Board of Education Special Meeting - January 19, 2026

001Make sure she's ready. >> Okay. The board is reconvening into open session and the time is 5:34 p.m. The board is asked to consider the application for open enrollment exit. Do we have a motion to approve the open enrollment exit application of the identified student submitted on November 13th, 2025? >> So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Those supporting the motion to approve, please respond by saying I. >> Those opposed say nay. Okay. Motion passes. We will now move on to administration. The first item in the final proposal of the budget strategy. The the first item is the final proposal of the budget strategy. Before turning the meeting over, I want to remind everyone that all documents and recommendations are posted on our district website. You are all able to view

002those documents from past meetings and access the latest proposals being presented tonight. We will now hear from the administration. Sorry, you want me to introduce that? >> Okay, we we will begin with a presentation and an update from the community coalition. So, I'll introduce Caleb Klaus, who is a teacher um facilitator at Jefferson High School, but also a member of the uh community coalition. He was there on Wednesday. We have another meeting um tomorrow, but he'll give you an update of where we are and where we're going. >> All right. So, like you said, Kayla class work at Jefferson High School. Um as part of our meeting on Wednesday, uh our community coalition, which is again just a collection of community and staff members, um got together to look at some of the reconfiguration plans

003that were presented previously. Uh but then we were also tasked with trying to get creative and come up with some additional solutions. Um, ultimately what we started with was looking at some of the survey results and seeing what our community and families valued, looking at the previous reconfiguration models and then again trying to get creative, trying to see if there are any options out there that weren't considered previously um that maybe should be considered or thought about. Um, as you can see up on the board, there are some of the examples that are are uh provided there. Ultimately after these ideas were kind of gathered and brainstormed as a collective group, we were asked to kind of split up into groups um with one person kind of champion uh championing each group and then to

004figure out some of the more specifics with those reconfigurations, coming up with the advantages and disadvantages. Um, and ultimately just trying to get all of the ideas out there as far as each of those reconfiguration models go. Um, looking at some of the survey results from the members that attended, um, the first question that was asked is it did you feel like your voice was heard and valued? Um, looking at the results, over 70% of the members that attended or completed the survey uh, completed with a four or higher on a scale of five, feeling that their voices were heard. Uh when asked about next steps, many of them wish to continue this work to kind of refine and continue the the plans with the reconfigurations um leaning into the specifics and logistics asking to

005look at numbers. Uh and then many of them called for the reconfiguration or possibly looking at some of the boundary lines. Um, as far as this group and the next steps, I think it's exactly that of looking at these plans and the reconfiguration models and then trying to narrow down which ones would best serve our community. That's all I got. Yeah. >> All right. And so the uh proposed timeline here that we'll um review and obviously open to um feedback would be we wanted a big solid. there's no consolidation for the 2627 school year. Um we're propo proposing that all of the cons recon or the consolidation conversation is talking about fall implementation in fall of 27. Um with the pause being um there to to allow for planning um and execution when it comes

006um February 9th board action. We're asking to approve a proposed plan that we can then take out to the community for feedback and review. Um a final decision would then be made in April based on the feedback we received through our spring engagements at school sites and in the community. Um and then tonight um would be uh a conversation just on budget reductions um that will will focus the the conversation here. Any questions on timeline or the community coalition? >> I think we'll have time to discuss the timeline yet. This is a proposed timeline. this isn't necessarily something that we well we're not voting on anything tonight um regarding that. Um I do want to at least offer if I know we had at least four board members at that meeting if anybody wants to

007share any insights from that meeting or takeaways. Um we we have a little bit of time to do that. I'm I was not able to be there. So um I I I have heard great things about the meeting and that a lot of um creativity went into those different models that we saw up there. So, if anybody wants to say anything, this is this is an opportunity to do so. >> I'll just say, so I was in in attendance um last week and I just uh it was really great to get a bunch of people together in a room just to hash some of this out. Um there were a couple of ideas that came up and um folks decided that this actually wasn't just going to make sense because of just the way they

008reconfigured everything. um and you had your proponents of the certain models who were able to advocate for um their thoughts. I just thought it was a really great opportunity to open this up to the community and to get some good feedback and really have an open dialogue. I think there's no we know that I think everyone is on board from the community coalition knowing that there are things that need to happen in this district and school consolidation needs to occur. It's the matter of how we do it and giving that community input has been really great. So, thank you to all who are here who attended that meeting. >> I I'm I'm excited for the meeting tomorrow night because I think all of these groups are going to get to pitch their idea and try

009to convince the rest of them that they had the best idea. So, I'm really looking forward to that. Um, as director Burnt said, some of the ideas seemed uh like really interesting and we need to ponder them and some of them I think the people who were putting them forward said, "Oops, this maybe is a little more difficult to meet all these criteria." But I'm looking forward to tomorrow. >> Yeah. And I'll just reiterate those sentiments. I I think that people understand change is coming and that change is necessary. But what we heard um and what the what we're feeling is that we also want those voices at the table. These are foundational systemic changes with lasting impact. We want to make sure that we are listening to community voice that we are putting ideas

