized um it's also important to note that even when she does get a backup driver it is important to have a backup driver um for drivers that call out that Roots need to change that we can you know get get our um our kids so how many more drivers is it going to be required to keep get us out of going to uh contract yeah I think she's I think she's diligently looking for at least three drivers and with that all then we wouldn't have to get I think it would alleviate and again we do we do have um we do use Allstar for some of our athletic Transportation it's not 100% you know outside vendors they probably do about 50% of our athletic runs um so I think with just a handful more drivers it would really alleviate that even more okay and and and she she's how many is she trying to recruit I mean I think she's actively been trying to recruit two to three since the beginning of the year that's lots of districts well trust me some of the other things I heard from other districts are much worse than we have exactly they can't even get regular bus RS we're very fortunate um you know with Deb as our Depot manager I mean as always it's so all about the people in in the right position and um we're very fortunate to have Deb who knows the town so well and so committed it's very different than some of the other stories I'm hearing with Allstar specifically uh in some of our neighboring communities so we're doing really well with that regular Transportation but is it is it hard to recruit in those drivers John what's the reason it's so hard I think it's I is it pay is it uh just people don't want to do that anymore so I did I did ask Deb um you know I said are they are your salaries competitive is it is it a lack of advertising is it a pool like what what is the issue that she that she might have any insight to um I believe that the the employees her employees through Allstar did just vote on a a new Union change so there's some shifting there I don't know if people were unhappy with previous I represent I'm making assumptions I don't know but she did she does believe that that the rates are competitive um at least for the area for uh what All-Star is paying our drivers um it's just finding interest finding the people that want to commit to doing that job and I don't know if it's um you know the hours of the job are just you're looking for a very particular person that that can fit that life that lifestyle right um but but and people get get along along the way and then you know um don't seem to be able to complete the process so okay how much of the budget increases the outside buses is that uh is that is that yeah so we're we're anticipating about 30,000 30 to $40,000 increase um in athletic transportation and it's and it's related to to those outside vendors and it's important to note that we have all made uh on on the education side of things uh made a very conscious decision in supporting our students to make sure they get to those away um competitions yeah um we we are um it's not all that common for Middle School to have sports we do have it we're fortunate enough to have it here in Brookfield and we want to make sure those those students are getting to their away away competitions and so um Mr baldman worked very very hard to make sure they have transportation as well um a number of our neighbors um who um also have Middle School sports and can't can't find drivers for their middle school sports um have just canceled or have parents driving and we're trying not to do that to our parents as well we want to support the you know having the drivers and then of course you know we have the whole High School situation so there's a there's a lot of runs I mean it just you know so we've made some conscious decisions as well that we're going to support our kids to get to their a away gam and we have a tiered layer right so Allstar who we contract with um they are certainly the most economical uh first choice if we can get our Allstar buses to take our students that's our first choice there is another vendor that is while while more expensive not astronomically more expensive so that's always the second call and and I would say more than half the time more than probably 3/4 of the time about 3/4 of the time they and even better later in this year they're able to take those runs and so we're building a a nice relationship with that vendor um and so so so half of the time we can do it with Allstar and 3/4 of the remaining time you can do with this relatively inexpensive so that one4 of 1/2 or 1/8 of the total buses is driving the $30,000 yes so it's it's cuz those for those that bus run if we have to go to that third tier Last Resort is is $1,200 per instead like instead of like 4 instead of 300 or 500 it's it's significant wowow so it's our last that's why it's always Our Last Resort yeah got it yeah um next question I'm sorry I'm going to jump around a little bit you mentioned that there's new news on the health benefits how much is that worth about 150,000 150,000 reduction yes in our in okay from what's what we see in the book okay that's why it's yeah um and then lastly on special ed uh tuition and transportation I mean you showed a dramatic curve of what that's H what's happening to that the year-to-year growth is it rates it's not the numbers of kids it what's causing the year-to-year growth is it the rate of outplacement is it the Staffing we have in District is it the um is it Staffing on buses is it bus costs what what is the underlying drivers of the year-to-year growth do want going to take yeah um so with in in regards to tuition um tuition costs there were for this current year over last year's or or over the the budgeted this year versus actuals um when we made the budget last year at this time uh we budgeted for just one less outplaced student okay but important but important to note five of that PO five students from that population that known population at the time either moved out of District or exited the program and came back to Brookfield and that saved us um it's in your chart it in the charts I saw that so so so I think that saved us about 400 uh $340,000 something like that six new students be uh became outplaced the per pupil cost for those six new students was much higher than the five so while while the number of students being outplaced only went up increased by one that cost was I think it's um $110,000 at by that that makeup of those said differently the kids moving into the program are have high needs higher needs very high needs correct and then the um in terms of the transportation those students required additional Transportation some of the students I believe that were outplaced and it's in the in the chart but um either didn't require it didn't require uh Transportation or the transportation was much less expensive um and so those that again it's that mix of students the costs were just that much higher there also were um rate changes so we went um we contracted with Ed advance for a transportation Consortium this year other area districts we figured if we all had um the same students going to similar schools we would sort of carpool right and cost share those expenses um that contract um does state that if if for any reason the rides have to then go become individualized then that the towns that are continuing those rides sh um would absorb that burden of the extra cost so we did have a number of runs for whatever reason um had to go to individual runs and in that in a case like that if it was split between two towns or even three towns we would then double or um or more uh our cost for that one particular ride so that also had an impact um there were also some instances where um um we got into the year and it was understood that a a student would need a parah you know to ride on the bus with that student so that added to that cost did we add a lot of Paras on the buses there were a handful and that is it's noted in in the um rate changes in other um section of that table um so it's it's it's a few it's not it wasn't um you know all all of the rides but it was it was enough to have an impact um on the budget for sure okay yeah all right I wanted to change gears a little bit away from the year to years but um I want to talk about the mandates right so could you there's a couple of items that you noted as mandates here that in the budget request one was the K3 literacy one was the bilingual teacher could you expand on those a little bit and uh and talk to me a little bit about for example on the K3 literacy is there any room for dealing with our timing on when we roll that out that would allow us to spread that c over years I had the same question on the so just third mandate that I had written down was the up to age 23 for special services another mandate that's there as well I'll turn the K3 reading over to Dr M sure so um as you may remember last year it was supposed to actually be implemented this P this current uh school year was the K3 um reading mandate and just as a quick