001e e [Music] all right good afternoon the time is 3 p.m. is March 3rd 2025 this is a a special meeting budget Workshop of the argd Board of Trustees at this time we will determine if a quorum is presenta McDade present Josh Westrom present Rich mcdal present Willam artho present Matt Slayton present I Sam Slayton present we do have a quorum established this time we'll have our Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all honor the Texas flag I pledge alce to the Texas one State under God one and indivisible you in a better place than you want me to that's all right we'll have our our uh opening prayer uh
002dear father God we just come to you today just as um humble servants of this district and this community um Lord we pray for our uh faculty Lord we pray for our students um Lord and that you not only just give them the the energy to persevere but the desire to strive um to honor you in all that they do Lord we ask you watch over us as a board guide us and it's in your sense name we pray amen all right we don't have anyone signed up for public forum so at this time we will move from the dice out to the workshop sounds good e start um budget process the budget Workshop this will be our first official workshop for the 2526 budget so miss Stewart's going to lead us through that um
003she's going to kind of take us through some historical information where we've been to this where we are at this point um believe that you will see and have discussions that we're in a very different position right now than we were last year at this time so we'll talk through that and uh again this is very this is kind of the preliminary kickoff to that process and we'll make it just a collaborative as we go through if you have a question any of her slides just stop us and we'll be happy to work through so all right thank you so kind of looking at our agenda for today um everything in bold are the things we would like to go over some of the other information is included just because it is part of the
004budget process and if you ever want to go back and reference some information you'll have it available on this presentation um but we do want to kind of go back over how we got here this is the same discussion that we brought forward last year when we were talking about um what got us in this process starting in the 86 legislative session in 2019 that was the last time the school funding formula was really revamp um it was increased for all schools or it was intended to be but some of us uh received the formula transition Grant um to make that increase available for all districts and then a major thing that happened in that funding uh formula was there was a change from prior year to current year taxable assess values in the calculation
005and that made a large impact on growing districts on anybody that had um increase in property value so that was a significant change not a positive change for Argo but a significant change for arga um then fast forward to the 88th in 2023 um we all remember we talked about how big of a surplus there were everybody thought that something was going to happen for school funding because of all the record inflation um there wasn't any action in four special sessions to spend the money allocated to um Public Schools however they did do a property tax relief bill in the second special session and for argd individually that lowered our M rate a little over 18.5 Cent so that was a big deal for property taxpayers um there were some hold harmless put into the
006bills here to make that Revenue neutral for school districts um so it was a great thing for property taxpayers and it didn't change our Revenue at all so that that was good so um the impact on the 2425 budget we started back in last February we went from February to June having um some school budget works Schoolboard workshops um to reduce our deficit we went from projected 4.5 million down to 500,000 um these are some of the areas that we wanted to bring forward and remind you of what we did we eliminated certain categories in support style uh we reduced our departmental and campus budgets we reduced our Compensation Plan we had class siiz increases at the secondary schools and we looked at increasing some of our fees and other Revenue options that we had
007available to us at that time the board then approved a onetime Compensation Plan that increased our deficit to 1.2 9 million and that's how we started the school year and where we're technically at today even though you have a budget amendment that we're talking about to change that um of course we all know that the enrollment exceeded projections um specifically at uh our elementary levels um we have added additional classroom teachers uh because of those um additional students we've added back a few support positions we've added additional compensation now this is pending uh formal approval at our next board meeting that's the additional one time payment that was presented to you as an idea um at this last board meeting and then a balanced budget again our our um budget amendment was brought to you
008last meeting and that's pending of course final action for our next meeting that's where we stand right now on 2425 budget and where we are today we' started 89th legislative session and goes January 14th through June 2nd um a couple of you were able to go with us to Austin which was a great experience last week um I know Dr car probably has a lot more to say about that if you want to at this point I just for those that do not know um I know Miss trusty artha and trusty Westrom rode to with us that day on Wednesday we started early we what did we leave 5:30 that morning got back about 8:00 you were driving 8:30 8:30 one of the Suburbans Mr Heron went Mr went and then we had we had
009three staff members we had high school teacher at Steven Orlowski from the over at the high school we had Maddie Fairchild fifth grade teacher El teacher from South and then we also had assistant principal Katie Hayden from South and then Jen de laort and Hannah um Robinson a community MERS members and parents so we had a full house we had a full stack day we actually met um every one of our appointments and nobody got canceled so that was great sometimes you get down there and you get canceled and you get bumped but if they weren't in there they had somebody there to meet us and then they ended up coming to meet with us but we were able to meet with staffers from Senator kraton's office and then senator Parker himself coming off the
010floor from the here uh they had the press release on they were doing the press conference on Senate Bill 26 that had passed out of the Senate uh late Wednesday afternoon and we met with um our state representatives IRS Hopper little and Hayes and additionally Brad Buckley who oversees the uh the house education committee so it was a packed day we were going um every minute of the of the time but we had some very good conversations we had a lot of um really just dialogue with them and some followup we've already we're working on some followup to get them even to continue the conversations with them so do you'all have anything you'd like to add to that just from your perspectives kind of where we are I found it to be honestly more U
