001We recognize our position comes with power, responsibility, and public service for the entire ACS community. We will model our commitment to equity through our practice and decisions. During this meeting, we invite a pause if harm has taken place, a moment to name the harm, and space to practice repair. Thank you. Thank you, Jesse. All board members are present. We have a quorum. And at this time, I would um accept a motion to approve our agenda for this evening. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Excellent. Um turning the next section are um items we're going to take up one at a time and if appropriate, they will end up on the consent agenda at our board meeting later this month. So at this time, I'm going to turn it over to Miss
002Pchet. Good evening, um, board members. Um, what you have before you are releases from our district to Bunkham County School District thus [Music] far. if you have any additional questions regarding the list. Uh I see it says continued placement. So we get these monthly. Is the continued placement something that we look at the same students each month or is this a different list of students? This is an annual um form that is uh shared between Bunkham County Schools and Asheville City Schools. And on that form, it has continued placement because they've been going to Bunkham County Schools. So, they have to check that box off that it's not a new placement. It's a continued placement. Okay. As a reason. And I'm seeing about 12 for continued placement and five related to dual language elementary learning.
003Is that correct? That is correct. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you, Miss Pchet. I will now turn it over to Maggie to talk about the budget. All right, good evening board members, everyone here um for the work session. Thank you for showing up tonight. And um first item on our discussion and to review with the board is our um just continued planning for the FY26 budget. So this should be a familiar slide at this point. Um I like to just try to make things very clear and simple when you're looking at a budget. What are we what are our increased revenues or decreased revenues? What are increased or decreased expenditures? And as we look at where we currently sit in our anticipation for next year, we are anticipating a shortfall between what we bring
004in for revenue and what we plan to ex um spend for expenses of just shy of $7 million. Um and that is due to the recurring cost of the what we have this year allocated $4 million of fund balance um and expenses. that is a increase of about a half a million dollars um due to loss of student enrollment, decrease in student enrollment. That $50,000 flowth through of charter payments and then bringing our school nutrition to provide um free breakfast and lunch to every student we anticipate will cost us about a half a million dollars. Um, and then increased expenses. Um, with steps and raises, um, well, with a with our STEP and with our local supplement, we do increase, uh, we did kind of average a 3% Was that right, Heidi? A 3% raise.
005A 3% raise. Um, which would cost us about $1.6 million. Um we do anticipate insure um increased insurance costs over the next year as well as um property insurance and state healthcare insurance and then um increased utility costs. So that total as we look at what we're losing in revenue and what we would increase in expenses creates that shortfall. And I'm going to let Heidi talk through some of the reasons that really are the behind the scenes reasons for why we see these shortfalls year after year. First off, and we've talked about this many times, but obviously we're a school district and we our our job is to employ and serve people. So, um our staffing costs drive the majority of the budget. Um I keep this have kept this history chart back since 200910
006um in order to demonstrate the rapid and massive um increase in the health insurance and retirement costs. Uh in in particular, uh we did have a session at the finance forum last Friday. Uh we're hopefully going to see a Senate budget next week, which you know, the main drivers of the budget again are the raises and the benefits. So, if we can at least get one of the budget versions out there to get a a decent idea of where those will go, we could give you some better numbers. Um we also uh got an indication that health insurance may go up again more significantly than we thought. So that number may be low in the arrow. Um but right now I don't want to give you yet another guess since we're close on possibly getting
007that first version of the budget. Um also particular to this district um we all know that historically we've run a deficit with our preschool program. As much as we value that program it is expensive to run our school nutrition uh expenses. Dr. Maggie already uh covered that in as a part of our um detail. Our exceptional children program and this is not unique here either. Um there are only so many specific revenue sources that address exceptional children. Outside of those, even though all the services are required, those draw from all the other sources of funding we have available. And those costs obviously escalate as faster or faster than any of our other costs. And we do continue to be right on the edge or just over the cap on the number of students in that
008program. So, right now that deficit's standing at about $2 million, which is not unusual at all. Um, but not good obviously as you're doing budget planning. And then this year, as if as if we needed any more variability in our budget planning, we had a hurricane. Um, so those numbers are still um changing from the county. So, we do not have a real solid feel for where our county revenue numbers are going to land. Um, so we're still trying to put in best estimates on that. And then obviously the dynamic here between a county and city school district is that all the money that Bunkham County appropriates from the top goes to both districts in the prrated share based on our total number of students served by us and each of our respective charter school
009populations. So that number is always a little bit of an unknown every year. So just a little framework behind why, you know, everybody really wants a definite answer this time of year, but unfortunately we don't have one. You want me to talk about the next slide? Okay. So, I was trying to think of a way to kind of put in perspective what has been a historic trend here. And largely that's been because we not only have a very um significant supplemental tax, property tax rate for Asheville City Schools, but we also get supplemental sales tax, which has allowed this district, and I appreciate Tanya pulling up some of the old articles for me because obviously, you know, I've only been here a couple of years. um and she located some of those for me this
010week to put some perspective on it so I understood as well. But that's also um been one of the factors that really let Asheville City Schools do some different things and say for example more enhancement teachers um uh smaller class sizes and those type of programs over the years. And while those funding streams were sustained, those were great ideas and did a lot of differential allowed for a lot of differential learning and um different opportunities for our kids at the time. But what's happened now is all of these benefit and salary costs have outpaced every funding source that we have. Not only that, but the tax cuts that are have already put in place at the state level and are now additionally going to get put in place starting next year. Um the revenue neutral
011position of the county and raising property taxes where they're very resistant to increases in the property tax rate. Um sales taxes because of the hurricane and and even before the hurricane they were starting to trend down where we had had some historic high years. All those things go in together to say perhaps we have to look at staffing again here as much as we may or may not want to because the costs keep going up but the the available funds either stay the same or are decreasing. So I wanted to be able to give you some perspective on where we stand as far as the state goes. So that that chart on the right um most people in the audience can't see, but if you want to pull up the statistical profile at the DPI
012website, they have a lot of good information in that index and it sorts things all kinds of ways. Um local funding, state funding, federal funding, rankings, it it compares uh people, it compares different funding sources. It's really a good resource. So, if you look at that, um, right now, uh, we ranked about 10 in per pupil funding in the state, which is great, except if you look at the numbers across the line, if you go down to that far right column and go down to 10, that'll show you where our rank is. Um, what happens is ours is not like those other nine that are ahead of us. If you look at the it looks kind of odd if you think about it. The other districts ahead of us are actually very poor small lower
013part eastern side of the state districts that have a lot of state assistance. So their funding and their ability to be one of the top funded districts in the state is only because of that additional state assistance they get due to poverty or need. So ours is more unique in that we're in the top 10 because of our level of local funding and that largely comes from our supplemental taxes. So what I did on the left side is I gave you some comparisons so that we could take a little closer look. So the first two um the grouping and the first group is us and Chapel Hill Carbborough because we are the top two locally funded districts in the state. And then there's three others. Um, Morsville is close and closer to our size. And
014then Cleveland and Ashboro is actually exactly our size, almost exactly our size within a couple of hundred kids. And then I just took three of our neighbors as a way of kind of establishing uh where are we compared to everybody else. So if you look at that chart um you can see that based on our state reporting this year and that's what all of these are pulled from our SS 200 state reporting we have about 665 employees at the current time that goes up and down depending on the week but basically we have a core of 665 employees and where us in Chapel Hill Carro because of our supplemental taxes are paying for about 42% of hour um workforce at a local funds. You can go down to those next two sections, even the section
015with the other people getting a significant amount of um supplemental tax and their numbers are all between say 15 and 25%. So, we have a very high rate of locally funded employees here and always have like I say based on those numbers that we were able to generate all these years and the additional taxes. But if we look too compared to say a Moresville who has about one and a half times the number of students we have they have only they have about a 100 employees less in total on the local side from us. And then if we look at somewhere like a Henderson that has three times the number or what was no Henderson has yeah four times the number of students that we have um and we look at that number our numbers
016even still higher than them. So, I wanted to just give you some some some kind of points of conversation that we can have as we move through the budget process to see that we do have a little room that we can work on that to be more in line with what staffing other districts have. And Dr. Maggie, you might want to say a little bit more about that. Yes. Okay. So the next um chart I actually just put that same information into a pie chart just to illustrate what part of our salaries come from state, local and federal sources. So if if just let's say if we decide that 665 people are the correct number of people to employ here. If we look at the percent of locally funded staff in other places compared to
017here we would have 112 fewer employees here than we do now. So somewhere between 100 and 200 is that mark if you look at the percentages of locally funded employees that other districts have compared to what we have. Excuse me. Heidi, can you say that one more time? Start from the beginning. if we had so many staff. So if we didn't have if that 665 number 665 total employees is the correct number just arbitrarily if we decide that's the number of people we need to employ here then instead of 42% compared to other places had say anywhere from 15 to 25%. We would have had 112 fewer people paid from local funds here. if we followed that same percentage that they have. Got it. Okay. Just giving you a kind of a landmark comparison. But
018and I I want to piggy back on Jesse. The starting place is 665. That's right. That's we're saying 665 just just as a starting place to have a conversation. That's how many we people we currently employ right now. Right. You're not giving us a version of keeping that. You're talking about I'm just giving you a an idea of how many fewer locally paid staff we would have if we were more in line with some of these other sites that have supplemental tax. Thank you. I'm sorry if I did not quite say it that way. I appreciate that. Um so the next conversation um Dr. Maggie asked me to have is about um our salary supplements here. So this is the local salary supplement slide. But before we get to that, I gave you a handout.
019Um I just wanted to make sure everybody realized that there is actually since 2022 23 I believe um here which started in 2122 at the state level. There was a state um teacher salary supplement started at the state level. Uh the first year it was implemented, Bunkham was not included as the other four bigger, more um affluent districts were not as well. And then after the first iteration, it came back and included Bunkham. What I did not realize is that decision is revisited every year at the state level because technically the criteria for the state teacher salary supplement was to be modeled after the low wealth model and obviously we are not low wealth because we're a tier three county. So each year apparently the legislature gets the list of who qualifies who does not
020and decides if it's going to stay that way or be adjusted. And the reason it came up this year is because I got planning aotments as Dr. Magazine mentioned later at the last minute um at the end of last week and we had a big blank in our planning aotment for this state teacher salary supplement. And I said, "Oh, why is this blank? You know, we've always gotten last year $400,000 for this in order to share with our teachers." And they said, "Here's the story and this is what happens. And once the legislature meets and decides on a budget, they'll see if you're in or out for this coming year. So, I am trying to get some contact information to make sure they understand that that is something when we want to continue to prioritize
021for our teachers and see that they continue to receive. So, I just a quick clarification just so I think the board can make sure they clearly understand that. So, we have our salaries set. We also have this local supplement, but we get an additional $400,000 from the state that is then divided amongst our teachers in addition to this supplement that they're already getting. And that's why I gave you the handout. So, this is who gets how much and why. And then if you forgot um or were not on the board at the time, I gave you the memo that was signed by Dr. Cosby at the time because Dr. Maggie wasn't even here then. So um to show how this district decided to distribute those funds which was equally to each teacher employed as of
022the end of the year. So mag is it I'm sorry please. Is it teachers or all employees? Teachers only teachers only. I just have two questions. One is I do remember us talking about this with Dr. Cosby and there's certain parameters and we said treat everybody equally and we voted on it. So I'm remembering that. My question is I want to make sure I understood you correctly. The amount we receive because if we look at our $400,000 compared to amounts other districts are getting. It is completely in the discretion of the legislature how this is formula and it is loosely based on the low wealth formula. So the higher tier counties get less money than the lower tier counties. Okay. So, and it was intended to either differentiate pay or to help lower tier counties
023provide an additional supplement to their teachers because they couldn't afford to do so otherwise. I mean, I find it amazing that Chapel Hill gets 50% more than we do per teacher. I don't I don't understand how they could be considered are they less wealthy than we are? I don't think so. So, they get they get $1,268. That's a maximum. Now, I don't really understand how they calculate that because they don't know how many teachers we have when they determine this amount of money, but district is prescribed a maximum they can pay out. Like, let's say that $400,000 would actually let us pay our teachers $1,000 each. We're capped at that amount. Yeah, I hear that. It's just interesting to me that Chapel Hill has a significantly higher cap than we do because it just undermines
024a little bit the premise. I think, you know, it's the legislature. But just last question, Heidi, we're getting ready to talk more about local supplement. We know I mean we all know how teachers get paid and then this comes along to create additional funds for teachers that we will make decisions on and you're just sharing for information and you're sharing this for information at this point. Thank you. So as far as the local supplement goes that first page just shows the tren um how that's progressed over the years. Um, as you know, I was just getting here as you were considering the last increase for fiscal year 23 24. And unfortunately, I don't think we quite made a year of the county actually funding um the salary increases that we expected them to fund. We
025lost we've lost appropriation ever since then. So, I just wanted to make sure that you all realized not only did we increase it in that year, but then I thought it was um pretty stunning that we increased it significantly in fiscal year 1617 on that top tier. And as I understand it, just as a reminder, it that happened because of the year that the legislature decided in their infinite wisdom that they would cap teacher pay out at 15 years experience. So, I think this again was a an a local initiative in order to try to compensate those more experienced teachers that we didn't want to lose. So, um I just wanted you to have that information. And Heidi, just because Jesse asked it earlier, this applies to all staff and teachers and we treat everybody
026the same. I mean, within their years of service. Yes, ma'am. we do here and that's and that's great but that is also another reason why it costs a lot more because most districts either have a lower um supplement that they pay their classified staff like Bunkham County does which is a good bit lower or they do not pay classified staff at all and it is truly a teacher salary supplement. So, um, we've talked a good bit about what it costs to increase that and just what it costs, period. And then now that supplemental sales tax stream has decreased to the point that um, it no longer fully pays for the local salary supplement. So, I just wanted to give you some information for your consideration in case at some point we want to revisit the
027the way we structure the salary supplement in order to better meet our budgetary restrictions. So, what an option is that we could do without taking anything away from any of our employees would be to change this from a percentage supplement to a fixed rate supplement. So what what would happen in doing that scenario would be either this year say this is what the supplement is for all of our different salary sales on all of our salary schedules and that doesn't change or you could possibly put off that decision and decide next year that we're going to put the calculation with all the percentages on all our salary sales like we do now and then start saving some money in the 2627 school year. So, what I've done is I'm going to go through some pros
028and cons and an example and then let you ask whatever questions you may want to ask. Um, what this would do is it would allow you then to fully control the local salary supplement because right now what happens is whether there's a 1% raise or a 5% raise or a 10% raise, our supplement being a percentage ratchets up every time the legislature or or the county or anyone suggests that we increase salaries because that's a percentage. It's not a fixed amount. So in order to try to control this and bring it more in line with the revenue streams, you could change it to a fixed rate amount and then you could also at it since it's a fixed rate and it's a flat rate. We could talk about capping that at a certain level which
029I've included a proposal here in your handout. So that that way you could also address those other concerns where you seem to think which is true the more salaries go up the bigger and bigger and bigger these supplements get. So on this second page of that state on the local part with the pros and cons, I just wanted to be fully transparent in what this would do. So right now, like I say, it would not impact what any current employee is getting currently, but obviously long term there would be a difference. And so the pros for this would be that we would have a fixed amount that we can budget better. You would be able to plan better and you would understand your costs very clearly at the beginning of the year. Right now obviously
030that's easier to do with salaried staff because we know what those salaries are. But with hourly staff it's very difficult to project what a percentage supplement is actually going to cost us because it's based on their hours worked. um employees could clearly understand the amount that they would be receiving because it was a fixed amount. The local board again would be in full control of what those supplements would be and the cost of the supplement. This is a key factor in the budgeting piece is the cost of the supplement increase would decrease moving forward. And I'm going to walk you through that example. But the the cons obviously are employees will not see as big a salary increase each year or each year they may not even receive an increase in it. They would receive
