ACSD School Board Work Session 2-26-2025

001tomorrow as a I decided work tomorrow I'm driving three hours well and three of my kids are C do forn f never oh when you had so Builders though a new house yeah so new construction different they did County last year so I did it in my another when she goes down a road that's what I'm hearing a lot of people say all right I have all right um at 6:30 so we're gonna um call this meeting of the Atlanta Community School District uh School Board um to order it is February 26 2025 and this is going to be a work session um can I have Jody G yes Jenny Jordan yes Josh McLaren yes yes um can I have a motion for the approval of the agenda second okay Jimmy Jordan yes J yes

002yes chrisy yes Jody G yes okay I just have two things to note before we start uh one is that originally this work session was going to be for us to hear from our uh master plan um Consultants uh group um but they uh postponed that so uh Dr Johnson kind of has put together an opportunity for us to look at some of our I don't know what do you call them our I usually sort of say our specialty programs um and along with that our principles have put together a bunch of data and I'm very excited to see what they have to share with us um about uh about some of the stuff they're seeing and the other note is is Dr Johnson is having trouble hearing out of both of her ears so

003if everyone can try to make an extra effort to speak up so she doesn't have to ask anybody to be louder dou infection so yeah so um I'm I'm ready to go with uh with you guys if you're ready so um we shared think we shared this maybe did it go out the board packet okay so you guys have kind of had chance to peruse through it well make no assumptions okay okay so um each of us have some data for academic data to share with you guys so we'll start here so we start with Washington um these are our schoolwide fast scores from the fall so the fast just as a reminder is the Statewide screener that we give to all kids K through six for literacy in kindergarten and first grade is a

004little bit um broader they do some multiple tests in those grade levels but in second and third grade it shifts to um a cbmr so it's a fluency test so um in the fall all kids forget step over the summer so every time when they come back in the fall we kind of look at the numbers and we Panic a little bit and we figure out where we need to put all of our resources to help us get our numbers up so in the fall as a school we were 60% proficient uh kindergarten came in at 66 first grade 2 57 and 3rd 57 so then we come to the winter yep and so we just got done taking this in January and it was awesome like our kids just grew so so much super

005proud of the work that the staff and the students have done and it is a complete total group effort every single person has some part to play in the sixcess of our kids so um our kindergarten went all the way up to 84 our first grade was 83 which is a huge C celebration because um it's never been that high in the winter before so very proud of the work that they've done and then second grade was at 70 third grade was at 66 and I'm working my way through third grade TNT testing right now so we do some additional screeners on top of these and I really think that number will be much better because those kids are looking really solid too when we're doing our additional testing right now before we do our

006final switch for TNT so schoolwide we are 76 state state one you read it about that 80% so we're really excited that at winter we're already at 76 what do c what is cbmr it's fluency it's how fast they can read in a minute uh here's our math one we do uh also do a math screener called a math it's not a fluency test it's more it's a broader test it's got a little bit of everything on it it's pretty good indicator of usually where we fall on is asps um so second grade's never taken it before so it's always kind of like see how this is going to go um so in the fall they were 63% proficient by the winter they're up to 70 so we hope to get that keep keep that

007moving in the right direction and third grade also showed a nice increase from 68 to 73 so uh we'll test that again in the spring and usually like I said it aligns pretty nicely with is asps so hopefully that continues to Trend up so Schuler we also took fast test I did not with the best data on here U we did grow we went from low 60s to Mid 60s um so we saw a decent amount of growth with our students for our fluen as well um when you say low 6060s you mean from fall to winter yeah from fall to winter uh per percent perion for the students um it was crazy though like two weeks before we were just talking about how the kids that were tracking like progress monitoring at the level

008that they needed to get if they would have all got it we would have been closer to like 75% so like you know there's a giant group of kids in there that are that close they just didn't test that day didn't get the score day so which is what it is um but that's okay NBA data uh here's our map data so you can see achievement uh from the fall and then the achievement from the winter so we went up a little bit I think the next one's probably the better picture um this is the growth so they were as a school we were 61st pertile in growth um so you can see our achievement from the fall through achievement to the winter and based on other schools who were 61st percentile which I think

009is really good I think our teachers have really done a nice job of understanding the bridges and they're swinging into the bridges and doing a nice job of be uh which really helps support our kids you can see it just like that think that yeah oh sorry sorry sorry someone else no I just want to look at I would have like St that last likeor yeah yeah no so that's just kind of the achievement from the fall and the winter so you the the next slide just gives together yeah has it all together next to each other but yeah but explain the difference in the number of students tested uh I think what there's there's a bit of an issue with uh so when I upload the test the the data I believe should be

010the schoer data but um from this year but you can kind of see that the number of students tested um so when I uploaded it I believe there's an upload issue and so some of the sixth graders showed back up on the fifth grade data but I believe running other tests the the growth still should be same a great question I'm glad you CAU that and so when it says like at the top it says achievement overview Schuler elementary math K through 12 does that just mean it's the same task K through 12 or what is that what is that why why does it say that would it would be the same test P I don't know why okay right but you break it down by building yeah and so like when we pull the

011reports you had select building you can select District you can you know okay so and so if I'm reading this right we have kids who are testing in the one to 20th percentile 21% of our kids are there prise on that on that top one yeah so 21% of our kids would be in the first 20 percen and that percentile that's based um across the state that' be National National National okay and then um I really liked how at Sak yesterday Amber kind of explained these three sections because these three sections are all proficient but it's where at on the proficiency they're at so this is low proficiency right in the middle higher proficiency and so there's the math scores again um you can see the growth chy now you said that number students now

012you're going to get me to think about that for the rest of the night and I'm going to go check that well I think we did because my sixth grade we couldn't find so um and that only happened in the winter so I said it Sak any any growth from Winter probably from my sixth grader look at our reading scores blame it on your so you can see our reading scores uh they're definitely not as good as our math scores they're not I mean if you look at achievement wise we're okay um I mean you look like you you mentioned before Laura that the you know the number of students at the lowest percentile versus 20th percenti was lower but um overall our students were only in the 54th for achieving the fall and the

01349th for winter so if you go to the next screen they did not make 50 percentile growth it was 43rd um so if Mr wants to credit math scores I might blame for the and now I'm gonna like like I said look this up after we get done and see if I can mail it down a little bit better but I and then send us an email would you please yeah I will'll do that when you guys are talking so I but um but I also want to say too like I think reading stores overall we've had really good conversations with reading um I've been a part of a lot of the conversations as we look at El czy you guys will be hopefully getting a chance to um approve some of that later this

014year so I think just getting in line a little bit better at K12 will be beneficial for all of our La scores but are you saying you think the curriculum needs to improve I think we need just to make sure we're aligned and set together yeah I think it's actually a combination of things I think it's the work that all the educators are doing in plc's and really looking at you know what those essential standard like everybody kind of getting on the same page I think there have been some really rich conversations and so like when our bla teachers are looking at curriculum they're have they're continuing those conversations about how does that at least what I seen um and then also about differentiation and interventions I think there's a lot of good conversation that

015we've had a lot of the teachers are very excited to have it right there for them with a new curriculum in place and a new program I appreciate what you were saying Heather I mean my understanding is you know curriculum is important but hands down it's the teachers and their commitment and their level of of Engagement and um and awareness of of their kids and um different strategy and stuff like that so it help me to understand for this standard though I think I heard you say it's the red that is the non-proficient so we're going off of a 20th percentile I'm still stuck like years back No Child Left Behind was 40% so we got it's it's called RIT scores so they're ranges yeah okay so it would be your low average your average

016your higher average and your high students for students but I I I'll be honest we typically look at the 40th and above as like it's just ingrained for but I appreciate the way youve displayed the data because it kind of shows us who's on the bubble there that could kind of go either way you know how big that group is yeah and that's also really helpful for us at the high school where this a lot of this has been new and so when we're trying to think of um how to do intervention groups and where their needs at this also helps us because when we export it for for students we put it into Google Sheets and all would be so happy with how my progress with Google Sheets but uh so we also color

017code it and then we put in their suggested areas of focus because then that um ties into ISL which is something we started new you other buildings have used ISL for a long time but um because at high school like I said yesterday as an Ela teacher sorry guys I wasn't taught how to teach reading and so we're like so content driven versus um and so this is super helpful to see some different strategies and ideas through resources that we're already paying for and it helps us know who and what who needs what okay this is Middle School um this is all grades so this is math B um 46% tile and in the winter we went up to the 51st um again we talk about the colors so we want the red and orange