010out there. we exploring all the different alternatives that uh we could consider before we move forward that would make all of us feel uh better and we just as a community can walk in this in this process together um with some of our um principles at the helm. So I I felt really good about the meeting. Um I there were so many great ideas. It's sort of the environment where I thrive. So I I was happy to be there. I thought it was interesting um that people were thinking we've been talking a lot about elementary school closures. um like what does that look like maybe for middle school or high school buildings and what are the cost savings attached to that. So I'll um point to you know where there were just there were some

011interesting discussions around um you know the K8 but also um consolidating to two high school model and what that could look like. So I was in on that conversation kind of um listening in and I think it's a good reminder for us to just really be open to all the considerations because we aren't just thinking the here and now. We're thinking many years in the future and truly what's going to be best for our kids. >> Yeah, I'll be quick cuz I know we have a lot of other stuff to talk about tonight, but uh I've really appreciated the energy in the room. Uh I thought it was a great exercise. I too look forward to uh tomorrow night and hearing the pitches uh that come from uh our different groups uh for these different

012models and the discussion around you know what makes them uh feasible, what might make them a challenge. Um and to have that conversation um I know we can talk about the schedule a little bit later. I do think it'd be interesting to have a conversation about you know what if there's two models we want to bring forward to discuss and that or or three. I you got to you got to limit it at some point. And I also recognize that I mean we get emails saying slow down and I get emails saying you got to make this decision fast and and so we're going to have to find that that middle ground there to make make these decisions. But um uh again I'm looking forward to having that conversation too and maybe thinking about how

013we take what comes out of this and make sure that's part of our discussion here at the table. So thank you. >> Thank you. Any other comment from board members? Okay, wonderful. And I would just say that it it was great to hear um the lived experiences of the parents and their just their exposure. And I found myself going around to like the different malls like, "Oh, I like a little piece of that. I like a little piece of that." So, it's going to be interesting to see. We might have our own Cedar Rapids model. Who knows? By the time they get finished. Thank you all so much for being a part of that work. Tonight, um, as was indicated, we are going to focus on the budget reductions. I'm going to provide, well, Julie,

014you want to give us maybe a little bit of instructions before we go so I can stay on track? >> Sure. I'm happy to just share a protocol that we'll use today to go through the strategic budget realignment, which we all know to be the the cost-saving recommendations that you've been seeing reported and that we've been talking about at the meeting. So, tonight we'll begin with Dr. Lannon's executive summary and that's really to walk us all through the full set of the proposed cost-saving recommendations. She's going to review all of those and our goal is to have that highle overview of those to create additional shared understanding of final recommendations. We will go deeper into the ELSC reductions and realignment because that is something that you've seen before with a dollar amount attached but no

015additional information. So, we'll be able to go deeper into that today, as well as uh salary increase proposals. Uh so, we're going to go all the way through all of that. Then, when we're done with that, we're going to circle back to the beginning and that's when we'll be able to have the board discuss and and we'll go one item at a time for additional questions. you do have a graphic organizer in front of you, uh, board directors, so that you can continue to capture questions that you still have remaining after after cycling back through. One more thing I wanted to mention is that on each of the slides, as we go item by item, there's also going to be a gauge. So, the public and staff have heard about our change management system. And

016so what you'll see at the top is the percentage of staff that rated that a three or a four. There's a scale, a one, a two, a three, or a four. So that three and four is more on the favorable side clearly than the one or the two. So what you'll see is a gauge. If there's not a gauge on there with a percentage, it means that that is something that didn't go through change management. I believe there's two of those. One would be special education, and you're going to get an update on that tonight on a pause around that. and then also the the ELC recommendations because we didn't have enough information at that time. So for everything else, there will be a gauge that will show you favorability which means they scored a

017three or a four. >> Okay, wonderful. I I just want to start tonight by acknowledging the the weight of this moment and really just thanking everyone for just deep participation in the process. And these conversations, they touch people's lives. They touch schools that feel like family. Staff who've given everything they have to our students and parents who want to know their children are safe, supported, and seen. I know emotions are high and I want to say that um we see you, we hear you. Um and even though we're having tough conversations, um what began as a budget discussion became something deeper. It became a conversation about how we care for our system and how we ensure our students have strong learning envir environments, meaningful experiences every day in our school district and better outcomes for

018our students, not just this year but years ahead. I want to share how we approach this work in Cedar Rapids Community School District because how decisions are made matters just as much as the decisions themselves. This year, we made a very conscious shift away from traditional reactive budgeting process. Instead of waiting for the shortfalls and responding after the fact, we chose to slow down, tell the truth, and expand the table. We listened more. We asked harder questions and we invited our community in to the realities and the tradeoffs before decisions were locked in. Our goal is to ensure that our community is equipped with the facts. They're empowered to weigh in and engaged in the decisions that impact our students. These signs represent our core values. So, let me briefly name what that looked like

