Litchfield Elementary School District Board Meeting 1/27/26

001We ready over there? >> Are we good to go? Sorry, I lost my voice. So, I'm gonna do my best. Are is everybody ready over there? Okay, awesome. Hi everyone, thank you for joining us. Today is Tuesday, January 27th, 2026 and this is a special governing board meeting of the Litfield Elementary School District governing board. I hereby call this meeting to order. I apologize I lost my voice over the weekend. It's finally coming back a little bit, but I'm going to do my best tonight. Um, the first item on the agenda is going to be the pledge of allegiance. And can we have Frankie and Teddy Frasier from Lichfield come and lead us in this, please? I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it

002stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Next, we're going to take a moment of silent reflection. Thank you. Next, we are going to move on to the uh public speaking portion. And I'm going to read this disclaimer and then there are 10 that I have up here and only 30 minutes. So, I'm going to call three names at a time. If you guys can just be ready to go because as soon as our 30 minutes is up, we'll have to stop the talking. So, just as an FYI, I'll call three people up at a time. Pursuant to Arizona Revised Statutes ARS 38-431.01H, this agenda item prevents provides an open call to the public, allowing individuals to address the governing board on any issue within the jurisdiction of the board.

003Items not listed on the agenda may be brought to the governing board's attention under this section of the agenda. Due to the Arizona open meeting law, the governing board cannot discuss or take any action on items not listed on the agenda. Therefore, pursuant to ARS 38-431.01H, response to public comment about matters not appearing on the agenda will be limited to individual board members who may ask staff to study the matter, respond to any criticism, or ask that the matter be put on a future agenda for further consideration and decision at a later date. Please limit your comments to no more than 3 minutes and no more than 30 minutes will be devoted to the public comment portion of the agenda. When you approach the podium, please state your name for the record. We are going

004to have Leanne Migra, Andrew Frasier, and Hadley Harper as our first three. Good evening. My name is Leanne Migra. Um, good evening board, members of the board, administrators, educators, families, and community members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Oh, I already said that. Sorry. I'm a teacher here in LSD and I have been a teacher um over the last 17 years in this district. I've been a resident in the district for 16 years as well with all four of my children attending our schools. I'm here because I deeply care about our students and the people who serve them every day. I also understand that budgeting is difficult and I appreciate the time and effort that goes into making these decisions. However, I am concerned about several of the proposed budget

005cuts and the long-term impact they may have on teaching, learning, and the morale in our schools. One proposal would save um approximately 579,000 by cutting some work days. While this may appear efficient on paper, these days are not extra or unnecessary. They're used for planning, collaboration, training, and preparing lessons that directly benefit our students. Reducing them means less time to meet student needs, less support for new initiatives, and more pressure placed on educators to do the same work in less time. And let's be real, every school district in this country survives on the unpaid labor of the staff, including LED. Teachers will continue to give, but at what cost? Another proposed savings um is cutting printers and ink. And I'm not sure about other schools in our district, but our copers have been offline half

006the year. Many classrooms already rely on outdated or refurbished equipment, teachers frequently encounter empty ink cartridges, cartridges, broken machines, or even uh out of stock toner. Um while we want to reduce waste and instructional instructional materials still matter and when basic tools are removed without reliable alternatives, the burden often shifts to teachers paying out of pocket or students just going without. Perhaps most concerning is the proposal to save um almost a million and a half dollars by increasing class sizes. It seems small, only two to four students per classroom um depending on grade level. But research and lived experience both tell us that class size matters, especially for younger students and those who need additional support, not to mention just the physical larger size of our middle school students. Even a small increase can reduce

007individual attention, increase behavior challenges, and make it harder to build meaningful relationships with our students. Add this to the challenge of not having enough instructional aids for support. Taken individually, each cut may seem manageable, but together they signal a shift away from investing in the conditions that allow students and teachers to succeed. I respectfully ask the board to consider these proposals carefully, explore creative alternatives, anything that helps protect instructional quality, and recognize the realities of our classrooms. Our students deserve more than the bare minimum. They deserve thoughtful investment in their education. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next would be Andrew Frasier. Thank you. My name is Andrew Frasier. I'm a proud parent of three students here at Lville Elementary School. I'm also a city councilman here in Lville Park. Um I'm here largely

008to talk about your budget uh proposal that was uh in the agenda. I reviewed the slides. uh as our elected officials, you're tasked with a very tough job, especially when you're faced with budget cuts. I understand how this goes. Um but I'm, you know, uh I'm here particularly to talk about the increased class sizes. I want to remind the board what the core service of the of the school district is and that is to educate kids. Uh increasing class sizes not only puts undue burden on teachers, uh it also impacts the kids in the classroom. So, please remember that the core service of this district is to educate our children. Um, my children are uh third generation Lfield Elementary students. I think that's pretty neat. I'm a transplant. Uh, I love this school. Um, I

009know there are a lot of proud parents that support this school. One of the things that was missing in that uh survey that was done was there. I didn't see any parent support or any parent input. Uh, it was all staff related. staff. I know the position that you're in as well. You you have to put together a budget that works for the school. Uh I would ask that you know in the future you look to parents and and their input so that we could provide input ahead of public comment. Um unfortunately over the past five to six years public education has been maligned. I think that's very unfortunate. Again I'm a huge supporter of public education. I would caution the board to do anything particularly in this district that's going to uh decrease the

010confidence in the education that we provide. I think increased class sizes is going to do that. I know a lot of my neighbors have already pulled their kids out of this school district and sent them off to charter schools or other alternatives. Uh I would hate to see more go that direction. So please consider that uh as you look at this budget. Again, you are you are tasked with making very tough and sometimes unpopular choices. Um, but please think about the core service that this district is supposed to provide. Thank you. Next, we have Hadley Harper. Then we're going to have Sher Pepworth and Maria Hoffman. Hi, my name is Hadley Harper. I'm in seventh grade honors at Western Sky Middle School. Um, I would also just like to say I'm missing football practice to

011be here right now to give this speech. So, like yeah. Um, there are many reasons why I think that increasing classroom sizes is a bad idea. For starters, there could be someone messing around over here and over here, and the teacher could only address one of them at a time, which can result in the other issues spreading and becoming a bigger problem. And it's not just the problematic students either. In a class with 36 students in it, it can be hard for a teacher to get to know each student and understand what areas they excel in and what they need extra help in. For instance, I sometimes need extra help in math. And even in a class with just 30 students, I can't always get the help I need. Also, if I'm learning a really

012confusing topic that most of my class doesn't really understand, think of how many people will be spending most of class waiting for individual attention and raising their hands rather than getting getting help learning the information and understanding the topic. To prove my points, my choir class currently has 44 students in it. There are a lot of things that go on in the class on a daily that my teacher doesn't notice. People are constantly eating or doing things on their phones behind the music stand thingies that my teacher does not notice. Do you really want every class to be like that? Also, would you personally like to teach like 36 kindergarteners every day? Think of all the work that would be. Thank you for your time and please reconsider increasing class sizes. >> Next, we have

013Sher Papworth. Yep. then Maria Hoffman and then Frankie Frasier. >> Hi. Um I am Sheri Papwworth and I fullheartedly agree with everything that everyone has said so far. That's why I'm here also about the potential budget changes for the 26 27 year. Um my main concern is about the potential to increase the class sizes. Um, I have one kid at Western Sky right now and right now the max is 32 students per class. Um, but from the feedback I've gotten, I don't know, they actually already exceed that sometimes. Something about they have to reach certain numbers. So, some teachers are already telling me that they have 36 sometimes. Okay. So if they were to increase by four kids and each teacher teaches their class six times during the day, that's actually 24 more students, 48

014more parents. So going from 192 students to 216. Oh, just I'm going to read my list here. All right. So there would be reduced indivi individualized attention, lower academic performance, classroom management issues. This is a big one. Um I'm on PTO, so I'm on campus a lot and I hear the teachers I had one teacher tell me if she's in the middle of her classroom helping a student and has her back to the front the her back to her desk, other students will go up to her desk and steal things off of her desk. Um, let's see. Higher classes would be teacher burnout and stress, increased behavioral issues. Uh, if there's increased behavioral issues and they have to take out time to discipline them, takes out more time from teaching. Um, I am wondering if

015some other options have been considered for budgeting. Like every Saturday when I drive by Western Sky, the fields are completely full with kids running around. And it's not Lichfield Elementary School District students. It's from KG Sports and other facilities, other entities that are renting our facilities. Maybe we could increase those fees and raise some money. Um, all right. That's it for now. All right. Thank you. Next we have Maria Hoffman and then Frankie Frasier and Katie Hill. Good evening everyone. My name is Maria Hoffman. I have two bonus children who attended Lichfield Elementary from kindergarten all the way through 5th and then went on to Western Sky Middle School from K all the way through 8. and I currently have one 13-year-old at Western Sky Middle School. I want to speak on behalf of our

016children in kindergarten through 8th grade. Increasing class sizes may seem like a budget solution, but it comes at a direct cost to student learning safety and well-being. Young children learn best with individual attention. In larger classes, teachers have less time to identify learning gaps early. support students who are struggling or challenge those who be who may be ready to move ahead earlier. By the time those gaps are noticed, they're often too much harder and more expensive to fix. Larger class sizes also impact behavior and classroom management. When one teacher is responsible for too many students, instructional time is lost and classrooms become more stressful for both students and educators. That stress affects academic performance and emotional development. Our teachers are already stretched thin, increasing class sizes, risks burnout, higher turnover, and less consistency for students.

017Already, Western Sky Middle School is now a C-rated school. Especially in the foundational years where stability matters most, these things should be paramount. If we truly value student success, equity, and long-term outcomes, we should be investing in smaller, more effective learning environments, not overcrowding classrooms. Our children deserve to be seen, supported, and set up for success, not treated as numbers in a budget. Thank you. Next, we have Frankie Frasier, then Katie Hill, and then Teddy Frasier. Hello, my name is Frankie Frasier. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak. I am in fifth grade and I'm here to say that I disagree with the idea of changing class sizes. In my class, there is already interrupting and my teacher is sometimes stressed. And when I imagine my teacher dealing with so many more kids,

018it seems terrible. There would be less help for kids that are that are struggling and less questions to be asked. So, I believe that class sizes should not increase. So, please reconsider. >> I have Katie Hill, Teddy Frasier, and then K. I'm sorry. I do not know how to say your last name. It starts with an E, but you're my only K that was signed up. So, I just have to say I got wedged between my two math challenge kids, and that is awesome. So, uh, my name is Katie Hill and I've been a parent, a resident, an employee of the Lichfield Elementary School District for over 25 years. I am here tonight to address several talking points that do appear in the budget presentation that will be shared later this evening. My statements do

019reflect a collective response from various school employees. Hopefully, many have emailed you as well. To begin, the presentation states that personnel cuts are widely opposed, but classified if necessary. What this slide does not mention is that reductions at the district office cabinet level are highly favored. Why is there no breakdown showing what savings could be achieved by reducing district office administrative positions or stipens? That omission matters because it changes the narrative of where our staff believes cuts should occur, which is the growth of the the growth of cabinet level and district office positions over the last few years. This is where many believe cuts should be prioritized. Yet that concern is not meaningfully addressed. We have over 800 less students than we did in 2018, which is the year being looked at for class size

