AISD School Board Workshop 4-10-25

001All right. Good afternoon. It is 4:01 p.m. It is Thursday, April 10th, 2025, and this is a special workshop meeting of the Argal ISD Board of Trustees. At this time, we will determine if a quorum is present. Leona McDade, present. Josh Wester, present. Rich McDow, present. Leon Artho, present. And I, Sam, present. We do have a quorum established. At this time, we will do our pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas. One state under God, one and indivisible. [Music] All right. This time we'll have a prayer. Dear heavenly father, uh we just come to you today with with

002gratitude. Uh gratitude to be able to serve this district, this community, these students, um our esteemed faculty and staff here in Arg. Um Lord, we we thank you for that opportunity. Lord, we pray that um that we have wisdom and discernment um as we look over um this important information today as as this district continues to move forward. Lord, we thank you for your guidance. Lord, we thank you for the ability to um give you the glory and it's in your son's holy and righteous name we pray. Amen. Amen. All right. Uh we do not have anything to go to close session for. So at this time we will um move towards the workshop portion. No one has signed up for public speaking. We're here to do our next budget workshop. So, I'm going to

003let Miss Stewart take it away from here. And this is designed for collaborative conver conversations. So, as we're working through, obviously you guys are plugging up questions and we will certainly have discussion. And then if you do want to engage any of our campus staff that are here today, um we can bring them up to the microphone. They all love good microphones. Sounds like Mrs. Lston is the spokesperson for us. Yes, I think she might be. She loves good microphones. Okay. All right. Thank y'all. So, we just kind of want to go over a brief agenda today. Again, as Dr. partner said this is meant for some collaboration and discussion. Um so we're going to look at um a legislative update. We're going to look at the staff survey that went out about the budget

004priorities. Um we're going to talk about a staffing plan based on those priorities. Um compensation and then what our next steps are. So as you know the 89th legislative session is well underway started January 14th, June 2nd. Uh scheduled to be the last day. We're over halfway through. There's over 1,400, it's almost 1500 bills that have been filed that have some um relation to public education. So, there's many bills out there. Some are moving through the system and some have not uh been to the committee yet. Today, we just want to talk about two just briefly to go over. Um I'm giving you a Senate bill and a House bill. So, Senate Bill 26 and House Bill Two and that's a committee substitute. I believe they were uh going to hear the House Bill two

005today and they're they're setting uh starting the budget. Yes, they're going to be building their budget that's starting this evening. So, it's going to be a long day for the House. Yes, it will. So, this is just to give you an idea of how far apart the Senate and the House still are in their versions of the bill. Um these are their two main um school funding bills. There are some um tax relief bills as well, but these were their two main school funding bills. So, the Senate is still focused on teacher pay. Theirs is set around 4.35 billion and they've got a difference of whether you have 5,000 students or whether you have more than 5,000 students and there's also an increase in TIA funding in there. So that's that is the main focus.

006House Bill 2 is a very large bill. It has um a lot of components to it. Um we highlighted a few here. Um it's it is 7.7 billion. Um it's focused on the basic aotment and other programmatic changes. So this changes an increase to the basic aotment from 6160 to 6555. It takes the anytime you have a basic all aotment increase that triggers a pay increase. It takes the 30% um required for pay to 40%. Um and then it automatically increase it ties it to the BA. Um right now that automatic increase is tied to the golden yield uh the golden penny yield. So the golden penny yield would be frozen at the 2425 level and then the automatic increase will be tied to the BA. So originally when we looked at this we got

007kind of excited because we saw that BA um that tied to growth in there but really it's kind of a swap out of where the funding is um and depending on your district and characteristics how that would affect you. Uh there's also quite a few special Did they put formula transition grant back in H in the new committee substitute? What I understand is they put a transition in for this bill. So, I think they learned from last bill when they wrote something and felt like everybody would get an increase and then realized it wouldn't. Um, the last update that I saw, this was written that anybody um everybody would get at least a $200 per student increase. And so, if you didn't, you would get that threshold, whether they call it formula transition grant or

008something else, and then it would phase out over time. Um, so depending on how this affected your district would would have depend on whether you were in that mode or not. Um, the special program adjustments, there's quite a bit for special education, uh, bilingual and comped and some early education. And then there's got a lot of hold harmless, uh, changes in there. There's hold harmless changes for the M and INS side. Uh, the M, they're kind of compressing that hold harmless. There's some give and take in there. The INS, there is some concerning INS hold harmless there. it changes um some funding that they had right whenever they compress uh sorry compressions on the M side anytime they take the the um homestead exemption and increase it they give us state money for the money

009that we lost they're actually moving this one actually goes to move that to any any bond that you have made a payment on as of I believe September 1st of 23. So some of our bond issues would be out of that hold harmless. Um the law the way it's written right now is any bond that was authorized as of September 1 of 2425. So it makes a big difference for districts that have issued bond recently or had a bond um authorization recently. We are under the impression that um they do realize that that's some concerning and they're working on possibly changing that. as it stands right now, there's some concerning INS hold harmless there. M as well, but more on the INS side. There's also some TI TIA funding this, but it's not as focused

010on TIA funding as the Senate bill is. So, just kind of to let you know, there are some good things happening um you know, in the legislature, but they're a long way from coming together before the end of the session. So, they they would have to have some some um correlation and determine whether they're going to go more with the House side or more with the Senate side of what's going to happen. But we'll keep watching it, keep you updated, um, and and keep discussions going with our representatives. Question. Um, basic a lotment increase doesn't make me jump up and down. Um, and then the next one, can you explain that the second dot, the increase for pay from 30 to 40? Yes, ma'am. So the way the law is written anytime the basic aotment

011is increased any increase so the overall increase that you see um compared to the prior year 30% of that is required to go to pay increases of that 30% I believe it's 75% is required to go to teachers and they have it tiered in there it's a I think at 5 years or more have to receive more than the five years and less and then the other 25% can go to your um other staff. Uh the last time this happened was in 2019 when they talked about, oh, we're giving so much money to everybody. Our total increase that we had to take 30% and pay staff, that total increase was around $23,000 for our district. So, our our compensation package is typically a lot more than that. Um, so the move from 30 to 40,

012I don't see that being concerning for us at all just because I see that our compensation would probably be more than that. Okay. Thank you. It's like 20% of our normal compensation package. Right. Right. So, okay. On this one, um Rick, do you mind clicking on that link there? So, some of the organizations that we work with do well, never mind. Um do um require, you know, run some runs for us when there is sample legislation out there. Let me give him access really quick. Signed in as campus. It's because he's signed in his campus calendars. Okay. Which who do I need to get out? Just make it Thank you everybody. Okay, if you refresh, you should be able to get there. Okay, it's very small for your screen. Really, all we wanted to show

013was that there are sample runs out there. If you go all the way to the bottom, it shows basically what what they think with the data that they have, what they think our district uh would receive. Um, and if you keep going down just a little bit, um, you'll see it's to just under three, right at $3 million. Um, so that's the way it's written right now. But when you start taking a deep dive in here, if you look at that row 78, this is one thing I want to point out, you'll zero on row 78. Um, and that is the additional state aid for loss to the freeze adjustments. That number should not be zero. Anything you look at for our last D right now is going to be zero because um when our

014information was sent when when the appraisal district sent information in in the fall and the state published that information in January, some of the information was incorrect. And so we've worked with the um with several different experts in there and we've worked with our um appraisal district and the appraisal district has submitted a self audit for us to correct that data. However, that data does not get released again from the state until August. To give you an idea of what that was for us last year, it was it was just under 700,000 for us. Um I'm working with some people to help try and estimate what that may be for us this year so that we might know that before that information is released from the state in August. just know that if the state

015does take the information that um the appraisal district has in it as a correction then we would be owe more money but that is something that we don't know at this time. So that's not in the projections that anybody can give us because the data they have shows that it should be zero. Those are just some issues that we work through along the year and the timing of where we're at. Um take it back to the presentation. All right. Okay. All right. So, we're going to talk a little bit about the feedback process uh that we've really culminated all the way through the year. Uh it started out with teacher advisory council and I know you all you all have been in the in the conversations with us as we've worked through with that group

016um in the fall. It kind of turned into what do they need? What are they looking for? We knew we had um exceeded our enrollment. So, we had some funding on this budget that we could potentially get some help for for our staff and our teachers on the campuses and our and administrators. And so we started that process in the fall by collecting some of the what do you needs, what do you want kind of thing. Um then we continued with that process as we moved into the spring semester. I've been out on campuses doing lunch and listen and learns if you will after school to all the campuses had conversations there. Kind of themed those ideas and then we've done some just some feedback forms and anonymous check-in and feedback forms. And so really

017as we've gone through this process, it's evolved and we we've been reflecting on it what it's done for us as an organization and we we were reflecting the other day in the sense that a lot of times organizations will try to find ways to just band-aid situations if you will. Um a lot of times you just look for something to try to increase morale that are short-term and what we feel like this has done and even talking to our teacher advisory council yesterday is this has created more of a physicians approach. We have asked questions. We have listened. We have diagnosed where we feel like our root causes are. We have co-designed solutions together all year. Brought you recommendations. And then we close the feedback loop. And then we review. And so that cycle has

018continued throughout the year. And we believe that that has been healthy for us as an organization as we've worked through some pretty significant challenges this year. And uh I know the feedback from a teacher advisory yesterday, they felt that way. We when we gave them the opportunity to do some closing remarks. Um the theme really was that we've been heard and that's what they felt like and so I know they appreciate and so many of them have you know small children and can't be here today but we'll watch the recording but wanted wanted us to convey that they feel like they've been heard and that when the board is on campuses that you come into classrooms and you know our students by name and you know what they're doing. So I wanted to convey that

019because that's really ultimately part of this entire process. And so as we've worked through, we sent uh the four priorities out to them uh out to the staff under the direction of the board from the last workshop and we gave them the four priorities. You know, compensation increase uh maintaining class sizes are trying to reduce what we've got, you know, get us back to where we can at least start the year lower and build into what our um maintaining would be. And then the support positions and then balance budgets. We took those four priorities back to the staff and we received 331 um responses back. It was open for about two weeks, sent several reminders and so we had 331 responses. And so you can see here just from the grade spans how they responded.