011productive than I had anticipated in terms of the dialogue and feedback and the back and forth and exchange of ideas with the representatives and their staff who seem really open to ideas to solve some of the challenges that we face and me I thought that the teachers and the parent involvement added another layer of like you know um it just it just added a lot to the presentation that we had to for them to those teachers Mr olowski and uh Fair Miss Fairchild speaking to those legislators directly about what this year has been like and the challenges that they faced I think was you know penetrating in some ways for those folks and hard for them to kind of use their talking points around public Ed being fat and Bloated and you know and all
012this they were they were on point themselves I agree I think the staff members really stood out a lot I think they explained things in a way that the representatives hadn't heard before and they were very open to listening they took lots of notes about our individual district and then applying that to others um I was surprising to know how much they don't know what their legislation does to specific districts and how it affects each one of us differently but I was thankful that they really did listen and seem ready to work with us I thought that they seemed open to it so but Mr orow ski Miss Fair child and I think Mrs Hagen the way Hayden the way that she explained a lot of the tier one and tier two involvement they just
013were unaware so it was a good day it was and I think you know we we've had I they've all reached out I mean the representatives themselves have reached out for some followup information so I think the dialogue and the collaboration between our district and them is definitely open but I also think it's in our approach with them um and how we've approached our needs versus you know knowing that it needs to be collaborative and that we focus on what we all agree on and not so much what we don't agree on um thank you and then there's um also um quite a few bills that have been proposed on both sides Senate and the house that have to do with school funding um you know as we talked about as we were down in
014Austin we reminded quite a few quite often that this is early in the session um and that things are bound to change from now till the end and um we'll just keep watching it and seeing if we can find you know the important pieces that stick out for us what may benefit what may um hurt us and keep that um dialogue open there's also a link to our take action AR website if anybody wants to go out there and look at that of how to contact your representatives and Advocate on behalf of argd all that to be said we are planning this Budget on current law that's the only information that we have in front of us right now that we can um count on so we'll we'll go through the budget development process we'll
015use current law we'll get it um planned um we started in February with just some preliminary information uh right now we're at the first Workshop um we'll have our regular meetings um we'll get some information from the Appraisal District uh towards the end of April um they'll bring back their um certified in July you get uh preliminary and then in I believe we're going to have another budget workshop on May 19th and then um we'll have our conversation plan recommendation in our June meeting um and then again our certified uh Appraisal District values and then we are planning at this point in time to recommend adopting both the budget and tax rate at our August meeting pending L you know pending legislation may change when we adopt our tax rate but uh we will aim
016for our budget being in August all right so again we're doing it based on current law um we have um budget workshops now and sorry I didn't change to we determ it is a May board meeting um we're going to continue to look at all of our ways that we can be efficient um we're using our ASD Financial strategy team as y'all remember we started this team last year when we knew that we were facing a large deficit um that's made up of the superintendent and her cabinet and we've added in a few other members as well um and we go through this year we're meeting every other week um I believe last year we were meeting weekly but this year we feel like we can take that on as an every other week from
017now until we got planned through June if we need to continue meeting after that to get us through as we will um we also created um a budget and finance Community Council this year that's made up of members of our community that exess interest when everybody could fill out you know if they wanted to be on some form of a committee or a council um and so we have about 12 individuals we had our first meeting already we have our second meeting this Wednesday um and they are um they got a a um introduction to school Finance 101 at our first meeting and then this time we're going to look at um some of the budget properties that we're talking about tonight we're going to discuss with them um get some input from our um
018individuals there that are in our community um get some ideas that may be different than what we have some things that they've seen that may or may not work um in outside Industries and then we'll bring back any input that they have to that Financial strategy team internally um and discuss that moving forward and they will meet two more times after this week through this budget cycle and this is something that we plan on continuing every year and getting the input from our community on um we are planning on recommending Compensation Plan for staff this year um we would like to recommend a balanced budget again that'll depend on our priorities and where we can fit that in and then we're going to continue our legislative advocacy plan throughout this process um for public school
019funding just a reminder that legislative every two years our rules can change our funding formul can change um our mandates can change of how we have to spend our money um we haven't inreased our basic allotment since 2019 and again just wanted to throw that take action Aral in there for anybody else that wanted to look at that so I tried to condense the basics of school Finance were the most important things down to one slide so you don't hear an hour conversation on this school Finance 101 again because I think we've covered that a lot so just a reminder of some of our important topics when we're looking at our budget we are funding based on an allotment per student um it is attendance-based funding so remember they have to be here to get
020credit for that funding even though we have to um budget our expenses based on enrollment we've got weighted allotment funding so you've got your special education your GT your CTE dyslexia and some others um that are in there on special allotment funding weighted uh we have our M Tax Rate is required to be compressed by the state depending on the growth of the overall State values historically we've been at the floor of that and I expect us to continue with our our value growth in the area uh some of the legislative bills are out there drop that floor significantly for next year um based on um I believe the house side has some additional compression that they want to get property tax relief with and the way that they're looking at doing that it's about
