001Sunroom, I mean you guys can call it whatever. We can skip. All right. She's She's going to be okay with us up the first five items. All right. We will bring the work session to order. On the agenda is the regular session of the agenda. It is. Talk slower. Any questions on call to order? Oh, yeah. No. All right. So, we can skip welcome the visitors like like through. Didn't change this cuz you can't change it. It doesn't change. There will be no RMS student report. We'll take a vote at that time and make that adjustment. Then we can skip the agenda. Did everybody get a chance to talk to whoever body that they need to regarding All right. Yes. Yes. >> Anybody have any questions? I'll Uh no, I don't think I'll vote on
002that one. Extracurriculars are looking a little looking a little murky. Your vacation There's my my hubby and my brother-in-law, so I'll go ahead and just not do um You can do it potential or you can do it full on non-potential. Oh, definitely potential. You know, I'm still out to the It's out on those two. Okay. Then wellness through wellness through the district Volunteer recognition appreciation, so maybe tell us what's going on with that. Um so, sorry. I have a great question. Um we have a kind of a surprise tonight. I don't even want to tell all you guys who the surprise is, but that's why I'm texting I'm getting it arranged. Oh, it's more of a I hate surprises. Somebody else, but just so you know that >> Okay, I was like Okay. It's it's
003going to be cool. You guys are going to love it. But um so if I'm distracted texting and because I'm trying to get to make sure that people get here. Sounds exciting. >> Isn't that all of that? It's actually Um we're going to do No, it's it's going to be a public comment. They're going to send it for public comment. Okay. Okay. I hope it's a song and dance by Nikki. It'll be good. Um okay. So we Now you got me real nervous. I'm excited. You know what? Nikki Warner's stuff is scheduled change so that was really That was great. That's that's That's the surprise? >> cool. You guys are going to like it. I don't I I don't want to say cuz it's Okay. So uh every So this time of year we we
004recognize um different folks. So last month we recognized last five. Mhm. This month we do volunteers. Next month we'll recognize our teachers. So um so volunteers will be here tonight and uh principals will read that read about them and we will honor them. We'll do the same thing go down there. Yep. I think we've all gotten one volunteer, haven't we? >> Jenna. My job isn't as flexible as yours, all right? >> I need to just pick your brain on your job. Today is probably not a good day. It was a rough Monday. Oh yeah. Okay. I've been working on the fourth fifth. Question on that. Financial report. You can You were not able to touch base with Deborah Wright. Finally first I have some additional things to share. With you. Okay. Lots of new and
005parks this the of year. >> Yeah. We are It's It like daily and then you're waiting for one domino to fall and then that may change the trajectory and all of that. So, I'll give you the latest update on that here in the next week. So. Okay. Can I go back to the finances today? I don't really have [clears throat] a question, but I try and look at items that look like what's this big amount? But this month I concentrated on the percent of money spent since we're getting toward the year and it was interesting. Yeah, I think you were going to talk about Yeah, a little bit. And do you have something in particular? No. It was I guess school by school, but then overall we're at 78% 76%. I don't know. >> Was
006the special education budget over? I feel like I saw that one was over. That one was um yeah, that one was up. Yeah, the problem with the percent one was like the item was like 500. So, if you spend 750, >> [laughter] >> it's way over. But the other it's the percentage of actual money spent. Nothing to do with the >> Yeah, that was the Some of the special ed was like that. Um special ed is easy to do if you have to go buy a piece of equipment that you didn't anticipate needing to buy or you had to have It just um I mean obviously that's something that we're hoping in the future the funding increases cuz it's not changed. The need is not going down. No. And remember we can And the the
007income the money's going like this and the needs are going like this. Just remember that that that's capped, right? So, we're capped at 11%. So, we have 14%. 14%. Special ed students, but we only get funded for 11%. So, we spend more than we get. that So, there's a cap in Oregon that you only get funded for 11%. Um of the sped weight. And we currently have 14%. And most in a lot of it I mean, this is most districts are over especially larger districts because the need Um they uh tried to get that changed. They did a lot of advocating for that. That'll go back um you'll we'll see that back in the legislation with the legislature this next session. Is that just because they're saying like, "Oh, that's all we have." Or is
008it, "Well, you really shouldn't have more than 11% identified in their I think it's their opinion >> money. I mean, it's about where they're going to fund it. Um high cost is high cost disability is another piece that's they're going to be discussing. I mean, I flew to well, I'll share later, but I flew to Portland and I'll share about that meeting, but discussing what to put in front of the legislature this next go around. Well, let's say that you have special education at a certain level last year. You fund at $50,000. Following year, you have less kids, you still have to fund them at $50,000. Which makes it a bad thing. Yes. >> [clears throat] >> Yes. They have a lot of formulas that make you miserable. That can never go down. It just
009has to go up. Unless you can justify it. Unless you can justify it. Sometimes it's hard. Yeah. All right. Can I ask something on the superintendent report? Yes, that's right. We were Okay, yep. Is that good? We spent it We're saying that's what we were We haven't worked on that. We were we went back and then we're forced and so we're kind of flexing. So, for the governor's executive order, all of that stuff, it's not making any changes to us cuz we've already had those hours built in, correct? >> Well, first of all, we didn't furlough any days. >> Correct. So, um but second of all, no, um well, let me just say that if we were to furlough any days, if we were in that dire straits where we had to furlough days, we