020So over 50% of the responses came from our elementary grades. Then we had middle and high. And then we had a few if obviously from administration and district departments. So that's kind of a spread of the feedback process on the four priorities. We had them rank them. Oh, go ahead. Yes, sir. The 331. Is that just a staff? Is that you said how many do we have? We're just over 700, I think. Yes. So, it's it's not quite half. Not quite 50%. And um I know our principal sent out reminders and we sent reminders, so you know, they But that's what we end up getting. But as far as surveys go, like that's substantial. It's actually high for that. Yes. I was just hoping we I was hoping everybody would answer but glad you like

02130 30% you're doing great. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. So, we were pleased with the responses. Um and then several of them I know we shared the data with you guys. There were several left comments and so we kind of went through those comments and um the question we asked them is basically to rank those four priorities one through four and with your highest priority, one being your highest priority, four being your lowest. And so you can kind of see there that the compensation increase obviously was the highest priority, but the class size ratios were right behind it. It's not far behind there. And that is a and as I've been on campuses this spring listening to teachers and what's going well and what's not going well and where their pain points are, I'm hearing a lot

022about the class sizes and understandably so. And I know we focused a lot on elementary, but secondary campuses um definitely that was something that rose to the top when I met with those campuses is those class sizes at the secondary um level. So when we look at it in a different term, your average ranking doesn't really tell the whole story because we wanted to make sure we broke it down and said, "Okay, how many actually ranked one two three and four?" And so um you have there that your your compensation was ranked number one by 181 people. it was ranked one by 68, but then it was ranked two by 144. So, it, you know, it definitely was a pretty high second um there and then it went down from there and so forth and

023so on. And then as far as kind of the themes and the open-ended comments, obviously the compensation theme was just we need raises, we need cost of living, percent raises. Um we had uh we had staffing ratios talking about elementary campus. Um actually those got flipped. I apologize. Flip those over. uh fifth grade class size cap should be over under staffing ratios and the secondary one less than 27 in all classes because they and I'll talk about that in a minute. Um and the support positions, your specialists and interventions on campuses kind of varying opinions on which one. And then the secondary testing and 504 coordinators, there's just too many responsibilities on campus admin and counselors without those positions. And so those were kind of the common themes in um the open-ended comments. And so

024I wanted to make sure we we articulated that. And then we had some that are just really concerned about wanting to focus strictly on a balanced budget. Okay. So I I want to say some things here. Okay. Um and and I I want to communicate you know not just you as administration but you know campus leaders that are here today and any teacher that is happens to listen. You know one of this is my third or fourth budget workshop to go through. really probably my third because the first one was in May and it was already decided I think when I was first elected. But one of the challenges I've always had in sitting in this seat is you know we're doing this for kids and teachers primarily trying to figure out what's the best

025thing and I always feel a disconnect like I'm not talking to the teachers. I mean, I know the teachers, but I don't know what their challenges are. And I'm relying on you guys to build a budget that prioritizes, you know, um, teachers and students and not talking to them. I just was relying on y'all. And so, I was always like, what's the right balance here? You know, where is in any budget, you got to balance priorities? You know, is it compensation? Is it support? Class sizes, things like that. and I just felt like it was a struggle to really figure out what the staff wanted. And so I applaud you for going out. This is the first time in the four times I've been doing this that you've actually I actually got real feedback. And

026I want the teachers and the campus leaders to know how how much weight I'm putting on what I hear from you through the teacher advisory committee so that the teachers take advantage of those adviserss that are on their campuses and and use them to communicate through them and how much weight I'm putting on this survey in terms of the decisions that I think I'm going to make and where to prioritize. So I just want to reiterate that if if if you're implementing this as a part of the budget process, please take advantage of it because it's very important in the decision-m process. I mean, I I can totally concur with him. Um, having been a teacher myself, I mean, I totally get that. And if you could wave a magic wand, you'd want to do

027all four of these, but you know that those things don't exist unfortunately. And we're going to talk about that in a little bit of trying to build it all in. Where are we right now if we build in everything, right? Um, and that's that's where we start. We have to start with let's put the kitchen sink in there. Let's figure out where we are, where we start, and then we've got to begin to make some decisions at that point. But I I also just I wanted to thank you guys and your staffs for participating because I agree with Josh wholeheartedly that you know um it we're we're kind of removed removed in some what of a sense that makes any sense at all. Um and and having data, raw data like this is very very

028helpful to at least for me. I can speak for myself. I read all the comments. Yeah, I did too. Yeah. And I'll tell you what one of my conclusions was is it was it was sitting here. I was always going, "Do teachers want raises? Do they do this for money?" And I knew some did, but do they want more support staff? Smaller class sizes. I probably And really what what I got back was is it it is a mix. There is it's a really hard balancing act. I mean it just depends. Everybody's in a different position in life and in their career and want different things. So positions are different. Every positions are different too. Some teaching positions are feeling the strain and need more support than other teaching positions. So you're right. All right.

029So let's talk a little bit about kind of this let's talk staffing ratio piece first. So when we talk about class sizes, it's it's I think it's just it's been just as eye openening for us going through all of this and having conversations with teachers, spending the time we have with the principles recently, especially secondary because theirs is not as cut and dry as elementary when you talk about class sizes. And you know, we started the year out while we were maintaining a 22 to1 and we were meeting the letter of the law with the state, it lasted about one day. The JRE didn't even last one day. So we, you know, quickly were at 22 and be and over that right off the bat this year, earlier I think than we probably ever have

030been. And so, you know, fortunately with the excessive growth that we had, we were able to add positions as we went, but that is so exhausting on a campus to try to continue to add teachers and interview and start from scratch. And the what the toll that takes on the teachers trying to they're so thankful to have a new team member, but then you then you're mixing classes up. they're splitting classes. So, there's so many reasons why it's nice to give some cushion in the beginning of the year if you can. Um, we did not believe that we had that had that luxury last year when or when this school year started and that's obviously we have we have felt that pain this year across this c those campuses. Um, so, you know, the last

031workshop we had uh Mr. Westerm actually brought up, you know, you talked about, can we go ahead and can we go ahead and look at filling all of our classrooms on our campuses with teachers, even if that means our class sizes start out lower just to give us some buffer going into this, you know, going into the start of the school year. Don't just try to staff at 22. Can we go ahead and give a little bit of a buffer? And and actually, you want to do more than that. And we said the limitation is really space, right? It's really just the space we have in our classrooms on our campuses. So what we've done is we've gone back and looked and said, "Okay, we can round up on that ratio um and have an

032extra FTE. So instead of starting at 21.5 or right at 22, add in a set another section because there's another classroom available. Now let's look at we're looking at 19 and a half or maybe 20." And that gives us a little more room there. So we did go back and do that exercise. I think we came up with six more FTEEs. That would be six more. So we'll show that in a moment. Um we, you know, we've heard fifth grade say we want to cap at 20. You know, we really want to cap or so we we've looked at fifth grade bumping that down to 24. Um and then secondary, I think, um was the one that probably was has really provided the most eyeopening experience and talking with the teachers there and the secondary

033principles and even yesterday um and I'll I'll talk about this in a minute. And Miss Hadley brought up a really good point, but um you know last year we said we were trying to start with 25. It reality is is we didn't. We started at 27 and only went up and we didn't add any FTEEs for growth at the secondary campuses last year. So they they had the same amount of teachers they had the year before plus they had more students. So even though we were trying to say we were we were you know giving them enough FTEES for 25 to one, they started out 27 and only grew from there. Um, so we we're trying to listen to see how do we play catch-up at the secondary and I believe um and we'll talk

034about that in a minute too. But that is a you know that's additional positions the sixth grade center seventh grade I mean middle school and the high school um just in teaching positions. Okay. I'm going to speak again. Okay. And because and I'm going to be a broken record because I I want people to hear this because I I want them to know I it's certainly a priority of mine. And the reason, one of the things, this is my least favorite slide because it says maintain current class sizes and and it has state law in there 22 to1. And I and I think that's it's it's noble. It's great. I mean, some districts aren't able to do that. And um I just don't ever really as long as I'm here, I really don't want that

