001Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Good evening everyone and welcome to our Wednesday, March 4th Board of Education meeting. At this time, I would ask you please rise as Superintendent leads us in the pledge. >> [clears throat] >> Thank you so much. Do we see any changes to our meeting agenda? No changes. Okay, thank you so much. And do we see any public comments? No public comments. Okay. Thank you very much. All right, then we would invite Lisa Rickmers to come up to that podium over there and she is representing the school closure and repurpose committee. They have completed their work and formulated their recommendations which she will be presenting now. Thank you and welcome. Thank you. I'm Lisa Rickmers, um, a parent of the district and a resident of the district. Uh, the you all should
002I believe have the report from the school closure committee, so I'm just here to report our recommendations. We had four recommendations for the board to consider. The first is that we are recommending that no elementary school should be closed at this time. The second is that we are recommending that SAC facilities that are located in aging portables external to the main building, um, that the board should work to relocate those, uh, inside the main elementary school buildings to the greatest extent practicable. We realize it may not be possible everywhere. We think this will reduce costs of maintenance associated with the aging portables and prevent replacement costs and provide safer conditions, um, while utilizing the underutilized space that was identified in those schools. Uh, third recommendation is that we believe the board should reconvene, uh, the
003school closure, uh, or repurpose committee annually to, uh, given the evolving nature of some of the issues at hand and we think there could be valuable information gained over the next year that might be worth reconsidering. And fourth, uh, while the sale and lease of the North Country Administration Building is outside of the purview of the committee, uh, the committee still had several conversations about the impact of moving programs and personnel from North Country to one or more of the elementary schools. And [snorts] we recognize that any relocation would have significant financial costs and would invariably cause disruption in services and operations of the impacted departments and schools. So, we believe that, you know, that the board consider these all these factors well as they consider the lease and sale options for North Country and
004we recommend that careful consideration of the impacts, financial and otherwise, uh, such move would create for all parties including most importantly our students and the programs that serve them. Thank you so much and we really appreciate how how thorough and detailed your report was. So, we really appreciate that. If you're comfortable, I'll open it up to any questions from the board. Absolutely. Okay, see you did a very good job. We don't [laughter] have any questions. So, thank you so much. We will let you take your seat and we can begin our internal discussion. So, what is everybody's thoughts about these recommendations? Dr. Scanlon. Now, I first want to thank the members of the committee. I thought they two meetings did a very thorough job of looking at all the data that was presented, asked very
005detailed questions, and was a very pragmatic approach to our current situation. So, very much thank you. And Lisa, you left out that you're a Ward 1 alum, too. So, you got to remember always throw that in there. So, thank you very much. And you getting designated as you know, you got the short straw to be able to come in and do this. We also appreciate you presenting to the board. Absolutely. I second that. Thoughts? Questions? Okay, then we will you have something? Sure. Yeah. Um, I just wanted to thank the committee as well. I mean, Sue and I and Kevin was sitting in most of those committees. Um, you guys had great conversations, um, were well informed, um, and came to a conclusion uh, unanimously, which I think is very important because that's very rare
006in most of our committees. Um, you know, I just wanted I just asked before. I mean, I think the Satcher situation is um, very is imperative and will be working on that and I think that should absolutely happen. I mean, me, if anybody knows me, I am pro closing a school, um, more so because in my thought process over the years and years and years that we've been I've been thinking about it, um, is I want to get to a point in this district where we're not accessing people. And to do that, we need to get to the bottom of cutting the all the costs that we can. And while the committee didn't think 1.5 million was a lot of money, it is a lot of money because that could be 15 teaching positions or
007that could be, you know, eight admin positions. And doing that every year is harmful for a district. It's harmful for us hiring people. It's harmful for having such small schools and doing um you know, equitable services across those schools and class sizes. And you know, when we only have one or two sections in one school and we have five in another school, it's very hard keeping those class sizes equal and fair to everybody else. Um so I think you guys did great. I loved hearing all the different points of view. That's the whole purpose of having a board and having the community come in so we can hear all the different things. So, thank you very much for that. Thank you. Anybody else? Dr. Beck. So yeah, thank you again for serving on the committee.