010would be furloughing Fridays. We wouldn't be furloughing any staff days, essentially. >> Okay. I don't So, we have some built-in Yeah. things that will help us longer term with that executive order. >> So, um so, the governor kind of came in heavy-handed and said, "This is what we're going to do." And then they went to the the state board and George Mendoza gave a really great argument to the state board, and so basically they kind of held that, and and everything is okay. But no, we are So, one of the things that's happening is Stand for Children, who um is made their presence pretty loud and clear. Um is now collecting all of the school districts um total amount of instructional hours, and they're sending these emails out. Well, we've been talking about this for
011a while, and so at our last meeting, our superintendents' meeting, I'm like, "I still haven't gotten an email." Cuz they were supposed to come anytime. And then Alicia said, "Well, I actually got one back in January." And I was like, "What?" So, crap, it was in my trash. Didn't know when your But I had received an email from them, and they had gone in to our website, I think, and looked at our calendar, and calculated and sent me an email saying, "We show that you have 150 days of an instructional time at rated at this many hours per day." Well, we have 154 student days. But what they were doing was they didn't want to count any of the um days that were for conferences. Oh, and technically I wrote back and said, well, if
012you're going to just count those, it's 152 because our kids go to school on Wednesdays. We get to count 30 hours of PD and 30 hours of, you know, so we're still well within that, but what they're going to do is they're going to publish a list, a public list. And I think it's kind of a way to shame school districts who don't have a lot of instructional hours. Well, they called, this is a good one, Mark was saying that they um had um sent one to John Turrell and said, this is what we have for you. And so Mark called him and said, that's not right. Where did you get this information? And they said, oh, well, we just called the district office. of John Turrell. With their two employees? Which one which one
013answered? The cook or The custodian or >> The cook janitor or the teacher IA? They might have three employees now. I'm sorry. I didn't >> [laughter] >> All right, so I mean, that was the joke that how are they finding this stuff out? But I will say though that all together um we have probably one of the higher um total number of of um for certainly I think we have the most in this county. Uh instructional hours and um so I'm not concerned about that. We would have a lot of um wiggle room even if we did have to furlough days because we're well over the um allotted amount. And I will say um we've held tight to that. That's that's something that we haven't negotiated at all that we're not going to decrease um
014student contact hours. Um in this district we feel it's important to hold those, so plenty of we have plenty of those. Yeah, I should know but explain to me about it. What's a furlough day? A furlough day is if um, people are cutting budgets cuz they're running out of money, they're going to um, we furloughed back in 2008-ish, 9-ish, I think it was. And um, I think it that was then, wasn't it? Right? When Dr. Carter was here? And we we had to cut $4 million from our budget. If you don't no one comes to work in the district. No one comes to work and no one's And it's like after the fact. Really. So it you make more than you or less than you were intending. Yeah. Yeah, so Like if you're a salaried
015employee, you get one day less on your salary. Yeah. So um, but it's happening a lot across the state. Bricks budgets even. They're they're counting furlough days. A lot of Idaho's schools will go out to the bond, like a little or a levy, a levy. And basically it's like if the levy doesn't pass, we're putting three furlough days in. Yep. I think that's exactly how our district tried to get our bond passed. We did that. I'm trying to remember how many days we furloughed back then. Four or five So we've done it. I they did it here back recession. Sorry, my computer was down most of the weekend, so I was like cramming to get through some of this. So the poverty gap funding crisis, what is that going to do to us? Cuz we
016are heavy heavy >> So interesting, um, we had uh, we had a big conversation about this and um, at at when I went to Portland. And I didn't really even fully understand it and um, let's just say that it's not doing it what it's doing is we should be getting more money. They should be getting more money. >> like the way that they used to measure it, they would use the sense the census as I said before and this new way of measuring nobody's getting what they should be getting. And OD's excuse is, well, there's only so much money. We would just There's no more money to go around and this isn't a great measure, but it's what we have. I said it feels Have you ever played the game Would You Rather? And there's
017no good choices and you're forced into playing it and you're like, Why am I playing this stupid game? This is what it feels like with with this. Like it's not a good measure and it's not a good tool, but we're going to keep using it cuz it's what we have. And so um there's been um I think going forward in this next legislative session that that'll open up and there'll be more conversation because listen, our county should get its fair fair share and we are not, especially as being the poorest county in in Oregon. So so um we're getting funded, but we're not getting funded like we should get funded for our kids. So they're just keeping their current model when there's conversation around there should be a different model. >> Yes. To get us
018to get to that 185% of federal poverty line. >> Which is what's used for everything. >> Right. So So families So now what they're saying is is that level is you're you're considered um being in poverty if you make less than what 38,000? >> If you're in the 100% only? >> But But if you make 51,000, you're not living in poverty. >> 51,000 for a family of four. For a family of four. You're not in poverty. But you qualify still for SNAP and TANF and >> Exactly. That's exactly it. So So they're just saying this this will continue. Yeah. So I wanted you guys to be aware of that cuz that is something that we will advocate strongly for going forward. We need to because that's that's something that is absolutely affects all of our
019kids here. So, the funding, is it a percentage of kids under the 100% or percentage of the or So, like if you took a I'm going to try like Ashland for example cuz I know that they're a wealthier district typically. So, do they get less of that or is it just you do it by population? I'm not really sure. I'm still understanding that. But, one of the things in I I'm not going to say it exactly right, but it was interesting because it the air was kind of sucked out of the room when this comment came up is that something about the districts weren't receiving 100% of the allocation that they should because that it it it it it it it it it it it And then somebody said, "But, do you know who is?"