035to be a goal to have class sizes that are the maximum allowed by the state. I don't think that should be a budgetary goal of this district. I think I would like this district to be known certainly in the elementary school levels and maybe even the lower grades of K through 2 grade is really prioritizing within the budget to have smaller class size ratios. And it's not only just for teachers. I think it's going to help you recruit good teachers. I think it matters to families. It matters to parents. and when they go into these classrooms and it's just like somebody stepped on an ant pop pot, it it it's discouraging and I think they think maybe it's not the right educational environment for them. And I think if they see us prioritizing that, it's

036going to you get a reputation for prioritizing class sizes and your elementary school levels. It's going to repopulate your district. You may not peak and decline like other districts. And if you make that investment, I think it'll be a worthwhile investment. And as it relates to fifth graders, I mean, we we've had 29 and 30 in fifth grade, and I've been in those classes. And that's the benefit of your boardwalks. I go and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, he's got this." I mean, some of these fifth graders are sixth graders, and they're huge, and they're just like, "These classes are crowded." And getting that down to 24 at a minimum is is a good thing. I don't I don't like 29, 30. Just because you can and there is no maximum in fifth grade doesn't

037mean you should. They're in an elementary school environment. They're stuck in those classrooms. are not, you know, moving in the hallways as much. We should make that a budget. And and I and I think it it mirrors a lot like what we try to do with when we have to reszone, right? We want to be as thoughtful as possible. Obviously, we have caveats that we're trying to meet, but be as least disruptive to families as possible. So when when that f that that perfect balance is there where we have the budgetary capacity, we have facility capacity, it it's so much easier, it's common sense to y'all, but it's it's so much easier to have kids move into a classroom than than shuffle. I mean, for the teachers, for the kids, for the parents. So, you

038know, in in that utopian balance, like can we start off where we have room to to grow into? So, and and I think to what you're saying, I mean, if we had two or three more classrooms for K1 and two to be able to try to do that and see what that would be. But I think again, it comes back down to the space at this point. You know, we're we're sitting here with four elementaryaries open and we have 3% of space left already. I mean, we just opened a brand new school and we have and that's not changing for two years. No, it's not. And and so if that's not going to change for two years and you're going, look, I don't have the space to, you know, reduce these class sizes to a

039size that we're comfortable with and want to prioritize, then I think the budget priority should be, okay, well, we're going to support those teachers in those two years in ways that maybe historically we haven't because we're going to crowd we're going to have to crowd those classrooms because of spaces. So, we're going to allocate money so that they feel supported. That would be a, you know, something maybe in the two-year window we could do. Okay. Okay. So, just to give you some comparisons, um, because I know sometimes people ask us, what is everybody else doing around us? And so, when we talked about this yesterday with our teacher advisory council, we know that these four districts have publicly talked about their class sizes going into next year. So we we were able to pull that

040information either from a board meeting they've had or a newspaper article and as we talked through that and talk specifically looking at 9 through 12 the high school teachers asked us do you know if the which of those districts are on block or on a traditional seven or eight period day and you know most of the time when we when we think about class sizes you know we're thinking teachers don't want 30 kids in their classroom. Well, when you're talking to high school teachers, or at least when we talked to our advisory council teachers yesterday, it wasn't so much about the number of students in their class, it's the number of students on their case load. And so when an English language arts teachers trying to give meaningful feedback to students, you know, if you've

041got three sections of block, you know, three sections of 30 because you're running block or whatever, you've got 90 kids or you're running eight periods of 30 kids and you've got 240 kids or seven periods of 210 kids. And so that was a perspective that we hadn't really thought about. We were thinking more just the actual class period and the high school teachers were thinking more what's on my case load. How do I give me continue to give meaningful feedback when I've got six classes and I've got 30 kids in every class. So that was a conversation we had and we went back and looked and those school districts that are listed up here, number one, Carol, Copel and Louisville, they're all declining in enrollment. They all have block scheduling which is the most expensive

042model. um some of those can't move off the block scheduling because of their configuration. So they're, you know, they're having to go up in class sizes because they can't do the more efficient model. Northwest, you know, they're going up to 30 and they've got eight period days. So they're talking they're going to have over 200 kids on potentially on a case load. So, um, but we did look at that and that was I thought that was a good point from the teachers from their perspective. And so, um, you know, those districts are just in a position that's what they're having to do. And we don't want to be like everyone else in that sense. And so, I think this conversation and what we're trying to prioritize is very important um, based on what we're seeing

043around us. And do we have the Denton metrics? Uh, we had it on there, but they hadn't gotten back to us yet, so we weren't able to include theirs. They're on block as well, but I don't know what they're Have you thinking outside the box here? Maybe is I think, you know, you can have goals and plans and then the kids keep showing up and no space and it's just like, well, it all goes south. I if if you is there ever a way where you can say, "Hey, look, I mean, I this teacher at whether it's elementary school or secondary level is being asked to go above and beyond that their class sizes are just larger than we would have liked." Um, is there a way to recognize that effort? I think is there

044a way I mean I see we do stipens all the time and you just kind of go look I mean this teacher over here and I know there's a a risk because you know not every class is the same. You can have 28 kids that are really great and you can have 22 there. You know, it's not a good mix. But if if you see that and you're going, look, she's this person's going above and beyond and we don't have the space to really release that. Can we can we recognize that effort? I think you could do Yes. Because I think just like with a a teacher that chooses to, you know, teach a section during a conference period, you have to compensate, you know, a portion of the the daily schedule, you know, and

045to comp for compensation purposes. I think you can monetize anything over, you know, like you set a standard, you just have to have a metric metric that you set and you stick with it, you know. So for students from 30 if you can go from 29 to 32 students then you have the stipen or if it's just one class period you do it by class period or however that you know that looks for that month and of course that es and flows right kids come in and out but you know a month but you don't want a teacher you don't want to incentivize an appointment with a teacher saying hey I want the 30 kids cuz I want the more money because the parents don't want it well that's not for kids correct so I

046don't but I think if you're in a position that's all you have then you know you could do something like that it's not what you want to do necessarily because I I don't think that we all would agree that's not what best for kids for somebody to say just let me have them all, you know. Yeah. And you have to have a standard there. Certainly have some parameters set up. What what triggers something like that because that can be a that can kind of morph into something you don't want it to be. So, and if our goal is 18 kids in elementary per class or whatever, those days are over. Well, I No, but I'm just I'm just saying cuz I mean what I'm hearing is capacity. And then I come back and I say,

047"Okay, well, we have what 900 kids in every elementary campus from west to south to that's open since 2019. I think they've all opened north of 850. And that 850 does at least for my bond days of dealing with it wasn't talking about well this is certain amount of c classrooms at 20 kids even you know and and I agree with with with Josh I mean it's the work that the teachers are doing when I mean there was one class we went into last week with 29 kids and you could hardly move in the class. It was fifth grade. Yeah. And but I mean the kids were doing phenomenal but it was tight. Yeah. And and so I look at it and say okay if we're saying okay 20 but we're building for 22 or

04824 then we'll never have the capacity. And so you know I I don't know how we can look at both of those where they align where we where we can look at that. But I but I think it's important. We only have 3%. When you lower the ratio you need more space. Well that's what I'm saying right. you have to have a classroom dragged out in a 3% wiggle room here. You know, that's tough. And in this day and age, every building we're building, we're value engineering, trying to reduce the square footage because it's over budget. I mean, so it is a So, one of the things that, you know, obviously is very important for this workshop because when you're talking staffing, you know, our our principles have been great. they've been patient about as

049long as long as they can be patient because you know it's April, middle April and when you're thinking you're going to have to be hiring teachers, you don't want to wait till May, June and July to try to hire teachers. So they're very anxious obviously and so a staffing plan that requires board approval for new positions or added positions for growth has to be brought to you sooner than we can finish all of this. Right? So part of today is to talk through the draft the draft staffing plan specifically for the teaching positions for sure and uh talk through that with you because we would want to bring it back on the 22nd at the regular meeting for approval so they can start their hiring of teacher processes. Um some of the positions are still

050in the budget already because they may have been absorbed through last year but some of these growth positions obviously are new and so they will require um board approval. So, what we've done here on the staffing plan. Oh, can you go back? I'm sorry. I wanted to talk through a couple things. Um, this is really going to incorporate the budget priorities and the staff survey input. And he and you've got a copy of it in front of you and then he can pull it up here and I'll let Miss Stewart talk through it because it's her mastermind spreadsheet. She's amazing at that. Um, and again, it it does include those staffing ratios and we'll talk through we'll kind of go through line item by line item. It's focusing on the learning environment the best we