uh synopsis you know this is the Mandate from the state of Connecticut where um all districts are required to m a um science of reading based program for K3 uh reading um for literacy teaching and those uh there's a menu of choices that the state is approved so the state is pre-approving these programs so it's not like you can kind of go on the open market and do research uh on your own you basically go to the state um originally it was supposed to be five or up to nine uh approved programs at this point um and there were options for for districts last year they could either submit a waiver or submit a request for for postponement or just adopt um we submitted a a request for postponement so we've already postponed for a year um and based and the way that we rolled this in is that we actually adjusted along with the program you also had to adjust your assessment tool um so we use this year to bring in a new assessment tool for our um K5 students and next year we're looking to uh roll in the new K3 reading so while there isn't actually another opportunity to say let's just say kindergarten and then first then second um what there what was made available um was were grants grant funding to uh help defay the initial cost and so we um over the summer applied for that it's called the right to read Grant um and there are a variety of um caveats associated with this grant including some professional learning throughout this year and um you know kind of obviously making sure that you're sticking with the the plan um to purchase the new the new program we are in the midst of researching out of those nine which program will best fit so we have and we've gotten some um some different proposals so we have an idea of kind of the ballpark of where we're going to land but the grant that we received based on our size of District um was $85,000 so it is taking off it is defraying the cost of what will roughly be $190 to $200,000 cost um it will take off 85 of th000 of that initial spend um and so that is that that's a benefit to you know not having submitted a waiver and not having um kind of you know decided that we're going to do it last year um and so that's kind of the work that we're into so there's actually not an opportunity right now to postpone that K3 um and in fact it would be so they don't allow for a roll out type of approach it's do it all at once that's not how this mandate has is written man it's full sale adoption are our teachers ready for change CU if I remember last time you and I had spoken this is a pretty significant teaching change yeah and I I would love for Debbie to um she's the one right in the on the front lines if she in terms of the work that we're doing but so Debbie has been our spearheading the K3 I'm sorry the right to read group so there again part of this is you have to go through a series of trainings so part of the grant is that they provide regular training monthly um for a team of of Educators and in addition to that we've been using grant money um for title 2 money for letters train for training um to help uh prepare teachers for instituting the science of reading so the great thing about that is that it is not tailored to any one particular program it is you know professional development based on science of reading um and there's a Cadre of about 21 Educators that are going through a 2-year um professional learning plan for that I don't know if you want to add anything yeah I mean our teachers are actually very eager to get a science of reading program um we're using Teachers College units of study right now k38 and um while it's has some alignment to many of the standards it is really not aligned at all with um the science of leading so we've been you know supplementing and using our open court um foundational skills and word study uh units in K5 um but as you know we have invested a lot of um you know professional learning uh time and also instructional coaching um to be able to help teach in the sence of meeting honestly for the last probably about six years so the teachers are really eager for this um new progam and in and in fact um when we were so last year um the K through five who was at that point K through four instructional coach in literacy uh Julie vaugh is the one who brought the letters training to me um while she and de Debbie were working on it because she had participated in the letters training prior I think about when you first did it about six years ago right um and you know just looking down kind of the pike of all of this um so uh because she thought it was such valuable training and really set set everybody up so um it would allow her to again kind of push into that that ongoing embedded professional learning as instructional coach but everybody be speaking the same same language um in the s of reading approach okay how about the uh thank you sure um how about the uh uh bilingual teacher sure so um there is a statute in Connecticut that if a school has 20 students who speak the same home language they must the following year develop a bilingual program in that particular language um two years ago I think here in town um we had at Huckleberry umu enough students speaking Spanish as their home language where we had to bring in a um multi a bilingual teacher excuse me specific to Spanish um that population is way over 20 now at C somewhere in the range of 40 plus students so we have that program up and running knowing we were getting ready to consolidate to um Candlewood Lake there was a chance this year that Under One Roof we would have um we hit that threshold 20 of students speaking Portuguese and as it turned out on October 1st we did our census and we literally landed it on 20 and I did ask Katherine Our World Language coordinator sure it's not 19 and she said no it's 20 and so um we for next year have to have a bilingual program in Portuguese and so we're looking for a part-time teacher now is that an incremental requirement or is it in replacement for the ELA teachers that we have can you can you guys just swap in one to the other it's a special certification it's a special certific very special certification and they have to speak that particular language so in this case it'd be Portuguese and they have to have the bilingual certification as well um we going talk about a shortage area to find that the the Spanish speaking bilingual teacher um we were very lucky we had a real Pro come to us a veteran teacher from Waterberry two years ago who's been with us now and is's doing a heck of job so it's really hard to find those folks okay so it's it's a shortage area at the state yet they're making it a mandate yes okay and it's just just as John said but just to clarify it's based on that October one attendance corrent um report for this current year so even if we are below 20 students next year which we probably won't be but just let's say we were we still are required to offer because they go on the year before but you can't substitute out a Ela teacher it's not a one there's not a chance for a one to one type of swap it's a truly incremental is there a certain proficiency that the students have to reach before they graduate or is it just set on that number of this is a Portuguese at home speaking family and there there that's why we have our um the specifically certified teachers there are specific assessments that they have to pass to be exited from the program um differently than bilingual or multilingual Learners one of the charts that uh Wendy spoke to showed 16 more in October of this year 16 more students um that qualify as multilingual Learners uh in our um in our schools the real number is actually 36 more students because 20 tested out wow because we're doing great work with them our staff is amazing so 20 tested out so 36 move in so really the net is 16 more so you can see the diversity of our community is really changing yeah the numbers can't can't represent that dynamism you know what I mean so it's important that people understand that story okay and the third one we talked about was was the Mandate for mandate on the 23 age 23 if I remember we had to get them to almost a 23 before or was like part of the year of age 23 I'm going to let Bill speak to this a little bit champ the bit we got to give him a little air time knew this1 22 23 that's what deal there was a a as as those of us who who've been in special education or or know education it used to be 18 to 21 was the trans I time and the exit date was the day before they turned 21 then the law changed to the day before they turned 22 the question of equity then came up of a student who turns 22 in September and has exited the day before that isn't getting the same benefit as a student who turns 22 in June and has exited the day before so when we talk about 223 really we're talking about the school year in which the student turns 22 which then impacts the the capacity of those programs it impacts the um tuition of those programs the ability of us to place them in programs