001We're nervous and that's okay. It's really brave. We're very shy. >> Hi, my name is Cara and I'm 9 years old and I am a student at Moore Elementary. I want to tell you I want to tell you why my special teachers are so important to me. Number one, Miss Ma, our music teacher, always gives me compliments and makes me feel but confident. She talks with us when we are sad and always greets us in the morning. That makes me feel happy and ready for the day. Mr. Johnson, our PE teacher, is so funny and always makes us laugh. Last week, we had family PE week and we played games and danced inside the parachute. It was so fun. If he was at two schools, we wouldn't get to do fun things like that together.
002Miss Williams, our art teacher, is creative and kind. I love the warm-ups in art, and she takes pictures of our artwork so our families can order special magnets for our fridge. It makes me feel proud. If our specialist teachers are not here all the time, school would be less fun and I would feel very sad. We need them here every day. Please let them stay with us all the time. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. >> Good job. Good job. >> Next speaker I have is Kimberly. >> Kimberly. >> Hi. >> Hello. >> Yeah, you'll want to pull it. >> Is that okay? >> That's good. Thank you. >> Hi, Kimberly Stone 50310. Um I'm also a Moore family member. Um I'm here tonight to speak about the importance of keeping our extended
003core also. They are a cornerstone in our community. Um whose impact reaches far beyond um a single classroom or content area and whose absence would be felt deeply across our entire learning community community. I'm nervous too. I want to thank you for all the efforts that you have made thus far, but I wanted to take a minute to share my perspective as well. Extended core teachers play a unique role in building schoolwide relationships. They work with multiple grade levels, collaborate with many classroom teachers, and support a wide range of students through many curriculums all year long. Because of this, they often know students not just for names on a roster or test scores, but as people and understanding their growth, their needs, and their potential. These relationships are not incidental. They are foundational. Students learn
004better when they feel seen, supported, and connected by trusted adults across the building. [snorts] Extended core teachers also help establish and maintain accountability structures throughout the school. They reinforce these expectations in our school, the routines, and the academic language that all of our teachers share in all learning settings. The consistency creates stability, our school accountability across all grade levels. With these expectations, we are aligned schoolwide and students thrive. I also want to acknowledge the district's own recognition of Mr. Johnson and her school event at more PE week this week or last week, excuse me. The success was built on collaboration and our teachers hard work and deep investment in our community. It provided students with an opportunity to show their skills, but more importantly, maybe it allowed families to make stronger connections. I met adults
005that I haven't had the opportunity to socialize with and build really strong relationships with them. These strong relationships improve our strong communities and improve retention within our community. The district create celebrated our school publicly and rightly so. With events like this and our upcoming music and art show, our extended core teachers are bringing our community together with so many opportunities to celebrate and recognize greatness. Yet, there's a troubling disconnect. The district speaks about valuing highquality teachers and wanting to retain them. At the same time, extended core teachers who are already making significant sacrifices, helping out in other classrooms with time, energy, and flexibility are being asked to sacrifice more, to spread themselves thinner, and to do more with less. Valuing teachers must include valuing them as people, not just as positions that can absorb additional
006responsibilities indefinitely. [snorts] It's also important to note the inequity in this situation. Larger schools in the district are retaining full-time core teachers while smaller schools are asked to make do with less. These teachers that create the continuity in our school are being removed to be shared with other people while other schools are being allowed to maintain their continuity. I'm asking you to look at the moments in between. Can you balance accounts with lunchroom conversation and hallway hugs? All students, regardless of school size, deserve the same level of support. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate the work that you do as a board. >> Have a great day. [applause] >> Next speaker is Marshall James. >> Hi everyone. I'm Marshall James. I live in 5031 2. [clears throat] Um, and I'm the
007uh I'm the father of a three-year-old at Cow's Monasuri, and I'm also a proud member of Iowa CCI and the public school strong campaign. Um, you know, uh, these last few weeks, CFO Aurora has been doing presentations about potential budget, um, projections, including, you know, kind of upsetting potentials of a 1% or 0% state aid, um, which, uh, and how and how we would respond to it, which I'm I'm glad to see that the school district is making plans for the worst case scenarios. We already know that the numbers being kicked around up at the state house are 2% maybe 1%. It's expected that they'll probably give somewhere in between the two. For reference, inflation for last year was 2.7%. So even if they gave the high number of 2%, they would be giving us
008yet another pay cut. That is 15 of the last 16 years a pay cut for every school district in our state. We've been hearing public comments also from the last few weeks from uh from parents, especially parents at Moore Elementary talking about uh the the proposal to split um schedules for uh art, music, and PE teachers. And that's a direct result of cuts to state supplemental aid. That's where our funding for for teachers and the programs that they support comes from. So every time the state passes another cut, it is our kids that are suffering. It is our kids, it is our school programs that are cut because of the will and the whims of the political class. We at Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement urge all residents in the district to raise your voices
009and demand an increase in state funding for our schools in legislative forums, in town halls, in letters to the editor of local newspapers, and in organizational meetings. And we also urge all elected leaders of school boards to join this call. So far, nine school boards have passed our resolution, each unanimously, calling for a minimum of 5% annual state funding increases and a phase out of the financially disastrous and broadly unpopular private school voucher scheme. Last week, three districts passed the resolution in one night. Cedar Falls, South TA, and Urbandale. While the chance of improvement in these numbers seems grim under the Reynolds administration, her reign is coming to an end and the time to set the table for how we will move forward next year is at hand. We need to make it clear to
010all gubanatorial candidates that school funding is a top priority of all Ians and that the acceptance of lesser than inflation is unacceptable. Our kids deserve the very best. When Iowa was the top of the nation public education, we were giving between 8 and 14% annual state supplemental aid increases. It has not been above 4% in almost two decades. So again, I'm calling on this board and all elected school board members across the state to join us, raise up your voices, and demand a minimum 5% annual state supplemental aid increase. This is the demand of the ISA, our teachers. They know what they need. They say they need 5%. I agree with them. I support the teachers and I demand a 5% state supplemental aid increase and I urge the board to do so as well.