051can in the in the situation we're in. And then the staffing requests that are not included on here that we've left out that have come to us through her meetings and our budget and staffing meetings. Um there's two student nutrition positions we don't have on here. There's three maintenance positions um with growth and ads and you know facilities. You know we didn't add anything with the opening of a new campus on that. Uh you know everybody's wanted campus counselor additions and so they're not on here. Um, you know, one of the things that Coach Rogers has talked about as we part anticipate opening our uh preparing for the opening of the second high school is in the next couple of years is going to be pivotal in trying to keep as many kids as involved

052as we can because we've got cut sports, but we know that they're going to end up going to the other high school. So, we don't want to have too many cut sports. You know, it's too many students cut that could potentially end up playing. Um, and so we've talked about freshman B teams and a couple of sports we haven't had those before. I'm not sorry. Yeah, freshman B teams. and um we don't have that in here right now. Uh additional transportation position, special programs, and some camp the four campus campus interventionists, which is half of what we're trying to bring back. So, those aren't in here right now, but we'll go into the staffing plan, and I'll let Miss Stewart kind of talk through that and Dr. Jordan can talk through the instructional side and

053then um just open it up for conversation. So, so these are requests that were made by campus principles or department heads for staffing that are not in this the well this yeah the things that I had yes the things I said not included are requests by departments or yeah staff campuses that are not in the spreadsheet that we're about to go over. So the spreadsheets kind of divided into what we have to have for growth and then what we and as far or not have to have but what we have to have for the class size ratios and then there's some things in there about program support. You know we have not added into our fine arts program in a long long time and our programs doubled in size in some of those and we

054have not added um and band or dance especially at the middle school. We've got one dance teacher going between the high school and the middle school and we've we've outgrown that and then we still have um the same amount of band directors we've had since 2016 with a lot more students to to managing. So anyway, so those are in there and we felt like those were something we wanted to bring to consider. And then you've got special population support. So if you'll start with the teacher ones, let's let's just talk through the teacher ones. So, um, based on the demographer report, we built the first 1 2 3 4. Those first four right there are just what we need, um, based on a 22 to1. Okay? So, just keep in mind at 22:1, that's what

055we would do. And some of those are obviously switching to transferring within the district, but that's that's what you've got in there. And then you've got the FTE for lower class size ads. Those are the six that we would request to fill our classrooms to help us start lower. So, those are the six ads there. Um, and then the sixth grade center needs three, the middle school needs six, and the high school needs 10 um for growth positions to try to get us to really start the year out at that 25 to1 and have room to grow into um what they essentially what they started with this year. So, from a teacher perspective, that is the, you know, the current ask in the staffing plan. Uh, from program support, I talked about that a little

056bit. Special POPS, that's going to be um an ad for a GT teacher. We're we're we do not have a full-time one at every elementary right now. You want to talk a little bit about those, Dr. Jordan? Sure. The GT? Yeah. Well, really all of those. Sure. We have our elementary GT teachers kind of rotating through Hilltop, taking a turn. Um, so to assign them their own GT teacher, adding some emergent bilingual aids at our campuses that have the heaviest population of emergent bilingual. Those teachers right now have more than 130 kids on that they are trying to serve. So, needing another aid. We did um we'll have to cut some of our prek classes because we just don't have space for it. We value those programs and we know how important they are and

057when we can get our next elementary going, we can add some more prek but right now we'll have to lose a program at JR. I mean, you're talking paid prek. Paid the tuition prek. Correct. Our staff can will still have prek available and we are required for our state qualifiers, but paid prek. I'm losing one section at Jerry and one at South. So that means two A's as well. We did see across all campuses some campuses that had more inclusion aids than others. We felt like there were three that um could be reduced, but then there's two life skill aids that would be needed. So it was kind of almost a wash there. We added a new section of XC. So that aid there, another diagnostician, they their case loads um are very very high

058right now. Very much higher than um would be expected. Step teacher, that's a special education program that we are bringing to the sixth grade center to meet the needs of our students who are transitioning from fifth to sixth grade. And then the campus behavior or behavior specialist that would serve all elementary. Our middle school and high school each have a behavior specialist on their campuses. And then the campus support positions. That's that was obviously the third priority. And that is getting back um a 504 specialist campus testing coordinator to share between the middle and sixth grade center. Uh the four of the instructional specialists, one back for each campus, and then half of a counselor receptionist. We've got a position that's splitting right now time between technology and the counseling department at the high school

059and that's just it's just not working. We've got to they've got to have some a little bit more support over there. So it was basically be a half position. Um and then you talk about operations. Liz, can I ask you a question real quick? Sure. On the diagnostician you have sped federal funding. Is there any fear on that going away? Um not for next year. Um the information that we have is that their budget that's already funded is our budget for next year. Um after that we are having to watch and see pretty closely. Uh currently I believe all but one of our diagnosticians are funded through our special ed um funding and we feel like we have room in there to to fund this position as well. Um and just a little bit on

060how the sheet works. The reason you see wise and everything is so that we can make the the funding populate so that you can see the total, right? Um it doesn't mean that you've already approved everything. We're just trying to get the the totals populated. Um so on the operations side, um we're asking in transportation for a router dispatcher. Uh that's where we're seeing a lot of our um overtime and we feel like uh we really can reduce that cost because we're reducing the overtime, but the sharing of some of that responsibilities. It's going to take another person to get that complete. Um, and then bus drivers, we're estimating two right now, but those are going to heavily depend on the requests from students, you know, who's going to ride and how many routes that

061will take. So, that's more of a holding um place at this point in time because we don't have those routes routed for next year, that happens typically in the summer. Um, but that's just a we feel like it may be two. Um, if we can do it with the same number of bus drivers and routes that we've done this year, then that request will come off. But at this point in time, we felt like it was um viable that we needed to at least show you there's a possibility of two out there. So question real quick on transportation only because you were on it. Um on the request not included, what was that for? I can tell you the uh diesel mechanic. Yeah, diesel mechanic. And we felt like we were able to rearrange some

062things and and take care of that without adding position at this time. Understand? Okay. Thank you. And and to go out of this section, but the behavior specialist, is that someone that goes to all campuses or is that going to be designated? It would be all elementary campuses. Yes. Okay. Um, so when I look at your campus class size ratio FTEES and you have the teachers or the that you're anticipate hiring, this is this is done in coordination with the campuses and they're saying, "Hey, you're looking at the projected enrollment principles are saying, "Hey, I need this much, right? We we this is kind of and we're using projected enrollment. this is kind of in coordination with them and there's and so if I see middle school and high school you talked about secondary kind

063of getting overlooked last year having we're looking at adding 16 positions between middle school and high school 19 yes if you count sixth grade center I don't know if sixth grade center was included in is that yes 16 it' be 19 yeah from 6 through 12 it would be 19 sixth grade and second grade okay and so 19 so you you you feel of this proposal is addressing that issue that you've become aware of that the secondary is feeling like their class sizes were a little too high. Yes. And based on the conversations with the secondary principles this week, that would be the number that would have addressed that and that's a that's a million two commitment, right, for the recording. And then the secondary administrators were nodding their head. Yes. Oh, yes. You can

064hear their heads nodding. Yeah. And then this budget, but also you have the I mean, I guess it's in here is six positions at the elementary school that you've worked with the elementary school campus leaders on that you think would help you start the year at a lower class size ratio than you did last year. So, the way that was done is just take obviously like I said with our Dr. Daniel and Mr. They kind of worked through that originally with just the demographers projections. You know, you take the number of students projected divided by the sections and if it's 5.83, then you know, typically we would just go to six, right? Or that's what we would have done last year. Well, we bumped it to seven. So that's how that's what we did. We

065went through and and it ended up being six more. So bringing substantial amount more of growth, ability to grow into, right? So it change it like from a 21.5 maybe to a 19.5 or whatever it was. um we were working we haven't finished those yet but we went through and did the ratios we haven't finished our chart yet. So I'm am I looking at this right then and saying that you in terms of the budgetary commitments we're potentially making to to address class size ratios at the elementary school and secondary level is somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.6 million. Can you sum that with your since it's a PDF I can do that and it's 25 positions. So, and it's 25 positions at the time. Yes. Uh 2.2 1.2. Yeah. 2.2, which it we can

066equate that it's very similar in the dollar amount that a compensation package would be. Right. So we're we're again goal looking at both and balancing both like what we would typically do for a compensation package for the district. We're investing in class size ratios and getting teachers and right now you want to talk about that top right corner. Would you go ahead and explain that? So when we first started the budget process, we look at the big picture, right? We're uh and you aren't all the way through it yet. So you're putting some big holds on things, right? And so we worked through it and we looked at that we knew that there would be increases and what we felt like we needed to reserve for that. Part of that was reserving 2 million for

067a compensation package. Um what we got to was we felt like we could put um 1.5 almost 1.6 into added staff. And so that's the number that we have at the top and where we're working from. So right now this with everything on this it shows that it's a little over 1.7 million over. That doesn't mean it's 1.7 plus 2 million to put us in the whole 3.7. That means the 2 million is already reserved. That was our starting amount with with all of the holds in the budget that we felt like we needed uh to get through next year. So just don't want to confuse anybody when we're looking at that. That that's a a work in progress and that's just a how we have it to kind of know where we're at in