031the same amount but perhaps not an increase if you all don't decide to increase those amounts in that particular budget year. Again, this would put it all in your control because I listed that on the pros and cons because really, you know, right now you could say this is out of my control and this is how it's going to work. But if it's all in your control, then it's all in your control and people will either condemn that action or they will thank you for that action and it can go either way. Um employees might see smaller amounts of the increase when those increases are passed, which is true. So if you go to that last page, I just tried to make this as simple as I could to just give you an example of
032how that would work. So, if you had a teacher with a 12% supplement, that 12% supplement gives them $6,000 extra dollars and when you increase the supplement the last time, that increase of 2% actually made that $6,000 go up to $7,000 for their supplement. But once it would be a flat amount and say you decide this year you definitely want to reward our staff, all our staff gets a 2% supplement increase instead of being calculated on the average on their salary, that 2% increase gets calculated on the supplement amount. So instead of a $1,000 increase in that year, there would only be a $120 increase. Now again, everybody stays the same currently, but that is a long-term impact. So the savings on uh s uh supplement increase in that scenario is $880 an employee. So
033when we talked back when you suggested changing to a one or 2% increase over what we were currently paying that every 1% for this size district and what we're paying everybody costs about a half a million dollar. But if it was a fixed rate amount and you wanted to go up 2% that half a million dollars becomes only $60,000 and it's it's far more budget friendly and it's more manageable and it's more sustainable. Um, in the last part of the example, it shows what it would do just changing the model with no change in the increase in the percent of the supplement. So, as you can see, if you work through the example, employees that got a 3% raise this year, that's what it turns out to be, would actually see $180 less in their
034supplement increase than they had in the past. and the district would actually save $240 because the matching benefits on that. So the annual savings considering all things equal would be about $200,000 a year. And like I say, I know that's a radical change and I know that would be something you'd have to think about and discuss, but when we're looking at multiple very difficult decisions, I just dug into everything I could find and wanted to present this as an option because Wake County moved to this model four or five years ago because, as you can imagine, they not only have very strong local support, as we have had over the years, but they have a massive number of employees there and they could not find a sustainable way to keep the percentage supplement. They they
035changed to a fixed rate. Uh question who would benefit more teachers or staff if we put it in a fixed rate or salary cap? Um there would be no change in any group of people except those that would be cap top after they were grandfathered past the group I would suggest you grandfather in that are already over that amount and then moving forward you would have anyone that got up to a certain amount that would be the only people that might lose in this scenario except for the fact they are not earning as much a year as they would normally earn. So there's not a teacher that could have reached that cap, right? Even if they put in 30 years of teaching, they would never reach that cap. It would depend on what the salary
036is and what you decide the cap would be. I just threw in a suggestion there. That is completely up to you. Um, for the benefit of the public, um, one of the things that Heidi has brought our attention to is that our state legislature often does not decide what the salary increases are going to be, but our county commissioners months before we hear from the state legislature decides what our funding allocation is. So we wind up scrambling when we have percentage increases in salary which are great for employees but then we have to provide funding for the increase in the supplement across the board and we have to provide funding for all the locally paid employees. So, while I am not excited about this particular example because I don't want to rein in um the
037supplement increases, um I do understand that what what your goal is is to have something that is more practical to budget with so that we can go to the county commissioners, ask for funds, and then not be surprised and have to take money out of our reserve fund or go back to the county commissioners for more money. Because when all of these dynamics started changing in local and state revenue streams, what I said is unfortunate. You know, so let's say the minimum wage is a great example. That is nothing that any of us would ever not want for our employees. We want those wages to continue go up and be living wages. But what's sad is if the pot of money to pay for those is fixed, we're going to have a group of people,
038wonderful people that get a raise and we're going to have this other group of people that end up losing their jobs because we can't afford to keep everybody. So this whole proposal and all these ideas that are getting thrown out is simply a way to try to see if we can find some reasonable way to rightsize so that we can continue providing all those wonderful services this district has provided to the kids and keep as many staff as possible employed. Yeah. I mean I mean I I think that that's the point, right? Like at the end of the day, we either cut staff or we figure out how to manage our costs. And that is it is a it is a binary choice. Unfortunately, if we don't figure out how to rein in these costs,
039we lose staff. And our budget options that Dr. Ferman's going to share with us tonight explain that in stark relief. And so um the other thing that I would note is that you know for all of the support this the general assembly has not given us and it has in my opinion terribly abdicated its responsibility to provide an appropriate free education for its citizens. They have increased teacher salaries and when that happens and our and we've just bumped up our supplement by 2% that's a big hit. um to our budget. And I think our goal, at least my personal goal, is not to lose positions um and to do everything we can to both maintain our highest salary possible and not to lose positions. So anyway, I think that that's a really important that that's
040the reason we're talking about this, not because we want to pay our staff classified certified employees less. It's because we want to keep those employees. Oh, sorry, one other question. We can change that every year too, right? I mean, isn't that the elegance of this that we can look at it and say, "Boy, last year the general assembly decided in its infinite wisdom not to give any increase in salary, so we're going to increase the supplement this year um to make up for what." So, I I mean, I really appreciate the flexibility that it offers us. in responding to this really weird system where we budget before we know what money we're going to have. I don't understand that. But yeah, there those are um that dichotomy of of having to cut staff if we
041don't have enough money. The the third option is to get the public support and the county commissioner support for increasing the allocations to our schools. And it's a challenge. It is a challenge. Heidi, I also appreciate the um the Wake County sheet that you gave us and noticing the positions that are paid on the salary schedule. Um and noticing that I I've raised this a few times in meetings, recognizing that every single or 99% of all staff in this district get paid as supplement. It seems like as I'm looking at Wake County, that probably is not the case. Like there's a threshold at which someone uh graduates from getting supplemental. So, all right. So, um we did Heidi did mention we did get our state aotments. There was nothing other than the one like our
042that um salary supplement that we were surprised about, but no big changes that we weren't anticipating. um on that salary on that state aotment. However, there are several bills in the general assembly that may impact a lotments and funding. Um there's one um to increase pay for school psychologists and the number of school psychologists that are funded as well as nurses trying to get a nurse um at every school um as well as some different salary increase bills that are out and about in the community in the in the state legislature. Um, but it's important to realize as we've just shared that number of, you know, what we're looking at our potential shortfall is that's based on our best estimates. So, as we kind of look at things now, here's the number we're targeting based
043on best estimates and knowing that depending on what comes out of the legislature, what comes from the county government, those are these are numbers that we may have to adjust as we move forward in budget conversations. So, I just want to make sure everyone's clear on that. I'm going to talk a little bit about formulas. the state formula versus our local formula allotments. And while form state staffing formulas are helpful for budgeting and helpful for creating a common understanding, they're not perfect. They're not the always the, you know, the do all endall of how you decide how many staff are needed for particular schools. Um, so just wanted to make sure that we all understand, you know, formulas have a purpose, like I said, but there's also some downfalls for formulas. While they're helpful for
044planning and creating and budgeting, they also don't recognize the complex nature of educating students, um, and they can oversimplify that. And they start from this scarcity mindset that you've got to just have this, you know, start from zero and build up. Um, and you know, as I was reflecting on them, they really depersonalize our students and staff. um particularly looking from one school to another as we look at the percentage of students that may be receiving multilingual services or EC services. You know, that's an important thing to consider as well. And then just teachers and students don't come in halves. They don't come in a.3. So, we can't have 1.3 kindergarten teachers at a school. We've got to have, you know, we have one or we have two. Um so, that also is is something
045to contend with when you think about problems with staffing formulas. Um and you know finally again just they don't really take into consideration unique attributes and qualities of our staff and students. So a question that has come up is what's the difference between our local aotment formula with the state formula. So I've picked just five categories here to help capture where we are spending local funds and you know good or bad or no judgment on these. is just stating some facts on how we allocate staff versus what the state uses. Um so the first two categories um are for some of our electives teachers. Um so elective teachers that are not music teachers in grades 6 through 12, my formula is one teacher for every 150 students. The state gives us zero staffing for electives,
046middle school or high school. So all of those elective teachers, we have said we're going to all lot those and pay for those teachers out of local funds. Uh music teachers are the same and these are just our 612 music teachers. So I am a strong believer in the musics and the arts. Um and really believe that we need to support our arts and particularly our music programs. Um so I've allotted one teacher for every 175 students enrolled in a music program 6 through 12. And that aotment gives us seven band orchestra chorus teachers. Um where again the state doesn't fund us anything for our music program. So that's a local aotment. Another one is assistant principles. Um assistant principles. Um I've came up with a one AP per student aotment and um have listed
047those numbers there. But then George raised a good question like what does that look like compared to the state aotment? because the state allotss us one month of employment for an assistant principal for every 350 students. The typical assistant principal has 11 months of employment. So we would need 11 months. So 11 times the number to start earning how many assistant principles we get. So our funding aotment earns us 13 um assistant principles. The state funding aotment allocates us 3.8 8 which creates that difference of about 9.5. Um so that's another local aotment that's different from the state. Instructional assistance is one that I've got a lot of question a lot I've had people um ask some questions about this aotment formula. Um, so for every kindergarten classroom, whether it's the class limit or below,
048we assign one IA for each kindergarten classroom. At the first and second grade level, we allow one IIA for every two classrooms. And then for third grade, one for every three. And that's regardless of their size, but we have to follow those class size limits, which is 15, 16, 18. The state takes your total number of students in K through three, divides it by 21, and that's how many IAS you get for based on their ratio. So, kindergarten, they'll take your number of kindergarten students, divide it by 21, and say you earn 10, you have 10 kindergarten classrooms, we're going to give you 10 IAS, even though based on the state class size limit, you really probably have 27 kindergarten classrooms. So, you're already behind when you are staffing your kindergarten classrooms with IAS. And
049they do that same for first and second grade. They take your total number of students, divide it by 21. Let's say by that total you've had 20 classrooms in K um first and second grade. They divide that by two and then that's how many you get. But in reality, you maybe have 30 K1 or first and second grade classrooms. And the same for third grade. So we al our allocation formula earns us 39 instructional assistance just in the K3 zone. um not including some of our other IAS that are staffed in other positions. The state allocation we only earn 26. So we've locally funded an additional 13 IAS above what the state is giving us. Another big difference um for how we staff versus the state is for our enhancement teachers K5. Those are PE,
050art, music, um some of the magnet enhancement teachers. Um, and I felt like one for 80 um, students was a pretty good number. One I've seen used in other states and the state allocation here is one enhancement teacher for every 191 students about double. Um, so we based on our formula have 21 specialist teachers across our five elementaryaries. Um, and the state would only allocate us based on their formula 8.3. So again, that's an investment that Asheville City Schools is making in our local funds to provide those teachers at each of our elementary school buildings. So when you look at just those five categories, we are locally funding 58 positions um across our district. So that was just a a question that was had. What's the state formula versus our local formula? And these are
051the ones where um this is just five that I chose to share. um we can flush this out for every category just so that we can provide that information, but I didn't have time to get through all of those. And sometimes they fund dollars instead of positions. So that starts to get a little harder to figure out. So any questions on our staffing formula versus the state aotments? Thank you so much for showing this. I think it's so vital that others than just the board gets to see this. Um, and I said this, I think last time. Oh, actually, let me say one other thing. I really also appreciate the word investment, right? Like this this district has for a long time invested in these positions. Understanding this it's not new or it shouldn't be
052new news that our district uses a lot of local funds to pay for a lot of positions and it's an investment. That's the choice we've made and it's choice I hope we can continue to make. Um, I have, um, I think this is really helpful as we go into that budget conversation with our county commissioners because I've had a couple of county commissioners say they don't know what the state allotment formulas are. So to present that to them as we're asking for this budget for these budgets to say, you know, we've chosen to invest. Can the county commissioners also choose us to invest? I also think it would be helpful to show um if there are um best practices, if there are national organizations that say we should have one per however many other. I
053know we've done that for social workers and others, but maybe some other positions as well. Um because that I I feel like that I hope that that would um help make the argument even stronger when we go through to our commissioners. So, thank you for doing this. Y for counselors we do follow I don't remember what the county aotment is for counselors but we do follow the aotment for counselors one counselor for every 250 students which is the ask a model um I just I thank you again for this information um so out of these five categories there's 58.09 09 locally funded positions that are are listed here. Um out of the 278 total, which leaves 219.91 positions um remaining that aren't in this presentation, is there a a list, maybe it's forthcoming, um somewhere
054similar to this presentation from Wake County that lists Yeah, that's what Heidi and I are working on. So she's been going through employee by employee and saying you know where where their funding coming from local, state or federal and um so she working on that and then aligning it in a chart like this with the aotment formula from the state versus ours locally. Um and there's some a lotments that we haven't gotten to like custodians like we're just we don't we haven't changed that aotment. We haven't increased it or decreased it. We've just kept our custodian aotment and bus driver a lotment. So there are some that we haven't changed. So then we've got to look at what do we earn from the state for those. I don't know that they all lot them based
055on a number. Um I think it's just a dollar value. So we've just like we've still got to dig through those different layers of employees and we're working on that. Then just one other question. Are are there any positions that have multiple sources of funding? Yeah. Yeah. Mo most we do have several staff. So like we have a staff member who works in the HR department and because of her job description, part of her salary comes from federal funding because of her work with beginning of the year teachers and staff development and then the rest is paid locally. So yeah, we have lots of staff that are split funded between different accounts. Okay. Thank you. And then like Dr. Maggie said, she's honoring the the recommended number of counselors in her allotment formula. Is it?
056Oh, sorry. Uh but for example, that's another great one we could bring to you to look at because districtwide we get 20 instructional support persons in in the district. 20 that's nurses, guidance counselors, media, all the coaches, all the facil I mean so you can just imagine how you know we're trying to be reasonable but those those state aotment formulas are just not reasonable. I mean because a district even if we went lean we would be in excess of what the state all lots us for those and it's um I know I will hear from Miss Rickby later if I don't mention that uh um our transportation funds and revenue we can't use the funds for other uses they just come specifically for transportation so there There are some pools like that or for CTE
057uh positions at the high school that are funded by what is it the department of commerce or the it's the funding sources. Sometimes we can't mess with taking funds from one place to to um uh pay for things that we really value or other things that we really value. Yeah. And that that's a good point, Pebby. I think it's more things to communicate because and this is not to throw shade on our county commissioners. They have big jobs to count for the county, but but educating them about how how exactly that money gets to us from the state and where specifically it it must go sometimes. Uh, one other thing to mention and this came up a couple years ago when we were talking about this was um, and Heidi correct me if I'm wrong
058please, but month by month who gets paid out of local or who gets paid out of state can't might it change like so it's hard to say teacher A gets paid out of local completely. And so I just want to I want to lift that up to say that as these conversations go on and I'm sure that there are educators out there thinking, you know, what does that mean for me specifically? Um, I'm not thinking in that way and I I would trust that the board and the district is not thinking that way that there's a specific person who's get paid out of local every single time and that's the that's like we're aiming for that. That is not the case here. We are we are looking at the structure of all this and how
059we can best use it. Dr. Maggie and I had extended conversation earlier about that. And I mean, we could have a perfect plan of where exactly everybody's going to be paid from tomorrow or next week when you pass a budget, but then the county is going to change the appropriation amount they said they're going to give us. Every one of those aotments are going to change. We we have a raise and we have to move everybody around in order to get that aotment zeroed out with the right number of people because of the increase in the salary and the fringe benefits. So, all of that continues to evolve. or we have a teacher to get an advanced degree and now that a lotment doesn't fully pay for that teacher anymore. We have to move somebody.