that are appropriate for them and we have to kind of cast a wider net and look for that but really what it comes down to it is small history lesson it went from 21 day before they turned 21 22 the day before they turned 22 and now the year in which they turn 22 they get to finish the school year and and so my first question when the law was passed for July was so a student who turns 22 in July I thought well they they finished in June they should be all set no it was anytime after July 1st if they turn 22 they get that they get that entire school year oh my God so that's where the idea of a student could be on the verge of 23 if they turn 22 in July July 1st let's say they get that entire school year which again is a is a response to a student who turned 22 in July before would be exited the day before that but a student who turned 22 in November or March or June would get that much more service than the student from July and that caused the legislators to change the law to 22 inclusive of everybody who's 22 in that school year and these are all outplaced students no or they for us because we don't have an 18 to 22 program so we send them the Danbury if I recall and there are there are um again speaking of capacity in some cases because of this law programs that used to have a turnover during the year of a student who turned 22 in September there's now an opening there not me more that student who turned 22 in September is there for the rest of the year so a student we might want to place in the fall that capacity is not there for that particular program so we looked at other programs as well to try to find appropriate services for them but also programs now are holding on to the students by law for that entire year so there's a capacity issue it's a capacity issue born of an equity issue born of an age issue okay so so I misspoke a little bit it's not yet I misunderstood the law a little bit so it's not their third their 23rd birthday but their no I appreciate that but that year can be Bill how many how many how many students do we have in that situation roughly uh it's really not that many it might be you know it's somewhere around 10 to 15 students at any given time um and again there's a rollover of that because not every student is going to qualify for 18 to 22 services so if we look at our 365 students of of all ages with IEPs it's specific students with specific needs that might need that extra year 2 years 3 years four years and just to put a a fine point on it even though they may be eligible until that school year of 22 some students may just do a year and then they move on to let's say a community college or college or work or things so it's not that they're getting all four years but they could depending on their need and depending on but we're budgeting based on known people who are going for that year correct and and again that's a year to year just like with an annual um IEP you're assessing that every year of have they mastered their goals are they ready to go either through DDS or BRS or estate agency or outside to adult adult work or adult College that's helpful so I mean you called it out that's why I brought it up but it doesn't sound like it's a major driver to an in I mean it's variable so you never know but okay and it was implemented effectively this year July July 1 of this year so so now we're feeling the initial for the upcoming year or is it we're seeing it this year It Started From the Past July 1st 202 so we're seeing it in the current year corre and carrying it Forward got you thanks both I'm going to quit ask any questions let other people ask questions all right can we all go to this page please is it okay if our doesn't have so much writing on it next year it's how I think all right all right let's let's let talk about this he open up the meeting say we have to educate the town on higher budgets and increasing however we haven't passed the budget over 5% in 25 years at the to of Brookfield so we got to keep reality into place and people voting if you also look your increase the people needing reduced and free lunches has gone through the roofs so we are also bringing in people that can't afford 6% tax increases along the way and got to vote out of necessity so we also got got to keep in mind B ofed ask we got fire and EMS asks we got police station asks how much can we go to the town and get them to pay for and keep this reasonable this board of Finance has supported the Board of Ed immensely over the past four years since we've all pretty much been involved this is a huge ask so we're all on the same page here I was always brought up in the the budget process of you have to control what you can control you can't control what you can't control you have to squeeze down on what you can't control so looking at this if you take the number one item a mandate we can't control a mandate a mandate's put on us it is what it is we have to understand the Mandate and Bob you asked all the questions however that's something that okay before I go into this also Casey yes did you budget 100% out on all of these numbers like to the maximums pretty much in on all of these I mean like your 31 I mean uh your 31,000 for the just using it just so I understand the numbers your $31,000 for athletic Transportation which you said was driven by The Last Resort of 1% of 12200 per run that's 25 trips are you planning on that being the 25 trips this is outside of the 7 or 99% of Transportation so this is this is absolutely based on I took the schedule of I believe the first two years two two years two months of current um current athletic transportation and I I determine what percentage are we using Allstar what percentage are we using the second tier what percentage are we using the third tier I'm not telling you straight to your face right now that that that mix can't shift because it was slightly different than what the mix was in the previous year um but I tried to get as precise an estimate as I possibly could based on you know the the current mix of uh Transportation um s sources that we used at the time that this was created yes so then speaking to the budget process you've done history you've looked at this but you are new to this too absolutely so these numbers are a new process to from our old Ken knowing the numbers so this is a new look at this so some of these numbers realistically and I understand cannot be quite what they're going to land on because again your new look at this and it's hard to judge some of these so let's walk it through the Mandate we can't change a mandate line one line two can't change a mandate line three we can't change the excess cost Grant because that's the formula right Bob you looked at that formula in fact I think we both wrote to the state to get an understanding of that formula uh was that was the uh the educational Equalization Grant that's a different thing than the access cost Grant but we spent a lot of time on it can't change yeah those are formulas so now we get down to the Arps or phase in uh this is something this board of Finance agreed to uh it's something that we bought into the three-year plan on this I know there is some resistance even at the board of ed level on these and what I would like to see is what is the total spend on this whole program the curricular program with the teachers uh I looked at it I'm coming up with a number of about 1.3 million so is there a structure that we can get on what the cost of this is uh again I know this is total the salaries yeah I'm just saying I don't yeah and it's also summer school and some other pieces so we could put that together I just want we're getting letters from the public about this I know two of your board of ed members had questions on this and I'll go back to and so we all understand and Dan you can kick me if I'm wrong we agreed to support that Arps or Grant so this is just to understand absolutely the basis behind the whole makeup the structure of this curriculum the whole like hierarchy who's on the top the next three the next five and the next three under that because like I say I when I did quick math it came up to like 1.