008And I uh thank the committee as well for their time. So, I think for closing a school like nobody wants to do, you know, nobody wants to close a school. This is something that, you know, you're forced to do because of financial um circumstances, really. Um so the the number that surprised me was really the the cost savings was was only 1.5 million, right? We have we have a big district. Um and if if you like last year for example, our budget shortfall was, you know, close to like 8 million dollars. So, it's great to have that 1.5 million, but it'll put a dent in it, but it's it's not going to be the solution to all of our financial problems if it's like that. So, um that was sort of one of the findings
009that I thought was was helpful and, you know, probably you guys took into account when you were making the the the determination. Thanks. Dr. Lee. So, if we move all the staff into the building, do we have any uh financial savings out of that? So, the the financial savings that probably would become along from the maintenance work that we've been doing on those portables. Remember those portables were only supposed to be here for 10 years. It's been over 30 now, right, Jeff, at this point? Um, so, concerns with that are for the safety of the students. Those they're not the same structure that the school buildings are. A lot of the floors in the those portables are becoming soft. Um, our maintenance crews have done an incredible job. We've literally rebuilt entire walls of those
010things over the course of years. They've They've more than given their service to the district. So, from a safety standpoint, predominantly is getting those students into the building. Absolutely. >> And that's that's really what I think we should concentrate on right now. All right. Thank you. If um, so, Karen, you mentioned that you know, theoretically there might be room, right? For if we move the SAC students in. If we did that, would there still room be available if we had to move at some point to UPK or, you know, um, do we have room left in all the buildings for absorbing that capacity? So, it depends on how you position SAC in the buildings. You know, right now, when we move SAC into Mount, is the only building where SAC is in the building currently.
011Um, it occupies about four classrooms and some storage spaces. It doesn't have to be configured that way in every one of the buildings. We could use larger spaces, such as the cafeteria and and maybe the mini gyms in some of the locations and redo it. If we had to expand out, those adjustments could be made. We've also spread out some programs in the buildings that we have had now more space for. Some of the schools have more rooms available than others. Um, so, it depends on which school, but the overall answer is we we could reconfigure it in some capacity. If I could restate my question, would that be possible if you closed the school? Closing a school would So, my my question is, if you went ahead and closed the school Mhm. and you
012brought all the SAC in, would you then still have capacity in those schools to bring in UPK? Depending on which school you would close, and that's what the report that we did with the committee to show closing each one of the elementary schools how it affect the others as well. Those the two schools that would get the majority of that population would be pressed for space. So the idea of getting rid of the portables may not be able to happen in those locations in those two schools. So it it would be tight at best. And it's people say well the buildings were much larger in population. Yes, but we also didn't have the same number of services 25 years ago that we are doing right now. So we had you know we have more ENL,
013we have more we have a smaller number of special education, but we also have a higher need of some special education programs. So we have more speech, PT, OT centers in some of our buildings. So it would be difficult in the two buildings that would take the majority of the population. If I could keep adding on questions to that. >> Sure. So you're currently considering um possibly doing something with North Country. Correct. Which would necessitate the move of your staff as well as the academy. Okay. So now let's add those on. If you did that and you close the school and you moved Salk in do you still have room for your pre-K pre-K? Well, you're throwing a trifecta of things >> because I'm trying to look around the corner, right? It's one thing to
014talk about closing a school today and I'm hugely supportive of that because the budget situation is absolutely untenable. But if what I'm looking at is in two or three years when this thing comes around the corner and we decide okay, we've gotten rid of this and we've closed a school to accommodate you and the academy Mhm. and we've brought these students in which we shouldn't leave them with the portables does that leave us enough room to bring in so the kids? The short answer is that there's a good possibility of us being able to do that depending on which school would be the one to close. So some buildings are larger than others. Sut Talk it is our smallest elementary school in physical space. So um some of our buildings have two entrances, meaning driveways
015into the buildings. What would be more conducive to accommodating multiple programs being in it. If a school were to close and the academy and the central administration offices moved in, there's a possibility that we could talk about creating a early childhood center. Maybe all the pre-K go back into one building. That would give the the space in the other buildings to be able to bring in the SAC and have the pre-K. And if the if the governor's proposal with a U3 eventually comes along, might give us enough space in there. How does that affect transportation? We'd have to do an analysis on it. It's still the same number of kids being transported across the 22 square miles of the district. It's just a matter of where where they're going. So, you know, a redistricting of
016some of that might have to occur in order for it to be able to accommodate it. Okay. Thank you. That's Yeah, that's what he just mentioned about transportation. And obviously, regardless of the vote, we're going to have a lot to talk about right along this line, you know, as we go forward. Um, what to do what the what to do next. And I think we'll begin that conversation at the next meeting. Are there any other questions or discussion before we call the vote? Okay. So, do I see a motion to accept the recommendations of this committee not to close an elementary school at this time? So moved. A second? Second. All in favor of accepting these recommendations? Those opposed? And no abstentions? Okay. So, thank you so much. That motion carries. Appreciate it and we
017will continue now with our consent agenda. Do I see a motion? So moved. Second? Second. Okay, and we will turn it over to Dr. Drosky. Yes. Um, A, personnel items instructional. Uh, we have one instructional retirement, two instructional substitute appointments, uh, appointments of three high school spring coaches, one late winter middle school coach, as well as several hourly extra assignments for the 25-26 school year. And B, personal items non-instructional. We have one non-instructional resignation, who is custodial worker. We have two non-instructional appointments, and one is non-instructional substitute appointment. Thank you very much. All in favor of the items in our consent agenda. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, that carries as well. Do I see a motion to adjourn? >> So moved. Second? Second. All in favor? All right, we are adjourned. Thank you, and thank
018you again.