001Are you guys good over there? Awesome. Okay. Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us. Today is Tuesday, February 24th, 2026, and this is a special meeting of the Lichfield Elementary School District Governing Board. I hereby call this meeting to order. The first item on the agenda will be the Pledge of Allegiance. If you could please stand and join us. Thank you. Next, we will take a moment of silent reflection. Okay, thank you. Next, we will move on. We have no uh request to speak, so we'll move on to the adoption of agenda and consideration of the consent agenda. I'll go through and see if anyone has any items that they wish to pull from consent. I'll start with you with Miss Wallace. >> No, thank you, >> Mr. for mics? >> None for me. >> Mr.
002Owens, >> none for me. >> Miss Moran? >> No, thank you. >> Uh, I don't have any either. So, if someone would like to make a motion. >> Move to adopt the agenda as presented as order of business and items approve the consent agenda as presented. >> I'll second. >> Having a motion for Mr. Mike and a second for Mr. Owens. I'll call for the vote. Miss Wallace. >> Yay. >> Mr. Mr. Mikes. >> Yay. >> Mr. Owens. >> Yay. >> Miss Moran. >> Yay. >> I'm a yay. Motion passes. >> Next, we will move on to our discussion items. We're going to start with our 2627 community education rates discussion and this will be by Dr. Stair. Hold on just a second. We need to get you a mic. >> Okay, >> good. There
003we go. >> Can you hear me? Okay, now. All right. Uh, Madam President, members of the governing board, I'm here tonight to talk about our tuition rates for next year. and uh for your consideration. As you know, I show up around February every year like Pataton Iriron and look for my shadow and thanks to these omn omniirectional lights, I never see it. And so we get to talk about tuition. Um and uh portions of this come came about most of this came about after long discussions with uh executive director Michael Vaughn and everyone else who uh was involved in um monitoring and assuring that our costs are not overrunning our income. So, what we're recommending for the following school year is an increase of all typical preschool tuition by 5%. And typical being those classes
004that aren't a mix of kids with IEPs and um and kids without IEPs. And so um and then realigning our peer mentor class which is a class that is a mix of kids with IEPs and kids who don't have IEPs uh um to where we are right now their tuition is well below uh the tuition of the other uh programs and we uh are are proposing that we realign their tuition with the other programs. Uh also increasing extended day tuition rates by 5% and no longer covering electronic transaction fees. So this is what it would look like for extended day. Right now our PM only um tuition is 281 a month. It would go up to 294. Uh and you can go on down the line there to see what it looks like for 5%
005increase for all of them. Certainly the biggest impact is on the biggest tuition rate which is amm 370 and it would go up to 3.89 a month increasing by $19. And this would be our preschool change. Of course, uh that's a hefty change in this in the school day tuition rate. Uh they're 8.85 and they jump them up to 929. Uh in our surveys of commercial centers and other districts, that's still um it's comp competitive with other districts, and it's well below what commercial centers are charging for that amount of time. Uh but it's a big change for families. It's a lot of money. And then our halfday tuition would go from $3.84 to $43 a month. Let's see. There you go. This has to do with the peer mentor preschool class. Um that is
006a class that uh when it was first organized uh the organizing principle is that we share uh the cost of it with special ed. And so some of the staff are from special ed departments, some of the staff are ours. Um and then we discount the tuition quite a bit in order to incentivize uh kids going to that class. And they serve as as it as the title indicates peer mentors for the other kids uh because we know that the best thing for all kids is to have examples of of uh constructive play and in constructive uh social relations. And so right now our current tuition is well below um what um anybody else around um charges and we charge even less for PM because when we first started the program we just couldn't get
007people to sign up for the afternoon session and so we gave an additional discount for PM. Uh the last couple years uh the PM tuition or the PM enrollment has been right even with AM if not sometimes a little bit above and so we're proposing that we give them the same rate and reduce the discount to just 10% under our regular rate. So they're still getting a discount for being part of that program. Uh but right now we're losing a lot of money on that program. We're bringing in about half of what we actually spend. Uh we knew when we started the program that it would never be profitable, but we also knew it was the best thing for kids. uh but uh we're just not in a position to take the kind of loss
008that we are on that program. Some contributing factors for the need to raise our tuition. One is that last year PM tuition was raised quite a bit because it was our most popular rate. And then there was a shift in how people utilize our programs. Uh they started using cheaper minimum use that's eight days a month programs, drop-in programs. Those those uh the use of those programs increased significantly. Uh, also our staffing costs have risen partly due to additional hours on early release days and then as you know uh minimum wage just keeps going up and up and up and we try to keep uh in step with that and so it just gets more and more expensive every year to keep people employed. Um, also our employee discounts have riven risen sharply since I
009think it was about three years ago. Um, we were directed to begin offering employee discounts to our FRIA Union High School District employees and that now accounts for I think it's about a third of all the sorry about a fourth of all the discounts that we give and it's a lot of money. This is just kind of showing that change in rate usage. And there's a lot of boring numbers here, but at the bottom I tried to kind of summarize it. The higher percentage of children enrolled at lower rates results in a more than 7% increase in enrollment. A lot more kids enrolled, but only about a 4% increase in revenue. And that increased revenue is more more than eclipsed by the necessary increase in staffing. We'll talk about this a little bit later, but
010if you add a kid who only comes one day a week, I have to staff for that five days a week because we guarantee our employees a regular schedule. And so, uh, Wednesdays are our big day, and we'll talk about it more in just a little bit, but it's a big increase in cost and and a very small increase in revenue. So like I was talking about the problem with Wednesdays uh the extended day enrollment is at capacity on Wednesdays due to early release and you know all the staff members kids who are in training they come on those days and there's a lot of other people who just need that time uh when the when the school gets out a little bit early on those days and and on average our employees work about
011an extra hour and a half more on Wednesdays. Uh which doesn't sound like a whole lot but it adds up to over $100,000 over the course of the year when you add up everybody's hours. It's a it's a big impact on our budget. Employee work schedules are five days per week, leaving us over staff on light days. We have very few kids, for instance, on Friday afternoons. Friday afternoons are usually, you know, by the time you hit 4:30, we're sitting there with six or seven staff members and four or five kids. And so, um, so we, you know, at at in our current structure, we can't staff lighter on those days. And then the extra kids who are attending on Wednesdays only are at the lowest rate level. And so we're making the least amount
012of money for them but having to spend five days a week on those kids. And I'll tell you what we're going to do about it. Uh I'll mention the discounts first. So this this just a quick breakdown of how our discounts are floating out. This is just for the month of February. Um and this is about where it trends um for the whole year. Uh since opening employee discounts in 2023, total discounts have risen by more than 20%. And you can see that right now 22% of all of our discounts go to our free employees. So these are some things we're doing. Number one, um we've been working with Sandy uh Satderfield to uh work on some different staffing options. One is the creation of new work calendars that will allow for employees who work
013only on our heavy days. So Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Uh we're going to try that out. you know, our college kids want either Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Tuesday, Thursday, but then we have high school kids who only want to work a day or two here and there. And so, we feel that we can make that work. We can fill in on those heavy days and not have to staff as heavily on our light days, Mondays and Fridays. Also, um you know, we send out a notice of appointment to all of our employees every spring. All of our classified employees get those and they always say a certain work schedule on them. And so, um, this year we're going to be doing that slightly different where we'll say variable hours. Uh, now we don't want to cut
014our employees hours so much that we lose all of our employees, but we want to be able to, uh, once a week or so for each employee, send them home an hour or two early when we don't need them anymore. Uh, and that'll save actually quite a quite a bit of money. It's a huge amount of money that that would save just being able to send one person home per site per day uh, over the course of a year. Um, we've reduced the number of refunds through our office this year by 33%. We'll we'll continue that effort. Um, you know, our our policies that were in place uh favored people who left midmon and we would refund what was remaining. Uh, but our policy now that we've shared with parents since the beginning of the
015year is that we have to staff for the month. We're spending money even even if your kid leaves. And so we we don't refund that tuition that's left over through the end of the month anymore. Uh, and it's been a it's been a big difference in the amount of refunds that we're we're offering. Um, if there, you know, if there's a if there's a a legitimate reason for a refund, certainly we don't want to keep people's money if we shouldn't have it. Uh, but this was a something that was costing us money. Um, we're also proposing that we end the discount for our union high school district employees. Um, we're proposing that we change the usage policies for minimum use rates to allow for more strategic staff scheduling. Uh, in other words, instead of saying
016you can have a minimum use day whenever you want it and uh, just tell us the day before, we can't staff for that. We can't schedule ahead of time for that. And so, instead saying, well, minimum use is for Wednesdays. If you need if you need an extra day other than Wednesday, you can tell us a week ahead of time. And that way we can staff for it. we can if we need an extra person there that day because we're going to have more kids then we can schedule for that uh otherwise we don't need to have extra people there so that'll save us money and then no longer paying the electronic transaction fees and if I could speak to that just for a minute um you know we're moving to a new child care
017child care management software system and right now our childcare management software doesn't allow for having parents pay the um transaction fee And right now, so we cover that and right now that's anywhere between 10 and $12,000 per month depending on the month. It's a lot of money. [snorts] And so the new software allows for us to either pass that on to parents or to uh offer AC for free. You know, if they do the direct um bank accountto bank account transfer, uh then there's no uh credit pro processing fee. um and that um now they charge us more money for their software because they're losing that transaction fee. But if we take that latter option, it's still saving us about $53,000 a year. If we take the former option where we offer parents where we
018say to the parents, hey, you're going to have to cover the um transaction fee. It saves us about $108,000 a year, but it amounts to an effective 3% increase in tuition uh on top of the 5% that we're already proposing. Let's see. Am I pointing this in the right place? Okay. So, our our strategic plan alignment certainly we want to maintain fiscally sound and sustainable programs. We want to compensate for foreseeable increases in costs. Uh we know minimum wage is going up again. Uh hopefully we can offer them a raise next year. All those things are going to cost money. Also ensuring the ne the resources necessary to maintain and continually improve high quality services. is what's best for kids. Uh and certainly we believe that continuing to be able to provide these afterchool uh
019care on campus in a safe setting is what's best for kids and we need to be able to fund it in order to do it. Uh I mean you know I mean those of you who know me well I'm kind of a softy. I would offer it free if I could. Uh I don't want to I don't feel good about raising rates and I don't feel good about uh not raising rates. Certainly, we don't want the district to have to subsidize our programs and so we're going to do what we have to do. Financial impact on preschool. Right now, tuition is not meeting program costs and the pro proposed increase will compensate for pay increase, inflation, and increased operating costs. And then also the same thing for extended A. It's not meeting program costs at
020the moment. And uh so the tuition increase would help meet anticipated program costs. Right now there are um and this was a couple weeks ago, but currently 1,178 extended day kids taking advantage of our programs. 335 preschool children. Um our preschool enrollment is open for next year now. It's been brisk so far. A couple of our programs are just about full already and it opened um yesterday. Uh the general enrollment opened yesterday. And of course, uh, current and prospective employees are infected are are affected by this. The new rates would take effect starting July 1st, 2026. July 31st, 2026. There any questions or comments? >> Miss Wallace, did you have any questions or comments about this? >> Um, I I don't have any questions. I like the idea of changing work schedules. it seems to
021make the most sense to employ people on your heavier days and not have them there on Friday afternoon and also having the option to send people home when your ratios support that. Um it seems like the most logical next step to to balance that budget a little bit better for you. So that's my only comment. >> Thank you for mentioning that. And I'll just point out if any of our employees are listening, we want to do that in the most equitable way possible. Uh we don't want any person to feel like they're being singled out to have to go home when they need the money. And so the first question would always be, do you want to go home? And if someone's volunteering to go home, uh then of course we'd we'd let them go.