021compressing that tax rate more the Senate side is looking at more of a um homestead exemption increase to to provide provide property tax relief so they're a little bit far apart where they're starting so we'll just have to see but that could play um some part in what we actually set our tax rate out the ins tax rate of course is based on voter approved bonds and what it takes to pay those bonds um and just as a reminder we are at 50 cents and at this point in time we plan on staying at 50 cents and as our share increases the state share decreases so as our local tax payers pay more on the M side and there's more homes and there's more businesses out there and we collect more money just remember that's
022offset on the state side um because we do have an A funding per student um allotment and it's not based on necessarily what you bring in locally um and then budget priorities are based on our district strategic vision and um I know you'reall aware that we're going through a um update on a strategic Vision so we have our priorities in our strategic Vision that we're in place currently and then we've also got what we're looking at that um turning into from this new plan that we're working on right now but that's what your budget should be um based on all right um so I'm going to skip through some of these just kind of go over if you have questions please stop me but these are some of the ones that we've talked about quite
023a bit that are here more for your reference just talk about it as you remember we use a demographers report for estimating revenues if that demographers report is off either way our revenues will be off either way so if they have overestimated students we will be short on revenue and if they have um underestimated students we will have more Revenue coming in like we have this year um just a little bit of our growth there and how it's continues to climb 1920 we were um just under 3500 students and we're I think today we're actually at over 6200 bit snapshot 61 and just a slide in there as you can see um each campus and how they lined up um based on the uh projected enrollment and then the values come out July 25th from
024our appraisal district uh just a reminder that we are a little over 90% residential um in our tax base um and then this is just a chart of tax rates throughout the years and if you look at this that overall dark blue line uh going down um that's our total tax rate that has decreased over the last several years and you see the big drop from 22 23 to 23 24 that was that property tax relief package that the state put into effect when we're looking at our expenditures of course we um do our campus budgets based on resource allocation um we look at our campus uh leadership team we have special funding requests uh we we started this last year with our departments we did zero based budgeting if you remember um this had
025been here we hadd always been kind of okay well if we're increasing about 3% or 4% then we expect your department to increase about that much and that's budget and now we are actually going back to every single line item has to be detailed and Justified and so we're going to continue that I think it's a good practice going forward and we're going to continue that on Department side and then we still look at our fiveyear plans from our departments um just kind of a a glance at what our campus budgets look like this is just a summary page from there of how we develop them um when we're talking about our enrollment our current year you'll notice there it has a note that it was on the planning estimates so when we're comping budget
026we're comping what we planned off of not what we're currently at to what we plan versus what we're planning for next year we track the change and then the total allotment and then we're going to continue with our 10% budget contingency um like we did this year this was our first year to put that in place and we put it in place and we didn't have kind of a followup on okay well what do that mean how do you get that back so we've talked about now that um if a campus meets or exceeds their um um demographers estimate on Snapshot date then they would receive that 10% contingency back into their funding um that way that way they've actually met all of their funding they haven't come in under me so kind of put
027that in place um it's a learning guideline for us of okay now you said we can do it what does that actually mean for so we've made that change for this year real quick and we all recognize that current year those obviously we know that Jane rusman was off on enrollment there so that obviously was the projection coming in we know we're well over that the next year that's with the new Elementary zones correct yes ma'am okay and then um Russman has their they they're the ones that received their contingency already correct okay they so they're the only one that received it this year so we wanted to put something in place that actually said okay what are the guidelines for that going forward so um you know we talking to some others um you
028know Dr car had experience in that another campus we talked to sever other districts about what their guidelines you know some of them just say well it's contingency we don't ever let that you know we don't ever give those dollars back it's basically a 10 you know their 10% cap that they just use and then some of them use that snapshot date if he's met it or exceeded then you receive that and that's what we chose to to go with moving forward okay our 25 26 budget priorities so we developed these as a team from um information and input with the superintendent teacher advisory Council I know you'all heard quite a bit about that over the last couple of months um we took some information from the listen and learn campus chats that Dr Carpenters
029had at every campus where teachers were able to come in and all staff were able to come in and bring any concerns or any ideas that they had and discussed that with Dr Carpenter I still have Middle School sixth grade Center and South to complete on those um and then we also got gather some principal feedback as well so what we would what and this is where we would like some interaction and some discussion um when we're talking about our what we want our budget priorities to be next year so I would love it if you have some some input on these slides so what we've designed around is a compensation package consideration um you know we need to retain and recruit staff and we need to retain and recruit the best staff that we
030possibly can um so some ideas work we sent across the board race for all staff categories that's historically how we've done things here um in the district we talked about a tier teacher race based on experience and then ever s since um across the board for everybody else so maybe you look at um you know 0o to 10 years is this much a 10 to you know 19 is this a 20 to on is that you know you can set your levels at different amount but a tiered based on experience and then we're talking about possibly increasing the district Insurance contribution you know as a board yall were agreeable increase that last year $50 a month for those that take the insurance however when we do comparisons we are still on the very low end
