Escondido Union School District Board of Education Meeting - February 19, 2026

001Zesty Harper: Mark, could you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, please? Mark Olson: Stand. Put your right hand over your heart, please. Ready begin. All: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Zesty Harper: Thank you. We have all members present, and we just need to approve the agenda. Do I have this really lengthy agenda? So do I have a motion? Frank Huston: I'll motion to approve the agenda. Zesty Harper: Thank you Frank. Joan Gardner: Second. Zesty Harper: Thank you. Joan. All those in favor, please say aye. Board members: Aye. Zesty Harper: Motion passes. We do not have any public comments? Perfect. So we are on to planning for the 26-27

002school year. Thank you. Andrew McGuire: Good evening. President Harper and our school board. We'll be sitting over here together. This is our new cabinet for the foreseeable future. And tonight, our, the study session is to start the conversation around the future of EUSD, starting with next year and beyond. And so we have a series of slides to go over with you tonight. A refresher of some information around, like our LCAP and our budget, some more updated information around our budget, and then, hopefully we're going to have a good conversation around the direction that we want to recommend to go in, and we want to make sure that the board understands what we're thinking and what we want to hear, what you guys think about that. And so this is a study session, not a regular

003board meeting. And so I'm really looking for there to be some good conversation throughout tonight. So that being said. We're going to do the triple click of the mouse to make it work. And we're not working. Did it work? Was that you? Okay. So when I do this. You push your button. So starting off, we're going to have Mr. Rick Oser, our assistant superintendent of educational services. He's going to go over our current, current year. Now, this is the current year, LCAP, as we've already had adopted. And this is just a mid-year update that we would do around this time every year, so go ahead. Rick Oser: Well good evening. We'd like to start off by just kind of revisiting our LCAP. It's a well written LCAP that really meets the needs of the Escondido

004students and community. Our LCAP has three goals. The first goal is to provide personalized, competency based, authentic learning experiences to create a foundation for achievement for all learners. So that's our big academic achievement goal. Second goal is to build a culture centered on learner outcomes, including engagement, social, emotional, cognitive, and mental health needs of our learners. And then finally, the third goal is to ensure enabling conditions are in place for optimal learning. That includes a shared vision, supportive policies, aligned resource allocation, trust and safety. In a moment, we'll go over each of the goals and the corresponding action items. As you know, the LCAP is inclusive of all federal funds, state funds, and LCFF supplemental and concentration funds. Michelle Cagle: We're constantly reviewing all available funds to be able to determine if, within the LCAP,

005the action items can move from our unrestricted Lcff to more restricted resources utilizing our EUSD plan. Rick Oser: So for goal one, which is as I mentioned before, this is our academic achievement goal achievement for all learners. You can see all of the action items that have been detailed in the LCAP. You can also identify the adopted budget as well as the estimated actuals. So this is a bird's eye view of LCAP goal number one. Zesty Harper: Sorry, don't mean to interrupt, Rick. So when it has the Framework for the Future, this was last year's or this year's spending, it's not next year. We're not going to spend that next year. Rick Oser: So thank you board president Harper. So this is our current LCAP. So this year's LCAP 25-26 okay. Zesty Harper: So Framework

006is not going to be there. Andrew McGuire: So in your to your question Miss Harper that we have the Learning Center Collaborative, which is the bulk of that cost there, including also the substitute costs for having our teachers come into this room when they work on redesign process. We've been working with them for several years. And I think at this point in time we feel like we can take this on ourselves. And so we have a lot of talent here in house. And as I've been realizing lately how much talent we do have and and just the idea that if we're going to look at redesigning and restructuring a school or our system or any of that, that's really something that has to come from within. And I think now we're at a point where

007we need to start looking within and using our own talent to to go through the modernizing our systems and updating our educational programs to meet our, our students needs of where they are today. So this again, being the current year we have no expectation that that would be an item in the future. Zesty Harper: Okay. Doug Paulson: But just to clarify, Framework of the Future is more than the Learner Centered Collaborative. It's an ongoing work that we're going to continue doing and that we're remaining committed to just on our own without the Learner Centered Collaborative. And there will still be a cost for that, I assume. Andrew McGuire: If there's going to be any cost, it would be sub time for teachers if we were to bring them together here or even release time at

008their school sites. So that would be the cost associated with that. And some of that cost of substitutes is included in this line. But the bulk of that cost is the LCC contract. And that's what I'm saying would not continue, but absolutely some costs would be involved in supporting that work happening at our school sites. Doug Paulson: And then originally when we came up with this, there would be some cost involved in some of the rebranding or other actions that they decide to take through their through their redesign program. And that money we will still have available, correct? Andrew McGuire: Yeah. As we spoke about many board meetings ago that was something that we were looking at and the board was interested in us using our Mackenzie Scott, the interest earnings from to support some

009of that work and then even other funds as it's appropriate as as Miss Cagle said looking at our most restricted funds first, and if there's something that needs to be done around a redesign that's allowable within one of our restricted funds, we would want to look there first and then to going to less and less restrictive funds after that. Mckenzie Scott interest funds being unrestricted in their use. Looking around the monitor at Doug. But yes, that was money that the board had given us direction to, to hold on to for things that innovation, that kind of thing. That's definitely driven through the redesign process. So it wouldn't necessarily be an LCAP item. Rick Oser: Any additional questions regarding LCAP goal number one? Okay. Great questions and thanks for clarifying. Next up is LCAP goal number

010two. This is to build a culture, a culture centered on whole learner outcomes. So this is our school culture and climate goal. And you can see the action items that are listed, as well as the adopted budget for this current school year, 25-26, as well as the estimated actuals for the 25-26 school year. And are there any questions for goal number two? All right. Moving along to goal number three. Goal number three is ensuring as I mentioned before, ensuring enabling conditions are in place for optimal learning. And you can see the action items that are detailed. And as you know in the actual LCAP, these are detail more greatly. You can see the adopted budget as well as the estimated actuals. Okay. Any questions for gold number three? Doug Paulson: On item 3-1, could we

011please. There's a typo in the word 'learning'. [laughter] Andrew McGuire: Still still learning. Doug Paulson: I just want to point out our teachers do not leer at anyone. [laughter] Andrew McGuire: We're lifelong learners. And so we're still we're still learning. Rick Oser: And if you could see the estimated actuals aren't up to the adopted budget. But once we get there, we'll make sure to spell learning correctly. Sorry, that was probably a bad joke. Andrew McGuire: Okay. No further spelling corrections. We can, we're going to move on and start discussing now our budget. Michelle Cagle: The last adopted budget is our first interim. I want to point out we're always looking at our multi-year projections and where we're going to be in our third year. At first interim, in our third year, we had a fund

012balance of $15 million, and that's $3 million over our reserve. And then since then, we've had the January governor's proposal. And then this slide really shows what the impact is on the specific revenues that are tied to his proposal. We have a COLA reduction, which is unrestricted. There's a one time student support Professional Development block grant. We actually received that this year. And they're doing an extension to it for the 26-27 year. And that's restricted. And then a one time learning emergency recovery block grant. That's the grant we received during Covid. I want to say a couple years ago they did a reduction to it and slowly they are making us whole again. And so you'll see that down on the graph. I want to point out the COLA impact at adopted budget. That was

013what the COLA. I'm sorry. At first interim that was what the COLA was. And now here's where it's projected to be for the 26-27 year and then for the 27-28 year. In those two years, the combined revenue reduction is $3 million. For 26-27, the one time money of the student support and the learning emergency recovery nets us $9.2 million. When you take into consideration the reduction in COLA and the increase in the one time money for 26-27, there's an increase of our revenue from where we were at first interim of $8 million. In 27-28 you'll see the reduction of COLA. COLA is ongoing. That reduction just continues to compound. Thank you Audrey. For those two years, it's a reduction of $3 million. There's no proposal for ongoing funds in the student support or the learning

014emergency. So there's. You'll see no new revenue for the 27-28. When you look at it as a whole, over those two years, our revenue potential increase is $6 million. Okay. So now here's a preview of our second interim, which will really be seeing next board meeting. I want to point out in 27-28 that we're not meeting our reserves by $1.9 million. In our first interim, we were meeting reserves by $3 million. We had an additional. That decrease is tied to the reduction in COLA of that $3 million. And then because we're talking about 26-27, I brought in the fourth year, which will be our third year of our MYP. And as it stands, not including what the one time funding proposal is, our fund balance in that fourth year, which would be our third, is

