001Starting off with the Joint City Council School Board work session presentation review and I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Hutchings. Great. So before we get into that, I do want to have a couple of comments I want to make about the proposed or the draft PowerPoint presentation. So first and foremost, I do want to state that these are just two of the superintendent's presentations. So this is information that came from the CIP proposed budget presentation and the information that came from the combined funds budget presentation that was collapsed into one. So the goal today is that we really narrow this down. Have discussions around what is most pertinent? What is the most pertinent information that we want to share with the City Council? Or what is what is just documents we may want
002to share with them that may not be in the presentation but something that they can read prior to The presentation so they can be familiar with some of the things That we are preparing to discuss on that on that evening so today. We're hoping that you all are giving some feedback around what do you think should stay in here, what should be included, what should be taken away, or what may remain the same. You all may say, hey, let's keep it the same way as is, but I just wanted to make the point that these are just the two proposed, or information from the two proposed budget presentations of the superintendent. And some other presentations. Thank you. But I'm going to turn things over to Mr. Turner because he's going to help us to facilitate
003this discussion. This is really around discussion because I want us to all walk out of here today knowing what direction we want to go and what our strategy is as we're presenting to the board as a team, presenting to the city council on March 4th. Yes, as Dr. Hutchins said, all of the information that is in this presentation you've all seen at some point during the budget process, whether it's the superintendent's proposed CIP, the proposed combined funds, or one of the two work sessions that we've had throughout the budget process. We didn't change any of the information. And we've stuck to the same format that we had for the superintendent's proposed budget. That's laying out the overview at the very beginning and then going through each one of the six goals and the priorities that
004you all set at the beginning of the budget process so everybody could see how we've tied the dollars back to one of the goals and the priorities that the school board have set. If we would like, we'd like to go through the presentation, get any of your comments, edits, suggestions. so that then we can go back and make those changes and then send you all the updated version after we incorporate any of the edits or comments that any of you all have tonight. And as we go into this presentation, I want to remind everybody this is school board appreciation month, the whole month of February. So we want to thank our board members once again. You all can see around the room. It's a very inexpensive gift that you all can accept from the superintendent.
005And it is from Bath and Body Works, of course. But this is the eucalyptus spearmint. It's stress relief. I know when you're sitting at the dais, I ask for you to just leave it right up there at the dais so when you're going through those meetings, just start rubbing it in and just smelling your hands as we're going through. The pump, we do need the pump. We wanted to keep the cost really minimal, but I wanted you all to know that we don't, I don't think there is a superintendent appreciation. There's no such thing, unfortunately. But every month, yes, I'm blessed and happy every day. But I wanted to remind the community about this. Dr. Reed. Thank you, I just I was wondering it's it seemed to me in my past few meetings with council
006that sometimes a staff member has done the presentation to the board like the sort of Preview and then it seems like Cindy has done the presentation sometimes to council and I was trying to figure that out because it didn't Make sense to me that you know, it seems like she would present now or I'm just wondering like what? if that's typically how you do it or Yeah, so this is the school board's presentation to the City Council at that joint work session so in the past either this school board chair or the superintendent has delivered that presentation But I think generally in my time on the board It's been the school board chair and I actually pushed back on that some but it because it's the school boards budget at this point That was the
007way it was done, but but your your question was also why didn't maybe I put it together? But this was like a rough draft and then I fully expect this all to sort of work on it tonight and and you know with comments later and any comments we could have done comments before too, but So so really it is our presentation so we should feel You know that free to give comments. I think that's what Miss lower I've written down on my comments. I have comments on what's been presented, but I don't know if everybody saw the Article that dr. Reese sent around today about how powerpoints are kind of passe and it's time to start doing something more interesting. And I have to say, from the time I got on the board, this is
008before your time, Dr. Hutchings, I've been saying, can't stand these PowerPoints. Can we please do something more interactive, more this? And I know it's too late right now. I mean, I think we've got too, I don't know, maybe it's not too late right now. But I just wanted to thank her for sending that. I really think there must be a better way and that we're all, it's one thing if you're teaching a class and you know you have to cover a certain amount of stuff. Maybe this falls into that category. I'm not sure this may but I would say whatever we can do I know the comments I have tonight have to do with Getting some of the jargon out of our PowerPoint and making it more understandable so people can relate to it. So