020The the really large charters. Who are already making a ton of money, right? So, that's the case of the rich getting >> richer. So, they have less overhead and they're making more money and they're getting the full funding model. So, basically, what you're saying is charter schools if they potentially I'm going to go in the very worst case scenario if they could attract families that are within this poverty, they would get more funds than if we just get them by nature. >> I believe so. Interesting. So, yeah. So, it's something that um that we need to move forward in and um advocate for for sure. I had a question about the enrollment cap. Is that very specifically to the virtual public charter schools or is it like an intra conversation this weekend or is it
021like an inter not intra inter district thing as well? >> to let Devon explain cuz he's he put those numbers together and how it works. We gathered all of the students who are um are going to virtual charter school as the virtual charter school and then you take you divide that by all of the number of people who are there. The number of people that are there so we counted home school, we counted four rivers here, those who are going who live in our boundaries but are going to Nestucca Valley. So we count all of those kids. >> Inner district trans- transfer. Or any of the potential eligible Ontario school district students. Everyone who's in the virtual divided by everyone who they go to Ontario and that's above 3% you can deny. Okay. So I
022gave them the I I screenshotted the the table. Yeah. table and put it in my report. And yeah, as you can see is we're actually one of the lower ones compared to some of the others across the state. So we are. Are the um the appeals are they getting denied or approved? I um since we started this week and a half of two weeks ago week and a half ago, I have been denying them. How many have you had? But when they appeal them to the state, is ODE approving them? Or is ODE approving? That we haven't gone long enough. So I What other districts have you heard like Vale or or that is ODE saying Most of the time they're upholding those. If they're valid. Basically, I think that really ODE's job is to
023make sure that you've done it correctly, right? It's it's more like have you followed the protocols and procedures? So it's very specific and it's you have to include this and this and this and this and um I there and and some of these charters can be a little try to be a little sneaky. Yeah, they sent me one and I denied it. And then they said, "Well, you can't deny it because this student goes to Vail. That's the but he resides in the student resides here but they go to Vail. Well, then why did you send it to me? So then I informed Vail and Vail had already denied it 2 weeks ago. So they already knew that and then but they tried to tell me that it's not your denial. So they're playing these
024kind of games which isn't cool. So it comes from the this request is not something that like the family puts in. Well, the family does but usually always the the charter school is tagged in or or CC'd or whatever. Sometimes the parents give it to the charter online charter and then the charter will send it. And so but you have to include like the calculation chart, you have to include your policy, you have to include a letter that you have to include another option for them to attend which we include our two options here locally. Um and and do all the stuff and you have to do it within 10 days. And then when they if they appeal it, then you have to go back and you have to send a letter to the state
025board of education or to the public the head of ODE and say this is why we are um denying it and then include all of the stuff that you sent to them. It's kind of complicated and so um so yeah, I I what I'm hearing is is that from the the few that I've talked to is they've been upholding the the goes so. How are the denials going? Denials going. Um so I've done I think about five of them Andrea. I've done in a week is It seems like a lot to me but that's maybe that's just me. >> is the time of year when they thinking about next year? We're Sorry, this is for next year. Yeah, yeah. So so this is when this is when we're enrolling kids as well, right is Jody
026right >> will have like a clearer idea of maybe potentially how many kids are Yeah. So, so, this is when they enroll for next year. So, this is this is um So, it's common practice to have this many. >> We've gotten more in the last couple of years than we have for a while. Because they're enrolling for next year. I should clarify that. That makes sense. But how are those denials being received? Um well, I've had two appeals. And so, um I mean, it is what it is. But do families seem like they understand, or does it just seem like one more barrier for Um I wouldn't say they've been mean about it. And I think that they The two that have appealed have had, I guess, probably what they would consider pretty legitimate. It's
027not like, because I hate you. Um I don't want to disclose too much, but but >> maybe our family's lifestyle, it's better on the road, or kind of online. You know, I think I'm going to say, in general, people will say religious reasons, or um other things. So, you know. Yeah. I'm And it's not to dig out. It's just Just cuz I know that it's going to it's it has the tendency, when you say no, to create people to be like, "What?" >> Yeah. I I think that um though, the other thing we we're doing is I know Jody's got a couple calls from those folks, cuz we include a flyer to our own online. And And our hope is to just move them in, you know, have Because a lot of them don't even
028know that we have our own at this point. So, it's more about like, "Hey, come take a look at this. This is what we have to offer." Kind of that thing. Okay, I'm going to ask another follow-up question. If we go below the 3%, will you start approving them? Is it mandatory that you have to approve them? Um we have to approve them if we're under the 3%. Yes. >> Okay. Yep. And do we check that yearly? Sorry. Uh we That's ongoing. Oh, it's just an ongoing kind of check. It's four times a year. >> Okay, quarterly. Okay, four times a year. We I think that I'm pretty sure that's what it says in our policies quarterly or something. Send our information to ODE so that it's done correctly. And you can go to ODE's