018to decrease and we want these to increase um and really we saw that especially across the board in math um and one thing that we haven't really noted a whole lot is this blue I mean any any growth like this is pretty significant because those are the super high achieving kids anyway so it's really those are kids kids are some of the hardest ones that get to grow because they're so high achieving so um the fact that on the higher end that we had that growth so it's not just you know we want to move these kids over but can we continue to make these kids and help them grow as well especially since um that's the goal that was set before us that every student would make that Year's growth so um this here

019is a reading um similar to uh Schuler a little bit see necessarily what we um had wanted to see as you look at the numbers um I will say this one thing that um has become a little bit more evident for us and and maybe the other buildings with our reading test is what's called rapid guessing so when a student's taking the test if they're not reading the the uh the paragraph or the the scripts thank you passage um and they're just guessing it will pause their test and it actually will eventually to shut them down so we did see higher um rapid guessing on the reading um test so one of the things we're talking about um as a building is if and when a student rapid guesses and their test gets paus just

020make it number retake the test um so that's one thing the problem we made for oursel was we took test a little bit before the other buildings so we did ours right before Christmas break our NWA are exactly pretty close to 3 month months apart from fall winter spring and the reason is we like to make some adjustments um in our schedule over Christmas break so we have that time um but then it makes retesting hard when you come back from break so um hopefully we'll do better with holding kids accountable because that is part of it as well is making sure that they're doing their best um and so hopefully this spring we can see this wait hang on when you talk about the rapid readers or rapid guing rapid guessing yeah just how

021many kids is that two kids is it 30 kids oh I don't have the number in front of I can't remember I'm just say yeah um I know I don't know the exact number but like a handful yeah what's that a handful oh I would say several hand hands full hands full yeah um especially I know it was a topic with our sixth grade um team and that's something you guys will go back and talk to the students oh yeah I'm get there y so when we took the test it was the just the drawing the you know filling in and making the pictures like that was our rapid guessing right but nobody could stop us from doing it now the computer shuts it down and pauses it so you can manage a little more

022um and teachers that are proctoring actually can witness you know if it's happening and things so um up here um this is a little different maybe I think Heather's similar to this um but this is math again fall and and winter just breaks it down my grade level so you see 6 78 678 um so again uh across the board in math I mean we're jumping up several percentiles you're seeing the blues grow seeing the greens grow the Red's declining so that's really what we always hope to see good reading same thing 678 on top um the top is the fall 78 on the bottom is the uh the winter um I did have a Ela teacher and talking with Mr Northwick about the curriculum um his point was I don't feel like I've ever

023had a curriculum so absolutely the teacher matters but I think also giving them the resources like uh Mrs McKay said that have a lot of the interventions especially um for our um students that struggle with English um will be super helpful so I I know there excited about that and then um this is oh I'm guess I'm oh this is high school yeah sorry that's okay no worries um so again very similar seta so for math um as a building 58th to 60th uh we did see a decrease from 18% to 14 and then really significant change here from 20 to 25 that's always exciting uh we had we've had a lot of movement in and out since winter break and uh we also had a lot of illness so that would be the difference

024between the number of kids who tested here and the number of kids who tested here so um I think I was trying to do makeup test I don't know two weeks I don't know felt like forever it was like three weeks yeah it's okay it was a long time and we just we had so much illness it was uh so then again also a similar setup as the other buildings we having the uh the overall median and distrib distribution and then fall versus winter so same information as the previous slide and then by grades okay and so you'll see especially when I get to the Juniors on reading you'll see where some of those changes um happen so um um from Fall 59th to 60th again significant changes we had 18% to 26% um 14

025did stay the same for both fall and winter uh so really kind of looking at that um but then changes in those other numbers as it continued sophomores huge so 45th overall uh 65th but then again and I'm thinking and I wish I would have done this and I didn't think about it so we were just talking about it but looking at where some of my biggest absence this word and I'm thinking it might be in this group uh oh so touchy okay Juniors uh 61st 69 and again we're still on math and then C seniors and seniors are tough because they don't necessarily see the value in tests I see a couple my teachers going out um in these tests because they're like I'm almost done Etc but that's where we need to continue

026to have those conversations about when you graduate we want to make sure that these are skills you have um so but again I do like seeing I don't know why this one's raised my cursor something must have been on it when I was taking the screenshot but the 15 to 13 17 stayed the same our 22 went to 29 um and then our 14 went to 21% which really trunk that green area um for our seniors okay then for reading uh so 48 in the fall and 53rd in the winter in reading so for all four grades um little bit of a change here same here nearly the same but then again we had growth in that advanced area um because again we want to make sure we're focusing on all kids again same information

027just set up in a different way and then by grades so um freshman on the reading and it's interesting because it's still overall the 50th to the 45th but yet we saw big change here I mean 3% might not seem like big change but it really is um but then our 17 went to 31 so trying to dig a little deeper into that our sophomores really showed a lot 47th to 55th um our low group um are not for ficient kiddos same amount uh and then sign ific growth throughout Juniors um are 18 to 21% so that's where I'm really curious about that's where we had a lot of Rapid guessing in our junior class in a reading um so I GNA steal some of Casey's ideas that he had shared at Sak yesterday with

028our team as we kind of review that when we come up to our next test so appreciate you saying that yesterday um and then but our seniors here on reading 50th to 52nd so that was really exciting and then that 7% to 11% on the other end of the spectrum um so I'm really glad that like that was a real positive for our seniors oh I promise I know how to use these boards so some of the things just other factors that I think need to be noted is um this is the same this is I believe Middle School student um and it's their math um scores on the top their reading on the bottom and you can see it's winter 23 spring 23 fall and I'm pretty I I screenshot this to put it

029on and um well we're trying to have conversations around with students because it probably starts I know there maybe there um kids like a score they like it instantly so you've heard people mention ISL um last year we piloted a progam program um similar tol but it wasn't such a hit because the student would do the lesson and they wouldn't get that automatic score uml gives you like a a score immediately so we're trying to help students understand what the score is because even both times we've taken the test I would have random students come down the say I got a 222 and I got a but do they know what it means so um this student um the blue is their student score so you can see in the fall of 24 they got

030a 257 and then winter they went to 258 um over here you can see they're in the already in the 98 97 percenti so this is one of those blue end high high range kids so what we're using for kind of a goal is their projected growth which the next time we take it um is to be three points higher so what we're trying to do is say we want it to be at least five for every student so whatever their last score is we want it to be at least Five Points higher uh because it's not a true years's growth from Fall to Spring you want to look at true years you have to go from like fall of 23 um to fall of 24 or winter to winter winter is probably the better

031uh uh indicator because you're already in the middle of school year so it went from 247 to 258 which from what I've read if you get at least plus 10 that's about a Year's growth so what I'm trying to do is Define a Year's growth because we've said it but we haven't really defined it um so we didn't do ourselves a favor because last spring of 24 we didn't take the NWA U we took it in fall and winter and we had a crazy January if remember with weather and it's like we're going to test and then stack tests um and then all of a sudden our rapid guessing is going to go even crazier um so we're trying to have conversations in our home bases with students about their score and really what we're

032hoping their score will be in the spring um other things to consider in our building and I'm sure other buildings is um a Year's growth right and all of a sudden we've got dozens of kids who have almost missed a quarter of the school year um so we can talk about teachers and curriculum but part of this conversation is student accountability like if you're missing school all the time it's it's going to be hard to reach plus five right or I know um one thing that's come up in our sixth and seventh grade sat meetings this week is work completion if you're not doing your work and you're not getting that extra practice and building those skills you're not going to get plus five so those are some of the other things is how can

033we make this um relevant for kids and how can we make what they do every day matter for this if that makes sense we're trying to make it all connect um because you got to be there you got to do your work or this isn't just magically gonna you know change so so those are some of the things that we're trying to do hopefully it'll make a difference yeah and at the high school um I really appreciate because when we got done with the winter testing they're like well I want to see how I did in the fall how that matched in the winter and then set a go for the spring and I was like Hallelujah this is amazing but also kids are motivated by money so I also think of it like okay

