Robbinsdale Area School Board Special Study Session - October 13, 6 p.m.

001All righty. It is 6:01 on Monday, October 13th, and we are going to start our uh work session, study session. I'm Rita Evans Becker, board chair, and we're going to go around. Whoops. But before we go around and introduce ourselves, I'm going to read the land acknowledgement. We acknowledge Robinsdale Area Schools is located on the homelands of the Dakota and Ojiway people. We recognize the painful history of genocide and forced assimilation of the indigenous inhabitants of this land. We honor and respect the many indigenous peoples who live on and hold sacred these lands. And we stand with members of these nations to fight injustice in all of its forms. We uphold the preservation of Dakota and Ojiway languages, land-based education and tribal society. Thank you. And now we are going to introduce ourselves as we

002go around the table. Rita Evans Becker, school board. Terry Stalls, superintendent. >> Renew, school board. >> Kristen Moheisel, chief financial officer. >> Anthony Williams, executive director of community education, athletics, and activities. >> Caroline Long, school board. >> Morin Mullen, director of facilities and operations. Bob McDall, assistant superintendent. >> Amy O'Harn, executive director of human resources school board. >> Aviva Hillbrand, school board. >> Connect to school board. >> Thank you. And Olson, executive assistant to the superintendent of the school board. >> Thank you. And generally, we have the people up there as long as there's not like hundreds. So, we'll go that way to that. >> Um, Annie Schmidt. I'm a district parent. I have a child at C and at Fair Crystal and also have one at >> Annie Hansenberg. I am also a parent

003and I was on the team. >> Uh Katie Middlestat, a parent of a early adventurist uh child and um a community member and on the vision team as well. Brienne F, community member, parent, vision team member. Will Howard community member activities director of Roseville High School? >> Thank you for being here. All righty, let's get on for our purpose and our agenda. I'm going to turn it right over to our superintendent, Microsoft. >> Excellent. Thank you very much. And uh reading the land acknowledgement was certainly fitting always um especially today on Indigenous People's Day. So, thank you for that. Um the purpose of our study sessions and even this special study session is um for board members, administrators to come together to share information um and tonight we'll be engaging in a lot of conversations

004about the statutory operating plan um and a bit about the reimagine 2030 work as well um as we continue to support the board, provide information to the board in the decision- making that they're ultimately going to need to make at the board table. Um so as we look at the board working document that we have in every study session so that um we're really transparent with the roles of the school board as well as how tonight's specific agenda fits into that. Um you'll note uh the highlights fall under the board's governance role of the operation um of oversight. specifically. Uh, one of the tasks that we've known the board needed to do this year was to approve the statutory operating debt plan. Um, and then also the other piece that they'll be taking a look

005at this evening, y'all will, is monitoring and using enrollment trends to plan strategically for current and future facilities, staffing, and budget decisions. So again, this fits in the board's govern role of operational performance oversight and organizational direction. Um, as we begin tonight, just want to give a a bit of context um um as we think about the agenda for tonight. So, I'm going to use the language of some of the board developments that y'all have used um with Dr. Dave Webb and the IROD process. So, uh the I stands for information. So, today y'all have gotten a lot of information. Um we received a lot of information from the vision team. Uh this is the first time the board is going to have an opportunity to share and discuss some of that information. Um you

006also have received some information from uh the administration for tonight's um for tonight's study session. Uh there were a few additional questions that came um last week. There was a question I believe around open enrollment numbers. We've provided that information to y'all tonight as well as a few additional questions that came in from board members um over the weekend. and we provided that information to you all midafter afternoonish. So if you haven't gotten a chance to look at that email, there's a lot more uh information that was requested at that time. So for the next couple of hours or however long the board wants to engage, um we're going to start with uh some of your reactions and having a chance for a board discussion um around your re reactions and reflections to the vision

007team recommendations. Um, we had to put an offer out if the board had any questions for vision team members. That was something that was discussed at the board table a few uh weeks ago. I think the night actually uh se September 23rd when the uh recommendations came forward. There weren't any questions at this point. Um I'm confident the offer stands with members from the vision team that if at there is a time in the future that board members would like some vision team members um present to to answer questions, they'd be happy to do that. Um so tonight we get a chance to hear some of your reactions around that. Um, we also want to be sure that we give board members a chance to share some of your insights and your thoughts as you

008have heard recommendations about vision 20. What else have you been thinking about yourself? So, I did uh put the offer out uh to board members to give you some time to reflect and think over the weekend and be prepared if you have any thoughts and insights that you'd like to share regarding um uh your thinking around vision. Um after that after that discussion with the board and that's kind of more of the vision forward in that there might be some statutory operating debt thinking and some conversation specific around site consolidation but we're really um providing some space in this opening hour or so just to be able to react to what you've heard because the board hasn't gotten the chance to do that. And then we'll back up a bit back to um the immediate

009decision making that the board uh needs to make in the next couple of months around the statutory operating debt plan including um starting to look at some of the considerations around site consolidation. So again provided a lot of data uh for you to take a look at. We'll certainly walk you through answer questions and provide additional context around that. We'll review the timeline. We'll review the extended timeline. Really that why again we want to ground the board and our entire community in understanding why we're here and why we're having these conversations and why ultimately the board is in a position to make these decisions. Um with that then that data will provide additional information for y'all as we take a look at um moving forward toward eventually some options for consideration around that site's um

010consolidation. Um, it's our goal by the end of our time together tonight for the board ultimately to to be in a place where you've been able to ask questions, um, seek additional information that you might need so that you are prepared and we are actually have direction and are prepared to work between now and next Monday night and to come forward with some potential options um, for discussion. So, with that rather long introduction, um I just want to open up some space for you all to uh what have you been mulling over since September 23rd where we heard um some visions, uh recommendations from a community team that has worked for for eight months. So, what are some of your reactions, reflections, and then ultimately as we have this conversation, what are other um ideas

011and thoughts that you've had along the way that may be different, maybe similar to what you've heard from the community? >> This is our chance. Any hands to talk about reactions? people. >> Well, um, couple reactions, nothing real long or in depth because as we go through this process, I'm interested in the information that we receive in detail and then getting into the report kind of that way. So, um, but I really felt that the report was very, very, very thorough. Um I felt that um the folks that put together the report and went through the experience uh experienced the emotion of it experienced points of reality. Uh I think it was a very experience-based sort of uh process over eight months and therefore I was really impressed with that. It wasn't just people sitting

012in a room and crunching numbers which is what we didn't have. But where I went to uh in this whole thing was the the what sort of dreams did I not see in it. I mean and I haven't seen any of the details of all of this. So, I'm just going to put out my one dream as we move forward with this. And I would like to see us do something that we we know is a problem for teachers, and that is new teachers coming into the profession. How can you best keep them? How can you tie them to your district? And I'm going to throw out that I would really love to see us utilize excess space as housing for new teachers, especially those teachers in their first five years because I because from

013my understanding, you really don't get paid well in those first five years. And um if we could help with housing, uh I think that we could help. I think that's part of the revolution of how do we move forward in education. Um because we live in a society where no one can even afford to rent a house or an apartment. Uh and and if you can find one, maybe you're halfway around, you know, very far away from where you work. So that's going that's my dream in this that we might even have the space to do something way out of the box, which is look to recruit new teachers coming in by uh providing them with housing in those first five years. So and and that's it. I I just look forward to getting through

014the process. I'm really uh pleased uh with what I saw and uh what I'm hearing right now from people in the community where I live is uh a lot of wow, it's about time. It's about time we come up with a plan. We needed a plan. So, I'm not even really finding any resistance uh uh out there with people. So, good job, team. >> Thank you. Anyone else have a reaction or their own vision that they'd like to speak on? >> Dr. Bass, do you >> Well, I um would um I would really like to see um and I have not seen options and that's kind of what I'm used to reacting to. So, one of the things I'm hoping that we will get is um a couple of different scenarios. We actually have one

015scenario presented to us and my comments to the vision team haven't really changed from the time I sent them the other day and that is I appreciate the effort they put into it. I think that given the scope I I came to learn that they had a scope within which they were to function. So within the scope they have there are many it kind of precludes the opportunity to have a lot of different options in in my opinion uh because they're only looking at a certain set of data it's not a criticism that's an observation and so based on that end uh I'm thinking about this process and hoping that that this process will yield some options because only one option or vision has been promoted. it uh and I think that the the numbers

016that might go along with other visions um should be produced because it's only then when you really get the full scope of what might or might not be possible and so I'm looking forward to receiving that kind of information and many of my comments and questions that I had I had about eight and um the questions that I have have been answered in are not in totality. I feel like it's an iterative process. So that's also an observation, not necessarily a criticism, but it's a a statement about the the current state of the information that I feel like I have. And so um it will inform the final vision, the final product. So without those kinds of inputs, it's pretty hard to get to a final project. And for me also um besides the uh

017regular routine and expected things that one does when you are facing statutory operating debt the mechanics that I'm sure you're working on those mechanics are independent of anything we have to do except review it and make a decision about if there are some decision points what are they so I'm not so worried about the statutory operating debt because the department of education kind of has a formula and we have to follow But how that intersects with the future of this district, I'm keenly interested in um and to and that's why I say options because um we have before us any number of different options that might come forward and uh many of the good ideas that came through in the vision team's work. um that's good kind of foundational for what community is feeling and

018thinking and they've shared that with us. So that will be a foundation but the walls need to be put up. There are no walls without the dollars without the you know looking at the geographic layout without the board factoring the demographic trends and the capacity we current have and the cost of any different option. the board has to have all of that information to make a decision. uh you know the eight months that the vision team had we don't have that runway we have we're already midocctober November December in the midst of um holiday season that is a reality and so in order to make a good decision that will serve this district in the long term that is our And so in order for us to do our job then and for me and

019I'll just speak for myself in order for me to do my job that's the kind of data that I that I'm looking for. And thank you for sending the answers to some of my questions superintendent. They really kind of have to do with capacity with numbers with buildings and where we are. And one of the the questions I had specifically had to do with uh any vision that looked at the future in terms of elementary because I mentioned the future the future of this district with regard to the offering that we have at elementary level. If we're going to build something state-of-the-art, build to the future. That's my thought. And if we build to the future, which we need to do, all of those concerns that we have about the margins at the edges of

020our district geographically, the loss of students that we are having across the system, and the good programs that we have that can be programmatic engines, those are all of the kind of thoughts that are in my world. And so, um, you know, so I don't have a lot of specificity as I talk about this, but I just want, you know, I'm just being transparent about where I'm coming from. And I actually printed up a couple of the the questions and the answers that I received. No, I'll stick them over here. Just one page. Community can have it. Do whatever because it's not a secret. This community owns this district. Not seven board members, not the administration. It's the community. And so, uh, I'm happy with being accountable to the community and hearing what the community

021has to say. And a a community of 10 thou or 100,000 people, it's important to have our listening ears open and to have two-way communication and to talk about the things that we need to have. So, um, that's that's kind of the things that I've been thinking about. Quite a bit of time to think about it. So, that's kind of where I'm at. leave room for others if they have other thoughts. >> Thank you, Director Bats. Other reactions or visions from other board members? >> Well, I I've been doing a lot of thinking and I' I've done some research. I I have a I have a lot of reluctance about the idea of one big high school, you know. Um really in some of the research I've seen, an ideal high school size is 4

022to 500 students. I don't know. I mean, that sounds really small to me, but um and some of the things they know is that big schools exacerbate racial inequities. They make it harder for students to develop adult relationships. it's harder to um because it's just harder for kids to cultivate those regulations when adults don't have the time. Um they can be really topheavy which then makes it in terms of administration which makes them less efficient financially. Um there's fewer opportunities for students to be involved in things because of you know just there's only so many teams and such. Um and and they're less able to be responsive to student needs because they they can't pivot as easily just because they're big organizations, right? Um, but what I've seen that is a model and I think

023it was talked about a little bit in or alluded to slightly and I and this is something I had to research a little bit but is sort of the idea of several small schools sharing a campus so that they can utilize they can share electives, they can share common spaces, right? So you can make use of some of these uh amenities, right? Um and that way though but you still have that small school environment. Um, and I would be really interested in looking into that. Uh, and then that keeps the benefit of the small schools, right, where the kids get those adult relationships. They get those opportunities. They they um they get the opportunity to um to rise up and be seen and be connected to adults, but they don't have any of those, you

024know, kind of downsides of being in the big school, but they get the upsides of the amenities, right? So they get they they can all share that cafeteria, they can share the tennis court, they can share the pool, whatever those amenities are, right? Um and they can share electives. So maybe only a few kids from each school want whatever the elective is, but there's enough critical mass to have, I don't know, a manga art class or whatever it is, right? Um so that was very interesting to me. Uh because I I am very worried about that because that's what we hear about when kids go from middle, you know, from elementary to middle school, right? The kids are getting lost. The kids are getting, you know, they don't they that's the big fear you hear

025from parents. That's what you see. That was why I didn't want my kids to go to a giant high school, right? So that was one fear and then was backed up a little bit by the research. Although I would say the research is not definitive by any means. It kind of goes both ways. um it it can slice locally depending on your kid and and everything else. Um the the other thing is you know as I was listening to parents from C during the listening hour who came because they were predominantly parents from C the other night. Um, one of the things that really struck me is one parent said, you know, my kid was in another um, Ardale school and I was asked to come read. They asked parents to come read and I

026was the only one who came to read. And then now I'm at C and every parent wants to come read. And that's exactly that both the beauty and the problem with with these magnet schools, right? these magnet schools pull involved parents because now I can guarantee you at this the original elementary school this parent was at now when the teacher asks for something to read nobody's coming to read right so we're pulling involved parents out of these elementary schools and we're we're exacerbating inequities so we're making the system worse for everybody else by creating these madness schools and I understand also at the same time as a parent, right? Do what's best for your individual child. So, I'm trying to say that that this is both the beauty and the problem with with magnet schools.