020um reduction or sorry increases. So why do we have more administrators in generalist at the district level than we did then? It also states that class size increases are seen as as reluctantly necessary if required. Reluctant acceptance should not be confused with support. Families and staff understand the financial pressures, but increasing class sizes directly impact student learning and teacher effectiveness. What is most troubling overall is that the discussion appears to almost entirely focus on cutting, particularly at school sites, which is the very place where the need is the greatest. What is missing is a serious discussion about how we can increase revenue. We've been told that thousands of students who live in our district boundaries attend other districts or charter schools. that represents both a financial loss and a trust issue. What are we doing

021to rebuild trust with those families and bring them back? Do we conduct exit interviews when families to understand why they are leaving? And if we do, what is done with that data? Also, when families have a positive kind kindergarten experience, they are more likely to just stay here if they've been there that long. Yet, we don't improve open enrollment for kindergarters until after the school year has started. Most of those kids have established themselves in charter schools somewhere and we never get them back. We are here tonight because we are asking and truly begging that you stop gouging our campuses and instead provide the resources that are necessary to make student success possible. If you truly believe in the Lichfield learner, why are so many of the choices outlined in this budget discussion directly harming

022those learners? It is extremely difficult for school-based staff to accept proposed cuts while campus staff are seeing their student needs not being met due to lack of support. We see co-workers being injured supporting students with high behavior needs. And now those supports are on the chopping block, the ones that we do have. The budget is not just a spreadsheet. It's a reflection of priorities. And right now it feels like the priorities are moving further away from students classrooms and the people doing the hardest work every day. Many of us are balancing on a fine line and increasing class sizes while also taking away supports in already strained environments will unfortunately be the tipping point for many. >> You will lose quality staff. >> Thank you. We have Teddy Frasier and then K and then our

023last one will be Michelle Schooler. My name is Teddy Frasier and I I'm in third grade and I think we should not increase class sizes because my class is already loud enough and if we added more kids it would be just crazy and it would be harder for the teachers. It would be harder on the students because each student would get less question answers answered. Please reconsider. >> Okay, we have K and then Michelle. >> Hi, my name is Kai Escara. >> Sorry. >> And I would like to agree with everything that Mr. Frasier just said. He hit the nail on the head with that one. Um, I am a teacher here in this district and my largest concern is teacher retention, teacher pay, and class sizes. Currently, this district employs hundreds of teachers that

024go above and beyond in all they do for this district, for their individual schools, and the students that they serve day in and day out. Those same teachers are not are always concerned about whether or not they will get a raise to match the rate of inflation year after year. And I would like to add that 2% doesn't cut that. Additionally, those teachers who are doing so much are starting to get burned out and become more and more prevalent for risk of losing those competent, qualified, and exceptional teachers. And that is substantial. Finally, increasing class sizes, no matter the budget circumstances, will and has, as we've seen, impact student success negatively. If our mission at this district is truly including student success, that begins with fully supporting your teachers and their school level administrators. Thank

025you. Our last speaker will be Michelle Schooler. Hi again. I'm Michelle Skooler. Um, thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak. I am a parent of a third grader at Barbara Broi and a soon to be kindergartener. I am also a board member on the PTSA. I'm here tonight to express my strong concerns and opposition of the suggestion of increasing class sizes and decreasing the teacher pay. Both of my children work closely with special education staff. These teachers, aids, and specialists are not an option for my family. They are essential. Lower class sizes are not nice to have. They are essential for students like mine. They make the difference between thriving, struggling, and the difference between feeling supported or being overwhelmed. When class sizes increase, individual attention is decreased. That impacts students who already need

026more support. Students with learning difficulties, behavioral needs, developmental delays are the very students our district have a responsibility to protect. At the same time, our teachers are being asked to do more with less. Larger classes, more responsibility, higher emotional demands, all while being told that the livable wages and work life balance may still be out of reach. Professional development days are essential to building strong educators and in turn strong young leaders. These day these days give teachers the time and training that they need to support students academically, socially and emotionally, especially in classrooms with diverse learning needs. Cutting or diluting professional development only weakens our schools and long term. Our teachers are exhausted. Many of them have not had true life work balance since co maybe never. And these are the consequences of burnout. You

027have lost over 8,600 educators. That's absolutely unacceptable. We cannot fix teacher pay on the backs of our students by overcrowding the classrooms. That is not the solution. It is a trade-off that hurts everyone. Teachers deserve livable wages and manageable class sizes. Students deserve classrooms where they can be seen, supported, and taught effectively. These goals should not be in competition with one another. It is I also want to acknowledge that the families of our PTSA are already stepping up to help support the classrooms with giving them educational materials that you guys are not providing to them. As a parent of the PTSA board member, I'm asking you to lead with integrity, courage, and compassion. Be the leaders our children are learning to become. Do the right thing, not the easy thing. That's all I have to

028say. >> Thank you everyone. We are going to move on to the next section which is the adoption of agenda and consideration of consent agenda. I will go through and see if anyone has anything they'd like to pull. Miss Wallace. >> No, thank you. >> Mr. mics. >> None for me. >> Mr. Owens, >> none for me. Thanks, >> Miss Moran. >> No, thank you. >> I don't have any either. If somebody would like to make a motion, >> I move to adopt the agenda consent agenda as presented. >> I have a second. >> Having a motion from Mr. Owens and a second from Miss Maran, I'll call for the vote. Miss Wallace. >> Yay. >> Mr. Mike, >> yay. >> Mr. Owens, >> yay. >> Miss Maran, >> yay. I'm also yay. Motion passes.

029Next, we are going to jump right into the discussion items, but I'm actually going to have us take a two-minute break before we do that. So, Let's check Thank you. As long Are we waiting for someone or Are we waiting for someone? Are we good to get started? >> Okay, thank you guys. Sorry about that little break. We are going to get back into this and move into the budget study session. And before we get started, just for everybody that's here, this is just conversation one of many that we will have before any decisions are made. We're not making a decision tonight. Um, so please know that I know that we're talking about a lot of stuff, but we just want to make sure that you guys know that we are taking this decision very,

030very seriously and we are listening to what everyone is saying from the district as well as our staff and our families and our students. So with that, if uh CFO would like to start his presentation. >> President Zida. >> Yes. >> If you're okay, I'd like to just start with an introduction before we turn it over to Missfield. Mr. Vaughn. >> Mhm. >> All right. Thank you. Um, so first and foremost, I just want to start off by telling our staff, our students, and our community, thanks for being here. Um, it's very important to hear your voice and to have you part of the conversation. So, just wanted to start off with that. Um, you know, one of the terms that has come to me during this process, but really all throughout my administrative time,

031is how important the word transparency is and how tonight is an example of where we're just simply putting things out. um in our public for our staff and our community to see as we think about the budget. Um why are we here might be the question we need to consider. Um it's became very apparent from those that spoke tonight, but also I think for any of us sitting at this table or at your table, we're here on behalf of student success. We do have a strategic plan in place that focuses in on readiness, resources, and relationships. You could argue tonight that this conversation applies to any one of those three keystones, but I think for me in particular, it's about resources. Um, we know that we are charged as a district, as leaders in the

032district, to be good stewards of the resources we have, whether that's resources from bonds and overrides. Thank you to our community for supporting us with that. Maybe it's from the budget we get from the State Department. We appreciate every dollar we get. Maybe it's the resources that come through our PTO organizations. We we certainly um recognize how those impact our schools, but we have to be good stewards of those resources. Right now, when you think about the current reality of public education in particular, um you see there's a lot of changes going on. You see there's a lot of um conversation around how we use our money, what we use our money for, what money we get, on and on. But in Lichfield L, we've had great success. Um, just recently the attorney general's office

033put out a report that says we have no high-risisk measures. We are doing very well from a monetary perspective. The butt to that is we've lost students. Our student body is not as high as it was last year and that's a trend that has existed for the last few years. Um, the board has been a part of this conversation over the last couple years as we've had to consider the impact to the loss of the co funds. millions of dollars that were given to us that we chose to use years ago to support lower class sizes, to support um supports for children and and we've had to make some um choices around how we staff and what we give to our schools and and to departments, whatever that may be, simply because those resources dried

034up. So, we're at a spot where we have no choice but to consider that term stewardship and talk about how do we move forward in the future. if you uh happen to be watching the news or or looking closely at what's happening to utilities right now. APS who is our service provider for electricity is talking about a 14% increase. That's a hit to our budget. We have to consider where do we find those resources. When you consider the term sustainability, we know that it takes a certain amount of money to positively run a campus. We have 16 currently operating campuses to include other facilities. Um, right now we have some campuses that are at the max. Those campuses are sustainable. More kids means more resources in our schools. We have some schools that are not.

035Our staffing numbers demonstrate that our classrooms are not full. Um, and so that's something we have to consider as we talk about sustainability so that we can continue to have positive experiences for kids, staff, students alike, and so that we do continue to get positive ratings on behalf of those that are monitoring our expenditures. Um, what I do know, I don't ever want to be in the spot where some of our neighboring districts are where we're taken over by the state because we don't know how to manage our budget. That that's not where I want Lichfield L to be at all. Um, tonight you're going to hear Michael and Sandy speak to some um, as you see on this slide there, some levers, some things we've been thinking about and talking about using data sets,

036um, thinking about how it impacts the people. None of these decisions are awesome. I recognize that, but I also realize we cannot continue to do what we're doing year-over-year despite the board saying, "Hey, please use some of your extra resources, sometimes the extra the carry forward that we have at the end of the year." That that was great last year and maybe we can still continue to do that. Mr. Von can speak to that. But the levers we talk about tonight aren't set in stone. Miss Adam, you spoke to that. um they're as creative as they are right now. Maybe those of you in the audience, maybe those that have spoke have some other ideas we haven't considered. And I'm I'm excited to to touch base with some of you on some of those things

037you might have. But deep down inside, every single lever connects to students. So, I just want to make that clear. The decisions we make over time and what we bring back to you in the future on behalf of administrative recommendation, we realize that it is about kids. That's why we're here and I know that's why you guys are here. So with that said, I'll turn it over to Miss Satderfield and Mr. Vaughn, but thank you for giving me a few seconds. All right, Madame President, members of the governing board, uh, Superintendent Davidson, colleagues, and community, thank you for joining us tonight to discuss potential options being considered for the district's 2026 2027 budget year. Tonight's presentation, as Dr. Davidson uh mentioned aligns most closely with resources keystone of the strategic plan but strongly relates to

038all areas of our strategic plan. Prior to the winter break, the cabinet team met with the lead group which includes all principles, assistant principles, instructional coaches, as well as the superintendent's advisory council. We provided contextual budget information just like we have at governing board meetings uh earlier in the budget process as well as asked them to complete a survey raking 10 broad areas of budget cuts both for acceptability and prioritization for consideration. This data was used to prioritize our work in considering budget levers. However, we have or will look at each during the budget process. Additionally, I think it's important to consider that while budgetary concerns were the catalyst to begin these conversations, the work has been focused on examining our current practices and trying to identify changes that might make sense while being good

039stewards of resources. However, we are here to start a discussion and gather feedback. and we're happy to have this opportunity to have the discussion for the next couple of board meetings before finalizing a recommendation to bring forward to the governing board for approval. This chart helps us visualize the results of the surveys. Items in the bottom right hand corner were rated both mo most acceptable and of highest priority for reduction by those who took the survey. Visually, this graph allows us to see groupings of potential areas of reduction, which we'll talk through on the next couple of slides. The first grouping was seen as very accept acceptable and of high priority for review, including district office and department reductions, establishment of a cap for special education contracted services, and school M and capital budget reductions.