019in practice. We began by understanding our enrollment and our revenue reality, including what is changing and what is ahead. We listen closely to students and staff, learning what they are experiencing in our schools every day. We examine programs and systems cost so decisions were grounded in realities not assumptions. We identified priorities based on students needs not convenience. We were honest about the tradeoffs and then hopefully in some cases they would be trade ups that new things will come to the table as a result of this. We gather extensive community and staff inputs through surveys through meetings and coalition work like you heard tonight. And we are here tonight for the board deliberation and decision with clear options presented publicly. This process included more than 17,000 engagement touch points. We heard from educators, families, students, community

020members. We had over 1,400 responses in the last two weeks from staff who weighed in on very specific proposals in our change management system. That input, it mattered. it directly influenced where we looked, where we reconsidered, and what we are recommending tonight. I also want to be clear about the scope of this evening in terms of focusing on balancing our budget. We're not discussing um the reconfiguration as we mentioned, but it's important to know that in this space that we are being proactive as we look to our budget deficit. It is driven by the following. $4 million in the current deficit spending, $4.5 million in anticipated enrollment loss, $4.8 in potential teacher and salary raises, and $2.8 million um in staffing that remains the same. All of these are proactive ways that we look at

021how we make things happen for our staff and students. In addition, we know that we want to support our fine arts as well as behavioral supports and supports for our large elementary schools, which is long overdue. We are planning responsibly for what we know is coming so that we're not forced into more painful decisions later. So, as I walk through the slides tonight, just please note that leadership moments like this, it requires humility, honest, and shared responsibility. I want to say thank you to our board of education because you are doing that. You embrace this process and especially to our new members walking into some of your very first decisions here as a board and the real impact that is going to have on our students tonight. So now I would like to start with

022uh the budget reductions, the recommendations that um you've seen these a couple of times. I'm going to go through all of the summaries as Jillian mentioned. They will have come back and then we will walk through uh your questions and discussions and we do have our subject matter experts that will be here uh to go into more details. Let's start with consulting and contracted services. We have listened to the feedback and we are recommending a $2.2 million total reduction in consulting spending. This includes fully eliminating the $1.8 million instructional empowerment contract and shifting to a train the trainer model to be a sustainable internal expertise uh with our staff members for student agency in the classroom. for mentoring and induction. We are bringing the teacher in induction program inhouse staffed by our own expert Cedar

023Rapids Community School District personnel instead of contracting with Grantwood AA. Grantwood AA is a strong partner with us. However, this strategic moves allows us to retain our talented coaches right here in our school district, giving us a significant savings of $485,000 annually. Curriculum purchases. We are recommending temporarily pausing largecale purchases of curriculum for one year to provide immediate physical relief as well as an opportunity for our teachers as as they have asked us to go deeper into the learning of the things that are already on their plates. This results in a saving of over a million dollars. This pause will allow us to prioritize our immediate needs while still relying on teachers who have been involved in the decision making process so far to help inform our next steps. Behavior supports and mental health community

024partners. Mental health and behavior supports is a major focus area for the Cedar Rapids Community School District. We are committing to supporting our students well-being by continuing to allocate $750,000 for our community partners. This results in a Z reduction for community partners that has been taken off the table. Special education, you know, I really appreciate the feedback that we received last week. We are proposing at this time that um we're not looking for cuts in our special education uh budget. We are looking to better support our students in special education. And so taking the time to really understand what is the impact to uh our special education as we work through programming um if indeed we have savings that exist because we do not want to approve a deficit budget. But our focus is really

025on our students and making sure we have the right program. I really do appreciate that comment. Um we had a parent that come last week. I believe uh it was Melissa Melissa Bureau. I believe that she is a parent from Cleveland and I took that to heart when she said we should provide a special education impact report. Um RAS is leading that effort and he'll be prepared to come back um by March to provide the information and next steps for special education. So we're taking that off the table for now. Grantwood A.ea contracts. By leveraging the flexibility provided by the state, the district is now utilizing its own staff to provide media and educational consulting services that were previously handled by the A.E.A., resulting in a significant savings of $487,000. Software, we're looking at a

026$300,000 savings. And as you can see, this was highly supported by our change management by eliminating low engagement software and reducing redundancies travel. By implementing a district-wide pre-approval process for out ofstate travel, we can achieve an estimated savings of $250,000 in savings directly impacting our physical health. food related purchases. We are recommending an end to the use of general funds for snacks and beverages at staff meetings. This is a symbolic and practical step that will save $75,000 annually and ensure that every taxpayer dollar is focused directly on instruction where it belongs. our backpack and supplemental funding recommendation. We're just asking that we continue to have our same per pupil amount and we are recommending a reduction of $28,000 in the supplemental staffing allocation. This change established a predictable and sustainable model by directly basing these

027allocations on enrollment and free and reduced price lunch percentages. This is the same process we always use and it would just be reccalibrated each year based on enrollment. Our building budgets are also based on enrollment. Again, it allows us to have predictable funding in these particular areas. So, the amount listed here of $103,000 across all building budgets is a reduction that's based strictly on enrollment. our staffing model which we know that the majority of our budget is within our staffing. So in order for us to make sure that we have balanced staffing across the district uh we are implementing our second year of our staffing model to address current enrollment realities and to avoid future financial instability. the district is right sizing and this is a process that we would go through each year and