027And I want to acknowledge that as a parent, you're going to always do what's best for your kid. And I don't blame anybody who does that because you should. But at the same time, as a system, we're creating a system where we're siphoning off engaged parents and putting them all in one place and then leaving other schools without support systems. So, how do we create these schools where where parents want to stay and be involved and we're not siphoning them off, right? And one of the thoughts I had was, for example, um Minnetonka has um they don't have a Spanish immersion school, but they do have Spanish taught at all their elementary schools, right? which I think is kind of where we're going with the the whole um arts and and engineering piece, but um

028at all the schools, but I think we really need to be thoughtful about how do we engage people and help how do we help them understand and want to be in their home schools and connecting and building their home community. And so I don't know what the answer is to that, but I wanted to put that out there in the space that that is the downside of magnet schools. It it pulls people it it magnetizes it pulls all these really engaged families out of our other schools. And I think we really need to think about how do we get people back into our other schools and spread those wonderful engaged parents like that one dad who wanted to read in his kids class and back into our other schools. So that was just a musing

029of mine that's not but I'm I'm I'm particularly concerned about the high school piece right now. I >> passing okay. >> Yes. Um, so I guess one of the things I wrote down some of my thoughts here that I had was so it calls for closures and cuts, but it doesn't say anything about staffing reductions and that would be inevitable with closures in right sizing buildings. It's almost certainly that we would have a reduction in force. So what will those uh cuts to staffing look like? Um, and students and families care about the humans that work with their students. Um, and so when we're thinking about, you know, staffing, you know, what's the plan, um, that we'll have that, uh, meets and addresses the needs of these relationships that have been built between families, students,

030and the staff that work with those kids. And what would this mean for um developing um something where we can create that without having to move families around too much and staff around too much. I did like you know that we are not talking about increasing class sizes. I think class sizes is a definite draw for families and having smaller class sizes is definitely something that I hear all over states that parents want for their kids. Um I'm just wondering too about um suggestions or uh giving a window of opportunity for upfront investments that might need to be put into place. Um would this be over the next five years? you know, um what's the state of urgency for implementing it or all of it or parts of it? Um also wondering if uh what

031will happen with the excess sites? Will they be liquidated? Um will closing sites be sold off, torn down, repurposed? Um how do we prevent charter schools from using these buildings if they are sold? I'm also curious about um how this plan would be supported by local government entities and any community partnerships with our district. Um to what extent can those relationships provide some of the needed upfront investments um redrawing enrollment boundaries. So, I've had some experience with this being a Minneapolis public school teacher and uh redrawing those uh boundaries that can be very personal for families, for the community. Um and it's very sensitive and it can also often feel very divisive too. That is one thing that I noticed in Minneapolis that at times the redrawing of boundaries felt very divisive. So uh the

032plan calls for this um change specifically. So what are the core elements um to that plan for drawing those boundaries and what are the implications of this and what will these implications uh be for students, families and community members whose boundaries will change. So, open enrollment um depending on which schools are closed, we might see a decrease in students coming from surrounding districts. So, I I'm wondering too, what are the surrounding districts of our different schools and what might that impact be on those surrounding schools uh with their neighboring districts? Um how will we be improving um community understanding of the plan? Um so the report also called for transparency. So how are we going to be forthcoming about the information so that the core elements of the plan are understood by the community um

033that there is transparency um and giving the community time to critique whatever this plan might be. Um, and how are we going to be forthcoming and give it and give the information in a way where there's no surprises with next steps or outcomes for the community. So, two of the priorities that were named in the report, I would definitely like more specific detail on each of those priorities along with who's going to lead each of those priorities. So that's where I'm am right now. There's still a lot of questions that I feel need to be answered. >> Which priorities? >> All the priorities in the report. >> Is it two of the priorities? >> Of the priorities named in the report. >> Thank you. >> Yep. For now. Okay. My turn. So I was very

034interested in what the visioning team had to say, appreciated their work, loved the ideas, and so my vision is kind of a mashup of my experience as a principal in a school that drew hundreds and hundreds of kids from Robinsdale and my experience I went to the University of Helsinki and studied Finnish schools while I was a principal. So some of the ideas are there. So some of this might stick to the wall and some might not. But this is what I'm thinking for the leaner version of the leaner better version of 281. Spanish immersion grows. I mean we're if we're keeping it then we need to grow it. Also I would like to see Spanish in every elementary school starting with kindergarten or prek. Love love love having preschool in every elementary school. When

035I was an early childhood teacher in the district we had it in several schools and then it kind of moved away from that. It should be in all the home schools and we should have parent education in each of the elementary schools also. That way we get them from birth being a member of their community school in their neighborhood school. Love the stronger arts and innovation um idea. And I also think we need um let's see a strong community in all of our neighborhoods. uh prek and parent education in every building. I would like to see gardens and outdoor spaces at every school prek through 12. Uh summer adventure club can monitor some of the guards or parent or community volunteers which brings me to much more community. We need a focus on getting more

036community volunteers in and community partnerships and partnerships with corporations in the community. I think that that will make us stronger. the hands-on experiential learning, big time. Uh, more breaks, more recess, more out time, outside time for all of the kids. Um, all school community meetings, building the community feeling of the schools in Finland. Every day at every school, the entire school has the morning meeting all together and it only lasts like 15 minutes. Also, they go outside every hour for a certain amount of time. but uh enhanced community partnerships and volunteers. I'd like to see one of the closed buildings uh turned over to community ed as a community center. Uh you could do it for rentals and also bringing in money community theater or community ed classes. Let's see. I would like to see

037uh partnerships with farmers, one or more for farm-totable in our schools and then the school gardens also providing food in our schools. Um and um trees planted at our school might include palm trees or other fruit trees. Focus community building work at every school. All of the schools um maybe have parentmies also just much more community building to make the parents and the families feel really involved and it's in their neighborhood school and so it builds the community. U build on what we're doing with community schools and freedom schools ideas that works. I love the idea of multi-age classrooms and teachers looping. Uh we probably need some people to do grant writing. Let's see. uh question about one high school. I have a granddaughter that will be coming to high school here and I don't

038want her to get lost and so I want to be sure that there's like eithermies or schools or something that makes her feel like she's not getting lost in a big school. Let's see. I think that's those are some of my musings. Okay. Anybody else have something coming to their minds or any reactions or anything that they were going to say and you didn't before we move on? >> Yes. um to your point of view, but my um grandchildren are up at Centennial uh school, Circle Pines playing, and their model is to not have the magnet schools or any of those schools. And they have one high school, their elementary schools feed into the middle school, feed them to the high school, high school. And they're in a model where in elementary school they have

039their core studies and then if you have an interest in C or STEM or arts or whatever they introduce all of the students to that in more like after school afternoon programming and then they have different chapters different this. So by the time they come out of elementary school they've been well exposed to the various disciplines beyond core learning. Then when they get into middle school, it's again the morning time uh uh core learning and then afternoon by um either by quarter or semester is when they can go into C or go into a STEM program or go into an arts program. So again, it's further exploration of all of them. So they're they haven't slotted these kids into one specific school for the course of their career. And then when they get into high

040school, then they because I have a ninth grader at Centennial High School, they have a robust uh performing arts schools, they have um again the same model where you've got the core classes. Uh and then again more of a pathway into the other classes. So that my grandkids have been there since kindergarten. And of course, even though they may not be in all their classes with their kids, now they've met a whole bunch of people on the way to middle school and to high school. And um their their buildings are are and the other thing that was the other thing their lunch program even in uh for the high school is three lunch periods a week. Uh they these kids don't have to eat in the cafeteria. There are various different lunch clubs set up

041and they can go to various different club things. They're not allowed to go into the gym with food which we un which my grandson understood. Um, so they go off and have various pods of different things and do whatever. So again, what I've been really impressed with with their education has been the constant exposure to the various disciplines and and yet with concentration as they get a little older into high school. So um I'm not as concerned. I I'm watching it in action up in Centennial High up in the Centennial School District and I'm not sure how big they are, but they're also a Baldridge quality school system that was implemented years ago. So, um um yeah, that's just an experience that I've had >> as I don't know if I mentioned it. I really

042support us being an artisan innovation district. I think that and I agree about magnet schools. I mean, if we could have those parents and their home schools being the leaders, they would have the community and they would I mean, whatever school you're at, you love the teachers and great pass. >> I don't know. Um, we've all had a chance. Okay. Uh so, um I like the idea about um a magnet district, not magnet schools, a magnet district, because if we have to close some of the we have to close something. And so if we have to close something and if we're really looking toward being a magnet district, I think many of some of the ideas that I've heard some directors talk about tonight can be infused into that if that's deliberate. Uh but I

043really do think that the buildings that remain, the elementaryaries that remain, I I don't necessarily agree with growing um Spanish immersion. uh you know because I feel like if we really are going to invest in really trying to make we have a couple of different models that are quite robust that have been quite successful if we're really going to invest in those and support them being feeders institutions of knowledge or um professional development for their colleagues. Um I think that I heard director Long talk about some um crosspollinization because the training that people need to have some of those other kinds of things some of the remaining elementaryaries that we have will have to be training fear/schools this vision I have you know not real reality but I think some of the ideas that we've

044heard about can be infused into those those programs that we do have and uh that remain you know once we do what we're going to do. Uh close what we need to close because something's going to close, you know, and when it does, uh I really think it's important to have uh some some when I think about the um the arts and innovation, what I think about is an arts math environment magnets district because all of those things are vital to the future of the students. I think without some stuff sub substance and I think I've said this before to innovation uh innovation can be what anybody thinks and I think if we have the specificity around those things that are currently right now till things change again they're the required kinds of things that

045schools need to produce according to what the state the fed and everybody else says there are standards that have to be met they may change shift and all of that but in order to have that to have an anchor for staff So they're not trying to figure out how am I going to be innovative. Being very clear about what's expected and then preparing the staff to actually be able to meet those requirements is going to be vital because if there's not a curriculum for innovation and without a curriculum for innovation, if there's no organizing principles around that, it's just a crapshoot. And uh and I don't think that I think we owe our teachers more than that. We're already throwing a lot of them to say we're going to have this new arts and innovation,

046you know, M. We don't really have know what that is. But I I agree with many of the comments that some directors have said about this large size of a of a school, how can we even within the ones if we have the two high schools remaining, how can we pod have a notion of pods or something like that? We've done schools in the schools for years that that's known. Um, so I mean those are the kinds of things I think some of the good ideas that people have talked about can be infused but I think the overarching vision really kind of has to be clarified because innovation what does that mean? I think it has to be I like the ideas about environment. Let's just call it out. I love the ideas about math.