009anyway, that's my Yes, and and there was there was some discussion about getting a facilitator for meeting with them with the council, but that there was that wasn't Received well and so whereas we may do that in the future it wasn't received well this time so so we're that would shut down one Avenue Where we could have all have been involved in a more like hands-on kind of thing that we've had experience with and I think good things Mr. Suarez. Yeah, I'm curious who did shut that down. I because I do take dr. Reeves point and that I think whatever we present to council like The board needs to show it has ownership. Over it. Um, I think we had a bit of a breakdown at the last joint city schools meeting to be completely
010blunt about it And it didn't feel like a governance meeting. It felt like um, you know I think some people felt like maybe we were attacked a little bit, you know from the from the city council side um, and i'm not that's not the cast dispersions on anyone, but I think that um, These meetings should be more of a in a governance mold and i'll talk about that more when we get to the co-location discussion but I do think dr. Reeves point illustrates more fundamental issue in terms of you know how are we structuring the meeting so that it's a meaningful governance meeting for like these bodies to come together and set policy because I think both staffs were kind of thrown into a lurch from that meeting and that generated a lot of the
011issues that came up with co-location in my personal opinion. So I hope that when we get to the co-location discussion, we do think about how we as a board are making sure that this is a governance meeting. And that's why I'm curious who pushed back because I think directionally doing something like that is making it more of a governance conversation, not a procedural just like here's the data dump. Type of thing which I think all of us want to kind of get out of going forward if we're gonna effectively govern and lead in the city so Well, it was not me. I mean we had proposed that and and and it was seen as is not really what they wanted to do What they really wanted to do so we can work on that and
012maybe if we'd had some more time to work on it I think maybe people would have come around but so I think we can still keep that in the hopper for future meetings because we have had some meetings in the past like after the joint facilities task force we had a couple of facilitated meetings where you know the staff was different there were a few of the board members are here so I thought those were good in terms of everybody being able to dissipate and then it was more like some of our facilitations that we've gotten up and we've done things on and then come together and talked about what we've chosen as priorities so I think that's That's where I'd like to go, unfortunately, because of the time frame now. I think we don't
013have enough time to do that for this one as we've sort of got people to come around too late to the facilitation idea. So anyway, I do think that we need to do something different. And so please, that's what we're here tonight to do, to figure out what we can do with what we have and what we maybe don't have in this presentation but want to do. I was going to mention in regards to the PowerPoint presentation. Let me just tell you, yes, I agree. We do need to do things a little differently. But one thing our team has talked about is we held off on that until our new strategic plan because we're going to go through a whole rebranding, and that's the perfect time versus doing pockets of different things, having the whole
014rebrand all at once, new strategic plan, new mission, new vision, new way of doing business, new way of presenting material. So that is a part of the work that the communications office will be doing Anybody have anything else or do you want to go through the PowerPoint or do we want to Or do we want to have just comments because people have looked at the PowerPoint Okay, okay, so so we do have the jargon I agree with Miss Lorber, you know I was thinking at the very least if we're gonna keep it in there. We need to have a glossary And with the glossary, you would have to have, like, you know, maybe we want to, I don't know. But I thought it's just too many of them in the same slide that people would,
015if they haven't been talking about it. The other thing I wondered is, I try to go back and look, like, for a seal, like, if there was some part of our meeting that would be, like, so that we could have a, not only PowerPoint, but some video stuff. But I don't know that there was anything really good. I think that your kicking it off was, Really powerful, but then it was too much you know in there to kind of pull out a segment But I don't know what I mean if if we actually show like some sort of thing what what these things are I mean you did a really great explanation of it at the beginning and when I looked at the part of the meeting about you know the kids aren't really able
016to learn if they don't have not prepared because of these things So I don't know, that was one way I thought of trying to get whatever it is across, that we actually go to a meeting and it also makes it multimedia and isn't just slide after slide after slide. So I don't know what people think about that. Ms. Orban. Yeah, I like that idea. What I had written down was, to me, we talk so much about MTSS and we all more or less now are getting really to understand what we mean by that or what's going on in the school system. It seems to me some kind of a, you know, that the whole crux of what we're trying, where we're trying to move as a school system is to combine the social-emotional learning with
017the intellectual, you know, that they can't be separated. And MTSS is a piece of that. It is not just a piece of it. That's the overview. And I think council needs to understand that. And someone needs to, I mean, the intro could be, yeah, Megan, maybe she could, you could do the overview. Anyway, I think we need to give them, get a sense of where we're moving as a school division and how we're going to get there. And where we're moving is to develop, to write the whole child, but that the challenges that so many of our students face. come in the social-emotional realm, and here's all the things we're doing to address that, and maybe we can talk about some of the results we're already seeing, and why we're going to invest more, but