022Uh and and then after that there'd be a rank order where yesterday was your day, tomorrow's your turn, where nobody's getting it too much. >> Mr. for mics. >> Um my comment is I I appreciate the approach that you go about with everything and breaking down the data for us to to see how it works. I was um I was curious what is your anticipated thought on how the messaging is rolled out as far as these increases and everything. Well, I mean, enrollment starts enrollment for preschool has already begun. And so, uh, we would simply send out a message to those parents saying, "Thank you for registering. Here's the new rates." Um, as far as extended day, um, you know, there would be we'd be working with San Juanz to make sure that, uh, that
023we're presenting it in the most respectful way that we can and explaining the reason why why we're having to raise the rates. >> Right. Thank you, >> Mr. Owens. Yeah, I have a few questions. This [clears throat] [snorts] for a parent who has a child in an extended day and a child who's in private preschool who we considered the option of um you know through LD um do the uh so the um the fees for the 929 that's per month, right? So when you charge because I I mean it's charged I looked at my same it's charged per month, right? It's not >> right. So, where I'm currently charged for private daycare, it's per week. Um, so have you thought about going to a per week model to see what that would maybe change it
024if do you know what I'm saying? Like, so I paid 365 a week >> at private daycare, >> which comes out to$,460 if you do four full weeks, right? So, we're so much cheaper, 929 even at the increased rate. But >> right, >> I'm just wondering why they charge a weekly versus a monthly and we don't. Maybe >> part of that is and I I don't want to disparage any commercial daycare. There's certainly many fine wonderful commercial daycare centers out there, but partly is >> business. >> I'm sorry. >> Sorry. I'm thinking in my head and out loud. Sorry. >> Yeah. Um they they don't necessarily have the same qualifications that we have to hold people to. uh school districts are actually held to a higher standard uh through licensing, through dees, and through case
025law to be honest. Um so that we actually have to uh hire people who have higher qualifications. Uh another is that they generally can have a more flexible staffing model, which is kind of what we're talking about today. Uh in a lot of daycare centers, if they don't need someone, they just they just send them home and they're not paying for people that they don't need. And so that's that's another factor there. Um, as far as a weekly um, rate is concerned, we actually had that discussion in the there's an Arizona Community Ed Association. I sat down with directors from many different districts and I asked them, some actually do a daily model. Catalina Foothills does that and they say it's a nightmare and they can't make money that way because they have to staff
026for the month. They have to tell people you're working on these days this month. Uh, but if if people are pulling out for this day or that day, then they're then their revenue actually decreases on a per month basis when they're paying per day. And then the the districts that are doing it weekly say something similar that a family might not use it this week, but they will use it another week. And so they won't pay for the week that they don't use it. Uh but again, we're having to staff for the entire month. We're putting out because we're a school district, we're putting out a work calendar that says these are the days you'll work this year. and and we're guaranteeing them guaranteeing them those days. And so, uh, although certainly we're willing to
027look at the numbers and to see how that would how that would float out, we would have to h we would have to charge a higher weekly rate in order to make it level out so that we made the same amount or more per month. >> Correct. Yeah. So, yeah, for example, we and I'm not trying to I'm just in my head trying to make it sense. So, like for example, if we want to disenroll our student or we have to pay every week whether they go or not, right? because that's their spot. We're paying for their spot. So, if we say, "Hey, our kids's not coming next week, you still got to pay." Okay? >> If you don't want to pay, right, >> next person in line. So, if we have a wait list,
028right, like that might be >> that's like, hey, you you have to use it and pay for it or else you lose it, >> right? Yeah. >> So, but that's just um it definitely is still cheaper the >> private preschool. >> Sure. then uh or no the LSD than the I'm sorry, private preschool. Um and I do like the model of staff. It's kind of like, you know, you're a waiter. Hey, we're slow. You're getting cut, right? Who wants to go? >> Is there something I'm not seeing? Is there would there be a benefit to going to a weekly model that you see that I'm >> maybe not considering? >> No, I don't have I just was wondering why just >> because I've see both. And so again, if you're paying for a whole month,
029some days you're paying for like this month exactly is four weeks. Exactly. Yeah. >> Right. Some other months are four weeks and three days. So that's why I'm saying if you pay weekly or daily or whatever, you actually can charge more. >> I see. >> Right. Per you can charge more days if you're not charging for the full month. >> Right. >> That's I just wonder if the model looked at it and it sounds like you had. So appreciate that. >> Thank you, >> Miss Moran. >> Yes. When I read through this presentation, Dr. stair. I would say it seems almost like you've done this before because all of my questions were answered in the presentation. So, I really appreciate that. >> Thanks. Um, my only commentary would be that I do appreciate the thought
030that was put into the reasoning behind your changes as well as outlining for us and for parents the cost-saving measures, what that's going to look like for them and really explaining the why that, you know, this is one of the areas we actually do have control over both the revenues and the expenses that are happening. And so, um, I like that we are being completely transparent with the why behind, um, the increases and then all of the factors that went into into making this decision. So, I appreciate that. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I appreciate it. >> Mr. Owens, do you have another >> Sorry, I did have one more um question. Do the Afria Union High School teachers get paid the Do they get the same discount as the LD teachers? >> They
031do currently. They do. Um, is there I don't love the idea of removing that. I understand we have to. Is there a way to maybe see about a smaller discount, but still some type of discount? I don't >> I can sit down with Michael and run the numbers and see see what that would do. Um, you know, we we figured out 5% from a certain threshold of cost savings. You know, if we save this much money, then we only have to do it 5%. If we don't save as much, then it would be six or seven or whatever. And so we'd have to see what that would do, but I'd be be happy to sit down and look at that. Um, yeah, we are allowing them to do the early registr, you know, the priority
032registration. We did allow that. Uh, so that they could, you know, just like one of our employees, they could they could register their kid early. >> Yeah. >> Okay. I have two questions. Uh, my first question, Mr. Owens kind of already jumped to with the weekly thing, and it's not so much uh weekly. I was wondering, can we, for me, it's breaking it down to not be $900 in one big payment for our families, right? Is there a way we could do it? Like, you pay twice a month. And I agree with the idea cuz most daycarees, right, it's you pay whether you come or you don't. So, you pay it or you're out. I I would think that would be fine, but just to make it so it's not such a big hit potentially
033for some of our families. >> I Yeah, we could. Um, you know, currently we do that on a on a case- by case basis. if they call and ask and they say, "Hey, I need to do this, you know, I need to align this with my paychecks, my pay periods." And we do that. We've worked that out with people. Uh, and it might actually be easier just to do it for for everybody. >> I mean, do we have a system? Is it set up right now where it's an autopay thing or we have them pay us on their own? >> With our current software, we don't. They have to individually go and with the new software we're getting, it actually does have that ability. >> So, we could potentially, if we had looked at an
034option of breaking it into two payments, it could be an autopay thing. >> We could >> set up. Okay. >> Um, just looking at if that doesn't work out, that doesn't work, but just kind of thinking how can we make this easier on our families. Um, and then the other thing is does the AUA Frier staff that are going to be losing this benefit, do they know that we're potent that we're already talking about this, have we made them aware? >> We haven't sent out messaging on that yet. No. >> Okay. Okay. That was the only questions I had. Did anybody else have any other questions on this item? It's just discussion for now. will come forward in a future meeting for voting, but for now, this is just discussion. >> Okay. Anything else? >>
035I think we're good. Thank you very much. Sorry you had to wait. Thanks for coming back. Thank you for coming back. >> Not at all. Not at all. It's a pleasure. Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay. Moving on to the big topic of the night. Um, our fiscal year 27 budget. discussion which um is going to be led by CFO but uh Dr. Davidson would like to start us off tonight. >> Thank you, President Zidum and members of the board. Uh people in the audience and those online and thank you for giving us a opportunity again to come before you tonight to discuss some uh different uh budget levers and some things that we may need to do um to move us into next year. I just had some guiding principles. There's some things I
036wrote down um for us to consider tonight. one, we know that we have to reduce our annual spend. Um that we know that cuts are needed to to be made. Um we know that in this time of reduction and and we've we've spoken to it, there's not just one best scenario. There's a variety of levers that can be pulled. Um and certainly our proposals over the last many weeks have demonstrated that. Um bottom the real bottom line is I just wish we didn't have to, but we know we have to. Um, you know, over the the last few weeks, I think all of us, including our board members, have really had to consider um, and I say all of us, whether that's our administrative team here, um, those that have weighed in, have really had
037to consider the the characteristics of our Lichfield learner. And I just want to highlight those six areas because I think uh the conversation over the last few weeks has caused me to at least think about communication, character, teamwork, how do we problem solve? Are we continuously learning? And really, do we dig in? Are we content experts? And I and I think we've done that. Um the wonder tonight might be, okay, so last week we had a conversation. How did we get here tonight? And so I just wanted to throw some information out to the team as a whole that after our last meeting um the team and I took some very direct feedback from our principles and we were asked to talk about um a variety of other ways where we could find cost savings.