028so I think it's great that we come here to have these conversations based on our current enrollment u we're looking at um 33.3 FTE um that would be adjusted based on specific class size caps and is estimated at a $2.8 million savings. I do want to note that you have our class size ratios um there for you as well as just also noting that we do take another look at in May, June and July um because enrollment shifts they happen even after we run our first uh count and we will continue to work alongside our principles to make sure that they have the appropriate support um as appropriate based on the model. innovative programming, consolidating alternative learning programs, City View, Iowa Big, our virtual academy in high school under the City View umbrella and relocating

029them to the ELSC will streamline operations, create a more efficient one-stop shop for families, and save the district a minimum of $215,000 in facility cost. Um, and this is a conversation we want to make sure that we also have with our families um, impacted here, but we would be so excited to bring those programs here to the ELSC. Personify Health and Wellness due to low participation which is under 18% and no measurable impact on insurance costs or recruitment. The volunteer wellness program um is where we will be making a change here, but we remain committed to employee wellness and will shift focus to promoting other existing comprehens comprehensive benefits and resources. Um that is at no additional cost to the district, a reduction of $116,000. the insurance stipen recommendation. Um I I would say this

030is one that we heard the concerns of our staff clearly. Um because this impacts their take-home pay and family stability. Um we want to slow down here. I learned some things even today about how insurance works. Um just again with all the questions and thank you to the board. I think probably I heard questions from every board member here uh in regards to that and I think it's imperative that we try to think of a process that doesn't bring harm to our um staff members. At the same time, it focuses um in a way for the greater good of all of our staff members um specifically because we're now self-funded with our insurance. And so it just gives us another opportunity to learn more about how that works. And I think the board deserves that

031um as well as the community so we can make an informed decision. So we're asking that we develop a task force to really look at our insurance and then we can come back and discuss when we have more information. So zero um reduction there um at this time. So now I think that brings us to the ELSC reductions um which uh this will be our first night kind of going in depth into the ELSC where we know that we've heard quite a bit of information as it relates to the ELSC. So I'm going to invite some of our team members uh up to the table to um maybe walk through a little bit about the ELSC. I think that's helpful. We have a lot of questions and understanding what what that all means and who

032it all is and what we do and what it costs and all the things. And again, it's been a great opportunity to talk with Tammy. It's great to have some people that's been here a long time because they have a lot of rich information to provide. So, at this time, I'll turn it over to Tammy and Derry. >> Thank you, Dr. Lman, and for the board for allowing me to share another historical moment with Dr. Warro. Um Justin, if you could the the first piece is just to talk about who is in the ELSC. We talk about this building like it's not a living breathing organism and it really is. There are a lot of people that represent um indirect and direct services to our students and to our staff. They are in all of

033these departments. Um, and I don't need to read them off for you, but you can dive in and say, "Oh, um, I would add that pre flood we were divided around our community. The bus barn was here, transportation was here, the the warehouse was over on G off of Ellis, and so we were spread out. Um, and this was a a historical moment to be able to come together in one location for a variety of reasons and to land that we did all. So, when it comes to um my my piece here tonight, I want to begin by being very clear. My purpose is that I'm speaking only from a historical perspective um about superintendent cabinet structure. I'm not offering judgment about which structure has worked best, nor am I advocating for any model, but

034cabinet structure in this district has ebbed and flowed, and you'll see that in just a minute. Um, it has been in response to district needs, as I said, with the flood, different grants that we've had. Um, I can speak to the history from this both from the documentation that I've been pouring over as well as my own experience. I served on the superintendent's cabinet in 2010 until 12 under Dr. Benson before I took another position. So, um, even myself, I have ebbed employed in this district. The purpose of cabinet um is on the the next slide but just grounding ourselves into what is the role of cabinet. They advise their the confidants to our superintendent. They assure alignment. Um they translate the board direction into our system level implementation like what you want. Here's how

035we get there. And they look at risks, compliance, resource alignment, all of that. But then they also are able to bring feedback back up to our superintendent. They're out in buildings. They're out with people. And so that that structure goes both ways. But it's not a governance body and it's not the only place where leadership happens in this district. We have a really strong teacher leadership program and there are leaders in many other faces. So I don't want anybody to think that cabinet are our only leaders or our only leaders in this building. So go ahead, Justin. I thought it was interesting to look at the actual cabinet layout over time. And I just went back to um 0506. And what you have there are the number of people that a superintendent decided to have

036on their cabinet. I then put in the superintendent just to kind of give us some thought processes where we're at. And you'll see that Dr. Buck was actually um it in that cabinet included deputy superintendent and associate superintendent and the addition of two directors of culture and climate and transformation. And then under superintendent Norine Bush, the district made several significant and deliberate structural changes. First, she expanded the school-based leadership. I didn't know how else to word that, but she went from two executive directors that work directly with our schools to three, the elementary, middle, and high. And that started in the 1920 school years. Those three school-f facing roles are what we now recognize as the area chiefs. Um, that same period also included Superintendent Bush's decision to remove the CRA president from cabinet. And