018otherwise, if we just talk about listing these things, you know, and then you say tier one, and tier two, and tier three, it doesn't have meaning, and I think we're really doing so much now, so much more. I mean, we really have a... conceptual framework of where we want to go as a board and a division that this might be a good time to lay it out there I swear mark of a miss Luber and I did not talk about this at a time but that's another point I wanted to make and I and what I thought might what I was going to ask if maybe if miss Alderton if we could throw it because I think it would also be good if we could throw different things to different people and and the MTSS
019thing which I think you do a great job of is you you You have it internalized, you know. And so I think that it would be really great if you would be willing to do, I don't know what people think, but if you would be willing to talk about that to, like, get people. And so now I'll go to Dr. Eve. Yeah, I mean I I would agree I like that idea of getting other board members involved my response to the presentation was Similar there was a lot of jargon and I don't some of the jargon I mean, I don't even know if we need to get into defining it and really get into that specifically What stood out to me was, you know having those budget priorities and if someone talked about how the
020process was different this year and then Maybe even kick it to you know, dr Hutchings who again is more familiar with all the different initiatives So just while that one slide is up listing the priorities just talk about those things because it's slides 5 through 21 Literally are just all of those things and I would just take I would just like take out all those slides Honestly, I would like just leave the priorities up there and just talk through them, you know May and maybe you know, there's aspects of those that people can chime in on but I think, you know, especially even just speaking a little more extemporaneously, I think it will really, you know, show how much, you know, we all understand what our mission is and how we've really internalized it and
021can just communicate it without relying so much on the PowerPoint, you know, which tends to turn people off, I think. Mr. Suarez? Yeah, so just just on the slide specifically my first comment actually piggybacks right off of dr. Reif in that I really think you know going back to my governance drum that I want to keep beating We really need to emphasize that first slide about the priorities, but I agree completely with dr. Reif that we have to talk about how we got there And I think a way to do that is really talking about we were really thoughtful about being strategic in this process this year. And we, you know, had a meeting where we stood up, we walked around the room, we collaborated. We had a lot of different competing priorities that we
022considered, and we narrowed it down. And so I think it might be even instructive or productive to, like, you know, show some video from that of us walking around and doing that process, you know, and getting to the point of just not. the powerpoint maybe having it be a little more interactive just to kind of show that you know our board is really trying to be intentional about these strategic planning processes and works we did that this year in the budget and we're excited to do that as we go through 2025 you know i mean I think our goal should always be restoring the public's trust and confidence in our strategic ability and what we're doing. And, you know, with the whole seminary road debacle and everything that council's dealing with, I think there's a
023lot of eroded trust in some of our challenges and facilities as well. So I'm hopeful that we can, you know, model that up front. So that's the first comment. The second comment is that there's nothing in here that addresses sort of, you know, thoughts on... What are the collaboration sort of potential options going forward between the council and the school board? I remember specifically when we finished the presentation last time Mr. Chapman made a comment to the effect of we hear the same presentation every time. We've given you feedback and you haven't incorporated that feedback. So I think in the spirit of collaboration and saying like we hear you. You know, I think it would be good from based on whatever comes out of the latter half of our discussion on co-location and some of
024these things. Like, are there some bullet points we can put on a slide to say, you know, here's a springboard for conversation. Obviously, we're here to talk about the budget. You know, hopefully you agree with the budget. I guess the city manager is going to propose his today and maybe it syncs up perfectly. I haven't seen it yet. But the bottom line is to the extent there's time to discuss governance and what are some things we can collaborate on going forward, it might be worth springing that from the conversation and having a slide on that at the end as well. I think that's a good point. And maybe we can include some of the stuff that we see from our joint subcommittee things, like the new thing with the shared maintenance that's been ongoing, the
025study of that, and now they've gotten to a point where there's some. Some action that's going to be coming in the next year so anything other things like that we can think about where we have Worked jointly together. I think miss Nolan Thanks so much just building on everyone's feedback, so I completely understand where dr. Reif is coming from with in terms of the data I would just I would recommend that maybe we don't go through every slide But I would still keep the slides here versus take them out just mainly because there are some people who are reflective learners That it would help them be more present that if they weren't hearing the information for the first time and got to review it ahead of time as well if you're a visual learner versus
026auditory learner. You know what I mean? I just think if we can incorporate as many learning styles as possible, I think for some this would help and others might glance at it. So I would just recommend instead of taking all this up, because the thing I like about slides 5 through 20 was it really drills into the data of this is how you were saying the data drove these decisions and then these were the path forward. So it wasn't just K-12. Excuse me k2 literacy. It's like here's showing what we're doing So I would just recommend maybe not going through every slide but that might be something to at least keep even if it's an attachment or something and The only the other thing I wanted to say is that one piece of feedback We