060I mean, it it is fluid and Mark can attest to this too. It's fluid all year long. Um, and as far as trying to get everyone in the right place in order to make sure we maximize our revenue streams. All right. So the other question that came from the board as I was putting together the presentation was you know I've shared as we implement this staffing aotment formula it's it's reflective of student enrollment and we know our funding is based on student enrollment for you know 99% but what is that and then you implement a staffing aotment formula how does that look as we look at fluctuations in student enrollment so as we looked at our projections next year for Asheville High and Silsa we were anticipating ating a decrease of about a 100 students
061overall. Um, now that it as I worked with Derek and Stephanie on those positions, what we settled on was three. So when I share the allotments with the principles, I was like, here's the draft, here's the tenative, let's talk through is that doable. Um, so as Derek and Stephanie and I met, we looked at that and his initial aotment was more than the three and a half. Um but as he was scheduling and building um the schedule, what we could settle on was a reduction of three based on the decrease in enrollment. Um so as he's scheduling his classes and building the master schedule, it's you when you're looking at the classes, he's like, "Yep, we could collapse x number of sections and that earns us x number of positions that we could potentially save."
062Um, and then Asheville High. Um, that's Asheville High and Silsa. Asheville Middle, we're actually not projecting that their enrollment change much from this year to next year. We're still waiting on our sixth grade numbers, which is a big question. Um, because a lot of those parents will decide over the summer where they're going. Um, so when we merged the two schools, we very much left staffing at the same level to ease that in U merger period. Um but now we've got to start to implement well if we move forward with the with the budget we've got to move forward um with implementing this aotment which is adjusting to some initial um increase in teachers because of that merger. And so as I worked with Blair, he felt comfortable enough, not that it's ever a great
063thing, um, but that he could make a schedule that worked for all students, um, with a reduction of four core teachers and one and a half elective teachers in reduction for elementary. Uh, also based uh, we were looking about a 100 students decreased overall in elementary. And I've got an asterisk there um because as I'm looking at our numbers currently for elementary school, they're not as we're not seeing as much of that decrease um that we anticipated. While kindergarten numbers are lower. We're about 40 students below what we projected for kindergarten. Our first through fifth grade numbers are higher. So it may just result in some shifting of teachers instead of reduction. So we're checking that and going back through. that um the initial projection um based on decreased enrollment with our staffing aotment formula
064would have decreased five teachers across our elementary schools. Any questions on that? Yeah, quick question. Why do we I mean Asheville High and Zula I always feel like people are dying to go to a Asheville High. So why are we looking at is that just the size of the cohort changing? Yeah, that rising eighth grade cohort is very small. So even though we typically increase our from 8th grade to 9th grade, it's still not increasing as much as it has in the past because just that cohort of eighth graders is smaller. Um and then the big class is kind of leaving us. So it was overall the enrollment was good looking like it would drop about 100. And that's um I guess are we are we taking in as many students from the county as
065we can or from outside? I shouldn't say the county, I mean anywhere. Okay, thank you. Yeah, we haven't turned away any requests for out of district enrollment with the high school. Now, I mean, I guess one other question I have is this is is this like does this depend on how we move forward in terms of budget or is this something that you want to do no matter what? not want, but I mean, is this a change that you feel like is advisable even if we were to say do the difference with our supplement or make other changes with the goal of I mean because although I understand that we have the allotment formulas and why they exist and it makes complete sense that they exist, I also know that teachers are not having an
066easy time, right? like this is not these are not easy jobs and not they're not supposed to be but they're not and I just I worry about every loss of of teacher a position and like in particular with the middle school it's curious to me how you have the pods and how you're going to lose four teachers because right now you've got four you know I guess that means you go down to three teachers per pod some different ways I think you know like you all know my career was in middle school before I came to central offices and you know every year and when When I worked in middle schools, as numbers changed on the grade levels, it was like, okay, instead of having four fourperson teams, sometimes we had two four-person teams and
067two twoperson teams. It just whatever the student enrollment was, we kind of adapted based on that. And then in one middle school, I was a IB school, so we had five person teams. Okay. Thank you. So, I guess my I still go back to my question though. Yeah. which is like is this a is this a recommendation right now? I want to share this information with you and know that as we monitor our revenue, we've already allocated $4 million of fund balance, right? So, if we continue to allocate above a staffing allotment formula to a level, it's going to keep eroding away our fund balance to a point if we don't get new revenue. So if our revenue stays neutral or it gets decreased, we are going to have to look at staffing aotments to
068decide like how do we make this determination on what's the appropriate level of staffing that we need to serve our students. So this is I think your answer was yes. This is a recommendation either way. My recommendation is that we look at what we get and then the board has to decide how much do you want to dig out of your fund balance. Right. And but I mean what I'm hearing and I'm not trying to be a I'm not trying to cross-examine you. I promise. But I am trying to I am trying to like get to an answer that I can understand. It seems like what you're saying and which makes sense is hey you you guys have been taking from fund balance like crazy. You can't keep doing that. So yeah, no matter kind
069of no matter what in order to stop t being able to kind of just be a civ these are these are reasonable changes. Okay. Thank you, Amy. You took some of my thunder. But good. That means I had good thunder. Yes, you did. Um, if we decide not to do this right here and have smaller class size and keep the teachers and maybe be a small increase in pay, maybe no increase in pay or no increase in pay, but we or reduction in days, but we kept the teachers and we have smaller class size. Is that a possibility? I mean, yes, it is. I mean, so we if we can I mean, you know, I mean, Jesse, what I'm saying is yes, that's a possibility. And instead of paying our teachers for x number of
070days, maybe we have to furlow days because at some point we've got to balance the budget. I have to give you a balanced budget. Heidi has to give you a balanced budget. If our revenue does not increase, we have to make cuts somewhere. And if it's not a decrease in number of employees, it's not a decrease in that, then we've got to find other places to cut, which is reduction in days. Okay? So, if we find other places, let's say we keep this right here. Now, we got to find other places to cut. And they don't come from teachers. Where else can we get them from? I'll show you that when I get to the budget option. I knew you was okay. Thank you. I wanted to ask um just piggybacking off of what Amy
071was asking about um planning for out of district enrollment at particularly at the high um I wanted to acknowledge the trend of families leaving the district for the middle school years and then returning um and I'm curious if that is taken into account in yeah like I said we have the survival r it's a terrible word but survival ratios for each cohort and what we have see over time from 8th grade to 9th grade that cohort increases. So for example, the survival ratio is typically one um 133%. Which means if we have 100 eighth graders, we end up with 133 nth graders. And the survival cohort ratio from fifth to sixth grade is 85%. So if we have a 100 fifth graders, we typically only end up with 85 sixth graders. So it's different on
072grade levels, but there is a very rap a very evident trend particularly at those two transition points. Thank you. Yeah. Uh I do want to point out that if we're talking about reductions in force, actually force layoffs for meeting budgetary numbers, um that that reduction in force is something that I believe the board would need to vote on. Uh, and I would appreciate that we have that opportunity. I do understand that you're in a tough position of trying to balance what we are hearing will be recommended to county commissioners and that it will be the county commissioners choice about how they move forward. But it is also our choice in what kind of vision or recommendation to lay before them. And maybe jumping ahead a moment, I really appreciate the idea of presenting a no
073cuts budget, which I think is is where you're going, but I also want to emphasize the importance of presenting a budget that actually achieves the goals that the county commissioners have been asking for for years, which is what do we need to staff? what do we need to do so that we actually close all the gaps that we sometimes get hammered for? And so the idea of having something you kind you might call it aspirational above the no cuts budget uh I think would help the county commissioners wrap their heads around, you know, that we actually have been living an austerity budget for years. Thank you. I'm going to encourage board members if they would. I think what we have are various discreet pieces of information and I think it might be helpful if we
074let Maggie continue to put those out because we have yet to get to the part where we actually discuss this and I'm just would if you guys are good. I think if we could let them continue that would be helpful. Um and Tanya I'm going to ask you to help out here with the tuition um information. I know there were some questions about tuition. However, it's in the board policy that it is called out of district tuition and that's why we used this in the presentation because that's what's in board policy. Um, so Tanya, I'm going to let you kind of share what you found as you started pulling some information. Thank you, Dr. Maggie. Um going back to how we got to the supplemental tax was very critical in understanding why the tuition is
075being charged to our out of district families. And so during the Great Depression um we wanted to reduce our class sizes. We wanted more to expand our offerings, course offerings, and we wanted to focus on a robust music and arts because at that time the state was taking things away. And so that's how we got to the supplemental tax that Asheville City Schools has today. And so on the next slide, I wanted to look at potential benefits and potential risk just to give us some food for thought um around that. And so the potential benefits were increasing our average daily membership, which is our ADM. And so we looked at that as a potential benefit. We looked at program sustainability as far as continuing funding for the supplemental program, looking at smaller class sizes, um
076course offerings as far as the high school and middle schools. And so there is a benefit to potential enrollment growth. And so when we go over and look at the risk, we also could see a risk in loss revenue, which is $125,000. That's that's a baseline of what we receive as far as tuition. Um, we could see that as a loss. um the equity concerns, our supplemental tax that our residents and our businesses pay equates to that $300 tuition. And that's a low ball if you own a house that is two or $300,000. That $300 is the bare bone minimum. We have not increased it. We have not, we've looked at it and all the districts around us are far paying far more money than the $300. So the $300 that we call tuition is
077leveling the playing field financially for our in district families that pay that supplemental tax. So tuition equals supplemental tax. So if we take away the tuition, what are our in district families going to say about the supplemental tax that they pay? And so that's leveling the playing field of what we ask our in district families to do and our out of district families. Does that make sense? Okay. No. And so the irreversibility is if we take away that tuition, how are we going to put it back in place once our in district families say, "Okay, if out of district are not paying, why should we pay the supplemental tax?" Because that's what it it equates to. It's just not the 300 is not an arbitrary just figure that we came up with. And so the
078only increase that we've done was help me out Melissa about three or four years ago we looked at it at the recommendation of the county commissioners. And instead of $300 per student, we do $300 for the first child and $100 for any other siblings. But when G Lord George's in the room, when Heidi and I looked at it and we looked at other counties, theirs is like 1,200, 3,000, 6,000, and ours is 300. Bunkam County. Bunkham County does not charge any families that reside within Bunkham County because they already pay taxes. They don't have a supplemental tax. What they pay for is the application fee, which is $20. So, if any of our families in our district go to Bunkham County, they're going based off of they pay county taxes. Does that make sense? Okay.
079Pulling that to you. So, if I may, um I I think it's pertinent to go ahead and and uh address some of these issues. Now, um it is so in in 2016 there was a prediction that we were going to run out of classroom space and there were efforts to expand capacity and at the same time increase the out of district fees and the out of district fees were as you said to represent that amount of the supplemental tax. But I want to point out that we have families who have been paying the tax for years and wind up having to move out of district either voluntarily or not voluntarily. We have families who work at Mission or at Grove Park in or um other places within the city and those businesses pay the supplemental
080tax and the tax is the property taxes in Bunkham County. approximately 20% of all of the property value that's taxed is inside of our school district and we routinely receive a 15% share. Uh so there's a lot of pieces in there and one of the things that I appreciate about our CFO is that um she was able to say we need the enrollment more than we need this small uh supplemental fee and that the enrollment issue has really that decrease in enrollment has really been um hurting our ability to maintain services and maintain programs and maintain schools. So, my pitch is um I don't see the difficulty with um uh putting something back in. What I would like the board to consider is having something like what Liza Kelly had recommended at another board meeting
081of having a a two-year pilot of uh a fee waiver. Uh alternatively, having a fee waiver for elementary school and middle school. um if we don't want to do high school as well though I think all of them should be considered but if we can increase even 15 students we're well no less than that um uh what is that eight students worth of revenue um we would close that 125,000 and of course you know that's the revenue side of course there are expenses but just increasing the enrollment by a little bit. Eliminating this fee would make a big difference. And we're coming from a history of having had what was it 20% of the district being out of uh out of district students some 20 30 years ago. And so we've got a history of
082being welcoming. And then my last comment on top of that, and I'm sure all of you are ready for me to wrap it up, um, is that families do not pay out of district fees to go to charter schools, and you've just pointed out that they don't pay out of district fees to go to Bonham County schools. So, what I don't want to see is a tariff on enrollment. Thank you. All right. Um, so I also wanted to provide for some context updated updated revenue projections that the county shared at their last budget workshop. Um, so they gave us some initial budget projections for the current year budget back in January predicting some decreases due to Helen. Um, they've since amended those. um their initial budget shortfall um was taking them from a projected revenues
083of uh $428.9 million to somewhere between $43.2 million to 413.8. They landed on the upper end, which is good. So, they didn't come down as short as they thought, but still decrease um by about $15.6 million in revenue just this current year. And then they started to preview what revenue might be going forward. Um so they are predicting a revenue stream of about $413.1 million um for the next for the upcoming school year. And what you'll notice when I show the next slide is that's still a decrease from where they are predicting we end fiscal year 25. So they're de they're projecting that next year they'll still have a decreased revenue of about $200,000. um which if you start thinking down the line um and how that will impact our um allocations, we've just got
084to keep that in the back of our minds. Um there was some comments about yeah, we've got to think about what we want for our school system. We are in the middle of strategic planning. We are well on our way to finishing up our portrait of a graduate which will inform what we're doing as a school system. And then, you know, just reimagining what our schools could look like. And I was as I was thinking through this, thinking back to our bridge to learning program um that was during that month of well we were closed for Helen and how things were just there were zero discipline issues. The kids came in, they picked their choice what they wanted to do. Teachers were teaching these amazing standardsbased lessons with hands-on learning, critical thinking. Our students were
085engaged. We had high school students there supporting. So there is an opportunity as we move through and finish strategic planning to really think differently about what our schools could really look like to serve our students the best that we can. I wanted to highlight some great things going on right now. So our sixth grade team at the middle school is creating an expedition. So they're studying climate change. They're studying what impacts climate change. They're coming up with some how those climate changes and floods will impact our rivers and then what you can do to mitigate some of that flooding damage. So they are working on this amazing expedition and really thinking through like how do we as a as a student understand that critically. Um we've started embedding and enhancing our mental health support and
086e um seal support for students through the use of crew. Um, our CTE program is enhancing our community and business partnerships with eyes on how do we increase the opportunities for students to do a weekly internship and start exploring careers in a more authentic way. Um, and then I also think just as we learned during the bridge to learning is how do we create flexible learning spaces, places, and time? We constrain ourselves to the 8:30 to 3:30 time frame. What if our school day looked a little different? Um so starting to think through what does what could those things and that's the inspiration that is driving strategic plan helping us think through what is next. Um and then I shared some of the shifts that are happening nationwide as they look at what are core
087things that address student outcomes in a positive way. Um and this comes from a company called transcend that studies um redesigning education across the across the nation. And these key areas are really where we are focusing on and how are we embedding these in a consistent manner across every classroom in our district. Um just so that we're really thinking yes, what could our school system look like and what does the funding we need to make that happen? Um and that's always in the back of my head. Um so thinking through like just going forward, what would funding look differently to help support us achieving those outcomes? and it's making sure that education is the priority not just in our state but locally. Um, one of the things I shared with the um board a couple