031of that so um $50 was a great stat but that may be something that we need to look at increasing if in um especially with the rising cost of um insurance and I believe we saw in the bills and I believe it's on both the Senate and the house version of their Senate u i their school Finance bills that they're both wanting to allocate enough funding in there for TI Active Care so that it limits the premium increase to 10% a year that the employees f while that's great 10% is still a large increase and so that's why we feel like that we may need to look at our our contribution on the insurance side so do y'all have any thoughts on any of those ideas or other ideas on compensation how many of the
032employees are utilizing the district Insurance 60 50 to 60% is that sound they haven't run the data for this for this year but last year when we were doing this it was it right about that just under 60% last year I mean that one's hard because it's not by everybody so if there's a you know whether you're getting some kind of raise that you can allocate it to account or insurance I I don't I'm sure right way to do that can you do can you do like an insurance stipend for whether you're on our insurance or not where you gave everybody 50 bucks whether they were if they're on our insurance it applies that if it's not they use it with the insurance that they're doing or they use it for pharmacy bills or whatever
033does it have to be I mean that way everybody gets right like Leo would you could do it I don't know we could look into it I mean yeah I haven't heard of that but it's definitely an idea with just I think his always been the kind of the argument is that we we wanted to always give a percentage raise because it affected everybody versus increasing the insurance contribution but in doing so it's put us down at the very bottom but our salaries if you compare them to Local they're still pretty competitive you could do a onetime stien for those people who don't have health insurance with the district and then the others are given their increase in District contribution monthly sorry I'm just making some notes can they can't once you is there is
034it just like in corporate where you have to commit to be on it for the year you can't switch Midway through the year and go to we have to have qualifying with so if we had already given them that and they qualifying event there would have to be some mechanism to pull or should just not continue it right yeah what percentage is our insurance been going up each year generally me you talking about them capping it at 10 yeah it's more than 10% but it varies depending upon the plan that you're on because there's different plans but some plans have gone up 13 14% some not quite as much and two years ago they went to regionalized premiums where it used to just be Statewide premiums now it's regionalized so obviously in an area like
035this where our premiums are higher than a rural risk pool yeah direct feedback on your bullet points from me or um I've never really been a big fan of percent across the board type compensation I understand why you would do that I just don't think that um necessarily um is the best way to go about it um and I like the the more tiered approach to it um based on experience and maybe other factors maybe there's a combination of that that there is a across the board compensation increase and then based upon what tier you're on there's a just and I I just will raise the point I've raised and I'm sure you're probably going to get to it maybe in another priority but I feel like compensation is one element of this job um
036i' always welcome more feedback from teachers but I'm sure you're getting it from your advisory counseling they all want raises um but there's there's a there's a quality of life aspect to this job that I think teachers get into it for they do it for that you know um the sense of service and rewarding seeing these kids every day and seeing them learn and advance and that's why they do it they want to be well supported and that can come in the form of compensation and that can come in the form of uh smaller class sizes it can come in the form of more behavioral support it can come in the form of more interventionist so doesn't always have to be money um i' like to see a strike the right Val have you gotten
037any feedback on any of these from your teacher advisor this is all built from from all year talking to people yeah and and there's more slides this is this is just the compensation slide and if they all they're agreeable to these things well we haven't taken this back to them I've just themed all the conversation and what I'm hearing into these components so we haven't taken any of us back to anybody because we're too far away from even knowing what we can afford far as that goes but and this might be ahead of slides as well but have you all started looking at Staffing and that's on the the next couple slides okay um to both of your points to looking at a balanced approach from both angles of that from um compensation and support
038so we're trying to trying to bring back a a balance um but again trying to fit it everything in with some form of a priority what you what's your first first priority what's your second priority and these are not laid out in an order these are just brought to you right here so any feedback also as we go through these at any type of order and property would be great as well and when you take Ted approach are you saying zero to five years of experience would get this percentage five to 10 would get another percentage and seen it done I've seen it done in districts before where it's been Zer to 5 6 to 10 and then like 11 to 20 I've seen it 0 to 9 10 to 9 in the the 10
039so yes that is what we're talking about for teachers in those categories that can either be a percentage or a number I've seen it with a percentage like a three and a half and then a four and then a four and a half or three four five seed for time in the district and we we've run those numbers we have Mr our Dr Daniel has those seven I think we have about 77 in the 0 to N9 year range we have about 150 and the 10 to 20 and another 150 or so I believe over the 20 year range I know there there were some districts uh one particular out East Long View I believe is doing like a merit based program by campus um where kind of what Mr West's talking about um has
040the campus improved across the measurables then the people on that if you got one you got x per if you got two out of three or maybe you had to get maybe there were five and you had to get at least two to to get qualified but the interesting part I thought about it was that it gave a raise based on percentage to everyone on that campus including every staff man not just teachers right because they all play a role in some way share the form so I I do agree with a balanced approach I think a part of that could be experience U but I think you know in today's world we got to start looking at mer some sort of merit-based evaluation by campus probably as well yeah I mean I I'll say