034so if the work completion then this growth is like your bonus at the end of the year so it just really it's another way to validate how hard you've been working how you've been showing um and how you've been account oh oh I think one other thing that we that they kind of talked about like motivating kids so one thing that we tried as Scher um is we have a traveling trophy that goes with the class that makes the most grow so uh it's not a kid by student by student basically it's like how did I do to help what did I do to help my student so it's kind of fun because somebody's going to get done and say I got 20 points growth for our team you know like because that's what it

035is you know like it doesn't matter if I went from like the first percentile to the 18th percentile or if I went from the 50th percentile it's I made this much growth so it doesn't matter where I am on the scale we can all make growth and support our like you know so now we have a trophy that I think is an old track trophy somebody gave me and every time your class gets it they get to decorate it one with one thing and then we pass it on every time so and one of the things for our numbers as well as I'm looking back here and see Mr Handle and Mrs Bogle other decrease in our numbers is we had a ton of graduates from the CCOC so they didn't test in the winter

036sorry you guys I forgot to say that before now somebody mentioned yesterday that this can be um that these numbers can go in or their scores can go into ISL yes is that a manual input yeah so that's not as easy as you hope but yeah I got I've got a did you yes okay good yes you have do it student by student so well anyway now what I've learned and know is there are specific reports and so Isel helped me learn how to talk to NWA so the two would partner and load into study plans so yeah I think yesterday that's what I was talking about um so in our intervention groups that's where inl because a lot of my teachers are like with geometry if that's what a kid needs that's her suggested

037area of focus while Exel based on the students um NWA scores and their suggested areas of focus it creates study plans for that individual student and so then the teacher really can become like the Proctor and the support and the help with what they're working on um in an intervention a yeah the first time I did it oh my gosh you need my team I like ever and I you know it's one of those things we like dang it I just want a call begin with I would saved a lot of time I have questions sorry um um some of you guys talked about ways that you're using this data Stacy how do you use the data like to um to help kids grow like what do you what do you do um we use

038this data and we also use our TNT data and that helps us decide who's going to go where through what interven so um we have our war TNT block which is different screeners than what I showed you and kids go all over the building to all the teachers based on how they end up on their T screeners so that takes care of that part um we use the data that I shared plus other data to determine like who's going to get titled One support who needs extra interventions from Paras who you know we this is just one case of what we use but we use it to help determine who needs find okay thank you how much time because you guys are talking about we're testing kids in the fall winter and spring how much

039time are we give how much classroom time are we giving up to testing that's about an hour of test so if we give a reading testest it's about an hour in okay so six hours over the course of a year and I more but it's like yeah probably less than that but it feels like 100 yeah oh yeah yeah yeah I mean my frame of reference is when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s and it was you know a couple of days worth of testing so yeah that's changed okay that's good to know um so I think you were showing data Casey of a seventh grader who was like in the 97th percentile already what what are you GNA do for that kid that's a great question and that's something that we've

040had discussions with um and maybe it'll be um discussed a little bit tonight but I think that's that's why our tag program really needs attention um is because we do air on focusing on the other side so much that often times it's it's those students that um we kind of while they're proficient will'll be fine but um that's why I said at the beginning of the year I appreciate every student growing a year because no matter where they're at they can grow and we're not we not forget about anybody um because when you ask like how do we use the data we always default to the interventions and the you know not the extensions as much thank you does anyone else have questions thank you all right I think Dr Johnson are you taking it

041away from here so if the board remembers at the last Board meeing of my superintendent's report I had said hey we're looking into reviewing uh evaluating any of the the programs that I'm going to talk about tonight so um home school preschool ledge program any of those programs that we are starting to just do a review a program review I'm going to update the board on what we found out so far so information per place um of things that we know things that um we may need direction on that kind of thing as superintendent I mean that's part of what my job is I've been here for a year plus a year and a half so part of my job is just to look into what are we doing well what do we need to

042address and make changes if we need to make changes so we always are doing any kind of program review and Analysis because again we want to help students learn and grow and improve so anyhow first one of the programs is The Homeschool program um what we're finding out that we currently have 80 students enrolled in hom school and we do receive state a right for home school students um the two homeschool teachers came and and talked to me and said uh We've grown from last year went from 74 to 80 and they're getting enrollment or or enrollment numbers for next year to show a 100 students in the home school program so it's becoming more and more popular I don't know if these are kids of Atlantic for their open en rolls but they're getting

043numbers that show 100 students possibly next year so with that roow um a lot of things could change they have a small classroom um they're looking at I think they break into two or three enrichment groups they're going to have to break into more than two or three next year they have a 100 kids come in and then they meet with kids and families and then meeting in the same space with two teachers and a bunch of people talking it's it's it's kind of hard and sometimes confidential stuff shared with the other families they they just need um they need space anytime you guys have questions ask me otherwise I'll keep moving on 31 from out of District I don't know the exact you looked it up there's 31 yeah how often are they coming

044into class like a couple times a week they have to I think they have to do they have to meet four times a month with the parents have to meet with the the families and then they have to meet they could come in every week to do their enrichment classes as a group no it's not four four times a year four it's more often it's four times a month i' have to re look at it because because that would mean every once a week they're meting every family they have to be minimum twice a month with they normally meet weekly yeah but minimum two times minimum two I think they meet weekly with their groups yes and so again when the groups start to increase a number they just have to create more groups um

045so that's where that's to preschool um preschool I think we talked about that the governor is uh proposing a grant out there and the grant is uh to help with daycare and preschool so I had a meeting set up with um Dan Hayes why director to look at are we interested in looking at a grant doing a combination if not um or do we do it a standalone as at Landing Community School District I don't know but I think it's it's a partnership that we need to talk about with the white because they do the daycare and they're doing vision and Landing um it just makes sense so that's where we're at in the preschool um we're also looking at um design or we haven't even got into design but we're we're uh looking at

046renovating the girls and the boys bathroom at our ELC when that comes around I'll I'll bring bids and and hopefully they'd have some kind of drawing schematic on it but I met with um Randy Watts on it and he's the guy that worked on our bathrooms last year on it so um let um handicap assess the bathroom and he's good do we have any idea what our numbers look like for next year with sections of things are we going to stay consistent where we've been I think so I look at Stacy because she collects that early data you're having preschool Roundup or you did somewhere recent ail our number we think it'll be a little bit smaller but we were very surprised by the number that we had this year so um yeah I I

047anticipate coming into kindergarten will be smaller than was this year but again I anticipated last so um yeah there there are fewer kids Jack and Jill has one L section so they only two sections of Jack and Jill this year as car now works for the district so um I think that be and Jack and Jill is only fouryear old they also have threey olds they have um two sections of three no three of threey old and two sections of few kids in your old and um Dr Johnson if you could expand a little bit like what do you mean when you're talking to them about potential changes like can you say a little more like what are you for preschool or for the building not as much the building design but the programming part

048of it like just potential changes of like do we want to apply for the grant and what it look like and with that I don't think Vision at planic building is going to be done by next year I can't see that happening like by the Fall by Fall what does that mean what's what's involved with the grant do we want to work it together we want to do it our own Grant the why do they've got their own plan going we just need to visit with them and get together and communicate I guess you know last year there was just kind of this huge push to look at expanding schol in terms of the hours that kids are in preschool the time you know and wrap around care and those things so is that what

049the solution is coming out of the legislature is the grant or is that still because that that's one of the things as we work with sbba on is you know what happens if we have to have those kids in our buildings longer periods during the day and can't section out what we are from last year's chatter on uh early childhood we thought the governor would move forward and say I really want to see fulltime full day four-year-old preschool and let's fund it that's not M hers even though one of our early agendas that was sent out was talking about Early Childhood probably three school yeah she talked about it you know she sort of setting the agenda so and so it looks like she's not pushing that this year just ass you went the hill

050yeah I stopped paying attention after that you had other prior that probably how big is the gr I don't even know okay I don't know I I just want to see if if the Y daycare uh thein group you know do they want to work together and the anticipation is that after they do their Renovations and all this other stuff they're doing they still want to keep having a preschool like is that we know that you mean at the ELC at the why like is that something they're sold yeah I don't know that's part of that conversation okay um sbpa looked at that packet that Vision Atlantic has it sitting around you know we have some at the the building there they looked at it and they could see schematic drawings of classrooms quite a

051few classrooms in and it's kind of hard to see because it's just big picture idea right now so they asked me like so is that preschool classrooms is that daycare classrooms what is it and I said I don't know I don't know and that might be part of that conversation that we work on yeah I don't know lunchroom or lunch program hot lunch program okay so uh Lisa Jones and I met with Natalie a week or two ago and our bad news is we are a negative $27,000 again on the balance remember last year we had so many people donate money and people cleared up their balances and we got it down to 9,000 a negative 9,000 that meant probably the families that have moved away from the district you know latest didn't clean up