040Mr. >> Um, can we, if anybody wants to jump in now, I know that some people have said they kind of want to talk as we're going through it. I don't want to mess up your plan, but also so we're not going over a bunch of things at one time. Uh I I was planning to uh pause for questions um after uh the slides just about the survey, but we certainly can pause now for discussion if you'd prefer. >> Okay. Okay. So after slide 11 or 12. Sounds good. Okay. >> Okay. The second grouping was those items that had moderate feasibility including reducing stipens and increas increasing class sizes. Class size here uh are a significant point because of the budget concepts we've discussed so far. This is the highest rate rated budgetary lever that

041has the potential for truly significant savings. The next grouping, reducing classified supports, was viewed as a low feasibility option by the respondents, but s significantly more favorable than the remaining budget items. As a result, we did not prioritize this as a potential budgetary reduction and do not have discussion on this tonight outside of modifying staffing ratios in various programs. This last grouping was viewed as least feasible by the group and includes a reduction uh includes reduced raises, a decrease in paid holidays, a decrease in certified supports, and the shift to more benefit costs to employees. In addition to this initial feedback, we are continuing to work through our t typical compensation study and we'll have further discussion on raises and benefits at a future board meeting. As a whole, what we took from this data

042is that personnel cuts were widely oppo opposed, class- size increases were seen as reluctantly necessary if required, and a reduction of the typical raise or compensation is not supported other than a reduction to stipens. This slide shows the numerical values from the survey that were visualized in the graph previously shared. I'll pause now for questions on this before we move on to the specific work we did in each area. >> Okay. So, since this is a study session, I'm just going to kind of let people talk if they would like to and then if I have to jump in, I to make sure everybody gets a chance. So, okay. I'd like to um jump in on the fact that this information I know this is a starting point but it's obviously based on a few

043opinions. Now one could say hey all teachers are going to agree we don't want larger class sizes or we want reductions at the district or that sort of thing. But um it does feel like it was a small sample size. So is that purely just to get us to a starting point or like what do you think the next steps will be at some point? Will we survey parents? Will we actually ask for more feedback? >> Yeah, I do think uh I do think that there's opportunity for more feedback. Um I wanted some opportunity to have some level of discussion at at this level. Uh because if if a if an option is seemed as entirely infeasible, um we might as well remove it before um getting it too broadly out there. The survey truly

044was uh to our our leaders and was intended to give us a starting point um for this uh for this work. And honestly, I think it met that um it met that goal. Uh but I do think that there's more opportunity uh for feedback and I'd be happy if if anyone has ideas of what maybe that should or could look like. I I think that's certainly a topic we can uh discuss tonight. As a parent, I remember when we had to do budget cuts like after 20089 time or whatever. They I know that principles came to the PTA groups and talked to the parent leaders and had them rank things like how you did with your staff here and had the parents give their feedback and they also went to their staff and had their

045staff do it. So that there was here's our feedback from parents, here's feedback from our staff and then here's the feedback we got from the leaders. So that might be something that could be done. And if we find that to be a a good approach, we certainly could essentially give the same survey that we gave uh to the leadership groups um to to broader groups. Uh the survey itself truly was uh looking at these categories that we have on the slide here. It was very broad. Um and our intention was to identify as many uh high-level areas of budget reconfiguration that we could think of. And so um we did a lot of thinking around uh trying to ensure that all broad categories were were considered. Um, and so also if the governing board uh

046sees an area that we omitted, uh, that certainly wasn't intentional and and and we can add that in as well. But thank you for that feedback. >> Anyone else? Um, can I just ask before we get into the like nitty-g gritties if you could provide us with an overview of why we're having this conversation and what our targeted budget reduction number would be because that really isn't in this presentation and I know we've talked about that, but I just think the broad education as to why we're even having this discussion would be appreciated. >> Yeah. So, um, earlier in the budget cycle, uh, I do believe it was November, I presented some figures to the governing board that looked at, um, where we were trending, uh, for for this year financially and where it looked

047like we were headed into the future. Um, I haven't updated those uh projections entirely uh and was hoping to to bring that to uh maybe our next governing board meeting. Uh but it looks like we need to be looking at somewhere between three three and a half to$4 million of reductions. And when we look at that, what we're truly looking at uh when you come down to it is is money coming in versus money going out. It's in a lot of ways it's very similar to a personal um uh household budget where you only make a certain amount and you can only spend a certain amount. Now if you have if you have resources in your savings account you can for a period of time uh spend more than you are are making. Uh and

048we do look at that uh between administration and the governing board during our budget process. But it looks like we will uh be spending down any excess reserves we do have based on the uh targets that we've mutually set uh this year. And so what that tells us is is next year is the time to to really try to uh align our our expenses with our revenues and for lack of a better phrase live within our means as an organization. >> Okay. So when we talk about our revenues, our revenues are based on the number of students that we have multiplied by the amount of money that the state gives us per student. So there's two pieces to that. So one is the student enrollment and as was mentioned in the public comment, one of

049the things that we can do and help to do as a as a cabinet is potentially let people know what we have to offer and try to get more students in our seats. The second piece of that which we have no control over is the amount of money that we are given per pupil. That is determined by the state legislators. So what I would recommend is for everyone to get out and get to know your state legislators. Every email you send us, send to them and let them know that 2% isn't enough. Our teachers are not making enough. They are the decision makers that can actually change and impact this budget. We have our hands tied. So the funding that we get from the state is the most important part that gives us the whole

050budget that we're allowed to spend and that comes from your state legislators. We do not set that. Our numbers are limited. So, we're going to do the best that we can with the money that's provided to us as we have done in the past. We will continue to do that, but that number comes from them. So, please take some time and reach out to them and let them know your thoughts on teacher pay and the allocations that they're making from the state budget. Anyone else? Okay, we're good to move on. >> When considering district office and department reductions, we reviewed non-school positions cost for the current year and we also reviewed 2025 department M spending and 12 month calendars. In these discussions, we have identified two major budget levers. The first is a change to

051calendars for 12-month employees to better align schedules with school breaks with 12-month employees working only two days each week of each school break and shifting the Friday before Martin Luther King Day to a school day and closing the district office on the Friday before President's Day. And then lastly, shifting April 17th from a paid day off to an unpaid day off. These changes are designed to better align district level support calendars with school calendars while still recognizing that support level work must still be completed when schools are closed. This plan is a six-day reduction in the calendar with each day being a $34,000 savings roughly. Additionally, we've become aware of certain administrative positions that will become open in the next year and an opportunity to restructure some of these positions at a cost savings. These

052identified reductions have the potential to save $258,000. While looking at calendars and the feedback we received from surveys and a work group of principles and office managers, we identified the back to school bash as a potential opportunity for improvement. By eliminating the back to school bash, we could have employees return one day closer to the start of school. Following the change to the 12-month calendar, we could close the district on February 13th and convert January 16th to a school date as opposed to all day professional development and April 17th would become an unpaid day off. These changes would result in the cost savings without impacting student instructional time. >> These changes result >> Hold on, Mr. Can you pause for just a moment? I just wanted to make sure that the slides are available for

053people to see while he's talking through. >> Yeah, we lost the slides on the thing. So, hold on just a sec. >> These changes result in a two to three day reduction on most calendars with the difference being on some calendars, April 17th was already an unpaid day. I'd like to pause here for discussion before we move on. If anyone has any comments about this part. So um my first question just understanding you if we go back to slide what sort of impact does it look I mean if you just look from a distance you're just like oh you take a couple days off here or there and um you know shift some things around and then you look at this dramatic $24,000 right off the bat. Can you tell me what are some anticipated

054like impacts of doing something like that that we that we have? I'm sorry I couldn't hear the last part of your question. >> Sorry. So, what I'm wondering is what would be what is the impact compared to what we do for the first for the first part as far as the work work days on a 12-month calendar. Um, we have a couple days and it has a $24,000 savings from M. I'm wondering in reality what we anticipate for that impact. What does that what does that mean to staff, parents, students, all that stuff? So right now uh during several of our school breaks, the district office remains open and operational. Um that is particularly helpful uh as it relates to uh human resources and uh payroll and some of our other functions uh that are

055uh administrative or support in nature. uh it would cause some stress on those teams in terms of they wouldn't necessarily have uh those work days available to uh process the things that they process. Um depending on how uh payroll calendars fell, for example, we might end up in a scenario where we have to bring uh parts of that team uh in for an extra day just to ensure payroll gets processed. Um but otherwise um similar to what we've heard in some of the public comment uh I think there would be a reduction in planning time and a reduction in in some of those uh some of those benefits that uh the 12-month employees see uh when uh more focused work can be done because the schools um are not operating that day but you're still

056still working. In terms of for an individual employee, the uh 12-month calendar is a 260 or 261 uh workday calendar depending on the year. So 6 days is uh about a 2% reduction in in work days. >> Mr. Mike, so if I can add to that, and I think Mr. Vaughn got it pretty good, but I think it's to me it's it's I'm going to simplify it. services won't probably be as good. It's going to be a struggle. We heard our our commentators earlier talk about how service could diminish with the lack of whatever that may be. In this case, it's time. Secondly, you will have employees who don't bring home the same pay. Um, and some of the levers we see tonight, I think I just want to highlight the the fact that we

057are talking about those levers because they don't cost our employees jobs. They cost us. Those of us at this table are 12 month were impacted negatively. However, it's important to recognize that we still can provide a positive service, but we also want to be gainfully employed. So, something we have to consider. >> Yeah, thanks for that clarification. >> Are are we saying that this is going to affect our 12-month employees with the exception of the one day for our certified staff? Is that correct? or two days for the certified staff is that >> this >> it would be April 17th and then one day >> when you compare this to what's being proposed on the other calendars it is a uh deeper impact to 12-month employees or department and district office employees than those that

058strictly service the schools. Um and that really is based on the feedback that we've received that um where cuts should be concentrated is department and uh district office level. >> Okay. I'm just clarifying from my own notes. So that's 6 days for 12 month employees and two days for 9month employees or 10-month employees. >> Is that correct? >> I believe it's three days for um nine or 10month employees. So those are basically like furlow days. >> I'm sorry. >> They're like furlow days >> essentially. >> Well, it would be in their contracted they would have less contracted days. Correct. >> That's right. >> Okay. >> Um, can I ask a follow-up question on the district office? So, I guess I get the impression that people would like you to look at your org chart and

059see who you could cut. So, um, is that something that has been considered? I I mean, I I agree with your point, Dr. Davidson, that we're looking to continue to gainfully employ all of our employees, um, including all of our certified and classified. However, the truth of the matter is the money has to come from somewhere. So, we cannot give a 2% raise and keep everything the same as it is right now. That those numbers aren't adding up. So what what we're trying to do as a board is come up with the least painful of these painful options. So are we look are we looking at our org charts and our staffing at campuses as well as the org chart at the district office? Um seriously >> we have looked at um a honestly person

060by person and position by position uh look at uh every position that's not at a school campus. Um we have uh spent significantly more time looking at that than uh at how to uh modify uh school staffing supports. Um other than the class ratios and uh staffing ratios again based on the the prioritization of the feedback we got through that survey. Again, it's um it's certainly not that we won't look at uh um the certified and classified supports at the school levels, but it was ranked in the survey as some of the least favorable or least feasible options. And so, um it is certainly not in this first round of uh discussion items that we've brought forward. However, there are slides that will allow us to um talk a little bit more about that uh

061deeper into the presentation. >> Okay. I just think it's really important if you've done that work to look at those positions and you've spent time in a thoughtful process about that to communicate that because if I'm a staff person and I'm looking at this I think well you know we said district office and departments are on the table >> and you're telling me you're going to give up a couple days are you really looking are you really and so it sounds to me like you're saying yeah we we have thoughtfully looked at that and we're looking at every position and we do believe that we don't have fat to cut there. But I can't read your mind to know that that work is being done. And I think that's really important to convey because I

062don't appreciate the us versus them campus versus district office vibes that are coming out through these discussions. We are a team. We are here to support each other. It is our board's mantra that we are going to make decisions in the best interest of student success. It is also the admin cabinet's mantra that they are going to make decisions in the best interest of student success. So, we are all on the same team, but this is a tough conversation. Again, we don't want to be doing this, but we are forced to do this because we have to be fiscally responsible and we cannot continue to overspend. We are overspending this year. If something doesn't change, we will overspend next year and we will end up in a dire situation where people can't keep their jobs.