agenda starting with Senate Bill 2061 relating to the school bus driver certification subsidy pilot program okay 2061 um we have to test ify superintendent [Applause] [Music] Hayashi good afternoon chair Vice chair members of the committee kurle toguro Deputy superintendent uh testifying on behalf of the Department of Education uh you have our testimony we stand on our on the written testimony which provides comments on this measure I'd like to add that we truly appreciate the legislators legislations uh attempt to to help us with the bus driver shortage and we appreciate um uh the generosities that you've provided so far we are down at one point as many as 208 drivers from from pre pandemic and so this is a challenge for all of us so we appreciate uh the efforts in front of us happy to answer any questions thank you thank you members questions oh okay let's hear all the test testimony first um thank you okay yeah thank thank you um so I appreciate where trying to get the school bus you know Big Island we've had a lot of trouble getting kids to school um and the school drivers are contracted out how is that going to fit and how does this all work currently we have uh in the current contract which which expires on 6:30 of this year we have eight bus contractors that Dy up throughout the state um and so uh by Island by route the bus providers bid for and are awarded those routes uh effective July 1st of this year we will enter into a a new contract term which would be good for up to seven years and in in that contract we will be down to three bus providers okay and so we we work with the bus providers to establish those routes that they contract for okay just I big island is big and so we have trouble getting our kids to school so thank you chair thank you question so Kurt right now you have eight BS contracts that's correct and you're saying July 1 2024 you already went out to bid and you only have three bus providers three providers so there only three that applied or only three or you negotiated with three that applied and those three did so what what happened is just a shortage of uh shortage um there's a some that will be Consolidated and some just um didn't bid okay so how does this measure help get more if you can't get them we have worked with uh the three providers uh two of them are are the largest ones in the state and we've met with the principles of each company to be assured that they have sufficient drivers to do that even the third company which is smaller uh they've assured us that um through through some kind of merger they will get more drivers uh focusing on Kawai yeah but this what does exactly so when you negotiated these contracts you didn't have this measure we didn't have this measure right so so how would this measure help yeah I mean so yeah yeah we this measure uh and that's is why we provided comments it's it's a little more complex than that a certification process for drivers uh we don't they're not our employees first of all what has helped uh the the contractors has been additional subsidies that we've provided to them so they can compensate their drivers more so as you know the CDL license is a is a process um to drive passengers you have to have a p designation and then to get schools you have an S designation on top of a p and so that's a laborious process that takes some time um but so certifying more drivers uh or attracting more drivers is really the the issue um the industry is faced with retirements as you know um and in order of importance or preference I should say um obviously driving tour buses is is what attracts most um and then school buses and then of course the special extracurricular activities but we there's no magic Silver Bullet I don't think that's going to provide just uh people to encourage we're going to have to work with these bus providers to find ways to incent this may be one but it's not the Cure All as you you're alluding to it's not okay so this is a oneye PR driver certification subsidy pilot program so how much is in in that one year what do we actually be subsidizing the dollar amount I I couldn't I don't have that at number so what would be a dollar amount that's going to attract them is what I'm trying to find out I mean you just say that we're going to have a subsidy hope we hope it's going to be a Ed I mean it has to be built sure we can get up per hour we can base it on the classes themselves we can base on up per hour uh so we we'll come back to you with that yeah but is that enough to attract them I mean are we just spinning our Wheels here if one if not enough people even apply already or want to play because they want have be tour bus drivers because they probably get tips from the turr I don't know what it is that might attract them but if you don't have the bodies to begin with I'm not sure how adding and I don't know again how much money you're going to add that all of a sudden the guy can say hey yeah now they going to get you know $25 more I'm going to go certify and be a bus driver you're right I I will get that information for you I I don't know what the magic number is to say that from per hour to a different per hour will convince them to drive um it may attract drivers that have retired uh that want to come back um but this is this is a challenging profession this is a challenging industry across as you know across the country right so I'm just trying to put my handle on what is it that we can do constructively that's going to attract The Bu D instead of just throwing stuff that we think oh yeah this might help oh yeah this might help but how do we know I mean we don't know how much they're going to get I I don't know but what level they're going to get it at one year only so you give them for one year then they're going to quit after the one year yeah it it's a multi-prong approach um it's it's a challenge to drive school buses it's a live lot of liability as you know you know it's hard to to be get security guards yes I mean we're facing the same situation so yes I just hope you guys have more more of a plan as to how we're going to get more bus drivers and just saying we're going to do a pilot project and have a certification subsidy that is not even articulated I might add Senator that this is not the deal I know but whenever they come and testifying support then you got to have reasons why you're supporting it the senator requested it because money is involved and that money could be spent better some other way that we could attract the Str we we'll come up with numbers everything can help anything can help at this point yeah that's true for everything right we don't have money to to everything can know yes yes have to prioritize further questions thank you so anyone else here wishing to testify on this bill okay if there's no further testimony we're moving on to Senate Bill 3328 relating to education clarifies the department of education's authority to oversee public education facilities and real estate development establishes the office of facilities and real estate development and the office of school operations and services repeals the school facilities Authority reorganizes the department of education's organizational structure by four facilities and real estate development okay here to testify on this measure oh Warren thank you good afternoon Sher kidani Vice chair Kim Senator Richards um my name is Warren heroi chair of the Board of Education we strongly support this measure as it provides greater Clarity regarding the department of education's authority over facilities um I'm here to answer any questions that you might have on this measure questions members yeah can we wait till all you can come back okay I have question thank you next to testify superintendent please aloh chair kidani Vice chair Kim members of the committee Kei Hayashi superintendent testifying on behalf of the Department of Education the department stands on its written testimony and support of this measure while we are aware that we have improvements to make in the area of facilities the department has already started a comprehensive review of our facilities operations to make sure we have we serve our school tools as effectively and cost efficiently as possible this internal review began late in 2023 and our overall aim is to index and manage land facilities and funding resources available for public education and to create an integrated and efficient process for putting those resources to use I am definitely committed to this effort we are working we are fortunate to be working with the Board of Education and Industry advisers to accomplish this with a sense of urgency the department does have one request that uh that is to be allowed to use its existing processes to accomplish the needed reorganization and realignment rather than having it be in um uh uh implemented through statute thank you very much for the opportunity to testify thank you members questions anyone else here to testify on this measure oh thought you were okay good afternoon chair kidani Vice chair Kim members and huchi Department of the Attorney General um just to highlight one point from our testimony the department does object to new section 302a a-b uh paragraph 6 on page 11 lines 5 through 11 this would allow the new office of facilities in real estate development to retain private counsel um as we noted in our testimony we believe the department is best suited to provide legal advice to the state clients on a broad array of matters and therefore as a general matter um state agency are best served by Deputy Attorneys General um to the extent that there are certain matters that might require attorneys with specific kind of experience the Attorney General can already appoint special Deputy Attorneys General who can address specific issues as they arise so we believe that the provision on page 11 lines 