011Thank you, [applause] >> Madam Chair. Those are all the speakers I have signed up. Thank you. The next item on our agenda is our district recognitions. Superintendent Smith, are there any recognitions for today? >> There are. We have um several tonight. First, congratulations to East High School and their team of outstanding counselors. Last week, East earned the ASCA model program, ASKA Model, designation from the American School Counselors Association. This honor is presented to schools that are committed to delivering a comprehensive data-driven school counseling program in an exemplary educational environment. Nationwide, there are 600 schools that have earned this designation. In Iowa, only six schools have, and five of those are right here in De Moine public schools, with the other fours being Hoover, Goodwill, Madison, and Wright. At our last meeting, I shared a grant
012awarded to Central Campus to expand their welding program. Tonight, some more welding news to share. A big congratulations to Max Wardell. He won a national competition hosted by the Missouri Welding Institute, coming out on top of more than 250 students from across the country. Max Max's success is another example of the outstanding career technical education opportunities in De Mo public schools. Not only is Max winning prize money at competitions, but he is part of the John Deere welding apprenticeship where he's on track to complete 3,500 hours of industry experience before graduating high school. Our congratulations to Max as well as our outstanding instructors here at Central Campus. And finally, a shout out to Lincoln High School girls bowling. Not only did the Rails win the state qualifying meet yesterday, four of their five team members,
013Michelle Wilson, Cadence Johan Sage, Morgan Andrews, and Morgan Wilson also qualified as individuals. Lincoln has been the top ranked team in the state this season, and we wish them the very best at next week's state tournament in Waterlue. That's it. [applause] >> Thank you for sharing that. We will move on to our consent agenda. As a reminder to the board and public, the public will the board rather will not engage in discussion or deliberation with a speaker regarding comments made to agenda items. Discussion and deliberation will remain above among board members at the board table with speakers comments informing the board's decision, deliberation, and determinations as deemed necessary. Miss Rios, do we have any speakers? No speakers. Thank you. Miss Campos, I believe you have the consent motion. >> I do. Uh, I move that
014the board approves the consent items in accordance with the recommendations recommended action for each items on the consent agenda, including bills previously authorized, certified, and approved for payment by the board secretary in the amount of 2,613,987 for uh 444. Is there a second? >> I also second. >> We have a motion by Campos and a second by Miss Alonzo. Is there any discussion or does anyone have any questions? Board members, please cast your votes. The consent items are approved. 7 to zero. Next, we have our public hearings. First item is E1 public hearing for CIP 3639 Stow Elementary main entrance improvements. The public hearing will come to order. Is there anyone wishing to speak to this item? Hearing no one, I will close the public hearing. Superintendent Smith, will you please introduce the matter? I
015recommend the board review the proposed plans and specifications prepared by Studio Melee for main entrance improvements at Stow Elementary, hold a public hearing and approve the plans. >> Thank you. May I have a motion and a second to approve this item? >> Dix so moved. >> H second. >> We have a motion by Dixs and a second by Hopkins. Is there any discussion or does anyone have any questions? Board members, please cast your votes. The vote is approved. 7 to zero. Next item is E2 public hearing for our school calendars. The public hearing will come to order. Is there anyone wishing to speak to this item? >> Speaker. [snorts] >> Hi again, Marshall James. Um, I'll keep my comments brief, but because I I may be speaking out of turn here, but I just wanted
016to draw earlier this month, uh, around the Martin Luther King Day, uh, school was given, you know, the kids have Martin Luther King day off and then they had the following Tuesday off and then in some at least in some of the schools also Wednesday was was off. They were off for teacher development or something like that, which I'm in full support. teachers need teacher development. But speaking as a as a community organizer and advocate, I know there are a lot of parents who are put under extreme amount of pressure that week three, you know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday to have to find child care when we live in a economy where both parents are expected to work full-time jobs. And then of course, we had the extreme cold day on that Friday that also caused
017school to be cancelled. So there were a lot of folks in our communities who they lost their entire week of pay and maybe even went into debt finding child care for that week. So I just as we're looking at at calendars, especially calendars in the winter months, I would just try and see if we can avoid extra super long weekends like that because just because we can give the day off to to teachers and they need it, parents can't always get those days off. We have to find child care for them on those days. >> Thank you, Mr. James. Are there any other speakers? >> Hearing no additional speakers, I will close the public hearing. Superintendent Smith, would you please introduce the matter? >> I recommend the board hold a public hearing and approve the
0182026 2027 calendars. >> May I have a motion and a second to approve this item? [snorts] So moved. >> I will second. >> We have a motion by Alonzo and a second by Howell. Is there any discussion or does anyone have any questions? >> Madam Chair, just point of order. Is this just procedural? Is this a first reading or is this is this final uh reading for the calendar? This is it. >> This is it. Yes. >> Any additional questions? Board members, please cast your votes. The vote is approved seven to zero. [clears throat] Now we have our other business. The item is F1, personnel recommendation, receive, file, and take action. Superintendent Smith, would you please introduce the matter? I recommend the board receive, file, and take action on the superintendent's notice to terminate the
019continuing teaching contract for reasons stated within. >> May I have a motion and a second to approve this item? >> Motion by Campos. >> May I have a second? >> I'll second. >> We have a motion by Miss Campos and a second by Mr. Howell. Is there any discussion or does anyone have any questions? Board members, please cast your votes. The vote is approved 7 to zero. Next, we have our information only items. G1 is a list of our new hires. And now on the agenda, we have items of privilege. I would like to ask if our board members have anything they would like to share. [clears throat] All right, pick them on. Um, I just had a statement to read. Um, black communities have played a defining role in shaping public education in this
020country. From the bravery of families like those in Brown versus Board of Education, who challenged segregation and helped transform our educational system to trailblazing educators like Mary Mloud Bthoon who championed educational access and founded institutions that expanded opportunity for black students and families or trailblazers like James B. Morris. Yes, the namesake of our very own DMPS's James B. Morris Elementary School, an early black Ian who worked as an educator and community leader focused on basic literacy, moral instruction, and civic readiness. These contributions and many others continue to shape the classrooms and policies we see today. So, as we close tonight, I take this moment to celebrate and acknowledge the ongoing impact of black leaders, educators, and students that are making it every single day in our evolving world of education. And to all, happy Black
021History Month. >> [applause] [laughter] >> Um, I would like to give Hoover uh a huge shout out. I was able to attend I was invited to attend their um legacy gala on Saturday. It was amazing. It was beautiful. So, thank you to everyone. the organizing committee for putting that together and bringing so many people together. It was an incredible, incredible evening. >> I just shout out Principal Nichols uh who's here with us tonight and the uh community at uh Catel Elementary. I was privileged to go and take a tour there and see all the exciting and positive things that are happening in that community. So, shout out to uh you and and your staff and keep up the good work. Superintendent Smith, I will turn it over to you for the Superintendent report. >> Um,
022you pretty much covered it. You covered the gala. I see Scott Nichols. You covered Scott Nichols. Um, and I just want to reiterate um and couldn't say it honestly any better than Dr. Skyler Mayberry May. Just um happy Black History Month and u thank you for everybody for all you continue to do for your advocacy for our students, for our staff, and for our families. Um we've got a lot going on right now in our school district and in our state and in our country. And um if we don't actually come together now, uh we will we will continue to tear one another apart. And so we're not built that way. We're not designed that way. We're actually meant to connect with one another. And this is an opportunity for us to do that with