015a -$3.4 million. Okay. So for second interim our pro forma of using our EUSD plan, of using that one time money that is proposed for next year, we're going to take that money that is going to reside in the restricted fund. And we're going to offset it by our unrestricted expenses. So we're going to move our unrestricted expenses into our restricted column utilizing that money in order to, in doing that, our fourth year now has a positive fund balance of $4 million. We're still not meeting our reserves at that time. Andrew McGuire: And what she means, that's what the EUSD plan has been for the last couple of years, where we're using some of the one time funds that we've received and offsetting our general fund or unrestricted expenses into it, so that that process

016continuing. So since the majority of funding that we're getting is in the form of one time restricted funds. So whatever those funds are allowed to be used for funding those expenses if they exist in our unrestricted and transfer them to that restricted monies there in order to keep ourselves solvent. Michelle Cagle: Any questions? Andrew McGuire: Okay. That was easy for you. So now, as I talked about the EUSD plan, we're really it's primarily to this point just being that transferring of unrestricted expenses into the restricted one time funds. It's evolving. And we're at a point where, as you can see in that fourth year, which will become our third year of our adopted budget, that we would bring before you in June, that we're still not even meeting our reserve, our minimum reserve at this

017point. So if we had to make decisions right now for what's going to happen in that fourth year, it would mean that we would have to reduce our expenses by at least $8 million. And oftentimes we're pretty much always we come in here and we talk about the budget. We talk about the, what are we going to do about those deficits? And it's about what are we going to remove? What limbs are we going to cut off of our system to keep the body alive. But we as our cabinet here now and going forward, we think there's another way to go about this as well. Certainly we need to be efficient. We need to have expenses only to what we need and not more than that. No wasteful spending, all of those things. Absolutely. But

018we also need to start addressing our revenue. And what you see on the screen here is the three point test. And this is what we're using now in all of our decision making and our analysis of what comes before us. What do we need to do? How do we overcome a challenge? Whatever it may be, we make decisions for this district. We're running it through this three point test. Whatever the idea is, does this idea contribute to an increase in our revenue? Does this idea contribute to a reduction in our expenses? And does this idea contribute to an improvement in our educational opportunities? Now, certainly there's nothing we do that should do, if it's a net zero impact on our educational opportunities or an improvement of our educational opportunities, we shouldn't be making decisions that

019reduce our educational opportunities. If we can avoid it. But I think that if we start looking at this through those first two bullet points, is this something that actually contributes to increasing the resources we have available to carry out our educational program? Is this something that we're doing that can bring about an efficiency or a reduction, or is it something that we've done in the past that we no longer need to do for what we're trying to accomplish going forward, which could reduce our expenses? And so running this through that three point test, not everything is going to be a yes on all fronts. And certainly even if it passes the test, it may also need to be prioritized. And is this something that we can do now? And so that's where you're going to

020see that's going to keep coming up throughout the night. And I think Audrey had pointed out to me from her experience in a classroom. Tell us what you thought about what the three point test means. Audrey Frank: So if you remember in in the primary grades, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, when students are writing, they write something. And at the top corner, there's a kind of a little square that says punctuation, capitalization. Do you have two finger spacing? All of those things are things that that little square we can put on, anything that we do to assess anything that we want to do to add or subtract. Does it contribute to the increase in revenue? Does it contribute to a reduction in expenses? And we could check and check and check. Does it meet every

021single time. So every action that we make we look through that lens. Andrew McGuire: Yeah. Thank you. Doug Paulson: Can we stay there for just a second? Andrew McGuire: We're going back. Doug Paulson: Is there a way we could do that and have that third question go to the top? Andrew McGuire: We could. Doug Paulson: Just saying. It seems to me like that just it's a small it's a small detail, but just having improvement in the educational opportunities. Be at the top of every list, at the top of our thoughts. Andrew McGuire: Absolutely. And it is. And it is. There's no prioritization to the order in the way we laid it out like that. But absolutely, like I said in the beginning, nothing we do should do anything other than not have any impact on

022it. Because, you know, some things, you know, keeping the lights on or whatever. But everything we do should be an attempt to increase our educational opportunities. Absolutely. But my point for that is nothing we should we do should reduce our educational opportunities. Now, so it comes back to the EUSD plan. And I've had a version of this slide on here before. And one more time Mark. There we go. Got our blue circle. And I've talked about that at several board meetings. And that was that. When I drew on my board when we were looking at our budget going into this year and like, what's that main thing that matters is the budget really reflects, you know, our priorities really. And 85% plus of our budget is made up of the, the cost to, to have

023our workforce. So everything we do is done through people and for us to continue to improve our educational opportunities and to function as a district and to continue to grow and to continue to provide that best opportunity for our future for our students. We really need to take care of our people. And so that's where our decisions have to center around ways for us to protect the blue circle, as I call it, our people. And so there's also kind of the mantra I wrote that on my board as well is to reduce non people so that we don't need to reduce people. And I think that's a that's a big priority for us. And so as we go through our decision making, some of the categories of things that we do, I know Audrey talked

024to us about when it comes to staffing and how that's not the people, that's a vacant position. Audrey Frank: And so, so yeah. So if we have as we have vacancies in our organization, We use that three prong question. Those three pronged questions to say, is this position still necessary? Can it be changed? And to really look at each vacancy critically to see if we need to refill it. Does it need to change a little bit. Can we combine. And that's how we can use that plan. And those questions for our staffing. Andrew McGuire: And then of course we go into like contracted services software supply. These are not it's not an exhaustive list. It's just an example of the non people related things that we would have, you know in our budget for stuff

025and to to look at all of those things and not just and obviously we're looking at vacancies when a position becomes open, there's not a person in a position. Now we're just looking at the position. But when we're talking about like our contracted services, software supplies, all those kind of things that we're actively engaging in contracting for and purchasing and that kind of thing. Even the things that we already are doing to have that analysis of, is this something we should continue to do? I know we had a conversation earlier in this study session about one of the contracts that we've been we've had for multiple years. And that analysis led us that using those three questions led us to the what we're looking for going forward is this is something that we can take

026on ourselves, right? And so it will give us the opportunity to use our own talent to increase our educational opportunities. But also it's a reduction of expenses. So it passed two parts of that, that test. And I'll tell you, I think that if we can do really well on those on those two aspects and increase our educational opportunities, we might actually even attract more kids to our schools to that would increase our revenue. So you see that that right there, that decision give us an opportunity that maybe passes all three of those points of that test. So just as an example of how we're looking through that lens to make our decisions. And then of course, again, utilizing our funds. Michelle Cagle: Oh, sorry. Yeah, I didn't realize you skipped ver software and supplies. When

027we're asking ourselves those questions, the three point test, we're determining what funding source is best to meet that need. Not every funding source that we have. Or there's some funding sources that can meet that need that we haven't necessarily tapped to, tapped into in the past. And so we're looking at that and seeing where that funding source is in the three years, and how we can apply that to be able to meet these needs. Andrew McGuire: And it's played out. We had to check it for we did spell utilizing correctly. I was worried for one second. All right. Yeah. Yeah I was watching. So this is a slide. Now this is where I start to get a little bit more fired up. Because this is where I'm passionate about what we're doing going forward. And

028we showed this slide at a previous board meeting and had quite a moment talking about our students as our enrollment declines, we've been declining enrollment for at least 15 years. This district used to have 22,000 students. We're below 14,000 now over that time. This is just showing us, as we showed in that previous board meeting, you know, currently what the students that that we've lost and where they've gone and kind of drilled down into, you know, where do they go. And at the bottom there. Oh, sorry. I picked it up. I didn't mean for that one, Mark. I thought I was actually changing it. That bottom chart there too. We just pulled out some of those that have left. And like the point I was making that night when we showed this was it's not

029just charter schools that kids are going to. Some of our students are families. They live here, they live in our boundaries, and they're choosing neighboring public school systems. There is an issue there where somebody some of our families, many of our families, for the last many years have felt that what they need for their students isn't available to them in EUSD. And that's a big concern because it's one of the main responsibilities of the public education system in every community to meet our families where they need us to be for the good of the students that we serve. And if they don't feel we're doing that, they're going to go find it somewhere else. And they have been. And so just just to see on the bottom there, I mean, 71 of the students that

030left us went to another public school system in San Marcos, 29 in Poway, San Pasqual, one school, school District, 16 left us for their. San Diego Unified, which is, you know, widespread all over the county as well. But just look at that San Marcos number. It's just right next door, not far from here. Families that live here are taking their kids out of their neighborhood. Out of EUSD, and that's something that we need to start addressing. And when I talk about going forward, not just looking at what we can cut off, but what we can do to grow our district again and stem this tide that's been going on for well over a decade, of families finding their perception of a better option somewhere else, and to start being that better option for them. Okay.