052their bills we just we were 9,000 short now we're up to a negative 27,000 and from last year's pattern and previous year and then this year it's back up there we can't keep asking for donations we just can't I mean people can do it but that didn't it it could help we looked at your policy there and you know you can refer to it and I can push it to you on an email but in the board policy you is the board in the policy it says that we could forward it uh the unpaid balances the negative balances to a collection agency so I we could do that um Lisa talked to some other districts around through meetings or emails I'm not sure how she's talked to them Lisa what are they what what are

053some of the things that you got from other sbos um our district has a bigger problem than most districts around us so part of my investigation was to figure out why why why do we struggle more than other districts our size so I reach out some other schools um a lot of them they really push the free and reduced application um making sure that we're getting that into everyone's hands now we can't force anybody to fill it out it can't be a mandatory piece of paperwork but um the nice thing about those people fill that out whether they think they'll you make it or not is the rate of pay that we get for that meal is at a higher rate for that student so they the federal government reimburses us at a higher rate

054so when students it not only benefits the family because they might get a free and reduced cost the federal government gives us more per if they're a part of that plan so it kind of benefits if we have them fill those out um I reach out to other schools collection agencies are what a lot of schools are going to they're saying we're giving parents a year to clean up their account and if what's not cleared up by June 1st goes to a collection agency now do do you get your money you still might not right it could affect their credit though you know if they're looking for a mortgage or a car loan or something like that but we're trying to figure out a way to work with parents you know what's what is it

055certain group of people at certain age is it you know are we not communicating enough and I say we collectively um and so we we've met with Natalie we were a little bit shocked at the the amount because we worked so hard last year to get that amount down uh we had so many good people that came forward and helped um and and they did a lot of good things but a lot of those parents that hadn't paid from prior years that money just that negative account just rolls over it doesn't clear off at the end of the year so if they owed $1,200 last year and they haven't made any payments this year now they owe $3,000 right like like it didn't just clear up and so a lot of the debts we're seeing

056are from last year and the year before up until the point when we used to get those free meals through covid you know we had two years of free meals gosh darn it that just really hurt then parents kind of got used to that and then all of a sudden you know they didn't get that free meal and so I think we really have to push the free and reduced application and figure out a way how we can partner maybe it's a it's an open house night where we have people here and computer set it up because it's all electronic and we I know Stacy's working with a interpreter to work with uh International chuki students to try to because the form is a little bit difficult uh in that way but we've got to

057figure out a way to help parents and then um then try to figure out how to pay down this balance I thought we had a good plan last year but obviously the parents that didn't pay or couldn't pay and didn't maybe qualify or chose not fill out the form um are still not paying and so we're seeing we're seeing like individual families over $2,000 negative like these are not like lots of $50 negative accounts these are significant overages you have data we talked about sorry we we talked about this last year about trying to inre increase the number of people doing free and reduced do you have any data did that increase I didn't see that it increased what is yes I feel like it almost increased our percent our free reduced percent went down

058a little bit what is our per last year it's 57 I'm not sure what it is this year but I feel like I think I noticed that too yeah increased it also affects our funding so so many of the grants that we get are based on your free and reduced percentage so if you don't have over a 50% we lose out of money on other things like title and other things that you don't even think are tied to that so free and reduced is tied to so many things that we have to do a better job and so I don't know if that's through just a communication through the like orientation having special nights here for to help parents push it out in an email we started a letter I worked with Natalie and we

059started a letter of that we're looking at getting out to parents now because you also have to reapply every year you know because sometimes you fill it out and you think oh I'm good you have to reapply every year people that are on Medicaid automatically it dis speeds right into the free and reduced if they qualify for Medicaid it's an automatic cuple that's sty because she does a lot of Medica so that's a bonus if we get more people to get going on their medication I hate to ask in a public meeting but is is it in the grand scheme of things is it really that big of a problem I mean do do we get penalized or anything for I know it looks bad but so on our audit um we as district for

060having a negative overall balance as of June 30th so as of June 30th you were supposed to have a zero balance with the idea that people have paid paid off there and and they give you kind of the whole year so you have the whole year to make a payment or do whatever but by June 30th or you get that wrote up in your audit which also goes to when you're looking at getting bonds and different things in like every time we have a little little something on our audit um it does take a hit I was surprised when I I reached out to 10 other schools that are roughly around our area and also did around our size the close one that had like a negative balance and one school was like I'm so

061embarrassed to even tell you I'm so embarrassed and I'm like well let's just swap stories you tell me your amount I'll tell you mine kind of thing and they're like we're $2,300 negative I'm so embarrassed and I was like yeah us too because how do you say oh we're 27 I mean how do you let it get from 9,000 last year wait we when I started we were 24,000 negative and I I didn't know what to think got it down to 9,000 negative and we're already only one semester in and we're at $227,000 of accounts that have not been paid so they're eating lunch on the school's dollar but the hard of thing is you can't use nutrition federal funds to pay off it it has to be parents for donations so we can't even

062say oh well we'll just write that off or we'll just pay that can I ask and maybe this is getting too much into the weeds but because I'm trying understand how that gets that far out of control is that just strictly the daily lunch or is that exas all the extras that you know well they shouldn't be able to get EXT cookies if we policies here yeah and based on what uh Natalie and I'm speaking for her and I hope that's now if you're watching I apologize if I'm not saying the right story but um they don't get extras so if they have a negative account they can't go back and do all a car they can't do seconds what they usually do is they'll bring cash for those so they bring the cash for

063like a snack or ol card or second meal but that first meal that's running through the system you know they don't have money and and we can't shame students right you can't say no or whatever kids it's not the kids fault and so then we send out letters I think Natalie said every Friday letters go out every Tuesday they send out emails they're finding a lot of the letters come back um so we're trying to think of what we can do to reach people um it it's bit and and she feels that because she feels like it's it's part her trying to figure out how to solve that we're trying to help her because it is a district expense that goes on our books at the end of the year so every year we're starting

064with a negative balance we're not supposed to um so I was surprised when I reached out to the only um Creston was the only school that had had some success with collections and they just said as of June 30th and they sent out letters like starting in January that says okay whatever balance you have as of June 30th that goes to a collection agency and so I did some research to find out what collection agencies work with schools there is some fees involved so then we have to determine you know does the paren thing cover that fee does the district do we are we respons because it's a percent of the amount of money that you're asking for that we have to come up with so I'm not sure there's a per answer I'm hoping

065collectively we can come up with something the only Advantage I because I agree with you I don't think you're going to get much if you send it to a collection agency other than you might get individual that you present it as the alternative like here's the collection agency and by the way here's the free and reduce application and you fill that out you know to get that they have 30 days if they were on the free and reedu application the year before they have 30 days once school starts to fill that out and get back in and then it just rolls into effect and so it covers them for the first 30 days that they were on it before and then once that application then that meal on is free what we're finding out is

066some people didn't fill it out until like Christmas they they were uh approved but then the meals that they ate between September and December they don't want to cover because they were like oh well we were on it well you didn't get the application in time so I think it's a learning um probably all of our responsibility I guess to help teach and and figure out a way to make this work because she's she's pretty frustrated she doesn't want to turn kids away we don't we don't recommend that that's what board has said we aren't turning kids away we need be absolutely but but yes how to improve our process so especially those who were on it before we get those renewal percentages back but my fear is co didn't do us any favors with

067every everybody not applying you there was no incentive to apply or no reason to do it for two years so we missed a lot of families to train them in that process two more things on the hot lunch uh our staff negative balance we have quite a few staff that have a negative balance not excessive like not into the hundreds negative balance but we have quite a few staff I'm G to say I'm GNA guesstimate about 30 to 40 staff that have a negative balance that adds into it right and uh so two two ways we could say no more charging clar if your your balance you know if you want to eat bring money and then eat School hot lunch or we just set it at a I don't know like a negative 10

068balance and then after that you can't charge but again it involves our staff too any input on that any thought or you just say that handling um so did the staff get uh letters or emails or some kind of reminders the same the same as students get I we're told right that they get that email they could set like an alarm Lisa or some kind of notice when their balance gets down to $5 remind me see you can set it up to say I want to be notified when it hits like I have $10 left or whatever you that as an individual or as a family and then it send you a reminder on top of the reminders that Natalie has one more thing and uh this is interesting no I'm not going to say