047Let's just call it out. You know because math and science go hand in hand. if we're going to do the arts, they can inform all of that. But I think without a clearcut framework around it, um I worry that we'll be get lost. And particularly when I look at um you know, and everybody says, "Don't look at scores. Don't look at scores." Well, everybody else is looking at scores and many people are moving out of this district because they're saying, "We don't like those scores." You know, I mean, I wish they wouldn't, but but they are, you know. So I think we do have to look at scores. I think we do have to look at academics. I think we do have to have a curriculum and ri and rigor. Uh and how we do

048that is having choosing a framework that is understood by everybody. Ambiguity is not where it's at. Where you know I I like a lot of the great ideas we bring around this table. how you know I don't know how feasible they are that's where you guys come in you know but uh >> yeah um I think for me in that framework of the IRO I'm still in that information gathering stage um I went to a high school that was fairly large but we had streams like uh director Viva was saying. So even though the freshman class may be 300 students within that 300 we had sub classes within that uh s so nobody will well none of us felt lost right so to me having one high school I think is a very welcoming idea

049depending on how we frame it and what we do within that program um I'm just curious what the community is thinking right now so a lot of good ideas have been thrown around and I think they will all work but how do we finance all of that what is the community willing to take so I I seem to be a little quiet because I'm still in that information gathering stage I want to hear more from that survey once it comes back to us and also what is the administration thinking with this information that is in front of us right we if one high school doesn't work then what can we stay with the status scope. It's not working. So, what are the alternatives can we come up with? Right? Those are things that I'm thinking

050about right now. >> Thank you. >> Anybody any last words from anybody else? >> And that's where options comes in. That's why I love the the idea of options. This scenario, that scenario, the other scenario, and what's the cost? So, that's why options are important. Absolutely. >> Yeah. The I mean the other thing I just want to say too about I think one of the things I'd really like to focus on as we have the opportunity to do this is to interrupt inequities right because we know that there are inequities between our high schools between our right between different parts of our district and we have a really good opportunity to to interrupt those. Um, and the other thing too about big schools is that there tend to just be more behavior issues, right? Because

051you have more people in in a space, more behavior issues because you have more people in a space, right? And then that just lends itself to more interactions that can turn you. Um, and so that's another thing that came out of some of that research I did. But I really think that we have a really great opportunity to kind of reset some of those inequities that have been perpetuated by the way our and and some of it's just the demographics of the way it's spread out. Right. >> Right. Just but by the socioeconomic status of the different communities in our district but also the way lines have been drawn. So >> thank you. All right. It's back to you. Well, thank you for that. And I know there's a lot of pieces of this. We

052heard a lot um from our community team. Director Bou, I too am interested to see when we get that community survey back because we've got a lot of options. And at the end of the day, what's going to really make the difference here is what the board and the community decide that they want this district to be. We know from an administrative lens that we need to rightsize the district and make sure that we are financially stable. I'm also surrounded by a team who is seeking instructional excellence and opportunities and making sure just like all of you making sure that our kids have the absolute best possible education and opportunities so that they can determine what it is in their lives that they want to do um to live really happy and productive lives. So,

053there's lots of things that are going to come out. Director Basset, I appreciate um you coming around around the need clarity with that. We we don't know yet. That's part of what all of this is. We've got some recommendations um that the community group uh after a whole lot of study brought back to y'all and said, "Here's here's what we think as we look at the study, as we look at enrollment, um some things that we think would be really good to consider moving forward." And then I think that question of we know that we can't do some of this without a bond. And that's maybe where some of those options are going to come in after we see the community survey to say, okay, if this, if not this. And again, it's going to

054depend, you know, on what the board ultimately decides, what our community decides. But um I think the other thing that I just heard from you all along with a whole lot of amazing things that I want our kids to be engaged in is what are some immediate decisions and what some of that data that we need to make those. Director Basset a lot of your questions as you said really were about some of these continued enrollment. You know we're focusing for tonight a lot on our actual schools. you brought us back to um the Crystal Learning Center, New Hope Learning Center, some of those things as well, which certainly are a part of our entire portfolio. So, thank you. Um this conversation is far from over. Uh so, it's going to be really important for

055us as we continue to build options and bring things forward that we hear what you're thinking so that we start knowing collectively what will be supported at this table and what won't be. So, thank you very much for that. Um, with that, I think I'm going to turn it over to uh Dr. McDow um as he takes us through some of the phase one and brings us back to decisions for the next two months, not beyond that. So, we got to we got to go out a few years, months, now we're going to pull you back in for some immediate uh work. Thanks. Thank you. Well, good evening everyone. Um, I'm going to start with right right in that theme, short-term timeline. This is a slide you've seen many times. You're going to see it,

056I would imagine, in every every work that we do with you here in the next. It's just so that we have an idea where are we in this process. And we while we do need to dream and be focusing on what can be right in front of us is the statutory operating debt plan which is driving a reduction in our current footprint as part of that solution part of that long longer plan. How does that work? And so as you can see here our circle identifier hasn't changed much since last week. It's in exactly the same spot because we're going to go slow to go fast and try to get you chunks of information. So that hopefully as even though we have a shortterm timeline, the conversation is going to feel like tonight where we

057have information, we can chew on it, can bring it back, we can revisit it and kind of go as slow as we need to go, but as fast as we need to go in order to to get that January 31st document done. So here's where we are tonight. The goal tonight is has always been and still is to present more detailed information towards recommendations. The idea and our hope is that a week from now on the 20th we will be able to present some of what director Basset is asking for which are some initial options uh based on what we know at this point in time to start chewing up. Um by no means are they the final pieces but they are the beginning up. We got to start somewhere um to start getting those

058what do we like, what don't we like, what do we need, what don't we need, what jives, what doesn't, all of that. And you'll see that the timeline really hasn't changed from the last time we put this up there. We're leading up to that January 20th vote. Um, we are hoping that we can by November 24th, have the board here informing the public, here's what we think we need to do and prepare the public for public input and then the board taking that final as far as the extended timeline. So, this is where it blends together. So where it blends together on that extended timeline, we're in the first part of the first phase of the timeline, right? Work on the SOD plan. We're going to work on reducing this footprint through initial building closures

059or consolidations or reconfigurations. That highlighted piece is where we are tonight. The rest of that enlarged font is where we're moving next. You can see all the rest of the faces are still really small. And that's because we have to figure this first part out before we really can dig in and consider what can be laid off. With all of that, we talked a lot this last week administratively and we thought it was really important just to put this out in this space. We are aware and we need to anticipate that this work, no matter what district we're in, is complex. It's clunky and it is at best imperfect. It just is. This is this isn't necessarily the most fun work for most people. Um, but it's work that has to be done in order

060to figure out how do we get to the dreaming stage. We are going to along the way as decisions are even proposed as potential decisions for different groups to feel this experience of the pond is shrinking, my building is going away, my program is going away. That's going to happen. Um and so we need to plan for that. As um was brought out earlier, we need to prepare for what it is that people are going to experience. We're also going to have competing interests as we throw out options as a board, as an administration. People will begin voicing what they think, what they feel, what they want, what they don't want, and they'll come to the table with that. And so, we just need to be ready for that and open to listening. I've heard

061that word a couple times tonight. Opening to listening to what are they really telling us and what is the stuff that we need to take back and maybe retool. Some of those statements are we need to anticipate are pretty strong, right? It's going to it's going to get strong and that's okay. Everything has a trade-off. Everything will have a trade-off. Um there will be direct and indirect impacts to students through this process. Right? it and to the point of while it might be someone's school that is impacted by this decision, it's definitely going to impact a person that this decision this person knows and they're going to have a conversation at church, at the grocery store. There's going to be direct impact, direct impacts to everyone as we go through this process and it will

062impact staffing, programming, and boundaries in addition to just physical plans. It will. That said, as you just spent almost the last hour, it's the ground setting for possibilities and opportunities. We have to keep that in mind and keep that that eye on the prize that it is the way to get to the possibilities and opportunities even though we have to do part of it as part of. So why are we focusing just on consolidations for 2627? One, we've already established the fact that we have to reduce our footprint. We we have much more space than what we need. Um and our enrollment is not what it used to be and the enrollment projection doesn't create a picture of us getting larger. The second is that this is a major financial piece of working out the

063S so plan. If we accept those two pieces of why we need to focus on 26 and 7, then we can push those through two filters. One is how do we make decisions that are not just efficient, but they're also effective, the most effective, and they don't miss the equity lens, that balance between those three. Everything we do, we should be pushing through that filter. Does it does it make sense? And then at the same time, back to the last hour, is the decision desirable, feasible, and sustainable. Does it make sense for where we want to go? Can we actually pull it off and have a plan to get there? And will it stick once we get there and not just go away? Will it not be one of these this two shall pass scenarios?

064If we can stay focused in the next few weeks on those two items and push everything through these lenses, we'll get to something that'll make sense for the opportunities and possibilities. Just we have to work through that process. All right. So now we start to get into the meat and potatoes of it. So 2627 is the focus. Once again, as we start talking about building considerations, consolidations, closures, there's really two sets of decision points. There's primary and there's secondary. The primary has to do with capacities and utilization of current sites. Our actual enrollment, our anticipated enrollment, what are the operational costs? meaning not just what's it cost us to operate now but potential savings uh tradeoffs all that kind of stuff. What are the building conditions? Are there buildings that make sense to say no

065matter what this building has to come offline? Are there buildings where we say it's not in the best shape, but we could use it for this next phase to get us through until we get to what we want to do. Um or are there buildings that that be that building's in beautiful shape? what can we best do with it so that all the way along we don't neglect it so that at the end of this it doesn't become the worst building of the bunch we have to we have to keep that in in mind so focusing on all of our buildings and that means not just buildings that kids are in right now it's buildings like this building it's all of it and then lastly this was brought up as well location where does a

066building live what's the people of our district that that building serves Who are the population that it could serve? Does it make sense to have two buildings close together? Like all that goes into location. So those are the primary decision points when we start talking about the conversation we're going to get into tonight. And then we have all the secondary things, right? All the related stuff. We take this building offline. Now we got boundary issues. Does it make sense? Do we want kids crossing that highway because now there's not a building over here, right? All of that that comes into it. Transportation folds into that. Will it impact bus routes? Will it decrease bus routes? Demographics. We don't want to create racially isolated schools. We don't want to do something that will impact balance and

067demographics for our kids. Future decisions. Our plan for 2627 has to be a solid plan regardless of whether we pull off a bond or we don't pull off a bond. It has to be sustainable without that mechanism for future funding because we can't guarantee that will happen. And so we can't make closures and changes that then will leave us in a worse situation if a referendum doesn't pass. So, so we have to stay really close and tight around this 26 27 decision. And that leads into the impacts and trade-offs. What we'll do in the future. Um, will we be leaving anyone out? Will we be impacting unintentional boundaries outside of the district and losing more than what we would anticipate to lose because of a hard decision. And then finally, the program. We don't want

068to take ourselves out of a building that then's going to cause us to have to put more money into another building because we now can't do the programming we want. So that's that's what's living behind the scenes, all of that stuff. And it will be our job to try and keep all of this in front of all of you as we move forward. And hopefully these primary and secondary decisions will start sparking some qu more questions that you have. The what about this? What about this? What about this? Because there's always the potential if when we're working on it day in and day out, we don't look at something. We might be too close to it. To guard against that at every chance we can, we administratively have developed a guiding change document for working

069through this process. So I want to share this with you and there's a copy in this binder so that you can see here's how we are guiding our work. The current reality is nothing new to all of you. It's where we are right now, right? And it goes through everything from statutory operating debt to declining enrollment to the fact that the reimagined vision 2030 team has given a presentation that you've talked about. We also went through unacceptable means. We aren't going to propose a plan that will intentionally create inequities in learning opportunities. We're not going to give we we won't do that to you. We will not create recommendations that are not sustainable, feasible, or desirable. From our perspective, we will do our best to bring stuff to you that meets that criteria. We will

070not go against anything that's related to state statute as we bring that to you. We will not be single u singles agenda driven. We're going to take a comprehensive look at all of it. It might not seem like that sometimes and if not, we're going to ask you to help us help us explain better our thinking behind it because we just maybe need to communicate better. We will minimize the number of transitions students experience. That's a goal, right? We will keep that at the forefront um as we work through this. And lastly, I want the board to hear this and the community to hear this. We will not change elementary magnet programming for 2627. None of our recommendations will come to this table that will include magnet school programming changing. That doesn't mean that you

071might not see a recommendation where the programming stays and it's in this building, but it moves to a different building, but it stays intact. Our our recommendations, we've decided it it's too much to take on in a single year, even if that is an idea. So, it won't be a recommendation from us. And the results are not a whole lot different than what we've talked about already. So I won't read through all of those, but really it's efficiency, its effectiveness, it's all that goes into it. It's a plan that'll be desirable, feasible, and sustainable past 2627 regardless of what happens next. Questions before I move on? >> Yeah. Um so uh it's maybe better suited to a different part of the conversation has to do with the finances but as part of the mix um

072perhaps at the end of SOD or some place on the way um factoring the fund balance >> yesment of the fund balance a fund balance concept target And ultimately SOD will also lead to a pathway to try to achieve a certain amount of unbalance. >> I think that >> that's kind of a question. >> Yeah. And I think it goes back to the question I heard at the last board meeting where where uh director bass you were asking about where does the crisscross happen and I think that's where the crisscross between finance advisory committee and this work starts to make sense at some point. The point at which I don't know it just it it will start to take shape uh because they both are interconnected. All right. Want to help me pass this out?