038We brought all of our principles together to hear their thoughts to explain the reasoning we had and also to capture their reasoning um and to really try to find a way to develop a plan that would be acceptable. Uh, and again to revisit what what I've shared before to really um to limit um the um the um how should I say this to limit the way it negatively impacts our instructional programming. So um as you would expect the the data that that we got caused us to revise our plan. It caused us to um capture a voice of of the school leader on behalf of their teams that I find very impactful. Um, we want to recognize that voice. Um, and we still felt like we could bring to the board some information that, um,
039made sense. Um, we know we're in the kid business. We know we're in the school business. And no matter where we end tonight, we have to get to a place where our schools, our leaders can win. Um, as as we move ahead, um, I hope that I've been clear that I believe this conversation on reducing a budget, the stewardship of our resources, it's not a oneanddone scenario. This is a conversation we'll likely continue to have. Um, I hope that the board feels like, and for those that have been following along with us, that um, there's some a large amount of detail to consider as we make options around our budget. and um we'll continue to provide any information possible to support our board in in their decision-m. So, thank you for letting me start it
040off and uh I'll turn it over to Mr. Vaughn. >> Thank you, >> Madame President, members of the governing board, Superintendent Davidson, colleagues, and community. Thank you for joining us tonight to continue the discussion around potential options being considered for the district's 2026 2027 budget year. Um much of tonight's presentation really does align uh with last um Thursday's presentation. So my plan is to focus on those adjustments. Um and then uh we did have a request to uh allow the governing board to dig into uh class size proposals utilizing the model that um we've been using behind the scenes. So I do have that model tonight to allow us to to look at that in real time as well. The first uh change you'll notice is uh uh yet another slight increase, not dramatic increase
041but slight increase to uh reductions around uh department and administrative uh changes. Um, this slide still uh just points to uh the uh work of the Arizona Auditor General's Office. Each year they publish what's called the dollars in the classroom report that looks at various uh types of district spending uh and identifies cohorts of districts that they uh designate as peers to allow districts to compare themselves against like districts to see how um how we're doing in various areas. In their most le recently published report, uh, prior to these reductions, uh, the Arizona Office of the Auditor General already found that Lichfield Elementary School District has very low uh, administrative spending compared to like or peer districts. Um, so I just think that that's uh important to highlight because we've already done a significant amount
042of work uh around maintaining a lower level of administrative spending, but that is prior to the proposed reductions um which total over $700,000 uh in the current uh iteration of the recommendation. This slide is new uh entirely. This details uh the changes that we uh are proposing around departments and the district office. Um previous to this we had not been able to provide that level of detail because there were still conversations being had with uh individual employees. Uh but this does for the first time detail out what makes up that uh position reduction. This shows the detail of the reduction uh around uh district stipens that you saw itemized uh in the earlier slide. Um and then we will see uh uh a slight change here. Uh this is simply because uh I recalculated the
043cost of the minimum wage adjustment against a 1.5% uh increase. The reason the the cost of the minimum wage adjustment does go up considering a 1 and a.5% increase is uh more staff members would have to be adjusted um than under a 2% scenario because there were a small number of employees that a 2% scenario was more beneficial to them than the proposed adjustment. So, uh, under a 2% raise scenario, the cost of the minimum wage adjustment is 101,000. Under a 1 and a.5% raise scenario, the cost of the minimum wage adjustment is 125,000. So, not as not a super significant difference, but one that I I wanted to bring some level of attention to. Uh this uh is also a new slide. So this uh demonstrates a new uh potential proposal uh around class
044size and truly looks at what a one student uh increase across the board and target class size uh with uh tightening what that looks like. Um, on all of these class- size uh slides, I did add an additional column just to provide an additional piece of information for uh sake of conversation. Uh, that column is the beginning of the year's smallest class size. So if you look at the uh columns on the rightmost side of the slide, it it goes uh smallest uh beginning of the year class size, average, and then largest. So what that's truly giving you is based on applying this standard, what is the range of class sizes that we would expect to see in that grade across the district. Uh in a little while when we look at the model we'll
045be able to see how that fared uh across the various schools. The other class size uh slides were only updated in the sense of I added in that column uh for comparability sake but otherwise uh they were not adjusted. None of these slides changed. I'm uh simply uh getting to the um administrative recommendation. So this shows an updated administr administrative recommendation that includes increasing class size for one each in each grade maintaining additional support target at three above that class size target which in the previous slide was denoted as the administrative recommendation. Um to maintain certified support staffing standards to what it currently is. Implement a 1 and a half% raise with a minimum wage adjustment. maintain full day kinder and implement all other cuts. Uh as discussed, similar to last week, this uh just
046models out what uh that looks like from a savings perspective. Um and and you can see the total there at the bottom. Uh that truly uh walks us through the changes to the presentation from last week. Um I'm happy to do one of two things at this point. Uh I can pull up that uh model and we can look at that uh that uh Excel uh document so that we can look at what the administrative recommendation looks like across our schools and grades. Um or we can pause for questions. Uh, I'll leave that uh to the board's discretion. Thank you. >> Um, I was hoping we could start with some questions specifically with Miss Wallace since she was not at our last meeting. So, I want to make sure she has a chance to share
047her feedback. Um, and then we can pull that up because I think that will be helpful for the conversation also. So, Miss Wallace, since you were not here last time, I thought we could start with you. >> I got to start last time I was here. So, >> sorry. >> It's good. Um, okay. I did have a chance to watch the entire last board meeting and I have shared with some of my peers when you watch on YouTube and YouTube knows they have you captured. They send you a lot of advertisements. So that 4-hour meeting took about five. Um, but I got through the entire meeting and I heard everyone's comments at that time and I have read more emails than I've ever read in my life recently. And I do feel that the keeping
048the support staff seems to very strongly be the desire of the schools. With that said, and I and I don't want to take that away from them, I still am not comfortable with how high the class sizes are with plus one and going up to three. That sets our middle schools at 36 students. And I personally reached out to many middle school teachers this week and almost all of them are currently sitting at 34 in their class. And I'm not comfortable increasing that more where this is just going to push them to 36 37 all the time. And I know I've said this from the beginning, but those middle school numbers are so high and physically that it doesn't they don't fit well in the classroom that way. It creates more behavior problems. It's harder
049on the teachers. And I know that the teachers, a lot of them have said, you know, we want our raise. We'll take more kids. But that is the number one reason for burnout in research as well. And so I understand that they want the raise. I want to give them the full raise. But I think that it it is always more work in grading, in behavior problems, in talking with parents. And I think that every student we add does diminish the quality that the children in that classroom are receiving. I don't know. I've said all along I'm willing to move up on this. And I'm not saying we can't do nothing. we have to do something. But I'm still not comfortable putting middle school classes at 36 and 37 and saying that that's going to
050be okay. Um because my point is that they're not going to even consider something additional until it's 37. So, they're going to sit at 37 until it's additional. Right now, I know every middle school class at Palm Valley, every single one is at sitting at 34. Mr. Von, do you want to pull up the class thing? I think now might be a good time for that so that we can see what that would actually look like for the campuses. >> The nice thing about um having the the model with us tonight is if it's the pleasure of the board to see um a change in any uh class size target or even in the tightening approach um we can model that real time together. Let me just move this uh laptop so I can um
051use the laptop that it's on. >> Can I ask a clarifying question? >> Of course. >> In doing this, you're assuming that the board members don't understand how this is going to look. I we received a request uh to be able to see how it looked at at at individual uh site levels. Um and so this was just the best way we could think to to address that request. >> Okay. So, can I ask um the board, similar to what I've asked before, are we making these decisions based on a one-year impact to one site or are we making these decisions based on a long-term strategy? >> Anyone would like to answer that? I will say I think uh to the point of highlevel long-term um I think the data in the slides actually speaks
052to what long term we can expect because we're setting a target and we're setting a maximum. >> Yeah, I agree with that. But that's where I'm wondering, are we making this decision based on what next year looks like or are we making this decision based on the targets and the minimums and the maximums? Because those are two different decision points. >> They're two different approaches. Yes, for sure. Thank you. >> Um, so I'm the one that asked, Mr. Vaugh. I mean, someone else may have also, but based on what I've heard up here of people asking, wanting to see what that looks like per campus because we know looking at smallest class size versus largest class size that many of our schools are not going to really be different. So, I think that it's important
053to see the whole picture of what it looks like rather than one class is going to be at this number and another class is going to be at this. It's I think it's very important for us to see that most of them are somewhere in the middle, right? Most of them are not that highest size and most of them are not that lowest size. >> Well, yeah, that's how you get to the average. >> It had just been brought up by other board members that they wanted to kind of see what it looked like per campus. I don't think that for me I I I don't need to see it to to know what I think is the right thing, but I think it's just helpful for overall the community and the people that are
054seeing and hearing these conversations to know what that actually looks like. It's not just about what it looks like next year. But yes, that's a number we can look at for right now to see what that is overall. >> Madame President, if you don't mind, I could ask Mr. Vaughn please to demonstrate what it would look like at a smart smaller school. Mhm. >> Then potentially at a middle school, a standalone middle school, then also a K8 just so the board could see what that looks like and if that is helpful. >> Yes. >> Um so what we're seeing in front of us here, how this um how this model operates is uh we set targets. That's what that's what you're seeing here. So what I have plugged in is the uh current administrative recommendation.