063So something has to give and that's what this discussion is about. So I hope that we can continue to communicate more detail maybe behind be around what is going on behind the scenes to make sure that everyone knows. We're looking at all the options and I'll just reiterate again if people have other ideas bring them on. We don't know everything. So yeah, send emails. If you hear of other things other districts are doing or whatever, let us know. We're open open to ideas. >> Anyone else? >> Yeah. Um, >> I I do find it hard to believe that, you know, looking at an entire org chart of every position from, you know, superintendent down to custodians to anybody, right? That there aren't a few positions that could be eliminated, right? Like a couple days, I

064get it, a team sacrifice, but we're talking big picture. Um, that's hard for me to believe. And I'm not talking, you know, cabinet. I'm talking something assistance, administrative assistants, staff. Um, you know, when people, teachers are picking up slack, everyone's picking up slack sometimes. Maybe it's we, you know, combine some positions, do something. But, uh, I think there should be, and again, this is the beginning conversation, but I feel like there should be more stones unturned. So, I guess uh CFO von, are you looking for us to say, "Yeah, we're good with potential calendar changes," or "No, we don't want calendar changes," or or what would how would you like this to go? >> That would be fantastic. Um obviously we can't uh poll the governing board and so uh I don't I mean we

065can't go person by person and and say that you support or don't support. Um I think what I'm hearing though is that there that there is some level of support uh for 12 month uh calendar changes. Um, we haven't talked as much about the other calendar changes that that I did mention. Uh, but what I've also heard is that we probably could dig a little bit deeper um into this area. >> And Miss Maran, if I can add, please. Sorry. >> Um, you know, the the hope for tonight is is just what we're having is just awesome conversation and and truth behind the conversation. We at some point will take this feedback, feedback we receive from staff and so forth and eventually get to an administrative recommendation where the board could pinpoint um in a

066motion. I we would like this or we would not like this uh depending upon what we present. But I I I there is no action other than quality conversation that I would ask for tonight. >> Okay. What I would add to that on this calendar is I I am not opposed to calendar changes for all employees basically. I don't think it would be equitable to do calendar changes for one group versus a different one. But if they're in alignment, for example, we're not having that what was the back to school bash. And so that then becomes, you know, an unpaid day for everyone. Um that makes a lot of sense to me. Yeah, I mean I just like to reiterate that though. I mean I agree with looking at the calendars across the across the

067board as well. I mean as we're trying to get some additional real time feedback. I know we're not voting on the stuff but just as far as thoughts. I mean but of course keeping in mind there is lots of stuff to overturn moving forward here. I'm not opposed to any ideas you want to bring at currently just for us to discuss and to dig into and see what really is the best plan personally. Um I know that a lot of feedback today we have gotten and probably will be getting over time is at an admin level and that's where everybody wants to go and my heart is with teachers. That's what got me on this board to begin with was to be somebody that would stand up and speak for teachers. is not and I

068understand I'm not a teacher but as a parent that worked with teachers all the time every day in the schools I was in I know how hard you guys work so please know my heart is with you. I also know that when I got on this board we didn't have enough people at an admin level to do the jobs they needed to do and so it feels like there's been a growth of admin but it hasn't really been a growth of admin so much as changing the way we do things and the structure of it. And so with that, just keep that in mind that part of what makes our services better now is that we have people that can actually do things where we didn't have that before. We had things that were not

069getting taken care of for years and years and years because there wasn't somebody that could take care of something. And so just keep that in mind that none of these decisions are easy and none of us want to take away anything from our students and our staff. But we are going to have to make some hard decisions and just try to keep that in mind and try to assume positive intent with us as I'm going to assume with all of you when you guys are coming to us and letting us know your feelings. >> We can move on. >> All right. When considering caps for special education contracted employees, the team worked collaboratively with the special education leadership team to identify what the collective group considered reasonable targets. We identified instructional assistance as a group

070we could most influence in reducing contracted employees. Some schools already have had a great deal of success in reducing the amount of contracted instructional assistance on their campus year-over-year. The cost savings model focuses on the difference between the cost of a district employed instructional assistant and a contracted instructional assistant. For teachers, our target is to not allow any growth in the number of contracted positions from the current amount. I'd like to pause uh for discussion around special education contracted caps. >> Um I would say I'm in support of this. I think this is something we should be doing regardless. Like I think we should always be looking at our contracted folks because we know they're more expensive. So the more limitations we can reasonably put on that while providing the services we're required to provide,

071I'm a fan of. I need you to explain to me how that works because we are required to provide certain services for our students. And so the reason that we have these contracted services right now is so we can meet those needs because we don't have the staff that we need to have to do that. So, I need you to explain to me how that works. >> I'm hoping you don't uh directly mean that you need me to explain because I've got some people at the table that could help explain it much better. >> Whoever can explain it to me is great. >> Jen, do you mind uh speaking to to this work? >> So, some of Sorry, my voice sounds like yours. Um, some of the things that we've already put in place is

072that we are we've gotten very used to finding a contracted rather than posting the position and interviewing. The other thing is if we need somebody right away, we can do contracted, but we will continue to find a Lichfield employee, which a lot of times once we put a contracted person in, we stop looking for somebody else. So, those are things that we can do. The other thing that the special education department and um director coin has been doing uh uh Michael and Sandy have worked really hard to identify what is the cost of what we would pay our employee and one of the contracted agencies actually is about the same price as what we would pay. So, we're going out to the other contracted agencies and asking them to lower their price because then we

073can allow our um administrators to choose from those specific companies. Um so, we're not saying that contracted is completely gone, but we won't be using some of those very expensive ones. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Anybody else? Okay, we're good to move on. When considering school budgets, we pulled together a working group of principles and office managers and reviewed data around categorized school spending as well as how much of our school budgets were being rolled over yeartoear. This group identified two primary budget levers as part of that conversation. one around the cost of printing across the district as well as a general reduction in budget. To save resources in connection to printing, we are implementing a program that puts desktop printers on a service plan just like our copy machines. This plan will result in

074the organization paying either per page or a flat dollar amount for unlimited printing on that device. Based on tracking usage during the year, it appears that almost all printers will be most advantageous on a per page plan. The anticipated savings based on what was spent for ink cart is based on what was spent for ink cartridges last year compared to what we would pay per page is between $30,000 and $40,000. This change not only is cost savings, it should also make it easier for our office managers and end users. This process will mean office managers will not have to order ink cartridges because it will be covered in the per page cost and our printers will be standardized across the district which will make access to the desktop printers for use easier from a technology

075perspective. Additionally, the cost will be entirely controllable at the school level by managing the printing that is incur occurring on the site. The savings that we're showing here does not actually model in a reduction in printing. And so if schools uh work towards uh reducing printing, they could see uh additional savings where they would be able to use their uh resources differently. Based on the working group of office managers and principles, a 5% reduction in the budget allocation per student that we provide to each school uh appeared reasonable. The office managers and principles involved uh thought that that would be manageable. We can pause for discussion on school budget allocations. Now before moving on, >> so did I hear that right? It's just a the first one is just a shift of whether it's just

076per page or whether we're spending per ink cartridge. Yes. And and and like you said, it's not and if we mapped it out, it's pretty much not impacting asking reductions of what's actually going on. It's just a shift in a contract or something. >> It's that we found a a cheaper way to do essentially what we're doing. Uh it is um there is as part of that plan a a change in the number of overall uh desktop printers that we have um that the district uh is intending to pay uh for using uh our capital resources. However, we are uh leaving open to the principles if they'd like to add additional on top of the standard that they can utilize their own uh budget allocations to do so. Uh so long as they keep it

077under the same plan so that we still gain the benefits of the per page and um it's still being managed under that service contract. So, so this uh cost savings, at least in my mind, uh is a true win because for the most part, we're supporting essentially what we're doing now. We just found a cheaper way uh to do it. >> We need you to find more of those. >> I I would love to. >> Anyone else? Would this mean that different classroom teachers have their own printers or are they printing to printers all in one area? Like >> So, uh, what this really looks like is, uh, I don't know why we're getting feedback. Um, what this really looks like is the printers in what we call our pods or grade level areas. uh

078in some schools that don't have pods, those quote unquote pod printers are in individual classrooms. Um but that's that's really what we're primarily referring to. >> And we're talking about going away from copy machines and going more towards printers. Is that correct? >> So we would we would uh retain the copy machines we do have. And this is just moving the uh freestanding smaller printers that um to a service plan similar uh to what our copy machines are on. >> Okay, understand. Thank you. >> I think we're ready to move on. >> I'm sorry I didn't quite catch that. Nope. Are we ready? I think we're ready. Nobody else had anything else? >> Our work group of principles and office managers also reviewed stipens districtwide. So, what this looked like was um we generated a

079report that showed the cost of every stipent paid um for last year. uh and reviewed that uh with the team to see if they uh could help us identify um opportunities to reduce stipens. >> And can I ask a follow-up question on that? >> How is for the stipens like how is that phrased or worded? Because I feel like if you asked a teacher, you can have you know because this is all coming from the same bucket, right? So it's like it's coming one way or the other. So, if we asked um a teacher or a campus, you know, classified staff who got a stipen for something, you know, would you rather have the stipend and then have less of a pay raise or would you rather have more of a pay raise and not

080be able to get the stipen? Like, I feel like there's something about the wording because we know we can't do all of it. So, how do we get people to make a choice even though they don't want to make any choice? But that's really what we're looking at. Again, how can we get the least painful of the painful options? I guess I'm thinking out loud here, but >> yeah. Uh, it's a good question. Um, I'm going to try to answer it. Feel free to call me out if you don't think I I answered. um the the majority of our stipens that are paid at the district level, which is really um when we're talking about budget cuts, really what we have to consider because if it's paid at a site level, I can't actually cut

081it because principles use their own discretion to to have that stipen exist. Um so the the stipens that are primarily at the district level are our athletic stipens are our uh club stipens uh this translation stipend uh that um we do have a stipen that comes out of our uh M override. However, while we talked about what that looked like, it really truly wasn't a consideration because we consider that part of base pay. even though in theory it's a stipend. Um, but that's really the population we had to to look at. Uh, because as I mentioned, if it if it comes out of a school budget, our ability to to cut it in the budget process really is diminished. Where that might happen is a school or a principal might decide in their discretion to