5 through1 is unnecessary um because we already have the special Deputy process um I'll be available for questions thank you thank you members questions have questions for um both the chair of and the superintend so first um superintendent mentioned something about allowing folks to implement implement this without the statute are you able to do that wasn't the statue created the uh SFA um thank you very much for the question um Vice chair U when I was testifying I was referring to um the portion of uh bill that um uh spoke to the reorganization and um so that if uh the department would be then allowed to um Implement that process through our through our own efforts you don't want us to dictate what that process we we would be very appreciative of that yes I thought you were ref to um and what about what was brought up by the Attorney General as far as realization of general counsel um I believe in that section Senator um it does refer [Applause] to see I'm sorry um on page 11 uh begins on line five uh that I believe the wording is that um we would uh independent attorney general to provide Legal Services solely in cases of uh negotiation which the Attorney General um you know lacks of sufficient expertise in that area but we we do know that they have expertise in many areas um but also we would consult um the we would uh consult and working with in conjunction with the designated uh Deputy attorney general but they already would if they don't have the expertise they could already go out and get somebody and they probably have more knowledge as to what are some of these law firms that would have that species so we in in in any situation Senate we definitely would be working with the Department of the Attorney General so if we strike this out and say that the Attorney General's office would work with you in determining if they don't have the qualifications on an outside Council that they would then employ or contract with because that money will then come out of the AG if you leave it in here you're going to be hooked for all those all those costs you realize that I didn't realize that yeah you could your own outside ccil and you guys got to pay right right yes yeah and so anyway okay um so Mr rukie are you guys aware of what I know this is not your your measure and I tend to agree with this measure to to set that straight but why we went to SFA to begin with why did the Senate I mean why did the legis go there I think like many things these adjunct agencies are created because of some failure of an existing Department not doing their job so the thinking is that let's create another one and this one puts it back Humpty Dumpty back again um it it there's a lot of uh statutory overlap between what doe is responsible for and what SFA is responsible for so this helps to clarify that or eliminate that and if you just go back in the past year and you look at what SFA has done and was funded for the 11 prek classrooms were essentially done by the doe and as of yesterday because of the resignation of the prior executive director and the naming of a new interim the department entered into a new Mo MOA with the SFA to basically say that the next cohort of 55 would be handled by the doe so as superintendent mentioned we have our own set of issues but with respect to doing pre we have essentially done it and we know how to do this so I'm not too concerned about taking on that yeah and I and I have to agree but my whole point is that we moved from dags to doe and then from doe to SFA because there was a lack of comp I don't know what it is that people were not happy with right which caused the body to decide now if if SFA is not doing it so now they go back and put it back into doe which where it was to begin with and only are we going to encounter similar I understand what you're saying that's very because I was concerned at first when we did the SFA and and you know only to come full full circle to see you know yeah I think that that's a real concern we do have issues as you have heard with lapsing and other issues but um this bill also enables us to have Clarity and it also encourages the reorganization it also specifies that we can go ahead and hire the appropriate exemp positions so you didn't have Clarity before is that what telling me that when it came over to you guys you didn't have Clarity and you didn't have the I mean you had the total sole complete control over it you could have reorganized how everywh you wanted right yeah and I'm not saying that we this is not a situation of saying here we're all good no I know but I'm just saying that it wasn't good you had all the ability to do what we're trying to do in this bill back then we created s SAA probably you know not because folks agreed to it but because people were not happy we created SFA we're not happy with SFA now it's going to go back to the same entity that could have done all of this that didn't so what are we assured of because I don't want to be here three years Som now saying we got to create another entity right we have this allows us to move forward with Clarity statutory Clarity we still have our own issues to deal with we have created the superintendent has a multiphase plan to do a comprehensive relook at overall real estate and many of the phases of the plan have begun uh we have a new as that's in charge of facilities we realize that there needs to be statutory changes like this we may need to seek County Building Permit exemptions we may need to look at Board of Education policies or doe policies uh many different things the legislature can also assist because of how capital capital Improvement budgets come as a line item so we have a specific dollar amount and with the rampid inflation that we have experienced over the last 3 four years you know we have an inadequate amount of funds to do the projects so there's many many different aspects but we recog recognize that there is a problem and we have a comprehensive approach to doing this the reorganization is very helpful um superintendent says he wants to do it within not within statute but the statute is actually saying you go ahead and do this and actually it's a creation of a new assistant superintendent of I call it ofred um you know and a secretary that's put in here appropriated for that funded so that's a good thing so we took when we created SFA did we take any positions away from thee when you had SFA um I believe Senator uh seven positions I believe seven positions from facilities um went over to we designated for SFA I I I I I will double check on that for you though so with this SFA moving over back are you inheriting back those seven positions so whatever positions that have that's contained in when the back this what how many positions does SFA have on page 32 there's a for 33 that is struck the executive director and seven full-time administrative positions of the SFA okay so you don't get any of them and you're asking for what one pos two positions secretary right okay thank you um this is probably echoing a little bit of what the senator just was talking about on the big island we had dags taking care of maintenance for most things I I don't understand why a few things were carved out like the refrigeration and the freezer un and I superintendent talked about okay we so we put this back together how does this work on the big island will this be Statewide or this be aahu and then the the neighbor Island will be different how is this going to work currently um thank you very much for the question senator for currently as we're talking with the refrigeration um we do have a service level agreement with Department of accounting and general Services which um designates whether it's do or DS that's responsible for certain repair maintenance efforts within schools um at this point that service level agreement would still be in effect uh but we definitely we be open to to discussions in relation to um overall so this would be primarily for a walk EV then uh primarily however initially I I do believe though that um we would need to continue to explore additional options uh what is really has been wonderful is that um comol Oran has uh we've been working together with between dags in the doe we've gone and visited Hawaii Island um and actually we're able to um take care of one project and assess others DS has been a very valued partner in that effort um and we look forward to expanding on uh uh that relationship not only on Hawaii island and the build on the successes on Kawai and um but also address the issues on Moi okay so specifically the Y Maya elementary school has a refrigeration freezer problem that's responsibility of doe not dags yes that's a 2017 distinction so where are we going to be with this is this going to be delayed cuz that's really need to get going great um I I can speak with you offline on that Senator um I do believe that we are moving on that project it is essential and we did talk about it um it has been a long time um I'll I'll be the first