041something maybe it's probably controversial not intended to be but I mean it is a more of a a merit based just I mean it reflects more of a private practice what happens it's I mean compensation outside of government is primarily Merit based compensation um and to the extent that this the schools and start to reflect that it' be great now thinking that through some I worry about what's that how do you identify what's meritorious and so I would be concerned if you said well we think it's meritorious if your students are performing well on the star because then that's going to have this effect of these teachers te teaching more to the star there's going to be pressure from everybody to do better on the star and that's not necessary neily what I would want
042either so I don't know where the Merit it does it does it come from our own assessments say your tier ones are doing this your tier tws are doing this your tier 3es are doing this I I don't know but that would be the hard part I think I think that's why it's it's not been a common practice in education because when you try to do attendance then you get the you know they're sitting you're trying to get them to come to school no matter if they're sick or you know you get into all of those components so I think that's probably the reason it hasn't necessarily been a a practice as much in the field of Education as it has been private practice but yes you would have to essentially based on our our
043collaborative visioning and the goals set by the district the priorities set a community based accountability and determine what are those metrics that you want to grade each campus on or reach you know as staff category whatever it is to earn Merit based pay all right that's what I was going says it would come from the district strategic plan or the vision for the district right if it's if this is it is and we're measured on certain things specifically at the high school how does that back up and look like how do we start preparing that right we do it in extracurricular activities all the time I want them to be here by the time they get to this grade how do I back up and start getting them ready for that so no I don't
044think it's easy and then yes I think it probably will be would be controversial but that's it has to be based on objective criteria correct I I suppose it does I mean again private P doesn't necessarily have to be I mean I guess you could set performance goals and if they meet on sales or whatever they get a bonus has too like there's always we keep talk we've talked as previous boards about measuring like tech one of them like how do we how do we measure that Tech is actually helping us in the room we're spending all this money and we've been lucky enough the communities blessed us with Bond money to pay for Tech that's going to stop eventually and you're going to have to find a way so we were trying to figure
045out a way how do you measure this the uh effectiveness of tech in the classroom that's hard to do that's really hard to do and what's the right grade level where do where do you start and where do you you know when the whole one: one concept came out it was one: one from K to 12 I think we we've we found ways to address it and use the resources that we have but and by the way whenever you do it's never going to be set stone yeah you're going to do something you're going to come back and go man didn't work that didn't work and they do that we didn't realize the repercussion you adjust your comp say like that that was a good quot that was a bad quot it just it just
046I mean I I hear you I guess it's it's just something I've always expressed is how do you let the teachers that you know are doing an exceptional job how do they know that if you can't if you have to pay everybody to say you know how are how are you distinguishing that the exceptionalism and I I I mean I wish we we could do it in in in a way that was well those are questions you you posed last Wednesday and we were in Austin to our legislators and they talk about their teacher pay increase you ask those questions and you know you get dear in the headlights do they have a good answer Tia they say teacher Inc of a l yeah it's kind of listen that's been out there for a while
047I know you're looking into it that's not what I'm talking about just so that's not what I mean um this District I saw S I told Sam about it five six years ago at Tassa tasby they did a presentation on it they they did teacher incentive allotment and immediately said this isn't working they created their own and every one of their dist every one of their schools in terms they were using the ratings from the state at that point and the qualifications for each campus to get a grade we're still letter grade which was back but that was this was the previous version and every one of their campuses excelled so it's it's there there's an opportunity there and I don't know I'm not sure TI's it me personally yeah but Liz just speak quick
048here's what you've said it's about a balance like we don't want to forsake a large majority of the district for you know teachers that are excelling and we don't want to forsake the teachers that are excelling you know at at the expense of it just being yeah so yeah and obviously we haven't given great answers we're just're just throwing things out right here but it's something we can continue to talk about we've got got some good notes to go back and look at so thank you okay the next um set of priorities uh we would like to maintain our current class size ratios um so where where we are at this year is K to4 is 22 to1 and that's based on state law fifth we typically go to 25 to1 and then in secondary
0496 to 8 is 25 to1 and 9 through 12th is 25 to1 in4 and 27 to1 in elective those were our planning numbers for this year and we um don't feel like we need to change that we don't want to increase that at all um so our goal would be to stay within that the districts that have already announced increasing that we're hearing from staff in those districts for openings here so we've our principes are already getting contacted can we decrease that yeah I want to change it well I think that's where the balance comes I think I think the challenge in that looking at what we're already projected for next year in our sections is is we're we're we're already there we already have maximum number of sections those campuses except for JRE right
050now and there's only three that would not be at their maximum sections based on demographer numbers and the the classro space over there so okay so that was the next question we can bring numbers down if you have space if you had space if you don't have space it's not even you bring numbers down if you have space and you put all of your probity all your basically what we have right now like next year at South based on the demographer numbers we would have one fifth grade section but we would be over instead we would need an extra second grade section which is a Wash West we would have an extra Kinder extra first but we'd be over in second and fourth which is a wash so they would have to use that space