082not pay for a stipend next year to help make up for the potential reduction in their school budget. Um that's really the only way we can touch those stipens is by reducing the budget allocation at the school level. I think um as you're having conversations about stipens versus base pay, really what you're going to see in the data is if you happen to be a person that receives that stipend, you probably want to keep the stipend. And if you are a person that doesn't receive that stipend, you probably don't care much about it, which is um one of the challenges when uh broadly surveying about uh different ideas. >> Yeah, for sure. So what is do you know around what the potential dollar amount is? What's the total that are the district stipens that are

083paid per year? Obviously we wouldn't cut them all no matter what. Wait, I don't think but >> can you give me just a moment? >> Yeah, I can add a little bit more to this. So um it has been around since I've been around that we've had stipens for chorus at $1,100, NEHS at $550, student council at 550. And what these really can be is the continuous learner project. So instead of having offering it as a stipen, it could be a continuous learner. And since we changed that so that more people can get that, not only the level 3es, which is what it was before, um that will help that process. And if a principal needed to do it, they could do it out of their M. It just wouldn't be at the district level

084because it would be part of the CLP. So you're saying we could shift it to the continual continuous continual how do you say that? >> continuous learner project. >> Yeah. Just these specific ones. So if a teacher is still going above and beyond for an afterchool club that is not a part of that or is taking on something that their principal asked and it they already have a CLP, the principal can still do. We have stipens that are available for that and principles pay those all the time. We're not saying that those are going away. It would just be these specific um elementary or K8 that could also be a CLP. We can say that this isn't a part of the district part anymore. It needs to be a CLP instead. >> Okay. And those

085teachers that are doing that, let's say they're doing a CL and getting the stipen. So that they were are going to view that as being harmful to them. Correct. >> So, it could be for some of them. So, for example, you might have somebody who's doing yearbook and Girls on the Run. Um, and so maybe Girls on the Run is their CLP and they've been getting a stipen for yearbook. They would probably have to pick one or the other at that point. >> Okay. But, but you're saying these things have been around forever and so now we're questioning why are we doing this the same way we've always done it when there could be a different way to do it. >> So, they used to be around. The reason that they were in place, I

086don't know about Dr. Hec, but I know for sure they were with Dr. Lean. The reason they were around is because our TLP, our teacher leader project was only for specific and we didn't have enough teachers that could do these specific things. With us changing the way that CLP looks, we can look to change this. And actually, you get paid more for a CL than you do for the stipend. >> Okay. So, you're saying it would potentially not be detrimental to our campus options because someone would would still be doing all of these projects. That that would be the hope. There is always the possibility that it is one person who's doing multiple and then they're getting the stipen and the CLP. So that could be um a problem for some campuses, but hopefully they

087would have somebody else who would be willing to step up for the CLP. >> Okay. Okay, that seems reasonable to me. >> I do want to be clear, it would never be the and and Jen, this isn't what Jen said, but I just want to make sure it's clear. There's there's not a scenario where presently someone's getting paid for the same work uh using both the continuous learner project and the stipend. What happens is we encourage uh campuses to get uh these items covered through a continuous learner project. And if if they can't or if someone who already has a different continuous learner project still wants to do it, that's when the stipend comes into play. Uh now, this isn't uh what's modeled here. This is just the translation stipend. Uh but um shifting district

088level stipens to uh to continuous learner projects would be a next step of consideration if we wanted to take the stipened budget lever and take a more robust approach towards uh saving um resources that way. Uh I I have the individual uh report up that we use to do that work. And so I'll just um give one example as a consideration. So we pay at the district level a yearbook stipen. Um and that's $19,800 that was paid last year for for yearbook stipens. And so that could in in the scenario that Jenben uh that that Miss Benjamin referred to that could be saved by saying we're we're not offering that stipend. It has to be covered by by a continuous learner project. And in addition to that, if there was a campus that then no

089one said they wanted to do the yearbook, a principal could say at their own discretion, I'm going to offer this stipen because we need to have a yearbook. So there's there is still some flexibility >> and we could say that that has to come from their school budget as opposed to being covered at the district level. >> Okay. Okay. >> And Miss Moran and governing board members to add to this conversation. I happen to be a part of this one. Um, we really also look simply broad-based at efficiencies. That's why you see this one on this slide tonight. Those conversations we're having here were had and they can be further explored, but this one was simply one where we were talking about what's uh something we can, you know, touch globally and just become more

090efficient with. >> Anybody else? Sorry. Have anything on this one? And I want to make sure I said this piece. I don't actually recall um if I said uh what I prepared for this slide. Um, so the the feedback we received on this translation stipend in particular and why it was uh brought forward today was that often at the school level, the employee who receives this stipend is not easily accessible to provide translation services uh when they're needed because potentially they're in a classroom uh serving students. And that uh regularly what occurs is that we have a uh service for translation over the phone that that administrators in front offices use to still get um still get that services. And so that goes to what Dr. Davidson was saying around efficiencies. >> Okay. Okay. So,

091you're really saying we would utilize that service that we already have rather than paying someone who is often times not available to to do the work that's needed for the stipend. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I think we're ready. >> I I have a quick question around that. I assume that a lot of times that this translation is being used is for IEP meetings, disciplinary actions in those arenas. Are we using this service for that or are we currently using people for that? >> Uh our leaders have the option based on what uh what is working best for them. So if if they have an employee who's receiving the translation stipend who um is available to attend those uh meetings then then they have the option to utilize that employee. Um otherwise

092and I think primarily based on the feedback we received from that working group primarily they're using um that service. >> Just a reminder we have a lot more languages than just Spanish. So >> that is often used for all types of things. Just the office welcoming a family in um IEP meetings, discipline, parent teacher conferences. It could be for multiple things that we're using that for. >> I was just clarifying if this is something that we're already widely using or if this would be a shift. >> No. Um, Director Larson actually rolled this out about 3 years ago um to the entire district and every school has the information in their front office. So if a family comes in, they can point to the language that they speak and then the office knows to call.

093>> We're ready to move on to the next one. I guess >> before we move on, can I pose a question? Uh are we interested in seeing uh more work around transitioning uh district level stipens to the continuous learner project? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> I think this that definitely feels like an area that would not be negatively felt by our families and staff. And as long as we're keeping things like our clubs and athletics and services where they are, I don't see any reason to shift how we are compensating those people if that is a way that we can make a dent in this budget. I I did want to just point out one other resource that is very helpful to our extracurricular programming and that's tax credit. So we also still have those

094resources to access to ensure that we continue um our programs from an extracurricular point of view. >> So we really need to make sure we promote tax credit a lot lot more so that we get more tax credit money. Well, but what I would add to that is are we sure our principles know how to utilize that? Because in the past that hasn't always been the case. So, if we're going to have a discussion on not providing a stipen for girls on the run or that's, you know, but let's say it's an an actual sport um that's, you know, played with other schools. Um, we just have to make sure that principles know how that works because they're not if we want it to be continual and not impact the services like board member Wallace

095said, then we just need to make sure that that's that we're upfront about that and and there aren't any barriers there. And maybe what that can look like, and I'm I'm just thinking out loud, is um we can take that uh district approved stipened list that's uh presently paid for at the district level and next to each kind of give the principles guidance on. This could be uh tax credit um you know tax credit athletics or tax credit fine arts or uh different options. one one um limiting factor to a certain extent if you will that we may face um with shifting of stipens to the continuous learner project although there's it we can work through it is that a significant amount of our district paid uh stipens or for athletics which is in the

096m override and so Um there could just be uh problems from a um public perception uh standpoint if we have an override passed for athletics um and then shift it away from uh district provided if you will. >> All right. Are we ready to move on? >> Yes. Okay. When reviewing class size, the cabinet reviewed previous class sizes that had been in place in the district. To begin discussions, we targeted 2018 ratios. Moving back to the ratios we'll see in a couple of slides would reduce the number of general education teaching positions by 30 for next school year compared to this year at a savings of $1.8 million. 2018 was selected because it was prior to when Litzfield instituted its most recent class size reductions and it also aligns well with the inflationadjusted funding level

097the district is currently receiving from the state as shown uh on the graph on the slide. This slide shows the class sizes used to forecast the reduction in teaching positions and the cost savings associated. Please note that we typically hire around 80 to 100 teachers per year and so the reduction would be handled via attrition versus a reduction in force. Additionally, it's important to note that with class ratios, class sizes tend to hover around them as opposed to being at them due to the nature of staffing. For example, even though the class size used in the model was 27 for kindergarten, the average class size that resulted based on the number of students anticipated at each school and the resulting staffing was 25 or what our current board approved class size actually is. We'd like

098to pause here for discussion on general education class sizes before we move on to discussing other studentto staff ratio considerations. >> Okay. I'd like to start with the initial cost savings number. Can you tell me how you came up with that? And my primary question behind that is how theoretical is that number or was that based on what our current class sizes are and then basically consolidating some classes based strictly on that two to one to four, you know, depending on how which grade level you're looking at. Or is the 1.8 8 million based on if we were at max capacity in every classroom. >> I think the answer to that question is none of the above. >> Okay. >> Um >> tell me more. >> So each year what we do to start our

099staffing process whether we're changing class sizes or not is we roll forward the number of students that we have at each school in each grade level to the next. Um and then we apply those board approved class sizes uh to those figures. Um we then review the results of that for reasonability. So for example um we uh allow for up to three more than the board approved class size before uh adding another teacher, but we don't want to start the school year at that. And so, uh, for example, if if that model results in being too over, Sandy and I will manually override the model and and add a teacher in. The the reduction in teachers came from uh, running that same process, but with these ratios instead of our current and then comparing against

100what our current uh, staffing is. Uh so that got us to the 30 reduction. Uh the cost per teacher. What I did is I ran an analysis uh of what all of our teachers make and I took the average of that. Now um you probably know um because of how much time we spend on it that $60,000 is not the average salary of a teacher. what it is is the average out of M and so there would be additional savings but in other funding sources that we're not spending as much time on tonight. I hope that gives you some insight into how we >> it does. But then when I look at the current year, we have a lot of classroom space that's not utilized. And so that's where I do go back to, you

101know, how how real is this 1.8 million? because I was here when we decreased class sizes and I was an advocate for decreasing class sizes and we were told an exorbitant amount of money that that was going to cost and we were advised against it and said don't do it. It's going to cost, you know, millions and millions of dollars. >> Well, that wasn't the reality behind it. So, I go into this number really leery that we're actually going to save $1.8 8 million um by reducing class sizes because we are it is rare that from the information I got today and I did not have as much time to digest it as I wanted. Um but it is more the exception than the rule that we're actually at our class sizes. >> Yeah. And

102that is true. I'm going to, if you give me just a moment, I'm going to pull up that model. Um, because the model captured that. Uh, and that's really what I was referring to when I said that the the average class size in kindergarten that resulted from applying these figures was 25, not 27. And so, um, we really did, uh, to a certain extent capture that. Let me So, for example, and I'm not really um focusing on kinder for any other reason than it's the first grade, but um in that average of 25. There's schools that just based on how the number of kids fall compared to the uh proposed class size that that are at 20. And there's some that uh are at 27.5. Um and so I really do think um modeling it

103this way does capture that. I wasn't here um at that at that change and so I'm not really certain how my predecessor um modeled it. Um >> I will tell you that she told us for every one student we decreased it was going to be a million dollars. You remember that it was a million dollars every one student we decreased which is why it took a little bit of time but I like board member Moran that was one of the very first things that we did on this board when I got on this board was to lower class sizes and I was really proud of us for getting that done because we were advised not to do it. So, this one gives me the most heartburn of all the things that you're talking about. And