031So this slide, as we talked about before we started drilling down, we said we're going to research even further. And there's something that we've done in our district and many districts do, but we've done it, you know, here in our district. And that's the School of Choice program, where a family can apply to have their student go to a any school in our district, any school that they feel they would rather their student go to than the one that they live near. And going from last year into this year, we had 664 students. Their families apply for their students to go to some school other than their neighborhood school. And we kind of highlighted the high points there on that. But between that chart and the one in the middle, we've had a good number

032of those that we were able to accommodate and are still with us, and there's going to be some that we were not able to accommodate. And they stayed with us still to. But out of that number, 186 were not accommodated. And now don't go to our schools. 186 students at an average of about $14,000 in revenue per student, $2.4 million. Now we talk about ADA. That's how we're funded is on not just the number of enrolled, but how the percentage that they go to school in the year. And I've talked about that a lot, and I'm very careful in that because I and I still fully believe this, that the importance of our attendance is not just the funding. The most important part is that you can't learn if you're not in school. But now

033let's really start looking at the other side of that equation too. If they're not coming to our schools, we're losing resources that we need to be able to grow our educational program and to continue our educational program. And if just from last year to this year, and we know we've been losing from 22,000 to below 14,000 now, we know we've been losing students. They've been making choices outside of us all those years. If just this year it was 186 families that we that came to us and said, we'll stay with you if we can have this school. And we weren't able to get that done for them. And they left. That 2.4 million is spread out across all of the other educational opportunities outside of EUSD. We need that here. We need that here to

034protect our people, to invest in our people, to invest in our educational programs, in our schools, in this community. And so I'm getting fired up again because this is the the approach I want to take. Yes. Let's find efficiencies. Let's find things we don't need. Let's stop doing things we don't need to continue doing that aren't contributing and passing that test. But let's start doing things and adjusting and addressing what we need in our schools so that, like, for instance, a charter school might move into our city and they're going to look at the local public school, any school, any city. They're going to look at the local public school system. What is it that that school system is not doing that the families in this city need? And then they do that and our

035families leave and go there. Why are we adjusting to what our families need? Why aren't we meeting them where they need us to be. That's why they put public education in every community in America. Let's take that responsibility seriously. So the 2.4 million just this year. Imagine every one of those years of enrollment decline. And this is just from the school of choice. There's families that didn't even give us a chance. They didn't ask us if they could go somewhere else and they decide to leave. That's not the full number of kids that left us. But let's look at those two and engage them to figure out ways that we can become the best option for them to stay with us. Because I'll tell you, we are the best option. Audrey talk to us about

036the fourth grade numbers. Zesty Harper: Okay. So if you're looking at the school of choice, the number, Michelle and I spent a lot of time looking at our school of choice numbers and where the biggest number was. And obviously, it's in kindergarten and sixth grade, but also the the fourth grade, 83 really stood out to us. And so we wanted to see where were those fourth graders, where did they want to go? And clearly the biggest number is Quantum, because the idea that to get into Quantum, you need to get into fourth grade because there's two classes, that's 64 students and that's when you need to get in. So when we looked at. Andrew McGuire: Before, I forgot one part of that, the TK and K numbers in the law students column there. We're going

037to drill down into that even further too. And there's a lot of things that maybe some opportunities for us there, but also that's a little bit squishier of numbers, because a family might want to go to a certain school for TK. They don't get that school, they don't necessarily go somewhere else. Maybe they keep their student for another year and they start it in kinder, or they can be like in a Montessori program or something, and they come to us in first grade. We're going to drill down on those numbers next and look for other opportunities. But what Audrey's about to go into is an opportunity that's before us of something that we can do right now to address our sixth grade situation on this. And so in a future meeting, we'll talk about TK

038and K and opportunities there. Zesty Harper: Okay. So if you look at the Quantum students, this is the number of school of choice for Quantum for the 25 or for the this current. Yeah. For this current school year. So yeah we have 56 fourth graders, 13 fifth, 55 sixth graders, 14 seventh and one eighth, 139 students. Well, we know that in its current model, the fourth graders are all going to get in because we have 64 spots and we have 56 students. But in fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade, the chances of any of those students coming in is really nonexistent. Andrew McGuire: These are the numbers of the kids that wanted to go to us for the current year, from last year to this year. Yeah. Audrey Frank: So when we looked at the

039students that didn't get in, we noticed that we had 33 students that were on school of choice for Quantum that didn't get into Quantum and were lost. And when we literally drilled, when we drilled down to each individual student, we found out that of those of those 33 students, 11 of them went to Classical, four went to Heritage, five went to Dimensions, and then someone out of district to other things, two and out of state. And the big number I think is important is ten of them were new students to our district who had never been in an EUSD school. So those are ten new new future Escondido graduates. And those were lost. So what can we do to help this problem for the for the future year, for this coming year? So currently we

040have 64 fourth graders that we have 64 seats of students who want for fourth grade at Quantum. We have 43 students for the 26-27 school year who want to go and we can accept all of them. We have 14 fifth graders who want to come. We would deny all of them because we have 64 filled seats in fifth grade, and we have 64 filled seats in sixth grade. So we would deny 43 students who would like to come to Quantum for the sixth grade. Andrew McGuire: Let me just interject here. And we saw in that previous slide that you have to go back, but just 30, okay. Of those lost students, 19 of them wanted to go to sixth grade and couldn't get in because we couldn't fit them in and they left. Now we

041have 43 that want to go to sixth grade and we don't have room for them. As it stands now, go ahead. Audrey Frank: So what we would like to propose, or as a proposal and a way to be proactive is to for right now, take those 40 three fourth graders and I. And I'm going to tell you, and I speak from experience, many everyone applies from fourth grade because it's the only time they can get in. But they're sad to leave their elementary school. They want to be at Farr. They want to stay at Rose. They want to stay at LR Green. They want to stay where they are. But they have to get in now. So we would like to say so the proposal would be to tell those 43 fourth graders, we're holding

042you, you're in for fifth grade, and you have a good time at your elementary school that you're currently in. And then take and increase a fifth grade class and a sixth grade class at Quantum, and then take all of those 14 fifth graders and do another opening so we can say we can accept more students and accept 32 of those 43 sixth graders into Quantum for this, and then move on in future years. Andrew McGuire: So the proposal here and Rick's going to talk about some of the educational program aspects of this would be to no longer have a fourth grade program at Quantum. Take those two FTEs. Those two teachers, and move them into fifth and sixth grade. So the staffing would stay the same so that we can accommodate the students where we're

043seeing that the options that parents want start to begin, especially in that sixth grade year, and meet those families where they need us to be. And like Audrey said, just to reiterate the 43 that want to go to fourth grade next year, we would give them a spot in fifth grade the following year. So they're not out. And we would communicate that with them and talk to them about that. And as we know, a lot of them do want to stay at their current elementary school and only go into fourth grade at Quantum because that's the time. Otherwise, as you saw at the top part, at the current, we have those seats filled and we have no room left in fifth and sixth grade. They can't get in. So if they don't get in in

044that first batch of 64, in fourth grade, they may never be able to go to Quantum, and they might make a choice to go to one of the other options in the area. Did you have any questions about this so far before we go into the educational side of it? Doug Paulson: So what we're looking at doing is changing Quantum to a five through eight school rather than four through eight. Andrew McGuire: Correct. Joan Gardner: The same number of classes? Andrew McGuire: So we would add an additional class of fifth an additional class of sixth for next year if this is something that we did. And again let me say this. There's no votes tonight. This is not a decision to be made tonight. What I need to understand is this a direction of doing

045things like this, to adjust our district to meet the needs of our families that they're telling us they have. Based on the numbers we've been seeing, the conversations we've been having. And so it's not up for vote. Not a decision we made. We just want to have the conversation. But I think before we go further, can we have Rick talk about going from five eight versus the four through eight and and what that means for the educational program of Quantum. Rick. Joan Gardner: Okay, but before you do, don't you think that you'll create the same problem? I mean, the highest number that that are going to be denied are is in the sixth grade. That's usually when going into middle school. That's the time that right parents are really looking for. Andrew McGuire: Is it