088months ago now is that Bunkham County ranks 78th I think in funding effort towards public school. There's 180 or 81 school districts and we're 78th. So where is their priority when it comes to supporting their public schools? um if we are going to help our students achieve these goals, we can't do it with less. So, getting our students college and career ready um and making progress towards those goals, it just it can't be with less money. Um and before we go into the funding options and budget options, it's just like these are the budget options that we put together, we know are not designed to really help us move forward. They are the bare bones, the less than barebones, and then hey, we're we're we're really starving. Um, so we just wanted you to know
089that we put these together because I have to recommend a balanced budget to the board. I have to give you some options to talk through to see where the direction you want Heidi and I to move as we direct the budget. Um, so just so you know, that's kind of where we headed into. Just a quick review of our budget calendar. Um, so we are doing our budget presentation tonight. Um, once the board will kind of redo this on the 21st with some changes based on your feedback this evening. Um, we present our budget request to the county commissioners on April 29th. Very quickly after that on May 6th, Bunkham County presents their budget. They have a public budget hearing on May 20th and then they do their final approval on June 3rd. So, that's
090just um kind of where we're headed with the budget in the just the next six weeks or so. And just a quick reminder, this is where we started. Um so, as I built um three options for the board to consider, that was my bottom line. How do we make where do we find 6.7 6 almost $7 million? Um so, I'll kind of talk through these um and explain and and then answer any questions. So all three of these budgets do a allocation of fund balance. The first two options give a fund balance allocation of $3 million. Option four, we take a little more out of fund balance. Option one and two assume that we're able to get the commissioners to restore our supplemental tax to the 12 earning us we're estimating 1.5. It could range
091more down based on property values. Um option one is our like no cuts. We keep everything as is. We don't make any changes. Um but that means the county is going to have to allocate us an additional $2.45 million to get our budget balanced. Um so that is option one for your consideration. Um and then we start looking, okay, let's say they can't give us extra funds. They tell us we're we can maybe give you a little bit extra and we'll pass that um supplemental increase for you. So we have to start looking at, you know, how do we balance our budget then? Um, so some of the options that we're considering or proposing for option two would be a reduction to central office staff by eight positions. That's eight FTE. FTE is a full-time
092equivalent. That's one position. Um, so cutting eight positions out of central office. Um, making those cuts at the school level that I presented um, previously in the slide. And then also looking at our school nutrition workers, they are currently employed how many days, Heidi? 210 days, but taking them down to 202. Um, and Heidi has more to share on that when she talks through that part of the budget or that part of the calendar. Option three, we have to dig even even deeper. Um, so this then takes us nine central office positions and that additional position there is the reduction of one student support specialist. again those reductions that were come that come out of the staffing aotment formula. Um we take our instructional assistants and bus drivers and we decrease their days of employment
093and these are some of our lowest paid staff taking a significant number of days. Um so from 215 to 196 for instructional assistance bus drivers down from 216 to 186. also as um assistant principles in other administrative positions reducing their contracted days as well to try to save $454,000. Looking at that local supplement change to save us about $200,000, further reducing our school nutrition workers uh to 195 and then the elimination of um four FTE and media and DT and that would get us to a balanced budget. So, none of those are great options. Even option one doesn't allow us to do more and to take those improvements. Like I said, none of these are great options. Uh but wanted to give the board a very clear picture on where what the cuts would look
094like if we have to make those cuts. I was prioritizing keeping student facing positions. um the decrease in days for drivers, IAS, and school nutrition workers are days when students aren't in the building. Um that's why we felt like if we have to make cuts, that's an area where we could make some reductions. So that is um open for discussion and comment. Maggie, I just want to start with something for context. with all options we started with and I don't know that it's the right number but that Bunkham County is going to give 126 million for education as it did last year and we get roughly 15% of that from that's not where we started okay and the reason why we didn't start there is we know they have put a bill in the general
095assembly to reallocate our article 39 funding so I am anticipating if they do not come out and keep us solid that they are going to ask us to keep our budget as is based on using that article 39. So I fully anticipate they may they've decreased us 4%. They may kick it down even further and then say now it's your responsibility to decide what you want to do with your article 39 funds. So then they're trying to put it on us instead of taking responsibility for funding schools. Thank you. And that is part of what I was getting at. But just so again, just for context, if we start with any of the options you how did option three I don't know what I'm trying to say. What number did you start with? We really
096just started with what? Yes. What we got. So that option three is hey we don't get any additional funding whatsoever. We get that 126 whatever our allocation is from that. Yes, that's where we started. Okay. And then and I understand the point possibly less than that because of the article 39 funding. Okay. I just wanted to have that out there. I appreciate the the way I'm reading this is let's say on the 21st we say we want to do option one. We then go to the county and the county says really what you have what what we're going to be able to do is going to fit into option three. Now we can see what's going to happen if we are kind of forced to accept option three based on what the county can give
097us. So I I appreciate that pretty fairly clear understanding of where the resurrections have to come from. I want to go back to something that you said earlier which you had mentioned a couple of board meetings ago that um North Carolina um school forum NC public school forum did a study that says relative funding effort which is the ratio of um the tax base roughly um the um actually I've got it written now base local appropriations per ADM by local revenue per ADM puts us at 79th actually in the in the state, which means that 21% of all that funding goes to schools. We do a lot of comparisons here in Asheville with Ashboro. Ashboro is 19th in the state at 34%. So, I recognize that this would be like talk about like pushing the
098needle and asking for way more, but what would an ask of the of our county be if we wanted to get close to that 34%. I think it's worth worth exploring that. I don't know if we'd ever be able to say as a board, this is what we're really going to ask the commissioners, but it needs to be a public number that we know. Um, you know, that's that's all I said. I really appreciate that, George. Um, I'm looking at these budget options and I'm seeing the options one, two, and three. What I would love to see is a one, two, and three where we are adding in the things that we know will close achievement gaps. Um, and you know, the quick list is universal breakfast and lunch. Um, an instructional assistant for every
099classroom through 8th grade. And there's a local charter school that does that and has great results with closing achievement gaps. um expanding early childhood education with I think you've talked about adding potentially before uh the current budget shortfalls adding five classrooms and I'm wondering what it would be to add the 16 classrooms over at APS plus the five classrooms at William Randolph and what that would be funding wise for the operations and what we would need for capital funds to make that possible. Um, all of the standards that you've talked about, yes, adequate staffing for 504s, IEPs, and AIG, uh, school nurses, and I guess we're waiting for the general assembly. Um, and then pay that is comparable to neighboring states, which seems like a low bar. Um, and then also how much would it
100cost us with our Chartwells contract to maintain all the employees on our payroll so they get the full benefits. So we're not trying to balance our budgets on the backs of the lowest paid employees. And I know that that's not something you want. It's just can we approve an aspirational ideal what it will take to close gaps and serve all of our students well. Can we approve that and provide the county commissioners with the no cuts budget and the you know like uh worst case scenario so that they can see the difference. But I'm not one going to vote for cuts. I'm not one to vote for revenue neutral. I have to pres I have to present the board a balanced budget options I've provided. Right. But that balanced budget could be here's the budget
101and you would need to contribute this amount. I agree. And I also have a you know a reality check of what I think is potentially within the realm of what we could potentially get. So if the board directs me to create that um I will create that budget option. Well, that budget option along with what you've got is, I think, the resources that the county commissioners need, and I appreciate that. I'm I'm in favor of of disclosing what an ideal would be because as it is, a no cuts budget is still less than bare bones. Um, and our career teachers who have 20 plus years experience still are living paycheck to paycheck at best. and have second jobs. And that's that shouldn't be the case. So, I I'm in favor of including that those much
102much much bigger numbers in a budget presentation and saying that this is a a no cuts budget. Um, what what are the I'm just curious because I know that you've already kind of um cut central office quite a bit during your time here. What are the eight or nine positions that you're talking about? What are those FTEEs represent? Um, I'll share that in close session. Okay, got it. Have we uh have you looked at putting one high school together and give all of the um students the opportunity to have the same grading scale as SESA has so that the high school students to be all of them with the same elective or not elective course honor courses. I I mean is that something that we could combine just I mean would we be able to
103gain any revenue from that if we did there? Uh yes if we would combine the schools to run on the same schedule there could be some potential savings there. Um when schedules align because that's part of the you know when the schedules align we can schedule students more streamlined. Um, so when they're running semesters in one school, full year in the other, that has caused some areas where we can't align things as seamlessly as possible. So if the board would like, we can start a study and decide if that's something that we want to move forward on. But could we give I can't make that I can't alone make that decision without going through the whole process, the process. Yes. But can the students still receive honor credits as a high school? Yeah. Instead of
104just Yes. 100%. Yes. Yes. Asheville High offers honors classes as well, but Silsa offers only honors classes, right? Like they don't honor offer lower than honors. Am I right about that? So, I guess that is that your question, Jesse? That's basically I think the question is why not elevate all and then combine and achieve savings that way, right? Um, and I do think that it I don't know, you know, that's a long process as we know from last year. Uh, it's not one we can achieve in time to present this as a budget option. I certainly think it's important. Here's the thing. The challenge for me is I'm trying to think of what are the downsides to doing what um, Pepe and Liza have suggested. And on the one hand, you want to say there
105are no downsides. And on the other hand, I've spoken with enough county commissioners to know that, you know, I don't know that there's a downside. I just know that there's an expectation that we will be steward better stewards than they think we have been. And I think one of the critical pieces is to name what George named. They think that we they fund us better than anybody or at least that's what they've said to me in the past. Maybe maybe the commissioners know better now. and also that we have one of the highest per pupil funding in the state. And you know, you hear these things and we've done nothing for the achievement gap. And there's just complete ignoring the fact that we have challenges since co that did not exist before and that are
106expensive challenges and that we need to care for our students. Anyway, I'm going off. I'm going to stop that. But um I just want to think about what the downsides are and if there are any in terms of persuasive value, right? Like we have to persuade them to give us the most money possible. What is our best strategy for persuading them to give us the most money possible? So board members, we have to vote on this on April 21st. And I am hearing um Pepe Red a long list of items and I need to know if we want to take those up one at a time and seek Maggie to quantify those. I I guess I'm trying to get a sense of what we are asking Maggie to do for us in the next week.
107None of us none of us wants to have a budget that isn't the best we can offer our kids. And we can I mean they have a $413 million revenue. The county does and we and please keep in mind anything they give us is 15% of they have to give Bunkham County 85%. So it's true a rising tide would lift all ships. I I just want to ask, you know, would we go and ask for 200 million half of the county budget if we I understand that's what our children need and then the county is going to deal with all their other employees. But, you know, I just want to be sure that we have a an understanding of what we are asking for. Could we ask the county to uh delay for a year
108while we put everything guess into process? Delay what? I don't know if we just come up with no I thinking about what George offered which I I I feel like since you've been here Heidi you've brought in this effort concept that we hadn't really seen before and I appreciate the way it sort of changes the viewpoint and I think I rely on staff as the experts like to um define what would be the best use of dollars to achieve the goals that we want. And so I'm wondering some about if we just did some estimates based on the Ashboro effort, what would that equate to in dollars here and what impact would you see? They want us to close an opportunity gap and an achievement gap. So what would that include and what would be
109your you know like and and I I guess I'm also just highly aware of how much work went into this. This is what the county commissioners I appreciate how much you value communication with Aval Pinder and that relationship and I don't I'm not going to ask you to put any of that at risk because I think it does benefit our school district. Um there's a lot of work that you put into that. So timing wise, maybe it's more back of the envelope than it is highly structured, but to give them that frame of reference and what would that look like if it played out in our community and what would we do with it? I would also add that the county commissioners have for years highly prioritized early childhood education uh and have tried to
110expand that and some of our disconnect with the county commissioners have been when we reduced early childhood education opportunities. And so if we can restore trust on that or opportunities on that and put that out of there as where we would spend some of the funds I think that that will be helpful. My last comment now I think the whole community is looking at this correct can we ask them to like everything else can we ask them to ch I know which one they'll choose number one I mean they'll probably choose one number three but can we ask them for their opinion let them and then Monday we will uh I mean is that possible I mean if if they want to see what we are up against right I can we ask them between
111now and Thursday to throw it out there and see what they say about it and that will give the community and our commissioners something that this is what the community is looking at. I think that would be it possible. Yes. And I'm happy to help facilitate those conversations. I've got a group of parents that have been working on the two cents campaign. I've had close relations with ACIE. I'm happy to give them information and let them do that public outreach and collect information. because it's going to be easy for us to vote. We can just say, "Hey, you know, we can, but if the community is part of it and they see what we up against, I would like to see what their input is so that when we do have to decide, right, they
112have seen it and they understand what we are up against. I mean, I'm just thinking um I don't I'm going to get eggs thrown at me when I walk outside this door here, right? next week. Um, I don't know. I guess what I will add is yeah, it for us to say if we if Bumpham County was funding us at the same percentage as Ashboro, that's not a hard number for us to figure out what we would do with those numbers, those additional funds to try to address what we want to address. That takes a longer time. It takes months to build strategic planning processes. I mean, that's that's something I couldn't have ready by our budget presentation on the 29th. And I think that takes away from the authenticity of us building our strategic
113plan in the process that we've already started. So, I don't want to inauthentically say, "Yeah, we'll just throw some stuff together and say, hey, here's what we think we need." when we haven't done the due diligence of asking our stakeholders for that really sincere input to help us decide where we're going. But I can very easily say, "Hey, if you want to fund us at, you know, what the 34%, here's what that number looks like in Bunkham County." Yeah. You know, it's funny you you just said exactly what was been going through my head is how can we do all of that before we do strategic planning? Um, we you know, we have all those ideas that you came up with. I think one of the things that's interesting as I reflect on how we've
114presented our budget in the past, we've really pushed hard for um salary increases and for a living wage, we've really focused on that. What we haven't focused on as much is what are the strategies to reduce the opportunity gap. And I do think that, you know, preK is really one of the primary places where that's going to have to happen. I don't think somebody can come in two years behind and and we can solve that. Um, and I'm not sure that we're ready to present that because I feel like we've got strategic planning to do and I'm not anyway I I I think that's I think we're asking a an awful lot of our staff right now to say put together a budget that's at 34% and be specific. What I do think we can
115say is not only is this 34% but by the way that's 20th in the state or 19th or whatever it is that we're 79th and we should be mindful of the other things that the county is funding. We really need to be thoughtful about we recognize there are firefighters, there are, you know, there are sheriff's deputies that are not, you know, we we are trying to we recognize and appreciate that you're trying to fund all kinds of things with this this money and your revenue has decreased as well. So, I think, you know, acknowledging that um but I I know for me at least, I don't want to I don't want to begin with anything less than option one. Um, I just think that that's I I think that's where we start and then we
116end up seeing what they give us. I'm a little bit of a cynic. I I think ultimately Bunkham County kind of drives the train here because it's 85% of the funding. But we should be asking for for nothing less than than no cuts to what we already have, which is bare bones. and explain why our this funding is necessary for us to maintain even what we have. I think that it would be possible for staff to put together the numbers for adding five classrooms or adding 10 classrooms for prek. I think that that is something that the county commissioners would appreciate and it's part of their normal um review process this time of year that's been a little bit derailed for early childhood education. But I I believe Savannah uh excuse me, Susanna um Smith