069what I was going to say I mean I you're you're at zero or I me1 is okay Z just are you a child or an adult right I mean because it's a fair point that you know I mean if I'm working tonight and I want to go to McDonald's and I don't have any money I'm not going to get McDonald's I I I get it that I mean we have to have a little bit of I get it you can make a mistake and and be under whatever but you know speak some accountability I was going to say there's some employers where you know youve got your card you swipe your card and it just comes off your paycheck I don't know if we can link it to that they want to do it that

070way can do that we you can't yeah I mean you know you just know so we can't or we can I'd have to research it but I don't think you can take like that's what the hospital does no I'm saying like would sign up for it yeah I will check into I will check into but I don't think we can but I'll check into it I don't want to say no and then I mean I'm sure there's part you know Josh my feeling I would absolutely be someone who would like run my BS down and always intend like oh I've got to put money on I gotta put myy oh no I'm starving today so guilty yeah yeah you know I like the idea of their huh to more than $10 no that's like five

071bucks a day but you have to pay your bills sometimes but well yeah but it's I'm just saying it's real easy to yeah foret right Jody that's what we're just saying is I mean so for that reason a couple times yeah but not like oh I'm minus 50 or 100 bucks yeah I'll just keep charging but that's what I'm saying like we could say that there'd be a r down to 10 Orga 10 or5 or something but there's still going to be a point where does that sound [Music] we okay so you would want to but H still we need to figure out if our employees are part of the problem I think we should be us finding a solution we can at least control that we can't control the families how about we try

072the for now to get a transition and then next year we do no charges D go is that okay it is part of board policy so we will have to review that board policy and put that in writing that says what's our policy now good luck find what they just good luck she's got better ways I do and we're getting that new system so they will be well she's spping it up I want to throw out this other tidbit of information Freedom reduced percent right they conect to lunch program and other programs Andy Mitchell had said our football classification is hooked to free and reduced we are at the point where we may be changing football classifications because of our frame redu is different we don't know what it's going to be I don't know

073if we'll stay the same we'll go up or down in class probably down a class is that weird well we might go up a class go class if it's NE I don't know so he kind of went and he tried to contact somebody uh at the athletic association and I don't know he got any information but that's out there too what a weird thing to tie that that's what I thought the De Moine Area where some of those um big schools that had a lot of money were competing against big schools that did not have a lot of money and so there was some thought that you could see the difference it leveled the playing field a little bit based on who they yeah find it yet Lisa I did I found one but not

074that so let we're gonna move on we back continue on yes our virtual education program remember we were looking into that uh seems to be the trainy thing right now um and you're aware that we interviewed or talked to two different companies recently um and really just kind of reflecting on that and everything else that we're doing our master plan and and all this other stuff I just don't know if I am ready to recommend to the board that we go a virtual education format opportunity option whatever we call it yet I think we need to look into it I think we need to find out more information the good things and not so good things about a virtual program uh what I'm learning districts like Shen andoa is doing it this year and the

075langwood is seted up for next year but those two districts are creating their own virtual School format where they're creating it their own which I think is huge that's I don't know how they do it but they're doing it other districts I know Creston interviewed and talked to Stellar that's one of the companies we we talked to too the interview so they're looking at Stellar because a lot of their kids are going to shenoa as well as Glenwood kids are going to shanida for the virtual program well they're trying to keep the kids in District right I don't know new I I'm just not ready spend a lot of time and energy on that when we really need to spend more of our time and energy on the things that we're doing now even though

076I counted up the other day a couple weeks ago we have 17 students from Atlantic School District that are enrolled in virtual education programs so they're Atlantic kids open enrolling now 17 that's a lot know the grades like is it small to big or is it mostly big it's it's a mix you think it's all high school level kids there's just almost a equal number of Elementary to Middle School to high school and do we get when kids choose to enroll out like that I mean do we get any sort of conversation with the parents about why they're making those decisions no and the Open Enrollment laws on that they could submit their paperwork and we have to let it go right away there's no question there's no waiting time there's no window like other

077enroll enrollment windows are you know you got to get it in by a certain day we sign off on it right away is that there is nothing on it that District gets all of our state aid money so we automatically just send that full state aid to that District that virtual school program I found the policies so I will email them to you it does say it already does say $10 is the maximum before you can't charge anymore so it looks like you've already looks like you red it back in 2021 so it looks like you've kind of already addressed you had this and it doesn't look like maybe we're not following it it does say and if employee reaches more than a negative $10 that he can't eat here and then it does say

078though but it does say that the application will only be sent out twice to parents for free and reduced application so look at making that more available on the website or something um but I'll I'll send you those there's two policies so these you do part of the struggle as well is because they're also family and accounts and so you have a family account so I would rarely eat lunch but my boys always did one boy always got extras so if they don't turn the kids away it may not be the adult who was putting their account in the negative maybe the students and so then if we cut the um adults off at zero then does that mean students won't have access to because it's a family account you only put into one right

079that's what I'm saying so does that mean none of the kids won't get fed we we did ask Natalie that and she said that she that may be policy but she doesn't she doesn't do that yeah if if it's a student even of an employee and they are negative she doesn't turn the kid away we did ask that too but the employee is getting the notification right oh yeah so I just making sure yeah posi 15 yeah yeah I think that is what we did when our kids were in the school okay next thing is work based learning programs it's it's something that the aea has been advertising offering um I have signed the district up for next year with the aea to have a point2 FTE person come out start working with the district

080on any work-based coordin ation so they're going to help us kind of Define our programs give us uh ideas and directions it it seemed like many of the districs at uh aea Green Hills aea a lot of them sense that they need that help because we just we don't have enough information training Direction so we're all going to go with this for at least a year and see see where it takes us and what information we we can gain from it so that'll be next year okay so next thing I want to talk about our sped programs and I'll I'll again preface it with information the board is aware that um we had a large number of students um do the out of District programs at one time and I don't know what the number

081is now but I know at one time around Christmas we had 11 students going out of the district before programs for special ed which is a lot that's probably more than it has been in past years by far so with that you know uh I assume because we've got great programs in place here at Atlantic we have great staff why are we sending kids out do we need to look at our programs do we need to uh make adjustments do we need to hire more where do we need to provide uh a change report Direction so we can provide services to these kids and then we find out well probably even before you know my my mind started wandering that we find out after we've sent them they it's very expensive for day um we're

082looking at if we continue the path the projection is or was we are going to be $1.2 million over our spend sped fund right now so we get so much money per student State a right we get a little bit more if they are identified as special ed kids we get some more so that's where our sped funding's at but we're 1.2 million over that so it's like wow that's a lot of money you know can we find a way to provide services for those students and not spend that excessive amount and it's per day cost for these kids that attend the out of District Schools transportation I think the thing that really hits home and and really tugs at my heartstrings is that a lot of these kids are going to council us SCH

083M we know that's approximately an hour drive from atlan what is it for the kids to get from their home here to Atlantic could it be 20 minutes Drive in they could be living in Atlantic so it might be just you know catching a bus here but you could have kids that are riding the bus an hour and a half to their school going to school and then driving back I I just I just the the the parent in me would go I don't know if I really want my kid riding transportation for an hour and a half on way then back can this school do about okay and so these are not students that are open and rolling into our district not okay these are kids who are Atlantic kids and that travel time

084is happening during the school day or in addition to the school hours I have to say some of them are being picked up maybe some some of them are starting today at 6:30 6:30 but some of them come here at 8 and then they start most of them are picked up before yeah so that they can get to their Destin last I think the last pick up is seven 75 so what their their schools are starting at 8 8:30 something like that but I think we need to remember that I out of those kids that leave the district a lot of that's court ordered doctor ordered parent ordered and there's nothing that we as a school board can do to bring them back I don't know a lot Jenny I don't know what a lot

085means but there are some kids that are attending schools that are yeah I want to say half I don't know I'm that I don't think so I'm getting yeses who said that well if we can keep half of those kids here that's a $500,000 savings out yeah so do you want why don't you come around so we can I don't know all of them I but so we have several that are for ordered and we have several that are there thy because of what we call pic placement that's when a therapist um it's almost like they write a prescription to have the student go live residentially at a facility that so they would be there residentially and um for school the school is still required to pay that so they're being placed in a facility