055We then roll forward the students from this year to next. And what I mean by that is we progress them a grade and then to see what what the difference would look like. On this tab, we we look at current uh home room gened teachers. Um there's formulas that based on the targets and uh the number of students in each grade you see uh the number of teachers it uh it supports. And then down here I actually think this is what's going to speak uh most closely. [clears throat] Let me try to make this a little bit bigger for you. Um I think this is going to speak most closely to uh the conversation. This calculates the resulting uh class size. Um and so when I was creating those slides for for the presentation, I
056was using this average uh I was using this max and I was using this smallest uh number. I did round these a little bit uh more closely just to make them easier to read. Um which is why they may not match exactly to what's in the presentation. But I realized going to multiple uh decimal points doesn't add that much value um especially in this context. And so you can see uh setting the board approved class size for example in kinder at 26, it really does result in uh some at 20. um a couple in the 28 range and then to the point um there's many in the middle that results in an average around 25 which is actually our current um target. And you can see that as we as we go across >> real
057quick, um the numbers for Troy Gilbert, those are based on what's currently at enrolled. >> Uh those are based on because of we're just in a unique scenario with Troy Gilbert right now. They're based on the demographer estimates of what we might see at Troy Gilbert. Um, >> I feel like that number is way low. >> We have to a certain extent >> uh over overstaffed Troy Gilbert. Um, and we've had conversations with that administrative team that as we get closer and have more um insight into what will actually occur on that campus next year, uh, it could be tightened and adjusted. Uh what we're worried about though is uh being unprepared for the families that that may choose to to send their kiddos there. Uh because we don't expect the uh we don't expect
058the outcome to look like what we've been having where we've asked those families to travel across the district. Uh it'll be a brand new school and it'll be much more convenient. Um but but that's why you're seeing that for that school in particular. >> Can can you please do me a favor and elaborate a little bit more on what you mean by overstaffed and the ability to walk that back based on numbers and how that would work. Just for anybody out there who has concern that we're going to have dollars overusage some places while we're making cuts other places. >> Sure. Um any place that we actually see a reduction in uh teachers, whether it be because of this model or uh we we have this happen honestly pretty frequently in the kindergarten grades because
059uh that's more of a educated guess than than in the other grades because we really don't know how many kinders are going to come. uh we work to reassign that staff member to uh any place that we might have an opening. Um and one of the things you'll you'll realize that you haven't heard uh executive director Satderfield or I say uh in all of these conversations is reduction in force. And the reason we've not had to use that language is even though all of these models reduce the number of teachers that we need, uh it's the reduction is uh greatly under the number of teachers that we hire on an average year simply because of turnover or attrition. Um and so we would be utilizing a a similar approach to that. Um, executive director Satfield,
060do you want to add anything to that? I know you actually just very recently had those conversations at that location. Madame President, members of the governing board, thank you for the opportunity to speak to this. So, I have had the conversations along with Mr. Jenkee with the employees that we know may be more likely to be impacted. uh and that would be our middle school teachers because we don't know what's coming there. So we talked to them about what the process would be and how soon we would net let them know which is soon as we know and then the process is from an HR perspective is we will work diligently with each one of them to find a placement that is acceptable to them. We will look at their credentials, their years of experience,
061um, and all of the things because our goal is, um, Dr. Davidson has direct me that we want to retain our staff, which is something we always want to do. And so it would be irresponsible me and my team if we didn't look to find those places where people are comfortable, where they're properly credentialed and also just um to the extent possible because many of our folks live in our communities to make sure that we make it, you know, if they're a westside person, if we can help them get there or to the east side, whatever is best for them, But we'll work diligently to do that. And so we gave that assurance to the the teachers that we talked with at uh Troy Gilbert. But we'll provide that same service to anyone else who
062is displaced or surplused as some people like to call it wherever they are. I'm happy to talk more in detail about any of these numbers, but I I don't actually have um more to share uh than what you see. I do think uh to board uh President Zida's point um this should show you uh that that there really does become a range um and and they they do calculate to that average. Um you do end up with uh those schools that just by the nature of how many students are rolling into that grade uh end up higher. Um, and it's the same reason some schools end up lower. Uh, it's just honestly how the math works out. >> And to clarify for once our classes, so for our middle school for instance, when they get
063to 35.5, if it's before school starts, which we see some of these are, um, that would be 2.5 over. And so with our Titan stuff, that is when we would look at adding supports for them. So the 2.5 uh is actually what's allowing it to get to that point. Okay. >> If I um so so additional supports would not come until three. If I changed this flexibility number to 1.5. [clears throat] Well, let before I do that, let me hold on. They gave me a Mac and now I have to learn to use Mac on the fly. Um, so you'll see here that this reduces 32 32 teachers. If I change this to maintain what we presently utilize as a 1.5 threshold at the beginning of the year, we didn't change class sizes at all,
064but it adds uh what is that difference? Five teachers. Um, and that's because anywhere that you saw before in those average class sizes that were uh more than 1.5 over are now it added another teacher to keep it um at that point. I hope that makes sense. Okay, Miss Wallace, did you have any more questions regarding this stuff while he has this up here? >> No, I think that I honestly I like this being able to see this. I love your Excel spreadsheets that change everything so quickly for us. Um, again, I I feel more comfortable with with having that that added two instead of the three personally because we all know this doesn't happen overnight. We don't hit those numbers and tomorrow there's support. So, these teachers are going to go a month or
065more before something kicks into into place to help when these classrooms are sitting at 37. And that just makes me feel very uncomfortable. >> If it would be the pleasure of the board, I could um I mean, we've seen how quickly this updates, right? uh I could model um if we did no increase in middle school class sizes if middle school is the primary um point of concern. >> Yes, if you could show that >> Michael as you move into that scenario. Um could you or you or Miss Satderfield also just um remind the board and maybe Miss Wallace just cuz she wasn't here the last meeting what our proposal is around the additional resources to those teachers that might be stuck >> for a period of time with extra kids. >> I mean I'm
066happy to hear it again but I did I did hear it and >> Okay. No, if you're good. No, no worries. I just want to make certain. >> Yeah. And I and I do appreciate that. And uh to be completely honest, this is coming from a place where I was a teacher that sat drastically over the threshold number three different years and waited in between 3 months and 6 months to ever get the support that was actually coming. And that was not the pro that was and I don't mean that that you're not willing to give it. I mean there's not candidates available. There's not people to fill those positions at that time. And that happens and I know the reality of that even though I'm not in any way questioning your integrity to do
067it. I just question putting ourselves in a position where that's even if we want to do it, it's just not happening. Um so this already shows um the impact of the reduction if we maintain um middle schools uh where they presently are. Uh so previously this $840,000 of additional savings over no change in class size was 1.2. Um, I can't do that mental math in my head, but it's a couple hundred,000. Um, I did actually model this out um, uh, previously. And uh if we change the administrative recommendation uh only in this way uh this recommendation would save 4.2 million. >> What are your thoughts on that, Miss Wallace? >> I am much more comfortable with that and I feel like in this scenario we can still keep our FTE at the same. we can
068keep the raise at the 1.5 that is recommended and I would be comfortable there. Again, I know no one wants to make any of these decisions, but that is the area that has woken me up in the middle of the night that I can't let go of the reality of how I feel about this. Okay, Mr. Mike, uh, how about you? Well, I definitely like seeing things come down in the numbers. I'm not a fan of um moving up numbers uh at all or I should say nobody's a fan of doing that for class sizes. But um you know we're we're also playing around with some protections of stuff and trying to figure out what what Troy Gilbert's going to be. And um you I just I'm just concerned about the the top for for
069all of the all of the grade levels when once again I keep on going and I look back and say we already have targets and support targets in place right now that we're struggling to schedule to that I'm trying to figure out why this would be um be any different. And if it is different at some point I sit back and we're playing with these numbers as far as you know what it changes and I say okay additional 840,000 and then that takes us to 4.2 million in savings and then you know keeps us from having to dig too far into reserves and then I start sitting back going you know what's the point of our reserves that we have to to balance out some of these drastic changes. I mean, we're playing, you know,
070I I feel like the shift with class sizes is kind of playing with fire right now because of the school shift that we have. We have the, you know, the expansions of the K8 school. With that, we're trying to we're taking in two other things as far as the tightening of the staff um for our practices and all all of that stuff combined. And I'm questioning whether, you know, we need to go this far with staff or with uh with the um class sizes as at all, especially when we sit back and we run numbers and we see these massive cuts that were made at the district office as well. >> Mr. Owens, >> can you do me a favor and go back to the um the breakdown where it shows each school? >> Thank
071you. No. Um >> yeah, >> I just need to scroll down. >> Perfect. >> So, the only thing that would have changed is our middle school. >> Are you So, can can you remind me what's the I think it's on the slide. How much do we get per pupil? 14,000 11,000 No. Uh we get uh about $5, uh $1113 per weighted pupil. Yeah. Luckily, Hayes asked me that question before the board meeting, so I still have it uh stuck in my head. [clears throat] >> You just have that memorized off the top of your head. We know. >> I'm I was just thinking if obviously we're all speculating and the I how many more students at Troy Gilbert, right? Because every student that's below the minimum class size that we add is additional revenue. That's
072not costing us any more money. Right? So that kindergarten class is 17. If it's 23, it stays under. That's >> that is the uh strategic role of open enrollment that you've heard me talk about before. So when we staff at these numbers uh and we we truly roll the kids in them, that's when we then see how many open seats we have. And this does give an estimate of that. Uh and and those are the seats that we can uh offer to uh students who may not be boundaried for that school but may have a desire to attend that school. And that is why open enrollment is a strategic opportunity for us. Uh because it it gives us some level of opportunity to bring in revenue uh and fill those um classrooms and capture capture
073those dollars to allow us to support other um I wouldn't say additional uh supports at our schools, but they're a significant part of what allows our current budget to work. about 10% of our current student uh enrollment is out of district open enrollment. Um sadly we would be having a a much more drastic conversation uh if we did not uh utilize open enrollment in that strategic fashion. >> Got it. I I'm the reason I'm thinking of it just because we just took I like the model of not reducing the middle school number just again for a lot of the reasons that board member Wallace brought up and so that's a $360,000 swing >> and when you're looking at how to make that up >> again that's the problem we're all dealing with projections and forecasts
074we don't have solids I personally think Troy Gilbert will be more more um more well attended than these numbers which will help but um yeah I don't really have any questions other than than that. I like this. Thank you for doing this. I think it helps with >> just understanding right like some some schools are well below the average. It just varies so much per grade which is interesting. >> Yeah. And sadly that's just uh how the math works. Um you know if we if we picked on a number and said well what happens if we reduced a teacher or increased a teacher uh what you would see is uh in those places that we have low class sizes if you decreased a teacher it would be uh dramatically higher than what we've stated we're
075willing to accept. That's actually how the formulas in this spreadsheet uh work to figure out um how many teachers we should start with. And we actually uh you'll see here um how this says staffed class size and review. Uh this has always been how executive director Satderfield and I uh do staffing each year. And so we truly use this to make sure does this pass the does this pass a review? Does it make sense? I mean yes it's calculated correctly because it's all formulas and it is calculated consistently but does it make sense? Um and so that's that's what you're getting to see. >> Got it. Yeah. So, uh, based on the information I've received, based on the feedback I've received, um, I do understand I've gotten some parental feedback about class sizes, talked to