027do always get from council and city is that when we get together they would love an opportunity to just have a snapshot of where our students academically that this is a school system and that all of this is driving towards academic achievement and so being that they're not in the day-to-day, nor should they be, but it's just a good opportunity for them that anytime we're together, like, where are students academically? Because just keeping the focus that all of this has to do with their academic achievement. And that predates you, Dr. Hutchings, just so you know that that was something they've asked for. So I just wanted to bring up past feedback that could be helpful to you. And even if it's just a slide or two about, like, what is driving these outcomes and where
028are the students now and what are our goals for where we hope them to be? And that, you know, where we hope them to be is based on these levers that we're pulling is where they're going to go towards. And then I really, I just want to comment, I really like what Mr. Suarez said about describing the process. I don't know if I'd show the video just because we might lose the image of time, you know what I mean? Maybe some, like, still shots. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe pictures, you know what I'm saying? Like, include, yeah. You want the video? Oh, okay, yeah. I'm trying to... We could reenact all three hours, and we could make it like a play, like a riveting play of school board, you know, act two. Then we went and
029did the dot exercise. Oh, everyone would love it. Okay, so anyways, that's some of my feedback based on where we're at. Put me on the list. Oh, Ms. Lorber. Didn't Megan have a... Oh, okay. Oh, good. Okay. Well, first of all, I have to say, I don't really like the idea of one of the, I'm trying to remember what I just, what we just did recently, a presentation I was reading. It starts with pictures of everybody doing the process, and I just like, that was like a turnoff to me. So I frankly am not interested in having a picture of us doing that. But that's just my opinion, okay? My humble opinion. If we are going to keep this, well, my next comment is about Alice. There's so much going on now about Alice, so
030much bad publicity about it. Not bad, but so many questions being raised about Alice that I just wonder if the tone, if we're going to keep something in there on Alice, that we might say how we've had this wonderful collaborative process with the community to adapt Alice better to our... school system our kids rather than just blatantly endorsing Alice and we're gonna increase and do more Alice because it just seemed like It wasn't realistic given and what's nice is the fact that? We have at all that input and you have what you know and it seems like Changes that make Alice fit better So that was just one comment and then again if we do keep in Some of these slides there was slide 13 on staff retention Didn't understand a sentence can somebody look
031I don't have my thing. I mean I didn't get my computer It's there are three bullets on slide 13 and it's like the third one Investing in our employees professional retention whoopsie sorry but instruction accounts for 67% with admin health and attendance at 28% of total I just know what that means Out of the almost 1.4 million dollars here for professional development 62 thirds 67 percent goes for instruction. So these are state function codes So instruction and then admin health and attendance are two state function codes So two-thirds of the professional development Donald dollars go to the improvement of instruction and then about a quarter goes to admin health and attendance So I think we'd if we'd use that I mean we'd have to Clarify that because it's just like no way I couldn't doesn't
032seem to this confusing. That's all I just That's it then it was just about you know the different Yeah, I've already. Oh, another question. You know, consumable reading and writing texts? Ever since I've gotten on the school board, every time I see consumable texts, I mean, I know you educators know what that means. Oh, I really thought it was edible. I thought, what are these? And then I finally decided to look it up, and I see it means sort of something interactive. You can write down on them, right? You can use them and dispose of them. But, again, that's another one of these things where you just assume everybody knows what mobile passwords are. Sorry to be ignorant. I mean, I know I should probably know that, but, I mean, I do know it now.
033Okay, now I have Ms. Green. Thank you chair Anderson good evening everyone and happy birthday chair Anderson It was yesterday I know but you know I still wanted to acknowledge that I would sing for you, but I have a little cold So I won't do that tonight So a couple things. I do want to say I might be in the minority here, but I love a good PowerPoint. So I disagree with taking slides out. If a PowerPoint is done effectively, it's well worth having for a meeting, particularly a joint meeting with city council. And that's Jacinta Green's own opinion. And to build upon what Mr. Suarez and Ms. Nolan said, every year, and I've been watching this joint meeting for, At least the last four or five years now, but every meeting Particularly the City
034Council people that are tenured they say the same thing every meeting and I don't know if it would be helpful to go back and watch some tape when the same questions that they ask year after year, but it would be great to have those things in this presentation You know Justin Said for a couple years things about co-location John about about the achievement So I mean there's specific things I even think Dell says probably the same things every year So I mean it would just be helpful in my opinion if maybe we could do some research and put that information in here um yeah actually i to that point i um i did reach out on friday to all the council members asking them to send whatever questions they had ahead of time um and