051and then JRE would have an extra Kinder first and fifth right their Hilltop we we're C still counting rooms because it's a different map I mean it's a different capacity but they're they're at capacity so it'd be very limited anyway what we would have room to add over there so we did check those um earlier today just to kind of see where we where we had space if we were to try to go to 20 to1 we don't even have the room to do it the other thing to consider for elementaries if you decrease those class sizes we have more sections we have more sections we need more places to put them during special so then that turns into what do we have three or four classes at PE instead of two are we putting
052two classes in um you know an art class and that becomes very difficult for those teachers to manage so then do we add another specials class and then what is it where do we put that classroom so there's that part of it too that has to be considered and I and I respect that feedback greatly um but I would challenge the the for or look for opportunities to be creative I don't think I would like to avoid going into next year where we're starting our sections with a bunch of one to 22s and then all of a sudden we have some growth and then we're busting up classes all throughout the year adding sections and all that I mean I if if we can reduce those class sizes so that it can plan for some
053growth it would be great if you can't do it in all grades then maybe we can maybe Target specific grades like kindergarten um you know where we can say hey look we don't we don't want 22 kindergarteners in there and having to spend a month with 25 until we get into the teacher we're going to we're going to hold it at 20 we're going to eat up space we have to do that I mean those are things I would I I I don't like the fact that fifth grade it's an elementary school class I don't like fifth grade at 25 to one because you can doesn't mean you should and those are that's the push back I would give is to really think creatively about how we can reduce these class sizes in the next
054couple years um so the way we have it figured like for example we're projected 134 kindergarteners at South and that's 6.09 sections so whereas we might have going into this year gone with six sections just to see if everybody shows we have it planned in there we go is seven which is giving us a ratio of 19 to start so I think I think several of them will fall kind of in that range now there's one um they all round up right that makes sense so regardless of where that division comes out to everything on those we've round it up we don't want to take anything and round down so so crazy out of the box question do we have any room at the Sixth Grade Center to take a campus as fifth grade kids
055or two there's nothing she's begging us to take sixth graders out now because we're already at 500 or pushing 500 there so as far as classrooms she may have a couple did you ever get how many sixth grade classrooms are left she's got open right now I'm reading her to seven she's got seven seven that's it okay and that's that's before the growth comes for next year that's currently I think our fifth grade class is our biggest class in the district this year making our the hilltop fifth grade class is 175 students in it and every other class is about 130 it's a very large class and my other question from before also I know in your conversations last you know this school year went were over the summer when we were needing to make
056some cuts and the things you came to us to try and get the deficit down and everything and positions that were Li ated in in speaking with the teachers and I'm not advocating one way or the other just asking for information did they or even as time has gone on now and they've lived without some of these support people have they come back and given you guys feedback on whether or not they'd rather have a full class or they'd rather have the support that's the next slide yes because we that's been part of the advisory Council um that's why we gave him the AIDS this spring because we couldn't give them the specialist back um but that's what we've addressed on this slide here so continue with that trying to come up with some form
057of a balance so that um again it's not all compensation and not all class and not all support but some form of a little bit of all um we've looked at elementary Reading and math intervention support um the elementary support or sorry special program support um and when you're looking at that you're talking um you know bilingual uh G G those type of things um Elementary and Sixth Grade Center Behavior Support and Sixth Grade Center and Middle School testing support those were the areas that uh brought to us the most as far as uh where we were lacking in support and Dr Jordan met with principles last week reviewing the themes from the the teacher feedback and staff feedback and it's all aligned and then she met with principles kind of how that would look
058if we were able to bring those what what would make the most sense on campuses from a structure of those positions because when we when we eliminated the Specialists coming into this year every campus was doing it differently there wasn't a common practice of what was going on and so um that's what the things that she was talking to them about what what they what their needs were now that they've done with that and that's one of the things I've heard on the campuses the ones I have met with is it's G given them a really good understanding of what they really need because they didn't know what they really needed till they didn't have it and now they understand better that maybe the way it was being used wasn't as effective is that now
059they understand where they need the support so y'all are coming up with a way to bring back the interventionist positions and support positions in a more targeted effective correct way correct might mean that campuses are sharing some as we back into it but and talking to the principles they felt like they could make that work well and it'd be interesting if if this is the feedback you're getting from the advisory Council on all these different areas it' be interesting to know you know at a campus level and collectively what is a priority for each of the individuals so you know South may have priorities that are different from west or Hill top or rusman um and and which may help us clean information into you know what's different on that campus you know is it
060is it a style approach that's different um but getting some of that feedback on what those individual teachers in campus admin feel is you know most important and you know kind of rank it and understand how they're feeling taking you know again your information what you've gleaned sending it back to them how would you rate this what what do you feel is most important for you individually or what you're seeing on your campus and having that kind of information I think that would be what our next step after this Workshop would be is to take the priorities that we've gleaned listening to you all if yall agree with those and put them out staff and say get to get feedback so that when we come back at our May the next Workshop then we have