068the process. So where where does that 1.575 million come from? Growth. So, when we're growing students, our revenue is going up. We're estimating what our expenditures are going up. We've made some estimates on what we think the departments will be. You know, um property casualty insurance might be. Those are some of our big areas that we think that uh there's some, you know, we we put some holds on there as we work through that process. Then we look at staffing. You know, what what we think there compensation's a big part of that. We wanted to include that from the beginning this year to reserve that. And then we we that left us with 1.575 to put towards the stacking. doesn't mean that's where we're putting those areas. That's just what we were working through. It's

069fair to say had the vader passed, we'd be a surplus budget right now. Yes. Okay. Now, going back to the point here, what I'm looking at from a staffing standpoint, it looks like there is being a commitment made to staff and use all the space that we have and use the classrooms that we have to reduce class size ratios at all uh levels. And then you're also bringing back specialist positions, support positions. So when I when I try to compare what you have here to what the survey says and the teacher advisory committee, I mean it it's lining up for me in terms of, you know, support staff and class size ratios. There is a budgetary commitment being made to address those. Correct. What we haven't got to, I'm afraid of, is raises, which is

070the 2 million we have pulled out already. Yes. That's why you reflect 1.7 million deficit on this sheet right here. Okay. If you put the two billion in raises back in here, we would be in a surplus right now with these positions. Just over a surplus. But we've already we already have the 2 million pulled out just that's we wanted to pull it out separately when we started just to see where we were. So in essence, you could look at it as we had 3.5 million that we could, you know, put towards staffing and compensation without going into a deficit budget. And and and so you're putting roughly 2 and a.5 million to staffing and a million to raises. If everything on here was approved, everything on the sheet was approved, we would be putting

0713.2 to almost 3.3 million right to staffing and then we you know there would be decisions later that has to be made about compensation. So what we're telling you is we had um 3.575 million that can share between both staffing and compensation and keep a balanced budget. If we want to go over that that's what we go into a deficit budget and this is without any state you know this is without any bill. So we got to hold our breath here a little bit. But even if they pass something this year where it's not going to be for this school year, it is it'll be slightly immediate. Yeah, that's that's the problem. Like we're having to set a budget before they've made a decision. Typically their bills start effective September 1st on any funding for

072us with our I mean it still starts attendance at the beginning of school year, but typically they'll go into effect and it'll be for this school year. We're hoping for less than five sessions this time. We are hoping for that. Okay. We're hoping their their bills get a little bit closer and actually happen in this first session. What What would it remind me what the Vader would have netted last year? 2.6. 2.6. And two, the reason we pulled out 2 million is that's in a ballpark of about a 3% raise. This is kind of a standard. That's why we held that just as a stand. So, am I understanding this correctly then? If if we wanted to do all of what you're saying on the staff side plus give raises, we're going we're looking at

073a deficit. Yes. That number around 1.7 of 1.7 million. That's correct. And perhaps one way out of that deficit is a new funding bill. Correct. And growth. Correct. This is this is as with any budget that we present to you is based on assumptions. We use the demographer's assumptions and it's based on his assumptions for next year, his estimates of students enrolled next year. But one of the things we talked about last budget workshop was bring us a balanced budget. We did. And so we said that's not necessarily doing this right, right? We look at the priorities of the staff survey and that's their So if we put the compensation back in there, we're balanced. It is. But I mean, I think when you look at what our obligations are, I understand. you know, and

074I I believe it I actually took some continuing education um at one time and they were and they told us that, you know, we need to, you know, our job as the board is to ask you absolutely to bring us a balanced budget and tell us what that looks like, you know, and we just wanted to start with make sure that everything, the priorities, everything was communicated to you from staff so that you could see the big picture and obviously we know we have to make decisions from that um I think also like in my eight years on the board, more times than not, Liz, you've brought a deficit to begin. We do. We have been very fortunate here that we have grown almost every single year during the year and we've gone it's hard

075to say with the co years, right? So, let's not look at the co years because there was a lot of ifs ands, you know, some some virtual and all of that. But if you don't look at those, many of the times we ended up higher than what the demographer said, right? Um, last year we weren't. Last year we were lower than what the demographer said. This year we were significantly higher. You know, there's going to be a range that we are around that. And that that range, whether it's positive or negative, is going to be the trajectory of our budget for that year. We finished in a deficit one year since I've been here two years ago when we when the growth kind of flattened or we did hit the growth projections. Was that last

076year? I mean we we we've passed a deficit budget I think almost every year but finished in the green which is what we're doing this year. And we're doing that again this year. Black because of gray black because of gray and and so we never really even though we were using we were anticipating using fund balance to cover the deficit this year and we were thinking you were standing there if I remember correctly last budget session with no new SC funding bill and the formula transition grant gone preparing us that we're going to probably dip into the savings account. Yes. and we didn't have to do that this year. And that's because we had a lot more students show up than what we planned. We were able to pay it back. So, even though this

077is a 1.7 uh deficit, are we dipping into savings or are we able to replenish this year or next year? Next year. Next year. If if you said we're comfortable with you, you know, all these positions and we're comfortable with you, you know, continuing with the compensation, which you, of course, you wouldn't approve any of this at this time, then we would be looking at a $1.7 million deficit to start the year. Now, we still have work to do on our three to four budget amendments throughout the year, right? We still have, you know, we're still looking at our department budgets. We've still got work to do, but this is where we're at as far as a big picture right now. But what you need to know, my understand I mean you need to know

078that maybe the campus needs to know yeah we're we're going to fill these positions or we we think so you can go get the best out there that are available and you're not waiting. What we don't really know yet is about the raises, right? Because so I mean it's almost like can we sit here and say, "Yeah, I think I'm good with these positions being in the budget, but I can't quite commit to the raises until I know what the legislation does." And which we don't typically do a a compensation package till June anyway. That's our standard month for compensation package is June. Yeah. And so the 68, is that a raise or is that not a raise? The 68 is the average with benefits. It's the cost the district average cost of an FTE.

079And that would be on our current pay scale. So it doesn't So this 68 doesn't really include any rates, right? We're just estimating based on our current scale. on our current pay scale, what what an FTE benefits and salary and average. You know, some that you hire with, you know, a lot less experience, some you hire with more, but this is our average that we use as a planning tool. So, when we balanced our budget the other week, again, I just go back to fund balance. Are we still lower than We're paying the fund balance back. you're paying the fund balance back. So at the beginning of next year, assumably, we're on an even keel on what we what needs to be in there. So each year that our um budget grows Oh, right. The

080percentage that percentage will be less unless we put money in that $5 to maintain that percentage. Right. Okay. But for all intents and purposes, we're at three months, right? We'll be hovering close to three months um at the end of this year. Yeah. We're not putting any extra in the fund balance. We could depends on the next few months go and some of our operations side, but yes, and we could have had we not done the stip or the correct the onetime payment 560,000. But again, that was a year that we didn't do a full compensation package. So, we felt like um with the growth and with the reduced staffing that we had that that was something that we would recommend is is additional compensation for staff. Yeah, we got to find a way to

081get there. I think given what I'm hearing from the staff, but I I also think you got Yeah. It's it's it's like which one do you pick and which one, you know, when you look at the reality of it, you said you want to wave the magic wand and do it all, but Yeah. And and the decisions not necessarily obviously it's not made today. We're not doing any action today, but this this truly addresses the staffing needs and desires to provide more support for our for teachers to enhance the opportunities for our kids um in a learning environment that we feel is best as we can accomplish with the facilities we have. and and then we wait for June 2nd to pass and see if we have another session or if we've got hard numbers

082then that we can start planning for a compensation. I don't know if I'm looking at the order of operations, right? There's no foil method to this. And so you you you've granted basically all the teacher request, but I see on this not request you had seven counselors. Well, just because every campus wanted to have another they wanted their second counselors back at the elementaryaries and you know have So do the additional like 504 support and and positions like that does that help take the workload off the current counselors it can like are any of the added positions that are being put in this draft going to help the workload of the counselors and someone's got to secondary at the elementary level. Secondary. Yes, secondary. Yes. Yes. I would say not at the elementary, but secondary.