073I may Let's make sure board members for sure get one. Superintendent Stal has one. I may have to have a couple people share. >> I love you share. >> You don't have to. >> Okay. So, what we all that I just talked to, what we thought would be most helpful utilizing the IROD format is how can we give you now the next layer of information? And the next layer of information is really the information that we're currently working off of to try and get to you the first round of what our potential options are for next week cuz truth be told we're not coming up with them between now and Monday. We've been working on them for a couple weeks as we've been watching everything going on. Um so what I want for you to

074do is um should have given myself one Um what I want to do is we will walk through uh each one of these documents so we can ask some questions along the way but we really want this to start becoming your binder of information as we go through this process so you can mark it up ask questions do what you need to in addition um it's also a piece for you to say hey it'd be really nice for us if you have this document to put that give that to us next time. So, the first document you'll turn to is the district map. Uh, it's a map that includes all of our buildings, including our non-instructional building. So, you can kind of get a visual representation as we're talking through um, all that we're talking

075through. The second is the guiding change document that I just went through. And then on the third document, we start getting into the nuts and bolts. So, the third document is something we're calling our condition sheet, long-term facility maintenance sheet. You heard the vision 2030 team rep uh talk about they went through a they got explained conditions study. They went through an activity on conditions and what it would cost and all that kind of thing. The sheet that you have in front of you really represents that. And what I will do is turn it over to Meen and Kristen to kind of talk through some of the details on it. >> I'm happy to. >> Okay. Thank you. Um when looking at the total cost and identified by the school uh by the school building,

076you can see what we're looking at and you know through the materials that have been presented to you in different ways. the long-term facility maintenance plan that you saw this summer. Um, you know, we have we have building repair needs. Um, we have not necessarily kept up with what those needs are. Some some needs uh qualify for long-term facility maintenance. Uh, others maybe necessarily don't if we need to do any sort of remodeling of a space. Anyway, when looking at the columns, you will see the urgent needs, which is year one and two. Those should be the needs that we're addressing immediately. We've put some of those on pause um to afford the board the opportunity to make some school decisions because we don't want to um invest a significant dollar amount into a building

077that we might not be using um in the near term. Then the next column is the high needs the 3 to five years of okay we can maybe go a few years but eventually we're going to need address to address it and then the intermediate needs. So essentially from today for the next 10 years you can see the estimated total needs in each particular building. Now again I'd like to reiterate this doesn't mean any sort of a reconfiguration of a classroom space. If um you're you don't get flex learning you don't get different things. This is this is where our facilities are today and what needs to be addressed. Uh you can also see um the dollar amounts of of any given building. And honestly, I'd love to go by the color coding with the

078green meaning, you know, at least a quick representation. Maybe it isn't um scary or uh high need versus as you work your way through um the degrees of red. And that kind of highlights what we are looking at as far as it's a significant dollar amount um and how quickly we need that significant dollar amount to get us up to speed. Uh I will say at least as far as the vision committee talked about and then you do have the square footage uh per building. This was also presented to the vision committee and there was conversation um you know interesting as far as it relates to the condition assessment. It talked about capacity with those buildings. And then it was also um construction costs like do you make an investment that you know maybe is

079greater than your total square footage uh dollars per square foot now, but then you get a reprieve, right? Like because you're if you were to put up a new space or a new building, um theoretically speaking, you're going to go a decade or greater without having to make any repairs. um into a new space. And so how does that um maybe what you're looking at in today's dollar of dollars per square foot versus what you get in taking that offline um over the course of 10 years with any sort of new construction. So that is what this material represents and the expert the true facility expert in the room um Marine Mullen is here if you have specific questions otherwise that is the intent of this document what we're using to help us say what

080are we looking at as far as buildings versus putting money into uh versus that's a large investment and are we better off just starting over Um, I hate to ask, but is there a comprehensive list behind this that shows the work? I'm sure there is. Absolutely. And will we have access to that? >> Um, every school has a list um divided um by mechanical, electrical, applying, um, interior finishes, um, envelope, site, grounds. >> Wasn't that a document that we got? >> Was that the Nexus report? >> Yes. >> And it's broken out by the schools per school. >> Okay. Thank you. And then excuse me, is it broken out by urgent need, high need, and interven? >> Yes, it is. Yeah, it's um it's laid out um horizontally rather than vertically, but yes, from two

081years, three to five. >> I have that document. Thanks, >> yes. My question is just and this could be ballpark, but new construction square footage is that like >> 450. >> Thank you. Just just to have a >> 450 per square foot. That's really helpful >> regardless whether it's high school or elementary. uh high well I would say that would be the average the high school depending on what you're building what you're you know uh depending on the amenity excuse me the amenities of the high school it might you might be closer to five um an elementary school that maybe doesn't have the amenities you're not putting in a large auditorium you're not you know like when I talk amenities you're closer to five if you have a large auditorium going in or you have

082something like that going in >> but the range of costs elementary center Four to five. >> Let's say four to five. >> Okay. >> $400 to $500 a square foot >> for for either >> for >> I get Yes. Elementary is going to be less just because they don't have the amenities. But yes, >> does that take into account the increase in price because of the tariffs? >> That would be to to best estimate of today's cost. That's what they're going with. That is costs going today. >> Okay. Because those costs are going up. >> Absolutely. But wood is really cheap right now. >> I heard that on NPR. The market crashing on wood. >> But with that person >> repair cost up too. >> That's it. >> Yep. And so I see that Newport

083Learning Center has right now zero urgent need. So that means it's kind of good as it is right now. >> Oh yeah. Well, I mean that looks really obvious, but >> I'm not taking okay >> today. But then in three to five years, Sonis is like >> so that's so you're getting into that's how we look at as we're coming up with options. We're looking at kind of the cross-section that Kristen talking a little bit about director talked about a little bit that in our best guess does it make more sense to keep and repair long-term or plan for keeping and replacing >> or consolidating too with the idea that potentially you replace and dream about what could be in its place with a referendum. Um, so that's how the numbers come into play for

084us. And it all what else happens is as we look at the costs and we're talking with Marine and her team is really down to what is it that needs to be fixed, right? We had a conversation that just this past week if it's the entire HVAC system in a building that's a lot different than parking lot >> or things like that that have to happen with buildings. Um, if it's something that impacts weathering in terms of roof or windows or that's a whole different ballgame than we need to replace the floor of the gym. Uh, so we're taking that type of stuff into account as we're making recommendations. Not that it's perfect, but from our perspective, that's if we bring something to you, that's the stuff that we're looking for. >> Well, and I

085will continue to muddy the water through this whole process because that clearly is my job in this on this team is to make it challenging. Um, when you're looking at our footprint as it lives today, our our and and depending on what the survey says and what the board decides, our pool of dollars won't necessarily change. But as our footprint shrinks, the availability per site goes up, right? Because if you have a bank balance and you say, "Okay, at least as far as when you're looking at facility maintenance or even LTFM or whatever that looks like, if you're concentrated, again, it can be the exact same dollar amount. You can get a lot farther on two sites with $10 million than you could on 10 sites for $10 million." Could I make one clarification to

086your question about it's saying that zero needs does not mean that we're not making zero investment. So for example, new hope learning center um we put tens of thousands of dollars into that um building since this summer in um things that have failed, things that we have needed to repair, that sort of thing. So there are needs even though that number is at zero for more of a project number than the ongoing number. That's it. >> So then um so somebody else have a question. >> Sorry. >> Um so um let's just stay with the whole boarding center for a sec because it is initially was an elementary building. Um if we're were to change to accept for example if it became a CTE campus career technical typically those kids are in high school or

087maybe late junior high maybe use some STEM maybe do some buildup but anyway so the ret the cost of retrofitting an elementary building to accommodate high school kids is a cost. Uh, I noticed when we got the information back, it seems as though our CTE offerings are scattered between Armstrong and Cooper. So, if they were consolidated, there could be some economies of scale long term and right across the street from high school unless it gets demolished. some people are talking about not me but um so I mean I I so that's the kind of information about the cost effectiveness of consolidating that program because it's got a great parking lot you know it's right across from the high school you know and so and we can't do anything with that warehouse the kind of programming

088we wanted to do for our high school kids at CTE cannot do in that warehouse no matter what happens that's a whole different equation So, um, so really what that might look like in terms of a cost and in terms of long-term investment would be a soft question. We're not there yet, so it's not a hard question, but um, if we're thinking about economies and scale, we're talking about utilizing what we have already, and we're talking about because those programs, we're not going to get rid of our all the elementary. So we'll have capacity around the district for whatever wherever the children are, whoever is at New Hope Learning Center right now receiving services. They could receive services in other elementaryaries because we have quite a few right around there. >> I'm just looking your

089way. No, I mean, you know, >> I'm I'm listening and uh hearing what you're saying. >> And I would my my initial response would be hold that thought because um can't you so like LTFM dollars, the construction dollars are like for like items and so as a dreaming idea, I think that is something to throw on the table for 2627. It would be difficult because we wouldn't have the finances to retrofit So that would be tied to whatever bonding thing we might do. >> Something like that would happen, >> but it could fit into the phase one plan if that seems to be part of the collective vision. I I have no idea what you know I mean that's just something >> it could be. That's right. And that is where so it absolutely could.

090That's where I throw up these filters and the idea that if whatever decision we this is a perfect example of if if it's a decision like that that we would make will it hold sustainable regardless if we have a referendum or not? We would just have to answer that question. >> Right. Great. It that actually works perfect to highlight that. That's why we come back to it. Thank you. ready to move on? >> I think so. Okay. The next uh page is the capacity chart. You uh this will hopefully be a little bit recognizable because this is the exact same capacity chart that we uh saw with the re-imagine 2030 recommendation document. Uh we're using this uh on purpose right now because it allows us to set a similar base. Um, and what I would

091say to this is, and I think we've mentioned this a couple times, you can look at capacity and utilization a ton of different ways. Depends upon what you want to put in as the criteria. Um, I used the example of this room. Actually, this room shows that it has a maximum of 226. However, that would mean it would be really packed and there could be no tables. If we design this room that because we wanted groups of 10 to work at group tables that capacity of the functional capacity of this room shrinks immensely but nothing changed with the room. Same thing happens in our buildings. If we have a classroom that's a regulariz classroom and we fit a regular class of third grade kids in there works great. If we move that classroom into a

092centerbased classroom that capacity drops to 10. Same size classroom capacity is now 10 because of the program that happens in there happens every all the other stuff the easiest things that that you can imagine band a band room has a much different capacity setup than a math room needs um anything like that any of your wood shops any of your automotives any of your uh CTE classes that have big pieces of equipment that might only be able to fit a certain amount of kids in the So as you look at this, this is just a grounding document and it's based on how we have things programmed now. So when you look at uh this document, so we'll take Armstrong High School and it shows you the 2425 enrollment because that's what the best information we

093had at the time of this document. You're going to get the actual enrollments later on in this packet, but the current program capacity sits just underneath that. So based on how we're programmed at that school, that would be the capacity. Someone might go, "Wait a minute, that it didn't look like it should be that tight." There is a significant number of special education classrooms in that building that take up a lot of back to the capacity. If we didn't need them for special ed, you could fit 25 more kids in each one of those class rooms. The way we're programmed, you can. So we can have a same building and have a huge capacity. Take the same building and have a really small capacity based on how we design the program. Any questions on this

094document as you have it for reference. >> Thank you for explaining the capacity capacity programming. It makes a lot more sense. And we do have um in there uh New Hope Learning Center is in there on page two just to point that out as well. >> Okay, we'll move into the >> Oh, sorry. >> Um what about the transition >> CTC? >> You want to speak to RTC capacity? I can get you that information right now. You want them to pass the RTC and for the entire site. So that's RTC and adult academic program. >> Right. Yeah. And that's is that like the crystal what is it? >> For purposes of this we did not do capacities for our least spaces but we can actually get that. I just have a quick question because I