117can provide a ballpark figure for that. Um, and that it would be helpful in restoring our full 12 cents if we are able to uh communicate to the county commissioners that we would be spending some of those funds or some of the funds that we have that they give us on uh priorities that the county commissioners have. Py, I do appreciate that. I also do want to for all of us on the board be careful about speaking on behalf of somebody who's I don't even think she's in the room saying what she could or could not do. Like I do want to be careful about that. That's fair. Thank you. Um at the same time, I hear you and Amy brings it up as well like that early childhood is a um it's a spoken
118um priority of the commissioners. It's a spoken priority. I I'll be honest, I haven't seen a whole lot of money coming from the county commissioners to actually support early childhood. So, if there's a way that um that if that's part of our budget conversation with them, I think that's a really valuable thing to remind them that that is their priority. Let's see where that money is. Um and then Maggie, I do appreciate you you that reminder that yes, building these things out takes time. It takes uh it is a um yeah, it takes time. I still love the idea of making sure that or or going back to the idea of county commissioners have expressed in the past of a multi-year budgeting strategy. Um and so if we can already start to plant that seed
119that this is where other counties are, this is how far behind Bunkham County is in terms of um funding effort and that you know we we recognize where the county is right now, where all of us are in the wake of Hurricane Elen and also we can be doing a much better job as a community, as a county of prioritizing public education. I just I'm also in favor of of the potentiality of expanded access to um early childhood education and also um I'm reminded of the in the initial shortfall meeting that we attended with the county commissioners that um uh it may be beneficial to share a spirit of collaboration with Bunkham County schools as well in in that you a potential budget presentation about what what would it take to expand by five classrooms
120or 10 classrooms and how could we divide and conquer and make it better for all students. I want to try to summarize what I think I'm hearing and I'm I'm looking at each of you because I'm not sure everybody agrees with what I'm about to say but I want to so speak up. I believe I'm hearing consensus that at a minimum we would want option one. So I'm I'm just looking at folks to see nods of heads. The other thing that I'm hearing is that we want more than option one. And I have what I'm calling the Ashboro number. Um, and it may be a signaling tool to what we would want in future years. It may be a way to be persuasive as we talk to them. And it it feels like that is
121a quantifiable number. The third thing that I am hearing, I don't know that we have consensus and I also want to check in with Maggie about it. I we have heard from two board members and and three about the importance of prek education and I don't think any of us doubts it. Um, and I think what I we realistically I'm asking Maggie and her staff is how you quantify that. And in light of strategic planning and everything else going on, that's even a program we could start this fall, right? like I I wanted to have a check about preK funding and certainly I mean there are many many good ideas spoken here tonight that I think ought to be taken back to the strategic planning team. These are things the community is interested and I
122think the survey um is a great idea and these I'm now just speaking for myself by the way. These are things that feed into strategic planning and inform our decisions in the years to come. And I think there's a lot of room for growth there. And as we signal to the county commissioners that we think prek is important and we're going to look to partner with you and collaborate and all of that feels very good to me. I am trying to call the question on what the board thinks. Do we want to offer option one or what effort do we want Maggie and her team to bring back to us for an additional ask? I guess I'm trying to get clarity from and Rebecca, I'm just going to call on you because you haven't spoken
123that much. So, just talk please. Yeah. Um I think you I think you brought everything together really nicely and I think that it is real that you know we the the information exists. We don't have to make it up. We don't have to go research it ourselves that access to highquality early childhood education is a huge factor in closing opportunity gaps. That's just true, right? So, I'm thinking about sort of George's point lands heavy on me that in the conversation we had in January as joint boards. Um, I don't I would like to understand better where Bunkham County is in thinking about their priority of early childhood education and not getting ahead of them and but joining along with and signaling. I like and I think sort of the Ashboro number I see it potentially
124more as part of our signaling. Where are we headed long term? Where do you we here? Where do we see ourselves going long term? because it's it's also not lost on me to Amy's point that this whole community has been through a tragedy that with with so many knock-on effects, not the least of which being loss of tax revenue that is not eligible for any disaster relief. So, here we sit where they and we've pushed and I've talked to county commissioners and I've asked pointed questions and there's not be hard for me to think it's a good idea for us to go in asking for the moon when they've shown us these numbers of what they're expecting in revenue. I don't think that makes us puts us in a collaborative position. But I like the
125idea of a future, of planning for a future and showing them not just what salaries we would pay in the future, but what outcomes for kids we could get in the future. That's almost it. Um, I will just say I I don't see any way we could open up additional prek classrooms for next school year. um that where we were targeting is the um William Randolph campus. Um we have a uh a proposal for a cost. It's about a million dollars to renovate the bathrooms and get those ready. Um Suzanna has given me the per cost startup. Um we are talking with Dogwood just to get all those things completed in time to open for next year and get staffing. I just don't think I that is not possible. you talked about that and it
126it would be a 26 27 um so I mean that's not a hard number to get together to open a classroom and what that costs um particularly with the you know 90 MFTR being already four classroom set already zoned for students um looking at trying to add classrooms to the 441 Haywood campus we would have to go through reertification for that building to allow students to attend that building which means by the time we do that has to get back up to grade for everything so that is a a mass that is a massive capital investment. Um that I I just don't know that we would even have time to really get all those pieces in place to say here's what we would need to get this building ready. So the additional classrooms if we
127you know we can pull that number together. I've got the construction estimate. I've got classroom estimates. We know what sizes but again I just don't think that we'll be that that construction wouldn't be done until next year. It's going to take some time. Plus, we've got a contract, all that stuff. So, I mean, putting the number together for the prek is fine, but timeline of that would be at least a year, a year and a half out. And I just want to clarify because I got confused. The num the classrooms on the Montford I'm sorry, I forgotten the street number. Whatever you said, campus William Randolph campus. I was going to say 40. whatever it was, that's a number you could come up with in the next two weeks and could be part of our
128presentation to say to the county and and just so I'm clear on this, that's not money currently in the budget. So, it would be an additional ask, right? We've been searching for grants to try to fund that and we could offer that as we think this is important to the extent I do honor that everybody up here is saying we know what the county commissioners value. They've told us they value early childhood education and to the extent we can say we're in it with you. We want to collaborate. We need more money to do that. This is about what it would cost us to get five classrooms. It would we could we could think even more. Um so I got ahead of myself. That's a number you could come up with. So now I guess
129I'm going back to the board to get your input on that. I guess I want to now check back in with the board. I mean, I think that's not unhelpful. I just think at the end of the day, we should be planting seeds, right? Like the carrot seed. Sorry, my mother was a preschool teacher. Um, you know, you about that. Yes, it's good to say here's what five classrooms would cost, but I guess my focus would be we are doing the best we can with what we have right now. It is not enough for us to make measurable. We we are making gains. I don't want to I I think it's really important to say that we are making gains on the achievement gap and opportunity gap. We are doing it and our teachers are
130killing it every day and our IAS and everybody else involved in that. And if this county commission wants that to be the priority, this is what we're looking at for the future. prek, whatever else you might want to throw in there about the and I love some of those creative ideas. This is bridge learn, you know, I don't know that you want to put any of that in there, but this is what we envision for this if we got the county eventually to give us 30% or whatever it is that we could start to have a a more fair playing field if we look at the rest of the state. So, does that answer anything? I'm just kind of saying that I think that's one little piece, but I want to make it a broader
131conversation about the achievement opportunity. Yes. And that's what's coming out of strategic plan. So that we won't have that piece. So we'll have kind of our vision and our goals set in in June and then it's like how do we get to there? So we know where we are, we know where we want to go. Then building that piece in between takes some time and it requires a lot of feedback and input on staff and parents and it's not just Dr. firmman sitting in her office doing research and saying, "I think these are great ideas, right?" I have to work with the team. I have to work with staff and parents to say, "All right, I think this is a great idea. Well, what if no one else does?" And then I go to the
132county commissioners and say, "Hey, there's this great thing. We're going to do this." And then I bring it back and people are like, "No, we don't like that." So, I'm I'm hesitant to to move forward on those. I can definitely say like we've got places to go. We're working on it, but I just I won't have that authentic product ready in time for April 29th. I think just expressing enthusiasm in collaboration that, you know, we we see some really exciting things we can do as this county recovers and as it is able to expand the percentage that it comes to us, we can really make even greater gains. and we're so excited to collaborate with you and we recognize this isn't the year that we can realistically expect you to bump up the contribution from
13321% or whatever it is to 34. But, you know, anyway, I think, you know, knowing that that it's a board priority um to to plan toward expanded access to early childhood education is worth ballparking a a number to be earmarked next potentially ideal situation next year to be working towards the following year expansion. and ready to roll. But also, I I I do think it's valuable to acknowledge the other things that we know help like having an IIA dedicated per classroom. Um, knowing that students have the full support and teachers have the full support that they need during the day and what that would look like in terms of a budget in an ideal world. Question. Hey, could we put put the budget option back up please for one minute? Is it possible? Could we
134move 215 days to 196 days to option one? Could we use the bus driver from 215 to 186 days to option one? Could we uh put change the local supplement formula to option one? Um, could we do those things that doesn't affect teachers? Anything else into option one to makes a difference in all of this? I mean, because it's not if we going to I mean, what's going to hurt moving from 215 days to to 215 196? Is that going to hurt anything? I mean, but something got to hurt. All right. But so so if we ask for 215 days to 196 and option one and uh lower some of the days and just keep everything else the way it is, it does show them that we are trying to do something beside helping our
135staff and people. I mean it's not it's not a bad Oh, Jesse, I think just to clarify, I it makes I love the aspirations. I love the goals. I love I love what we're thinking about. I think strategic plan is perfect. I guess what I want to just bring forward is what I've talked to Dr. Maggie about and where I don't want us to see ourselves and be is not in a position to be able to follow through on those things. So we do we are facing a $7 million budget g deficit. We need to keep that forward. Um, so in this proposal, what I'd just like for everyone to just remember is if the county doesn't raise our tax and the county doesn't give us any more money, I mean, what I asked Dr.
136Maggie if we could do is target2 to4 million of cuts for this year because what that does is basically give you all another year to continue making adjustments. If you if you have to take $7 million this year out of your fundamentals, that's half. And if then we're a one to threeyear recovery on local revenue here, which we've been told it might be. And if the state comes back, which they've said they would, and they're going to cut revenue projections for next year, and we have no earthly idea what's happening on the federal level right now. I mean, that is a s that's 10% of our budget. what comes out of the federal government largely for our exceptional children population where we already have a deficit. I just feel compelled in my role to bring
137that forward and request that we make as Jesse said some move forward on some level of cuts so that that you can continue moving this really good work forward. Um help me understand how that could heard like I got so many red flags over there. I I wasn't looking. So help me out. I'm gonna help you and then I will let Pepy speak. I think Jesse I'm call it option 1.5. You were trying to say we're not going to ask option one. We ask with some reality check by Heidi. We ask for what we need to hold the budget steady to where it's been. Okay. that and when I looked around I thought most board members were in agreement that we could ask for that. You have then backed us up a bit and if
138I think what you were trying to say is would it show the county that we understand I'm making stuff up Jesse but we understand the predicament they're in and we're going to meet you a little bit halfway. We're going to call it option 1.5 and make a few cuts that aren't going to affect the classroom environment. That's what I feel like you're saying. Yeah. just so I think that's it's just it's not option one gives us more money but can here's where I think you're asking and because I Heidi I would like to better understand this if we ask for option one this is what we want and they and we do a presentation we do the whole thing and I have no idea how the numbers that the county gives us it doesn't it's
139not going to match up exactly like this right but they they give us a number and it's not quite option on do we not then come back and amend our budget and we have an opportunity Heidi to address these issues because and you didn't even say if we get a big salary increase right like we're gonna have to come back so Jesse we're still working on that September to October yeah okay Jesse I think my question for I'm going to put you on the spot is do you feel like we should go to the county and ask for option one. And and I want you to when I panned the room, I think most people are in favor of that. I think you're trying to say, would it be better for us to not ask
140for option one and ask for something a little less than that? And I'm not sure the rest of the board is there. So I don't Jesse, I would like No, no, I understand that. Okay. I really do. I I would like to see option one. Okay. But if they don't if they come back to us Yes. All right. We have to move some of those. So option four could be partial option one and partial some of the other stuff. I think that that Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. No, no, I'm good. I thought I think the answer to your to maybe your what I heard you ask is the reason that that's the your suggestion was challenging for me is you're talking about reducing the the salaries or the pay for the lowest
141paid employees. No, it wasn't. or some of the lowest paid. It's a reduction of days in Wait. But that's what it does if they don't get paid for that. Oh, wait, wait. You know what? You know what? Okay, time out. I am totally I am totally sorry about that. Why don't we just change the local supplement formula? Why don't we That's why you got red flag, Jesse. Okay. Hey guys, I'm so sorry. I mean, can you give him a green flag, please? Thank you. That's the reason why. Help me out. Talk about this. Okay, Liza. Um, Jesse, I just I wanted to thank you for your your your grace in that moment. Um, and also acknowledging, you know, that there are a lot of question marks around the what the impact of what's going on
142in the federal government is going to do to all of this. And also knowing that the that our school staff, our our city school staff that have retirement accounts are also looking at those right now. And that's that's another piece of this that's really really terrifying and really nebulous. And um I just I I I felt like I just needed to say that like that we know that that's we're on a trajectory right now that is impactful. Thank you. So I would love to see a line about and I know it's a projection. I know it's imagination. I know it's best guess but what happens if we increase enrollment by a 100 students by 50 students through um uh a fee waiver for out of district students. I don't know what the number will be
143but I have guesstimates. I I feel like staff could have a guesstimate. um and that that is um something that is um uh aspirational. It's something to try and maybe this year with the hardships that people have been through, maybe this is the year to allow a fee waiver and see if it has an impact or like Liza was ex suggesting at another meeting, having a two-year trial of that and seeing if it makes an impact. and a two-year trial addresses your concern about, you know, how do we roll it back? Well, if we're doing a two-year pilot, then it's kind of is what it is. I would offer that sort of as we've talked about other things that would take a little more time that the risk of giving that up. I'd like to
144learn more about how many families want to enroll here, but it's actually the tuition that stops them. And I think we could probably learn about that. that would be something we could study a little bit as opposed to just trying it without having some information because I was going to put forward that I think where I am right now is it's option one is our ask and I would like you to share our vision long term and why that vision fits in a stewardship approach to dollars and within a larger context of the state that as we recover, we won't lose sight of where we want to go in collaboration with them, but that option one is what we're asking for because even option one is expensive for them based on what they've signaled to
145us. I think the that question of the waiver non-waver also is appropriate to address when we get later and we know what we actually what we actually have. And I'm in the same boat. I want more information. I'm not about to give up that $300 per student without understanding a little more about whether we're actually losing students for that because that's a pittance compared to what most of us pay in that city's tax supplement. I know you're trying to wrap this up. I actually have to leave. So, I was going to do try to do a mic drop moment if I can. Um, so I have to leave to go to a rehearsal for a musical. So, I do want to put a plug in for that at Asheville Community Theater Into the Woods. Starts
146this weekend and goes for four weekends. But it also Thank you. Yeah, it's got Fischers in it. Um, yeah. So, um, yeah, one of our one of our, um, teachers, one of our, um, educators here in the district. I know you're trying to get me to move on. Um, I think it I I bring it up because we just finished the high school just finished a production of Anything Goes this weekend, which was phenomenal. And when we talk about what uh what we value in a district and what our students need, I'm going to tear up a little bit here. What the arts do, all kinds of arts do for our students. And this is not to throw shade on all of our core teachers who do amazing work, but it's in those electives places.