083Yes. Yeah. Okay. And And so there's that's a lot of counselor. The receptionist would help. Yeah. Right. Right. That would help. Yeah. The half the half reception helps the counselors. You said two special programs. I mean what can you give me a little bit more detail what those programs were that were not one was I think a speech I think one was another behavior specialist. Oh yeah. Second behavior specialist was speech. Okay. And then you had four interventionists that were not because originally they all had two. Okay. And they all got one. We built one back in. to look at. And did they have did they all have two before last year? Yes. The elementary Sorry, I thought you were talking about counselor. Yeah. Two. So we every every So we're not quite getting back

084to level and so every elementary school wants two counselors. Yes. Never. But that's never been as I mean I think West had two. They had them when they were at the 850 and plus range. Yes. But everybody's got one right now. So these not included look like long shots if we're $1.7 million. Correct. They don't look like it's something that um I can talk through a couple of them with you. Like student nutrition, I think y'all y'all know student nutrition is a separate fund. Sometimes that's more of a if we feel like they can fund that and it doesn't impact the general operating fund. So sometimes we look at that a little little differently. Um maintenance um just as you know we reduced maintenance last year. Um, you know, we hear a lot and I'm

085sure you hear a lot about the grounds and how it looks. And just know that that we understand that, but that was a a step that we took in reducing those positions to help with the budget. Um, and we're not adding that next year. We're not adding some of the requests. So, it does mean a little bit more in contracted services and it does mean that we go longer between when we can mow. Um, and we have a longer schedule and, you know, we did that with the knowledge that would that would happen. Um, is the is a fair estimate probably like 1.25 million on all these positions? The rest of those I have not added that up. Sorry. That's just rough math. I I would need to go in and get the cost for

086each one of those because I do not have those. Right. I'm just going off of the next the the budget sheet and trying to plug like just do a rough estimate. um inter you know would be teacher pay but special programs I would have to find some other cost depending on what they were and I would need to look up counselor cost and maintenance cost. I think the struggle for me when I look at this, I go, "Hey, I know what's important. I think it's important to me. I think it's be important to people I talk to is to spend 400 and something thousand dollars to add six full-time positions to reduce class sizes." But then the people in the building may say, "Hey, you know what? We got really good kids. I got really

087great. I need an extra counselor, you know, or I need, you know, I really want that extra interventionist. I can take a little bit more kids." And that's where I always feel conflicted in making these decisions because it may be different at every campus, too. Um, yeah, because we we come out looking like we're talking on both sides, right? So, it's like you have six added positions in elementary to lower class size ratios. Okay, well, let's wipe that out. Now, we're saying we don't want the class size ratios lower. We want counselors on every campus. Um, I don't know. And and I feel every every campus obviously at elementary level is at capacity. Um, and so to say, well, we'll reduce, you know, we'll have increased class sizes here to give them a counselor, but

088not do it at all four elementaryaries. I I don't think from an equitability standpoint. And what we're trying to provide is is the right thing to do here. So, I don't think if you reduce some of these class size, I think you'll have to get the teachers their own counselors. I know one teacher that's really that has an inhome counselor. you might. So, what are we supposed to decide if anything? It's just a workshop. No action. Okay. Sleep on it. And so, one of the ask questions. So, we're sitting on this and then people can if they want to give feedback, they can give feedback, right? We'll we'll bring back you we need to bring a staffing plan of some sort to you on the 22nd. um just in order in an effort for them

089to be able to try to start hiring teachers, you know, and so whether that is um all the teacher, you know, all all the positions or partial positions or, you know, if you want to start with teachers and bump some of the other stuff, you know, those are kind of decisions, you know, that you guys can make and but yes, I mean, you have time between now and the 22nd, so a week and a half to feedback. Can can you in your uh meetings with your principles in upcoming like kind of straw poll the the principles and and get feedback from them on extra stuff on class size ratios u versus adding some of these positions and them getting the the thoughts and feelings from their teachers on campus there. Would you like to talk?

090Would you want to talk to them now? Well, I I don't know if they need time to think on that or if we're ready now. [Music] So, so some someone does have to come up close to the mic. So, I'll need a spokesperson. Um the the question is like if if you're given a scenario, you have an extra position at your campus to lower class size ratios in a particular grade or you choose to have a higher class size ratio, but you get a counselor instead. What's the thoughts and feelings from your campus staff on that and and your thoughts on it as as campus principal? Yes, y'all come up here. Yeah, y'all come up here. Y'all come on up. [Music] Yeah, y'all come on up. Can I have a counselor here? Sorry. Happy to

091answer that answer that question. I think for the high school it would be the class size. The teachers are our counselors need help. Um, and I think adding a half that half position to have a full-time person that's there all the time would help them. Um, but ultimately helping our teachers is going to help them, you know. So, got okay. Um, so on and on as far as my opinion goes. Um, I feel like my teachers, yes, they like the class sizes. I don't think we need all of those additional. I don't need another counselor. My teachers would much prefer an interventionist than a counselor because the interventionist does way more for them in the long run pulling kids, helping coach through MTSS, all of that stuff rather than I mean, yes, counselors do guidance,

092but right now with my one counselor, I mean, she's doing fine. Um, but you're growing next year. We are growing next year. Um, but I have only had two counselors for two years. Three years of the six we've been open. So, we've been big with only one counselor before. Yeah, that was a little bit difficult um when we and then we added the two, but we had interventionists, too. Um, so if I I would be more than happy to ask my staff. I feel like they would much rather have an interventionist back than a counselor. So, so this this request for seven additional counselors may maybe that is too high of a number based upon what what you truly want or I'm I'm just it might be more for secondary needing an additional counselor right

093I don't know how you feel about that. There's four interventionists, but if we don't do seven counselors, I'm just trying to get at like priority wise because we've got four interventionist ins and four out right now, right? Okay. But I mean, I don't know that I can't speak for all of the elementary schools. Now, we're all This is This was not a great idea. This is what we all are. Come on. Come on. Um, coming from the campus that grows every single day, I do not want the same scenario that happened this year to happen again. I cannot hire. This is the first month of the year. We're not hiring someone new. It's April. So, I think that my staff would abundantly say we would rather have room to grow than have to grow all

094year long because that was so hard on children that had been sitting some of them that had been sitting in classrooms for several months and then we moved them. Um, that is not best case scenario for anybody, for kids, for parents, for teachers, for culture, for anything. That's not best case scenario. And hiring is also a full-time job. And um something that I have often said to my one AP and one counselor now at a campus of 930 kids, we have to remember the job that we're doing now, seven people were doing at all the campuses at most of our campuses. Last year we had two interventionists, two counselors, two APS, and a principal. And now there's three of us doing that with almost the same amount of kids. So we have to give ourselves

095that grace which is really hard because I'm in a campus full of really high performing people that don't want to give their own selves a lot of grace. So those teaching positions are pertinent at rustman. I cannot speak for the masses but we are all you have to do is walk to Cleveland Gibbs and look north. I can't find any kind of report from a demographer or anyone else that tells me on August 12th they're going to stop coming and we'll just maintain. We're grow growing. We're growing every day and I would rather grow into something than than continually grow out of something. But would you trade an interventionist for So for that So that was for the te the teaching positions. We need all of them, right? We need all of them. Yeah. Um,

096we need the we need the intervention as positions. My counselor is spread very thin because she's spread across 930 kids right now. Um, so it is really the three of us doing all of those jobs because it's just whoever's available in that moment. So, it is very hard for me to weigh, well, an interventionist would be more important than the counselor. It kind of depends on the day, right? Some days that's not the case, right? Some days that counselor is far more valuable to me in that moment than the interventionist. It's very hard to weigh that when you're at a campus of 900 plus students. And and I know that our I know what our demographer report says and I hope that we hover around what it says. I mean, one of the ways we

097did we did reszone gener to try to address some of those and hopefully correct. But all the growth is but all the growth is still with me. 770 77 773 west at 8 86 something we did start you over 830 maybe 837 I think Hilltop was the only one that was started because they only had 750 or something and that's why they're getting he no positions but you're actually going down for positions cuz they're Yeah there no I know you're not because I you don't think it's going to happen I am going off of it is very hard and I try very hard. We try very hard to separate ourselves from what is actually happening and what is forecasted. It's just very hard to come to terms with what's forecasted because I know what's actually

098happening every day right now. Right. Every single week that we have been open, we have enrolled at least two children and one week we enrolled 21. So we've at least two. Now we also have them withdrawing. They're withdrawing also. that is happening but at least two we wrote four this five this week so I just it's very hard for me to go that's going to slow down but do you think I mean all your classrooms are basically being used and do you are you planning for all of them are used right now and all of your classrooms next year are you planning for all those classrooms to have what we are staffed at right now I have a couple of vacant rooms the way that we are right now there are vacant rooms I would

099like for those to not be vacant okay I'd rather the my sizes to be smaller and us have room to grow. Then in October me fill that room which would be those extra ones, right? Or November I fill that room or December I fill that room or January I fill that room. Why don't I just do that now where we can get the quality people and it's not disrupting lives in October, November, December, January. And I think we all 100% agree with that philosophy and you know but we're dealing with but it's hard to get raises money. Correct. Correct. You're totally right. I mean, if I said if I wasn't looking at raises, I'd say, "Yeah, we'll do it all." I think you should say what you just said about the seven people, three people

100doing seven people, and you should send it to everyone on the education committee in Austin just so that they know like really and that's at every campus. I mean, we all the elementaryaries. Now, she had one less counselor than the other elementaryaries last school year and one less AP. Yeah, you had five but doing less kids than they were doing also. So I'm not saying unfairly just So So why do we have minus four on Jerry up at the top of here? Because of the enrollment because they're going to west. Oh, that's right. We did. Yeah, they're okay. Who else wants to add in? I know Kaitlin wants to talk about counselor real quick. She had some perspective on counseling. So where that seven number is coming from when Dr. Quas came in in November,