095know for example at New Learning Center there's also offices and things like that. So when you talk about capacity is that just programming capacity? So you're not talking about the spaces that are used for offices. >> Correct. This would be for programming for the instructional parts that are going up. >> Okay. I was curious. >> That's a great question. >> That'll have to like staff. I mean there might be fewer staff but staff will have to be housed somewhere just like if this building see it needs quite a bit of repair. Um yeah people who are housed here will have to office somewhere >> and it goes both it can work both ways right you could have a building right now that has three classrooms that for some reason were turned into four office spaces

096and if you took down the walls it could be a classroom again and vice versa. You could have a school that doesn't have any office space in it and you take classrooms and you turn them into office space. >> I have one more um question that I just came up with. Um so high view can we get the capacity just can we separate it out from Samberg um and just get that capacity of what high view is and what their footprint is and what they you know that might need to be >> absolutely >> because right now the sandberg is including all of that right >> okay >> I can tell you on any any given day right now we capacity for about 200 students physically on site but we can get the capacity of

097what that that pod is as well. >> Yeah. And then so one more thing too is the virtual academy are they still doing at times onsite where students have to come on site >> Wednesday. >> Okay. So then can we know about what that capacity might be or the space utilization for that? >> Absolutely. All right, then we'll move on if there aren't any other questions. The next sheet, um, it's a little bit smaller, but it this is how we view our enrollment. These are the October one counts of enrollment, uh, for each one of our grade levels at each one of our buildings. We thought that it would be important for you to have that as you're going back and forth between capacity that you could have this at your at your fingertips. >>

098Sorry, can I go back a little bit? I just thought of something else. So part of the ALC's is you need to have a middle school component too to that. So is that anywhere in any of our plans? >> It's on our notes. >> Okay. Yeah, >> I think it's only >> 14C. It's 18 transition 18. Okay. >> 22. If no questions, we'll move on to the next one. There's been some questions about open enrollment. So, the next page is the top 15 open enrollment out districts. So you'll see it's broken down by elementary, secondary, total K12, pre Mars, and preschool. And then you'll see down the left hand side the top 15 districts that our kids open roll out to. >> As you're looking at that, Chris, can you just give us a reminder

099of statute in terms of money? Oh, you you did that at FAC the other night and I thought it was just a good reminder. >> Absolutely. Um, so the conversation that uh that we talked about at um SACE was specific to resident students or open enrolled students. And back to laws changing or formulas changing and I want to say, you know, the problem is is as as time goes on, you forget what year it happened. But certainly within the last I'll say last decade. >> Yeah. Give or take the way the funding formula used to work and it and it's and it seems to be still thought about in the world when you're not working in school finance is that referendum dollars used to be based on resident students. So whether those students actually attended

100your school or not, that's who you received those dollars on. And if an open enrollment student were to come in, you didn't get those referendum dollars for them. You got their the basic funding formula, but you didn't get the referendum dollars that our code has approved. That has changed. So now if um a resident student chooses a different district than us that is let's just say that that student goes to AIO AIO gets the credit for that student as it relates to their referendum dollars. Their community pays for it but the kid is equal to that money. Um, so same holds true for us. If we have a Minneapolis student that is choosing us, they we get the same amount of funding on an open enrollment student as we do on a student that resides

101here that is choosing to attend here with us. So it went the formula switch from who lives in your community regardless of where they attend school to who is attending your school and I don't know that that is has made its way because it used to be for a very very long time the rule the the funding formula was as such where it was who lives in your community not who you educate in your community and now it's who you educate in your community is who we collect dollars on. So, as far as funding goes, there is no difference to us between an open enrollment student and a resident student. >> So, Kristen, are you saying that the um the referendum dollars that are generated in Minneapolis, if the child comes here, the referendum revenue

102also comes here or does the >> Our referendum revenue covers that child? >> Okay. So, the So, because I think they had a higher amount, they were so Okay. So our own referendum will cover them. >> Yes. So So is it true that like if it's 10 students, let's just say 10 students are resident students and 10 students are open enrollment students, >> our community then divvies up and if it's $2,400 per student, our community pays the $2,400 per student for those 20 students. Mhm. >> If five resident students went to Minneapolis, they generate whatever Minneapolis's formula is off of those five students. >> So So it ends up being apples and apples. >> It does. >> Okay. Which is a new >> So and open enrolling brings does not cost us. It just brings

103money as if they were our own students. Well, it doesn't the I'm going to be careful of your terminology. >> Okay. >> The student generates >> the same amount of revenue. They that revenue is what gets generated within our district. When you say cost, the taxpayers pay for the students that attend our district. So the more students that attend I mean I hate to say it gets spread out in a very different way but because there's state aid also >> yes but I'm talking just the pure referendum component of it all that's how it works so so yes a student coming in that's what all students are created equal as far as the district funding is goes So another way that I think about it is that um because we talked about this when we

104were contemplating >> seeds >> if we it was different then. >> Yeah. But if you if you don't have the you don't want to just take kids if we just take kids from other buildings in our district then um and fill it up then we're going to have empty spaces behind that. In order to generate more revenue we needed to be able to allow some open enrollment into seed um to help make sure we can afford to have a seed. I mean it's the same thing really. Yeah. And so that sounds like this this new iteration may have changed that somewhat if it's apples and apples now. But um but but you're right. I don't think the general public knows that at all or has an idea about what that means. And so I think

105there are a lot of narratives out there that really aren't valid. >> Not anymore. Anyway, and I would like to say cuz I saw the look on your face like oh my gosh. I'd like to be clear that there is there is a significant amount of aid whether it be at the state at level or the federal level >> that supports those students. So it is to our advantage >> to have open enrollment students coming in because for what and we go through this with uh property taxes for the 20ome% that our local that our local levy is 80ome% isn't. and that money is coming in with the kids. But I just want to be very clear that what a student generates as it relates to basic dollars, it doesn't matter if they're open enroll

106or referendum dollars if they're open enrollment or not. who pass >> just a quick question because we have partial children listed and so is that related to ADM or um partial year or >> no that's really so unfortunately um we didn't have a great mechanism um for pulling student count. So this is based off of average daily membership and average daily membership um would indicate that you know if we have a full 167 day schedule and you know depending on that if the students started day one and ended at the very last day we get full credit. So some of these kids might have shown up in December >> partial year is it and is it weighted? >> This is not weighted. >> Oh it's not weighted it's just partial year >> correct. Okay. So

107you get an idea. Again, it's not a perfect what are what are the students in a part exact number of students going to, but you have a pretty good idea. We're going to be, you know, for Hopkins K6. Again, it's not broken out how we break out our grades with a K5, a 68, but you get an idea that we probably have somewhere in the range of 340ish students that are choosing that um for a K6 experience. I was just curious how you got >> 341.7 children. I just didn't know. I'm pretty sure I didn't know like >> the average house. What is it? The average house will produce 2 point whatever it's that's the same methodology. >> So, um going forward then that explanation with a little legend out there to tell us kind

108of what we're looking at if we we get some data that you're not here to help us. just a little legend would be helpful to kind of know what we're talking that would be good. Uh the other thing I wondered about is that this chart and I think I might have asked this question but this chart geographically when we look at our map and when we think about the outflow of our students I don't know that we could geo and it's get sophisticated to geocode you know to kind of put on the dot map and you know plot them. Um I'm wonder you know I'm wondering if if we don't have the capacity who might have the capacity to do that for us and and and I'm asking that question because I think that that

109will factor into closures and other it should in my opinion closures and other kinds of things to kind of know what what communities or what places are people migrating from us to somewhere else wherever it is um just kind of knowing what that is. So agreed. Um right now we're in a position to identify even the the our current year our 25 26 students that are choosing us e you know like we as we go through what we call as heat maps to say where are the kids coming from as they attend our building. Unfortunately it's been a bit more challenging for us to find here are the kids that reside here that are going elsewhere. That's not it. It's not as easy for us to extract right now as the kids coming in. >>

110I wonder if MDE has it. If they don't have it, they probably have a capacity because Q coding is I mean that technology is old now. >> It is. It is. But it's it it's it's getting into the the finite detail of exactly what address are they living at and then pull like that person is living there and what are they choosing for an option? Is it is it a charter? Is it a private? Is it a, you know, >> I I I guess I just wonder if if it's possible to have that kind of a visual or some kind of proximity to it so that we have an idea about where where what neighborhoods in this district are we losing. >> We recognize that that is we recognize >> shaded and colored or something.

111>> Yeah, we're we're doing our best to try to find the best method to get that information because we agree that it is valuable. we're just it's a little it's presenting challenges for us right now. >> And then one last thing I was going to say is that um looking at this chart and just that that great explanation that really you just gave about how open enrollment has changed. I think that's a very powerful and important message that we should start messaging immediately in different ways at different times. Uh because I think we need if we're going to ever ask for any money, we need people to understand what's it going for. And I don't blame them because I looked them really hard in my tax state. I didn't like it. turn them on. >>

112So, I'm wondering about um the students who are open enrolling into our district and what buildings those are where we might have a high concentration of students who are open enrolling into building >> and hopefully you can get Yes. And you can at least get a visual representation as we look at the heat maps. We can certainly >> we'll see some Yeah. once we >> Oh, it's coming. >> Yeah. Oh, I never saw a heat map. >> You will though. see the heat map. My life is quiet. >> I know. >> To keep you engaged. >> So before we get to the heat maps, uh just a couple more things. One, the next sheet is demographics. Where we are at administratively is back to trying to make sure we we know what does each of

113our elementary school buildings look like in terms of demographics. What's the breakdown? Where where are our kids? We have a lot of kids that move internally in district to other buildings. And so this chart will help you to see what we're looking at when we're when we're looking at unintended consequences. If we take this building and we close it, if we split this up, what might that do? Do we have options to impact buildings that are already uh racially isolated? And can we work to make them less racially isolated? Uh so all of that type of stuff comes into play. The other thing that we do look at and depending upon the different opinions out there is when you look at our magnet schools, our specialized schools, are there differences with demographics? Uh right, and

114you're going to see that it is what it is. The numbers are what they are. Um and so I think we have to take that into consideration as a decision-m factor. Um has nothing to do with programming. it just it is what it is. Um and so we use all of that as we are again coming to you next week with the start of some options. This is just one more piece that's living behind the scenes that we are looking at. I'll point out at the bottom of this. You'll also note that we've included in here free and reduced special education and English learners for each of the buildings both by number and percentage. So you can get an idea of that across the board. And then to so you don't keep keep flipping back

115and forth. You will see open enrollment in to each one of the elementarymentary buildings both by number and by percentage. And then we've included those open enrollment out by uh level. So you have all of that. There's a start directly on to your question of where are kids for elementary coming from >> and I think that as we you know I think a point of of conversation with the board um as we start considering different options what what is your desire as we look at this statement? All right. The next >> go ahead. >> All right. The next page is a hold out page and that is the operational cost by building and averages. I'll let uh turn that over wholehe to explain the costing sheet. Thank you, Dr. McDow. So, when looking at this,

116um, there's a few caveats and and the numbers are, uh, are different than what was presented to the vision committee. So, I'll just walk you through this is based off of 2425 data. And why I say there's a caveat is we're all aware of what happened with staffing in 2425. Now I will say that to director's long point earlier um as far as direct impact direct contact to students when you look at the the numbers what would be in the second column. So you see the description and then you see the 050 which indic codes um and it's indicating what area exists in classroom instruction that is like teachers within a classroom are completely removed because the the philosophy is the theory is wherever the kids go the teachers go like that is not going

117to be cost it out as far as a potential reduction because in theory they should be following the students. But what does change is maybe your I'll call it the first ring of indirect uh student or staff support administration changes. You were to close a building, you're that you're not going to have a principal enter into another building where there's already a principal. Um, that's the 050 or support staff or administration. When you look at the 292, there's no dollar amounts in the elementary school because 292 is our athletics. So, what does that mean as you get uh further along into um the middle schools and the high school and maybe the duplication? Maybe not. Um and then the different codes, general instruction, um library media and and again this is these are this is

118stuff that existed last year. So we know that health services model has changed. These numbers are not reflective of that change. And so as you work your way through, you will see the bottom line as it relates last year and you in within these categories and then you will see an average which I'll just say is a million dollars. Now the vision committee was when we talked about elementaryaries and what you would save in uh reducing taking an elementary school offline, we used $500,000. Reason being is until some decisions are made as far as you know maybe what does library media look like um what are the different things we don't want to we need a number to project right we need a number as the board uh works through the sod process and if