035so if they had any questions or even if it wasn't something that was in a question format that it was an area of concern question to try to get that ball rolling and then i will Send whatever we kind of decide as soon as we do even though I'll be posted publicly I will send it to them and again ask for the questions But I've asked you know for questions in the next week, and then they have other ones after the PowerPoint we'll see you know I'll give them another go around to see if I'll get some back so you try to prepare but it but in the idea of like So that we can know, and I said to make it more efficient and effective, you know, to know what they're worried and concerned
036about ahead of time. Dr. Reeve? Well, I'm glad you said that. That was going to be one of my suggestions was to ask if they had questions. And, you know, something to go with that is maybe even... Putting a deadline on it. I don't know like if you it might help to I gave them until Friday. Okay, perfect. Yeah But the other thing I was gonna say this kind of ties into what mr. Suarez and missile and we're saying About you know more academic snapshot information and talking about our processes. I think the data workbook You know maybe having copies to show them or something like that or using some of the data from that to really show how That was what led us into setting those priorities was reviewing that and that that's part
037of our strategic, that's informing the strategic planning process as well. Super. Ms. Lohrberg? I think that's a really cool idea. I think a handout to all of them. I just had a teeny thing that if we are going to talk about academic achievement, I think one of the things... Talking about what is full accreditation mean? I mean, obviously that's where that's what we get the pitch is it finally So just what it means and then where we need to go from there Okay, I have miss Nolan and then I have missed So the only thing I was going to add is that I know we talked about, I see here about the facilities being mentioned, and I just think that we want to be proactive. And thinking of, like, trying to anticipate council members' questions
038that we know that, like, for example, GW has been an area where a lot of city council members have received. You know concerned emails about you know water fountains and things of that nature So I think we just want to be proactive and versus wait for that question Just let them know that we're on top of it and that let them know your plan for like Spring break and summer work and that you're fully aware. You know, I mean, so I just think we want to Especially be sensitive around facilities understanding that over the last few years that that's been an area of concern about the upkeep and maintenance of the buildings that you're on it and that You're aware and there's a plan in place. I just wanted to add that in particular with
039that slide miss Thornton Thank you. I just wanted to piggyback off dr. Reeve's suggestion about the data workbook that we used because to me it also ties into the exercise that we did to kind of come up with our priorities and I think it's really important that we emphasize how this time was different because so far the PowerPoint Looks pretty similar to what's been done in the past But this time was different and how we came up with these priorities and I'm not sure we maybe shouldn't show the video or something But you know, maybe we could have as the first slide a picture of the board standing up Putting dots on the I don't know something to show that we actually were engaged in this process We did something different and then that will
040kind of bring a springboard for us to tell a story that sticks in people's minds because the data is important but oftentimes people come away with themes and All of this to me it's hard to come away with a single theme as to why this board is different this year And what we're doing differently, so I would like Some way where we can show I don't know, not a video, but I do want some kind of way where we can show that work session or maybe have a slide where we can talk exclusively about that and use the data workbook as a springboard to support that work. So we should maybe have one for everybody. I don't know. Or maybe we can even do the exercise really briefly as an opening that we did with
041the data with Clint, with Clint Page, where we said, like, this is the data and this is how we can interpret it in different ways. Just something engaging. I'm trying to think out loud, but just something engaging that is not just us talking through the PowerPoint that we always talk about. Even like an icebreaker kind of thing. An icebreaker, yeah. And I think maybe we have a slide as what's different, big letters. You know, because then we can talk specifically about what's different, you know, and maybe lead in. So the order I'm not clear about, but actually like have it up there. What's different? You want to know what's different? This is what's different. This is how, because I felt like last time we didn't really kind of get to what's different before we had
042the. Wave the unknown on the wave that came in and kind of crashed on the floor on the shore on the shore Okay I'm also video. I love a good video. It took me years to get the Scholarship Fund to dispense with lots of people going on and on and have a video. And finally, one time when I did all these introductions and I had people on the street asking me if I was in attendance the next week, I was like, oh my gosh, it was not only in attendance, I was in front of the whole group. talking to you. So obviously that is ineffective. And from there on, I got my video, okay? So we produce some really great videos, so it might be, and some people, so maybe something that fits that we've
043already done or a combination of them. Another thing to start things off on, kind of like a positive note, you know, I think that would be good. So I think we need to jazz it up. About jazzing it up before but we Might help jazz it up. We can have some of our videos Alderton Yeah, I think the last thing I've sat here and processed everything everybody said Synthesizing like mr. Suarez But I think what we it's it would behoove us to Tell City Council what our job is. Like, really understand, like, what the job of the school system is because I think everything else that happens with facilities and it all gets drowned out a lot of times and we don't talk about, you know, what we are supposed to be doing for kids.