046is it currently stands. We would be denying all 43 people that want to go there. And in this proposed plan, we'd be able to bring in 32 of those instead of zero. 32 additional students would be able to go to Quantum starting in sixth grade. Then we are currently situated now because we only have two classes of each grade level there. Adding the third class opens up 32 more seats at Quantum for sixth grade, where parents have showed us this is where they need it. Joan Gardner: And again, the same problem about kids wanting to stay in their own school. Fifth grade you have the same problem. That's all I'm saying. If you if you take that into consideration. Andrew McGuire: As far as I. So there would be additional seats in fifth grade as

047well. But what we're hearing a lot is in this is that families like to stay at their current elementary school. They only leave them because Quantum only has space available opening in fourth grade, and rarely do seats open at the higher grades. And so the conversation with the 43 who have applied to go to Quantum in fourth grade for next year, we would be communicating with them that we're going to save you a seat in fifth grade the following year if you stay at your current elementary school, we have a seat for you. You don't need to worry that you have to rush out of your elementary school now. They can stay there an additional year. We'll have a seat for you in fifth grade to start the new fifth through eighth grade program that

048Quantum would evolve into. Joan Gardner: You might want to consider making it simply a middle school. Well, I can't, because you're going to have the same problems. All I'm saying you're going to. Yes, you're going to take fifth graders and and if they don't go get in as fifth graders, they'll still, there will still be some kids who'll be denied. And our biggest problem, and you see it across the board is sixth grade. That's why we lose the highest number of students. Andrew McGuire: Well, and okay, so there's just we we have some answers for that. We have some other ideas around that very thing in this. And this is a very big picture thing that has a lot of other ideas going forward to, to address that. But one of the things with is

049adding that additional class at each grade level, and it would it would phase in so that we would have an additional class from fifth all the way through eighth over the next couple of years to to fit these kids in. But if we expanded Quantum or made it into a regular middle school, it is a small specialty school. And that is the appeal. And so we don't want to grow it to the point or change it too much to where it becomes just another comprehensive middle school. And it's no longer a desirable option. Right. And so we'll talk later in this, in this study session about some other ideas on that. But I think that there's some positive elements to going from 4 to 8 to 5 to 8 for what is the core essence

050of what makes Quantum great without it growing so big that it becomes something it's not that it hasn't been and loses its appeal. That's why I, like Rick, could talk about that aspect of the going 4 to 8 to 5 through 8, and why we're looking at that as being a positive thing to improve the appeal of Quantum. Joan Gardner: I think it's worth a try. Andrew McGuire: Mr. Oser? Rick Oser: So thank you, Mr. Maguire. So going back to those three essential questions with as Trustee Paulson pointed out, I'm bringing the education opportunities to the forefront. So thinking if if there wasn't educational value to this topic, it wouldn't even be on the table. And so there are some real specific educational value that answers the questions does this contribute to the improvement of

051our educational opportunities? And so as has been shared, these are just discussion topics. There's several other ideas that are going to be presented for for us to work with schools and the amazing teams that are at the school sites are brilliant, especially the Quantum team, very creative, divergent thinking group of educators who can further establish whether or not this is a viable opportunity. So some things to consider as we explore the question, does this enhance the educational experience? There's going from a fourth through eighth grade specialty school to a fifth through eighth grade specialty school could increase student readiness. We know that developmentally, fourth graders are very different than fifth graders. And when we think about fourth graders on the same campus as eighth graders and with some of the classes, some of the experiences

052being intermingled having that wide age span is is significant, especially at the beginning of the year when fourth graders are really third graders and a couple of months. Also thinking about especially Quantum and the amazing program that has been developed over the years. So there is possibilities of enhancing program coherence. We know that at Quantum, even though it's a fourth through eighth grade program right now or fourth through eighth grade school, fourth graders actually are self-contained. So fifth through eighth grade, actually have a very different experience than the fourth graders. The reason why is because developmentally, fourth graders being nine, some ten year olds are very different than the fifth through eighth graders. So even the Quantum team knows that they need to differentiate and create basically two instructional experiences within that specialty school. Additional

053things to consider is that one of the amazing things that Quantum has is part of their school day isn't referred to as [indistinct]. And this is an opportunity for teachers to differentiate based on students academic needs, and so reducing the grade span by one grade level can dramatically impact the educational experience and the ability for the school and the teachers and staff to differentiate based on student needs just by reducing the span. Other aspects that are you know, really critical to consider and especially thinking about the Quantum staff or collaboration is at the heart of the, of the community that moving to three teachers per grade level as far as like developing a professional learning community that has a huge impact compared to when there's just two teachers at a grade level. And with even

054the possibilities of doubling up the grade span. So fifth and sixth grade could do some activities and some collaboration together, as well as seventh and eighth grade. But as I mentioned before, we also know that across the school there's collaboration that's happening throughout the grade levels. So just providing that tighter span can have a dramatic impact on the student experience. In addition, there could be a possibility for greater flexibility in class composition. So when there's two classes at a grade level, there's not a whole lot of flexibility as far as I'm thinking about behavioral, social emotional dynamics as well as academics. And then as I mentioned before, that there's a faster transition to rigorous instruction, once again, at the heart of the Quantum experience. And so having one less grade span, having fifth through eighth

055grade, the on ramp to that Quantum, that specialty experience would be much faster. And there's a lot of different ideas that could not only bring in more students but probably more importantly, enhance the educational experience at Quantum. We know that that's a very special intentional school, and this is an opportunity to even take it to the next level. All of these are just ideas once again reiterating it's just ideas that are being proposed. The critical thing would be to to sit down with the Quantum team and let the real thinking actually happen. So just want to reiterate that these are just ideas and that team, there's no doubt in my mind that they could not take this opportunity and actually make it something beyond extraordinary. Andrew McGuire: And I wanted to add just one more

056thing to what he said about the fourth grade program. They're they do a great job with it, but they are very it's very different in the fifth through eighth grade program. When you look at the numbers and what we're looking at too, and where kids want to go and the grades, they want to leave, there's a fact here that we need to speak to from K-3. We're at 24 kids in the class. Even the charter schools. In fourth grade, those grow to 32. So if you're going to have an opportunity you were not able to get into, let's say, a charter school in K through three, you have smaller class sizes, more seats open in fourth grade. And that's why we see more students leave at that grade level, because that's when more opportunities, more

057seats are available. And so when you're building out Quantum, that definitely was part of the equation that we need to have something available so that they don't leave us when they're more seats available somewhere else. And we have our own option that's meeting their needs. And that was absolutely a wonderful thing we did with Quantum. But by working with our families and saying, like, you don't need to go there because they have some more seats available. If you want to go to Quantum and that's your choice. And you do love your elementary school, I'm sure they do. Why wouldn't you? You get to go there in fifth grade. We can reduce that leaving because seats become available while improving the educational program, as Rick laid out here. Please, we need to hear from you. And

058like what you think about this. We're not necessarily looking for direction, but kind of are you interested in us moving forward in these discussions, working with the Quantum staff and designing a new future with them? Mark Olson: Thank you for the information. I just and and I like the creative thinking I really do. My, my my questions are bigger. I mean obviously Quantum that's a small component. And I appreciate the the creative thinking. And I want to encourage the your team to continue to do that. But there's a lot of other students that left, and I'm just curious, do we have the data as to why. Have we done follow ups? Have we done outreach as to why? You know, because I could probably speculate and probably be good. I've had four kids go through

059transitions. Some geographic, some social. There's a lot of things. I'm just curious, is there any information that you and your team have garnered that will help us in crafting the future to prevent that? Those are the questions that I hope we can get answers to. I don't know if that's I imagine it's challenging to get that information. So I want to be sensitive. And, you know, if they left, they left for a reason. They're not necessarily. And oftentimes they're probably going to tell you whatever negative component, right might be. So it's customer feedback. But you know, that's I think that's really important. To the broader conversation to try and stem the tide. I mean that we're going to continue to go down. It's about trying to slow that. It's just a matter of the demographics

060of California. We're going to continue to to contract. And that leaves another conversation about our infrastructure and how we manage that, which is another day. But, well, it goes to revenue and expenses. So it's an element of the conversation that needs to take place. Not tonight, but it's about trying to so slow the degradation in the areas that we can, knowing that that is going to happen, and then strategically positioning the district in the best possible way. So those are I'm not sure if I've made any sense, but I hope I ask him some questions. Andrew McGuire: A family who's already left us isn't going to get us as much fruit as what we're also doing is going to have inter-district transfers. Obviously, you have to communicate with your where you live district for district