086by a doctor um and uh and then there's also parent choice so parent can place their child in placement again that's all out of the district's hand from from the students that I know that are there now I can speak to three one of them the case was so severe that if that student was to be please don't talk about specific student but the idea is that the behavior is so extreme that it would really deter from the learning environment of all of the children in the school environment and then the other two were you still talk about individual just general so then in general it's okay so basically the idea is so we say we have programs so therapeutic programs are kind of what we talk about right talking about St programs okay okay

087so some of the kids that go out we can't serve in District because of those extreme needs they might have right some students might need a more Hands-On placement or they came into the district they were already having success in a program and it's standard practice to not pull students out of a program that they're already having a lot of success from um and we're going to talk about but we'll talk about therapeutic in a little bit too you're kind blending the two yeah okay thank those students would be special education students is that true of all your they students no but the ones that are out I would say that based on any decision made by we're trying to keep this really big picture because we're not trying to talk about inividual really trying

088to not get into into that um Dr Johnson when so if students are if their parent is choosing for them to go out of District or whatever or you know go on a farway placement like or if it's Fort ordered that um students have to be in an away location so the school district has to pay for that we have to pay for their education we have to provide the educational services because they're students of our district and so did the courts like take that into account like when they not necessarily I me we we've got kids that aren't even close to living here yeah and we still have to provide education because they of our district okay thanks so what are you looking at that we can work on to bring more of those

089kids here like do we know out of the 11 which ones are we can't educate them I I think that's part of that whole process that we're going to get to right now we're still kind of reviewing what are our needs do we have programs or do we need to create a program do we need to have more staff we're we're still in that planning phase can you give me an idea so if we're talking about special education students are these level one students are these level three students is is that 11 is sprinkled amongst all of those needs you know I I can look at Stacy so the students that are being placed in out of District if they're on an IEP if they're out of District placement they're going to be a level

090three they all level because they're completely removed from their general education set okay not a level three they become a level three because it is a removable okay does that make sense yes so that helps me understand so we're talking about our reimbursement for that that is three point or what is that so yeah so when we get when we get state aid we get $782 for every student right and then if you're a special ed student you get another 72 you know you go up those different rankings so and I can share with you so I put some added together from 23 24 um of where because we get money if a student chooses for a student to go out if they live in our school district we have to pay for their education

091no matter where they go if if the parent chooses for them to be educated somewhere else if DHS proves for them to be somewhere else so if they are live somewhere else and they choose to be educated here then we have the opportunity to build another school so then we can build another school we collect um when you have anyone that's tuition out or tuition in you can do real costs where um so you if they have needs for a Pera then the other school district has to pay for those individual costs if we you know recorded them correctly if we know that they have a pair assigned to if they are tuition out somewhere um you know those are then become our cost because things now where where I see when I look at

092this is so we have also what's called contractual which means the district chose to have them educated somewhere else which usually means we don't have the programming we don't have the staff or we don't have the space to educate them here so we've we've chosen a better we think a better location for them maybe maybe because they were already there or maybe because that it's a better fit right we the I team makes that determination we're spending about two a little over $200 ,000 on having other vendors provide the education instead of us so this past year we were 469,000 overspent so we were given um roughly $2 million to run a sped program and that's just true money that didn't include Medicaid that didn't include tuition in money um that doesn't include idea Part

093B money so we get about $2 million to run a program and then you start adding all those other pieces you know tuition in things like that so we had um $3.9 million in revenues between what the state gave us and what we collected from other districts we spent $4.4 million on everything so we're about $500,000 overspent in our program and out of that 500 200,000 of that was spent on offering services having another location served the student and it was a district decision so that's one where we might be able to control and maybe we can't maybe we really can't perform the services here um I think we have a great program I think we do some really good things well and I think we can do just as good as Cil Bluffs or

094red oak Maybe not maybe I'm fooling myself but um we we see this now this was last year so we were 469,000 overspent so anytime you exceed your revenues um there are mechanisms in place what happens is you you you don't get that money it's not like the state says oh you over spent here's 500,000 spend wisely they don't do that what they say is okay you're overspent it comes out of your checkbook it comes comes out of your account so you can spend it but just know then that's money not spent on something else so right I mean you only have so much money if you spend it all on a mortgage can't up car payment too right so it's one of those where we have to make we as a board make that

095decision that says yes we want to overspend and that's okay to do it's it's the one area you can be overspent but it reduces other things sometimes because you don't have money to do everything well and I I guess I need to rephrase a little bit what is the waiting for a level three oh uh 374 374k that that's what I couldn't remember the exact last year we were 469 over but this year it's projected 1.2 well here's here's part of it so 469 if if we did no changes at all no hiring changes no student changes we'd still be 469,000 right right but we know there were seven more students that went out this year that didn't last year so we and when we calculated most of the students were around a 70 to

096880,000 cost now the state's going to reimburse a 70 800 plus a little more for the waiting that's that's and that's what I trying to figure out when we are talking about these high dollar students we should be getting approximately $30,000 for their that is is for their education with the waiting if they're level three student right well seven let me figure it let me figure it out yeah 74 7826 * 3.74 it's 29,000 so it's not I mean so that's just what I'm trying to figure out if we're talking about $90,000 just send them to council us well that's $60,000 difference that is not being spent on the students that are left here because we're I trying to understand what that amount is and it's it's all district all districts are seeing the costs

097go up they didn't change the waiting any if we get a 2% increase which is what the governor is talking about that's $150 per student increase that you're getting my gosh nothing and that's for the year right that's 10 12 bucks a month I mean you're not we're not getting much with a 2% increase it goes to 7983 if we go that we get per student um so so we're always appreciative that they give you money for your for your programs and stuff but it doesn't meet at the needs of the of the students they they have needs they have Paras they need they have support they need and again I don't think we're going to change legislature because every school is dealing with that but we just have to make be cognizant of of

098the dollars because the're real it's real money I mean I we write those checks every month to those vendors and those programs some of them are out of our control parent made the decision BHS make the decision we write the check no matter what it doesn't matter it's when the district makes a decision we have to decide if that is that best for the student is an hour and a half ride right maybe it is maybe it is but and I and I know the IP takes uh takes all that into consideration they're looking at all of that to say what is best for this kid and so that's what we just I think the program review is just to say what's best for the student okay moving on so going to need some direction

099from the board things to think about um do we continue to do what we've been doing have the same staff that we have do the same programs change nothing keep sending students out of District so I just call it status quo do we stay with status quo um which we know there's going to be projected costs because we're not able to do you know education here in the district is that what the board is kind of telling us to to go in that direction when we did a review of what our programs are and what staff we need as an administrative team looked at it and said hey we need we think we need one more Elementary leveled special ed teacher and we think we need to fill that High School uh sped teacher that

100we didn't get hired and we think that we can have the right kind of programs in place to meet the needs of our kids but if we stay as is and we still have kids going out of the district District because we don't have the programs or we don't have a staff or whatever it is sending kids out of the district or they're placed you know court order placed uh I just need some direction on that what direction do you think we should pursue that's a really big basket of things and it just seems to me we could spend a whole meeting just on the sped programs you know we've covered everything that we could possibly cover I can't think that we could keep to the status quo and especially if we can't build positions

101we don't I mean have we posted both of those we' posted the high school one and we posted the other position is anticipated because we actually want to start drawing interest thinking it hasn't been more approved but we could say anticipated sped position and if the board says no then we can take it off because people see it's anticipated it's not beened I think it's best if we keep most of the kids in District if we can and keeping status quo it's not going to to do that and financially that's not smart it but I think we have to look at hiring more people and creating more programs if we can't take care of all our students needs how it is ultimately there's going to be some that I mean Court system's going to do

102whatever the court system wants to do doctors and therapists that's not our business they're going to do what they want to do but I I guess my opinion is I mean that that dollar bill is huge and it's not about the dollar bill it's about educating the kids but my stance is if if we we could hire two new teachers and and do some switching around or make some new program or something we still might not be able to serve all these kids we still might have to have somebody go out but I think it this board member I think our dollars should be invested in trying to do that here um if we can't do it we can't do it but I think I would rather see the dollar spent here than to you