044And we assume that people really understand that and they don't. So, you know, maybe that goes back to that sort of MTSS discussion. I think that really frames what our job is. And there's so many things that are in this PowerPoint that could neatly fit in. And it would be nice for people to just have a visual of one thing that shows this is what we are supposed to be doing. And all these pieces are how we get there. So I don't know so we got a lot of feedback which is good because that's what we wanted from you all I do have to say that I am just so excited and proud of our board and let me just tell you why Because for you all to be able to sit here and have
045a discussion around what needs to be included, like you actually understand what needs to be articulated to the city council. And it's not that you're saying, well, whatever you all say, right, or whatever we've always done. Like you're saying we want to make sure that we're giving a clear message that this is how we spend dollars in the city of Alexandria. And you gave examples like you all without your notes. right everybody's given examples of our process and that to me it makes me proud to be an alexandrian like seriously because people have voted you all into these positions to make decisions regarding kids and it is very serious work and it is evident that you all take it seriously just from this conversation for me i know you do every day because i get
046to see you all the time and talk to you all the time but just this discussion alone It just validates how you all take your work very, very seriously. And I just appreciate that. So I want to say thank you for that. Our team is going to take this and we'll also be able to look at the video to see it again. But I have my notes as well, team. So I'm going to share my notes to make sure we get it right. But I do think that one creative thing could be to design a video. that not something that we've done before but it might be different things from different things that we've done because our communications team Susan in particular she Susan Thomas she takes ideas and she makes something like out of
047nothing right and I think that she could probably take you know this vision of us capturing these are this is a different way um how we've gone about this process that kids are first you know like just all these different sound bites that you know i just got out of our discussion today and maybe she can create something um for for the board before the march 4th i also think that the data workbook that you all discussed is a very important component because it drove the budget priorities and it ties back to what Ms. Nolan was talking about in regards to academics and the data piece because... strategic planning team that is how they knew what was needed and where our deficit areas were and where our celebrations were and with those guiding questions that
048go along with it I think could be helpful for even the layperson that's why it was designed the way it was that people who aren't educators could still follow along with that data and to see where we stand and where we really need to work our efforts towards so we got it from here and we will provide a draft. So tell me, is this supposed to be posted the day of or is it still a week before for joint meetings? How does that work? It should still be the three days before at least because it's a mid-week. It should be Friday. Yeah, it should be the Friday. That would be Friday, February. It's next week from this Friday, right? What is that? February the 28th. 28th, okay. Yeah, I also I think the idea of
049having I'm wondering if we do have a PowerPoint if we can have maybe the Priorities on something that's on the wall so that we can they can never they can always see their priorities as it's going through you know because Don't I agree with dr. Eve I think that we want to make sure that everything relates back to that I mean the other thing I thought but then it gets too busy on a PowerPoint slide is put priority on everyone You know which priority is you know goal one priority one you know but but maybe if we just have them so that we could they can continue to look up at the priority list which were the operating is what we did it really differently because that was you know with a new new method
050more than Capital the CIP ones, but I think they can see it all the time. I think it might be powerful I don't know what people think. Mr. Suarez. Yes. So just following up on what dr Hutchings says I thought of one other point that I thought might be important for the PowerPoint Which is that not only I think do we convey like how we got there in this budget process? But we even take another step back and and talk about how we got to this process through the lessons we learned through last year's process and i think that's really important because it goes back to the the facilitation like you know this board did a lot of work you know reflecting with ms cromwell you know having conversations about what were the breakdowns in
051our process what were the things where we learned like all of those types of things and and i say that because my feeling in the meeting last time and based on what I've heard about the historical nature of the meetings is that these meetings have been very perfunctory. They've been this very like, you know, just come in, you talk for an hour, and then that's it for city council and school board. And so I feel like it's important to show what we've done and explain why we think it's important as a school board and get the buy-in around, you know, potentially having future meetings that are more meaningful around, you know, facilitation and... getting to a common vision on things, you know, if there's a common vision on something like a co-location that aligns with,
052you know, our values as a school system and what we're, our charge is to do. So I wonder if that's something that we may want to also add so that we can have a meaningful conversation around what does the partnership between the city and the city council and the school board look like going forward? Because to Dr. Hutchings' point, like, you know, I think all of us agree that the typical way. of doing things may not be good enough and we wanna do something that's better. So I guess it's just another food for thought based on where we were. The thing is, do you all want to, because I love the fact that the board is saying, okay, we wanna own. our budget, right? And that we want to find a way, I know Dr.