076principles at multiple offh campuses. I feel like the administrative recommendation as is with potentially the option of the the adjustment for the middle school is, in my opinion, the ideal. um play here, >> Miss Moran. >> Um yeah, I mean I understand how the math is mathing. Yeah. So um I get that part. Uh I guess my feedback on the district uh administrative recommendation is that I feel like we don't have a strategy to go from one extreme to the other in the recommendation in a 48 hour time frame tells me this is not a measured thoughtout approach. This is a we need to get to a number approach. So for me, I'm definitely not comfortable with the 1.26 and mostly because it's not concrete and we know that. We've said that over and over
077again. It's not a concrete number. The 840 is not a concrete number. So because I partly because I do this for a living, I want to make decisions based on concrete numbers. And if I have a number that's not concrete, I want that number to be as small as possible. So I do think there are other options outside of the administrative recommendation that would get us at our goals or close to our goals because when I look at this recommendation now, there's a savings of 4.6 6 million on this slide and we're aiming for a savings of 3.5 to 4.5 million. So my first question becomes why are we recommending a 1.5% raise when we're overshooting our savings target. And so for me, you can't look at one without looking at the other. And you
078can't look at any of these things without looking at the total. And so I would prefer to again as as a broken record here be more conservative and slow our role on the class sizes because there doesn't seem to be a wellthoughtout strategy. And I think if we can implement smaller incremental changes this year that will give us time because to Dr. Davidson's point earlier, we know that there are more discussions to come, but that will give us time to get more valid feedback because we know the survey was not as valid as we wanted. We really haven't heard from parents and I think there are a lot of factors that can be weighed. We've shown that we can do that. Well, when we went to develop the strategic plan, we went through an entire
079process to get that feedback and have that all included in our plan for this district. And I think that we can do that same thing for our class sizes if we allow ourselves to have a little more flexibility with the time. And the beautiful thing about that is we do have healthy reserves that we can potentially utilize that to make sure that we are making the best decisions and not rushed decisions that we have not thoroughly thought out the ramifications for. And that's true with any of these things that we're looking at class size supports raises etc. For me, I want to guard the raises until there is no other way to meet our budget because that has long-term ramifications for our employees as well. So, those are my thoughts on um I can get
080more specific on what I think would be doable. Um but I know we got an email earlier with some feedback um or a suggestion from a board member. It wasn't for me. Um on maybe some ideas uh about how we can make that work uh with the reserves as well. Okay. [clears throat] So, I uh would be comfortable with what the the district is re recommending and I I appreciate that you guys took time to get feedback from the principles when they came to you, Dr. Davidson, on Friday and said, "We want to talk." you made it happen and you met with all of them and I think that's fantastic that you did that because that tells them that what they have to say and what they are seeing in their campuses matters. So I
081appreciate that you took all of that feedback and then worked with your team to come up with a recommendation that's based on that feedback that comes from their staff and we have heard from a couple of principles now that have talked about how much they appreciate that you were listening to them and to their feedback. Um, I would be okay with not changing middle if that seems to be like the big sticking point for some people. Um, because they are big. I mean, we we were just in a school recently and we see how many kids there are in a classroom. So, I understand that concern cuz they're just bigger people so they take up more space. Um, I think that I mean I have heard from a lot of middle school teachers that say
082it doesn't really matter to them, but I've also heard from people that say it does. So, I mean, that's kind of all over the board for that. I don't think we're going to get any really concrete answer for the middle school in that regard, but if we didn't change that, we would still be able to hit our target number we're looking at. But I'm not uncomfortable with the number being at 4.6 because of the fact that a lot of these are projections and we're not sure what they are. And so, that helps us to make sure that we're getting to a number we need to be at in case some of these don't work out. The other thing is is that we've kind of been talking about this and taking steps along the way already
083for the last couple of years and making changes. So while I appreciate the idea of baby step, baby step, baby step, one of the things we keep thinking is maybe enrollment's going to start coming back up and it's not. So the reality is we are where we are now and we can't keep hoping that enrollment numbers are going to come up and make decisions based on that. I think that we have to plan for what we know and hope for the best for next year and that our numbers do go up and that we go out and we get a marketing firm that's going to help us with enrollment and numbers are going to be way higher and then we're having a very different conversation next year. That is my hope but we still have
084to plan like that's not happening. So I think that this has been a very hard process for a lot of people to go through and also a lot of feedback I've gotten from people is that they don't want to feel like this every single year. So, if there's a way that we can minimize next year because we've already been we've been trying to make it slower, slower, slower, do what we can. We do have healthy reserves and we have been using those and we still have them, but we're going to run out of them if we keep taking these tiny baby steps. So, I think that it would be better to make a bigger move now and have it be not such a big adjustment next year when we have to talk about this again
085because of the fact that I am thinking long term and I am thinking about our staff and how they're going to feel dealing with this every single year. So, um, with that, I I would support what the district recommends, but I would also be okay if we wanted to not increase the numbers for middle school. I do think it's possible to keep the 2% raise also as an idea. Did anybody else have any? >> I I just I mean, so I sent an email to get some clarification. I've been pouring over this um all weekend. um and then almost forgetting at some point that you know some people are not working over the weekend. and I don't want to call him and bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo
086bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bother him to say hey what if this what if that and I I constantly was coming to this conclusion of well first off with the current AC administrative recommendation I looked at it and said why are we you know trying to pour more money into our revenue at the you know our our uh you know reserves at the end at the end of it with all these massive cuts. And I said to myself, why are we going so far with uh this? And of course, I know we're going down the projection model and seeing what it looks like. Um and I'm hearing, you know, be careful in how many baby steps we take, but I feel like um now I'm newer
087to the board. This is only on my on my second piece here or second year here, but I feel like with the new, you know, with the new school opening up and and other other uh shifts with demographics and stu and students, this is a chance to take one more baby step, I think, to come out with a real legit plan as far as how we can address um some of the current situations of whether we, you know, or big discussions which we have to have. And so I sit back and say, "Okay, so we have these reserves. At what point are we okay with pulling out reserves to use them to float us through this opportunity to see if we can take a deeper look at it?" because I sit back and say once
088you cut into uh teachers raises whether it's you know you we we have 2% and yeah I know that's it's small in the grand scheme of things but um you know to me 2%'s better than 1.5 or one or zero and so I don't want to take that and I want to protect that. I sit back and I look and say um do we really have to change the class sizes? And keeping in mind, I went into the meeting on Thursday knowing that oh, we might have to suck it up on some of the support staff. Um, I know also I know class, you know, class raising class numbers could have been on the list. All these things that I took into consideration when looking at it. And so what I was I mean end
089result if I could get to the point I was sitting back and say if we take all the main cuts that we have um without touching and and keep the 2% we we had an original plan for $420,000 class change when the the cost savings pretty much end up to about 3.4 4 million. And I know our goal originally going into this was a three, you know, three three and a half to$4.5 million. And I said to myself, why not limit as much impact as possible on the teachers with with classes and keeping the raise and yeah, dig into the reserves. And I know the reserves takes us a little bit that would take us a little bit closer down to our midpoint. of of threshold, but definitely not to zero. And and some of
090this thing I I've always heard, you know, with my kids going here and being around of how fiscally responsible, you know, Lichfield tries to be. And I sit back and say, I think this is a this is a moment to take advantage of that and to try to wade through some of these choppy waters we have uh coming up. And so, um, I know with the email that we have and everything like that, but so that's that's what I'm saying. The I mean, I don't have a document for it. Um, I wish I I I don't know if um Michael can scroll to um the PowerPoint. Let me see if I can find the Yeah, if you go to uh uh slide 45. Yeah, sorry Michael, you're switching. Um >> slide. >> Yeah. So pretty
091much you know I'm saying okay those are those are all the things we take into consideration that's 2.38 and then the next slide it shows all the additional reductions which takes us to uh 3,12,790 and Then if we implement the on a on a previous presentation there was the $420,000 option which I wish I could. >> Do you want me to go to that slide? It is still in this one as well. >> Yeah, that'd be great. You can go to that. That's where I'm talking about where that four um that additional 420 comes in, which does not raise any class sizes from what they are. Now, keeping in mind that our goal is to if if we did this in the end, yeah, will will some teachers feel like their class sizes are going
092up? The answer is yes because there's a lot there's so many classes that are under these current class- size goals that we've had for a couple I think a couple years. And so we are trying to tighten that stuff up. So there are people that will say, "Oh, you know, if if something like this goes through, you know, Mr. Mike said, don't uh don't raise class sizes and I have a couple more kids in my class." Well, that's because we're just dealing with the uh with the uh current class size goals that we already have. So, you know, for instance, kindergarten, if you have 19 kids in your class, I mean, all along the goal has been to try to get, you know, 25 kids in the class, which um I'm not saying it's great.
093So, off of those numbers already, that as a teacher, if those were all maxed out, that does that still does feel like a like a lot. And that's where when I said that when I made the statement about playing with fire as far as adding one, well, you add one and then then there's three more added on to that trigger of when that happens. That's where all of that stuff really starts concerning uh concerning me. So I say take the reser, you know, utilize our reserves, stick with this, tighten up our our the stuff that we have, keep the raises for the teachers and that that will additionally then give us a chance we can go down all these other rabbit holes uh to look at and see of course also to see how the
094the tightening of the um the class goals works as well because also yes I do understand that's working you know that's working off of forecasts and projections. thoughts. >> I see all your notes sitting here. I appreciate all the work you've done and all that math. He's got notebooks here. >> Can I I let me say one more thing. There's also the um the with or without sped revenue stuff that we talk about and that that number has always been whether or not through all the different funding mechanisms and how you know how we have our kids it's you know it's 1,176,000 dollars. So there is you know there is that question of of course up in the air you'll see all the models that we have run of going this is with with uh
095with sped revenue and this is without it. So yeah, there is that point and I guess what I'm saying is if the if we had to worst case scenario without sped revenue, we would be dipping into our remaining reserve which leads us at 30,510,000 which is still $227,000 above the midpoint thresholds that we have established. And we talk about short-term and we talk about long-term plans. Uh to me, I feel like this is something that can slow some stuff down, like I said, to get to it because yes, I understand this, you know, as Michael's breaking a sweat over there to, you know, to not say, "Oh, yeah, let's keep on digging into those percentages." But that's where my numbers are. If we do have sped revenue, then that puts us um a million over
096the midpoint, which is closer to that, you know, top tier for our reserves, which I know we have to keep in balance, um too. And so, um that's the additional stuff. Sorry to cut you off. I just wanted to say those parts. >> Miss Wallace, did you have comments? I mean, I I do have to agree with board member Mike's that I am okay taking baby steps and I don't want to rattle the cage every year and have to do this, but I also feel like sometimes that's what is needed. Like, let's see what Troy Gilbert brings. Like, there are things that are new this year. And I agree with you that like yes enrollment hasn't gone up but at the same time we also have not opened a new school in a long time.