147It's in those other spaces where students find themselves and find belonging. And so when I when I hear like the cuts that we might have to do and maybe present them to the county, I think about in a moment of crisis, which this count this community is still in. I can't I there's there are no data that back me up, but I feel like this is true that this is the worst time to ask for cuts. This is the time where you pour all your resources into supporting the students, the families, the educators who make this community such a vibrant, amazing place to be. And so option one for me is the only option that I'm going to vote for. And when we present to the county, I if they want to hear about cuts,
148let them say they want to hear about cuts. But my argument is going to be this is the worst time to ever make cuts when our community needs it the most. Thank you. Okay, Maggie, I believe the board is asking you to go forward with option one. We understand that if the ask is not granted, we will be back here. And there's been significant information that I'm just going to call their different options to that we'll have to consider whether it be tuition or other things. But for right now, we're asking you to pursue option one. I think again I'm just trying to George just linger while you pack up. I think we're in agreement that we'd like somebody probably Heidi staff to figure out the Ashboro number. Is that is that possible? And if
149there is a way to quantify some of the current preK planning into a number to show we're doing this much. I guess I for me I I'm good right there. I I do understand we have additional aspirational requests and I'm trying to give the board a chance to ask what else that we all agree on we should ask for as well or signal as well. So I don't Pepe I know you wish to ask for more. I don't know that the rest of the board is all there, too. So, we're agreed on universal lunch and breakfast, I believe. But don't we already have it? We're already We're already going there. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Okay. Do is that enough for you? Okay. Board's good. Yeah. Thank you. Can we get a green flag? Thank you. Um,
150it's very affirming when you get the green flag. I like the road. For the audience at home, we have a crowd of educators who have green signs on one side and red signs on the other side and they have been signaling us through the conversation and we greatly appreciate you being here. Thank you guys. Um I would at this point I think it is appropriate to take a short break. I need the board to understand we still have a lot to do. Okay. So, the things that we have left to do, I'm going to ask the board to be fairly disciplined about. Folks, shut your trap. Just it it's there. We all have things we'd like to say and we just can't all say them every time we meet. So, I'm just I'm asking for
151a little discipline, but it's 7:10. Can we come back at 7:15, please? Okay, that would be great. Thanks. So, not having consulted with Maggie, I'm just going to say this out loud. I think I would really like for our meetings to end by 8. I think it's an impos I know, but it was reverbing. That's why I turned it off. Um, so if again, if it's important, we might have non-closure and we might have to pick it up in another meeting, but I want to just honor everybody's time. So, at this point, with that clear directive, Heidi, I turn it over to you to talk about budget amendments. Um there is really not a lot to discuss on this one, thank goodness. Um it is a standard budget amendment expenditure report. Um we basically just
152had some u minor aotment adjustments from the state. Most of those were either EC or transportation and then other minor adjustments in federal projects in a new grant. Nothing unusual. and I'm hoping to be able to tie down those county revenue estimates better and give us some more detail next month. And then of course if we get the Senate budget, we'll have some other information on that, too. But I would love to at least lock in this year's revenue numbers in order to base what we're doing next year. So that is it. Any questions for Heidi about the amendment or the expenditure report we were provided? Excellent. So that will go on the consent agenda on the 21st. Um to Dr. Dkins, the school calendar Thornberg and the board, I'm going to move through this
153swiftly in order to honor your time. Um so we'll go ahead with the calendar presentation. So a thank you to our committee. These are the folks that sat on the committee. elementary, secondary, and central office. And if everybody will hold your questions to the end if you have any, and then we'll take them at that time. Um calendar timeline. This is in the prepacket you received. It kind of walks you through the process of um how we laid out um the evolution of the calendar creation. And then calendar legislation. We've talked about this in the past. We talked a lot about this when we were going through um hurricane and we were having to adjust the calendar. uh we're pretty limited on when we can start, when we can end. Uh there's not a lot
154of flexibility in the calendar. Uh currently there's over five calendar bills that have been filed in either the House or the Senate. So this is subject to change. Uh but it is important that we're proactive in getting a calendar in place for 2627. Uh additional considerations, we meet our uh t our um time by the hour instructional hours versus days. And because we do it through instructional hours, we always exceed uh the required amount, which allows us to have some banked time, which is helpful. Um and we also um time for professional development to parent teacher conference days which historically have been important to um family to parents and the feedback that we've gotten over the past couple of years. So the calendar initially went to educator advisory council to give some feedback and make
155some recommendations before it went to calendar committee. So took their feedback and came up with a couple of drafts that then went to um the calendar committee. And this just kind of outlines some of the changes that were made uh based on the feedback from um our calendar meeting on 217. This is from the calendar committee. And then we uh the calendar committee, we had a survey that they vetted before it went out to families uh to and to staff and to students. We send it out to students as well. And uh response by location, we had over 445 responses. And this is broken down by location. It gives you a percentage and also gives you the number of individuals that responded uh based on location. And this is broken down by role. Again, it
156gives you the percentage and the numbers of individuals who responded. We had an extremely high parent participation rate and I think that was because of coming off the hurricane and the five remote learning days that we had. Uh this was an optional question um that that participants could select to uh respond to if they wanted to and this is a breakdown by ethnicity. Um this is also um we had a question about priorities. They got to pick two priorities um and that was to either two week break what what's important what two things are important to you two weeks of um winter break um I can't see from there non- studentent days at the end of the grading period one dedicated parent teacher conference day or two and uh families staff and students were pretty
157committed to having that two weeks at the winter break and then the next one was a non a non- studentent day at the end of each quarter and that gives teachers time to get their grades in and submitted and also at the end of the second nine weeks to flip for the next semester. So, it's very interesting, lots of feedback, but the one of the questions that was given was, "Do you prefer that the district uses the five remote days uh we have for inclement weather, or do you prefer that we use the um makeup days that are in the center section of the calendar, and knowing that it will impact teachers getting professional development, and families said that they would prefer that the district use the five remote days versus the um five built-in
158makeup days, which was very interesting. But um I assume that that you know teacher responses and you know families want to prioritize teachers getting professional development as well. Um early release days, this was a question that was only for teachers. Which day of the week? Um well for our educators, which day of the week do you prefer early release days and overwhelmingly Fridays? And then spring break. Um when when do you prefer spring break? Um traditionally we line up with what Mont County Schools does and that's usually the week after the week before Easter. Um and so the majority of the families, staff and students selected that option, you know, and uh also making sure that we're in alignment with Bunkham County Schools and only 31% wanted to move it later into April. And then
159some of the themes uh in the feedback I took the responses and colorcoded them and looked for themes and these were some of the takeaways that families have are very passionate about remote learning days. Uh there's a preference of synchronous learning over worksheets and the u the choice boards. Um there was a reoccurring theme of a full week at Thanksgiving. Year-long calendar was mentioned a couple of times, enough for me to note it as a reoccurring theme. 4-day work week with a longer school year as a recruitment tool. Spring break, there were varying perspectives on spring break. Some people um didn't like that it was connected to Easter, others wanted it later. So, there was varying philosophies on spring break, which was interesting. Um, a lot of folks suggested breaking the cl calendar law. And
160of course, we all know that we're very passionate about exams before winter break, but due to calendar law, that's hard to achieve. So, the draft calendar includes five early release days, 10 required work days, seven optional work days, 10 annual leave days, two parent teacher conference days, 12 holidays. Uh we have our instructional hours at 1,51.5 hours, which leaves us banked hours of 26.5. And that is the proposed draft calendar and have provided all of you with a copy of it as well. One of the other things that came out of the calendar committee was um this the teachers and staff present asked for an FAQ to go on our calendar page. So, um, we created an FAQ that went out to the calendar committee last week for them to review to give feedback before
161we post it because teachers were very adamant that we are very clear to the community that optional workday does not mean optional and that they are taking a a a banked annual leave day. And so, uh, we've we've worked on that and currently soliciting their feedback before we post it on our website. Any questions about the proposed 2627 calendar? Sorry, really fast. Is there a way to call it something other than an optional workday since that's not what it is? That's what the state calls it. Okay. And so for consistent in the benefits manual in our policy, I know it's very like you know I I do think the community does have this perception that they have an option to come to work or just stay home and that's not the case. Yeah, absolutely. Thank
162you. I I appreciate all that work that went into this. Thank you. Thanks. I just wanted to ask one quick question. Okay. Um I saw that one of the requests was to move the parent teacher conferences in October to later. Um and I was just curious why it was still in the first week of October or first full week. So I may have misread that though. It's okay. So in October u we had a lot of conversation about this and um the reason that they wanted to keep it there were varying philosophies but keeping it early in October because they wanted to make sure that secondary students had ample time to turn around their grade before the end of the semester and um we we had conversations around moving it to the eth and the
163ninth. Secondary felt like even moving it to the eth and the nth was too late. So through lots of dialogue we um at our last calendar meeting landed on the 5th and 6th. So there was a lot of discussion around that. Thank you. In the past we've had high school students and parents and PTO representatives um serving on the calendar committee. Did we have any parents on the calendar committee who are not ACS employees this year? Um we did have a um member on the team who is not a parent and that is Aaron. She also serves on the um strategic planning committee as well. So she was able to engage in that dialogue in order to take it back to the strategic planning groups as well. Okay. One person who is an employee. Yes.
164Okay. Um and uh have we there is a bill that has been introduced that um would require equal semesters and the fall semester ending by uh before the winter break. Yeah. I am just wondering before we advocate one way or the other, have has anybody looked at whether that's actually possible for us? What what is in that bill? Uh, Senate Bill 754 has been proposed along with Senate Bill 103 came in at the last minute last week in addition to approximately five other bills that have been proposed in the House and Senate that pertain to calendar law. Um, again, as I mentioned at the beginning, it could be a possibility that this comes back to you for some edits, but it's important for planning for professional development, looking ahead. Um, the state operates on a
165two-year budget, as you know, and so it's helpful. It's been a priority of Dr. Ferman's for us to have two years um worth of calendars approved to help plan accordingly as well. So, it could be that we do come back with a an updated draft if one of those bills is to pass. So, there's no advanced looking at it. We're just going to react to it if it gets passed. Okay, that would be my recommendation. Okay. Thank you. So board members, if you are in agreement, this would go on the consent agenda. If you have other thoughts that we need to talk about tonight, everybody okay with it? Okay, thank you. Um, this time I will turn it back to Heidi to talk about um the workday calendar for nutrition. Um, school nutrition director is
166that one is across across from me there. um she's done a really good job of putting together um calendar that she does every year for her employees for the school nutrition work days because as you know that entire program and their work schedule is somewhat unique compared to what everyone else's is. Um the school nutrition fund just as a reminder is an enterprise fund and it is the expectation of an enterprise fund that it actually break even and we've had those conversations about changing our um formula for service and for um uh we just recently and two years ago changed our um management company and we're going to continue to make changes to improve participation and hopefully get us to that point of break even not too far down the road. But part of what
167um I noticed when I got here and I had already asked her to um develop a new calendar for this coming year and and communicate that to employees, but then Dr. Maggie thought it was probably a very good idea that I bring it here first and make sure the board is okay with that. Is that there are no other districts that I'm aware of that employ their school nutrition employees and all the teacher work days. um they get holiday pay obviously they you know they're they're off on the breaks just like the rest of us but it it is is unheard of that they would actually be paid for all of the work days because basically school nutrition the school nutrition program brings in no money on days that they don't have students present. So
168there is actually no revenue generated to be an enterprise fund like a McDonald's if you don't have the store open and bringing in revenue from your patrons. So that's the theory. Um, so I had already asked her to revisit their days last year and and had confirmed that we would do that for this year, but since we've had further budget discussions and other discussions about other categories of employees, we just wanted to make sure that you would be okay. Um, the calendar that you can link to in the agenda actually shows those um days that the employees would not be paid for next year in yellow with an X. So she made that um very clear survey could see those in the calendar. We did not want to bring that back to eliminate all those
169work days though because they do have required training they do throughout the year. Um in the beginning of the year obviously um we have prep that needs to be done to open the kitchens and then throughout the year we wanted to add a couple of days so that we could do crew training and other staff development opportunities that other people in the district also get to participate in. So, we settled on the 202 days and that's what's reflected in this calendar. So, I wanted to we were going to ask what she likes to do is distribute this early so her folks can plan um and know when they're returning back and what days they would have off so they can plan those also with their families. So, we wanted to run that by you at
170this time. So, the yellow X's are new. This is new, right? Well, what what I think I understood you to say is some years they've they've been paid for those days and other years they have not over history but but they would be paid for that. Right. Correct. Not allowed. This is the first time where we're saying we wouldn't pay you for that. Have you have you consulted with your team to see how they will respond to this? Yes, they know about it. How do they feel about it? Um, um, are would you join them uh join us up and and use a microphone? Thank you very much. I just wanted to ask if um other hourly employees are permitted to take annual leave on non- studentent days. Well, that's part of that new budget
171proposal right now. They are okay. if they have it as as she indicated because right now there's actually all of those annual leave days built into the counter and especially your newer employees don't have enough leave to take on all of those days to be honest but they do have the option to do so if they do. Thank you. Looking at the budget options, is this the $35,000 potential savings and $66,000 potential savings? The 66 would take more days out of this calendar. We did not bring that as our actual recommendation at this time unless we have to move in that direction with the other amendments that you mentioned might have to take place later. because we felt like we wanted to value those days that they need prep time and training to leave some
172of those in. Is there or maybe this is a rhetorical question. Is there a benefit for these staff members participating in trainings with other staff on professional development days? [Music] Thank you. And we want to start incorporating the crew training in our manager meetings that's also indicated on the calendar. This this looks like something that we might want to consider after we know what our funding is, but not necessarily something that we are eager to jump on at this moment. Um, I understand that. I also hear that it's important to give employees advanced notice of the calendar. I mean, I'm I'm hearing what you're saying. I'm weighing other considerations. Um, what am I trying to say? We can say that this does not move on to the consent agenda and have further discussion about it
173next week. I'm not quite I to Peppy to your point, I don't think we know enough to know whether this is necessary or not. Um, but then we are not giving employees any notice of what to expect and if we needed to go to this they would they would have later notice about it. So I I'm trying to balance what you all think is important. This came to us as a recommendation. I I'm honoring the staff time that has gone into this. Obviously we wish we didn't have to do this, right? But but we're also recognizing I jumped the gun last fall because I just assumed it was an oversight that we hadn't already changed that because I've never been in a district ever that had a calendar that the days. So if I might
174make a suggestion yes because I think the staff want their calendar. Can we present this to them as their worst case scenario if we go back and tell them those days are going to be paid? I don't think that would disappoint anyone. They're counting on them right now not being paid. And Melissa, correct me if I'm wrong. Correct. How are you with that? It's not something that I would vote for at this time, but I understand being able to say, you know, the board hasn't made a decision on this. This is a worst case scenario that we're sharing with you just so you know in advance, but for me, this would be the last place I would cut. other thoughts? I mean, if I just need to know if you all what you want to
175do with it. I I'm in favor of it um only for staff planning purposes and acknowledging that perhaps these staff have other jobs that they would like to be able to commit to as with as much notice as possible. I was wondering that Thank you, Liza. I was thinking about that. I mean, do you do you have a sense of whether or not there's other employment out there for folks on these days? I do have employees that do have second jobs, but usually it's after their work hours here, but they may be able to pay pick up a another shift or something. I just think it's nice to give them this. They know when to make appointments, when to plan so they can be at work on the scheduled days. I would be in favor