119that if we just say generically we believe an elementary school is a million dollars is that probably a reasonable assumption. Maybe have transportation or different things in there. It's probably reasonable. Is it going to be exact? No. If someone said, "Hey, you decided to close forest. Why aren't we seeing $1.16 million of reduction?" There's some flow in here. And again, it's not entirely altruistic numbers that were happening last year. >> Go ahead. >> Well, yeah. I'm just wondering why can't we use this year's numbers? I mean, >> we don't have finals. to really projections. We we know more or less I mean these are estimates and anyway I'm I'm just curious why we don't especially since we know health services has a different model and then I would argue >> and we we were over

120staffed because we were going to cut staff and didn't cut staff. These seem like really difficult numbers to work with if they're really truly that off. >> Well, I'm not saying they're really truly that off. I'm saying they're off. You know what I mean? So if you were to look and say, okay, yes, we have a health services model that has changed in our social worker uh has changed, but also there's been salary increases just by the sheer nature of everything that also aren't reflected. And there's utility costs that aren't reflected. And that's why I want I just want to say I genuinely if again if we looked and said does a if holistically speaking if we said we believe an elementary school is a million dollar savings regardless of the elementary school not I

121think that's fair because it's again it might be slightly higher it might be slightly lower it's the best estimate we have and this year's estimates are not going to necessarily produce as significantly different result. What I don't want to get hung up on is someone looking at saying this elementary school is this. We we can't say that like that's not entirely not not true. We're basing estimates. Director Bass. >> Um so to that point in that question um for our sake >> the general public I get what you're saying. They're not going to have you in a work session. So, we can talk through these questions, right? >> But even for us, when I go away, I'm going to forget what code, for example, A10 is or something like that. >> Um, you know, cuz

122I mean, again, I'm just not arguing for legends and little descriptors and these things. So, then we kind of can go back later and see. Um but having said that I do think that to uh to uh to the extent that we can have real numbers about what we upheld this year because for me what that does it helps helps me understand uh the current situation that we're in the current services we're delivering and the delta between what we had and where we are because that paints a different big picture. And having that picture helps me because when we start talking about what else we might need to take away or what we might want to bring back it bring it gives me additional context that I don't have unless I'm sitting talking with you

123and you can explain it to me. So um having those comp that comparison is useful to me to have and this is a meaning that for we can say those things right >> it is absolutely a meaning as you should >> I know I mean I I I just saying I just have to make sure we're track >> yes and your legend other than athletics >> I know but I'm not that's just >> No no I mean I I certainly can again for the sake of I can give Yes, I can pull out budgeted numbers and and see how how they match to what we currently have. >> Well, we had chart just like this one that just looked at what what is. >> Well, there Yeah, but what is is we're not even halfway

124through the year at >> Well, I think projections. >> Projections. Yes. >> And we and we know it's projections. They're projections. That's could change. >> Yes. >> You know, but I think that that has value. I >> I don't disagree. Um, again, for the sake of conversation tonight when we're looking cuz I know I know the conversation has been what are the numbers? What are the numbers? What are the numbers? >> Here's the best run at the numbers based on 2425 information. >> If we're we're on a fast run and a fast track, you're expecting a lot out of us. You collectively administration. I'm not looking over that. >> You can look at >> But you're expecting a lot out of us and I'm just saying you know you this is what we need. >>

125Start chewing on this. you'll get an updated document. Um, but then as we look at, you know, again, moving very broad swipes and again it it we were conservative with the vision committee, but if you were to look and just purely take averages, a million dollars is an elementary school. Um, just shy of 2 million is a middle school and 3 million is a high school. And then as we move down um the philosophy under food service, yes it's not the general fund but the philosophy is you still need to serve the kids right. So that's why okay there is efficiency if we were to have less sites um economies of scale which means the belief is we could save a third of the labor. That's why it's presented that way. We can't save all

126of the labor. can save some of the labor. >> And then the the numbers listed below are truly uh just what happened. They're not even intended for, you know, for sake of conversation of reduction. It's just where was where was alternative facilities or LTFM dollars coded and where was some tech levy coded. That's more just FYI. I will be happy to uh produce another document with our projections for this year to see how it compares but wanted to get something in the board's hands so when we're having conversations about reducing our footprint at least for 2627 we have some idea of the impact. So, if we closed any one of these >> Mhm. >> but didn't sell it and still owned it, would the option maintenance cost be above that or would it be considerably

127less than that? >> Considerably. Well, what's presented would be that's the total if we just barely kept the heat on and whatever, >> it's going to be, you know, I'll look at forest again. If you're looking at 4 and a quarter, you know, are you now looking at 375 3, you know, it's It won't be all all of it because you'll you would still have to run something to prevent pipes bursting until you offline the building completely, but it would be significant. >> Dr. >> I'm wondering about so high views is blank. Also wondering about the transition center >> cost there um and online. >> What are those costs? Because we're still going to have to >> factor those costs in. So those costs were not listed because in looking at it I wasn't um

128I wasn't as confident with the accuracy of those numbers at that time. I will see what I as far as projections that's a different spreadsheet. But at the time that again that this document was created and it was created for to make sure we knew where we were with the vision committee work. um we hadn't even come close to closing out or we had closed out 2425 but not anywhere near the cleanup which I then wasn't confident that the correct allocations are going there. >> So we can get >> I will work on the projections of what you get. Yes. >> And then I'm also wondering too so one of the um things that we've been told about why we're so topheavy with administration with because of all the buildings that we have open. So

129now if we're closing buildings, what's going to happen with all that that administration? Are we still going to need all that administration? Is there a staffing plan for that? >> So that will all depend on what the actual decisions are. That's the biggest that that that is a great question applied to all of this is you take two buildings and you consolidate them into one. You would think that everything folds in. You can easily make the argument that if I have two elementary schools and I piece them together into two ele or into one elementary school, as long as I have the relative size of a of what we would consider that elementary school to be similar to our other melo elementary schools, we could reduce administration on the bill that we'd be able to

130operate that school at its full capacity with one principal, assistant principal. Whereas before maybe you had to. So you would see a reduction in administration as you collapse buildings together. >> And then what about at the high school level cuz Dr. Hillenbrand was saying something about you know usually larger high schools are more topheavy. So what might that look like? Are we going to be still spending a huge chunk of funds on high school administration whereas maybe we weren't on elementary? >> It would depend upon how you set up the programming of the high school. So there are districts that have their administration set up by grade levels. There are districts that have their their administration set up by a fewmmies. They're they have different models where it's it might be one principal and a

131couple assistant principles and then a dean model. It really once you get down that path, that's part of that decision-m process based on how you're going to program that high school. You may not have to have all licensed administrators. You may have to have lead I mean even lead teachers in certain things. It really just depends upon what that looks like. in terms of how you program it. >> And so will that be a discussion that we're having as part of cost two? >> It would be, but it wouldn't be it would most it's not going to be for high schools as part of this discussion because we we wouldn't be able to for 26 27 we wouldn't be able to move into into one high school. you could foresee a scenario where you might

132be in that discussion around ele for sure elementary schools potentially a middle programming but I mean it's going to be the elementary things but you take you take some of your smaller schools that are our smallest school is off is operating at 271 kids we have other elementary schools that our largest elementary school is at 700 kids they both have two administrators and or one administrator and two administrators. So you bring together two smaller schools in theory should be able to reduce your administration. You should be able to reduce your clerical cost. You should be able to reduce the amount of specialists you need because now you can keep specialists in one building uh rather than having them work between two buildings. >> There's a lot of efficiencies that can gained by uh by moving

133buildings together. You may gain some efficiencies in transportation. The you'll gain some not operating two kitchens. You'll gain some in not having custodians. As long as you don't increase the footprint, you you gain some of that physical plant efficiency as well. But I think it's a great question because to to your question and to what Kristen was explaining here, you can't just go off the number. You can only start with it. And then you have to start you have to say okay here's what we think we want to do and then it's what's this truly going to look like because you could have a scenario where you combine two buildings together and you don't see much efficiency at all. So if efficiency is your key, right back to that filter, efficiency, effective, equity, if all

134you're gaining is efficiency and you're not gaining effectiveness and programming and you're not gaining anything or maintaining anything with equity, that might not be your best decision to be able to sustain over time. So it's it's a great question to ask because we have to push we have to push that. I think that's part of what, you know, we've got to continue to do too in terms of looking at our base and service model for staffing is is what do you know we made some decisions last year, we'll have to come back around those to make sure that those were the decisions and as we shrink our our footprint and do sites consolidation doesn't mean our needs of our students are getting any less. So again, we may not see some of the efficiencies that

135we would just automatically possibly assume. We may make different decisions if more social and emotional support is needed across our elementaryaries and things like that. And it'll happen with all staffing. I mean, you're you're you're not consolidating buildings just for the savings in physical plant. You you are going to gain staffing efficiencies. You may not have to run this grade level at at one and a half amounts of kids, but you still got to run two sections where you add them together and now you actually have full classroom. I mean, you're going to gain some efficiencies in staffing as well that come into this. It's just less predictable because it depends upon what your decision is you make and what building you actually move kids into. Judge Long. >> So if I could ask another

136question kind of around that then talking about elementary then how do we two combining buildings ensure that we have the small class sizes that parents want and what does what will those class sizes be? What does that mean? Is it a ratio? Are we going to have a fixed number? So where it starts is what the board has already set as class sizes and this the directive of any changes are not going to increase class sizes. So that means as we look at bringing buildings together, we have to make sure that we're not boundarying more kids than what it would result in the class size that the school can handle. So are we going to figure out those numbers of what would be a good small class size before figuring out capacity of that school

137or about >> right now we already have the board ratios >> for staffing. So that's what we that's what we're going off of now. What the what the ratios are a great level. That's a poor decision. >> Okay. Dr. Bman, >> anything clarity under the health facility and tech levy lines on this? That is just the dollars that we spent at those particular sites last year. >> So the uh state force of almost $330,000 that was in addition to these operating costs up here. >> Yeah. That we spel spent uh LTFM. >> Okay. >> And and a lot I I shouldn't say a lot. There are districtwide costs to I mean I don't want people to look at this and say well this was this is a totality. We do have districtwide costs that don't

138get coded specifically to a site. These got coded specifically to a site. Again back to even um when director Mullen had said just because the uh new hope learning center says zero that doesn't mean we haven't done anything. we have. It's just not showing up as a high need under that those categories. >> And then the tech loving cost obviously is the money they've spent out of the tech. >> Yes, >> that clarifies. Thank you very much. >> I don't see any more hands. That's heat maps. >> Okay. So, >> see that's just the name. >> So, so we have a software program that we're using that generates what we're calling heat maps. And so what we've done for you again um is just to give you some a visual representation of right um and

139I will point this out to begin with. If you go and try to count the dots, you are not going to match the dots to what's on the other enrollment sheets because there could be several addresses linked to one dot there. What this is giving you is just that it's a heat map. Here's where your population of enrollment is really generally coming from for that building. So if you look at the first one, it's Fair Pilgrim. Uh so Fair Pilgrim and then you'll see that the students from Fair Pilgrim, the way we look at this map, we look at it and go there are students coming from all over the place. really several coming from the east side and uh very light in the Plymouth area in the pilgrim. But that's how we use this

140map. Go ahead. >> Please identify the colors of the little dots. What is the black? What is the purple? What is the blue? >> The the um >> Oh, the school buildings. >> Oh, >> yep. So, your the school buildings that are are black are your elementary schools. Your uh purple buildings are your high schools and your blue buildings are your middle schools. >> And as we printed these, thank you for knowing that. I noticed that it didn't print the names. >> It did keep the names on there. >> Way too much credit. >> And I can't control that. >> Just look for the red dots. >> So in the bottom left of each page, you'll see the name of a building. Yes. >> And where it's going to and you'll have to look back

141at the very first page of your map >> because I can't it's a software program. I can't add the names of that. >> Okay. >> I don't have a problem. >> So the red dot is actually this is a student who lives over here and then they're going to fair course. >> Correct. So So if it says it's so it's fair pilgrim the dots represent where one or more students are coming from. Got it. And it it's again it's just to give you a quick idea of is there a population concentration for a school building visually. Yeah. Generally speaking, each one of those dots also represents a bus route or not. It's just where the students are coming from. >> It signifies their residential address. >> Okay. >> But no correlation to >> Well, >>