104I understand that we are going to have to make some very difficult decisions. And I'm not saying that I won't be able to make some hard decisions, but I am saying that I really would like to make sure we are more concrete on that number because it is something that we worked really hard on to make happen and I do think that our students benefit from it. So, >> so I think some question >> I guess go ahead based on like where we are now when I look at the numbers of of classroom sizes that we have now. I understand that we issue contracts early in the year but clearly we have some classes that should have been collapsed and we didn't do that. So can we be more agile with that because that obviously

105would be class savings or shifting those people somewhere else. So I feel like there are some cost savings. So, I guess I'd like to know what those numbers would look like. I think there's some cost savings that can happen from a more agile model of of making those changes when they become evident as opposed to continuing to just keep the number of classrooms open that we started the year with. know that's very painful and nobody likes to do that but that might be something we need to start doing and and making a regular practice of just like we would expand and open and no one likes that either because no one wants to shift their kid after they've already started the grade or whatever but that is in the best interest of student success just

106like collapsing a class is in the best interest of student success so I'd like to know more about opportunities for that I know you can't predict the future but if we were to have done that this year like what would that have looked like or what might that save going into next year. And then I want to continue the conversation on actually filling our classrooms because now when I look at that open enrollment, there's so much green on there. I'm like, why do we have so much green? Because we didn't we haven't always had that much green. And so I do think there are some things that are happening naturally like um going back to being an A-rated district and things like that that will help with that. But what can we do from a

107marketing and trust and um communication standpoint to try to recruit more students um and toot our own horn with the great things that we're doing and try to fill those seats. I know we can't guarantee that. So that's really hard from a budget standpoint to say we're going to increase enrollment by 2% because we're doing XYZ. We have to prove that out. But I do think putting some investment into that could be worth that because I do know that we have so much to offer and the parents and families that we have and the teachers that we have know that as well. So I don't know how to make that happen, but I would love to see more of that. >> Yeah. Um I think those are are great ideas. Uh we dipped our toe

108into that a little bit. Um my my timeline is blurring together in my head. I can't remember if that was this year or or last year. Um Sam, do you want to talk about some of the marketing efforts we did around uh Rancho Santa Fe? >> Yes. >> U board member Moran and President Zida. Um we've taken um what we can as far as the minimal budget that we've had for marketing and moving forward um we are targeting a demographic which has been more towards the digital platforms to traditional uh marketing through print uh and all that is um there's really no way to get any kind of ROI on that. So we can't get any data to see how it's tracking. So we've changed our strategy on that which is even uh less expensive

109to do as we market. what we do is boosting where we can get in front of an additional 10,000 eyes to see a message to see um some of the the storytellings that we're showing the amazing work that our teachers are doing within the classrooms where we can get that at $50 rate as opposed to an $800 ad that's going to run one time. Plus, when we use the digital platforms, we get data on those. We see who's opening and how many opens, how many eyeballs I see the demographic of who's looking at are those ages between, you know, 20 and 50, are those male, female typically. So we can gather all this data and we can target where we're doing those digitally. Um we've uh gone and we actually did since with Rancho Santa

110Fe where we were struggling with enrollment. Um we even went as far as to produce an ad that ran in theaters to trying to get into different avenues and reach out as far as we possibly can. But the strategy right now with our limited advertising budget, um and when I say limited, it's extremely limited. Um, we're trying to get the biggest bang for our buck, which is on the digital platforms and basically just getting that message and and I encourage all of our our our teachers as we speak uh at our at our apple pie tours that we're all ambassadors. We're all advocates for our district to say what a great job we're doing, what a great job you all are doing so that we can get that message out there, you know, through untraditional

111ways. you know, we can go back to the old school of, you know, word of mouth, uh, which I think, you know, is we've kind of gone away from, but if we can increase that word of mouth, um, and get our ambassadors across the entire district, I think we can start making some impact. >> Miss Moran, can I also add real quick, I appreciate the conversation regarding um, being more nimble, maybe agile as it relates to staffing. um over the last few years um again just under that those that umbrella of stewardship when we start the school year and when we look at staffing we we monitor that very closely and for those principles online or those in the room I can guarantee they watch it as closely as we do um to ensure that

112they have the proper staffing um with our current models and with some of our smaller schools um let's just say you use a a grade level that just happens to have two teachers per um there the ability to be more nimble or monitor and modify staffing is way less simply because you don't have the um the places to put the children or if you were to reduce as an example. And so we've spent our energy and conversation trying to support uh when we're in those spots trying to give more leeway to maybe our title our schools that have more title one students or schools that might have already tight classrooms knowing if you were to remove a teacher it would really jeopardize those classrooms. So I do appreciate the conversation. It's something we've really talked

113about over the last few years. It's just sometimes in our current models it it doesn't allow for it very easily. >> Okay, got you. Um I guess I would say overall because I was with President Zidama in the fight to reduce class sizes, I'm not in favor of increasing them. It's not the top of my list. However, I am reasonable and if that is the cabinet's or administration's recommendation, I would prefer to see something meeting in the middle potentially not going back to 2018, maybe increasing by one again if that is ultimately what we have to do because I think um my question to my fellow board members would be if we're going to say we don't want class sizes to increase, what are we going to do? because we have to do something. >>

114Mrs. Brian, may I add to or respond to an earlier part of our conversation uh when you were speaking to the collapse of classrooms and when that should occur. So, uh just to make you aware, we actually encountered that uh in this particular case. It did happen to be in our special education program, but we're always looking at that and we're in the process of completing a transition where we did need to collapse a classroom, but we're uh taking the steps to ensure that it's as has little impact on the students who are in the classroom that are collapsing. So we've provided a transition time uh where the teacher who will be moving will still be with the students. So we are looking at that and we really do that as Dr. Davidson shared really

115at the beginning of the year um Michael and I are continually looking at what are those pupil teacher ratios and we look at it um from overall. So we look at all of the third grade at any given school or all of the fifth grade. So it's something that we are looking at and I just wanted to provide you that assurance that we are doing that. >> Great. Thank you. >> I just want to say to you that I am not a fan of these numbers here, especially the middle school numbers moving from 32 to 36. I feel like that's just extremely high. These are larger children and a lot of our classrooms are not big classrooms. Um, my students attend Palm Valley as middle schoolers and they are very small rooms and currently have

11630 to 32 children in those rooms. To add another four children at that size, it just is a huge number. I also think behavior problems in middle school, just adding that another four kids. Um, and I also feel like that's a huge jump to go from four. All of our other ones are looking at at two or one, but that middle school jump going up by four just doesn't seem fair to our middle school students or teachers either. I also can be reasonable if we need to make adjustments, but I really don't like those middle school numbers strongly. I also feel like our kindergarten should be able to stay at 25 as well. I agree with someone's public comment about we capture them as a kindergartener and if we can't get people to enroll their

117kindergarteners into the schools because we have large kindergarten class sizes, we're not going to be able to capture them and have them fall in love with our district. So, I think that again, I can be reasonable and that we have to make hard decisions that we don't want to make, but I'm not okay with those two areas specifically. >> I think what would be helpful is to board member Moran's point earlier is like this isn't going to impact every school, every class, right? So, what would be helpful is to know what actual grades at each school would be impacted by this. Like, okay, if you're at Rancho, your classes are still going to be 23 or 22, but now all of a sudden, if you're in eighth grade at Verado Middle or another eighth grade

118campus, you're going to be 37, right? So that might be helpful to just know what schools and what grades will be impacted because the idea of collapsing a a class seems unreasonable. That would mean that there's two classes with 13 kids, right? Or 15 kids. So it's really going to be a few not a few classes, but just which classes are impacted and what grade levels at schools. Um, the other thing I would like to maybe get a number on, and we don't have a crystal ball, but the impact of Troy Gilbert, what we anticipate their capacity will be because we know they are at a low capacity now. And that seems like that will be a re more revenue generating and potentially cost savings there. And I don't know if that's captured somewhere, >>

119Mr. Mike. Uh yeah, and I'm not going to try to repeat many things. I mean, there's been a lot of good discussion with with class sizes. I think maybe you can get an understanding of where we all fall. Um coming from somebody I remember my first year teaching walking into the room and there was 39 eighth graders sitting in that room and that number did uh never did change. And so, um, it kind of gives me a slight, you know, twitch when we we talk about, uh, increasing class sizes. But what I do want to say out loud is when I first looked at these ratios and I said to myself, are we even operating and filling based off of our current policy class sizes, which I know we just got, you know, we were

120hashing that out and taking it, you know, taking a look at it. Um and uh with uh with board member Wallace's standpoint as far as you know kindergarten those middle middle schools as far as that jump in that number and finding kind of a you know a potential middle ground to at least look and digest some stuff as we go forward. I know there's lots of steps, lots of time, lots of research that needs to go into it still, but um I like where we're uh trying to go in order to, you know, not you know, we're not saying to make this initial jump off the cliff right now because it it doesn't look good. I will add too is that my fear of these high middle school numbers is for our schools that are

121already very high number of students, their classes are already some of them at that number. And we talked about how we'll let it go three over. So that really means there could be 39 kids in a classroom and that is too many. So, um, if we do end up going down this path, I would want to make sure we have some very strict guardrails in place of how quickly we add another class or section. That's a whole another later conversation. But just if we are going to have to keep continuing this conversation, that's what I would want to see in place because I don't want to see there be 39 and 40 kids in a middle school classroom. The other thing I want to add is I stated earlier, you know, we are always going

122to try to make decisions in the best interest of student success. And I'm going to be hardressed to say that this is in the best increasing class sizes in the best interest of student success. So I feel like this is a policy decision that one year is going to look one way and one year might look a different way. And so I think this has to go back to like our core values and not just hey one year we might save 1.8 million, one year we might save 500,000. Like so for me it feels like more than just a budget number. Um, do I have any other board member feedback on that? >> No, I agree. >> I think we're ready to move on to the next topic. Unless >> it absolutely is more than

123a budget number. You're right. and um how sensitive that savings is to how the numbers actually fall as term in terms of um numbers of students in each grade that are rolling up does mean uh that you will see that swing that you're talking about. Maybe not as drastic as as your example, but you will see uh that swing. Uh, I definitely agree that that um it's more than a budget conversation. Um, I'm also very thankful for the discussion tonight. I think um this section of the presentation did what it was intended to do, which is give us a starting point to the conversation. Um, if the board doesn't mind, I'd like to summarize some of the uh takeaways I've taken from the conversation just to make certain um that we've captured it. So um

124look at collapsing excess positions. Um look at uh what we can do from a marketing perspective. Um in terms of other things we might be interested in seeing modeled is model increasing by one uh across the board uh instead of uh varied in in each grade. The middle school numbers in particular are too high. Uh also we'd be curious to model what happens if kindergarten stays at 25. Um, we'd be interested in seeing what grades at each uh school is impacted, which will be uh very easy to provide honestly because that's how uh Sandy and I have looked at it to come to the 30. Um, so we certainly can uh share that. and then uh looking specifically at Troy Gilbert um in capacity. Does that uh largely cover um what the board would like

125to see as next steps in future discussion? >> Uh yes. >> Okay. Only one or two things, right? All right. As part of this work, the team also reviewed studentto staff ratios and resource and specialed self-contained programs and is in the process of finalizing an an initial recommendation for discussion for students to staff ratios for our English language development program. Special education staffing ratios in Lichfield are driven by a weighted student count formula that takes into account not just how many students are needing services but different characteristics of that need such as level of the special education placement. These changed ratios for resource were developed in collaboration with special education leadership team. This slide shows the proposed ratios for middle school resource rooms. Ratios and class sizes for our self-contained programs were reviewed and modified