to admit that it is unacceptable for what has happened at way and we are working as quickly as we can to remedy that situation make it right okay well it's not just for one minute we're talking about the school Statewide yes and making sure that because we had this we we don't need to bring up the CIP lapsing but this is stuff we got to get going because this is for the the the kids so all right thank you chair I one more question yes um just a follow up on that so this measure only applies to SFA which only applies to O AFU correct because all the neighbor Islands fall under dag still for so or no this will take the whole state um so I believe for repair maintenance um efforts it is between DS and Department of Education uh when we looking at this overall overall um support uh with should this bill pass or hopefully this bill does pass then um that support would be extended not only on aahu but also to the neighbor Islands in relation to CIP and um ENT maintenance is still fall under D under D yes at this point I believe so yes okay so this bill does not check my my understanding of the bill is that the fun functions that SFA has goes over to the doe so that's primarily prek and there's some teacher housing that has really not yet got off the ground change the dag situation yes so I just want to the second thing I have is that educational facility and real estate Development Special fund so this is a new fund but I believe Senator we're asking for that fund to uh move over move over so currently do you know what that fund has how much that fund has uh I I don't know the exact amount Senator but we can get that information from I have no idea but it's you know School impact fees are all in there and so so this just moves in so the school impact fees you've never touched the school impact fees correct that's yeah that's SF yeah but it used to be you guys yes you're right s it was it was with us and I believe at that time uh de had had not um leveraged those funds it went over to SFA um you know and we we're hoping that that fund does come back to the department and we would uh definitely utilize that special fund to implement uh educational educational priorities that would include as chair chair mentioned um teacher employee housing uh prek uh you know and really to support that efforts uh such like as as ready K ready Ki yes well can you guys get back as to what are the criteria for using that fund because I know that's been raised by councilman and the concern about school impact fees really relate to building of more schools and you know I'm not sure that you can use it for anything regarding regarding School needs it has to be related uh to that more facilities I think than than anything else but uh usually when you do a special fund it's got to be self- sustaining in a sense so is there going to be enough money coming in into this fund um because I know there's a move to to limit the um School impact fees from residential unit think if you look at the budget and finances comments on the special fund you know I don't think we disagree with them um there's no way that this fund is going to ever be self- sustaining given the the magnitude of what is in front of us for C so then why we why do we I think what the intent of this Bill is saying trying to say is they want us to create sub accounts in such a manner that we can account for yes you know that stuff but it does not necessarily have to be a special fund if the doe yeah if the doe were to you know be required to create as it says sub accounts Etc to so then should we change we amend this to say development of of funds within the doe instead of saying a special fund because special fund has that connotation and we have so many special funds place so I can see you know keep being accountable for these funds but if you're not going to be able to raise money and sustain it then it doesn't qualify as a special fund I I I agree with that and um I think the other thing about the special funds as it's now written it's it allows the governor to have access to those funds so you know we we may be we will put it in but we don't have full control over its use as I as I read this but budget and finance did weigh in on with comments so okay thank you so does the doe have a place to put these ones currently we can create a sub which I think is what we want to put in the B there's one one procedural thing that I just want to point out if you look at page 11 the bottom of page 10 actually there's a parenthetical four and it's talking about granting options to acquire project any project or to renew any lease and that same language is duplicated on the next page on item five exactly the same but I believe that what the intent here is in real estate you either you can grant options and you can acquire options so I think the a one is to acquire want is to purchase but that's the same thing purchase and acquir you acquire by purchase you acquire by not always somebody gives it to yeah maybe we can just put to acquire add yeah yeah purchase okay that's a good catch yeah so in the purchase situation we would not be granting we would be acquiring that option so if you put acquire acquire un purchase question MERS question so I think superintendent you know when we take a look at this bill I think it's specifically more for school facilities Authority but I think there was a you know might my question really is amongst building capacity right I think that's that's the question of day is if we give this to you is there enough capacity in the doe to to take on this additional role where we tried to give it away and you know there was the capacity give it back is their capacity and I know you've done a few things but maybe you can let us know what is what are the things that make you confident that you can fold this back in and will be successful right I know you're starting the reorg process but what what you know things should should comfort Us in knowing that you know now we bring this back it's it's going to be a different type of um you know picture that we're going to see thank you very much for that question Senator um I am confident that we would be able to um uh should we get the responsibilities back and implement this that we will be successful at it um it it it is it is a matter of um our personnel and the positions that we have and those folks that are very much committed to doing the the right work um it's part of that um moving Personnel around into the right uh seats uh so that they can implement but it's also about ensuring that we have the proper processes in place and um I think over the last several months as we've been evaluating where we are um some of those processes may have been misaligned in a bit um and but it is about us working together not only internally within the facilities um office but also working um very proactively with our schools and um identifying those areas of need and prioritizing that from the Department side being able to prioritize those projects and being able to share and communicate that um with with our partners in in in the legislature um as well as in BNF and with other schools we are looking at um processes such that we're enabling or we are organizing uh facilities that um uh we're better able to track by complex area and monitor those projects I think is one thing that's very important I we heard loud and clear uh in in uh in one of our wh in the Wham session about um some of the concerns that were raised on tracking projects and ensuring that those projects are being monitored and those are some of the changes that we're going to be putting in place um there there are a number of processes that U need to be addressed and adjusted and uh we're in the process of identifying those um I I I'll share that in the last uh two or three months I I I have learned a lot about facilities and the our successes as well as the challenges that we face and I I am very much committed to ensuring that um we do better because our schools deserve better and and our communities do and what has been happening uh cannot continue so I know you said previously that you know you you you want us to trust you in terms of how you are able to reor so are there parts of this bill that concern you that it's too prescriptive in in this in what we're writing out in creating that office or you think what's in the bill is is okay I I think it's um well when when we look as as the bill um speaks to the office of real estate development and the office of school operations and services uh that those offices um as we we've looked at internally within the department uh the office of uh facilities and operation is is is rather large right it deals with facilities as well as uh safety uh Transportation food and Etc and so so um being able to um uh being able to separate responsibilities definitely will help us do things a lot better and a lot quicker um I'm confident that as we move forward and we um continue to work with our our our folks that are