142kind of >> your magnets. Yeah. Yes. I mean, >> they live outside the district. They're not getting busy. >> No. But but when you look at that when you look at prayer pilgrim or you look at C or you look at RSI yes we're running buses to grab the in district >> okay >> students >> thank you >> that will not be the case for the quote unquote neighborhood schools or the non-magnet elementary schools a couple. There's not a great option to just hit print and have these print from the software. So, you have to take screenshots. But I thought for you as the board, this would be good for you to have and see. >> Well, if you clip to like Metal Lake, if you clip to, which I think is three or four

143pages down or into the binder, it's very clear which building is Metal Lake. >> That's the neighborhood school. That's the neighborhood. >> Mhm. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Let's see. I guess for me more information I'd want is I still would like to know like exact numbers of students who are enrolling into our district. I think that that um has an impact on what that enrollment would be and it and possibly if there are changes or that school closes or boundary changes that's going to have an impact on us and so for the elementaryaries which is what we're really talking about now that we do have those numbers on this enrollment page on the very bottom the enrollment in for each one of the elementary schools, >> but not from Maryland. She's she said she wants

144to know from where they're >> Yeah. I mean, I kind of guess from some schools it might be Minneapolis. It's like when you look at Nobles, but then if I don't have like the exact number for Minneapolis or or like you know when you look at Neil, Neil has some from Minneapolis, some from Brooklyn Center. Looks like there's some from what is that? Um there's some from Pridley, >> there's some from Plymouth. Like what are those exact numbers from those areas for Neil? >> We can look into that. See what we can >> come up with. >> I mean because a dot could possibly be an apartment building and there could be several families coming out of that apartment building to that school. And I have to dig into that because what it with the

145software program what all it shows me is just like the address. So see what we can see what we can find that's consistent that we can do it for every >> uh so um the question about transportation earlier for example when I look at RMS we are not we are or are not provided we are not providing transportation for any student who doesn't live in our That is not necessarily the case. >> We are okay. >> We lessened some of those routes last year but not all of them. >> So just how much of that we're doing is is that somewhere how much transportation are we to students who are not our students? I mean you know they don't live here. That's just the wish for the future because I do think that maybe that

146goes part and parcel questions Caroline's asking if we're still finding some maybe just by my favorite thing all night. Yeah. >> So where we'll leave you for this where we'll leave you is what it's just simply the question what information do you at this point would be helpful for us to bring more of to bring differently and it may not come tonight. I mean it might be something where you're thinking about it. You're looking through the three- ring binder and email the chair and superintendent say okay I'm looking at this. It would be great if we could see this. One thing we haven't talked about I'm sorry one thing we haven't talked about is what there are also the other programs. So, IB, AP, all those other initiatives and programs that the district has that

147I I don't even know, but like what are we going to is there talk about what we want to double down on, what we want to because what we want to let go of and how that plays into this because obviously IB for example, you know, that starts elementary, then you have your middle year program and then your high school program. So that is something that we have to decide if we're going to invest in or not invest in where we're going to do it, where we're not going to do it. And so understanding some of that and how that plays into this arts and innovation piece or not and I don't have that's not me advocating one way or the other but knowing and understanding that and what the district is thinking in terms

148of how that connects to that idea and that curriculum is really important also in how some of this plays out, right? because right now elementary that's link View and so and those teachers and they're invested in that programming right middle that's RMS right so like it's knowing some of that too would help inform our decisions >> I think we could we could bring some of that because with any program like that >> whatever it is it's it's costbenefit piece and what is the combined with the value statement >> right and that And the other piece too that we didn't talk about is a Spanish immersion, you know, part of the 2030 was, you know, question of how that works in middle school. Right now it's sort of a school within a school kind of sort

149of track in with middle school. One of the suggestions was maybe making that K8 program. Um, and so I don't know and I know one few issue like Spanish version is great, but a few of the issues are of course that kids leave you can't replace them, right? that makes that very hard program. Um, but also finding the teachers and the qualified teachers. And so I don't know if we want to lock ourselves in, but also I know a lot of kids do continue into middle school and even high school. And so what in terms of curriculum and teachers and the ability to find teachers and all that, I guess I'd like to hear from administration at some point the the feasibility of any of that and what that might look like and what you

150guys are thinking because I can say yeah let's do it but if there's not staff >> Y >> on that it would be interesting also uh to learn um like at at at language immersion. Do they offer all the programs that a regular elementary school offers? Um that they that they have uh special ed help if they need it or that they have various different other components uh to the program that you might not get in a magnet school, but you do get in mainstream elementary school. I'd like to I'd like to know that information. Quick question. These red lines, are these the boundaries for the neighborhood school >> boundaries for the schools? >> In one neighborhood school boundary area, there are actually three elementaryaries or two elementaryaries in another one. >> They're the cities.

151>> I think this might be >> I don't know. >> It's not cuz >> it's not necessarily perfectly divided. When you see that they they they crisscross like on the south side uh where uh C is and Son and Neil are all inside of one bigger boundary. It doesn't subdivide that out. But if you go up to Zachary Lane, that's all divided out in there. One thing I will follow up with with the transportation is just a and I'll get the numbers but a reminder that with the transportation change last year is that we move depending on the zip code a student resides they have the opt we will bus them to the nearest building that suits their grade level. So if they're a particular zip code, they're going to go to Northport. If they're,

152you know, they they're all would go to RMS or Cooper. As far as our busing goal >> for external, >> yeah, >> we don't, you know, they're not going to different site. We don't bus them unless the zip code is assigned to that particular building. And I'll get you the numbers of how many we're busing, but just a friendly reminder that that was the decision we made last year. Kristen, I know that there was a question, I believe it was by a board member about the impact of the transportation decision that we made. And if I recall correctly your data, which is always dangerous when I'm reciting your data, but I believe what you said is that we lost in that change of transportation, there were four students who did not continue on in Robindale

153area schools and we gained 64 students from that area. And what helps is we have the transition of grades, right? like so you do graduate your seniors and but the net result is what was pulled out of infinite campus was that number that there wasn't >> so you know again if I remember us sitting around this table and I know I was concerned right what's the impact of losing students going to be on this transportation decision which we made >> to save money and so these are things that we we can't predict we don't know That's some data of what the result was. church. >> So, um, a question I have is it centers around kind of programming and I'm wondering uh because we have our curriculum curriculum programming whatever the title is like to

154to what extent if any are they wrestling with some of the questions related to reimagine or anything or or are they looking at just what is now uh and then um and and you know how kids are doing and all of that with the curriculum we have >> the district advisory council, >> right? >> Yeah. I I think their first meeting is coming up. So, no, that wouldn't be a group that right now. No. >> Okay. >> They're they're they're dealing with what is and looking at the the data around the report. Okay. >> So, we can't look to them necessarily some of the questions around programming that director Hillbrand just asked. So, that that committee necessarily will not inform that decision. Um, right now they're not they're not set up in that way. >>

155Okay. >> And I think it's a fair question to say how are we going to get input on some of those things. Um, some of it we did get some input last year. We did look at money and costing and some of that last year. So, we might have to revisit that. >> Just with your existing pool of talent, who's going to help you do that thinking? You're not going to lean into that committee. I I'm not sure I understood that. >> Um what I I just stated that some of that data, how much does IB cost across the district, right? So all of these things will be into consideration as we make decisions for both schools and closing. Got some input last year on that. Then I think we'll just have to see the

156the boards depending on what options come forward what else you want us to seek input on from the community. So then an additional piece of information that I might want to have at some point is the school improvement plans of the various schools and how their school improvement plans have landed. Are they I mean are they successful? Are they getting you know h how do they see themselves doing uh for lack of a better phrase? But those school improvement plans at the various buildings inform were effective. This is a broad statement. It's not necessarily true, you know, but but in general, there should be informing how that school is doing, how they're assessing their academic progress, and how they see their outcomes. So to the extent that their plans do some of that that will

157be important information to know whether that filters into the administrator the teachers and all of that is in your bay lake that you will sort through when we start doing the sorting at some point. For example, if we're to close a couple of elementary schools and one elementary school has been hitting the mark on their school improvement plans, they have been significantly moving the needle with their students. That speaks to, in my opinion, you know, I'm not just a regular old parent here, you know, so it speaks to how I would think about that school being affected. And so I think some of that kind of data that's just independent data about how the schools are doing um would be helpful to think about as well you know. So >> any other information anybody knows

158they would need >> and we go with the various programs you'll you'll you'll include student numbers or the population okay I'll jump back quick just to the slide here so this will be and we're all we will all go back and forth for between this. So the and it's just what's coming up right now because these as your mind starts to work through the data then we will jump through well wait a minute what about this program this program and so this is why I put this slide up before is once we take a building an option we first go through the primary decision points and then we go okay wait a minute this building looks really good from a money standpoint it looks really good from a location standpoint point and operational cost. Now,

159from a secondary decision point to the question that was just raised, programming, does it have a program that either a we can't replicate in another building or we will totally mess up something and then what's going to happen is a decision point for the board. The board will have to say this is an option. it meets all the primary decision points, but it's got this program or what are you willing to do? Is this not an option? And then we take that off the table and we we retool it. So, it will naturally bring us down. I'm glad that you're asking these questions for future stuff because it's this will naturally take us down that path for you as a board to say, "Yeah, it makes it's the same thing with location. this this building

160makes the most sense in the world. And to the question of open enrollment, wait a might not be the best geographic decision to make based on what you know. So we got to retool. So there these are very valid questions and they're coming like this is how we move through this. I think too though it would be really helpful to know, you know, when you're talking about operationalizing things too, like if we're going to be doing, let's say we decide we're going to do arts and innovation, right? It sounds like that the direction everybody's, you know, on board with for the most part. So then how does IB fit with that? How does AP fit with that? how how do these other things that we're already doing um full service I'm not saying that full

161service wouldn't fit with it but like how do all these things fit with that and enhance that and support that right or because if we're going to be doing something big like that you got to really put your all your eggs in that basket and then you got to be able to let go of some little things too and I think that's part of my concern right you can't hold on to everything and try to do this new thing really well. And I want to if we're going to do this, I want to be able to do it with fidelity. And that's that's what I'm concerned about. >> I'm glad you said that. you know, I think um in some of the emails that the board has received um you know, from a couple of

162our magnet schools, there is that caution that they're saying, you know, to be able to to have the success that we've seen in some of these flagship programs that we have. It's been training and years of of working on it. So, it's not just going to happen overnight. It's not going to just be replicated. Um, and right the intentionality of what that looks like in terms of planning for and training our staff and our kids and all of that's going to take a huge amount of effort. So, you're right. If we're going to do it, and again, some of these are vision questions that aren't here yet, which is exactly the complexity that we're talking about. we don't want to make decisions here that ruin some of where this vision is, but we don't know

163exactly yet today where this vision is. So, that's some of the messiness. Um, and your questions and the conversations that we're having and the the emails that we're getting like all those things will help us as we bring clarity to that. >> Dr. So, I'm wondering um about, you know, we have some of our programming in rental property, property releasing. So, if we close a building, is there any opportunity to repurpose a building we've closed to house something into a property that we own versus keeping continuing to pay rent to somebody else? The only consideration, the answer is yes. But the consideration is can we get out of those lease agreements? >> Because if we would were to have a property of which in some way or another we can't get out of that lease

164agreement, we're still paying. >> But I mean, conceptually, yes. I mean, you could move anything to to a district-owned building. It's just can we undo the rest of it? So, can we find out about that? If we can get out of that, >> it looks like one's coming up sooner than the other. Yeah. >> Now, look at So, the one you guys watch tonight, mostly Crystal B. There's five more years on that lease. If it expires 2031, um there is no I'm actually looking at the lease right now. There is no buyout clause, which isn't surprising. Typically, a landlord when they lease out of space, they don't allow you to pay for it early. You can try to negotiate those things, but they they typically will require you to pay the full their full rent

165because you know um that is what we agreed to pay them over that time span. So there is no buyout early buyout clause in the lease right now. Doesn't mean you can't try to negotiate with the landlord. That one expires in 23 >> and that one's pretty close that if we're repurposing a building, it might line up right >> right where we might need to not renew a lease. Yes. >> So we put it on ice until we get out of the >> it becomes part of the not the 26 27 plan but January the the the other phases of the plan. It should it it should be it should be talked about. >> It wouldn't get rid of the building. We could just like hold it until we know or another question. >> Yeah.