061transfer or, or when they notify us that they're going somewhere else. Is that's the moment where we can have that exit interview kind of conversation. And for the ones that are actually looking at leaving, but then beyond that too is communicating with our families, especially those that are third grade families going into fourth grade, knowing we lose some there for those new seats that open, but really those those families of students that are in fifth grade and what's going on with sixth grade. So we've done a lot of things. We're doing a lot more things now with our middle schools. We're starting to bus our kids from fifth grade over to the middle schools, doing showcases there and really getting the kids attached to the middle school that they could go to, making opportunities even

062for families to be involved in that and having those conversations there that, you know, we know you have options. And what is it that you need to see here for you to choose? This is the option for you. And so we're starting already to be having those conversations. I know some of us have had them at the grocery store and other places where, and that's what I've asked at a previous board meeting, is like, we need to start talking to people, not just us, but everybody, and start bringing that information back. And that's one of the things we hear a lot, especially going into the middle schools. And we'll talk a little bit about that in a little bit. But one of the things we do hear a lot is that we just don't feel

063like our my sixth, my fifth graders ready to go into the big middle school for sixth grade. And that's why we talked about like with Quantum like if do something there is is not to grow it beyond what I'm proposing here because we don't want to lose that small school feel that's good for those families. But yeah, exit interviews engaging with people in that year, we know they're making that choice and finding out what what are they thinking and what can we do to meet them where they need us to be to stay here, the best option in town? Mark Olson: Yeah, I appreciate that. And I've had I've heard those, you know, in in speaking with friends and I think it's a, a child rearing challenge as well. We want to we want to

064protect our children from big, bad middle school, when in actuality they need to experience that. Andrew McGuire: And it's not that big and bad as people think. It's not bad at all. Mark Olson: And I've had those conversations with my friends like, oh, it's just they're going to get overstimulated. I think that's just in the nature, and I don't expect you nor your team to solve that societal challenge that seems to permeate but it is an element. And I've done my best to say, well, do you really think they're going to be prepared for seventh if you continue to shelter them? It's and I love our middle school teachers and our administrative staff. They create amazing environments for not just learning, but social development. So it's a tough task. I think that we would be

065wise to try and engage early, maybe in the fourth and fifth, and, you know, as to help quell any fears from. Andrew McGuire: That's exactly why we're taking kids, fifth graders over to our middle schools now so that they can see on the inside. And it's like it's scary from the outside maybe, but like get inside, interact with the other kids, see the programs we have, see those things, let those kids fall in love. Let them go home and talk about their excitement. Give opportunities for those parents of those students before they go there to see what's going on inside the school, and a variety of other things that we're going to start rolling out here. That will continue to to provide an insight for people inside of our fence lines to see this is

066what it really is to be at our middle schools. It is not a big, scary place. It's a wonderful place. But we also want to make sure that there's options available for families of a variety, the whole gamut of of different needs that they may have across all of our schools that we currently have or beyond in the future. So that Bear Valley might be the right option for a student, for your student Hidden Valley and what they're doing there. And some of the work they're doing there might be the right option for student and making sure everybody understands what all the options are that are available and what the life day in the life of a middle school student really is. And it really isn't something to be scared of. It's and it's a

067great place. So there's a lot of things and we're not we don't have all of that on the on the presentation tonight. More things to come in the future about what we're doing to really bridge the gap in that the unknowns that come about. What's that middle school experience really like? Frank Huston: I have a question for you. I'm looking at the Quantum idea. Currently it's saying 64 for fourth, 64th or fifth and 64 for sixth. How many are in seventh and eighth? Andrew McGuire: 64. So there's two classes of of 32 kids in each of those grade levels. Frank Huston: So we move those 64 spots to fifth and sixth. Andrew McGuire: So we were taking the fourth grade. The current 64 seats, which is two teachers, two classes, moving those teachers, one of

068them to fifth, one of them to sixth. So we grow it to three per grade level. Frank Huston: We have 96 seats available. Fifth, 96 for sixth. So when fifth graduates we only have 64 spots for seventh. Andrew McGuire: No. And so then part of this, if we were to go forward with this, we would have to phase in an additional class in seventh grade the following year, an additional class in eighth grade. Frank Huston: So, so so there is an additional cost. Andrew McGuire: There would be. But what we're saying is that if. Mark Olson: a coule yeras down the road. Andrew McGuire: But go back one slide mark. Frank Huston: I'm just looking at I'm just looking at the additional cost because we're not looking at I mean, we're talking about 3 or

0694 years out if we want to implement this plan, which I do like the plan. Andrew McGuire: Yeah. Frank Huston: Okay. But I'm just saying we need to also be transparent and say, hey, we also there's going to be a cost coming down the road because once those 96 kids graduate fifth. And, or graduate sixth and going to seventh. We're now going to need to boost. Andrew McGuire: Right. And we would hope to have enough kids to do so. And by having those kids means that we've kept kids that have otherwise would have left us, and that comes with the revenue that would offset the cost. Frank Huston: Okay. Yeah. Also, you're in the slide you show that it was full for fifth and sixth. Meaning if we didn't do this, we would be denying

070a certain amount of kids. Andrew McGuire: Yeah. As it stands now, with only the 64 seats available in fourth, and we have 43 applications, so we'd be able to take all of them. But 14 students need to want to go there for fifth and 43 want to start there in sixth. We would be denying all of those as we stand today, because our seats are already filled from the previous classes moving up. Frank Huston: Exactly. So in as a how how many students have we lost over the last five years as they progress through fourth, fifth and sixth? Andrew McGuire: Like from the school and then left from the school. Frank Huston: Well, just yeah, just just as left because we're, we're assuming that in fifth and sixth grade that all of those kids will

071graduate and move up to the next grade and none of them will leave. What what has happened in the past in reference to that? Has there been a percentage of of kids or has it been basically. Andrew McGuire: At Quantum it's generally they stay. Frank Huston: Fourth grade they're there until 8th. Andrew McGuire: Generally at Quantum, if they move their family moves is mostly the reason why they would leave. It's not that common that they would leave. There's usually not very many. When we do the school of choice thing every year, we rarely have seats available at fifth, sixth or seventh or eighth. Frank Huston: Okay. Thank you. That's all I have. Andrew McGuire: Which is a testament to why it's such a it's a desirable school and families want their kids to be there.

072And we're just trying to create more opportunity for them to be there. Doug Paulson: And I go. Joan Gardner: I was just going to say part of it is probably because it's a small school. Andrew McGuire: That's right. And that's why I'm saying if we added the third class at each of those grades, I wouldn't want to do much more than that because then you're getting close to not no longer becoming that, you know, being that small school in that specialty program that it can be. Doug Paulson: Yeah. So my thoughts would just echo what you exactly what you just said. This is a very desirable program, a very desirable school. This is the one people get excited about. And I'm just very reluctant to mess with success. You know, this has been shown to

073be one of our most popular programs and to, to change to, to try to change it. And I understand we're trying to get more kids in. But but there's a danger there after. After third grade. Families are looking at. You know, oftentimes they may be desirous of moving to another grade. I mean, I would think maybe we want to see if if the Quantum people could come up with a way to on ramp kids at the fifth grade level, or maybe at the fifth grade and sixth grade level and expand it that way. But to eliminate fourth grade as an option. Zesty Harper: 4th grade isn't all filled up, though. I mean, we don't even have a full people asking to come. Andrew McGuire: And part of that, the thinking here is that those 43

074is that they would have seats in the fifth grade year. Once they get that an extra year at their elementary school, they would be able to get in. And that's something we practice. We probably could continue so we can engage with those people that are talking about maybe leaving to another school, and that's where we need to be talking to our third grade families every year. And where do you want to go? What are your what are you what are your needs? And and start recruiting. And not just even to this school in that way, but also as Rick was talking about to and what I was mentioning as well, the fourth grade part of it is kind of different than the fifth through eighth grade. And when we designed it, I mean, I wasn't