037it's important to note that that role is a teacher position, not an administrative one, but they were on the cabinet until that time. So I want to be very transparent though that role still is at the ELSC and remains here as a part of district leadership. They just don't sit on cabinet. Similarly, the executive director of special services is another example of that where the role was removed from cabinet in 23, but the work of that leadership continues to be housed within and engaged here. So, there are a couple people that were that moved, but are still here within the building. and they are both intentional decisions about where leadership roles best fit within the district leadership and collaboration structures by two different superintendents. So across all these years and all the superintendents, what the

038data shows is intentional design. Cabinet roles have been added, removed, retitled, consolidated, and redistributed based on the district needs and the leadership philosophy at the time. Remember, I'm not a member of the current cabinet and my role today is focused on recruitment and retention and on helping all staff understand the value they bring to the district. But I'm sharing this historical perspective because I have the experience of seeing the structural changes over time where it's very clear to me it you need to dive in and look at it. And we have pictures and charts that represent all of it and you can kind of see how it really did eb and flow. My intent here is to provide context, clarify anything that might need. Um, but so the combination about cabinet structures are grounded in

039facts and history and so that staff across the system can trust that change in structure has long been a part of how our district evolves. I think that's my last little piece of that. Justin, there we go. This is not mine. Nope. Darren. >> All right. All right. Thank you, Dr. Wro. Um, all right. So, um, like Dr. Wro said, we're here to provide context and kind of a history and what, uh, business services, um, are operated out of the ELSC building. Um, so here you have a 5-year history of the various departments um that operate and are considered um, the ELSC building is considered all of these positions, a primary work site. Um even though we do have many different work groups that are represented here in this building. Um we have our teacher

040work group, carpenters, painters, um secretaries, uh non-meat and confer and administrators. So this is not only um just administrative district costs. This is um everybody that works out of here. We have teacher leaders um that are a part of the area groups um you know our our um building operations houses our um uh building uh maintenance teams um you know carpenters um electricians out of that department. Um and then you know so you can kind of see you know the the history and where we've been as far as total cost. Um and this is salary cost. So you can see we kind of peaked in FY24 at 14.6 million. Uh since then in the last two years uh we have reduced EOSC uh salaries by about a million dollars. Um and that is about uh

04117 FTE over that period as well. And that is also taking into consideration negotiated uh salary increases. So um so we've still been able to make that effort um while balancing salary increases over that time as well. Um you can also see there are a lot of departments that didn't used to exist that do exist now and that was and that's kind of a restructure as far going into our area model. So we used to have our OL department. You can see um you know we were in the 40s um and years prior um that was our office of um learning and leadership and you know the new restructure uh with the area model you can see you know we have the the new departments up there um the innovation and research. Um so that

042is made up now of digital learning and uh communications. So that's why you see some columns disappearing while um new columns uh popping up there. Um so that's really a overview of the salaries in this building um without getting into exact um job description titles and people. So um we can get into the next slide here. This is what we call our operating costs here at the ELSC building. Um, so I will say this isn't just this isn't the cost to run only this building. Um, so I'll throw out some examples here. So building operations, um, you can see I guess back up a step. So you can see over time as a whole, uh, the ELC operating budget has declined year-to-year. Um you can see uh that it has dropped um by about $1.5

043million since um it peaked in FY23. Um and last year uh going through budget cuts knowing that um we had to make some reductions kind of districtwide. uh the ELSC building and the the uh department managers um put in a lot of effort in what we what we call the strategic budget plan. We essentially built a zerobased budget model. So departments had to build their budgets from the ground up rather than getting an allocation and deciding um how they were going to spend. So through that effort, we were able to cut what we the ELSC um operating expenditures by about I think it was 8.3 um% um about $1 million. Um, so getting into what we call the ELSC operating budgets, um, most of these expenses, I would say over 80% of these expenses go

044to directly support and impact our, um, campus buildings and our student learning, um, building operations. Um, about $5 million of that 6 million budget is um, energy costs. So, we're talking um you know, electricity, water, gas for every single building across the district. We just call that that's part of their uh operating budget because their department manages those bills. Uh they manage our energy costs. They look for um you know, how to be um efficient with our our buildings, be uh more green. Um so um if we look at uh instruction and student services for instance so you can see that that has uh been increasing over time and a lot of that is um due to um our concurrent enrollment or our um uh Kirkwood uh courses that we offer to our students. Um,

045so that has been a priority for the district uh through our uh college and career readiness and to be able to offer our students opportunities um to take college courses and um to to graduate with that and one um so you can see as we've you know kind of increased costs there and again we call that a ELSC expense because um our off our academics office manages that enrollment. Uh they manage the uh stats and the tracking uh to make sure that we get proper uh supplemental waiting uh through state funding. Um so a lot of this does go directly to the students directly to the campus buildings. Um but it's just managed within this building. Um but you know still as we've increased costs and instruction we're having to find ways to offset that