023authenticity, with honesty, and with transparency. So thanks again for being here. >> Thank you. Thank you for joining us this evening. We greatly appreciate you all. This meeting is adjourned at 6:06 p.m. We will now transition into our work session to discuss the budget and after the budget work session we will have a presentation from the executive cabinet. Then we will have a private close session followed by an exempt session. Um so we will transition directly into our bud budget presentation which um will be a >> 45 minute presentation. Um and then our cabinet presentation will last approximately 30 minutes. >> Yeah. So as uh Shashank is getting set up, so tonight's budget conversation is um str uh around priority uh two um cultivating well-being. Um we've kind of I'm putting the time limit of
02445 minutes mainly for me because I have a tendency to interject quite a bit and then continue to talk. So, um, we are going to work towards 45 minutes, um, so that we can, um, get right to the heart of the matter, which is our budget and how we're actually addressing and investing dollars to serve children and staff and communities in De Mo public schools. So, without further ado, um, Shashank, you and the team, you want to introduce everybody and get going? >> Good afternoon. >> Afternoon. This presentation would not have happened without the help of my partners in crime over here, Greg and Jen. Can you please introduce yourself? >> I'll start us off. Uh, Greg Reels, uh, director of schools, primarily working with elementary, um, serving the northeast and and west side of
025of De Moine. >> I'm Jen Stalder. I supervise the success program, but I also oversee the student attendance policy and work on the district safety team. >> So, we'll go through the regular format reminding the board what exactly is the statutory requirement of the board and then proceed with our budget presentation. Actually three of us had discussed and we were hoping that we'll have hour and a half for the presentation but Matt has cut a short so we'll follow the same the same process what the context is what are the challenges what choices are we making and what the impact of that would be and today being Feb 3 we're talking about the well-being and I just wanted to remind based on the the two goals that we have already discussed or the pillars that
026we have discussed organization ational effective effectiveness and community and collaboration. We have already we have committed half a million dollars of the $2 million in allocation. [clears throat] [laughter] >> Sure. Absolutely. >> So I'm going to walk us through this first portion here um as we begin um pillar two with well-being. And so to set the context and um we'll kind of just as Shashank shared walk you through the four steps. So when we think of priority 2, uh, pillar 2 reflects our commitment to environments where students and staff feel safe, supported, and are connected. This is not a standalone program. It's about the conditions for learning that we're speaking of. Um, when students don't feel safe or connected, they're not fully engaged, and we we hear this tonight, the the three students that shared,
027they're not fully engaged um or persist or access multiple pathways to success. So with that we want to focus on the student experience and the pillar two addresses this um and it directly how it directly impacts the effectiveness of our staff and the retention of our staff. So when we think of the alignment to the vision and our district's mission the vision calls for preparing students to lead with resilience and our mission recognizes multiple pathways to success supported by our community partners. So well-being is foundational to both of these. Students can't build resilience or navigate pathways without safety, belonging, and support. So this is why pillar 2 is not from my point of view and our point of view optional work, but it underpins everything that we do. So when we look specifically at priority
0282 and and the layout of its structure, cultivating well-being is a system of practices shaping daily experiences across our school. So it's organized into four different interconnected strategies. So um the first three actions are I would say are bundled together um and those are safety belonging and our seal work and pinned to that work is our alignment to the portrait of a graduate work. And then the fourth action is our attendance. So these actions reinforce one another and are not separate in lanes. I want to read actually this slide here. Um so strategic action um one through three. So safety, belonging, and DMPS is choosing to strengthen and refine existing systems. We're not here to present new ideas. We're not launching new initiatives. It's really really just taking the systems that we have and strengthening
029those systems. So the next couple of slides here just break down what is safety, what is belonging, what is. So with safety, the key decision was was as we thought about when we want to um strengthen this, it's just to continue our protocol, our district-wide protocol of our standard response protocol training. So this has been already in place. Um as we continue to build this out, really the work ahead of us is just to continue to build upon that. By doing this, we would ensure consistency across all of our departments, meaning all of our schools, all of our departments, and in that also being very inclusive of our non-school staff, ensuring that they're a part of this training as well. When we look at the work or the social emotional learning and belonging work, um
030this rein this reinforces our tier one routines um and expectations. We utilize the curriculum wayfinder in doing this. Um this also focuses on job embedded learning and building level leadership. Currently we have wayfinder academy that all staff are all educators are able to be taken advantage of and then also education on purpose that's been a professional learning at the administrative and our champion level. Um we also have data systems. So we have the utilization of panorama and waypoints. way points is the wayfinder data set that then's paired with panorama to help then help us guide and and establish the supports that we need. The alignment to the portrait of the graduate. So um the portrait of a graduate is is is the SEAL competencies or the the um the core skills that we utilize within
031Wayfinder and the competencies and how they relate to the project uh portrait of agraduate traits. I'll just point those out. So our current our current core skills within that with Wayfinder are agency, purpose, self-awareness, adaptability, empathy, and collaboration. So it's not removing these core competencies, but that we're pairing and it's really comes down to language. So purpose is paired with being empowered. So empowered would be one of the skill traits connected to the portrait of graduate. Um self-awareness is connected to self-sufficient. Adaptability is connected to resilient. Empathy is connected to um intellectually curious, collaboration is connected to socially conscious and agency is connected to civically engaged. Um also in this work um is just creating just a shared language and then clear indicators for student growth um and really um building out a system for
032expanded student voice. So now attendance is also a key outcome and and um how these systems all work together. So Jen Stalter is going to speak to that next. >> Thanks Greg. So we do believe that attendance is a core indicator of belonging and students feeling safe and it's system effectiveness. It's not just compliance. We do have an attendance policy to ensure that all buildings are looking at attendance the same way, but we really want to focus on that indicator of students feeling engaged. So when we talk about tier one and expanding our tier one attendance focus, we really talk about building capacity and then integrating tier one attendance supports and strategies across all areas of our district. This allows us to intentionally um [snorts] work with our students at every [clears throat] level. Tier
033one is important for everything we do. Um when we talk about protecting and strengthening tier one, it's to address that movable middle, those students who are not chronically absent yet, but are in danger of becoming chronically absent. And so when we use our tier one strategies, it helps us really focus in on that group of students and focusing on those relationships. We heard the students that spoke um tonight talk about how important those relationships with their teachers are and we heard the other guest speakers talk. And so tier one attendance really focuses on building those relationships with capacity building. Um, we do know that there are strategies at tier 1 around attendance. It's not just simply having students show up. Um, and we did have 120 staff trained in researchbased tier 1 attendance strategies in
034October. Ideally, we would like to expand that to 150 more staff members across the district, um, including all administrators and members of attendance teams. We've also been working really hard on improving consistency and identifying the root cause for absences because in order for us to support families and students, we have to understand why they are missing school. We've also been working again on the coding of absences so we have a clear picture and know where to deploy resources and all of that plays in with that tier one attendance and how we're communicating with our families and supporting them in their attendance journey. We do really want to integrate um attendance with everything that Greg has talked about. It's a crucial part of SEAL. It's not separate from SEAL. It's not separate from our school climate.