166And so I had another question too. So, are are we looking at like elementaryaries first, then middle schools, then a plan for high schools? Is that kind of the process we're doing here? I think that right now um right now we're holding Yeah, I don't I can imagine be careful what I say always. I can't imagine we're going to make a plan for 2627 about high school. we are able to be able to make a decision and bring some options with both um elementary and middle school considerations for 2627. >> Dr. did you have anything? Oh, I was just going to say that one thing about like for the Crystal Learning Center for example is that there's a moving programs there's a lot of nuance especially with when you're talking about Adelaide because our elementary

167like our buildings it's about access right you have to be on a bus line you have to have there's a lot of nuance to it so it's easy to say you can move a program but when the program was at Sanberg Learning Center that was a big disservice to the adult education program so you have to be thoughtful about where you move it to so there's a lot of other parts to it it's not just popping it into a building. It has to be um accessible to adult learners. >> I appreciate you saying that and and I just I want board members I want you to know that most of the questions that you're asking about we've been in conversation about. Doesn't mean we've made any decisions, but it's been this notion of considerations and

168last Wednesday that's exactly what we were talking about is access. Well, I guess one of the last things I'm thinking about is communications uh because of communications um and just even in our understanding tonight uh about certain kinds of things and you know our communications expert is well it's all you guys and so uh the communications plan uh I I just think it's just as important because at the end of the road if there is an ask then I think uh the better job we can do of educating just even as we go because we were we're in meetings with you all the time and you hear all the questions we have >> so I'm just saying >> no appreciate it um at the end the very last thing that I have on my agenda

169for tonight not your agenda but it has next steps >> as we work we have one more thing we have to do before that but I just want you to know again that communication both on our website. What's that cadence of um regular updates and review and making sure that it's easily accessible to our community >> and even the and even some of the the some of the documents to make sure that they're nerd well not nerds because the nerds will know but it's the non- nerds will understand what they're reading >> you know I mean I I really think that's important >> because we've got so much misinformation in the community already about a whole range of things and so on. >> So I have a question. We've been talking long term. What are

170we going to expect >> next week? Mhm. >> So, our goal, and that's why the last question is, um, are there some specific things as you're sitting here thinking tonight that you'd like us to consider as we bring forward some options Monday night? Our plan, and we've got a few meetings that we've got to land on this week to make sure we're confident um bringing forward some options. But that's our goal is next Wednesday to bring a couple options forward for conversation. What if? Yeah, but what about this? Because that's how we end up getting to the best possible scenario. >> Next Monday. What did I say? >> Wednesday. Monday. I'll be here whenever you want to be. >> Well, Wednesday is the finance advisory council, so we can all just partake in that, too.

171>> Okay. Yeah. Also, next Monday. >> Also, next Monday, board members, at 5 o'clock, we get to be humiliated by super smart high school kids. That's our quiz bowl day. >> Which day? >> 5:00 Monday the 20th. >> So, >> I'm telling you now. I will send you another email and maybe not tell anybody. >> So, I'm going to pull us back and ask the question again. >> Is there is there anything right now? Any ideas that you have right now that you want us to be thinking about, wondering about, planning for as we um work on bringing forward some options for consideration? Yeah, I I would like to know the at the elementary level if Bob can pull up one of these heat maps on the current elementary students that we have if they

172were geographically located to a particular school based on their zip code what that would look like >> without the magnet programs we faced in. So the residents in the different areas. >> Good question. >> So >> I don't know. >> Yes, I think transportation would have that used to >> we'll figure it out. >> I'll get it figured out. >> Sorry. Don't ever be sorry. >> That's before the out vibration when you said >> Okay. Director Bess, was that a hand or just Can I ask a clarifying question? >> Yes. Director uh RSI and C and fair all magnets. >> Uh so let's assume they are not magnets. >> All of them. >> All of correct. >> You have the schools and then you have where the kids live. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> The

173kids that choose to attend here >> the ones that we currently have in >> to be clear nobody is closing magnets. >> Correct. for the record. >> Dr. Long, >> did you have your hand? >> Yeah, I was wondering so of the questions that we asked here about more information that we needed. Will we have that information before our next meeting? >> I don't know that that will be possible. We will we will get as much information as we can. I am making members of this team that have been working 80 hours a week uh take some time over MEA. So I'm not confident that we can have every question answered, but we'll have as much information um to you as possible. Um with that, I also would like to have another conversation about the

174options. I recognize and value getting information to y'all and posting information um in board book Thursdays at 4:00 which we've just determined. I have a lot of concern with having options that we are bringing to the board to discuss for the first time and having that be in the public on Thursday at 4:00. Um, so I'm going to ask and request that we hold on that and that that isn't posted to board book until meeting time on Monday. >> That makes sense to me. >> So our Friday, >> no, we get it. >> Nobody gets it. What's the idea? >> We'd rather talk it through with you. >> Okay. >> So, >> as long as we know. >> Yeah. So then are you saying that based on what you already know and based on these

175this discussion tonight you will think through presenting us with some additional options. >> Okay. >> So the question is >> 42627 >> only. >> Well I know I mean but but you're not going to forecast anything. Some will have implications that will have some will have >> and so you'll identify what those implications are. Okay, >> what about what is I see director L's hand above something else that >> I just rather it just be posted and just be transparent with everything. >> Yeah. And for me it's not at all. I I hear what you're saying. For me, I just want to be really clear with y'all and with our public. This isn't a question of transparency because we will be sharing everything with the public. I just have been around the block and I

176know what's already surfacing in our community and I'd rather have people be able to tune in, hear the conversation instead of seeing it and making other um assumptions. Yeah. And again, not everybody's going to agree with that. I understand that. Um I'm just trying to make sure we stay in front of the board. That's what I'm most concerned about is that we stay in front of the board. You're hearing information from us where you can ask questions and make sure that it makes sense to you and revise as necessary. But I understand that. back. >> Dr. Brown, >> I was just going to say that I I appreciate what you're saying and I I I do I fully believe in transparency and if it if we are all seeing it at the same time as

177the community, I believe that is transparent and I agree 100% though sometimes information without context causes a lot of confusion. It causes a lot of angst. I mean, even the the report um from the um 2030 committee which was suggestions and ideas, you know, I had a staff member of mine and Silvin Robinel came to me and said, "I heard there's only going to be one high school." And I said, "But nobody's made any decisions yet." It was a suggestion from a report. We're discussing it. She said, "Well, that's not how the article read, right?" So, like it it causes a lot of chaos when it doesn't need to be. So if we can all learn about at the same time and get context, I think that's helpful both to us and to the community.

178So that's >> the chaos provides it huge to service, >> right? So that's that's just my two cents. So I agree. I I'm behind that. Um at the same time, if I can live with that, you can live with that. >> You can't. >> What are we living with? >> Okay. What we're talking about is finding out the options, >> okay, >> on Monday night at the same time the public finds out. >> Okay. Um, >> well, can't we just get an get the data to sent to us? >> Well, in the interest of being, as Director Hill was saying when you went in the room, transparent. It would be more transparent if we didn't have it when they didn't have it. So now everybody has it at the same time. Well, I don't see

179that as transparency. I mean, I just think that is a matter of timing. If we get the information and we have it because we need to ask reasonable questions. Uh, and there it's where the board's whatever. I mean, um, and it's posted. Now, that's the administrative decision about when you post it. That's what I hear you saying. And I hear that there's a question about the transparency. I'm more interested in having information so that I can funnel questions down, think about it in advance. I've got a lot personally going on and I don't know when waiting to hear when I'm going to travel. So I I would rather have information so that if I am here I can read it or not whatever. I don't but you know >> and also we're getting to the

180options and we'll have time to discuss options because we're not going to make a decision on any of these options until our second meeting in December. So there is some time once the options get explained to us. I saw your hand up. >> Oh yeah. >> I was just so different than typical work sessions. This is these are very specific work sessions. Point being to have this time to get information to talk about it. >> This session was a little bit different because you got the starter pack of information to so that you have any options we put out there in front of anything. Your first response is going to be so what am I looking at here? That requires conversation. It actually requires more information on the front end as you're looking at it.

181So you can go, "Oh, all right. So wait a minute. Am I does that mean this? Does that mean this? Does that mean this? What about this? I know we think we can do that in isolation. We will make tons of assumptions in isolation because this group hasn't created the options that will be presented. These initial set of options are there to get get the ball rolling. And so that's why it would come up. You'll have no context. You will have the community have no context and then this conversation will not happen in the same manner that it otherwise would. >> We have four board members who feel that we get it when they get it when you get it on Monday. So the other thing that I want to share and and I've got

182to figure out the the communication of this as well, but we've had some principles that made the request and said if if our school is going to be one of those named when you present options, will you come to our staff and tell us? And originally it's like yeah, that'd be a really nice thing to do. And in context of this conversation, we can't. We might bring three options to you and seven elementaryaries might be on it. Again, I don't want to go to staff on Wednesday before MEA and say, "Oh, you are on this." So, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to send a a communication to staff and families um on Wednesday wishing them a fantastic break. also saying right reminding them where are we in the process and that options

183are the board's going to grapple with them and whatever else we'll come up with but I just want you to know that that was a request from principles and we're not going to be able to honor that either you and >> yeah yeah you know I hear what you said um I I guess I initially when I came in and I heard the discussion I was like but I I really want to say one thing that the reimagine team did is broke the ice that we're going to be closing some things. We might close several elementary. We might close a couple of middles. We might close the the mega high school idea that's out there. I just feel like that um yes, there's a lot that goes on with which school it's going to be.

184I I I've cried in those meetings. I can do a couple, you know. Uh, but I I just really think I get I think I really do feel like I want to see what your what the options are. I want to form my own questions and uh so I mean you you're taking a straw poll and saying that you want to do it. I'm saying I'm against that. I think we should just send us the information. If you would like us to be circumsp it and not share it with anybody, you know, uh I can live with that. uh you want to post it at the day that you that we have the meeting. Whatever you think is a a best time to post it, go for it. I just think that um we're all

185adults, responsible adults, respondent to do what we need to do for this community. And I think that having the information in advance is better for board directors to ask their qu to formulate their questions so that the time is well spent. It's a lot of information and I really do like the opportunity to send you questions in advance. I really like that. So, to the extent that we can send questions in advance to make our time together more fruitful, I'm all for that. Uh, you know, and so I just, you know, for whatever it's worth. >> What else have we got, folks? >> Um, I just a couple other next steps. Um so the communication piece that director Basset um talked about this is going to be you know just an incredible challenge. Um so

186continue to help us in terms of what you're hearing and what would be helpful. Um we we want to provide accurate, timely, responsive information that um helps people understand the process even when we can't provide them the answers that they want tomorrow. And we understand that they want those answers tomorrow. We understand this is lives, right? Um the other thing that I want to talk about just a little bit, just a reminder about that community engagement and that we'll be getting the survey uh some data back on November 3rd. That's going to help with some of the vision questions. may not help a lot, may not help you with some of these shorter term decisions for 2627, but it's going to give you additional input and um community feedback on those broader options. Um, the

187last thing that I want to just put out there for y'all is we right now have scheduled for December 8th, that's the hearing date, um, where we would have an opportunity for community input. We would like to recommend that that be either at either Cooper or Armstrong so that we have um we have more room. We have you know all of the things similar to what we did with that town hall. Um we'll have to do some things thinking of logistics in terms of does a hearing is it also an official board meeting if it's a hearing. Okay. We'll have to think about what that means for live streaming and some of that. So, we've got some logistics to work out with that. But just wanted to get your impression and notion on thumbs up

188on that and go ahead and plan accordingly. >> Okay. >> I see. I see. >> One thumb, two thumb, three thumb, four thumb. No thumb. Thumbs. >> No, I have no thumbs. >> You know what? You have no thumbs. >> Just Just as a matter of course. >> Yeah. Are we only planning the one here? >> Can we pick one that has good parking >> in the wheelchair? Yes. >> For a lot of people, >> either high school, >> depending which one's available. >> Yeah, we'll do one of the We'll We'll start with looking at the dates for one of the high schools. team, help me out. That's what I had in terms of next steps. Is there anything I'm missing or something else that you've thought about that we've discussed or wondered or needed?

189>> I want to know am I am I going to get information? I heard the direction of the board was not until meeting time. Honestly, >> I try again. I I admire your persistence. >> You should keep trying cuz I hear the squeaky wheel against the grease. >> Well, I don't know about that. I'm >> okay then. We are done. Thank you very much everybody. We'll see you on Monday at 5:00 to get your buzzer finger ready.