075here, but it was designed for that was really because those seats become available in other options in fourth grade. So it would make sense we needed to have a fourth grade option to capture them now. But when they get there, the full Quantum experience, really, I mean, obviously it's there for fourth grade there, but the fifth through eighth grade program is really where it starts to take off and fourth grade kind of being separate. And so we're saying let them focus more and really concentrate what that core essence that makes Quantum great focus in on that. And then we'll handle the logistics of making sure families have that available to them for that fifth grade year in in so that they could have a promised seat later and not have to look for another option

076to get in. Because a lot of times you might, like I say, for Heritage, your first chance to get in is fourth grade, and there's a lot of applications to get in there because of those extra seats that are available. We can make those seats available for them in the fifth grade year, but when they're still applying in their third grade year. Doug Paulson: But in that scenario, most of them will be at Heritage and they're not leaving. Andrew McGuire: Well, if if we if we didn't, if we just stood back and didn't engage with them and they went to Heritage because they want to go there for like may not be because they want to go there for fourth grade, they might want to be there so they don't go to the bigger middle

077school or maybe even the high school, and they want to get in, and that's when they can get in. We're going to be having those conversations with these families, and not just waiting for them to tell us they're interested in leaving, but talking to all of our families about what their needs are and how we can meet those. But through that, we would find those families that are looking at options to go somewhere else so that they can get in. Let's say you enroll in Quantum now at fourth grade, because that's if you don't get in, then you probably aren't getting in. And the same thing with Heritage and those kind of schools. Doug Paulson: So it sounds like this decision's been made. Andrew McGuire: It has not been made. I'm just speaking to our

078reason. Okay. Zesty Harper: I think they're just trying to come up with ideas of how, like, we're losing the most students at the sixth grade level and how can we add students at the sixth grade level. And this is our most desirable program, I would assume, for sixth graders. Doug Paulson: Oh, and I think we could have an on ramp for sixth graders and expand it and maintain a high school feel. Zesty Harper: Well. But I think part of Quantum and you find this in other small schools is the culture that they create. When you start, it's hard to come in to the middle of a program and understand that culture and be part of that culture, I think. I mean, I talk to those teachers a lot, and that's one of their, their, their

079prideful things about that school is that, you know, they work with them from the minute they walk in the door and build this community and build this small school feel, which I appreciate you guys not wanting to over expand this, this program. But I think, again, if we're looking at retaining our kids for the middle school, which is where we're losing them, I mean, I think this is one of the great options is because we're creating that capacity to keep the kids where they want to be. They want them in the they want them in Quantum, you know, and that I think this is creating more opportunities for those students to stay here. And again, the fourth grade isn't even all full for the people that have asked to come this next year. Andrew McGuire:

080There's another aspect here that I think to speak to it. The decision hasn't been made, but this is here right now, and we have some things on the next slide to talk about further out ideas that are possible further out. This is something that's available to us right now. We wouldn't be able to add additional classes in sixth and fifth and sixth grade or any other grades. Because of the size of the school and the capacity of it, we wouldn't be able to physically have the infrastructure to support additional classes. What this opportunity is available to us right now for next year is if those two fourth grade classes become fifth and sixth grade classes, so the facility doesn't have to change, and we wouldn't have the time to change it by the start of

081next year. So that's the only reason why we're using this first as an example of something we can do now for next year. But if it's something where where it's more, it's more of an interest to keep the fourth grade and expand fifth and sixth grade, seventh and eighth. Later on, we would need additional year or two to be able to upgrade that facility to accommodate that. But of course, that also comes with the cost as well. So this is something that it doesn't create an additional cost because of the facilities needs. It's available to us now and that's why we wanted to have the discussion about it. Not that the decision has been made, it's just it's a different direction and different decision and a different scope of work. If we were going to

082add additional classes for other grades without eliminating fourth grade. Joan Gardner: I don't want to beat this to death, but. You're going to need to make a decision the year after 26-27, because you're going to have the sixth graders, you're going to have three sixth grade classes, and you're going to have to add a class for the seventh grade. Within a year after that, anyhow. And I think what Zesty said, I think the one of the big attractions at Quantum is the small school size. Right now they're at 320. Yes? Andrew McGuire: I don'thave it in front of me. But I think that's that's about right. Joan Gardner: And and if you add two more classes, they'd be at 384. Still a nice small school. And even if you add two more classes or seventh

083and eighth, you'd still only be at 458. And which makes me think of Miller School, a school that was always our lowest in numbers, but also was one of our more popular schools. I had one of my my boys actually went through Miller, and it had that small school feel and it was very homey. So that might be something to look at as well. The fact that small, smaller schools attract are more attractive. Zesty Harper: So yeah. So I mean, I think that's a huge desire to be in a small where every staff member knows your kid, knows your family, and you feel like they're looking out for them. Not to say that's not happening at the other school sites, but I mean, that's a huge factor when you're looking at schools and that that

084feel that they have and especially at Quantum, I mean, they they know every single family and siblings and the siblings come through and, you know, they come back after they go to college. And, you know, it's a it's a great feel there. So but you also I mean, but also I think another part of this is the school of choice by in just like charter schools. I mean, if you put them up against each other, you know, the programs are very similar. But you had that parent and that family buy in to either go to the charter school or take the effort to make it a school of choice. You've got that automatic buy in. So it's just my neighborhood school. No, I, I wanted to go to this school. I approached the school. I

085had to do this step to get in the school. So I'm going to respect it just that much more. And I think that also creates a great culture as well. Joan Gardner: And more parental involvement. Zesty Harper: Yeah. But I think I mean, this goes back to our bigger idea of, you know, we have all these students who are wanting to pick a different school like their school. The school they're with isn't fitting whatever their needs are. So how can we accommodate more of those so they don't leave us? I mean, I think that's a great idea of how how, you know, they're saying this school is not for me. I would like to go to this school. I would like to go to, you know, Conway, I send people to Conway all the time

086because I think it's a fantastic program, you know? But if we run out of room, how can we create capacity at these programs that people are wanting to come to and bring their kids to? So, I mean, I think it's a great idea for expanding the capacity of that school, yet still keeping it a small school and still keeping it a cohesive program. Andrew McGuire: And we're trying to deal with the 186 students that want, that told us, their parents told us, we'll stay with you if we can go somewhere different than our neighborhood school. And we lost them because we couldn't accommodate them. We know that we're going to lose some portion. And by the history of it, probably a large portion of those 43 sixth graders that were not going to be able

087to accommodate at Quantum. But we also know that right now, we don't have the infrastructure in place to be able to add an additional classroom there at this point and continue to do that at this and the costs involved in doing that. So the Quantum idea is just there because it's something that's in it's in our reach right now to start working against the, stemming the tide of the students that are choosing to go to families are choosing to go somewhere else because we can't accommodate them. It's just the starting point. And there's more for us to talk about tonight. On other ideas that are further out for that. Zesty Harper: Well, and I would say the majority of the calls I get from either people I know or from the public are how do

088I get my student into this school? How do I get them into Bear Valley? How do I get them to LR Green? How do I get them to Quantum? How do I get them to Bernardo? Those are my calls. And then when I say, you got to go to the school of choice, and they go, oh, we didn't get it there, how do I fill out an inter-district transfer? That's the second most common question I get. And I don't like those calls because I love all of our campuses. And again, I think that's something we're working on is how do we change the perception of all of our campuses because we know what fantastic programs we're doing. But again, I think that's a huge frustration for parents in this district, is they they have certain

089schools they want them to go to. And if their kids doesn't, don't get in there. They're not wanting to stay with our district. And so how do how do we reach those parents? Andrew McGuire: Maybe we can talk about some of the further out ideas that we wanted to put before you and have a discussion about, too, because if we're spending all of our time just talking about Quantum, we're also there's a bigger picture here that we're that we're wanting to talk about. Multiple different approaches to meeting this family's needs that we're knowing that they have. They've told us that they have. And so that we can continue to look at adjusting our district to meet those needs and not continue to just to keep things the status quo while that status quo is netting

090us a loss. Hundreds of students every year because they're finding options that meet their needs somewhere else. And so maybe if I can just go on to the next things and we can talk about Quantum and those things all as one bigger conversation, Maybe that would be just just to kind of see our thinking on this. And it's not just about the couple of great levels at Quantum that we were talking about. Would that be okay if I go on to the next. Okay, so just to introduce this, there's some pretty big ideas, bold moves on this slide here. And we have some kind of questions we've asked ourselves and come from the conversations we've had. But just to quickly go through them, and I know Rick can talk about all of those questions there