035It's not separate from family engagement. Attendance touches all of that. And tier one again is resetting and making sure that we are addressing attendance with all students and all families in the same way, same messaging, positive supports. Um, we would also maintain those targeted supports for our students who are already chronically absent. We have to maintain that as well. >> So, I'm gonna give this back to Greg. Nope. Shashank, so sorry. >> No worries. That's fine. [laughter] We're just [clears throat] moving along in here and a half. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. >> Uh so the challenge again remains the same. $13.5 million ask is what exactly it is and we have $2 million that we have budgeted so far for next year. So did I skip a slide? Okay. Yep. Perfect. So basically what we
036are trying to do is bring about some system consistency in implementation of safety protocols routines and attendance practices across the schools. We also want to improve the capacity and clarity as to how safety seal and attendance efforts reinforce and not compete with academic priorities. And the attendance patterns show some very predictable things like their declines gradual declines as the year progresses in the student attendance and greater challenges in secondary grades than middle and elementary. So 31 tasks were identified and a total ask was $2 million. But I wanted to highlight $1.8 million of that $2 million is going to be funded through grants, titles and other things. So it's not that we will not be funding a lot of it. Greg. >> Yeah. And as as the cabinet worked through this and and with district
037leadership, it was really uh as we think about choices and this is kind of what's going through my mind is every day we have choices and listening to the speakers that we had tonight and and all the other priorities that we have. So when it comes down to it, we we we make choices with the best knowledge that we have. Um so cabinet prioritized three main main core principles. So with that um just ensuring the physical and emotional safety and knowing that that's foundational. That's a choice that we are moving forward. Um another choice around just tier one attendance is essential knowing that systems that serve students we need to have the students there to be able to serve them. So um continuing to have attendance as as as an essential component there. And then
038also our third uh prioritization is the SEAL work and its connection with the portrait of a graduate that are the through lines and really the language for the student from from preK through 12th grade. So these these these three focuses reflect a focus and retention in commitment. It's not again bringing in a new initiative. So I I uh the next slide is pretty much reinforcing what Greg just said. So I don't want to repeat myself but basically maintaining that we ensure physical and emotional school safety through behavioral framework as this is the foundation for all the parts of our system in being successful there. As Greg mentioned, we did uh prioritize continuing standard response protocol. This is our second school year using that response for all emergency situations in our schools and around our schools.
039We focus on the training practice and alignment. And we will continue to refine that and support schools in those responses. And using standard response protocol across all buildings, not just where we have students housed, but in our administrative buildings as well, allows folks when they are in the schools to understand those responses and it helps support both student and staff safety. You will see on here um a $40,000 investment in safety would cover a variety of different things. I do want to highlight a few of those. The first one is updated evacuation maps. When we had the cyber attack a couple years ago, we lost all of the digital maps of our schools. So, in order for schools to have evacuation maps now and routes for building um for staff for how to evacuate, we
040do have the floor plans, but then our public safety team has to draw those maps and those routes onto all of those for every school, for every room. And so having that digitized again would be um much more efficient for everyone and allow our um folks at public safety to have those easily accessible if an emergency does occur to be able to pull that up and help guide folks in the building. Um we mentioned the standard response protocol. Navigate 360 is our digital platform that we use to track and keep um documentation on behavior threat assessments and safety risk assessments. This is our second year of using that platform. We rolled it out last spring. This platform again allows that consistency without bias across our district because we know when we work with students sometimes
041we have bias that we bring into situations with them. and using the Navigate 360 platform guides that process whether it's a behavior threat assessment or a safety risk assessment to ensure that every student is having an objective um an objective look at what they are experiencing at that moment instead of staff who might be engaged in that having some emotions that come into that. And then the large emergency radios I just would like to point that out as well. Every school is equipped with that radio that has that button that if there is a crisis event, they hit that button. Those are located in different places in the offices in our buildings. And ideally, we need those to be right there at the desk because if there is a crisis that is happening in that
042main office area, having the person at the desk have to get up and go into the back room or go across the room to hit that button is wasting valuable time. And so having those all in a scripted spot in the offices will help with that overall safety for the building. I think those are the only ones I would like to highlight. >> So as we work through and what does this then mean for impact? Um these investments align directly and I think about like what's the through through line as we sit in front of the board and as we think about the goals established um from our district um these initiatives align directly to the board goals to the guard rails. Um they emphasize across department impact. So we're not talking about one one
043in particular level or or or portion of our system, but it's is speaking to our entire system. So the cross departmentalization um and the system coherence and we're investing where we see the strongest connection to those outcomes. So when we do think about our academic outcomes, these are the foundational components that let us then focus in on that. So the the impact when you think through like each of the categories like safety, social emotional learning and attendance. Um student safety and measures are exceeding targets. We had our four our fall board monitoring um in all of our areas were either meeting or exceeding um in those components with our current systems that we're utilizing. This is indicating improved perceptions of safety, belonging, and engagement. Attendance trends also show early improvements compared to prior years with
044continued focus on sustaining goals or sustaining those gains. These results affirm the district's decision to strengthen existing systems rather than introduce another initiative. So cultivating well-being is not separate from academic success like I've shared is foundational to that. the investing in safety, belonging, and the attendance work is an interconnected system and De Mo public schools is creating the conditions that will allow that with the three points of students students to persist through challenges and accessing uh multiple pathways to success. staff are able to perform at high levels in environments that is that are predictable, that are supportive, that are safe, and families and community partners to engage in meaningful and opportunities with student learning. So these choices reflect De Moines's commitment to preparing resilient, capable students who are supported by a system aligned to its
045vision and mission. >> Thank you. So just to ground us back well-being is what we were discussing today and on Feb 17th we'll talk about highquality teaching and learning and the transformative challenge. This is going to be the schedule after February 17th including February 17th when we'll be setting the budget hearings. So the three board actions which need to happen before the budget gets approved. And just a reminder that we still have a gap of $1.6 $6 million for 27 and that gap continues in the next 5 years. So that is just a a reminder of where we are. So I think we have done it in 20 minutes. Questions to the board. >> So question you just help me clarify on the numbers that we just saw in the well-being pillar. >> Yes, >>
046we saw 1.8 identified in federal grants. So that my math's not great, but 200,000 is the gap that we would need to find out of budget for this. >> Very true. >> And then the 40,000 was just calling out the most immediate high priority out of that 200,000. >> So So Ryan, the challenge is we have a budget shortfall and as part of the cabinet, we decided that we are going to allocate $2 million for achieving a strategic goals in FI27. So based through the prioritization process, this is what we have landed that only $40,000 is what we can spend. So actually $1.8 million will be there. So the way I would look at it holistically is out of $2 million, we'll be spending a,840,000. 160,000 is the shortfall. Matt, you anything to add to
047that? >> Yeah, just maybe stating that in a different way. Um the the 40,000 that you're looking at is just general fund dollars, right? As the rest of it being primarily federal funded. Um and to Greg's point, um much of that is because of the actions that we've invested in to date are trending in the right direction. We're we're meeting and exceeding targets. And so as we engage with staff members across the district, a lot of times what we will hear is, you know, one of the most innovative things that we can do as a district is to stop doing everything. And so we're listening to that and continuing to embrace that notion of um we want to guard against uh initiative fatigue just in introducing something new just in you know just because we