046elsewhere. Um which you can see in the energy costs we've tried to make great efforts in different areas to offset increasing expenses across the district. All right. And then this is really uh just a a summary of um the trend. Um, so the last two slides are uh just kind of compacted in this bar chart here. Uh, so you can I know it's hard to see because we're dealing with large numbers here, but um the bottom bar is salaries. So you can see that trend of salaries has decreased. Um, all of these bars have um compacted a little bit and uh we've reduced cost um excluding the instructional and student services. Um, so, um, make sure I'm not missing anything here. Um, so I guess, uh, to kind of summarize this and put some percentages

047behind this as well, um, our salaries as a percentage of, um, overall district salaries. Um, and FY22 was the peak at about 10.28% 28% um was the ELSC um salaries compared to the overall um current fiscal year we have dropped so it was 10.28 we've dropped to 9.26% 26%. Um, and then if we're looking at the ELSC, all those departments and salaries combined, um, back in FY22, um, the ELSC made up about 12% of the overall general fund budget. Current fiscal year that those ELSC expenditures make up about 10.27% of the overall budget. Um, so I think that kind of wraps up um, our historical here. I know this. So, we're not doing the reduction part of this. So, I'm not sure who's doing that. If you have any questions about that piece, about what

048we just talked about where the microphone is, but I guess she's asking if you have questions before I get into the reductions, just anything you heard about the numbers or just the history of the ELSC, the parts that they presented on Does this one work? Okay. Just for clarity around how we're doing this because there's been a lot that we've been we've seen slide by slide. Are we uh President Newman breaking it down like having a conversation about about each individual item? Are we diving right into ELSC? I just wanted to make sure um so we can direct questions and um feedback appropriately. >> This does seem like a natural break to ask some of the questions. I think if we wait till the end, we're going to lose some of our questions. So >>

049for the >> Yep. if you want to. So, right now, let's let's talk about ELSC reductions while we have Tammy and Derek up there if that's otherwise we'll hold those questions and we'll we'll go over those. Okay. Um there's a lot lot going on here. Okay. So, I think something to just kind of recenter on is you know we keep hearing the community scream reduce ELSC reduce ELSC. also recognizing that um everybody who works here also are people with families and roles, right? That um so I just want to center with that and be really sensitive to to this conversation. Um so I'm just trying to get more knowledge and this is really helpful to get knowledge around, you know, who are the people at the ALSC, what does that look like, what does it

050look like over time. I think that's really helpful um to have that side by side. Um and also recognizing that some of the people in the ALSC are on teacher contracts, right? So they're they're paid the same as um individuals who are in our schools. So just it looks different across the ELSC and there's different supports for different reasons and that's all important to understand. So um I just would love to get a sense of how we went through this process move a little bit more in depth. I know a lot has happened quickly and so if you can provide more clarity whoever was involved um on how we collected feedback, who was involved, how we made these determinations or decisions um what did that look like? >> Okay, that's not going to be them.

051I just wanted to make sure that you have any questions about what they presented in regards to the ELSC. You want to go back. She just talked about the history, how many people sit on cabinet, what the budget has looked like over the years for the ELSC. So that's the part. Then I'm getting ready to cover the actual reductions. This was just to level set everyone with an understanding of the ELSC. >> Fair. >> Yeah. Okay. >> I I just want to make one comment about the physical structure that and Tammy alluded to it and if you've been in this community for a while, you remember that that the flood of 2008 took out many of our district buildings um office buildings and so the decision was made by that board back in >> nine

052okay to use the FEMA money and build this structure that included all of the services in one place as Tammy said transportation was here warehouse was somewhere else uh the like the carpenter shop was in a different location. The ESC was in a different spot. There were actually there was the ESC, there was the annex that was across the street. So we were in multiple buildings around the city. So bringing all the services here was a distinct advantage. We did own this land and so we brought everything here. I would I don't know the exact number and maybe someone here does, but FEMA paid for most of this building. 12.5 million was FEMA dollars. >> Okay, there we go. And I'll I'll be completely upfront. I was mad about it at the time, too. Uh

053because it seemed like a lot of money. Um but we can't go back and undo that decision that was made. And I think we'll have a discussion about how we could maybe better use this facility. Uh but I just there is some history there. Decisions were made and we will make the best of those decisions. Tammy, is there a number like so the buildings that were consolidated to come here? I mean, as you drive around town, some of them are still standing, right? They're repurposed, but how many buildings were they that then got consolidated into the work that's being done here? >> Derek, I believe there were five. >> Five. I'm going to say five when you count the annex, the the warehouse, transportation, our building, and the carpenters piece. So all of that came

054together to be one. Mhm. >> I just had one quick question and I don't know if we can go back to this slide is the first one the historical cabinet cost and context slide with the bars on it. The light blue bars right there. Could you um help us out with what the dollar figure numbers are on that? >> That's the cost of the actual cabinet level members, just the cabinet people. So the 15 people under um Superintendent Bush, that's the cost of that cabinet. >> Is that salary salary? >> Salary and benefits. >> And benefits. Okay. Thank you. >> Yes. >> Just salaries. Carla did that. Okay. I just put the number on my bar chart. So salaries, >> but it's all the same. It's apples to apples. >> Okay. Thank you so much.