101um she's like the counseling coordinator and the crisis counselor. So, she's been doing a lot of research on um counseling ratios compared to other districts and our elementary counselor ratios are extremely high compared to others. So, that's where that seven's coming from. I think when she said she was in Denton, I don't remember if it was like 450 or 600, but once they got to that point, then they would get like a halftime counselor at each campus. So, they would kind of like kind of like what she does right now, but she would they would go bounce back and forth between two to help. So that's where that seven's coming from. It's just based off of ratios compared to others and then taking into account that they also do 504 for their campus with most

102high ratios as well. So that's where that seven's coming from. I can help explain it. One of that is because our schools are 850. It's kind of right at that spot where it's not quite two but more than one. If you were building 600, a lot of elementary schools are 600, 550, Flower Mound and Lewisville, whatever, you know, and they may have one or one counselor for per 600, but we have big larger elementary schools. And I don't want to misspeak. So, we would have to look at her thing, but I don't think a lot of elementary counselors in some of those districts do 504 them, and that takes up a lot of their time, too. Who does it? Um, I think a I don't know. I don't want to speak. Um, so if I

103have a board specialist, that's their job. Yeah. And you brought that back for the high school. High school already has one, it'd be bringing it back for the middle school. And what I was going to say to that was I'm assuming that the that counselor counts seven. If it's four, one for every elementary. I'm just going to assume maybe one of those was for middle school. And I would say I would much rather have the person doing 504 and testing and put the counselors that I have back into counseling. I don't need another counselor if they have the time to do their job. I think two can serve our kids. So I I if any of the that seven was middle school, I would much rather have the position that's in the staffing plan now.

104Can I say can I ask something? I I agree with that for sixth grade. It's on video so I'll get handed for it. But did you hear Mrs. Williams? I did. I mean what? Tell me tell me about it. I mean what I know what teachers are doing. Tell me about a counselor. I mean you said 504 and what their day is like. I mean what how many kids are they seeing? Are they I mean I know they're doing scheduling. Talk to somebody. Tell me what a counselor is doing every day. Tina. Yeah. She would have it'll depend. Yeah. Because it's a lot different. I can speak for mine. My counselors are doing 504 a large part of the time. They're trying to do guidance lessons and mandated lessons that have to be pushed out.

105They're also in the lunchroom at least 45 minutes a day because we don't have the coverage from teachers now from the schedule being stretched so thin. It's just us and the counselors doing lunch duty. Um all the threat assessments require and all the threat assessments which take a lot of time. They they're spread thin and we need them back. We need to be proactively counseling, not reactively counseling. So that's the change I would love to see if we could get 504 off their plate. And the threat assessment law isn't is an underfunded mandate. Is the 504 funding increased with the amount of individuals that are funding? No, no separate funding for that component. Even though it's an increased even though it's an increase in population in school and it's not just meetings it's paperwork it's

106contacting parents it's time consuming if you look at our or my ratio I spend more time doing non-counseling duties than I spend doing other things for one student for 504 it's probably a good hour of paperwork prior and after the meeting in addition to a 30-minute meeting. So per child, we're looking probably at an hour and a half. Um, and the 504 increase for Argal is doubled since 2019. Tripled. Oh, I'm sorry. I don't know that number. But how many 504 students? 70 in sixth grade. Yeah, we have about 70 and there's 10% roughly there's close to 20% at the high school. 20% at the high school, maybe 10% at sixth grade. Well, it's more than that cuz we're like 68. We have 500 kids. They go into five or four. So, I mean, I've

107probably adopted like at least five or six, you know. And at the elementary level, they're running about 50 students and that's where the counselors are having to spend that extra time. And so, if you really look at what the state recommends an elementary counselor be doing is that they're spending the majority of their time with students. So, 35 to 40% of their time should be spent in guidance lessons. So in the classroom giving them those skills to you know be good learners to be good citizens and then um the other 35 to 40% of our time should really be responsive services. So at that point they're doing those small groups for those students that need extra support. Um crisis counseling if someone's having a bad day, if there's a suicidal ideation or a threat assessment

108that needs to be done and they're always the restorative piece for behavior and the restorative piece for behavior. And then really that other small piece is where we're helping out with watchd dogs or we're helping out with mentorships or those types of things, getting those coordinated for the campus. And so having that 504 in addition to that does take away from some of our student services. And so speaking from someone who's been at an elementary campus of 700 and being the sole counselor and then being west the last two years and having two counselors. Um, and obviously every campus population is going to look different as far as needs. Um, but there is something to be said when you're able to be proactive and put in that time and teach the students those skills because

109on the back end, it's lowers the discipline levels. It increases attendance. Um, and also speaking, you know, I I don't know that necessarily two counselors for that ratio for every elementary campus, but I would even think maybe looking at halftime counselor. Um, someone to support with guidance, someone to support with 504s could be an option at the elementary level. But is it would a behavioral specialist be doing a little bit of the counseling part if if so? Not necessarily. I at West, our behavior specialist did a helped with that proactive piece, that MTSS piece. So, she was setting them up on um you know, behavior plans and check-ins and token systems. A lot of times that was looking towards do we need to do a 504 referral? Do we need to do a sped referral?

110Um, but also the behavior specialist and the counselors work very closely together because sometimes it's a hey, here's the skill deficit we need to focus on or hey, we're also looking at this, you know, social piece or this emotional piece that's going on and the student probably needs more help than what we're able to provide in the school setting. Um, I I do think a behavior specialist though is extremely helpful to both counselors and administrators and teachers. My daughter is a kindergartener at South and I'm on their CLT and as a counselor when we were going going through the goals at the beginning of the year, something that kind of broke my heart was that um they we had to take out two guidance lessons a month to one because they have she went from

111two counselors at that campus, correct me if I'm wrong, to one. So that was something that um so not only did she have a less person, she also now had more double the 504 stuff to do and all the extra stuff. So, well, we want to do it all, but we can't. What would your campus like? Um, it's it's hard, but I I think I agree with Lauren mostly. Um, we'd rather have the extra teachers, even if it means a little bit lower. Um, even as we were looking at the the numbers, even fifth grade, I feel like when fifth grade is paired with an elementary campus, it should be the same ratio as every other grade because their bodies are bigger, they take up more room, and the classes are the same size. Um,

112and you've got specials and lunch and all those things to still rotate them through. So you can't just pack more, you know, students in those rooms just because they're older, you know, and and same thing with secondary, you know, I I I see that, too. So I think if if our teachers had to pick one thing, smaller class sizes would be would be it. They they also are really, you know, missing the the intervention piece. Um, and the rates. Yeah. And I guess you'd have Yeah, I guess we would have to ask them specifically like to rank those things. They had that's what that's what brought us to this point. They said compensation. They actually ran the conference. I mean, not not everybody. That's I mean that's a little I was a little surprised. I

113mean not because they're not making I was just thinking that they were telling me they would I was expecting it to be more balanced or but it was compensation was pretty overwhelming. number one the number of second place votes for compensation as well. I mean, yeah, it's almost 2/3 total. Not for high school. It wasn't. It was almost ours was I think their compensation was third. Okay. I have to study on that. So, we'll give everybody a raise. No, I'll tell you. This lives forever. What would what would you say are your um is your 504 population primarily made up of ADHD and dyslexia? ADHD. Well, not at the secondary. At the secondary, it is dyslexia. Elementary is more ADHD. Anxiety. There's a lot of things that would qualify you for a Yeah. Yeah. No,

114I know there's there's a whole list. I was just curious. Yeah. And it becomes and and there's nothing at the state level to increase funding for that even though it's a population that's increased 50%. There's not a specific weighted program for 504. It's another unfunded mandate on a growing population and a lot of times you'll have parents get back on 504 as they get older. There's not a service attached to it. That's why special education has services attached to it. A human is working with someone. In 504, we are accommodating you to level the playing field so that you have the same access to education as someone without your disability, right? And the high school receives a lot of parent requests for 504 testing. Testing because it does follow you into postsecary. That question. Okay.

115What a great meeting. It's very good. I'm serious. I mean, this is this is one year. So, thank you, Dr. Carpenter. I mean, I don't I don't know that they do budget workshops like this in every district. I mean, you just bring in the staff and hear from Well, I mean, I think it just goes to show the cohesiveness of our teams. Like, we're comfortable. I'm comfortable putting them in front of you. They're comfortable speaking in front of you. Yeah. um you know it just it's it creates a very healthy organization when you're you're not trying to gatekeep you know those kinds of things and like I said earlier you almost feel like you're removed removed when you sit here feels very filtered yes and and and filtered and a lot of dependency on administrator

116you know the administration and this is my what seventh year on the board eighth year whatever it is I don't know I have to count um this is the first time we've ever sat and done this and all that time and I personally appreciate it because I I want to know what you need. I want to know what the issues are in your buildings. Um, and again, the magic wand. I mean, I wish I could cr, you know, be one vote out of seven to grant it all. But, you know, it's it's it's a hard decision to make, but when you have the input and you hear the passion, you know, and the needs, it just it it makes our job I I hate to say easier in a sense, but none of it's easy.