103know we send one student for $100,000 to Council Bless every day I'd rather try and hire a teacher and do that here knowing we're not going to be able to do that with all of them some of them are going to have to go but I I don't know I mean I would think a couple more special ed teachers would help you guys wouldn't it I mean it might Le lessen a load not for all of you but you could be able to uh you know what I'm saying I mean this board I think we're trying to help the program here not not take anything away or you guys do a phenomenal job and I applaud you all you guys are obviously very um you know passionate about what you do and and if we

104can try and help out with maybe adding a program or something to try and help and a couple teachers I that's why I don't know that's why I'm in the business I guess behavi if that's what think so the next thing though so I I feel like I got directives from all board members right well hang on one sec did you have something else you wanted to add to what Josh was saying I heard joh I was just an agreement like yeah we're probably not going to be able to take care of all the kids obviously the court mandated ones and Etc but if we can try to keep as many of our own students here I think that's best for them and their fam I think that I that's kind of what I'm coming

105away from this is I mean normally I'd say oh yeah definitely of course you know lets hire and keep them here I'm a little concerned at this idea that maybe a lot of the kids who are going on a district we have no control over and that might just continue to be true I mean we could add two more staff we could add another program um we've already added an administrator to help us with all of this but if if the the ones that are out of our control continue to say oh okay well you know you guys just have to pay for these students to be out of here I'm just wondering where our actual financial responsibility is coming in um so and I was really looking forward to the time that Stacy was

106devoting this year and talking with you is sort of looking and um kind of you know tweaking readjusting our programs and so that they would be um I'm not going to say cost efficient but cost cost awar let's say you know in addition to putting the students first and and what's going to care for them so I'm wondering if you and Stacy feel like you've done that work this year and now this is what you're coming up with is we need to hire two spend teachers or if that's something that is you need more time or I guess I would like to hear about that that's what we're recommending okay and one of those was already I mean it was already an existing position that we fed with a shared person between you know what

107I mean between buildings and having done that it kind of worked for a year but now you're like no we really need we stretched a teacher we we'll tell you that in the teacher stent fabulous job mean but we know we we stretched a teacher so here's some student data so last year so when I say tuition out it means the student lives in our district but either a student or a parent or DHS made the decision so it was out of our hands we had four level ones five level twos and two level 3es so we had 11 students that were out of our control we paid for their education but it was somebody else's Choice tuition in which means a student lives somewhere else but they chose to come here so I build

108those districts I had six level ones five level twos and three level 3es that I could bill actual costs to another district and they paid for that so what I don't have is because I just have an amount on the contract actual which is the 200,000 that we chose to educate them somewhere else it was a dist What I Call district decision but that one's not broken down by students so I just hav we and I'm just gonna go back to with because I'm so confused with open enrollment La the way things have changed now do we have to accept those kids because if that's putting a burden on our staff here do we have to accept them that our tuition did if our programs are full we'll say sped program or any other programs

109that we talk about it be me own school I'm not sure on that one if we say it's full it's full alternative Ed programs anything that we say we've kind of it's full otherwise we're gonna have to hire another staff it's going to cost us more than we can we can say no our program's full so if it's I mean I'm saying maybe it's not full but maybe weable and putting bringing an extra level to student in I I don't I'm just wondering if it's a philosophy that we need to sort of knowing that there's going to be some factors that go outside of our control I some boards on policies will Define what full is yeah and I don't know if we want to do that or not that might be something we look

110at I I just would throw that out there as some consideration with this because we do recognize that it's um it's a special job to be a special education teacher and we appreciate those teachers and uh I I appreciate you raising that idea I mean that's an interesting you know creating of policy maybe you guys could think about that if that would be something that would make sense like if I mean that's that's one of the ways the board can try to help our staff and our students you know to keep things in line is you know we create policies that um are going to be sensitive to the needs of our staff of our budget of our of our students and I appreciate that there's somebody that wants to be educated here but if

111so then here we have a resident resident student okay the next program is the uh alternative ad program so it's it's the programs um that are outside of our Jed classrooms um so they might be you know like we have a um mental health therapy room at the school we have one out the U alternative um building you know we call it the link program and then we have another one called the CCE EOC they're alternative right so um as as we know some kids are identified uh with a fed and they're in those programs we thought well how does that work and then we started to uncover who's funding those programs is it sped is it at risk dollars who's actually funding that and is that part of that sped large amount is that

112the overage on this sped what's going on we were just kind of digging into where's all these funds coming okay so we looked at our atrisk dollars which is a combination of at risk and Dropout funds we get some funding it's close to 780,000 that's a lot of money that we get yearly because we've identified um something that shows that number so we started looking at the number where who's paying for what funds what programs are be covered by sped by risk and and so on it it it become almost a a crossover at times who who's funding them the sped cannot fund at risk programs at risk can probably fund sped but sped can't fund anything that's considered at risk it's only pure sped kids that are identified IEP stuff right well we know

113there's a cross over there um oh we're going to fix it we got to fix it we got to be in compliance right we got to be in compliance with state law of how we're using our funds and use it correctly um so then we looked at okay so what do an alternative program look like what's the definition what's the state say we we started going that down that route to find out uh I we kind of know what our program looks like is it in is it what it's supposed to be according to the state department we're finding things have probably changed when we first started our alternative program I don't know 15 years ago I'm guessing approximately when you're talking Alternative Program you're talking about the like the EOC yeah it's a lot

114longer than that I it's it was a it was a local then it was C County and then it was local again and we know that laws have probably changed and we were totally unaware of the changes um so we're learning through the more we get into finding out what do we do on this how do we handle that we keep going down this this road so by laws do you specifically mean about funding or do you mean other things too other things to okay so we're out of compliance on different things we have to get in compliance with Department of Ed laws fed laws how we're using our atrisk funds can you give me an example of uh lack of compliance I have no idea oh let me try to make it kind of

115without um I mean are we serving people we shouldn't or is it something else kind of that um the sped laws are so tight on how you provide service for SP kids it's so tight and they've got all these specific laws and how you fund them and who's supposed to be providing service and if we're not in compliance with that law and we become aware of it then we have to fix it and if we are out of compliance and we continue to Let It Go all of our licenses go our professional license teacher principal director Johnson superintendent we lose our license because we are not working to be in compliant so those are some things that we're uncovering and the more we get into it the more we realize we still need to get

116things organized enough to tell specific programs and staff what we found out I don't want to say we found out this today hey let's meet again tomorrow here's some more information hey by the way we're still trying to hire more people uh we think you're going to be in this position but no no no you need to be in another position it's so fluid right now we're still in this big vast planning stage I don't know if it makes sense to tell everybody everything because it's going to change the more we uncover and complete stuff Stacy what do what what's an easy thing that we know we can publicly talk about on anything on that fed compliance that we know we're going to have F anything that you can identify public some of our transportation

117yeah because of the way we're doing it it's some those dollars are coming out ofation that's the easiest one I can say without giving too much information yeah and I can we can talk that so the transportation that we use for our alternative Ed program it's coming out as fed funds can't do that and because our alternative kids like in the C EOC there's some kids that aren't sted but they're still getting transportation often in a day going back and forth to high school or getting picked up we can't fund we can't be spent funding to do that Therapy Program any more questions on there well I was just I mean if you're we transport kids to school so that would be cover under transportation yeah the difference is we're going to these kids' houses

118and picking them up to take them at a different time than the start time of the rest of the kids that's specialized transportation and they're coating it to sped and they're nons sped fits they're probably in town as well I suppose and part of that was because we don't have sidewalks and things to get there I don't I don't know yeah okay so when we can get more things organized to be able to say here's what we know this is is this piece it's this piece it's this piece then I think without you know breaking that confidentiality for student thing we we give out that big information we're still in discovery mode trying to figure it out trying to figure out try a plan that we can think might work if we could hire people

119but we don't know who those people are it's still big picture planning now are you're talking across the board now hire people yeah I I I went back to we're sorry are do you guys need some help like is there's like someone who can come from I don't know Department of I would sayas if they hav been G it like can kind of help you sort of walk through figure out Stacy has called quite a few Department ofed we just had I Gentry out today to AA special ed Consultants out um their resources that we've talked to um we've asked them questions and they went la la la la la don't hear this and it's like okay you know we've got to work on some things so we have to we have to do what

120we're supposed to be doing and we're I think it's just we're discovering it we didn't know any better it's just been what what our practice is been through the years we continue to do it but now the more we look into it know okay therapeutic program again we went started at special education then uh probably alternative head and then we went to the therapeutic program because we do have kids in that those programs that are on IEPs And Then There are kids that are in HS both classrooms uh are teachers that are special ed teachers and we ping them out of sped funds but they also have kids that are on that aren on so there's no comps there right and then any other staff that works in those programs if you pay them out