126by our special education guiding coalition with guidance from the administrative team. The special education guiding coalition includes our special education leadership team, special education coaches. uh that primarily are um only one year removed from the classroom and presently focus on supporting these programs and related service provider leads. The results are shown in this slide and the next. In developing these recommendations, the teams considered the types of needs that present in the individual programs as well as how age or grade level modify these needs. This recommendation actually increases the number of special education teachers overall uh while reducing special education instructional aids. We believe these re ratios may actually reduce turnover in our self-contained teaching positions due to the reduction in class sizes for younger students while still creating a savings overall. However, I believe this

127work highlights a thought process that was in place throughout this work. The team worked hard to identify changes that we we believe made sense while also being good stewards of our resources. This slide shows the proposed ratios in the remaining self-contained programs. Uh I'd like to pause for um discussion around these ratios in more specialized programs. I will go first if no one else I don't I Anybody else want to go first? Okay. So, what I think I heard you say, but I want to just make sure is I'm not an expert on special ed or the ratios. I'm much more familiar with the general ed classroom sizes. So you're telling me that these recommendations are really coming from director Coin and the work that he has in his team and they are the experts

128in this area and they have looked at their own operations and ratios and you're not telling them you need to do XYZ. They're coming to you and saying this is what we think is feasible based on how we currently operate. >> That's exactly right. Um we've had multiple full day uh brainstorming sessions with the special education team, but the the um tone behind that work has always been let's just review our current practices and let's discuss what we think makes sense. Um we as a smaller group um you know several members of cabinet and then just the special education leadership team came up with slightly different um self-contained ratios. Director Coin then brought that to uh his guiding coalition for special education and they developed what you're seeing here. um my involvement was honestly simply

129um calculating what it meant from a dollars and cents perspective. >> Okay. And we know the expenses of special ed have been a hot topic because they continue to increase and we know that that's one of the things that as a board we tasked Dr. Davidson with looking at specifically this year was special ed. So and the expenses around that. So for me, this seems like another area that's definitely more on the win side or something that we would be doing regardless of this. Is that also accurate? >> Yes. I I think it's a a good example of what I said early on in the presentation that uh budget may have been the catalyst to start some of these conversations, but this is certainly an example of where we were reviewing our current practices and

130uh looking at what makes sense. budget may have started the conversation, but it certainly was not the driving force in coming to the conclusions or uh the potential recommendation that you that you see here tonight. >> Okay. And in your opinion, how solid are these estimated cost savings? Um they're very similar to the uh general education cost savings in the sense that we sat down with director coin modeled what staffing would be for next year using these ratios uh figured out what the change in staffing was based on that and then used average uh costs for those types of positions to calculate the savings. >> Okay. And is it fair to say that our special ed population is more consistent than our gen ed population? >> No. Um it's uh very difficult to to forecast.

131>> Um so I would say I honestly have uh more faith in the um projection for gened than I do special ed. But what I will say is I that's not because of the process used. That's more just because it's very hard to estimate what will happen from a student body perspective when it comes to special education. >> Okay. Because the needs are so diverse. >> That's right. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Miss Moran. If I could add to that conversation, you know, one of our guest speakers this evening, I think the the quote was, "Our students deserve more." And to me, this is a great example of, and you started speaking to it as it relates to talking with those that have the ability to help us with funding. Our kids do deserve more.

132Um, that our students with disabilities, an amazing population of kids, the staff that take care of them and support them, but we don't get fully funded for the needs that they present with, and that comes from the federal government to include our state. And so I just think we need to to recognize that we're going to continue to do our best, but yeah, they do deserve more. I'm going to echo what board member Moran said for any special education parents that might be listening or teachers or staff members because you all work with our kids whether you're a gened teacher, special ed teacher, aid, whatever to advocate for more funding for our special ed kids because that is taking a huge amount of our budget and we can't not provide these services for these kids

133and we don't want to not provide them but also we legally have to and So we're in a situation where we are having to spend an exorbitant amount more money on these kids than we get from the state and that means we have to cut from other areas and that's not fair to anybody that we have to do that. So absolutely start advocating to your state legislators about funding special education fully. Did anybody else have anything? I think we're good here for him. >> That one just feels positive all the way around. So, >> as far as not hurting anyone, but continuing to provide the services that we provide, maybe even at a better level to review certified and classified support positions, the team has started by running a school sustainability model that helps us

134look at which schools are supporting their own operations and the operations of dis district level support programs with their student population and the student driven revenues that the district receives from the state. This analysis showed that only five of our 15 schools are sustainable. We've not developed a recommendation for any changes to classified or certified supports at schools based on this information and the feedback we received in the survey that these are the least feasible for our schools. However, we wanted to ensure we had the opportunity for discussion tonight on classified and certified support staffing um in case the board had any feedback uh they wanted to provide in this area. >> Um I have my my first question on the staffing model maybe just to kind of gather a little bit better understanding on

135what we're talking about. The first thing I see is um you know when I sit back and go okay it's either sustainable or not and then there's that in between of going okay well how close are we to being sustainable within you know with certain schools are they you know are it they're not all the same as far as the gap that we have. I mean, that's my my first thing. It's and and not I'm trying not to oversimplify it, but it's just like, oh, you know, oh, this we're we're 10% off on this this school or 15% on on that sustainability uh piece, which is uh which is kind of the big thing for me. And then also maybe just kind of elaborating when we say a school is sustainable or it's not sustainable,

136maybe just kind of a little bit more background on on really what that really what that means. Of course, we know what the word the term means, but just kind of understanding a little bit more background on that would be uh helpful. Uh what we did with this analysis is uh we used last year's data uh to avoid um having to forecast where things would end uh because last year is is solid data. It actually happened. Um and what we did is uh I broke down the state funding formula um that we get funded for as a district and I ran it for uh each individual school uh in the same exact manner uh on and so that was essentially the resources uh coming in to that school. Then what we did from the expense

137side is I segregated uh expenses uh between what I uh pushed and called district level and what uh I allocated directly to the schools. So what expenses we kept at the district level were all special education expenses. Uh this was very intentional because we didn't want a school that had uh a self-contained program on their campus being disproportionately in the analysis uh held to account for the costs of that program. Really um where self-contained special education programs are in the district is a factor of of where we have space and where we can transport the students. uh where it makes the most sense. And so really even if a even if a special education program is on a specific campus, they are serving a district-wide function uh which is why we have students there from

138from a number of district campuses. The other thing uh we kept at a district level for example was transportation. um for for essentially the same reason. All transportation costs are are serving a district-wide purpose. Um we do receive funding from the state for special education and uh and um transportation. And so I kept those aside as district level revenue. I netted those to get uh what a uh net district level expense was and then allocated that to the schools based on their student population. And so a school was considered sustainable if not only they were covering the cost of their direct expenses but also their portion uh based on their student population of the district level costs of special education, transportation, things of that nature. I hope that makes sense. Oh, that's actually that's helpful

139with understanding kind of when we get that because we sit back and we say oh five of 15 you know 33% of our schools sustainable but what that means I guess the next part was you know understanding you know how far off you know the schools that are not sustainable how far off are some of those schools or understanding different levels are tier tiered out for it and I don't need to go you know school by school to for that piece I'm just trying to understand you know maybe how think some of those gaps could be for uh some of our schools. >> For the most part, the difference was um it it ranged from under $100,000 to several hundreds of thousands of dollars. >> Yeah. So, I think I'll just interject here that then

140that adds to the longer term conversation of if we have schools that are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars, is that a smart financial decision to maintain operations at those schools? That is not what we're discussing tonight, but that is potentially going to be part of a future budget conversation. Um, hopefully after my time. >> Can I say hopefully after my time, too? No, I'm joking. Um, yeah, I do think that that's why though you see so many districts across the state having those conversations about repurposing um, campuses. >> So, I'll add to this. Um, I want us to look at everything. I mean, I want us to look at school staffing because we might look into it and find something that makes sense. I I don't want us to put something off the table

141because the survey said don't look at this. Um I think there are things to potentially be uncovered. I'm kind of in agreement that I want to look at all our options. I don't want to get us stuck in one spot. I want us to have multiple ways we can go. We've been asked to be creative. Well, that means we have to look at everything. And it might be things you don't like that we're looking at, but we have to do that because we have to look at every area and see what is going to be the most effective and the least and try to figure out what can be the most effective while being the least impactful, like least harming to our students. >> I do think uh one of the questions we had that

142I uh didn't answer, but it wasn't intentional that I didn't answer. I'd like to go back and answer that if answer it if that's okay is what are we really talking about when we talk about the school staffing model. Um so on the certified side, how our staffing model looks beyond class sizes is each school uh presently receives uh an ELLL coordinator uh an instructional coach and a behavior coach or student advisor. Um along with an allocation of full-time equivalent positions that we call certified choice. Um and that's where the school leadership in connection with uh Dr. Dooy uh using data they decide how to use those um those full-time equivalent positions. Those are driven uh based on student count at the school, how much they receive for those. That's where we tend to see

143uh reading specialists come in in our K5s. Most of the principles are use using their certified choice to support a reading specialist. That's where you might see additional behavior coaches or student adviserss um on the campus. And so if we were to make an adjustment to school staffing on the certified side, what that would what questions you'd be asking yourself essentially is what of ELLL coordinators, instructional coach, and behavior coach should not just be a given uh because you exist at a school and uh where potentially uh could we provide fewer certified choice FTE based on the on the number of students. So that's what that means on the on the certified side. On the classified side, our schools are staffed with um a uh number of employees in the front office. And then uh

144Lichfield for a very long time has had uh classified choice. It used to be called uh aid hours allocations. We we changed the name of it just to uh align it more with the the certified side uh when we implemented that um change in staffing standard after ESSER. Um but schools receive a uh office manager. They receive classified specials instructors based on the number of teachers in in each grade. They receive an attendance clerk. Um crossing guards based on the number of A dot approved crossings uh at their school. Um and then from uh the classroom site fund, they received two uh intervention aids. But when we talk about uh school staffing models, that's really what we're talking about is exploring uh changes in those supports that certainly support the classroom but are not driven

145by the class size ratios that we discussed previously. All right. If no one has anything else, we can move on to the next. We do not have any recommendations tonight to consider concerning raises for next year as we're still finalizing the compensation study to share. Um, we also are working on our on our benefits for next year by incorporating them into our compensation study. We are utilizing the feedback we received on the changes in dental and vision coverage and are exploring migrating those coverages back to Valley Schools, our provider. Prior to the change that was made for this school year, the team would like to pause for discussion on raises and benefits for next year prior to continuing. Mr. Von, any chance that you could maybe elaborate as far as you know, we may or

146may not recommend the typical 2% like you know maybe where that where does that come from? Um and you know, how it's traditionally been passed on to teachers or or not. That would be helpful. Of course. Uh I appreciate you using the language I've used in the past. Um so the 2% comes from the cap in inflationadjusted funding that we receive from the state. So regardless of what inflation is, the most the state of Arizona will increase our per people funding by due to inflation is 2%. And so what we've tried to honor is passing on that 2% uh increase that we receive as a organization per student to our employees. Um we certainly heard tonight that that a 2% raise doesn't always cover inflation. Honestly, it rarely does. Uh but that also truly goes

147back to having conversations with your legislature because it doesn't cover uh the inflation that we face as an organization either. But it is what we're provided um on a per pupil basis um each year and there are various other decisions that can be used for that 2%. Different districts use it different in different ways. as opposed to passing it straight on. >> Yeah. I So, the 2% inflation adjustment uh isn't uh some separate pot of money. It really is just part of the calculation uh when the state is figuring out how much they owe us. And so anything that we spend uh M dollars on um different positions, raises, uh that that funding is available for all of it. And in an environment where the state doesn't uh increase our funding beyond the inflation adjustment,

148it's truly all we have yeartoyear to make all of our budget decisions. if we're going to decide to reduce class sizes or even um to maintain them um that's what we have or um you know Dr. Davidson mentioned it earlier if uh APS raises our our rates by 14%. All we have is that inflationadjusted amount per student um multiplied by the number of students we have to cover all of our costs. And that's where it becomes challenging and um this group has to uh make some hard decisions around how to use those resources because it is all um one big bucket. um at the end of the day. >> Do you know um what that 2% would look would be that dollar amount? >> What's the 2% based on our student enrollment and based on

149what we get per student if they do 2% next year? What that dollar amount is? >> Uh off the top of my head, I don't. But when we update the uh multi-year forecast for our our future conversation, part of the work I do to to create that forecast is to take the projected enrollment, assume that 2% increase and calculate out uh what our revenue would be for next year. >> So what was our student enrollment this this year? What's our current student enrollment? >> I might have to borrow your calculator. Board member Miranda. Okay. >> Oh, here you go. >> I don't know how to work in it, actually. >> Let me pull up uh if you don't mind my presentation from our November. >> Sorry, I'm just I mean like let's get a number.