053Reif had mentioned, we want to find a way to even potentially have different board members capturing some of this work. would we want to maybe take the budget priorities and determine what board members may speak to some of these budget priorities or goal areas? So then we know kind of like how to categorize like all of the slides. So for example, let's say, and I'm just, this is all hypothetical. Let's say Dr. Reeve talks about goal one, right? That we make sure you have. the slides that go along with goal one some talking points so that you're able to say okay well i want to say it this way or like it gives you just some practice prior to you know the meeting so you're going in with the knowledge that you all have here
054with no notes um but then also being able to reference uh some some talking points for the section that you all determine and you know we talked about mtss and Or you know from his Alderton. I mean like maybe because that is one of our budget priorities like maybe we look at The budget priorities and we divide them up Potentially by board members and then that gives us some guidance on who needs talking points One thought I have on that is MTSS happens to be in health and wellness. That's where it's located and I feel like It's not just it's everything and in a way our priorities Really fit together and interact with each other so in some ways I kind of don't like discussing them separately even though we obviously had to there had
055to be a way to narrow How we're gonna spend our money? But again conceptually I feel like if someone could do and maybe it is an overview of how this you know the grand vision of this budget and how these things fit together and and to say that even though you'll see we did this that you know we came up with all these priorities, but the Matter is they're all interrelated and so we're gonna start off by The umbrella, which we see is something called MTSS. Now, we're going to explain what that means. But I'm just saying, I wonder if, and then people could still, you know, then it will get broken out because we have to talk specifics. And so then we talk about literacy and we talk about, you know, each of the
056specific areas. But starting with an overview that explains why these interconnections, how it makes up a vision. Yeah, so if we do I think if we do an overview I think it would be seal not not MTSS So it would be social emotional academic learning would really be the umbrella for all of this MTSS is just it's a system to allow us to support that But the overarching and it's kind of like it goes back to like our mission, which is you know, every student succeeds, right? but was one of them, our vision statement. So I think that maybe SCAL, social, emotional, academic learning, that encompasses all of this. Like all of this falls under that, under seal. But maybe we could, I don't know if Ms. Alderson would be willing to do that. I
057like the idea of getting more. I mean, that's also going to be different if we get more people involved. And I think it's also a way to break it up. And it also shows cohesiveness on our team. So I think we need to just think about how and maybe we get from you all the thing that you feel most. interested in and it doesn't have to be all of us because there are a lot of us remember there are more of us than there are goals in the in the strategic plan and more of us maybe than there are I don't know no there are I guess there are there 12 so there are enough for everyone to have you know one of their budget priorities so so think about that get in touch with
058you know send something to me and Dr. Hutchings and Ms. Alderton. No, I just wanted to sort of piggyback on Margaret a little bit. What I think is important is a visual. And that's why I say, you know, whether it's SEAL or whatever, what I like about, and I guess, I don't know, it's like we've had all these different names, RTI, but I like the notion of showing that, you know, how the system, It's supposed to work for kids. I guess that's why, you know, I'm always framing it around multi-tiered systems of supports because essentially, you know, SEAL, yes, will, encompasses all of that. But I like the idea of a visual framework. So we can fight about it later. I'll wait for your text. I don't know if we want to talk about, you
059know, you've talked about the academic return on investment. Do we want to introduce anything about that? That not only are we making very intentional priorities, but we're actually going to keep in, what comes next is we're going to actually keep evaluating the things that we're doing to make sure they're doing the things we thought they do. Like, do we want to talk about that? Because I would like to, you know. unroll that to you all before we unroll that to City Council. That's my personal. Oh, sorry. For some reason, I thought we talked about that, but it was in my head. So it's the direction that we're going, but we still have work on how we're actually going to evaluate academic return on investment. So until we have the framework and we're able to work
060with SLT to determine what are we using to measure. Whether it was a good investment or not, I wouldn't want to take it to the city council just quite yet. I appreciate that. You have a process. You're doing your homework. I like that. It's always good. Dr. Eve. Well, this has been a great conversation. I agree that I think SEAL, introducing SEAL, but then also the MTSS visual would be really helpful. One of the things I've just been thinking as we've been talking is that I think it's natural for us to want to show everything that we're doing, and I think that there's value in that. But I also think we have to think about city council members are coming. They're bringing whatever, you know, background and concerns that they're hearing. And what are the
061things that they're really going to want to know more about? Hopefully asking them the questions will help. But things like, I mean, you mentioned facilities, the questions they've been asking over and over, academics, the ALICE. I think we really need to put ourselves in the framework of, like, what is it that they're probably going to be? Really interested in and then I kind of kind of brought me back to the communications audit that whole bite snack meal concept like I think we just need to Put a bite out there and then let them like kind of open it up and let and let their questions Maybe drive the discussion a little bit. I mean, I do like the idea of all of us participating You know, I'm not I mean, I'm I guess I'm a
062little I think having Megan talk about MTSS would be great I mean, you know, we've talked about how the process has been important One thing would just be for us to go around and talk about how the process was and what we're excited about That's in this budget. I mean just a little bit more kind of spontaneous I mean, I know we probably want to be cohesive with our comments, but but that's another Thought about how we could do it and I think it would like, you know, I think people might be even more comfortable with that kind of an approach. So those are just some things that I've been thinking, just thinking about where council's mind's going to be. We just cannot give them everything in the kitchen sink. We just need to put