121of sped we're not using that SP funding correctly do that all make sense kind of yeah you know so some of the students who are being selected for the therapeutic programs don't have any IEPs at all is what I me told that's according to law so I believe that they can be General in the therapeutic that is true the promote that but it could be kids that aren't on an IP and then it's also opportunities for kids that aren't identified because they should have access to that kind of support therapeutic he and so that is fine that's the the way the program's designed except that the funding and the fact that the teachers are sped teachers is where we're running into an issue which is probably contributing to our special education deficit and so they

122should actually be funded out of the general fund which you know is got a lot of pressure on it but isn't a therapeutic program considered spit no no not if you're it's designed to not be that okay okay so do you see how the worms got open because we were trying to find how can we do we do we need to add more teachers do we need to change our products do we need to add programs what do we need to do to provide faith for these kids that are going out it just started there and then it just kept going layers out I don't know enough to know and maybe Lisa can track this but I don't know enough when we added all of these programs you know we had a lot of pots

123of money Co coming out you know and it was just kind of oh well we can fund it through atris through S through special ed and so yeah it it sounds like it needs to be straight out we did have a lot of building money and now we can't sustain it the other piece is with that therapeutic program Grant what a cool thing right it's it's a grant we know we have a need for it the grant does not cover any salaries it covers the classroom if we want to add stuff to the classroom it covers the classroom but it doesn't cover any staff salary ores or anything so we still have money sitting in that therapeutic Grant we haven't used how do you know how much Lisa 184,000 that we have left the the

124way the grant the therapeutic Grant was written to well it can be written for a lot of way I think this District kind of wrote it to help support those students who maybe don't get individualized and education plan so to help those kids maybe just having a bad day kind of thing so um James and I both were a part of kind of that Grant when I started and we kind of both sat through the webinar and listened to them and kind of went through here's what you can spend it on and so we kind of had a plan I think we did pretty good the first year of spending money on on the things that teachers needed that could be used as therapy pieces um we tried to also set up some classroom spaces

125or Open Spaces where stud had a place to um decompress decompress things like that so I think we we really had good intentions and I think we still do I think when James and I have talked we have good plans to use that money so I don't see it that that the nice thing about it is they paid you all first and that's not usually how grants but because it's a Federal grant they do those differently we can't apply for the grant again until we spend it all and so um it's we once we get this spent then we can reapply and then you can kind of write the grant differently I know some people did write the grant for salaries and benefits to like fund a therapist um we just didn't at this District

126so it was written more to support to support an already strong Therapy Program and so we used it as a support mechanism so it doesn't have salaries and benefits that comes out of it but we're able to do a lot of good things with it it was a $229,000 grant that we received and so we still have quite a bit left yeah a lot of it was supposed to go to um help with some construction cost at the center yeah um so such as I mean give some examples James so they were going to put in I mean they I they were going to put like a different office and put some more construction like have another quiet area I want to say they're going to do redo like the kitchen and the kitchen that

127area as well so that they could have so that's more structural right yeah so and that was just part that piece and when we got the therapeutic gr we were under the impression that everything we're doing I mean I I I guess what we're doing I thought is what the intent of the grant is so what we're doing now is the intent of what we're supposed to we are yeah okay specifically specifically said that we could the time it said we couldn't apply or it couldn't shouldn't I guess maybe might have be applied to salaries yeah that's what I was kind of remember they wanted it to be for program startup C was the idea I did heard a couple other schools that wrote it in such a way that they were using it at

128because they didn't have a therapist or they wrote it as a contractual service because they I'm just gonna say on contract hired a therapist but they didn't go through like salaries they didn't like they brought a therapist on site and so they used that money let rephrase that they used that money for a salary but it was a contractual do we have that option for contractual Services because we do have some entity about we could look at how the grants I don't remember James and I were part of that somebody somebody should review it I mean instead of just sitting on that money we should try to figure out we can look we have the docent for and we've reviewed it um like we've been meaningfully reviewing it and kind of more waiting for the

129construction to happen so we know P what money is left over for what's the next piece of it okay yeah and I think that's then where the Architects kind of came in play to see what they could do with that space okay moving forward uh you just to the boards where we still reviewing the whole sped funding at risk funds programs staff student needs all those things we're still in that big picture overview um but again I feel like you we have to give approval at the next board meeting but I feel like you are supporting that additional hire we're advertising for it um we think it's our best plan we talking the level three well we know the high school you've already done that last year we didn't get a filed at the next

130board I'll have it on the agenda for the board to approve us hiring an additional sped at they'll entry right but she was asking what level is that a level three it kind of depends El you know if the I don't know do we have don't we have a level three out there right now yeah okay we do I um but last level threes can be a level one and I don't know you have sometimes staff that you have you shi if needed because you got hire I don't know we're looking for a level two is what we're looking for that's our wish list at the elementary and we need a level three at Washington is that what a be Behavior program at Washington I mean I'm just saying I think we because I don't

131think we have that at we don't yeah we don't we don't have a level we don't two level two we think to level two we're also looking at making sure that we're working towards compliance with the Department of bed laws um I mean that's that's a good it's it's just a given um and then the last little piece that I have in there just you know this so you're where the funding and that's part of the word stewardship it's just the whole funding they making sure I think I picked up on the board wants us to work towards reducing you know this overage in sped and at risk and they might go hand inand if we reduce one maybe it's going to affect the other but I think with the at risk funds we need

132to stay within the the funded budget if we go over I think I'll come back to the board and ask we're going to be over it's a projected budget are you willing to put general fund money towards that and again the more we spend out of the general fund it affects salary increases next year and we haven't really I'm surprised I here we are in February we have not had any like discussions about that so anytime that we go over our fund amount our budgeted fund amount because you're given that money it comes right out of the general fund which comes out of that pot of money that we have ready for next year's salary increases for everybody we're trying to protect that the board was so good last year 6% increase rates for every

133that was awesome I don't know of any other District at all they were asking Lisa some of the the meetings like what is going on how'd you guys do it how'd you figure it out finding everything through special ed all so um we want to we want to keep this process going that sure we're we're managing the money correctly and we do want to make sure we take care of the kids and then pay in our stack we can't L traid that yeah um so one program that you didn't talk about and I it's just top of mind because we mentioned it before is tag um is that being unfolded into yeah so that was one of the ones I talked about last I was gonna P it but I thought no I got a

134lot to talk yeah that's good news um Stacy Schmid has been working on it she um has been looking into what other programs are doing what the state department recommends for the tag she has a rough threat presentation that I was going to have her share tonight and I thought that's another 20 minutes but it's pretty good it's pretty good so she's got a plan in place that she thinks is is a good start great sound good that help out yeah they're coming up it just redefines the vision the mission and then we just the action that we need to do to get to that nice I like it it's preview coming up she can send it to you in thre for you want to look at it um is that it for you board

135any other questions about all the stuff well I'm going to say um the last week week and a half I spent I talked to a lot of people here just trying to learn about you know what was happening and what people were doing and you know we have robust programs going on and I feel like I didn't do justice to anything I mean we touched on a lot of different things but I would recommend that y' all or even if you guys would email and tell us things that we missed tonight I don't know I just yeah so your takeaway is that we have a lot of everybody and everybody was so passionate and full of um you know we've got to do better for kids and not that we aren't doing good for kids

136but um it was just a I appreciate everybody opening up to me and talking about it yeah so that's great thank you that was my assignment yeah and and we I can make a bigger connection and say you know that I mean that's at the center of all of this conversation I know that of necessity we're having to talk about the funding and we're having to talk about compliance and um you know courts ordering kids to be driven an hour and a half away and all this stuff but you know at the center of it is our students and um that you know I think about how passionate I get about wanting better for our students and then I think how much more that must be the case for those Beau are with them every

137day and um you know are in their lives and um how much you must want better for them and you know that's that's what's motivating us and so I'm glad to be having these conversations and just appreciate having um having staff and board members uh who are engaged and um are all doing doing our best every day so all right is everybody can you take a motion to a jour all in favor hi um our next meeting will be March 12 that'll be a regular board meeting right what did no I didn't get a second I like oh Jos I know I did I know I thought I could decide if you wanted me to vote or I looked up and I'm like yeah more she didn't say anything D it he tells me just

138so I