097It's and the schools that we did open like Bell and Sodto are busting at the seams and have been since we opened them. So if we have to have this conversation again next year, then we have to have this conversation again next year. That's I mean even if we made all of the cuts now and went up to 5 million, our enrollment could still be different next year and we could still have to have this conversation next year. There isn't a number that we're going to get at that we're going to say we're good for five years. like that's just not realistic. And so in a lot of ways, I agree with what board member Mike said that we do as little as we have to do to not affect the teachers this coming year
098and then we deal with what we have to deal with next year. I can appreciate that perspective. I feel like we've been saying that every year for many years now because we've had to deal with ESRE funds and then ESRE funds going away and with our declining enrollment and knowing that our enrollment was based on the demographer stuff that we we kind of had an idea that enrollment was going to go down, but we were kind of hoping that wasn't necessarily accurate. And so I I feel like none of us wants to do it, but the five of us up here have to make hard decisions and we have to be willing to make those hard decisions whether we like them or not because we're ultimately responsible for these taxpayer dollars that are that are
099given to our district and we have to make the most fiscally responsible decisions that we can. And I don't want to do any of these things, but I know that this has been a very difficult time on a lot of our staff. And if we don't make any major adjustments this year, then we're going to be looking at even more major adjustments next year based on the projections that we've been given, which Michael stuff has been pretty accurate actually. So, I mean, we're not anywhere different than we really thought we were going to be right now, other than we didn't want to make these cuts last year or the year before. And so here we are and we have the ability to make some changes in a way that is not going to drastically impact
100student success. It is going to allow the teachers to have the supports that they need in order to to help their students be successful. And so I think that we just have to be thinking about what is the best financial decision that we can make that also doesn't harm our students. And I don't think that putting this off another year is the best plan. We keep doing that. We have to at some point pull the band-aid off and say we have to do what we have to do, >> but our reserves are still within the right limit. Like we're not getting ourselves into a position where our reserves aren't where they can be. We had this conversation back in September, October, November where we talked about are we when we talked about our reserves like
101are we spending our reserves enough that we are doing everything we can and I think this conversation points to the fact that this is maybe where we use them >> and and additionally [clears throat] to the point as well I just want to say that um we still have options options. That's that's what I'm saying. We we have we have options. I mean, if we're, you know, we're we're talking about negotiating on something, of course, you know, okay, we're at a million dollar difference right now, uh, between whether it's three, you know, whether it's 3.4 and um, keeping the 2% raise. Don't touch any class sizes. Of course, we're in that position, too. Just a reminder, because of massive cuts that were made at the district office as well. But we have those we have
102those options of a reserve amount remaining reserves of 31,648,46518. and and until we completely run out out of the options because President Zida, I I I'm hearing what she's saying, too. Of course, there could be a moment when we don't have options, but we do have options is what I'm saying. And that's why I was, you know, pouring, you know, over all of the stuff trying to uh figure out. Of course, once again, the umbrella statement of, you know, we don't want to make any of these um uh decisions and we want what's best for kids. But then I sit back and say if we're willing to dig into the reserves for another million as far as what's best for kids, I mean, we're take then additionally, nope, we're not raising the class size by
103one. No, we're not raising the trigger point by three on top of that one. Yes, we are 100% giving the most we can give for the 2% uh the 2% raise to um to teachers and I'm just saying I like that option. I feel comfortable about it and also um I feel fiscally responsible about it as well. I'm not feeling that I'm going on a a bender to, you know, to spend some money that um, you know, that uh that we kind of have in the bank to see it and, you know, spend it. I do get flirting with those midpoint ranges and those lower ranges and everything like that. So, anyways. >> Okay. Can I add some commentary? >> Yes, please. Um, I think the difference, at least what my approach would be in
104the difference between what I would like to see happen in future discussions about the budget versus how we've done it historically is I actually don't want us to stop having these discussions. So, I think that I can get comfortable spending down our reserves and and and keep in mind the spending down the reserves is only getting us to our midpoint from what we can estimate. Again, there's a lot of estimates in these numbers, but the primary difference would be rather than us coming to next year and saying, "Oh, time to have the same discussion." What I would suggest is coming up with what I would equate to a disaster recovery plan of if budget reductions are needed automatically. We've already discussed our strategy. We already know what's going to be needed. What is going to
105impact our campuses? What's going to impact our students? And using that based on data, not feelings, not people. making removing ourselves and making those decisions based on a strategy which is how businesses generally operate and a strategy that keeps in mind our own strategic plan and the Lichfield learner and our Lichfield leaders and all of those things together because like I said before we have done that previously and I think if we give ourselves some time to work together on that we will be able to come up with a strategy that's transparent that's the other part is I get that these conversations have been hard for people but that does not mean that that means we have to do that. That is a sunk cost fallacy. We are not too far down any road right
106now to change our minds. And I do not want us to make a decision that we will then regret. And so I would like us to be more thoughtful about this knowing that yes, budget cuts will be on the horizon, but we don't need to wait to talk about them. We don't need to wait to strategize about them and we can work together to come up with joint solutions that are going to be as much of a win-win as possible and take the emotion out of these things if we can align those ahead of time when we don't feel under the gun to make a decision. And just to reiterate board member Mike's point, I've been saying for years that our reserves are too high. I am a financial expert and so I'm 100% comfortable
107knowing that our reserves might get closer to the midpoint than we've ever been in history. But I am 100% comfortable with that because again, I'm a dollar cost averaging kind of person. That is what I've been taught professionally. That's how I live my life as as in in every way possible. And so I just think this needs a more measured approach so we can have rules and guidelines that are agreed upon before we have to make the cuts. And then that will make the cuts much more easier if we can come up with the rules beforehand when it's not um again in a in a rushed way to be able to do that. >> Mr. Owens, >> the thing that I keep hearing and the reason why I feel like we've all asked these questions
108and Board member Mike just has had his presentation and all this stuff is because none of us want to make a decision that's wrong, right? Board member R man just mentioned that we don't want to make a decision that we're going to regret and that's why try this, try that, plug this in, right? We I've lost sleep over this too, right? The idea that I'm going to make a vote, cast a vote that is going to cost a human being their job or cost a human being dollars that they are absolutely owed because of the work they do. or a teacher is going to have a bigger classroom and it's going to cause her or him stress that's going to lead to burnout and let lead them to not feel like they're accurately compensated for
109the amazing task that they do every day. And every time I hear a new option, I feel like, oh, that could be it, but what about that? Right? We have all these different levers and if you pull one, one other one pops up and then it's like whack-a-ole. And so I do understand the idea of as far as the reserves go, I would I I know I've heard board member Moran mention that before, right? We should be and to make you sweat every year, we should be at the midpoint in my opinion, right? As close to it because why save money when it's going to affect people now. And I think that we have three the guar not guaranteed but you know quantifiable dollars that we can save with a smaller pull of a lever
110or maybe a different lever. I still think that what board member Zidma mentioned about, you know, pulling the class size lever, that's an adjustment that or that's an estimate. You sometimes might have to pull a bigger lever, you know, a 720,000 to get to 400 if we're wrong. So, I honestly don't know what to do right now. um other than um listen and hopefully that we have a presentation or at least a a package that I feel comfortable with and at the end of the day I don't think there's a right or wrong. There's just going to be what we do. >> Miss Wallace, Mr. Mike, do you have any more comments on this? >> The the one last thing I want to say is to the optics piece as we're going down and trying
111to bring kids and well and parents into our district to trust you know say hey come here um this the the further out I can push the idea of hey come to Lichfield we just raised our class sizes and we uh decreased our teachers raise doesn't you don't if I can keep from that on top of it as we're trying to figure out these plans of how to bring it in. Um that that's additionally one other thought as far as when we talk about where we're comfortable with things and why we're doing that. That's that's the that's the other piece. And of course I'm not saying a day is not going to come to where you know we we have to talk about it. But like I said, I just wanted to mention the optics
112piece and then also um you know that that that's one other piece that I looked at when I was trying to figure out um where where I'm there and where and where and why to uh dig into those reserves. >> I'd like to clarify that I did not want to change the raises that came about when we discussed last time the possibly not having to change middle school. But even with not changing middle school, with some of the other things that they found and how they've shored up some more money from the district office, it looks like we could still keep their 2% raise. But saying we're decreasing their raise, that's not really fair because it is them getting more money. And not everywhere across this country are people getting raises. I want to give
113our teachers the 2% raise that we have done typically every year. And I think that's a good I wish we could give them more, but I also think that we wouldn't be saying we're decreasing their rates. It's not like we're cutting their pay. >> Okay, I'm good with the semantics on that. I I appreciate you cleaning that up. You know, I've uh So, yes, I I agree with that. >> Miss Wallace, did you have anything else? Can we have a reason from you guys on why we shouldn't go into the reserves and why we shouldn't be at a midpoint? >> Uh there's not really a reason. The the primary concern I would have honestly is the speed at which we uh will be spending them down. Uh the trajectory we've had between actually being over
114our highest reserve target to all the way to the midpoint uh is a little bit alarming only in the sense that it means we couldn't have that same exact behavior uh in a future budget cut scenario. So, I do think potentially the decisions we make today will impact how we have to behave in the future around budget cuts. And stated another way, you just wouldn't be able to slowplay it quite as much in the future because reserves truly are that they're a savings account essentially. And when we're dipping into them, I think it's important to remember that we really are living above our means. They don't get replenished unless we start living not at our means but below our means. And so if we get to a point, and I'm not saying we're anywhere close
115to that point, but I'm just saying if we get to a point where reserves are actually lower than where we want them to be, the only way to get them back to where we want them to be is not to live at our means, but to live below our means. And I do think that that will result in a very difficult conversation because stakeholders will be able to look at at our spending and say you're not putting as much into the classroom or anywhere else for that matter as you could because you're spending below your revenue uh so that you can replenish your reserves. And I just don't know if we'll ever be in a spot uh where as an organization we're willing to to do that. I think the way and I could be
116wrong because I wasn't here but I think the way Lichfield got the reserves it did were was not an intentional approach but more overly conservative forecasting. Um and I have done I I say I we uh we have done a lot of work to extract that from uh the process. Uh which is why uh at the beginning of our budget conversations this year, it wasn't with terribly good news because we were not in a much better position than we forecasted. We were actually in a worse position. And so I don't know if there's a history uh maybe someone uh can can educate educate us on that but I don't think that there was a history of being willing to live below the organization's means. I think the way the reserves came to exist was overly
117conservative forecasting. >> Um I would agree with that knowing the history. Um, I think like I stated earlier, but just to state it again, the way I would be comfortable with taking us closer to the midpoint is if this board and the administration are willing to have proactive conversations and have a plan for the future cuts that will happen because we know they are going to happen. If nothing changes, they are going to happen. But the ability to be more strategic and have um and more transparent honestly with those decisions to me makes that worth it because if you equate it to your family finances, you know, everyone knows you're supposed to have six months of emergency savings, right? Or three months, whatever your theory is. Let's say six months. as an individual and as
118an organization, it's really hard. If you make it to eight months, you never really want to spend that money. You just want to hang on to it because maybe it helps you feel better, but it doesn't mean that you're not being fiscally responsible by getting back to that sixmonth emergency fund. And that's literally what our midpoint is. And and the reason that like you said we have this money is because we have been very conservative in the past. And I think that although it would be hard to to replenish those funds, we shouldn't need those funds. Again, for eight years, I have said, why are our reserves so high? Why are our reserves so high? Why aren't we spending this money on the classroom and on the things that we should be spending it on
119now in the current year? Um, so I so I am comfortable with that again knowing that this is not the end of the conversation and we're not going to be sitting here next year. I won't be, but we all as as a community or as an organization won't be sitting here next year having this exact same conversation because I think the solutions and the conversations will be had ahead of time which means that none of this is wasted either that we we all have learned so much through this process about all the different levers and just like Dr. stair earlier um explained a lot of things about how community ed works that that's a small microcosm of how this whole thing works and all the things that work together and um I just think a