091too as part of this conversation. So we're really eager to to have a two way conversation on that. But the like, for instance, we have several schools, our elementary schools that are DLP schools, and at those schools they're all doing two different schools at once. There's an English only school, and there's a dual language school in the same school. So you'll have some at every grade level, 1 or 2 classes of DLP and 1 or 2 classes of English only. And so they're trying to do two different schools at the same time. And our thought was, what if we were to consolidate that? And obviously that's a big move and there's a lot of community involvement and conversations we have to have. That's why this is not something we can do right now, but it's

092a conversation we have had, we've had in in different venues here. Even those of us in this room would having a school that's primarily that's only focused on the DLP program, where everything in that school is immersed in the DLP program. And that way we're not trying to do two different things at once. Just as an idea around the DLP, one thing we also know is we have, as we talked about, a lot of families we've heard from, we talked to, we know I just don't feel like my fifth grader is ready to go into the comprehensive middle school next year. I wish they could stay at their elementary school. I know when most of us were in elementary school, they were going to sixth grade and so is it something to look at of

093adding a sixth grade at some of our elementary schools, so that those families that feel they need to have that extra year at the same school in that continuity there, and then go into seventh grade at the comprehensive middle schools like that. Now, remember, our school district had 22,000 kids. With all the schools we have, we had 22,000 kids. So could we make room for a sixth grade class to continue at the same elementary school at many of our schools? We could. Facilities wise. Then, of course, we talked about Quantum being very desirable. And part of that's being a small school. And a lot of people want that. And I think an energy growing around what we're doing in our schools. Is it even something we should look at? This district. It's people two of

094our own teachers developed and designed Quantum. Could we do it again? Those two teachers are still here. Could we do it again? Will we have a facility that we could expand and have a different another school built out within within our means without having to build something. We already did it. Next to Del Dios. So that's an option too. Now that's these are ideas that are going to take us one, two, three, four years to deal to, to come to fruition. But we will never get there. One, two, three, four years if we don't start thinking, is this the direction we want to go in? And that's my pitch. I guess in this whole idea is instead of coming before you and always talking about what we can cut to balance our budget, let's also

095start seeing what we can do to grow our resources, to balance our budget and increase and improve the services we're providing to our community. By adjusting and providing options that our families are finding somewhere else by hundreds every year. So these are just some ideas up there. You can see there's some guiding questions we've included. About each of those things are big topics, believe me. We may not be able to get through all of it tonight, but I just want you to see that this is more than just the idea about Quantum. It's not a small thing we're thinking. We're thinking about completely. We're redesigning many of our schools to change them, to meet the needs of the kids we have today. We want to redesign our whole system so our school district meets the

096needs of the city that it serves. And that's what some of these ideas. And if you have others, we need to hear about it. We need to start thinking about it. Because if we just keep doing the same thing every year, well, people are finding that they need something else. And I'd like to start doing things in this district. We would all like our whole system, would like to be able to have the permission to meet the needs of our community that they're finding somewhere else here in EUSD to support our families, our people, this community. So that's my rant. Let's have a discussion. Joan Gardner: I think I think the idea of of adding the sixth grade as an option. I know Conway does it that way. And children aren't, aren't forced to stay

097if they feel they're ready for middle school. But some are happy to get another year and some parents are happy to give their children another year to mature. Andrew McGuire: About 70% of the Conway fifth graders stay for sixth grade, and others go to one of our comprehensive high schools or find another option. Hopefully, they go to one of our comprehensive high schools, but about 70% of that fifth grade class does traditionally stay with us at Conway. Zesty Harper: So so that might be an option to to offer. As you said, we do have the room. Doug Paulson: So just oh sorry. Zesty Harper: Go ahead. Doug Paulson: So just staying with the TK through six schools I mean that's how all of our schools used to be. I actually was in when they made

098the transition to the sixth through eighth grade schools. I was the last class at Central and I stayed for sixth grade. That seems like an easy move. That's a matter of putting a teacher and a classroom and having them prepared to teach a self-contained sixth grade classroom. That seems like something that we could do right away, and that would give families an additional option. Assuming that the kids at each school come in nice packets of 32. Andrew McGuire: That's why it's it's not as easy to do right away for next year, but it's something that we would we want to make sure that. Doug Paulson: But we could we could do an interest survey and see how many families at each school would be interested. And I think we might find that it's a whole

099bunch more than we think. Andrew McGuire: Oh, I think it's a lot. Doug Paulson: I think we might wind up suddenly being like, oh, we need two teachers at some schools. Andrew McGuire: And that's where, because there's going to be a shifting of staff, and we're already into that, where we're setting up our staffing for next year that we would there could be a shifting of staff, right. If they're not going to sixth grade at the middle school that, you know, we can't have empty classrooms there with teachers in them, we would have to have time for us to really do this in the not rapid fire way so that we're making sure that our staffing is there and we're not not a knee jerk kind of way to go about it in that. And

100so we want to make sure that we're also working with our association partners and all of that, and following all of the transfers and how we would do these things, that's going to take us some time to figure out. I don't want to the Quantum thing, they're like already ready to go. We, we as far as as a school and the way it is and the fourth grade thing is just not having that, but talking to those families that they can be their fifth grade year, that's a much more attainable thing now. But all of these things that are on this slide here are going to take us. The K to TK six thing. That might be a year out to talk about all the staffing and stuff that's probably near term or nearer-term than

101the other things on this list. But that's what I just wanted to have that does the board see that the direction that we go in, is it to start looking at ways for us to start meeting the family's needs based on the data we've shown you on the school of choice alone, and just the choices they're finding to go somewhere else for options? I want to recommend that we start looking at ways to provide those options here. And these are just some of the ideas to to start to do that. Doug Paulson: The additional TK six. For me, the additional TK six schools, that's an obvious way to go. Andrew McGuire: Would we be bringing back if we were to go forward with any of this? We would be bringing back things for, you know,

102if it requires a vote, but for actual decisions to be. I just want to say it's just a discussion. But yeah, like TK six, we're probably going to bring back some ideas for that to really firm that up, for something to start really working on in a real way, to make it happen at some of our schools. I think an interest survey is absolutely necessary. Mark Olson: Yeah, obviously community engagement with this. But this is I like this frame of thinking. I like this thinking outside of the box. Just to give you, I was actually texting my son because he teaches out of state and they have broken it down differently. It's not the traditional K through five, six through 8. It's not. They've broken it down differently. And there's pros and cons to everything,

103but I think it that works for the community that that district serves. And I think that's the most important thing. But I like the idea and I would just encourage everyone involved to, to don't limit it. You know, if this is the a possible way of thinking, make sure you go down that road as far as possible. And not just these are great. This is a great start. Tk through six. Maybe there's a different variable that we'll get from the community feedback that you know it's not going to be easy, but I think this is the kind of thing this is the challenge with public agencies is we're not nimble. It's very methodical. We as a board, you know, and that's a that's a challenge. But I think if the innovative mindset is ingrained going

104forward, it helps to kind of shorten that, that turning radius that oftentimes takes by the time you get it implemented, the community's changed or the, you know, the demographics are different. But I think it I encourage keeping this creative mindset as the foundation is going to help our community in the best possible way. So I think, you know, I'm excited about these. I love all these ideas. And the community will tell us, I think, what they want. Joan Gardner: And in the end, that's what we have to listen to. That's right. Doug Paulson: For the DLP Academy. I so we're, we're talking about consolidating and having one school that's entirely DLP is that. Andrew McGuire: And not necessarily just the one school. But we have four elementaries right now. Right. And so it could be

105it could be two like that and consolidate, you know, that or just consolidate two of them into one. I mean, I think we wouldn't do two at one time. It would be more like to do one of them. One consolidation at once and make sure we got it right. Again, to I mean, we have to be very methodical. And, you know, we got to go slow to go fast, but make sure we do it right. But yeah, I would say if we have four could we have two. Yeah. But I would start with one if we were going to go down that road and if that's what the community around the schools we're talking about consolidating would want us to do. Doug Paulson: Right. And I think surveys are going to be extremely important there

106because I, I have the feeling that what we're going to find is that those families like things the way they are and they want there because there are many, many walkers and many families that want to stay right at the school that they live by. They may be very happy with the schools as they are. Andrew McGuire: I think they are. I think they're very happy with the school. I think a lot of our families are still with us, are very happy with the schools as as they are. But also, could we do something that they haven't even thought of? That's even better. Joan Gardner: Trust us, you'll like it. Andrew McGuire: And that's coming from talking with them and showing them that there are options that we can provide, that are being provided elsewhere,