currently in positions as well as um seek additional supports that's really important that we we do that and we are on that Journey also Al um it working together with our board as well as with our industry partners and getting feedback from them on how to best utilize um uh our efforts and getting feedback I think is really important CU we we know what we know but we don't know what we don't and so that's where outside supports you know can can really help us so so in the bill it's it's we're kind of locking you into those two branches then is what you're saying uh yes and I I think you know those those two branches are it's it's definitely important that um we're able to um maneuver right those the additional support assistant superintendent and secretary uh will definitely Aid Us in helping to uh distribute responsibilities uh in in the correct manner okay because this this would be the only area in statue that describes what you have to do right is or there other super assist in that or in Statue no this is so we yeah this is the um I believe this is the only area but is there special powers that they're getting that's why it would be important for it to be enshrined in statute no no so if you know if uh being given the the position is really important for us um but to uh be able to designate and maneuver is also very important within the department okay so so do you believe that we're giving you everything from SFA that was used full you know like the we gave them certain abilities that the do you know it's particularly in the housing space that we weren't doing before yes do you feel that everything's in there that you need that to to continue that CU I think that was critical new thing that we were adding in right I I believe that is important Senator um we're looking at um as we're able to develop U employee and and teacher housing uh as a recruitment and retention tool right to help support uh our um employee challenges within the department and uh that having that ability definitely will help us to move forward in the right direction okay very good thank you chair thank you thank you and I think uh we should also point out that it was also the department that did the ready cakey uh rooms rather than SFA that was asked to do it um thank you I wanted to call up the Attorney General with regard to your testimony uh I think question regarding uh testimony on the page 11 I mean the bill that AG feels it should be deleted because your office already has the ability to um support the doe yes and to the extent that we encounter something for which we don't have the appropriate expertise and we'd have the ability through the special Deputy process to go to outside Council and retain them as special Deputy Attorneys General to assist on something and we our department works with them that's something that the department already does um I think that what's in the bill is actually it's carried over from the SFA statute that certain powers that's under in um SFA statute were placed in the bill and that's something we actually testified against previously when the SFA statute was being enacted but it stayed in um so we're renewing our objection that we don't think it's appropriate to um for this new office in doe to have the ability to retain private counsil we don't think it's necessary thank you members questions and I agree thank you thank you any further questions members if not is that 328 we have one more item Senate Bill 2975 relating to education so this is regarding the qualified intern ship grant program Department did you have testimony good afternoon Senator Donnie Senator Kim and members of the committee Tammy Chun Deputy superintendent on behalf of the Department of Education we stand on our written testimony with comments thank you members questions I always wonder when you say comments what exactly is your comments versus yeah I don't know if I have your comments [Music] actually superintendent comments yes thank you yeah can you articulate it so the public watching knows what it is you guys are talking about yes sure uh the comments are that we support the opportunities um for students to have additional work-based learning opportunities they're whether they come in the form that's in the build by giving them to a nonprofit would be something the legislature could provide but we also have additional ways that students can get these internship opportunities through uh department of education programs or in partnership with other state departments such as the program that the Department of Labor and Industrial relations has for student interns so you feel that what you have is adequate uh we feel that students can always use more opportunities I think the question for us is not a matter of how much resources but the mechanism that is um proposed in this bill is to specifically uh contract with uh other organization nonprofit organizations to provide the the internships and organize the internships and you folks agree to age with that uh we would say that it could be done it but it's so we're just commenting because we said that if the legislature provided us the funding to do it we would carry it out because it provides more opportunities but it is it's not a part of the Department of education's board approved requests for budget for the work-based learning funds to come through this mechanism got so it would be more uniform or you would have more control over the all the programs take into consideration and having this adjunct program going on with the legislature funding to contracts nonprofits whereas it would be one one of the many programs that you would have that you would be able to integrate for your students is that kind of what you're saying yes Senator I believe that's what I'm saying we have a budget request in the board approved budget to support more work-based learning opportunities that would be funding to the department that we would administer in a variety of ways this bill would be specifically to um contract out to a nonprofit to organize those uh opportunities so you're saying you guys can do that you just need the money yes correct we I don't believe we need this the the statute to specifically say that we could contract out to do it thank you we don't need any new sketches thank you thank you further questions members I think that is yeah chair question for labor I guess that's you well let me if I just testify first okay Cher kadani Cher K members of Comm David Rodriguez with the Department of Labor industrial relations uh we stand by our written comments but uh note our opposition to the subminimum wage language in the bill and I'm here to answer any questions what was your opposition on I'm sorry on the subminimum uh below the language oh yeah yeah so it should uh cify with Fair Labor flsa which is $14 I'm sorry talking about the amount right corre from 12 it should be 14 correct thank you thank you and chair that was actually my question about 12 versus 14 was in the intent of doe to attract um potential employment opportunities by a sub um minimum wage and I can understand your um hesitation on a sub minimum wage but was that the intent I was curious why we're going to try and codify $12 instead of 14 so I don't know that's a doe question probably but chair I don't know if you want to get through testimony first go ahead you can answer the question since we're on the subject the yeah reasoning for the $12 versus the minimum wage we are requesting that it be raised to at least the minimum wage we did not um we don't support the subminimum wage all right thank you chair thank you is there anyone else here wishing to provide testimony EG good afternoon chair kadani Vice chair Kim members and huchi Department of the Attorney General um and I apologize if you don't have our testimony I'll be sure to send copies um after the hearing but what we noted in our testimony is that um the bill doesn't appear to have adequate standards by which the doe or the contracted thirdparty administrator is to distribute the grants so we recommend that the bill be amended to insert sufficient standards for the doe or the third party administrator to distribute the funds to eligible businesses and organizations who wish to participate in the program in our testimony we've attached draft standards um and we'd be happy to work with the committee on on amending the bill as that as needed I'm available for questions thank you question members yeah so if if this bill is not needed and the doe can do this we provide them with funding um does this is this still a concern of yours no I think we're just concerned that what's set what's created this program that's created doesn't give any definition as to how the the doe or the the nonprofit third the contracted third party administrator how they would distribute the the doe already has that stand in with their programs I understand yes they would thank you thank you loha chair Vice chair members of the committee L MO is speaking on behalf