120more thoughtful approach um would be prudent and so I I am in agreement with with board member Wallace and and board member Mike's um on taking a conservative approach knowing that we would potentially spend down our reserves um somewhere between the high and the midpoint. >> President Zimma, if I could add some additional thought, um, and certainly a governing board, thank you for the conversation. I can also support that theory and use of our our reserves. Um the piece to having the reserves as that emergency fund though is is a critical point that I just want to highlight because there are things outside of our control that if they were to come to fruition or come to bite us so to speak next year those emergency funds would come in very very handy. We talked
121early on about a possible APS rate increase. Now we have done some work in our at our campuses with our very work and we do believe once we're connected to the solar through that grid that could help us reduce but if any type of additional increase to our expend on um electricity would certainly dig into those reserves despite whatever budgetary cuts we make. Um there's a a conversation right now a bill that continues to move forward around the aggregate expenditure limit that AAL we don't talk about that much the the legislature has been kind to us the last couple years but for a period of time uh that and that conversation still exists that hasn't gone out to the voters if the if the legislature were choose to say no thank you schools we're going
122to hold you to that limit um that would be a giant crush to our budget and we would have to dip into those reserves if we wanted to maintain ain the current status. Um those are just a couple of things that came to mind with with which is why there's a a power to have the reserve. But again, I can understand that concept of of getting to that that mid level and just furthering the conversation in the future on how we uh to uh use our budget wisely. >> I'm not opposed to us getting to our mid level. I just don't want to see us get to our mid-level in like one to two years. We have talked about how we had to do that over time that it was not going to be good
123for us as a district if we just spent all that money in one or two years because then like you were saying we do the budgets very differently now [clears throat] with Mr. Vond versus our previous person that handled this and so we are not adding to that. We are dipping into that more and more over time because we are looking at real numbers mostly now versus projected higher estimates all the time. And if we want to continue as a board to be able to get these very realistic numbers when we're doing the budget, that means that when things come up that we couldn't plan for or expect a sudden huge expenses come up for special education, for instance, that means that's going to be uh us costing more money than we were planning on
124spending. So, I I just I don't want to see us spend it all in the next year or two and put whoever's sitting up here, whatever board members are up here, having to like take on the problems that we didn't want to address today. >> I don't think anyone is saying we're not going to address the problems. I mean, I think that's exactly what we're saying, which is we are going to come up with a plan to address the problems and address it in a measured way, not a rushed way. And we're going to do our best to turn over every rock and consider everything possible. And I don't feel like I've had the opportunity to do that in the last month. Does anybody here feel like they've had the opportunity to as many hours
125as I've spent on it, I still don't feel like I have had the opportunity to be comfortable with these decisions. So that's where that gives me pause is I I think there is a place where we could hopefully all be comfortable with the decisions, but that's going to require time, additional time and effort and working toward that goal. But I do think we can get there. >> And those two things that Dr. Davidson brought up too is an additional reason of you know as we're planning these you know those things out I mean yeah we have to consider everything as okay if this happens this is the you know this is the lever that has to be uh pulled with it so you know I appreciate the unexpected um but also hesitant to um not
126do something once Again, going back to the reserves when we have the opportunity and also at a midpoint level with some Armageddon scenarios, um, you know, it it's still at that midpoint level could, you know, soften the blow. And that's just a generic thing because who knows what it is. But uh whatever happens, some of those big things uh there is everybody's in that boat, you know, as far as whatever the legislature decides or the how the bills go up on electricity and stuff. I mean, we're you know, Misery is going to love company on on that. Um but but we don't know. I mean, we could do some projections and forecast and have that uh ready even spending down in our reserves and still h having something. And who know like I said it,
127you know, if if 30 if $30 million in reserves isn't going to save us, then $31 million isn't are you know whether we have 31 or 30 million at that point. And I'm not discounting of course what President Zida said too of course you know you know if we continue to dig down in that's that 31 turns to 30 or 29 or 28. So we have to be careful with those things. And I I know this has been said a million times now, but we we do still have that savings of 3,421,790 by all of the hard work that the team has done and by for all of the teachers listening, the district office being willing to take those cuts if we do go this way tonight. I just want that to be so abundantly
128clear that the district office is taking the cuts so that the schools don't have to because every email that I've read has pointed that out and that is exactly what will end up happening if this is the way this goes. So I just want to make that extremely clear that we are all one team and as this one team we are trying to do what's best for everyone and not come down on the schools specifically. >> Mr. Owens, >> I I do agree with um board member Moran in that I feel like the goal posts keep changing um their goal line, whatever. I feel like we discuss something and I'm like, "Cool, solid." And then something else presents itself. I'm like, "Oh, I didn't know that was an option. I thought this this is what
129we had to choose between." Like there was this this this or that. And let's pull them. And I understand that like that's big picture, the levers. And I and I know it was a lot has evolved since we've started these conversations. I appreciate so much all the emails um that have that have been sent our way to help us think certain things in certain ways and the different things that the administration has done at the district level, the principles, um all the board members up here asking these questions, doing the the math because I don't I thought I was good at math. Apparently I'm not. But I do believe unfortunately that and I know that a lot of these are hard decisions. So I'm not saying [clears throat] that we don't we're not making hard
130decisions or other board members don't want to make hard decisions because I don't think that's the case. But I do think that at least one of these levers needs to be pulled this year because I also am fearful that while we have a hefty reserves and we're not at that midpoint, the idea of getting closer and closer to it big picture-wise, when we're basing things on assumptions is scary. And so for me, I know earlier I was of one opinion, but if my based on where we're at and the discussions, I'm more aligned with, you know, we basically got three big levers that we're looking at. I don't think anybody's of the opinion that we should pull the the coaching lever and switch it down by 0.5. Maybe I'm wrong, but the two big ones
131are the raise and the student in the um classroom increases. I personally feel like if we're going to give a 2% raise to the teachers, which I would love, I do think we need to pull a lever on class sizes and go at least one up on K5 and leave middle school alone. >> Are we ready to proceed to the action items? >> Um, if nobody has any other discussion items and they want to move on, we can move on to action items. Uh, and we'll just go down the line, I guess. Um, so the first item in our actions would be consideration and possible action on employee work calendar change for the 2627 school year. >> Do you need to say anything or do you just want us to make motions? >> I honestly
132don't feel like I have anything to add. This is uh simply giving the board the opportunity to vote one way or another uh on the calendar changes that we have been discussing. Um, >> okay. If somebody >> I move to approve the calendar changes. Do I need to name the calendars? >> It it really almost is all of them. So, I would just say calendar changes as discussed. >> I move to approve the calendar changes as discussed and recommended by the administration. I second having a motion from Miss Moran and a second from Miss Wallace. I'll call for the vote. Miss Wallace, >> yay. >> Mr. Mike, >> yay. >> Mr. Owens, >> yay. >> Uh, Miss Moran, >> yay. >> I'm a yay. Motion passes. Okay. Consideration and possible action on class sizes for
133the 2627 school year. I don't know. >> President Zidama, I just wanted to point out that >> you can change the motion that is currently in there. >> So there's a motion listed which is based on the recommendation from our admin. Um but obviously we can change the motion to >> say something else. So, I would like to move to approve the new option of $420,000 in savings as presented. >> I'll second. >> Having a motion from Miss Moran and a second from Mr. Mics, I'll call for the vote. Miss Wallace. >> Yay. >> Mr. Mikes. >> Yay. >> Mr. Owens. Yay, >> Miss Moran. >> Yay. Uh, I'm a nay. Motion passes. Next is consideration and possible action on certified staffing standards for the 2627 school year. >> I move to approve the certified
134staffing standards with no change as presented. >> I'll second. >> Having a motion from Miss Moran and a second from Mr. Mr. Owens, I'll call for the vote. Miss Wallace, >> yay. >> Mr. Mike, >> yay. >> Mr. Owens, >> yay. >> Miss Moran, >> yay. >> I'm also yay. Motion passes. Uh, next is consideration and possible action on raises to employee compensation for the 2627 school year. >> I move to approve an increase of 2% um to employee compensation for 2026 2027. >> I'll second. >> Damn you. Having a motion from Mr. Owens and Mr. Mike's just barely the second. Uh, I'll call for the vote. Miss Wallace, >> yay. >> Mr. Mike, >> yay. >> Mr. Owens, >> yay. >> Miss Maran, >> yay. >> I'm also a yay. Motion passes. Okay. Okay.
135Uh, we are going to move on to uh reports. We will start with Dr. Davidson. This is just to make up for the reports we did not do at the beginning of the month. So >> all right, thank you Madame President, members of the board and again those out listening or joining us today. Just a few items to to talk about. Um certainly as again thank you board for um willing to engage us in this conversation. I also wanted to highlight the meeting I had today with our superintendent's advisory council and wanted to thank them um for joining us and to to talk and learn about and um really just discuss the numerous things that uh are impacting our district budget. Um had a great conversation and just appreciate their desire to learn and u
136really as we went through today too just to inform their staff members around just the the numerous variables that relate to a budget. Um it's always great to get the perspective of those in our classrooms. Um we we have a project in front of us that we have to answer a big question and I'll share with the board and our community later on that one. But I wanted to end that particular topic with a a conversation that came from one of our staff members that um they realize as do we that we have to hire the best and then we have to keep the best. Um so when we talk about student success that became very clear from that group tonight uh the importance of hiring and keeping our best. So um another thing that
137I had a chance recently to do which will tie into um a meeting that Mr. Nanis and I attended this morning um was on behalf of our connection with our Pebble Creek Rotary and the Arizona Community Impact Group. This weekend I spent some time with a a variet variety of community members working alongside Arizona Community Impact to deliver and put together beds for children in our community and uh very rewarding and um amazing experience if you've never had a chance to do that. Um also to um our our community at large highly recommend taking advantage of those opportunities to serve when you can. I bring that up because um it really really highlights the work that we have to do in our district and in other public school districts where we serve all children, every
138single child. And uh even those without beds, right? Just uh pretty amazing. But anyway, all that being said, this morning Sam and I attended the Westmark West Valley brand meeting to talk about what's going on in the West Valley and how do we market that? Um, there was a variety of panelists there that talked about the West Valley and the West Valley brand. And some of the comments that I think directly tie to Lichfield were collaboration across churches, schools, community, businesses. um our elected officials that there is a community feel here that we have a positive culture a lifestyle that people want to be a part of and also that we do have a sound infrastructure for growth. So for my connection to that meeting this morning it was around our strategic plan, our work
139of the Lichfield learner and what we have to do to continue student success. So, um, again, just a impactful weekend and a great day today and thanks for, uh, ending strong tonight. >> Okay, thank you. Next, we're going to do our governing board reports. We'll start with Miss Wallace. >> I'm going to be completely honest. I did not prepare for this, so I'm just looking back at my calendar right this moment. Um, but so if I forget something, I apologize, but I did have the opportunity to attend the Dreaming Summit Elementary Showcase. That is a school that I had not been able to attend previously to this year. And I um absolutely loved our visit there. I think that they're doing amazing things. It was a it was a great showcase that I was just
140very very glad that I was able to attend. And uh we attended the Lichfield Elementary School showcase as well. Um for whatever reason that was my third time on that campus, so that is one that I always seem to to be able to make and that it is an absolutely lovely school that we currently sit in here. And you know, it's our flagship original school and I always feel when I'm here just the the feeling of how Lichfield started and and how we want to be. So that was a great showcase as well. Then this week we attended the Vado Heritage Elementary Showcase which was exceptional in seeing how leader in me is playing out there and how impactful that is on their campus and how that's just really a part of who they are
141which was great. Um, since my last board report, I have, like I stated earlier, read more emails than I've ever read in my entire life. Um, I lay in bed every night and read every email. And I try to respond to all of you so that you at least know that I have seen your email. If I did not respond to you, it was just out of the the sheer number of emails. Um, but I read every one of them. And um a fun note, I was able to um present at Palm Valley for the Junior Achievement Biztown curriculum and I was able to um attend the Junior Achievement Biztown field trip, which is a very impactful field trip for fifth graders and middle school students. on what it looks like to be an adult.