055>> I just want to say thank you to everyone uh for your patience throughout this because this has been a huge conversation. We asked everybody to put all options on the table again to start the conversation around budgeting. Again, it really came down to how can we u be more streamlined and better for our students. And so really a lot of the conversations I would say that we're having conversations all the time. But for me starting the conversations with the talks with Tana was really very enlightening because to hear from our staff members firsthand um about the things that are going on in their schools every day and what they need. But oftentimes the ELSC it comes up too in a lot of the conversations. And I think we have a wonderful opportunity to continue

056to partner um with everyone within our organization and our community to understand who all works here and what they do and how we support students um and again uh making sure that that awareness is there. So in terms of the staff reductions and the process, we've had multiple uh opportunities to to really think through and I would say starting with the executive cabinet itself and challenging us to really think about how we best serve uh our campuses um and our staff members and also having an opportunity to really talk with our principles and our executive leadership team. We've done this a couple different ways um over the last couple of years. So last year we kind of surveyed uh the ELT team and asked them about the positions um here um on the executive cabinet

057and really at the ELSC especially from an administrative standpoint um which positions uh serve you best in which ways do they serve you? Um so we kind of went through that process. Uh this year we had a couple of opportunities. Number one uh we had an opportunity to go meet with uh CRA and thank you so much to uh Pete and Aris uh for inviting us over. we had a wonderful opportunity um in their exit ticket activity uh for that particular meeting really was about the ELSC and we had three very straightforward questions for them um asking them number one what are very essential services at the ELSC um that they wouldn't want to see disappear that really support them what are services they feel like um could be better supported at the campus level

058um and what position they like to just see go away like it's just like what's on people's mind what is this conversation really about? They gave us some really good feedback there. We kind of utilized that same process again over with our executive leadership team even latest last week. Um we talked about those same three questions. We also talked about the cabinet structure, the positions that were there, um, and got a lot of great feedback. And so it really did influence um, our decisions here. And, and I also want to say to the people that sit on cabinet, um, I don't know what people think about cabinet um, it's a lot of hard work and discussions um, that go into the roles that they're in, but also asking them too how we uh, best support,

059knowing that we need to reduce, we're the leadership team. um we're asking for reductions all across the school district. How are we going to reduce too, right? So, we had to get creative in understanding how different duties were going to be shift and again, how can we be better? I think that's what we're always striving for. And so, you can see that major themes from our principal feedback and our discussions really centered around the impact of students, staff, and logistics and really thinking about um the internal capacity that we have. So, I'm just going to walk through our recommendations for the cabinet realignment. And again, thank you, Tammy, for giving the historical context because oftent times I think that people believe that folks are hired to be on cabinet. You're not hired to be on

060cabinet. You're hired for a very specific role within the school district and the superintendent then determines who they'd like to sit on their cabinet. So, there are no extra dollars that you earn or anything like that just by sitting on the cabinet. Um but again and oftentimes the cabinet is kind of driven by what's going on in the district and what are your priorities and who do you need to hear from and those types of things like that as we've seen from time and time how that has changed under different administration. And so um with the cabinet realignment here are our recommendations here um is to reduce the cabinet level by one FTE knowing that we already reduced FTEEs last year. um and reducing from the chief of human resources. And I do want to

061note that for the chief of human resources, just because we're reducing that FTE, that has nothing to do uh with Mr. Ballard's leadership or the impact that he's had in the HR department. I personally want to be able to say that because I remember going over to Washington and asking him to come over to be a part of that to help us think about our culture within our HR department, our recruitment and our retention. and they have done some excellent work over there. Um our turnover rate um is down over in that particular office um as well as getting a grip on a lot of things that needed to be addressed. So I want to say thank you uh for your service Mr. Ballard uh in doing that and we're so fortunate uh to have

062you um and all of your experience that you brought from the campus around the cabinet table uh for those discussions. Um however when we think about between the finance office and the human resources and we've had to reach back and get some staff members from the finance um department over to the HR department to kind of the department to help us out. They work very closely uh together. So having that expertise, we're also in the middle of making sure that we can get um some software systems that can talk between those two departments and so they are in collaboration a lot and so that seems like a very logical place to do. However, uh thinking about operations was also attached to uh the finance uh team that we knew that that would be completely uh

063overwhelming and an opportunity to give some very specific attention to operations. And so operations will then move over into uh another department and that would be how we will realign the chief of innovation uh and research um role that we have and taking that role to make it the chief operating officer who will oversee data communications and operations. So we will see uh some of those changes there. So, we're reducing by one FTE um at a savings of $238,000 there and we are realigning. And again, this comes with a lot of feedback from our principles. And so as I get into further reductions for the ELSC, so a couple of things of what I feel like I heard from feedback from our staff, from our community, and the board. How much money can you cut

064from the ELSC? That's hard cash dollars. Cut it out of the budget. How much money? We originally committed to $500,000 in talking. Um, so we still heard, can they do more? Although you heard we just cut over a million dollars last year as well. The second bucket I feel like we heard was are there people resources that can be reallocated out to our campuses for support? And the third bucket I feel like I heard are there positions that can be housed at the campuses and they can still do their jobs but they are located in the building. So, I'm going to walk through each of those. In terms of the staff reductions, all of this is staff related at this particular time. You can see um a reduction in one chief position, one supervisor, and