of Osa president of the Hawaii state Teachers Association he submitted a a written testimony and we support this bill and um we sent on our written testimony and I just want to mention that I have two teacher assistants in my class that volunteers at the capani medical center and I can attest that work-based learning is really really important and they're succeeding well and they want to become nurses thank you very much for the opportunity to testify thank you Aloha Cher kyani Vice chair Kim and members of the committee I'm David Sun meiro executive director of Hawaii kids can Hawai kids can stands on our written testimony and strong support of SB 2975 with a few notes work-based learning provides an opportunity for students to build their skills and Connections in collaboration with our D diverse community of local employers SP 2975 ensures that more of our employers and students can participate in these Partnerships by supporting employers especially small to medium-sized businesses with grants they can reinvest funding back into compensating interns and providing high quality supervision and training Hawaii has a number of work-based learning intermediaries that can help facilitate these grants we also note that existing internship programs through agencies like are only available to those with a high school diploma or equivalent um I will note that uh one of the reasons uh we support this bill is we have heard from local employers again the small to medium-sized businesses that unless they have an existing partnership with a school or a Career Academy uh it can be very difficult for them to offer those internship experiences so um while the doe should be praised for the work that it's already doing I do think more diverse Pathways for students to find a high quality internship that meets their interest um I think will be really valuable as we really try to get more of our kids those critical experiences by the time that they graduate uh happy to answer any questions thank you thank you David hello H chair Pani Vice chairman Kim and Senators thank you so much for having us today um Eliza talet with the Chamber of Commerce Hawaii I just want to um Echo the uh test Tony of David um with Hawai kids can we completely agree with that and would also add that this is an important opportunity for students to be involved and in a small business um and a mediumsized business and and learn about entrepreneurship as well which we also think is very important um and in relation to the doe and the AG's um amendments we we support those and completely understand where they're coming from um and so uh we um also submit a testimony and write writing I don't know if you guys got it I hope so um there was also testimony from a student um in support of this and um he is uh someone that we're working with at the Chamber of Commerce and um he's very supportive of this as well so um here to answer any questions thank you thank you members questions thank you D did you have further testimony that you want to provide thank you anyone else here wishing to to give testimony is Lauren zerbel on Zoom not present on Zoom chair I didn't see her name thank you members if there's no further questions no questions for Ken so tell me the testimony um you just heard is saying that if you don't have a relationship with doe uh it's difficult to get internships you have a comment on that response I I don't have a specific response to that I do think that uh it does take some steps to set up uh internship with between students and other organizations there's always liability and safety and training to be considered so there is some paperwork involved the intermediaries nonprofit organizations sometimes like the chamber or healthc care Association of Hawaii can be helpful in coordinating that with um businesses especially small ones I so that's useful I do think that we are able to currently contract with organizations without needing statute um to be able to do so okay and you would with the funding you would be able to reach out to more of these nonprofits and so forth and that was raised yes some of our complex areas already do have those relationships great thank you thank you further questions members if not let's go into recess all right reconvening the committee on education the recommendation of the chair is going to be to defer Senate Bill 2061 with regard to Senate Bill 3328 we are going to pass with amendments adopting the testimony of the Attorney General to repeal HRS section 8417 C paragraph 13 and also defecting the date to July 1 um is that it and yes and um also deferring Senate bill to oh okay so voting on Senate Bill 3328 uh to pass with Amendment chair votes I Vice chair votes I Senator has I Senator Richard Senator fa five eyes adoped thank you and for Senate Bill 2975 recommendation is to defer can I clarify one thing on 2061 hope that the department will get back to us as far as you know what what incentives can we do to it is Aid thank you thank you members meeting's ad journ

Monday Tuesday and Thursday Donette Corey Williams Ren cesno Christine Daton um it is recommended by the superintendent we approve this I will go ahead and make the motion to approve I'll second Mr K riches a I miss Olen hi Miss Rodriguez hi Mr Guthrie Mr Hopkins it is approved five to zero Mr K yes sir yeah I I'll read the next part on next your pay position employment I was going to read them individually oh no but I just like I normally do every meeting I'll read the explanation and my recommendation and you guys can do the individual uh by by individual uh I don't I don't I really don't mind doing each one it kind of speeds it up no that's fine but I just want to read my part okay go for explanation the following individuals are requesting employment as extra pay coaching positions my recommendation is the approval of the employment of the above individuals for the corresponding positions and know you guys can now do your uh individual appointment okay first one we're moving on to is uh Mr Lonnie guthu II for co-head baseball coach uh can I get a motion for approval I'll make the motion I'll second I'll second okay I'll let you have the second Rodney uh Miss Olsen hi hi Mr Hopkins hi Mr K which is I Miss Rodriguez I and Mr Guthrie uh we have four I one abstention is approved okay next we're moving on to Mr Jose Aron for co-head baseball coach okay can I get a motion to approve I'll make the motion I'll second Miss olssen I Mr kich is I miss Rodriguez I Mr Guthrie Mr Hopkins hi approved five to zero next we're going on to Mr David Lesco for volunteer baseball um I'll go ahead and make the motion for approval I'll second okay Rodney can have it Rodney you got this one uh Mr kenri as a i Mr Hopkins Miss Olsen hi Miss Rodriguez hi Mr Guthrie hi it is approved five to zero next is uh Eleanor Guthrie for head softball coach I'll go ahead and make the motion for approval I'll second Mr Curtis riches I miss Olen I miss Rodriguez Mr Hopkins hi Mr Guthrie approved F four to one with the abstention being the one next one is for Jennifer Guthrie for assistant softball coach I'll go ahead and make the motion for approval a second Mr Kerri is I miss olssen I uh Mr Hopkins hi Mr Rodriguez hi Mr Guthrie approved Four Eyes one abstention um next one is Mr Lonnie Alvarez for volunteer softball coach I'll go ahead and make the motion for approval I'll second Mr K is I miss Olen I Mr Hopkins hi Miss Rodriguez hi Mr Guthrie hi approve 5 to zero uh next one is for Miss Angelina Valen Suella for volunteer softball coach I'll go ahead and make motion for approval I'll second Mr kuren riches a I miss olssen I Mr Hopkins Miss Rodriguez I Mr Guthry she is approved 5 to zero okay uh we're all done with personnel items at this time we're going to go ahead and move on to Student Activities for approval of student overnight and out of state field trip for the senior class yes Mr K explanation students from the senior class reviewed the plan for the senior 5th May 2024 at our study session recommend the approval of the 2024 senior class trip okay Mr Kur will making a motion to approval I'll second Mr kurri is I miss Olen hi Mr Hopkins hi Mr Rodriguez hi Mr Guthrie hi it is approved 5 to zero okay next we're going on to uh future governing board action is there anybody that would like some future agenda items would want to do the double stuff no for next month um I don't think we do unless you just send us updated information and I don't think we need to have another meeting okay yeah that sounds good okay okay I got nothing else anybody Rodney got anything for next month no no okay all right I'm sorry Rodney did I cut you off yeah did briefly but no I have nothing for the next agenda okay okay we'll go ahead and move on to meeting adjournment I'll make the motion to adjourn this evening's meeting I will second Mr Ken Reesa I miss Olen I Mr Hopkins Mr Rodriguez hi Mr Guri we are adjourned at 1858 you guys have in front of you from Mrs C I saw that that's cute