142and I was able to read to two fifth grade classrooms here at Lichfield Elementary and um had great conversations with them post Super Bowl on how they thought the Super Bowl went and um they're just great classrooms with great teachers and it was it was nice to be able to be in the classroom in an informal way interacting with the students. So, I encourage people to come out and volunteer in the schools, read with kids, and just get that experience as well. >> Mr. Mike's. >> Um, so I had a chance to read to some fourth graders at Lichfield Elementary, uh, which was great. Two classes that I was able, uh, to get into see, uh, one of the teachers, Mrs. Sir Conn, she was a a teacher of both of my kids who are
143one's a junior in college and the other one is a sophomore in high school right now. So, um that was fun to to kind of see her and uh read to the kids and it's uh it's great. Sometimes you sit back and go, oh, you know, fourth grade, fifth grade, and as kids get older, sixth grade, you you're wondering, oh, do they how do they, you know, are they going to respond? How are they going to respond to reading books? I mean, we've some of us have been in with a kindergarten class or first grade class and it just it's it's like you're the center of the world for them as you're reading to them and they get so excited. Um, but you know, the fourth graders get just excited about it. The fifth graders,
144I know even when I was uh teaching um eighth grade and high school, I'd read to the kid, my kids as well. And it's just that reminder of I don't think it's no no matter the age uh that's important to do. Uh so I had a great time with that. Um, as far as uh the campuses with Verado Heritage and Barbara Roby went to go visit and just uh just kind of collectively it's just there's just a magic on on the campuses as I walk through all these campuses. There's just a ma a certain magic about each campus and each individual thing that they do. All the hard work is is really paying off. Um, and it's it's just a great opportunity every time to go in and get a chance to hear from the
145the kids and the teachers and administrators and everything like that. So, um, I appreciate uh the additional time and work that principles put into the fact of us coming out as well. But the um, speaking to the kids and seeing everything that's going on is great. And I'll tell you, it is amazing products. I mean, it's just you're sitting back going, "Gosh, if everybody could just walk through these campuses and see uh there there would to me there's no question on why you wouldn't want to bring your kid to that school." That's what I think every single time. It's just like how do how do we transport people in? Um uh the other thing, yeah, I've read every single email. I appreciate all of the feedback. Uh no, I did not respond to all the
146emails. I promise you I read every single one. I responded to some. Some of it was tough. It was so long and elaborate and I didn't want to just say, "Okay, got it." But I did read uh read everything and I appreciate all the passion um that uh that the staff and uh Lichfield employees have and I appreciate them sharing everything and all their experiences. Uh, the last thing I want to put out there is I appreciate all the hard work from the administration of going through these budget talks and putting this stuff together and hearing us out and going down god knows how many rabbit holes. And I think I said, you know, I want to turn over every possible stone. Maybe maybe we did accomplish that. Maybe there are more out there. I
147don't want to talk about it anymore because I know the thing I want to point out is I know the uh the office is going to be very busy the next couple days um and is going to uh Sy's going to need plenty of coffee I'm guessing or whatever that is. But I just I didn't want that to go unnoticed and to let you know I appreciate what now has to happen and at the speed that it has to happen. So thank you >> Mr. Owens. >> Yeah, thanks. So, since the last board report, we've done four, right? Four, >> five. Okay. I've got Dreaming Summit, Litfield, Barbara Robby, and Verado. I'm sure I missed the other one. Sorry. Um, just to reiterate, it's so impressive. I love how each campus has its own culture
148and how they all have their uniqueness yet they're all start still part of the the Lichfield District family. Going to keep it short. I was on campus. It was a more of a personal experience for me, but uh my youngest daughter had her kinder experience at Verado Elementary last week and to see all the little kindergarteners light up and just how cool it is to see them thinking they're going to be big kids next year and be on a real campus. So hopefully we get lots of kindergarters next year in all of our schools. >> Miss Moran, >> since it's tax season, I'm going to keep this short with the oneword report budget. No, no song. I I didn't even make Wallace go after you. >> I've been waiting for this for >> two years.
149>> I don't even know what to do with myself. I'm sure there's a budget. >> Come on. >> Okay. Well, I guess I'm next. I was unprepared for that to be so short. Um, since our last board report, I have been very busy with uh I was able to attend the district spelling bee where every year I am blown away by one how weird the words come up in the list where some kid will have a really hard word and the next kid will get a really easy word and it feels totally unfair. it. It's just the way that that shakes out every time. And um I'm very impressed with our students. I cannot spell out loud to save my life. I need to write it down and see it. So, that was never my
150thing. But um I do love going and watching our kids and see how they do. I also was able to go be a judge at the LSD science fair for 5th through 8th grade along with Mr. Mike's and Mr. Owens. Um that was really fun to see and I'm glad to see that we're bringing that back. Um I am happy that to see that several of our students did so well when they moved on to the next level for the competition just today right yesterday recently right now and um so that's very exciting. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes from our littles when they do the science fair next. Um we attend we had five school showcases. We had Wigwam Creek Middle School, Dreaming Summit, Witchfield Elementary School, Barbara Roi and Verado Heritage. And
151yeah, every school is very different in their feel and their culture, but yet we're all one team at the end when we all come together. And so I really like getting to see all our schools. I think it's important um it's come up a few times. Do we want to do showcases every school every year or not? And the reason I think yes, is because of these hard decisions that we have to make as a board. It is important for us to see every campus and to see what those decisions mean at those school levels. And so that's why I really enjoy getting to go in and see each campus every year to see what is happening directly with our students. Um I also was able to attend uh reading rocks at Litville Elementary School.
152Thank you Katie Hill for always putting that on and inviting us board members to come. I got to read to four classrooms. I had three kindergarten classrooms and one second grade class. And uh each class uh two of the classes picked the same book and the other two classes picked the same book. So, that was fun cuz I always bring a few books that my kids pick out for me and then they let them vote on which one they want to do. Uh, don't eat the babysitter. It tends to be a favorite choice for a lot of our kiddos. And then I also had just a few minutes in each of the classes where we talked about what's your favorite thing about school, what's your favorite special, and I ended every class with what's your
153favorite thing about your teacher, which I think was really nice because they really filled their teachers buckets as we were leaving. And so, I was glad to be able to do that. Uh, I also attended the lending library dedication that was done at uh, Rancho Santa Fe Elementary School. I'd like to thank uh, city councilwoman Vicky Gillis uh, for uh, pushing that forward and also for donating her own money to make a few of these lending libraries happen across our district. And I also want to thank Mary Kay Utek from the Goodyear Rotary who is also uh, part of that process and getting those on our campuses. Uh, as you would expect, Rancho Santa Fe uh, Spirit Squad was out in full force that day. Um, if you haven't seen the video that Sam Noanis
154put together, it's fantastic. But Rancho Santa Fe students obviously show up and love to show their school spirit. So, anytime they get the chance to do that when we have our Rancho Santa Fe school showcase, everybody be there early so you can see that. Um, and then obviously there's been multiple meetings that we've had as a board and uh, our one-on- ones with Dr. Davidson regarding planning for meetings and our budget discussion. Uh I think that us board members, this has been our busiest time for sure. We've spent several hours here al together as well as all the hours that we've been spending at home pouring through all of the stuff and the emails that we've got and trying to make the best decisions that we can based on the information that we have in
155front of us. So to fill my bucket beyond all of that hard stuff we've had to do, I was able to volunteer all week at the book fair for one of the schools and also after our very last meeting we had last week which was rough and I just needed my bucket super filled. I got to spend the whole next day volunteering during picture day which is super fun because I love to see what the different kids wear for their special outfits. It's such a range and it's really funny. And also the kids that come and forgot it was picture day and you need to give them a comb and maybe wet down their hair. But it it's super fun to do spring pictures because they do their class pictures. So they're all excited to
156be there and you get to hang out with all the kids. So uh I appreciate those opportunities and I definitely encourage our community members to find ways to volunteer in our schools because it's just a good way to make you feel better about what we're doing. Um with that, uh thank you to everybody. This has been a lot of work the last several months of leading up to these last two months of budget talks now. And so I appreciate everything that our admin has done. I really feel like you have been listening to everybody and trying to make sure that you can come up with options that are going to work as best as possible for everybody with a minimal impact to our students. So thank you for all the work that you guys have
157put in. Um and then thank you to our administrators that send in their reports. We love seeing them. We love seeing the pictures. Uh we appreciate them very much. And with that, if somebody wants to make a motion, we can be done before 10 o'clock tonight. Guys, >> I move to adjourn the meeting. >> I will second. >> Having a motion from Mr. Owens and a second from Miss Moran. I'll call for the vote. Miss Wallace. >> Yay. >> Mr. Mike, >> yay. >> Mr. Owens, >> yay. >> Miss Moran, >> yay. >> I'm also yay. Motion passes. Thank you for joining us, guys.