176of just going ahead with it but then removing it if somehow we get the mana from heaven and from bucket county. Um Heidi the audit contract uh this is an annual audit contract um that we are required to present by law that will go to the LGC. Um once you approve it, uh they don't allow multi-year contracts with the auditors. It must be approved annually. So it's just the standard contract at the same rate as last year. I was just that was my only question as I tried to find it. What was the fee last year? The same similar. It should be unchanged. Okay, that's great. I I couldn't find it easily. They increased it slightly last year because of the new requirements they had. Um, board members, the audit contract would come before us
177on the consent agenda next week. Everybody's good with that? It looks like the total is $34,000 for the audit. I don't want to get my state 31 plus uh dyslexia in place here. Yeah. Total amount not to exceed 34,000. The two the two separate prices. Yeah. That's right. It was 31 + 3 is 34. Yep. Yeah. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you, Heidi. Next. Um, back to policies on second read. These are all policies that have come before us. And I don't know, Kim, if you have a presentation, do you do you have any questions about the policies that are on there for second read? Any questions for Kim? If these are on the consent agenda next week, just the the statement that I made before that I'd be more comfortable if they the
178tobaca if uh 4320 were titled uh smoking, tobacco, and vaping products students and the one for staff was titled similarly, but it is not a material difference. Okay. Thank you. And it was recommended uh by operate um chief of operations and secondary principal uh Edwards that that stay the same in order to eliminate confusion when it comes to discipline. That's fair. Thank you. Okay. I am sensing that those will move forward um for second read. They will be on the consent agenda on April 21st. Next we have contracts and memorandums of understanding. Do you have any questions about the contracts or theus one question about contracts? I see there are two contracts for information only for um field trips for elementary schools. Isaac Dixon fifth grade trip and field trip for Claxton. Will there be
179more coming for other elementary schools for overnight field trips? Do all elementary schools go on overnight field trips? Think so. Great. Thank you. U I noticed the contract for golf carts. I'm assuming that's for accessibility reasons for our graduation. That is accurate. Um they use the golf carts to transport um individuals with disabilities to and from the stadium to their cars. Thank you very much. I'm glad we're making those disability efforts or accessibility efforts. Okay, I'm sensing that we're good putting that on the consent agenda. And so at this point, I will um turn it over to Maggie to talk about these reform policies. All right, good evening everyone. I'm going to talk through just a quick refresher on why we're doing reform policies. Um, so we know that there are your standard operational policies
180that really just drive some of the day-to-day operations, but then also looking at what are the policies that can drive that transformational change for us as a school district. Really helping us set a standard and providing the structures for how processes and procedures are put in place. um to make sure that the board has had an opportunity to define their core beliefs and commitments to support the theory of action um and just really setting that stage and that expectation for high performance and long-term solutions. So, just that quick refresher. Um this is a reading that we did. We're first one we're going to dive into is grading. Um and we did a quick read we did a a the input sessions around the district. Um some of them are still going on. And I told
181the principles, don't schedule a special meeting, just get to it and whatever feedback that may be different that we didn't get to, we'll pull it in for May. Um, but really grounding their minds in what are equitable grading practices to make sure that we are providing our students and our parents with accurate, bias resistant, and intrinsically motivating grades. Um, and that our grades reflect mastery of student progress, not compliance or completion of work, but that those grades really reflect to what level of mastery did those students grasp. Was it did they exceed the standard? Did they approach the standard? Are they meeting the standard so that we can give students good feedback um on what they need to do next to improve their achievement. Um, another key point that Feldman will bring in is that
182your grades have to separate. Um, so he points out homework like doing homework is a good habit to get into because it helps you. It reminds you, it's a refresher. It's, you know, additional practice, but that's separate. It's not just the action. So, it's the action that improves the grade, not the um they're doing it because they want to improve their learning, not because they want to grade for it. So, those habits of, hey, we're doing this because it's going to help me improve my learning. I'm not doing this just because it's going to be a grade and I have to turn it in just because I need a grade. So, really helping our students understand that. Um so what we did across the district is we reviewed these five principles um with principles with
183our EAC team gathered some feedback on these u practices that are based from the Joe Filman um work um and really shared what what are these and just to quickly review with the board and I I hope you had a chance to review this earlier. Wow, that is really small. In here a little bit. So, what we asked our teachers to do is read this quick summary of these principles, discuss this, put it into their own words, and then do they see alignment in this core principle with our three promises. So this first idea of that our grades are accurate, that our calculations are mathematically sound, that it's easy to understand, um, and it is correctly aligning with the students proficiency. So if you're if a student gets a 95 on a report card, that
184should translate to they have mastered or exceeded 95% of the content. Um, not that they've turned in and got check marks on just 95% of the assignments. Um and that we are really conscientious of how we give zeros and when a zero would be issued to a student. Um because a zero um does a zero mean that the student didn't know anything? This zero means a student didn't turn the work in or they didn't try. Um so why and when would we give zeros? And making sure we've got clear procedures around that as well. Um the other that the next one is uh tied into the the first one, but making sure that our grades reflect that proficiency on the standards. Um that behaviors aren't graded in the grade book when they complete assignments. If
185a student isn't compliant or they're not doing their work, that that's not something that would bring their grade down. But that that grade should also provide feedback for our students so that they're understanding well I met the I met but I really want to exceed. So here's things I could do to exceed u mastery of that standard. Uh the next one is a little more I think what we hope our students have a growth mindset but how do our teachers make sure that our grades are helping motivate our students towards academic success? um are they giving students an opportunity for reflection and revision and improvement? Um a lot of times we think about they take a summitive assessment and then they move on. But are we okay with a student getting let's say a 67
186on an assessment and then we're just going to keep moving? Why are we saying that's okay? This culture of revision means that's not okay for a student to to not demonstrate mastery of the standard. we're going to keep embedding opportunities for them to continue to grow and reflect. Um, so that's uh really a key piece with feedback. And what I always talk with my um what I share kind of an anecdote is Tom Brady they have said is I did I don't agree with this but they have said Tom Brady's the greatest quarterback of all time but Tom Brady also threw interceptions. He also fumbled the ball, but that didn't demean his ability to be the greatest, so-called greatest quarterback. Um, his coach talked him through it. He said, "Hey, here's where we made a
187mistake here. How can we go back and change this play so that it results in a touchdown next time?" So, always trying to reflect on how do we revise and edit for growth. Uh the next one is it that it's that timely um and actionable feedback for students. If a student's getting a grade on an assignment, let's say they've turned in their essay and they got an 87 and there's no comments on their paper why they got an 87. Why why did I get an 87? Um so making sure that there it's a process of grading student work. It's not a oneandone. It's you're grading pieces of it as you move and giving feedback on some of those smaller pieces so that the student by the end is really ready to produce that final piece
188of work. And then the last one really throws people for kind of a loop, but I'm actually really passionate about this one, but um you know, like I said, this is for your consideration of what the board feels are really good core values. But it's this idea that you disting like the homework you distinguish but you also connect your means of learning which are these habits of scholarship perseverance getting your work done on time taking time to study reviewing your notes but that's separate from your end result which is your grade but the teachers help connect those for the student so writing some state helping students understand that look I'm I can persevere through a difficult assignment to reflect and revise my work so that I can improve roof. So, making sure there's a conscious
189connection for our students in the classroom, but their end grade maybe they didn't per weren't able to persevere past a certain spot, but they can look at themselves and say, "I did up to this point. I did what I can. I'm going to keep working on this, but um it's something that I've got to work on my perseverance. I've got to work on my work completion. I've got to set a goal as a student on getting to school and getting on to class on time." So connecting those things with how their grades look at the end, but making sure they're also not part of the grade. Um so those are the just a quick summary of those five um pillars or five core values. So, as I said, we reviewed those with teachers and um
190we reviewed them with the EAC um and just as we did that initial review with the um educator advisory council, they were reading through reading through and they got to the very end and I was asking them some questions about report cards and they're like, "What are you talking about?" Like they never made the connection that this policy the way it's written is about the grades that end up on report cards. So helping make sure that we are very clear that this is what guides our practices for grading, grounding our work in the effective grading practices that are identified by Joe Feldman and getting that principal and school level input were really key parts of um the process so far. So overall the input from the staff um is for accuracy is agreement. Um they
191said yeah grades should be easy to understand. They should be accurate should be clear for us to explain how we come up with our final grade. Um also overall agreement with reflection on proficiency on the academic standards. Um lots of curiosity came up about how does that look? Um with a 10-point scale. So we use a 10-point scale sixth grade or third grade. Nope. Fourth grade. Third grade. Third grade through 12th grade. It's that zero to 100 um abd um how what does that look like? So are we saying that a 45 means a 45% it's a b what does a b stand for? So asking some questions about that um from our staff. Overall again agreement I think there I was surprised there was so much agreement on this cultural of revision um that
192grade is is not yes some things are a measure in time but grades should reflect growth opportunity to improve their work and demonstrate new learning. Um and the the idea of this being a motivating um aspect of grades for students was a positive um attribute as well. Um they also agreed with the timely feedback that students would benefit for that that would support this cultural of revision and help students really reflect on metacognition skills like what is the learning process? Oh, I need to do these two things to do better next time or to resubmit this assignment. I will say the one kind of caution that came out or race of like, oh, how do we do that? If I'm a language arts teacher at the high school and I teach 125 students and I'm
193grading essays, so talking, you know, helping them understand what that might look like. um and also agreement and support on this distinguishing but connecting the means for learning um from the ends of the grades. But also again lots of curiosity about how that would look, how would we identify what those habits of scholarship would be, how would we assess those and communicate those um to parents and students. the staff again on the input. Every single one they identified really clear um connections to how these will help us meet our three promises with our students and our community. Just quickly a review of current grade uh district-wide grading practices is K2. Um they are scored on a mastery level scale on a one two three one being emerging, mating or exceeding. Our core academics in three
194through five are reported on that 10-point scale. But our enhancement teachers in K5, they rate on a scale as well, which is a satisfactory needs improvement or unsatisfactory. And then every single subject in 612 is um graded on that 10-point scale. Um and that they do have a midterm, an end of quarter, and an end of semester grading kind of frequency that they do a kind of a report to parents and students. But there's still some things that are lacking in our current grading policy um across a school. Um there's different weights on different assignments. So in Asheville High School, language arts teachers may have one way that they grade assignments and waiting and stuff for assignments, but the biology teacher may have something completely different. Um so there isn't any consistency across the district
195and even within buildings on percents and weights of different assignments such as homeworks and tests. Um, also there really isn't a process for how we take those two semester courses to get a semester grade at the end. Um, so you've got year-long course, but it's two semesters. What do you average those two together? Do you say, "Well, by the end of the year, you got this grade, so that's going to be your final grade." There's really nothing written in stone on how that's calculated district-wide. Now, teachers may have their own process that they use, but it's not something we have set as a district. So, you could be in your language arts class and they took your 70 and your 80 and you got a 75 average, but a different teacher could say, "You went
196from 70 to 80. I'm going to give you that 80." Um, there's no minimum grade set across the district. Um, some schools do put a minimum grade in of like a 55 or a 50. Other schools don't have a minimum grade and students can get a get get a zero in their grade book. So, needing to come up with some agreement on that. Um, and then overall values, what drives our grading practices? We don't have an agreement on, hey, here's what we value and what grades should mean for us as a school system. Um, so the next steps for the policy is this is your first read to give me some input and feedback on those five core values. Um, I will collect the remaining school input. I'm also meeting with the student advisory committee
197soon to give them an opportunity to provide some feedback. any revisions of these five I'll bring back to the May work session. Um and in that time I'm working on drafting some procedures um to then share and collect input um and feedback on that as well. Um so that's kind of where we are with the 3,400 um reporting student progress. Any questions or discussion on those five core principles? I I have a question. I really don't understand the one that you said people have trouble understanding. And I think that might be because of the language. I'm going back up. Um, distinguishes and connects the means for learning from. You don't connect from. I think you mean distinguish from. And then but then there's must be a connect with. So I'm struggling with the as you
198might expect the grammar and kind of trying to understand what's are you saying that learning are you trying to are I mean go ahead my question would be are you I think what I heard you say is it's sort of both and that you're both saying hey there is a connection between the means of learning and the grades but we don't want that connection to be so significant that it determines the grade correct but in fact it should be and and I don't think that that those words say that. Got it. Okay. For me, understood. I struggle with that. I would encourage you to maybe use two sentences there. Okay. Or something like that or two clauses or something. Okay. We can work on revision. For me, I found that just as you were describing
199and I was like having trouble with that. Otherwise, I love them and I I'm not troubled by the the concept. Just the wanted to make sure I understood it. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Is this part of crew concept mindset? No, not necessarily part of it's a whole different It's just I very very um strongly believe that we need to identify some core principles on how our grades are determined and calculated and what a grade means because we've got students that are not going to test out of the park but getting a low grade. And then we have students that perform very poorly on our standardized and benchmark assessments throughout the year, but they're getting hundreds on their report card. That shouldn't be so desperate. So, it should be pretty similar. So, a student's on their
200benchmark assessments and their M-Class assessments throughout the year. If they're well below benchmark on an assess on their MC class, but they're getting a hundred in their reading class, that doesn't how does that help the student know that they need to make progress. If a student So, that's what this is aiming at. It's aiming at this is a tool that will help us address the opportunity gap. Well, the principal is going to get it first, then they're going to give then they would take it down to their teachers. they've already been sharing it with their teachers and getting feedback and that's some of the feedback I shared. Yep. Yeah. I think for for me the one of the most important things is for students to feel like there's some parody in how things are being
201graded between, you know, classes that they have. It's really hard when one teacher grades you described sort of emphasizes one thing and then another one says, "If you just turn in all your work, you get a hundred." And um I think that just I really appreciate and the revision the emphasis on revision is so helpful. I'll just say that I'm really appreciating this. Thank you. All right. So the other reform policy is also one related to student promotion. I really like to think of this one more so as setting high expectations for each student while we're also creating this mutual accountability between our school, our student and our caregivers. Um this policy as we go through you'll see very clear links to our theory of action um that this is setting a high standard. Um
202as we thought about our theory of action it's the three pieces the setting the standard creating o a um creating ownership and then cultivating agency. Um, so really setting that high expectation. We've heard over and over that that also is is a key strategy in addressing the opportunity gap is holding every student to a high standard. Um, also creates that accountability by having our staff set goals for their students, their students setting their goals and agency. Um, not telling people how to do it, but like here's the goal, here's where we're headed, what's going to work best for you. Um so as we looked at the current policy again it did not include any alignment to our core values and beliefs as a school system. Um and it did um I'm recommending that we um
203add to the board add our beliefs and values and then set some expectations to accompany this procedure or policy. Um, so I've been researching promotion criteria across the nation um to see what is you have to set some standards and you don't want to set a standard that sets students up to be retained. I am not a supporter of retaining students um in almost any way, shape or form. But we also need to have high standards. We need to set a bar so that we know where we're headed in each grade so that we know if our students are meeting that target. if they're not meeting that target so that we can hold ourselves to here's what's going to happen to get that student back on track, the supports, the interventions, the additional instruction that
204needs to happen. So, we are no longer just turning our head and not teaching a student how to read, but then they're going to walk across the stage at the high school. I've heard that comparison so many times and as I'm in classrooms I'm seeing staff that feel like they don't know how to hold a parent and a student accountable and I think this tool will help our teachers as well raise that bar and hold parents accountable and hold students accountable. So some clear values here would be number one is that we as a district want to promote high academic standards for all students. Um, so that's just a pretty basic one. I think holding everyone to a high standard is something we would um could agree on. Um, ensuring that each student has access