029website and it's published there as well. Just helps us understand more so we can speak when people are like, "Well, I got denied." And we're like, "I don't know what happened." I beat that one pretty hard. Well, it was a it was there was a lot of information in that report. So. Uh public comment uh We already had that discussion there. I think Gabby and Lisa would like more discussion. Uh business. First reading of policy Um what was the number before it was 12? Or it's being changed to 12? So, so yeah, it was eight. But let me just tell you back when I started in this district, I want to say it was either 10 or 12. And um prior to that somebody had We moved it. We lowered it. But let me just
030explain how that works. Remember when our auditors were coming through and delayed, delayed, delayed? So, I guess actually it was before you guys came on, but our auditors for what, three years in a row didn't get our audits done on time. When they don't get our audits done on time, then what happens is is that and we don't submit those to ODE, ODE holds your state school fund. They withhold your state school funds. That happened to Vail this year. It happened to because they're still they're still at the same some of the same auditors. So, if everything happened where we got no more money this they withheld our or something crashed, we could operate with what we're where we're at currently for a month and a half. And we're out of money and we have
031to go get a loan. So, what this does, the 12%, is it puts us to 3 months, Devin? >> Um 2 and 1/2 months. >> 2 and 1/2 months. >> Of reserves. Of reserves. It's of the ending fund balance, which is basically your um your equity or your your savings. Um and so I I looked at some numbers. So, we we have more than 8% or we have more than 12% even. So, currently we have about um let's see, 4 months of reserve. Um and so this would just make it so we are sure can't spend it um at a certain point, which is about 2 and 1/2 months. And that and so when the audit wasn't getting completed, we they withheld the state withheld the state school fund from us for 3 months, Devin?
032Um that first year we got everything in in May. So, it was 4 months. And so >> finally my final >> had a good reserve is why we kept we didn't have to go out and get a loan. That was the worst one. The the one after that was only 1 month and then the other one was 1 month, but I mean all that adds up. Yeah. So, um um a month and a half yeah, I'm I'm just not real comfortable. I mean, if you think about your own personal finances and what you have if you were like a government employee, let's say, and remember that they weren't getting paid for quite some time, what would you have be able to sustain your family on? And you'd hope you'd have more than a month. So.
033>> And this policy, why is it called an unreserved fund balance? Isn't that it? Aren't you calling it a reserved fund balance? What is it cuz it's not like allocated to an expense or anything? unappropriated announce Um, I mean, you can but um So, it's basically like whatever we need it for, we can use it for. Is that what you're saying? Yes. You don't have to appropriate something. Um and then like if we need it for whatever reason, then we would come to the board and um get approval to use it for a specific purpose and then we have to spend those within that year. We can't put it to a uh savings for the the next year. Um Does that answer your question or or Um I mean like sure. Um Is this for
034like this the like the current budget right now? Yeah. Okay. It's like always a 12% savings account that you have to carry at all times. >> go. It's >> It's like whatever you Right now you have an 8% so what this is saying is I want it back up to 12. Yeah, it's like you're saying you have $1,000 in the in your in your savings account, but we're going to increase it to 1,500. Okay. So, you have 1,500 in your savings account instead of 1,000 or something. You know what I mean? That's the premise of it. I guess my question is can you can you spend that freely on >> Is it restricted if there there needs to be that come up unexpected You still need board approval. >> Board approval. So, this isn't just
035like Nikki gets to go shopping with 12% of the money. It's you would still have to come and say like here's what we're doing with the new approval. This is what we're keeping in our savings account, but we're not we can't spend that. That has to sit That takes board action. That takes >> Okay. And we have more than 12%. Got you. Okay. Now, so just we can't go below Can't go below that. And and we'll share with you well when we have our budget meeting, we'll share what we're kind of doing with some of that that's over that. >> cuz I'm going to say do we does it have to be liquid assets or you can put it into like some investments to make money? Okay. Yeah. Liquid investment. Like a savings account really
036not like certificate or a bond or That's pretty good right? I mean so it's Pretty good Devon. In the work banking world 4% right now is real good. >> [laughter] >> We used to get a lot of static anything over 15%. We had to go back to the budget committee. Is that still So if we were to say we're going to change this to 16 Does that mean we have to reconvene the budget meeting? Not that we have more than 12 and we need to do something about that but we now are creating a policy and if we just arbitrarily say well let's move that up to 16% for some reason. Or I think there's some point where it has to go back to the budget committee. And if you have 16% in there you
037you need to take a look at why you're doing that like why you're holding funds back. system out there. Exactly. So Okay. That that makes sense. Is sometimes you get a board that's very conservative and they want to save a lot of money. Is there any legal So there is that where you'd have to go back to the budget committee but like even in and this cuz I know credit union finance so we can only go up to a certain amount before they start telling us now you're just saving too much and you need to start putting that back. Is there That's more the alignment with what he's saying. Like the ODE or somebody says like this is all you can have in that and everything needs to go back to wherever it is. I'm