048can. Um, so we want to make sure that we're um, disciplined, I guess is the right word I'm looking for, in our approach to maintaining what we're currently doing and continuing to refined our craft, our practices, and that universal language to make sure that we're getting better and better every year because we're showing good trends in terms of meeting and exceeding those targets. >> Thank you. >> Absolutely. I'm gonna I'm gonna channel my inner Skyler here and ask a couple of questions about uh he usually usually keeps us grounded in language here. For the people watching at home, tier one was thrown around a lot. I'm not sure what that everybody knows what tier one is. Can you give us an example of what tier one is and what a tier one strategy is and
049why that's important? >> Sure. I'll talk tier one attendance a bit. So tier one attendance when we talk about that is how we talk about attendance with all students and families. It's foundational. It's for everyone. Um so it would be um sharing the attendance um policy for parents so they understand that we would like to partner with them. We would like them to call in when their students aren't attending when they are having some difficulties. That goes to every family. Then we go like to tier two for our families that need a little bit more support. We'll do individualized meetings and supports with them. Tier three then is where we would really be working very intensely with families on removing barriers because they want their kids to be in school and do well and we
050want their kids to be in school and do well. So tier one is that foundational way that we approach welcoming everyone into our building and laying that foundation with SEAL and with all of the other things that Greg talked about to create that welcoming environment and talking with families about the importance of being at school. So that would be that tier one attendance lens. >> Three tiers. >> Three. >> Yeah. And you could take that same idea with any other component. So it's really just the phrase of it's each and every student. So within that you're capturing all >> Yeah. And just to >> and just [laughter] it was a great question and just to maybe add a little bit more context to that um for the public too, the the higher the tier typically
051the more costly and the more intensive the support. >> Um and so we move in a tier two, tier three sometimes into a um a case manager or something like that where the the the resource allocation just becomes more expensive. And so the more students that you have in tier 2, tier three, the more money you're spending on those intensive support services. So this is why you might hear the phrase from me and from from the team. Um we can't intervene our way out of it, those interventions. We don't have the the dollars to do that. So we have to continue to strengthen our tier one supports, whether that be through attendance or whether that be through social emotional learning or instruction. our tier one that what what every student receives. We have to continue
052to get better at that craft and pour into our staff and training and development so that they feel confident and competent in that tier one approach. >> Could you for our our visual learners explain the the triangle of tiers? I think that helps a lot. >> You say that one more time. >> Could you >> I was agreeing with you. Was [laughter] that a question? Um um in this tiered system there's a pictorial that's used that is a in the shape of a triangle. So tier one being the base of the triangle um tier two the middle of the triangle and then tier three the top of the triangle representing kind of the our entire population at the bottom up to our highest needs population. So I think that having that visual I think sometimes
053helps. >> Yeah. Um, can can you tell me and I I don't want to put you on the spot, but the top two root causes of u attendance. Can you give me a couple that just sort of stand out? >> Sure. Um, in our current um, schools are an extension and a reflection of what's happening in our society and in our communities. And I in our current um state of our country um we hear from many families from all backgrounds and all walks of life that they are worried about having their kids away from them >> and having them at school. And again, this is from families from all walks of life and all backgrounds. And so, um, keeping them home for their own safety reasons, not necessarily connected to safety at school all of
054the time, but what's happening in our community with students going to and from school. So, safety is is one. And transportation will always always be a top reason, but if you dig deeper, it's not always transportation. If you have if we have time to really get into those root causes and peel back the layers, it typically has to do with um finances, not being able to afford gas or a bus pass or things like that or it has to do with um other barriers the family is is working through that are very sensitive and personal um barriers that they're dealing with. but transportation seems to be the the outfront reason they give. Um, so those would be the top two today in the way that we're looking at things with families. >> Thank you. I
055I ask because for a budget reason, knowing those causes, we can then make better decisions about where we put resources or where we ask for partnerships in the community. in transportation for instance and finding more targeted um micro uh strategies to get kids to school. >> Yes. And we work with families on like walking school buses and connecting when we know we have families that have transportation issues that really that is the reason. we'll identify families in their neighborhood, um connect them, and so schools are really good at resourcing and and working with them to find ways to help support that. But that will always be one of the top two um reasons that families voice for having attendance challenges. >> And again, just from a resource standpoint, you mentioned um reporting as an issue
056for attendance and that sometimes that can be a challenge. accurate reporting. Is that a technology issue? Is that a Are we using outdated technology or or could we better automate the system to make it easier for our teachers to report accurate attendance of students? >> I will say that we are making great improvements actually with accuracy of coding absences and attendance for students. Um I can't speak intimately to Infinite Campus so I can't get in deep with that. It is it is a time issue. I more at secondary. Elementary they take [clears throat] attendance twice a day. Morning, right? Afternoon. When we get to middle school and high school, they take attendance every class period and kids are coming in at different times throughout that class period for different reasons. Some are a little delayed
057in the hallways. Some may be with support staff. Um but they're coming in at different times. and for the teachers to be able to then remember to go back and change that at the end of the class period. Um I know that we have talked about different options for that like having scanners at the doors of every classroom. Very cost prohibitive though. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. There's a there's a degree of um interator reliability, right, that it comes that that's challenging. And it's not to to Jen's point, it's not because someone is doesn't know what to do. their two or three kids may show up late for very legitimate reasons and I'm in the middle of teaching class >> and when we're observing, we don't want them to stop to teach class. We want
058to keep going, right? And then before you know it, the class is fun and the kids are learning and then the class is over with and then we move on to the next period, right? And so it's not um ill-intentioned or anything like that. It's it's just part of the day sometimes and we just got to we're still working on how to how to improve that interator reliability systemwide. >> But I think about that in two ways. One of it is if we have unreliable attendance and we are showing for instance that our high school kids are at a lower attendance level when it really is they're in class but they are going from class to class because we have a really rigorous schedule of getting them to real world learning uh through central campus
059or central academy or any one of the signature schools we're going to have. I think this could be a perception issue um that that we're we're encouraging them to go from place to place and to have that varied schedule. We got to have the system set up so that we can accurately find where they are so that we we show that it's a good system. It's not that our kids aren't going to class. >> Sure. Yeah. I would actually characterize it. It's actually more diagnostic where we're catching more just to make sure that everybody is where they say they were going to be and that we're doing what we're doing as you know supposed to be doing as adults to create those systems. So we're actually to your point it might show that the tardy
060are absent when they were actually there. Well good. We actually verify that um as opposed to the opposite of not knowing. >> Yeah. >> Quick question. >> So with the state that our country is in, you mentioned that families might be concerned with sending kids to school. Do we have you noticed um maybe the district engaging more frequently in tier 2 and tier three uh level? Well, I would I think I would add u when you think of some of the work that we're doing around belonging >> and and truly trying to understand where each family is at um and so there's great um capacity within that community to then support various families. So for example, as a student has that greater sense of belonging and how that trickles then to the parents and how
061the parent interacts with their neighbor and if if the transportation is an issue and the neighbor then then picks up and says I I can take your child and that becomes a mechanism to get the child to school. But then in the state of like what you're referencing as far as where we're at as a nation >> and some of that fear, I think it does come down to um just that sense of safety >> um that the child has and the parent has when the child walks through those doors. And so as we work to really build up the belonging and and that work within that, the efficacy that's going to be felt um I think is going to be the leverage point. I think it's it's it's the continued unknowns of our world