061the staff input on on those priorities can you help me understand what a reading interventionist does I mean does that that's more than when my mother-in-law comes up to the school and pulls the kids out the hallway is I mean can you help me I mean they like taking them it's a teacher it's got to be a teacher position full no it doesn't have to be a teacher position it can be an a like right now they do have AIDS who are filling that role um when we have an aid in that role all they're doing is pulling children in small groups and working on um specific skills that the teacher has determined are gaps when you have a teacher in that role they are the one who are creating the materials Not only would
062they work potentially with the child they didn't do that at all kses some they well some they work with just tier three the ones with the most of the furthest behind but they would do some of the assessment with the child figure out where the gaps are create the materials and work with the child and then potentially work with their intervention team and come up with interventions for students that maybe haven't reached the The Heist to need the intervention specialist but helping the the teacher um prevent the student from getting there so the teacher it just depends so if I have five sections of first graders at any particular campus every one of those classes is going to have tier one two three kids correct how often are those tier three kids in all five
063sections getting Touched By An interventionist if you're you know it's really going to depend on how many kids are tier three right because there's only so many hours the day that we're at school and and not every class we have two three kids I mean it's going to be it's 5 to 10% at the very most of a grade level is going to be at tier three more for us it's more like a 5% of students so not every teacher would have that but I mean ideally they'd be wanting to work with them three times a week for you know at least 30 minutes but now the teacher is doing some of that work at tier three really they'd want to work with them probably four days a week um the teacher's going to be
064able to do some of that in small group and then the interventionists can pull students as well and what is a behavioral interventionist do a behavioral interventionist event interventionist is mostly going to work with students that are not receiving Services through special education because they have a different layer of support built in there so it'll be working with students who are gened students that are exhibiting extreme behaviors where the normal strategies that a teacher knows how to employ have not been working so then the behavior um interventionist would come in and would observe the student would propose some intervention strategies take some data meet with all the teachers periodically to review how it's going and then um so what kind of skill set is that as that a counselor therapist type position no I mean
065it's it's a teacher it's a teacher but there are teachers who have other outside certifications yeah a skill teacher with who may have a specialed background or it may be that they're a BCP like they have some other training in their pockets that help with behavior it is a very specialized position when I was over at West last week meeting with those teachers um several of the special ed staff was in the room and we were talking about specifically the behavioral support and our current elementary Behavior like West had one had a full-time one up until this year and so she's had to kind of be spread around but her time is spent in gen classrooms because typically students aren't getting their special education behavioral support for a good while there's a whole lot of
066things that lead up to that before they're over identified and so she said most of her all of her support that she's been giving has been in a Genet classroom and that the whole I mean we know this but it's all changed in the last five years the behaviors in this in the Gen classrooms are very different than they were 2019 so and you'll hear that from our staff and and so that's a that's that's a big piece of that is trying to correct those behaviors and get them course corrected so that they don't end up having to need sometimes special education or supports in that with that third w point really though we felt like it could be one person who could serve Elementary in sixth grade as a behavior specialist because we are
067lucking where we don't have a tremendous number of students but there's enough that we need some support there they also help with the mtss portion I think that's something you probably you heard them talk the teachers talk about uh last Wednesday when we were in Austin they talked a lot about the mtss process that's what our Specialists were doing up until we don't have those positions so it's landed on campus admin and the teachers the teachers more so the tier three support the campus admin the the actual process of mtss um and so that's where those interventionists also have a big role in that and that's the process that students go through as they're trying to determine whether or not they're going to need specialized instruction later and so is this job viewed favorably I
068mean by teachers want to transition out of the classroom into the specialist position usually don't have trouble filling those positions but so you'll notice that um last slide in the slide our Campus based support right we're talking class sizes and we're talking campus level instructional support positions we are still looking at at all of our other departments and areas but our main focus as a priority was campus level um and we felt like that was what we would bring to you as campus level um sorry wrong direction our last budget priority is uh a balanced budget so I would like some feedback on how you feel about that is a balanced budget your priority um is that something that we should should keep in there for this year um we feel like with the slides
069that have been presented tonight in the information that we know at this point in time we can maintain the class sizes add back a little bit of support reserve some funding for a Compensation Plan and bring you a balance budget um if you would rather us focus more on one of the other areas or a different area that we didn't present then we need to look at what that would would do to affect a violence budget so is that in your priority range is that what you want us to have as a priority as we're working towards this it's always perview to have a balanced budget I that's a trick question so and this whole Workshop has been about balance and so that that is just one of the major components of all the balancing
070acts that that we're trying to do um I think one of the concerns with you know we've taken money out of the fund balance um the Vader did not pass and so the replenishing of that fund balance to not even just growing it but replenishing it I mean that that's something that you'll have to show us as well with that uh which that'll be in the budget that that that you're bringing to them next month right thisth in the budget amendment yes um but we'll also in Sp shop we have some slide release a slide with some discussion on fund balance and where we're at and where we look to move to um I think I've mentioned in the past that as as we grow we now of our budget grows so if you want