038not aware of it, but we've never had You know, it's been Obviously, it's been 4 years, so Oops. >> Yeah. Lots of things changed. I don't even I can't remember the parameters of why I we had to deal with that. I will say after being in Portland with my colleagues superintendents um they weren't they weren't having this conversation. They were a little mad at me. I was the outcast. They're saying if we could get out of the negative percentage of laying people off and furloughing days. Yeah. So, this is truly our choosing to go to the 12% or this Okay. >> Yes, because again I um I think um we are I would say we're we're fairly conservative. We don't push it to the limit, but a month and a half is it's scary to
039me. Given that the times are so volatile and you don't know like this year where they came in and said there was a possibility of them cutting 10% from us. We were in panic mode. And so, um if that's the case, then we want I think it's I think it's just more appropriate for us to be have 3 months versus a month and a half. For 2 and 1/2 months, sorry. I keep saying 2 and 1/2 months, so. If you put some numbers behind it at 8%, you're looking at about 4 and 1/2 million. Um each payroll we're at 1.7 million. And so, um but then with all the other expenses um yeah, we we could make two payrolls, but not pay we wouldn't pay anything else besides those two payrolls. I it'd be >>
040With the 8%? Yeah, at the at the 12 um we could have normal for Probably good 2 months and then that half month would probably be eaten up somewhere. Yeah. Resolution 25-16 which is 5-7. This one I would love to hear Devin just explain it like he's talking to a bunch of financial dummies. Yes. We have said this year we're in a we're in a deficit and we are as far as money coming in and money going out but we've also said that we are healthy because we have a good ending fund balance or good savings account. What this is doing is taking some of the savings account and it's putting it to building reserve. Part of it did building reserve. The other part of it is it's part of my report but I'll say
041right now we There's a PERS rates are only going up and our bond expires in June of 28 and then the next by and then it'll go up 6% and then so who knows what it will look like without that bond and so we think it's smart to put some of this ending fund balance this cash reserve into a PERS reserve account and so that when the rates do go up we have this chunk in there to allocate for PERS rates. And so so part of it is for building reserve. The other um part of it is for So 1.5 million is for building reserve and then half a million is for the PERS. And we put 1.5 million we've swept that over for many many years. That's kind of our you know like every
042month you might put money into savings. That's what we've always done But, then also remember that in 2027, so the district bought those PERS bonds to buy down the PERS rate back in the early 2000s. And that is expiring or coming to an end in 2027, and our PERS rates are going to go up 6%. >> Okay. Um I guess what I was curious about is it looks like you're taking money from instruction and support services and putting it into the building improvement fund. So, is this like was something lost or something not hired? Was some Did something not happen? Like, where Why was that money not spent on the instructional services and on the support services? Yep. Yep. Good question. Um so um so this So, we are in a deficit. So, this money
043that was being transferred is part of our ending fund balance. So, some of that ending fund balance was allocated to instruction, some of it was allocated to um um 2,000 accounts, uh special services services. And so, it's money that wasn't spent in the budget, but um but it's part of that ending fund balance that was appropriated in the budget. So, some of it's not appropriated, and that's the balance um 8% or whatever, but some of the ending fund balance is appropriated. And so, what's being moved >> at the end. That's what you're saying it's being moved. Yeah. Yep. Good. And so, there's there's two resolutions. I forget which one is which, but one is to transfer, the other one is to create that PERS account, that PERS reserve account. So, is there any possibility that
044that bond will run out sooner than Like, are there Do the rates go up before the bond is paid out? Does that mean sooner? >> Yeah, there There's a few different rates um for PERS. Um one goes up every biennium. Um Um, and that's the big one. That's the the observe or you have tier one and two and observe and that's that's the big one. The other rate stays the same during the duration of the bond. Um, and that's 7.5%. And so, once the bond expires, then our PERS rates will go up even more because we won't have that locked in place. Yeah, some districts it did like Baker, for example, it ex- it ran out of money early and that was really um, related to remember they went with this big salary scale quite
045a few years ago. So, they were paying out a lot more, which means they were paying more into PERS. So, when you have that happen, then it's going to run out sooner. Ours has stayed pretty steady, so I don't I don't I don't know. Okay. Is there ever a hope, I know that like a lot of us that PERS tier one is like the highest paying out? >> Lucky. Lucky tier oneers. But they'll start to just hopefully fall off? I mean, like nicest way possible. Tier one is the highest paying out of tier one. Oh, no, that one changed. Upgraded to tier one. Yeah, [laughter] but like at some point, right? We're talking about this in the financial world as well cuz we're also in the struggle. But like no, at some and then because
046they have the new tier two also, they have Now that's too on that They'll go away too? No, but you can't get into tier two now anymore. So, like at some point they'll start like they'll get rid of it. Yeah. They're going to create something That's Yeah. PERS is PERS isn't sustainable. No, but they're not But they're not stopping the tier ones and I mean, it's the same pay for the whole time, right? You're not getting increases every year or would there ever be a time where they would No, but would there ever be a time where they stop increasing at all? Like It's up by contract. The tier one is certain Increase. >> Increase. And certain return on their money. Okay, but they're not talking about taking that away. They can't because it's contracted.