062that influence that. And so a family could feel very connected to the school and then something happens down the street or or in a neighboring community and and it quickly again comes back up as a as as a fear. >> Sure. Do you are you able to say whether or not we're engaging more with families at a at a tier 2 level or till or tier three, excuse me, >> in terms of attendance? >> Yes. >> Um so we have yes and no. And I say yes and no because we have our um chronic absenteeism is really you're at school or you're not at school. Mhm. >> But with Senate File 277, which was the revision of Senate File 2435, um the way that the state directs us to look at chronic absenteeism and respond
063to chronic absenteeism is a little different than you're either at school or you're not because they have nine areas that are um excluded from chronic absenteeism. as long as we have documentation from the families. So we are more laser focused I would say on who we are interacting with based on that because we are um communicating more with families on the reasons that their students aren't there because of those areas that can be excluded based on the Senate file. So, it really does help us hone in on the families that their students are not at school and truly chronically absent. I can tell you as of today because I did a little data pull. Um we have across the district we have 367 individual students who have um tier 2 moving up to tier three
064individualized attendance support plans in place with the goal of completing about 80 more by the end of this week. Um, so that is really allowing us to again hone in on those families that truly are chronically absent based on what the Senate file is looking at versus our kids that are sick. We have illness really badly in our community and we don't want our students at school. As long as we're getting that communication, we are able to exclude those days. We're not going to bring those families in for plans. In the past, we would be looking at that group of students as well. So, this just allows us, Maria, to be more focused on who we are supporting at tier 2 and three. I don't believe it's a higher number. I believe it's a more
065focused and intentional group of students and families. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Uh, so I I do have a question. I'll preface it with a an experience and a comment. Um, and it was last year. I'd say one of the most eyeopening experiences I had last year. I I went into this just making the assumption that if there's one school in the entire district that would have no attendance problems, it would be virtual campus. And I visited virtual campus last year and I was surprised to hear that even a virtual campus has attendance issues which I think acknowledges just the complexity of why students may not be attending class. Um my question my other question I was waiting for Patrick to ask on my behalf but [laughter] um I'll ask it is are
066there ways in which we as a board can maybe cultivate community partners to help with any of this? >> Um you know that's one of the low hanging fruit options for budget concerns. >> Sure. when it comes to attendance. um with our community partners. Um if we had community partners that would be interested in helping support some of those walking school buses in neighborhoods because I I do know that our parents do have concerns about students walking back and forth to school regardless of the state of what's happening in our country and in our community just because it's a long walk for kids. And so if we have community partners that would want to engage in some of those walking school buses, I think that would be helpful um in terms of families feeling comfortable
067knowing that there was an adult walking with their group of of kids from their apartment apartment complex or their neighborhood. Um I also know that students when they feel attached to a person or an event or an activity at school that they are more likely to come to school that day. So having our partners provide meaningful and engaging afterchool activities um at all grade levels. I know that's a very broad answer Skyler and a big ask because we have limited community partners, but if kids know they have this club after school, they're coming to school that day because being in that club matters to them. That's where they find their sense of belonging. >> [clears throat] >> So really working with our partners to um increase those meaningful partnerships after school. >> Yeah. Yeah. I
068just think about the importance of relationships >> and and the example shared of of a like it's almost like a neighborhood sweep of and and not to generalize a student that rides a a bus, but if if if parents or guardians are off at work, >> I miss the bus. Do I miss the entire day? >> And so is there opportunity to do another sweep around around around that neighborhood or or what systems could we put into place with a community partner to help support that? Um you know while on one hand it seems easy at on the other side you then start dealing with confidential um like can can I transport can I not transport all those different types of things. Um so um >> so yes it's just what does that look like?
069Yeah. >> Are all of those asks in the new community partner portal that was presented to us in recent weeks? >> That is a question that I don't know the answer to, but I can check on that. >> Great. Thank you. So, I want to give a little plug because you mentioned um the community partners more has a really good bike bus that so if anybody's watching um they have they have kids engaging and wanting to go to school so they could do the bike bus. Um so that's something that the community partners um could do. So if they're interested just let me know. >> Yeah. And in that example it's it's not necessarily community partners that are riding the bus. They we need community partners on on specific streets to in essence be to
070ensure that that that the vehicles aren't coming into the lane um as they cross the busy streets or something like that. It's just someone standing on that corner for that 10 15 minutes. >> Right. Thank you. >> Welcome. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Six minutes under. >> Wonderful. We did it. We did it. [laughter] >> Thank you guys. >> Great job. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you. >> Board colleagues, do we need a short recess before our next presentation? >> Who is it? >> Okay, we will take a 7 minute recess until 6:55. We'll begin back with our cabinet presentation. >> Fine. Nothing. [snorts] >> About that community portal and volunteer opportunities and that [clears throat] completely forgot about it. >> I didn't see any walk through school buses. >> So you did not
071All right, the time is now 655. >> I sure hope so. >> I agree with you. >> Okay, great. >> No, it's all good. >> All right. our >> Well, this isn't close session yet. >> Thank you. [laughter] >> All right. Thank you. Let's go ahead and have our cabinet presentation um as we continue to expand our our knowledge of the district and and the inner workings. Yeah, I'll turn it over to you, >> Matt. Yeah, thanks so much. This is just uh the next in a series of presentations uh regarding um just sort of the organizational structure. Uh tonight is the the Shashank show with business and finance. He's on again. And so, um, Shashank, we're limited to 30 minutes. >> That should be plenty. >> It's all yours. >> Perfect. Thanks, Matt. So,
072we will follow the same format. Yeah. And wanted to first show what exactly is the A structure of the finance department. We have four large sections. Kevin who is the director of financial planning and analysis. So when I joined the district in 2019 it was one large thing. There was no delineation between the actual accounting the budgeting and forecasting and things like that. So I said we need that two separate arms large district it needs to be structured in that fashion. So Kevin is in charge of director of financial planning and analysis and he's retiring on June 30th. Uh Erica is the controller. So all the actual reporting which happens the ACER and everything comes from Erica. And then we have Kathy McKay who is a director of employee services. And what exactly is employee
073services? We have payroll over here. We have benefits over here. risk management all those things fall over here. I would also highlight for the benefit of everyone that the controllership role also handles the account payable technicians as well as the supply chain analysts. The supply chain group historically used to be with the operations department and there's a later slide where I would cover that when and how it moved to business and finance. And then we have the business services which we have the grant writer over there. We have the business and uh and finance communications manager. So most of the decks that I present is prepared by Cassandra. And then we have Emma who is a continuous improvement manager whom we leverage a lot for all the project work that we are doing. Not to
074forget the two admin who helped me in this work. Pam who's my admin assistant and Rosie whom all of you know. So this is my team in general. wanted to highlight that since 2020 2007 DMPS has received the certificate of excellence award both from ASBO which is association of school business officials and from GFOA which is government finance officers association. These are the two highest bodies in the land which to which on an annual basis once the actur or our annual financial statements are approved by the board we send to them they evaluated they do it for a lot of organiz I mean districts across the country I think in the state of Iowa there around 25 to 30 schools or districts which actually participate in this thing and we have had a very clean
075record so 18 years. We have always done that. We supposed to submit the financial statements by December. As some of you may know that our financial statements, we were supposed to bring it to the board on December 7th, but because of the state audit, it has been delayed. The the auditors are not uh willing to issue a report till they see the state auditor's report because they don't know what exactly the state auditor is going to uncover. So I wanted to bring a little bit of a comparison over here between DMPS and Iowa State. Enrollment is very similar between the two of them. The annual budget is definitely larger than ours. Ours is 470 million and there's a 770. The FTEES is a little bit larger. We have 5,000, they have 7,700. But if you