071to maintain the same percent then you do have to put money back into that fund balance to maintain that percent you can keep the same dollar amount but if your budget is growing then that percent Clin so again a balance of where we want to be at at this point in time um but we felt like we have a chance of of presenting you with the balance budget based on balancing um canus level support um Compensation Plan and uh classus me I think for me but we always want to strive for a balance budget but until we have better information back from the campus and the teachers on what they feel is what's going to help them succeed then it's hard to say that yes absolutely 100% has to be Aid I want a balance
072budget don't get me wrong right but I also want you know the campus teachers I want them to be supported and I want them to know that you know the admin the board the community has their back and based on their priorities of what they would like to see you know I think that will help you you guys determine where dollars potentially need to shift and if we can do it and get to a balanced budget great if if we're not quite there then what's that give and take and is it worth it so I think for me until I understand what the teachers what the campus admin what they're feeling what they feel like they need it's it's hard for me to say that I'm 100% on that well let's what we can do
073so we we can get some of that input and bring back to you for the May Workshop um kind of some areas that we're out you know we're early in our process so we've looked at the big areas um you know we set aside some dollars for areas that we know will increase um you know Property and Casualty Insurance has taken large increases every year um and we know that that'll be another large increase so we we've put some some pretty hefty dollars towards that um you know we won't have our information back until um probably June at the earliest on that so we've overestimated it comes in under we could free up some dollars there hopefully we have't underestimated on that but we've got some areas like that we're still working through our department
074budgets um as far as U seeing the impacts of those we set asy dollars for those and again trying to as we refine that and get closer to an actual recommended budget we'll refine those dollars in there but to kind of give you an idea of what we've done so far we've set aside $2 million for that Compensation Plan um we don't know exactly what that would look like but we had to come up with a dollar a mail um and we use historical data and how many staff members we have now to at least come up with the numbers because in order to plan on what you can fit in you got to know what what numbers you're plugging in so we started off with that and we're at uh 1.57 um million in
075additional positions is is what we've set our budget on that trying to fit everything into there so classrooms intervention okay so that that kind of gives you an idea of and we did that of course estimating our revenues looking at where we're at in our expenses today um reserving some of those areas that we know are going to increase um looking at our campus budget allotments and trying to come up with what what funding would be available for growth positions um if we want to set aside a compensation package and anything like that so that's just kind of the basis of where we started but I do appreciate the feedback and we'll walk on these things I'll say this um yes I want a balance budg I got two minutes um but I think I
076think when you're build for me if I was if I'm building the budget I'm saying what what what do I want argd to be known for you know what because that's where you're spending your money is where your priorities are I mean personally and professionally and so you know I think ourg needs to have a reputation of being a competitive pay District doesn't have to be the highest paid I think it needs to be a district that is known as having the most Wells supported teachers and staff and whether that's in the form of uh from the administration or from uh support positions that these teachers feel like they have behavioral support admin support and interventionist support and I think that to the extent that we can at those lower grade levels in elementary school
077you can reduce those class sizes because it's it's a it's a community that expect ation um that we've tried to maintain um since I've been here I know it's getting harder as we get bigger but if you if you're spending your money on those things and you can get to a balanced budget great and if you can't get to a balanced budget and spend your money on those things then you need to revisit what you're spending your money on you know it's not just it's like well where are is there are there opportunities for efficiencies that would allow us to prioritize these things that we we want to be known for something and I think when you go out there and just say we're going to pack our classes to the Max and then we
078when we don't have standards and we're just going to throw 25 kids in a fifth grade class I I don't think you set your part you don't set yourself apart from anybody and you don't attract good teachers and you don't attract good families when you do that and I I would like that to be a budget priority so I think there'll be some short there could be short-term pain on class sizes I think we all agree with what you said the best way to get reduced class suance is what builds pass the bond yeah I mean let's just say it pass the bond right I mean huh oh I can yeah consider it uh but I mean I hear you and I think we all agree and I think it's good to to plan and
079and for smaller and give yourself some room from growth but it's really dictated by space you have right so um I I don't disagree with anything you said but I just wanted to say that the there could be short-term pay for long-term gain and long that's we need building yes and I would hope that the all the great people that are moving here because of the Great Schools we've had are willing to come out and support those new buildings and what way that a district can hire and retain more staff is if the community does continue to be involved in passing a b showing their support for the show your support passivator you're contributing to um financially enriching our Educators in that way you're putting your you know your money into the district giving back
080contrib me that way in turn the district has more funds itself to continue to add positions and add opportunities for our kids so um it you know we all have to work together the community is not a singular thing are there any other priorities that you may have that we haven't talked about tonight that you would like us to consider and work through I don't have to talk my I don't think so I'll just say in closing um GL we get to talk about these priorities again because last year at this time that was not the case and if you read any around around us around the state these are not the priorities people are talking about for their budget process next year so we're going to take it as a win and continue to
081work to get it where it needs to be but um just very very thankful we're able to have these conversations right now thank you so much 402