047They would love to do it many years ago. And as a teacher back in those >> You're like, I want that. I said, gosh, why can't they just work that out and make it And now that I'm retired, I'm going That was great. Those union dues were worth every penny. No, but that's like the crisis we're in of the PERS crisis of just Yeah, we know. Tier one, tier one is I'm going to say back when I first started administration. In the 1900s. They said in 30 years we won't be worrying about tier one people. No, we still are. And we still are. So, it's almost like weather forecasting. Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're wrong. This was one of the wrong times. It's not just his fault, it's also like the Oregon football coach's fault
048and like those It's not just Mr. Hyde. No, it's not. Well, I think I think tier one was like 1997 or 2000 or No, it was in the '94s. It was earlier cuz I When they cut off. >> Mr. Helmick missed it by like 6 months. >> 96. Oh, when SRCI opened up. No, but like there has to be like that's the stuff that like somebody's got to come up with a plan to not have that just screw people over. too and we cannot support that. I mean, I'm just barking. No, it's more about not giving increases. More about that. Of just like somehow reducing It won't happen. Yeah, they're mandatory increases. Fun idea though. That was fun. And that 6% um interest that we'll get next not this next year, but the year after
049next by any year. Um, it's about it's a little over $1 million. So, that I first increase that we'll experience a year. Yep. So, by us putting half a million into this reserve account, that takes that increase we'll we'll apply it to the first three. And then we'll have another half a million that Oh, you're saying we'll need another half a million? Yeah. to this to help And there's really no way out of it, so it's a We'll do this. You can't go in the hole. First in the budget, there's another half a million Yeah. in the budget another half a million, so then the next year at this time we'll have >> Another half. Yeah. So, do you project that probably we'll have to do a half a million every year then almost? Until
050until whenever. Until there's no more money left. This is where you should be flattered. He just said how young you I said you got a lot of years left. A lot of perqs left to collect. >> Yeah. Yeah, you do. That's how he gets a hold of you. I got zero perqs left. I'll be like 80-some years of age. So, who's one of those perqs left with that I'll make more money retiring than what I was making when I was working. Put in your 90s and you're done. Yeah, ask grandma. It's like 15 bucks a year. I don't know what your dad was the first to That's wrong, doesn't it? Who was a tier one yet? What is a no perq To a no perq person, for sure, cuz I'm putting away for my own.
051So, that's That's board budget Yes. Board budget goals. Any questions? I mean, we really build those around >> I love smart goals. So, do we have numbers around these of what numbers would be? Like Like I know. I'm sorry. It's just hard to like These are just I guess I I don't know maybe >> Maybe not goals? health goals Or strategy? These are These are what we build the This is what we build the budget around. Does that make sense? So, I don't know. I am This is the way I've always done it cuz this is how everybody before me did it, but then I found out that not districts don't normally do these, but we do have the cuz this is These are our are the main things and this is what we build
052our budget around. So, maybe they shouldn't really be called goals and instead be called And then strategy statements There are numbers to it because the numbers are are in here. We'll talk about next week. It's I think I think the numbers are There are numbers to these, just not in the Like it'll It says in there about This is why, right? We mitigate first stuff. All the stuff we've been talking about. >> Mhm. So, that's really what it is. So, No one's ever said that before. I'm just so used to my goals at work like have to have like education you typically have like a range but I mean >> This is what we we say that these are the goals that we want to build our budget around. These are the the main things.
053So, maybe they're more strategies or Or strategies. guides thoughts guiding budget and like what do we say? guiding lights >> like an umbrella. guiding lights I cuz I'm just like used to goals and they have numbers and they have dates and they have Yeah, so I'm like So, my question is what between now and a week from today? Yes. You need to memorize this. What? Like Do I need to come prepared for the Um I would I would just review it. But I am Devon. All 58 pages are just special ones. The you can skip to page If you want to read it, Devon, you can do that. Like that's why he did it a week ahead of time. You can go through and look at it and then Probably I'm available this Yeah, you
054can It's a minute we can go over some of the high points and what to look at and and Yeah. So basically just review this, know what the goals, themes are. And he's going to take you through really a like a one-on-one budget one-on-one. Like this is These are This is what the budget is. These are the things you need to look for. So he's going to do a little training then. for the budget. the day [clears throat] of the budget. for everybody. Okay. So you know, we're not going to go cold turkey and just dive in. He's going to kind of tell you like this is what you should look for and da-da-da. And then who else comes to the budget meeting? Like it's the committee So the board, the whole committee and then
055um usually our principals Building admin We won't have them because we have some other stuff going on that night. So they can't be here. They have to attend the other, but Principals come. I'm there. Obviously the board. There's probably I think we I don't All of us and how many board budget Five more people Five more people members. It's not like a room filled with No. No. >> 15-20 >> have the It's set up in a square and we're all sitting around and then we have some chairs in the back if people want to attend. So let's Usually our principals come. I don't go to that. I have two of those. That's my husband's phone. There's probably there was maybe 30 people at the most. Okay. Some of you had chairs sitting in the back
056for administration meetings. It's just mostly school officials sitting in the chairs. What's a typical length of that meeting? Okay. And 5:00 is what we are starting, I think, is what I have. Yeah. I know you said you're changing it to No, I said 5:00 is what I think it is, right? A lot of hours. A couple hours, yes. Okay. Well, obviously you got to do it. Oh, yeah, you did. Like a month ago. Okay, I'll send it. I already ordered from you. I ordered it today, yeah. Once it's checked off my list, Andrea, I'm like, that's gone. She'll catch it. No. Bye. I'll get it. Marie? Marie's It's like I sent them the emails. Okay, looking forward to it. You should be. It's going to be a lot of fun. >> [laughter] >> We are