117Um, but at least I feel like I'm making an informed decision to to allocate the limited money sometimes that we have to what's the best and most needed, you know, resources for you guys in the district. So, I appreciate you being here. Collaboration is key. Like obviously communication, being open, being transparent and and I think what can be gleaned from this also is we have a missing piece of the puzzle that that we need help with and we we need the community to vote for things like the Vader. We're not having this level of conversation right now. Um make like scrutinizing over this um if if a Vader had passed. um we're still looking at it. Um but the positions that are here on this request list, it's a lot shorter. Um so that that's

118where we all need to collaborate together and I think our voices and and and being able to get out there and we work together and collaborate and we need the community support as well. So well, I think this goes to show the uniqueness of building a school district budget. It's very different. You know, a lot of people have a lot of opinions about how you can forecast expenses and forecast budgets, and it's very different. We rely on state legislature. We rely on very different weights on kids. We, you know, our demographics change, and there's so many different pieces of moving puzzles to that that you can't necessarily just have an easy way to predict a budget 5 years down the road. It's just you can't do that in our in in this profession, in this

119in this arena. And it and it's counterintuitive to say a deficit budget is is what we're aiming for. What we're aiming for is the best environment for our kids and our staff to excel in. And that comes at a deficit budget. And so it it's from a business side, it's counterintuitive, but from you know, and we're called to do it all right. We're we're called to have a balanced budget. We're called to give the strategic plan and the direction for the district and to be able to provide that opportunity for the kids. One of those is going to have to be sacrificed. And so, uh, I I know for me personally, like, and Liz can cringe and Mr. Western can cringe, it's not fiscally irresponsible to invest in our kids and our teachers. Um, and

120Liz and her staff in this district have shown at Nauseium that these first budget meetings are going to have a deficit on it. And and true to form, things change as the year goes on. Um, and we don't have 10,000 future developed lots that aren't going to be built. Um, so they are being built. Yeah, someone someone said someone this I think said that you're being built. It is happening. Well, after our conversation with first representatives this week too, it's it's happening. It's happening. So, this 1.7 million would be the biggest deficit that I've seen. It was 1 point 1.3 this year. It was 1.3 this year. 700,000 and 1. Yeah, but we're percentage wise in the budget, right? Well, a a total comp package for the district used to cost under a million dollars.

121That's when I was on the board way back when. Um, and so now to look at a total comp package is over 2 million. I mean, maybe you higher that too, Josh. So all those um so anyway just me personally I I want y'all to know like the the spirit is to provide it all and we can and and willing to have pain points financially Liz. Sorry. Um if we can improve the environment for our kids and our teachers. Um so anyway crazy thought going from starting with you. Um is it is it thinking out of the box possible to agree to you know some obviously these class reduction deals here the extra people for growth and class reduction and then since we're hearing different things from different campuses do they get like an FTE

122and if they want a counselor they get a counselor if they want an interventionist, they get an interventionist. I don't know. I'm just throwing that out there. I know that that can open up some things maybe that we places we don't want to go and things can change from year to year. And I understand the uniformity and the consistency of staffing everybody equally in that sense. But just trying to think outside the you know, do we have any discretion with anything like that? because I'm hearing a couple of different things and every campus is different. I think I think it's some of some of that the costs are different in those positions depending on what they are and then just really from an alignment standpoint um you know things over time change one year they

123might need a counselor more than they need interventionist and so then you you start getting some inconsistencies there. I think that would be the the main concern without trying to have some standardized across the campuses. Would you all agree? Yes. Mhm. I thought the elementary responses were pretty consistent. I think it more general consistent and it was mainly the it was the secondary that was different from the elementary. So I think that that's that's what I'm thinking. I mean you know could it be that everybody gets something and it's kind of equal but you know they get it in the area that they need it which I think what we have built in covers some of the areas they need right now. And I think the other would just be you know kind of a

124tier two if you will ad is available. I'll be looking at this is not fact this is feeling. So I I've been told in the past that you know obviously compensation is discretionary like you can choose 3% what have you. I I've been told that 2%'s a slap in the face compared to 3%. And you might as well not do it. Like I've heard that. Okay. So, what's the feelings on a balance of that? Like, we're going to increase comp. It's not as high as we want it to be, but it's going to provide needs at the campus um that are needed as well. Like, there's because every 1% is what? Half half a million about half a million dollar, which is that's six. And I think I think Mr. Mr. Sllayton, I think it

125depends on who you ask because I mean the teachers are probably going to, you know, they're going to see the relief in the class sizes whereas you have staff that aren't impacted by the class sizes or aren't impacted by interventionists that are saying, you know, the 2%'s not worth, you know, I think that's where you're going to hear that was where you would hear things more so with those that aren't being impacted by the class size, the teachers, added teachers, and it's going to be more of your auxiliary staff and maybe non-campus staff might be where you hear more of that cuz I think your campus staff are going to feel some relief in in what's in the staff as well. I just my opinion which is unfounded on anything but they didn't get a

126raise this year. So I think 3% I mean even with the onetime payment but going towards TRS a 3% raise next year at least balances it out a bit. So that I mean I know they're trying to especially people that are trying to get to retirement, they want to get their pay up. So I feel like since they didn't get a 1% or 2% this past year, 3% is more fair. And some of the things that we're looking at still with compensation, you mentioned it before, but to mention it again, um you know, there's there's always the standard percent across everybody, right? Um, but we also are looking at the teacher, you know, sliding scale based on experience. So, um, I know Dr. Daniel's working with TASBY on our salary study. We won't have that

127back, which is till later, which is why we typically do it in June. Um, that's where we get a a more firm cost. It's where we also he's he's asked them to look at the sliding seal based on experience um, and versus a percent raise. So, we have some things to to look at and consider and you know, what would that do? Um, we still also have to look at legislative impact. Is there going to be a bill? Remember the Senate's bill is full teacher pay, right? Teacher only pay. Um, House bill says spend a percent. Based on what they've given us, that percent would probably be less than what we would spend. But still, depending on that legislative and what comes out of that, um, we still have some guidance that we, you know,

128need to wait on for that compensation package. But just some things we're considering again that that percent across the board which has been standard. You know in the past when we've been a raise it's been a 3% or a 2% or some sort of sliding scale on experience for teachers. Um you know we heard that that might be something important. We we are heavy on the experience on teachers. You know we have a lot of teachers with more experience and that's a good thing right we have more experienced people and you know do we reward that experience a little bit more than the early on. So it's just something to look at. It's something that I know Dr. that Daniels is working on and and coming up with some information for for a future meeting.

129And and to your point, like teachers in their last five want to have a higher average, right? I mean, that that impacts them well past their their professional career. It does. So, I think that what I want to give is clarity on the positions. go get the positions that you know that we need to get filled to maintain the class size ratios and to support staff so that y'all can go get the best people. What we're going to pay them and pay the existing staff is going to be largely dependent on what happens legislatively and which we won't know until June. And then at that point that's if we have money I think we are it's not this is not going to be an issue. If we don't, then we're dipping into the line of

130credit, right? And thankfully, we didn't have to do it this year. And we're just going to have to dip into the line of credit. What what what raise would be appropriate, but get the positions clear and go. We have more time to decide the raise than we do. Yeah. The positions because they they need to be able to get a green light to go find people. So that that's kind of the feedback that we wanted from tonight, right? Is is your feedback in order to bring a plan on the 22nd for staff. Um and I believe that's that we're going to, you know, of course continue to monitor the financial legislation, actually all school legislation, right? It's not just finance. There's things that affect every aspect of of um education. But bring back a staffing

131plan um in April on the 22nd. Uh we are still scheduled to have another budget workshop prior to the May uh board meeting and then in June we hope to have a compensation plan to bring to you for consideration. Um and then as of right now in August on the regular meeting uh we plan to recommend the budget and the tax rate. And reason I say plan is depending on what happens to legislative session. Sometimes that tax rate gets pushed to September depending on what all changes there are. And so on that May 19th, we'll just do the workshop the same day just because there's a lot going on. It's right around graduation. May is pretty packed. So we plan on just doing the workshop prior to the start of the regular meeting that afternoon.

132Is there anything that campus leadership didn't get a chance to say that they want to say or do you feel like we're all on the same page? I'm appreciative that y'all understand that the timeline is super important because we do want to hire the best people. We don't want the leftovers from everyone else. So, I appreciate that y'all prioritize that. I mean, if you think of something, you know how sometimes something comes to you at 2 in the morning, you know. I mean, I'd like to hear if you have any additional thoughts or, you know, thought it through a little bit more through Dr. Carpenter, whatever she can. Yeah. Share with Dr. Carpenter, we're we're going to take the time between now and the 22nd and any additional feedback or thoughts that you have like

133please share with her and she'll get them to us and and we may reach out with questions as well. Obviously, there's two board members that couldn't be here tonight. So, they've got a lot to listen to. They do. They podcast to listen to these are much better workshops than last time. Say that again. Adding positions last time. So, I mean there I mean this I'm telling you from compared to last year like this is bad. This is the best workshop we've had since I've been on the board in terms of mentioned that. Glad that I'm glad we have that recording. Is there anything else that's needed to be said or anything? This is it. Okay. 5:44 p.m. We're done.