063a little bit out there, the top best kind of things that are happening, and then see where they want to go with it, see what they want to know about what they've been thinking about and what here resonates with them, that they want to understand better what we're doing. I'm back to like we need more, we need fewer slides. And maybe we don't, we do have this information, but maybe it's, there are two decks. One that we actually, one's background and one's, that might provoke questions, different ones for different people, but we have to simplify it so that we do allow time for questions. And maybe we do. Don't know if we when we put that in but I kind of like you know people going around and talking about which they're most excited about
064as long as it's not all saying the same one you know, but that's part of the the coordination because we're excited about a lot of them we all came up with these these priorities so so we and and where there was a whole lot of Agreement when we did there wasn't there weren't a lot of outliers, which is really remarkable So I so that so that's a good good thing and so we should be clear that clear about that that it wasn't we weren't just going through the motions we actually looked at the data so so yeah we need to think about this more but I am concerned about all those too much information your point I'm worried but I also want this might be a good thing to send even ahead of time So
065that to provoke some questions so so I send something on Friday if there's something that we think might be good to go out That I send as a follow-up, you know tomorrow like here's some some information, you know that additional information That might prove you know prompt some questions. I don't know what people think I was going to say that the bite snack meal piece, I think, could help us in all areas. So, for example, we have, you know, a bite. We need to figure out what the bite with the snack and what the meal is. But the meal is more all of the information. You know, I know Miss Green had talked about you like having that information. I know Miss Thornton likes having data and like having it. I mean, you all have
066different bite snack meal. It depends on the topic, too. Right. So it just depends on the topic. because it can change. So maybe we work on trying to take all of this information. What if you sent this not necessarily as a draft to the March 4th meeting, but as... You know, like you've a compilation of all of the information that you all have, you know, received over the past several months throughout the budget process. So it's giving them access to all of the information and saying, are there, do you have any, you know, burning questions about any of this information by Friday? So it gives them something to ask questions about because we don't want to, what I do want us to be careful of is, you know, and I forgot who mentioned, did Ms.
067Alderson mention our roles? talking about our roles as a board or the school division. Yeah, of the school division. We want to be careful that... This joint session is not a session to talk about a one email that they got from a community member or you know because this time is pretty how much time do we get to have the city in the camp? I mean, it's not we don't get it. We get twice a year to do that So we not that those things don't matter because they do but those things they have a process that goes to the chair or to the mayor and to me or the city manager and they get addressed Right. So we have a process for that This meeting, we don't want to become the meeting where we
068talk about all the emails we received and what issue is going on this week. It really needs to be focused on the budget. It has to be a multi-day session. And the budget and the process. So I think if we did that whole bite, snack, meal. sent this document as this is all the information that maybe triggers some questions from the ones that you asked them to send to you by Friday. Maybe that could be, or even by Monday, you know, because now we need to give them a little more time so they can read it. So by Monday. Then we then we can readjust the final presentation based off of their questions because they would have seen all of the information and when now we can tailor the presentation to their needs people think
069This you mean sending this very one. I mean the one that's We'll take the title off, you know, and maybe we'll call it something different. So they don't think this is the PowerPoint presentation for that evening. And maybe what we'll do is share this as all the information at the board. This is like a compilation of all the information over the budget season, which it is. So, yeah, budget background information, maybe budget background or budget. So they get to see all this, and then they may have questions how you all had questions, you know, throughout the process as well. We'll see what comes up out of that. I think that can work. Okay. Anyone, anything else? And feel free, if you think about something after today, email so that it can keep continuing to be,
070you know, because we went a lot of places this evening, and it might trigger something that you weren't thinking before. We have until a week from Friday, but we don't want to do it up until that time because the staff needs to take whatever it is. So I would think, you know, hopefully by this Friday. I would say by Monday. Until Monday. Until Monday when the city council as well because then we can do it all at once. One other thing, you know, you had talked about board members potentially talking about the budget priorities that resonate with you and why. I think that could be a good strategy. Maybe. people think about what their budget priority is and then why it resonates with you and then also how it's addressed in this budget. So like
071you're kind of killing two birds with one stone in a sense because you're able to talk to, you know, I mean, we own all of the budget priorities, but this is the one that resonates with you and you're excited about it because this is what's going to happen in the FY21. And maybe that gives everybody an opportunity to say something that relates to the budget. Right, right. And if anybody wants to, any feedback from what they want to say, you know, then we can give it, we can get that sort of, if there are any questions about kind of what you want to say. But also, there's nothing wrong with sending it off then to the person. You know, if questions come up, we're not expected to answer all of them. That's what we have
072staff for. I mean, we're not, we have our role, and running the system is not our role. So that's not, we don't have to be the authority on it. We just are kind of being the ones to tell why we think it's important. And we're here to support. That's our job, support the board as well as the schools. Okay. So there we are. Now we go on to the next topic, which is, are we going to take a break? We need a break? Okay. All right. She's going to. Ms. Lorber is taking a break. Ms. Lorber is taking a break. All right. We're going to move ahead with co-location. We have some time where we're going to change the parties at the table. And then we'll start our co-location discussion. Okay.