057so excited. Used to this attitude. Look at her enthusiasm, Devin. I I let Matt read the budget to me while I fall asleep, so hopefully I don't nod off. We are actually at 14 minutes before 5:00. We haven't finished the agenda yet. Um but let's just ask, are we just approving all of these, the budget >> one is pretty straightforward. the construction, the social studies What is the um the right-of-way one? Could you just explain that in like a quick minute? Bob I it it looks like the school in front of Aiken. The city stuff. We own We own the road. I'm giving you this. Technically, by surveys, it belongs to the school district. The city would like us to relinquish the right-of-way, so we're not on Sounds great. That's it. We own the road
058right now. >> to relinquish >> [laughter] >> But I don't think the city would allow it to. Is that the only school property that has that? Have you sort of thing? Is that the only school property that has that? to the city Have they ever like called you and been like, "Bob, come plow your road." or like, "Come fill your pothole." No, we've never had that with the city. Just for safety. >> legally Okay. Yeah, sounds great. Okay. Do we need to do each one of these separate? I guess is what I'm asking or could we lump them? We would probably have Most of them separate. Okay. It won't take very long. It won't take long, no. It's It's separate. The middle school kitchen improvement project, is it budgeted for currently? Is it Um So,
059that money Okay. That's Kim's money. That comes out of her fund. And remember, Kim's always She's to have an ending fund balance of 3 months. And she's over that, and so she's needing to spend it and get get it down to 3 months. And so, this will get her down to this Much needed, yeah. And money well spent. Yeah. Yep. Feeding our kids. Yeah. I do not want to should be No, I mean I think these were the easier ones down at the bottom. >> [clears throat] >> As we make the agenda, we will kind of keep in mind that we do the agenda on the on the work session and then maybe one episode future. That leaves Jody and Taran eight or four minutes a piece. Yeah, we probably could move Taran's to next
060month or if that's works for you. You can do it in public comment. I'll be waiting. Hello, how are you guys? Okay, so um we just want to touch real touch base real quick on the status of our virtual program and our school. They're are two different things. Just as a reminder, there's EdFlex Ontario, which is our internal virtual school program. That's something that we intend to keep fairly small. There's a certain reason for it. It's meant to serve primarily our internal students for for specific reasons. So, what I'll talk about today is EdFlex Oregon, which is targeting all Oregon K-12 students. So, just real quick, where where I want to preface this by saying we're still building this. We're still learning. Just a reminder, I think I've said before, it's been interesting to learn
061that you can't go out and it's competitive. So, there's roughly 21,000 students in Oregon are the pot of students that are that are currently doing virtual in some capacity and we're all kind of competing for those that pot of students. So, I can't call Baker Web and say, "What do you guys do? Give us a leg up cuz it's not where the competition." So, building it as we go and we're also finding ways that we want to do it differently to serve our students in a different way here in Oregon. So, obviously just I'm not going to read this cuz that's super boring, but you can imagine the type of student who would be a good candidate for these, but we in addition are building kind of a filter to help parents walk their their
062student through their student scenario through that to see if they would be a good fit. Parents tend to skip that part and they don't know that the demand it'll it'll be on them as what we call learning coaches. So, I won't read through that, but you know, sometimes we don't get self-motivated learners if you can believe it and that that comes harder for them. This is not homeschooling. Just want to be really clear. We We use those interchangeably a lot. So, for example, a neighboring community has a large virtual school, but they primarily serve home-schooled students, which means the parent is the teacher. We're not doing that. We're do We're currently um advertising that we have a We have teachers. We don't have them internally. We work with a third-party curriculum company. Actually two now
063and they actually have teachers. Currently, those students show up every day at the same time to take a live class. They do not. That's not how those two third-party vendors design things. There's I could I could go on and on about how we hold them accountable and how we know they're learning and that kind of thing, but that is kind of the the difference between some schools. Some of you show up for a certain time every day for a live virtual class and some of you don't and we're currently in the you don't pile. We still offer all the same supports. We're building that as we do with brick-and-mortar kids. So, we're building that currently, but all of the social emotional supports are still there. All of the safety supports are still there. All of
064the the learning supports and academic support supports are still there. Everything that we do for a brick and mortar student, we are currently working out a design to serve other students virtually, so long distance. Um in fact, we just had a a meeting today Jose and I did with a company that's really promising that um we haven't talked to Nikki about. She doesn't know about that, so we'll we'll connect with you. It is a grant. >> [laughter] >> Um but kind of a cool platform for counseling. Um we also here's another another spot that I'm finding that parents are really craving and they want to they want their student for various reasons to be in virtual but they don't really know how to support them that way. It's not intuitive for them and they're all
065coming from various um you know, home situations, but they also want communication, so they don't want to dig too far for it. And we kind of lose them if we say you need to get past these three barriers to find out how your student's doing. So that may sound super like um you know, that makes sense and it does, but it's not like there's lots of things out there that make it easy for us to do it. So we're we're forming that, but that is a need parents have. They want to be able to know how their kids doing every day in an easy way and it's really really important for us that we provide that because that is probably 70% of us of the support students receive to keep them on track is coming