076look at the size of the finance department, we are 35 people in business and finance to 95% finance team as far as Iowa State goes. So I would say we're fairly efficient, fairly lean. I'm not comparing it with any other school district because the closest school district is half our size. Four to five years back I realized our department did not really have overarching goals and having worked in corporate America that is something I've always worked in. I'm very familiar with I said no we got to do it in no necessary order but one is compliance. We have to be compliant with everything that we do. We got to follow the state laws, the policies, the procedures and some of the things that my team has done has saved the district as all the investigations
077are going on at least from the business and finance area. The second thing I've always believed in doing is automation and process improvements. When I joined the district, there was no automation in the district. The less automation, the more manual work, the more inefficient, the more errors and all those things. So I I realized that this was an area for improvement. And then I had mentioned that we have someone who's done lean training on the ARC chart. We have engaged her very heavily in all process improvements and then the customer service or business partners the finance department works with almost every arm of the district to support them and work with them. These are the three goals that we have and they basically align with the priority four which is cultivating organizational effectiveness. So what
078are the challenges? I mentioned that we have an ongoing state audit which has delayed the issuance of actur. Both GFOA and ASBO want us to submit the financial statements by December 31st. We had the meeting scheduled on December 7th. The incident happened the state audit started and uh RSMR auditors are very hesitant in issuing the report. The other is the general obligation bond. This is, I won't say, a problem. This is a great problem to have, but it is complex. This district has not done or issued a general obligation bond since 1989. And I would be lying if I said that I know every step that is involved over here. We are learning on a regular I mean daily basis. is we are learning what exactly are the things that we need to do to
079be successful. As some of you may know that based on the incident that has happened, a bond oversight committee which consists of uh representatives from the community have been formed and there's a subset of us who meet with them on a monthly basis to provide them an update. [sighs and gasps] So this is a a big learning curve for the entire team. Yeah. So the choices wanted to highlight that in FI19 when I joined the district the financial services team had 19 staff members we are still 19 the business services which I laid out which was the first column we had three FTE still the same 3 FT so 22 FT is what we had then the procurement services was ordered I mean uh transferred to finance department from operations because we had a chief
080of operations and that position was being transferred was not transferred was being downsized from a COO to an executive director of operations. So procurement services was transferred to our team and it was kind of haphazard and the reason why I say that you have a person say to pick up an example in food and nutrition spending half a time as a procurement and half a time doing something else and the the analysts did not really work coherently as a team. So we discussed as a senior management the senior management team and I said no we need to have a full-time person over here focused just on this thing bring consistency to find a contract to do anything it was not really in the best situation we have managed to do that [snorts] and then employee
081services which was the Kathy McKay's team there were eight FDA they were part of HR they were also transferred to business and finance answer. So, so just to highlight headcount has remained flat but every time we have had a retirement or resignation. Some of us the senior leadership team I call them the business finance leadership team. We sit down and really look hard to see should we hire the person in exactly what was done by the person who resigned or retired or we need to look at the existing team and reallocate and make it more efficient and better. So every time this that thing happens we give it a very hard look and a lot of positions the headcount remains the same but the work has been changed significantly during that period of time. When
082I joined the district, I keep saying when I joined, I was kind of surprised in a team of 22 people, an organization with 30,000 staff and a half a billion dollar budget. We had one CPA and we had only three staff members who understood the basic of accounting debit and credit. So this is not going to change. I mean this is not going to continue. When I would have discussion with my team members and I would say if some of you may understand tea accounts or making basically seeing how to balance this thing they did not know anything and they would say this is what was explained to us and this is how we do it. I said this is not sustainable. Today we have three CPAs in my team and there 12 FTEES with
083accounting degrees. How can someone be part of accounting department not knowing debits and credits basic? So that is one thing that we did. I spoke about the the the procurement services which became part of business and finance. The first it was the procurement manager who joined and then we discussed and we made the changes and the way we have divided the pro supply chain analyst which are four of them. We have one for teaching and learning which has the largest need. So focus purely on that and we do a lot of cross training. So one person is on leave the other person can jump into support. Yeah. We have another person a a supply chain analyst who supports the business and finance, central stores, CNC, communications, HR and student activities. There's a third one who
084supports custodial and facilities. So basically the operational things and then you have technology and transportation. So it's very structured. They understand they're experts in that area and I think the different departments whom they support are extremely pleased with the quality of support that they're getting here. As I had mentioned employee services transition to us over here. So employee services we we do compensation the entire payroll just to give you an idea we transition from the time and attendance system which we used to have to a new system last year. It went through without a hiccup. 5,000 staff, two pay cycles per month and hardly any hiccup. It went really smooth. So we we have been doing a lot of good things. Again that is part of the automation. Yeah. So talking about automation and compliance
085I think some of you may have heard the annual comprehensive financial report or ACT for used to be done by the auditors. I said we used to submit that to GFO and ASBOS since 7 2017 2007 but it was prepared by the auditors not by DMPS which means if you want to change the auditors it makes it challenging which means we are beholden to the auditors. I never like that situation. So I started exploring around to see what is it that we can do since you approve that report. You know it's 180 190 page report. A change on one page can impact in 10 15 20 places for someone to manually go through it. It is a time consuming cumbersome process and when you're doing manual things like I said you're prone to errors. So
086we automated it. This year we did it without uh the help of the auditors. We did it completely on our own. So I think that is a great feat. As I mentioned down below, we are the only district in the school in the state of Iowa which has done this. Not to brag but my peers in the metro actually look at me and my team and they say once you implement something that is when we are willing to try it out because we trust that if you've made a certain choice a certain decision a it's the right thing and if you it's you are successful then we'll go through it. So to a certain extent my team and I are looked at as leaders as as far as these different things goes. [clears throat] The
087second thing I wanted to talk about was implementing a new budgeting system. Again I said large school district everything as far as budgeting goes was manual. It was in spreadsheets. The number of spreadsheets that we have to do it is insane. We decided to automate it. We went through an RFP process. We selected a vendor. We're supposed to have finished it this by I mean almost a year back but because of the changes we could not get the technical support last year. So we started implementing it this year. We should be in a position to implement it by April. This is going to help not just my team but across the district. The reports which are sent from our ERP system today to any users are great for an accountant but not for our business
088partner because it's in language they don't understand. Once we implement this software, the anoplan system, our data team is going to put it in Tableau, the same kind of reports because our consumers, our customers internally are used to using Tableau and it's going to be a fairly interactive process in the sense some of you who've been on the board know that we say that we are going to increase the school resources by 1% year after year because we're constrained on money. And the way we've historically done is if these are the 10 different line items where we had spent money last year, we will increase each of them by one person and give it to the school. We decided that is not the most efficient way to budget. The plan is we obviously can't do
089it for the 65 school buildings in year one, but to pilot some in elementary, middle, and some in high school and say, "Okay, this is your budget." You know, it's not that we're giving them additional dollars, but let's have a meaningful discussion to decide where do you want to spend that money and then we can track and say, okay, you budgeted for this amount and this is what your actual is. Let's see what is going right or what is going wrong. Again, some of you worked in corporate America. This is not rocket science, but apparently here it was. Again, not a single school district in the state of Iowa which has done it. Not one. So these are two large automation things that we are looking as a business and finance team. It's expensive system.