107and seeing what they think about those options. Do you want those options available here in Escondido? If they don't, if they don't want that at all, then we go a different direction. Absolutely. This is not something. No decision has been made. Not forcing anybody, you know, to make this decision that they have to do this. Absolutely not. But part of the driving force behind the DLP Academy, too, is to improve the educational program. Right? I think ultimately that's what we're trying to do. Doug Paulson: I think what a lot of families would be very interested in, and I know we've talked about this, but would be a dual language program on one of our schools that is not in the center of town for example, a North Broadway, a Miller, and LR Green where families

108come in and the transition is you start off mostly in English and move into Spanish rather than vice versa. So I think that's something that we might find through a survey that many families are interested in. Andrew McGuire: And that would be more like one of the redesigns we're doing at many of our schools. And that could be a concept that they could work on as a redesign of their school, if that's something that their community was very interested in. Absolutely. Doesn't have to be separate from. It could be an addition to. It could be this. Not at all. And that that's what I'm seeing. There's we have to gauge the interest and stuff. The point of putting these out here, these are things we've thought about. Ways to improve the educational program, address some

109of the needs we've already heard from our families. And then like, if we're going to start looking at doing these things and I feel like there's some direction already here to start gauging the interest of our community around some of these ideas. And I think that's that's good direction for us to start working and moving in a direction to figure out what direction we should go in. Mark Olson: Yeah. And I think it would be really important to get a large scale survey of some of the schools because in the redesign process, we get a lot of teacher input and, and some parent input, but I think getting larger amounts of of input from the larger community would be very important. Moving over to the specialty school, I think everybody would love us to look

110at another specialty school. I think that, you know, especially something like 4 through eight or a five through eight or a K through eight because a lot of people, if they see what's going on at their school, they're going to be more likely to stay there for middle school if that's available there with some separation, obviously. Andrew McGuire: But yeah, K8 idea too is something that's, that's floating around as well. We just didn't have any more room on the slide. But also that would probably require some more facilities upgrades to accommodate that number of students. Adding and some of what you said, too would actually be something a school currently could redesign around that kind of thing. A new specialty school. If you were looking at what Quantum seems to be very desirable in that,

111and if we had another option, it wouldn't have to be just like Quantum. It would be designed in the current day by, you know, different new designers or even some of the same. But it doesn't have to be just a replication of Quantum. Perhaps the community wants some other options, and I know some of our competition in town has options we don't have available at our schools. And I would want to look at that too, because from the numbers, I'm not going to go back to the slide again. Hundreds of families are choosing options that we have here in the city that that aren't ours. So we have a choice to and yes, demographics and people are leaving the state across the state, that kind of thing. But people are also still staying in the

112state and choosing to go outside of EUSD for options we don't have available. We can continue this conversation at future board meetings. We'll want to seek out some community input. We'll start working on that. But really, all of what we were trying to talk about tonight is, is ways to based on the numbers of families that are leaving us for other options that we don't have available. Can we start looking at providing some of those options ourselves? Joan Gardner: So it looks like there's a pretty much a consensus that these options that you've provided are worth pursuing. Andrew McGuire: Exploring at least. Right? Yeah, right. Zesty Harper: I feel like there's consensus. I think we appreciate, you know, the out of the box thinking because I mean that that's I mean, honestly, that's one of

113the reasons I joined the board and ran for the seat because I would get the crying parents because they didn't get into charter and they were terrified of sending their kids to these schools. And I was like that. That's not okay. And we have terrific schools to send our our, everyone's student two. And so the more options we give them, the more competitive we become with the charter schools. We have fantastic teachers. We have fantastic programs. I heard you, Doug. Doug Paulson: But I'm saying if you look at the numbers, it the charters are not the issue. It's, you know, it's other it's other districts. You know, beyond the charters, I mean I'm not charters. We're losing some kids to the charters, but we're losing a heck of a lot more to surrounding districts. Zesty

114Harper: That's also because they're at capacity that the charters are at capacity. So if he's saying if another charter came in, we would lose even more. I mean, how many were left with Epiphany? Doug Paulson: Well, yeah. Zesty Harper: So if another charter came in or so it's not. It's just because they're at capacity. It's not because people are not choosing to go there. Joan Gardner: But that was the new shiny object. Zesty Harper: But that's what I'm saying. We need to be the shiny object, and we need to be where they want to go. And that's what we're trying to work towards. Joan Gardner: Well, especially starting, for instance, with the kindergarten. Zesty Harper: You're very shiny [laughter]. Joan Gardner: We we could be offering tours to prospective kindergarten students. Andrew McGuire: Absolutely. Zesty

115Harper: That that would. Andrew McGuire: That's an approach as well. Joan Gardner: To show the parents what facilities we have available. Yes. New playgrounds we've put in and the and the the great kindergarten facilities we have now. Andrew McGuire: Yes. Joan Gardner: Different schools. I don't think that's I think people new, new people realize just what we have to. Andrew McGuire: Oh that's oh we, that's I ranted about that at that last board meeting. I mean we're not telling people what's happening. We need everybody that works here, everybody that's a part of our community of EUSD to be telling everybody what it's really like here. And we are great. We are shiny. We are that, but we also know that we don't have all the options available to families that they're seeking and getting elsewhere.

116Joan Gardner: Yeah. That's just. Doug Paulson: I think another point that I would like to know someday, I knew years ago is who are. How many different charter schools do we have operating in Escondido and who are they all and where are they chartered out of? Andrew McGuire: Well, we already know the Heritage and Classical are charter authorized by this. Doug Paulson: Absolutely. Andrew McGuire: But then we have like Dimensions is one that popped up with one of our students had. Doug Paulson: Dimensions. Montessori. We, I mean and how many Dimensions campuses are there and we have the, the element the the one in the mall. Altace. Altace that's chartered by the high school district for elementary. Andrew McGuire: Well, and its other schools could be chartered through the county office or even through the

117state. Doug Paulson: Right. I'm just always interested in how many are there because I find them all the time. Andrew McGuire: I know we've looked in the past and we found a set like maybe ten or so. We can go back and refresh that. And the ones that don't come through us, like they can come and go, and we wouldn't even know until students decide to go there, but they're coming in and looking at what we're offering and providing something different than we're offering, which is how they're getting families to go there instead of staying here. So if there's further discussion on these things, I also, just as I mentioned, if you can go back to the last slide again on the facilities funds, there's just we have some remaining bond funds because some of

118the great work that our facilities department did, our project managers, you know, in the last few board meetings, we brought a couple of change orders for where we came in under budget on our mission phase three project. They've worked really hard over the years to get all the matching funds available to us from the state for our projects that we do. And because of that, you know, we have some remaining bond funds that can help support, you know, some of the infrastructure needs, if it's a TK-6 thing over the next couple of years or the Quantum thing, because clearly, as we talked about, we would have to add a seventh and eighth there if we went forward with that. And so we would have we have an opportunity. There's the, the layout there that we

119would probably add a couple of additional classroom buildings there to accommodate that. So we have the means in our facilities, funds to be able to support some of these things and saying is to advocating to invest those in getting more kids to stay with us so they can experience the bright, shiny education that we have to offer here in Escondido. Zesty Harper: Thank you. Now, I appreciate the time you and cabinet put this together. And I think we have consensus of moving forward with some of these creative ideas to really attract more students and retain the students we have and really showcase. You got a peanut gallery behind you. That's why I put the podium there so we can't see them to distract us. But again, to. No. No cards. Sorry [laughter]. No. But again,

120not only attracting them but retaining our students that we and our families that we do have. Because the people that are here, they do love Escondido and they love our district and so do our teachers. And again, how do we showcase that as well? But all these are great ideas. I've always wanted a Quantum West, but, you know, baby steps. But thank you again. We appreciate your presentation and the direction we're heading. Doug Paulson: And that's a bear to get across town. Zesty Harper: Oh my gosh. Yes, yes. We don't have enough time to solve that tonight Joan. Andrew McGuire: Yes. Joan Gardner: Well I'm just saying if we had if we had a West or something similar. Yeah. Zesty Harper: Absolutely. Get more opportunities. Absolutely. Alright. So I'm going to wrap this meeting up.

121Our next meeting, our regular meeting is on March 5th, right in this very room and on zoom. So we look forward to seeing you all then in your public comments of. But thank you so much. We are adjourned.