066from home. Our two learning platforms this year we just used Pearson and that's K through 12. You might recognize Pearson from curriculum books. They have a virtual arm in their company. Um we were approached really by accident. I answered the phone. I usually don't answer if it's a telemarketer and for some weird reason I answered it. Um and it's a really cool company that's new out of California. Um they've been I think a few years in business. They're really spreading all over the nation. Um I think we're their second contract in Oregon. They're called Subject and it's grade 6 through 12. And what makes them different is that um they have a really uh engaging way of approaching education that really mimics social media in a way. Um they've got a pattern I won't get
067it too far into but they got a pattern of how they they teach their subjects in a way that um is in short spurts um but touches all the pieces they need to. And it's kind of cool because um it's a young company but they're based out of Hollywood and they actually have a studio. And when they're when they're uh resuming with our team to to give us a demo um and earlier than that when they zoomed just with me, they said, "Yeah, our offices are literally in the middle of or surrounded by studios in this building." And they take actors who apparently can't make it in Hollywood and they they will act out the Civil War or they'll act out whatever it is at any given moment. >> [laughter] >> And then you get
068I mean, you're not you're learning about Napoleon Bonaparte from Napoleon himself. And so he's [laughter] all dressed up and anyway, and and other super cool things like they take your a survey of like your interests. So if you like soccer um a lot of your math will be geared towards soccer things. The angle of a soccer kick. If you're there's just lots of really cool things and they're still developing it. They're very young company, young, really smart go-getter people after it. So we're super excited about that. And he asked me, they're from California, we're zooming, he's like, "Are you guys anywhere near Caldwell?" They were going to Caldwell cuz they just they just did a contract to Caldwell. So apparently they're going to stop by. Right now they're just 6-12 but they're going to expand
069to the lower grades as well. Yes. And the name again is? Subject. And they'll do K-12 not next year but the year after. So we're really excited. Um I did speak with them. Um I don't even think I've shared this with Nikki but um we had a Zoom uh last week end of last week and they're very interested in um starting a we call it a a state school but it's essentially they so so like Pearson has one. Pearson does it through I want to say Prairie City or some really small place like that. Um and it's they start the school. It's Pearson school. But because they can't access the they can only access funding through a school district cuz the school district has access to the funding. Um they do all Pearson does all
070the advertising. Pearson does all the marketing and recruiting. And Prairie City takes a portion of the pass through of the ADM um to manage to to be the administrator of of those contracts with kids. Um it's what Nissa does right now with Open Ed. Um it's something that but there's only so many kids in a state you can do that with and I had asked Pearson could we be a host school for you to do that. And they said that currently they they don't there's not the numbers to support another host school. Um they are looking at potentially starting a host school that's just targeted towards alternative ed. I said dibs and then when you talked to Subject they were like we heard of those and I said well if I can help you >>
071[laughter] >> find a vein in there, could we be your host school? And they said we're super interested in that and they brought that up on their own the next meeting. So there's just lots of opportunity there. Um two places that we did not offer this first year that we are next year is credit recovery uh through Subject and also um early graduation. And again this is for our K-12 students across Oregon. Um you'll you'll may may see or hear when you see advertisements for Sylvies or pretty much a lot of the schools. Not necessarily the great big ones like Baker Web or um Oregon Charter Academy but a lot of the other schools will offer what's called an allotment. Um essentially that means we're going to have this pot of money assigned to you
072and here are the things you can spend it on to um enhance your academics for your kid. And there's all kinds of things but it's also limited. That the state doesn't just say go, you know, pay your house payment or something. There's there's a whole approval process with it. Some schools are wide open. They'll say, "Here's our curriculum. You don't like it, you can use your allotment to pay for the math curriculum you do like." Things like that. Um there's all kinds of reasons that works for some schools and doesn't for others. Uh we currently are going to offer what we call flex funds next year, which is an allotment. It's just another name for an allotment. Um but we're going to have more of a curated list. These are the things that you can
073spend it on that we know will enhance what you're doing. So, we haven't finished curating it for the younger kids yet, but for the older kids it's things like we'll pay for driver's ed, we'll pay for your your food handler's license, we'll pay for, you know, it and that list will grow, but it's not a another big thing is we'll pay for a portion of your internet fees. So, that's an instant savings to you to families right there. So, that's a that's an evolving thing, but that's one of the benefits to us. Um and that's it. Join today. Okay, this was meant for somebody else. So, if you're reading along with me, um it was meant for another another post. And thank you if you got to make it to open house. And if you
074didn't, stop by anytime. Yeah? Any questions for me? Is it a traditional school year or is there summer school? I was going to ask if there's summer school for credit recovery if there sure is. So, we follow the school calendar here, so it's a traditional year in that way. Um we're we don't offer summer school right now in the virtual world. They do at the high school for high school credits. Um it doesn't mean we won't ever, but with subject we now have the unique ability to do credit covered during the school year. So, if you come in and you are a year behind, um if you want to do it, we can catch you up during the school year, which is a an awesome opportunity cuz a lot of places don't do that. Yeah?
075Thank you. Awesome opportunity.