205and opportunity to a high quality education I think is something else that we should be able to say we are agreeing on and our promotion um, benchmarks will help ensure that that's happening. Um, and then this one I put it in gray on the slide a little bit because um, Amy as well kind of pulled up. got a little lost in this, but basically what this is saying is we as a district should set a systemwide accountability, put a systemwide accountability in place so that as the superintendent, I can say to you, every student has had all the supports and resources that they needed to meet that goal and here is the outcome. So, I don't know if you know this, but every year the superintendent is supposed to give you a report that says,
206"Here's how many kids were promoted. Here's how many were retained." Um, and what I realized is we promote every kid. We very rarely retain students, particularly after second grade. And I know when I look at our achievement results that we've got students in middle school and high school, that can't read. How did that happen? So this is one of those structures that is a systematic tool for me to work with the principles at certain checkpoints throughout the year and say, "Okay, how are our students doing in that in that class? How many students are on track? How many students aren't? Okay, if these students are not on track, what are we doing to get them on track? What are the additional instruction interventions and supports we're going to put in place?" and doing it in
207a systematic way that engages the parent, the student, and the classroom teacher equally to make sure that we're holding everyone mutually accountable for this. Um, so that's really the um the premise of number three. Um, and again with number four kind of leads into that is we've got to identify those students who aren't on track early, provide interventions and that support so that we can avoid retention. So we've got to make sure we're very clear on that. Um, and then just also making sure that we're doing this in a way that is fair and non-discriminatory. And before we discuss those, I did want to just kind of talk through the draft of promotion benchmarks that we have been reviewing with principles and the EAC. Yep. Yeah. What determines the achievement gap and would this policy
208help close it? It will. Yes. So, the achievement gap is students that haven't been successful not being identified and providing interventions for those systems on a systematic way. And then they at the end of the year they still haven't met the benchmarks but we're going to move them on anyway without inviting without providing even additional attention to what they need to be successful to reach those benchmarks. Well this will help Yep. Yep. I believe it will and the teachers and principles I've talked to believe so too. Um so promotion benchmarks this would be procedure. So in kindergarten, first and second grade students demonstrating mastery of proficient mastery on the standards is is that it's that really deep teacher student understanding and relationship in those early grades. Um and then at the end of the year
209if a student is not meeting having a student support team meeting to say hey what are the things that this child needs to move on and continue to be successful. Um so those three um first three grades a lot of teacher um autonomy and reporting those on a regular basis to the principal so that we can monitor those interventions and are they working. Third grade is very similar except third grade um a state law requirement is that students have to be reading on grade level to be promoted to fourth grade. Um and then we have the read to achieve initiative that then in fourth grade they come to summer school, they're invited to summer school. Um they get additional remedi um attention in summer school for reading, additional support, they can reassess um and then
210if they are not successfully reading on grade level by the end of fourth grade, we still move them into fourth grade. but as a read to achieve student and they are still provided additional reading intervention um throughout the fourth grade year and are reassessed again to see if they've now reached that level of mastery. Fourth and fifth grade is where we really start changing what we're looking this setting even more rigorous benchmarks. Um so student will demonstrate their mastery of the standards um based on a earning a grade of passing which for Asheville City Schools is a 60. um so earning a 60 in their class and they have their core academics but we would be asking students to pass three out of four which math and reading would have to be two of the
211classes that they would pass um at the and I have additional information about the timelines and the check-ins and the monitoring of this process um but the students who aren't meeting those criteria at the end of the year after even additional interventions have been put in place uh we would invite those students, strongly encourage those students to come to summer school. I didn't realize this until a couple weeks ago, but you cannot require students to come to summer school in North Carolina. I was fascinated by that. Um, so strongly encouraging them to come to summer school for that additional instruction at the end of summer school, re-evaluating their progress. Have they made the progress that we were hoping they made? if not holding a student support team meeting and deciding what's the best place for
212this student. And if the decision is we're promoting the student by the SST process, we're also now developing an individualized learning plan that will follow that student into the next grade. So not only we're not just going to promote them and move them on and say, "Hey, good luck." we're actually going to write a document that says here's the standards that haven't yet been mastered and here's our plan to make sure the learning on those continues as the student moves to the next grade level. Um so that's a key part of this promotion benchmark setting is that we're incorporating checkpoints along with accountability measures that will help the student continue that learning progress. Can I ask a quick question? Yeah. Um I I just wanted to clarify whether an individualized learning plan and an IEP
213were same no different words for the same thing or something separate. They're separate. Yep. Thank you. Yep. A ILP, not an IEP. How and who would track the individualized learning plan? The principles. Okay. And they'll have to report that to me on a regular basis how those students with ILPS are continuing to progress. um sixth grade, seventh grade, setting the standard at students passing four out of five classes with a 60 or higher. Um again, getting through the school year if students have not determined that they're ready, if they haven't met those criteria or met those standards or demonstrated mastery on those standards. Um holding an SST process, inviting the parent to strongly encourage summer school, the summer school and same kind of with the fourth and fifth. Um, and then in eighth grade adding
214a an assessment component. Oh, I'm sorry. Fifth grade and eighth grade, we've added an assessment component. I'm sorry, I missed that. So, students having to pass the EOG in math and language arts in fifth and eighth grade. if not really targeting those areas for students to be attending summer school to get that additional instruction so that we can promote them knowing they have met that criteria before they move on to the next grade. There's a caveat in these. If a student is doing um has failed the assessment, but they've scored 70s or higher all year, we would just we would go ahead and hold a meeting and say, "Hey, we're not you are welcome to do summer school, but you're not and you don't have to, but if you want to, come on. If not,
215we're going to promote you to the next grade level." So, adding that piece, we know students can have bad days. Um and we don't want to hold a student back if they've demonstrated exceptional learning throughout the year, but just aren't passing that assessment. This is also why grades are so important because the grade should be pretty commiserate with the assessment score at the end of the year if we're truly grading for mastery of standards. That's why they have to really work together and in tandem um to make sure that we are not just promoting students without making sure they have met the expectations. Um for fifth and eighth grade um again the summer school piece is a huge component. Um the SST for a student moving from 5th to 6th and from 8th to 9th.
216Um what's key there is inviting a person from the middle school to the elementary meeting and a person from the high school to the middle school meeting so that they are that expert in the high school and middle school so they can really get a better understanding of where the support areas are for that student and be a part of that individualized learning plan development. Um so principles will be reporting progress on their students to me um at a pretty regular basis um quarter um about every four and a half weeks. Principles will be submitting um a report on how many students are on track, how many are not on track, those that aren't on track. Here's our plans to support these students and get them back where we know they can be and the
217high expectation. Um so reviewing these procedures with staff um our students gathering that and bringing any changes back to the board in May. Um any questions? Just appreciation. Thank you. This is it's really really wonderful to know that all of our students are going to be held to high standards and thank you. Yeah. I think my only hope is that we have the resources to do this. I mean, I just feel like there's a lot and summer school has to be really effective. Yes. Um, and I'm seeing a lot of, you know, sort of we'll have a plan for these students. And I just think that with what we've just talked about in the first half of this meeting, first twothirds of this meeting, um, I question that. And so, I think it's a fantastic
218plan. And what I'd love to see somehow is for this for for um this plan to also be conveyed to the commissioners in some way to say this is the kind of thing we're talking about in terms of reducing because it makes perfect sense. This is how you reduce the gap. And until you get into this granular level of understanding the resources that are needed, you won't appreciate it. You'll just think we're not doing it. Yeah. I think these two, that's why I picked these two reform policies to start on because these are crucial for setting high expectations for students and making sure that we really do understand that our grades are accurate. So, we know that reflection matches what our students are doing in the classroom and the demonstration of their learning so that
219we can help support teachers who may be struggling with getting kids to that mastery level. If we're all looking at hundreds and we don't know until the end of the year that their students that they students are really struggling in reading in their class because we looked at their gradebook and they all every kid had a hundred. So, wow, that's great. They're all reading really well. But then we get to that test and we're like, "Oh, they actually weren't." Now, we can't wait to the end to have a systematic check on how our students are doing. And we have to have accurate grades that reflect mastery on standards to put that process in place. Do you see the uh Randolph as part of the solution? So, that's an interesting thing. I've been in my mind
220kind of mulling through what that could potentially look like for individualized learning plans, an opportunity to help students get back on track if they are really needing some intense interventions for a short amount of time. Um, but yeah, that is been something mulling around in my head and um I just haven't had a chance to talk with Carrie about it yet. Thank you. I when you talk about um level three or higher, I'm glad that you've got the caveat to look at what their actual proficiency is as demonstrated through their grades. Um my information may be dated because it's based on a presentation that April Dockery did in I think 2016 but that um level three or higher is basically it's based on percentiles and based on the numbers from that time that level three
221or higher is the top 50 percentiles. I don't want to by definition be retaining 50% of our students and I'm glad you've got that caveat to look at their performance in other ways. We have a kind of a roll your own um uh integrate assessments because our state of North Carolina opted out of the standardized common core that testing that was shared with many states. And so it's uh I find it a little iffy to to base things solely on that. Maggie, remind me. We've given you feedback. This goes to first read. This is first read. I'm sorry. Apologies. This is first read. It will come before us in May for second read. And you may be bring back modifications based on additional feedback you got. Yep. Okay. So, folks, are we in agreement this
222is moving on? Yes. Yes. Can I ask if um we could anticipate um about Amy's question about how Randolph ties in and at the at second read or that that's going to be procedure more so than policy. Okay. Thank you. Okay. I think we're good on that. Um, I have a suggestion that you can disagree with. Um, for policies on first read, if Kim will indulge me a second, there are two. They've been here a while. Um, one of them, board member elections. We talked about it last time. Kim's gone back in and put the language from the oath into that and we could talk about that. for community use of facilities. Um, I think there may be conversation about this and I don't know that we have time tonight, but here's what I want
223to say. Right now, the policy says all the things that we want to have conversation about like it still exists. The only changes that have been proposed are to allow for-profit groups and and this was added at our request. So one option we have is to approve it as it is to move it along knowing that later we want to come back and talk about some of this. I mean that is an option. If in fact we want to have conversation and we don't want to move it along until we have more conversation that's a different option. I'm just trying to get the sense of the board about whether what it the changes that were made are concerning as opposed to what it's always said all along. So, I'm gonna let somebody else respond to
224that because I'm just putting that out there as a suggestion. Kim, I know I totally co-opted this, but No, that's a you you were correct. The the policy is I don't think was ever been in question. Um it's the contradiction with the procedure of 5030 where we where we do require a waiver of liability um for our PTO's. So the policy really is from my understanding from past meetings, this is you been on since November's first read that it wasn't necessarily the policy, but it was the procedure that wanted to be revisited. So I just put that out there. That was my way of letting board members know we have some options at this point in terms of timing. So I'm just looking to you all about whether we want to talk about these tonight
225or what we want to do. That's what I'm looking for feedback on. Are we ready to just take it up? Yes. Um, I am fine with going ahead and approving the change. I think that we do need to have a conversation about the school related groups and the school sponsored groups, but we could have that conversation next month and go ahead and approve the change, which is I think a great suggestion so that our district can move forward with the for-profit rentals. Is that are other board members okay with that? And if we're going to put it back on the agenda for May, I would go ahead and approve this with the consent agenda. Um, I'm just trying to process what you said. If we move it ahead from first read to second read, that
226is where it sits right now. Oh, okay. Um, and are we comfortable moving it ahead knowing? And Pebb, I don't I maybe it's May, maybe it's June. I don't know. But we want to come back. I hear you. And I think other people have expressed an interest in talking about school groups and revisiting this. I don't want to commit to it being in May. So, are we comfortable moving it along in its present form off of first read for now? I'm seeing a couple nods. I am. Yes. Okay. Excellent. Then as presented tonight, this is moving on to second read. Okay. And we know we need further discussion. Yes. Um, and I did uh share with Lisa that um we still want to include in the other policy um the uh swear option that's in
227the statute, but it's a minor change for the board election policy. So, can I speak to uh 2110? So with 2110 um the request was made uh to clarify the December um the board meeting held in December and also to change the oath of office. So we took what Campbell Shatley had provided for the December o oath of office and that's what we put in here which is in the green. And in reference to the December um the December date, if you go back to session law 2021-187, House Bill 400, which is the House bill where Asheville City Schools, the decision was made to make it an elected board. Um in the in section two the third paragraph the third sentence at to the end of the paragraph says members shall take office at the
228first regular meeting of the board in December following their election and the terms of their predecessor shall expire at the same time. While this does say first regular meeting, it would be at the board's discretion in consultation with legal counsel if that means work session or board meeting in December. Um, go ahead. No, go ahead. I'm sorry. Um, I don't that's I don't have any problem with that. I mean, I'm fine with the work session as long as the ceremonial swearing in happens at the regular board meeting. I like that. Personally, I Pepe, I'm sorry. I am completely confused about what you just said. We all agree with. So, you said we agree with something about the swearing or what what were you saying? If you um it's not I don't believe I said that
229we agree. I think that um if you see the strike out area below the green the statute for for swearing in or affirming gives the option I so and so do solemnly swear or affirm. And then further down it says uh my duties as a member of the Asheville City Schools Board of Education the comma so help me God and then in brackets it says omit phrase if affirming. So that comes from the statute and so those choices depending on somebody's religious conviction I think should still be in the green text and it was inadvertently removed when we added the two paragraphs. So I don't my personal opinion is it should be the two paragraphs and I don't know that it was inadvertent. Was it inadvertent? So we gave Kim Deck um Pepe your oath
230because you Right. Right. My oath where I opted to affirm instead of swear. I'm gonna I'm gonna say one thing and then we're just going to decide if this is moving on or not. I swear and affirm. I I live this all of my life and we have solidly moved in the court system to affirm. And it is because it is too confusing. It is an imposition on people to suggest they might here's a Bible. I mean the whole court system to my understanding has moved away from swearing and we just affirm. And I what I believe our practice is whoever swears people in you can you can affirm on a Bible if you want to or whatever you I I guess I'm just saying as a person of faith this does not bother me
231that we took swear out. So I just offer that and I don't but I don't care. And if we're going to have extended conversations about this, we're going to have to put it to the next meeting. So, I don't have a strong opinion. I just observe in the statute, it gives the choice, right? And I've observed that some board members prefer the swearing and the uh so we affirmed on a Bible. You you did. Yeah. Okay. Did I raise my hand? Okay. So, okay. I think we're in agreement. I'm just going to call this that we're off of first read with these two and they're moving on to second read. And we do have the option to when we schedule the meetings if it is an issue that somebody wants to have we can take
232this up another time. Is that okay? I just we really got to keep moving. Pepy, we can schedule the work session and the regular regular session on the same day if it becomes an issue. We have lots of options we can consider. Thank you. I didn't mean to cut you off. I just I need us to move along from this if that's okay. I think we're in agreement that this is moving off of first read. Okay. Kim, anything else you got to say? No. Oh, um and then we just have the um meet, confirm, collaborate, which is information only, and y'all have been involved in that process in collabor collaboration with ACA. So, that's self-explanatory. I have to read this thing. Hold on. Go for it. Okay. I'm going to make a motion that we
233enter into close session pursuant to general statute section 143 31811 for the purpose to prevent the disclosure of privileged and confidential personnel information. Do I have to read the subsections and all that nastiness? under general statute section 115 C 319 321 subp paragraph A1 and also under subsection A3 to discuss matters protected by the attorney client privilege second all those in favor I I any opposed we will now moved into close session sorry I just thank you