090It's just the software alone is $100,000. The implementation of that is going to cost us somewhere around $300 to $400,000. The good thing is it is not a general fund cost. I would like to highlight it is coming from Pebble. But once it is done, I think it'll streamline on a monthly basis. Whether it is a categorical, whether it's a departmental report, whether it's a school building report, the system will be in a position to give you that information in a meaningful fashion. From day one, are we going to be 100% successful? Probably not. It's going to be a learning curve. We will make some mistakes. We'll do certain things, but the end goal would be to further streamline the process. And the last is we realize that we have new hires which come in
091but we did not have a good training system for them. So both for administrators or new hires we decided last year as a team that we need to provide that training so that they understand the policies the procedures the rules the dos and don'ts and everything. So our team has two different layers of uh training. One is existing administrators. Things get rusty. You get busy into certain things for them. And the other is new hires. So when an administrator is hired, a new administrator is hired, we try to complete the onboarding training within 90 days of them joining you. And we also want to launch an ondemand training. So we'll record certain modules. we'll do that put it over there and we can send it to the administrators in case they're unable to come. So
092last year when we did it all administrators could not join the training for whatever reasons. Unfortunately we sent a survey saying how was your give us feedback so that we can improve. This is the first year that we have done it zero. So that was unfortunate. I hope when we do it this time we get a better response. We want to improve. We think we're doing the right thing but till we get that feedback it makes it very challenging for us. So that is what I wanted to share with the group. If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask. [clears throat] You're good, Maria. >> Oh, so I'm just wondering that is very impressive that it's DMPS is the first district to have this reported to be done internally. Um, can you talk
093about how much our district saved by doing that by not having outside auditors do this work? [snorts] [laughter] I discussed this with Matt. So what has happened is RSM who are our auditors the controller and myself discussed with that partner and he said that once we get fully independent there would be a reduction in the fees that we pay. June 30th that partner left RSM and joined another firm. We had a verbal understanding. Our error was we did not put it in writing and the new partner is not willing to honor that. >> So I actually have on my cell phone where I sent messages to the old partner. I said Kevin we had a verbal understanding. Tell me what we can do about it. And he pushed her. She didn't want to listen. So
094unfortunately zero savings. So cost side I would have we paid RSM approximately $1 to $120,000. I would have expected a saving of around 20 to $25,000 coming out of that. That saving unfortunately is not coming. But Maria, it makes us self-reliant. If next year we as a district decide we don't want to work with RS, we want to work with Prizewater House or some other firm, we can very easily move. But with them having all the documentation and everything for aer that would have made us impossible and probably that's one of the reason why they have been our auditors for over 10 years. [clears throat] >> Over 10 years. >> Thank you. >> Absolutely. Shashan, thank you for the presentation. I'll actually ask you the same question I had asked uh the communications team around
095um opportunities for work-based learning for current DMPS students that may have an interest in going into educational finance, accounting. Um I was excited to hear that you now have a training program, so I know that's not the reason why they're not there. Uh is is there an opportunity for students that may have an interest in accounting, finance to partner with your team in some capacity? >> Absolutely. And we would love that. In fact, we used to have a very active program and there have been multiple students who interned with us, worked with us, finished their diploma or undergrad and joined us and they are working with us. >> Wow. >> So today they're part of the staff. Couple of years back especially after COVID that program died because a the students could not come in
096person and became very difficult to implement that and second is students were were not very keen to come in summers and during the daytime they have school to attend. So it is a little bit of a lull right now but we we had a very active program pre- pandemic and I think two if not three candidates were hired who came there as interns worked with us and then finally decided that they want to be part of this team. I I really appreciate that and you know I think about as I continue to meet with just neighborhood or neighborhood groups different constituency populations particularly on the south side with Kurt's going to be the new signature high school for career and technical education. Finding ways for our students to get experience prior to applying to colleges
097or prior to going in enlisting or going directly into workforce I think is really an opportunity for us to be a differentiator. So excited to hear that and I'd be happy to explore more um within the scope of my role to be able to support. >> I would love that. Absolutely. There are a lot of people in my team who would love to go and help the students like that. >> Thank you >> and thank you for that comment. Um you know I always love to train my replacements and even with those students that's just going to give them like a good opportunity. So thanks for letting us know. Um, so I think that's all I have. Yeah, >> thank you. >> I did have another question. I'm sorry. The continuous improvement coordinator role, is
098that a new role because you recognized that there was not a lot of continuous improvement happening maybe with Excel spreadsheets and stuff or is that person kind of organizing these larger continuous improvement products or um initiatives? I'm sorry. How transparent do you want me to be? >> Never mind. [laughter] >> No, that role has existed from in the past. It is not a new role. But unfortunately, that person did not get enough traction from a lot of departments. And she came to me saying that she would like to quit because her role is not being appreciated and she does not want to continue. I said give me 6 months. We have a need because I wanted to automate and if you see one of them is process improvements and anyone who interacts with her today
099within DMPS would say she's a solid person. She knows her job. She's works as a project manager and she does an awesome job. She's really good. So it was just that her talents were not being channelized in the right place. Once I did that she's an effective team member, very effective team member. Well, there's some really exciting continuous improvement happening on your team. So, >> absolutely, absolutely. Kaizen is what I believe in. >> Anything additional board colleagues? >> All right. >> Thank you. >> Absolutely. >> Gracias, Mr. Shashank. >> Thank you. >> All right. Um, >> we will are now going to uh navigate into our closed session. So, we have to ask that we clear the room. Um,