150Do you know like and what was our per people amount this year? >> All right, let me uh Yeah. Yeah. >> One of the things that makes uh this a little bit more challenging to answer and why I'm pulling up the state report to give you accurate numbers is it's not purely student count. its average daily membership. Um, so just to be able to give you uh accurate numbers, I'm pulling that right now. So our uh weighted ADM which is uh the number that the uh per pupil amount is uh connected to is 14,588. Uh that why that number seems so high is that includes all the special education weights etc. our uh current year per pupil amount is $5,11326. So um if we take that multiply it by 2% and then multiply it by

151that uh average weight, you're looking at about I'm rounding but $ 1.5 million. Um, and that assumes no change in enrollment um, year-over-year. >> So, when we're looking at 2% raise or a 3-day deduction in your contract, right? Um, I don't think we want to do both, right? Um, but knowing a 1% raise is $750,000. Okay, >> just putting it out there. >> Well, I think the discussion goes more towards right now we're saying, you know, we would save 1.8 million on class sizes and I think we're saying we don't want to do that. So, if it has to come from somewhere, again, this, you know, the feedback said, you know, we don't want to impact the typical 2% raise, but again, I am for looking at every option. I am forward looking at what

152does a 1.5% raise look like with the choices that we have to make. What does a 1% raise look like? I wouldn't like to go below 1%. Um I don't want to go below 2% but again it's got to come from somewhere. So I would like us to be able to at least see all of those options. >> We've looked at different raises for different categories of employees before as well. And so that would be another possible option. I'm not in favor of that, but we can look at it. If we're going to not give everyone 2%, I think we need to be equitable about what we're not giving to people. In my opinion, >> I'm just focused on the income elements of the tonight's presentation, right? Um, would you rather see a smaller increase

153or an induction? Right. I think most people would say if I don't get a raise, please don't take anything away from me, right? So, I'm just I just want numbers and that's why I'm asking. So, I appreciate it. >> But I think something else we need to think about is that insurance is going to come back and we've already said we're paying as much as we're going to pay for their insurance. And so any increases that potentially are coming will be going to our staff. So, while they're not complaining about that yet, they probably are going to now. But I just I want to be transparent that that's a thing that we have to think about. >> I think we're good to move to next. Earlier in the budget cycle, uh, executive director Satderfield and

154I met with all principles and directors to discuss budget requests they have for the coming year. We are actively in the process of costing those out, and we hope to bring forward to you some additional recommendations soon. This slide summarizes the potential cost savings of the items we've discussed tonight. I hope as we've talked through these items, you see that while the catalysts for these conversations were largely budget-based, the teams worked hard in collaboration with others to try to identify opportunities to re-examine current practices and bring forward changes that might make sense while being good stewards of district resources. The team and I are available to answer any further questions you may have or support any further discussion. Um, one uh question I would have for the board is if there's anything uh you think

155we didn't talk about tonight that hasn't already come out in discussion. Uh, I'd certainly love to hear um those ideas. We have um discussed it in previous board members and board meetings and I I think it was I was gone. I've missed that one. But um we talked about the sale of the land, right? What can that be used for if we sell? Are we allow is that M or is that how does that used? And we have that field in the middle of the the Right. Obviously, we don't want to do anything that's one time, but at the same time, how do we soften blows? >> Sure. Um the answer to that question is really complicated. Um and we're hoping to schedule a future study session on that topic. Um but to uh touch

156on it briefly, um the the law around proceeds of sale of of um land or buildings um goes into a fund called school plant. school plant has a really complicated law uh that governs its use, but really what it boils down for Lichfield is that it can only be used for capital items. However, uh there are some uh fancy school finance methods you can use to utilize those resources for capital and then shift other uh resources that would otherwise be used for capital to M to to essentially use those resources for M purposes even though you're using them for capital if that makes sense. Um what we are exploring um is trying to use that method to set up what essentially would become a Litfield Elementary School endowment um by investing those resources uh to

157turn the one-time resources into ongoing resources. Um that process would take many years. Uh and based on the figures that uh we've started to see based on our uh vacant land, it might genuinely take the rest of my career to fully implement that. Um but it is how far out we're planning and thinking. Um, so I hope that somewhat answers your question. >> So it's a no. Got it. Okay. >> But it's also not an all or nothing. Like while it's true that it might take the rest of my career to implement it fully, uh, there would be a certain dollar amount that we would be able to get into that endowment each year. And so that endowment would um grow as we're able to shift, but I do not think it is a viable

158option um to address the present um budget concern. >> Yeah. >> So when Ms. Moran asked earlier how much money we were looking to cut, you said anywhere from 3 to 4 million and all of the options we've talked about today adds up to 3.4 4 million. So it to me it feels like this is what you're wanting to do. I mean obviously you will look at some other options based on our conversation today, but I can see why maybe some people saw this that are upset right now and think that's what's happening because you just said we need to cut three to4 million and that's how much we're discussing to it. >> Yeah. So, um I was actually surprised at what the figure was that it came to. Uh because we've been working on

159each of these individual concepts for the last uh about two months now. Uh, and it wasn't until um last Friday that uh I finally had all the numbers to plug into this. Um, so I know it might feel that way, but genuinely I can say it wasn't the intention. One of the things that um I thought might come out of tonight and I think one of the reasons it hasn't quite is because of how close that number is to to what we're potentially targeting is I was expecting the conversation to be well you've not identified enough. Um and it happens to be be close to the figure. I I'm still not certain that we've identified the right things. I think we identified um enough to have the first of several conversations and I think we'll

160continue having those conversations honestly um as we do every year. Uh I think there's there's more focus on it this year because we're talking about cuts as opposed to um modifications and additions. But our budget process honestly has not changed. Every year in in November, we talk about budget context and then in January we start having initial conversations. Those continue into February and then a a recommendation uh from administration comes and the board considers approving it in early March. And so we we are are on path for that. Uh, and it really honestly hasn't been uh a different process than we've had um each year I've been here. Um, I I'm not sure what else I can add to that, but um, genuinely I was I was surprised. >> Did anyone else have any feedback

161or comments? Yeah, I'm glad that this is a discussion because obviously if these were our options and we had to vote on it right now, it would be horrible. Um, but like board member Moran mentioned earlier or and I think President Zid mentioned like you know there's other things that we need to consider. I think we need to um I'd love some additional feedback. Any Right. It's it's it's easy. It's not easy. Um, I understand, right? The fe feedback I've gotten via email, the feedback we heard tonight, right? Please don't do this. Please don't cut that. Please don't cut that. Things are going to have to get cut. Um, unfortunately, and and so it's just like you you um it's very similar to your household budget, right? We have a limited amount of money. And

162so, how do we make what isn't going to be an easy easy decision regardless? Um, it's going to have impact to students and human beings, but how do we limit its impact on our students number one, right? And their ability to learn. Um, but at the end of the day, we need to make sure that the best decisions are made with the most information that we can get. And so I'm hoping that the discussion we had tonight and the discussion we have and the work that you do over the next month until we meet again will hopefully open some new opportunities. And uh yeah, I'm just this is the I whispered it earlier. This is like the worst part every year of of being up here knowing that you know we have to make the

163final decision based on your recommendations. So, um, none of this is taken lightly, um, for anybody listening, like we hear you obviously, but just like we make sacrifices at our own homes and in our own lives, this is a reality that we that we're facing. >> I mean, just to piggy back a little bit off of that, what I just want to say is I um hopefully what we hear I think this process has shown is uh we're not going to try to find the easiest thing that's that's there. We are going to turn over as many possible stones as possible um and then even dig holes underneath those stones to take a look and and see what's there to make the right decisions. Um, I do uh firmly believe that we have the right

164people in place and for the conversations and to engage in with staff and everything like that to really see uh if as uh to see that we're the most educated as possible with each individual scenario as we're coming up to, you know, to make those choices and, you know, when there are hard choices, you know, to be able to say we've we've looked everywhere and that's kind of um that promise and you know that that thing that I just want to make sure people people know and and hear here hear with it. So >> anyone else? >> Oh, and thanks Mr. Bon for everything there. >> This is a lot of work you have to do every year. I mean, this is why we have you here, so you can do all this hard work.

165And um I don't envy your job because I don't envy our job and we're up here at this point right now. But I do also appreciate all that you do and that you are very thoughtful in all the things that you're going through and that you really try to look at every possible option so that we can have the least harmful situation come out of this. So, thank you for what you've done. Thank you. >> Thank you for the um really good discussion tonight. Um I hope everyone uh who's here um and is or is watching it at home or will watch it later can truly tell that that this is a discussion. Um this presentation was intended to be the starting point and I think uh based on the feedback we received it it

166obviously is. we have some additional uh things we need to look at that we need to bring back for our consideration. Um, and I, as hard as it is, I look forward to our continued uh, discussion around these topics because at the end of the day, we all want what's best for Lichfield students. And, uh, I hope together we can uh, reach that conclusion uh, within the resources we have uh, to provide what's best for Lichfield students. So, thank you so much for your hard work. I know this discussion isn't fun, but I really do appreciate you engaging uh in it with uh not just me, but the entire team here. Um, and I also uh appreciate all of the the public comment uh we had tonight. Um it's really good feedback and it's it

167actually makes me quite happy uh that people are engaging and they they want to be a part of this process. So, I really do appreciate it. We have a lot of hard work ahead of us. Um, but I'm hoping together, uh, we can come to a good, uh, result at the end of the day. So, thank you so much. >> Um, if you are done, then that is the last thing on the agenda today. If someone wants to make a motion, >> I move to adjourn the meeting. >> Second. >> Having a motion for Mr. Owens and a second for Mr. Mr. Ms. I'll call for the vote. Miss Wallace, >> yay. >> Mr. Mikes, >> yay. >> Mr. Owens, >> yay. >> Miss Moran, >> yay. >> I'm also yay. Motion passes. Thank you

168guys who joined us here in person and who are