065one specialist, one director. Three teacher leader positions and one nonadmin meet and confer uh positions. Of course, we did not put people's exact names. These are the FTE positions uh for the board's reference. That is a total of $988,653 reduction of ELSC staff in terms of reallocation into district priorities. So, thank you to our team um especially this was over um with Nicole and her team. They were able to reallocate $500,000 that we would typically use for professional learning. And we consider this to be a one-time bridge year uh here. Am I covering this with somebody? Oh, I got some other people that can help. All right, come on up. Um I think they're going to talk about this. Um but $500,000 that we can reallocate out to buildings. You all want to talk about

066your discussions around that and what that's going to look like. >> Yeah. So I'm Jennifer Nurin. I'm the principal at Trailside and that's one of the elementaryaries listed up there. So, one of conversations that we've been um having with different leadership is how can we provide support back at the larger elementarymentaries. I think um you've heard Dr. Lannon speak to that that that's been a conversation that's been long overdue. um since the beginning since West Willow, Maple Grove, um and Violet Gibson all came well Viola Gibson 20 years ago um just the pure size of those buildings has um granted us to have greater conversations about how can we better support um in those buildings. So through those conversations we've talked about what are the needs at those buildings. So for example um most of

067our elementaryaries of the four listed are near nearing 500 students um of capacity and with that we obviously have uh more staffing. So um more needs to evaluate our staff hiring of staff um supporting and coaching particularly like in the area of paras and the need for parah also um those school buildings given the size of them tend to have more special education um programming in those buildings thus meaning we have a higher percentage or excuse me not higher percentage pure number of students of that have IEPs and IEP meetings or 504s. Um, so typically an admin is supposed to be sitting on those or you hope that somebody in your building could be your LEA. So there's definitely a need um for supporting those um after school commitments and being a part of those

068conversations. And then I have Greg Okonnell here with me. He's going to share a little more. >> So I'm Greg Okonnell. I'm the principal at West Willow Elementary. So, I would have been or we would have been one of the first buildings that were opened um in the new process um when we were going through the facility master plan. And so, another piece of that when we're looking at um teacher support, it's just the increased number of teachers that we have in the building, it's not necessarily meaning that the teachers are needing more support. It's just that there's a lot more of them and so it's giving that support to them um on a daily basis. Um the other thing would be the increase in population. And so the increase in the number of students

069also increases that relationship building that we're doing with staff, that we're doing with families, that we're doing with students. And so it's that time and attention that we need to build those relationships and having those people or the personnel to do that. >> So currently all of those facilities or buildings um house one administrator. And so I think the conversations have been around how can we better support those buildings given the I guess the what the work is being asked of us to do in those facilities given the number of students we have the number of staff that we have students and IEPs all of the combined. So we try to give you four big bullet points and like just our quick uh when we were reflecting on our ask and the um need for

070support. Um I think I heard Dr. land say this is a bridge knowing that potential conversations around future consolidation but um this has been a conversation that's been going on for 5 years and um I think even prior to that when Biola Gibson was big I know previous uh leadership there has been saying we need more I need more support as one person in that facility so um that is what this conversation is around that >> quick question can When you say additional support, are you thinking an additional like an associate principal or some other support personnel or do we have a handle on that? >> So, we've just been having conversations. We don't have any specific title or position. I think we've talked about the ceiling and the floor or lots of variations, but

071no direct decision has been made. I think ultimately depend on the cost and the opportunity to then open up further conversations or decisions around that. I mean we all have what our wants are but we also have what we can do. >> So just to clarify um the larger elementarymentaries have the same number of counselors, administrators, instructional coaches, engagement specialists. So you my kids go to a smaller elementary. So I look at how busy those folks are and I can only imagine >> right that that you have the same amount but maybe double the kids >> or at least 60 or you know 140% whatever. >> Good evening. I'm Storm Ziggler choir director at Kennedy High School. Uh I'm here to talk about the progress that has been made in the fine arts working group.

072Uh some of you may remember that uh several of us came to you this summer uh raising concerns about the fine arts program and um I I have to tell you we were just hoping for uh just some attention and and maybe some discussion and hopefully down the road something would happen and I could not have anticipated the kind of response that we received and the support from both the board and district administration. Um it's been frankly the the best uh interactions that I've had with district leadership. excuse me, in my 30 years in the district. So, we are very grateful for that and uh I'm excited to just give you an update on our work and um where some of these proceeds will go if you support this u uh issue. Tonight, uh we

073focused our work early on three things. Uh first was to ensure that all elementary middle school students have the same access to uh arts instruction regardless of what building they attend. Due to current staffing levels and the varying sizes of buildings, some students were getting uh uh art, music, and PE every 3 days. Some buildings were getting it every four days in our middle schools. Some students were getting uh private lesson instruction and some buildings that were not. So, that was one of our main goals. Uh second goal was to provide staffing uh for full-time specialists in each elementary and middle school building. Currently, most of our elementary buildings have shared specialists which serve two buildings. And this impacts uh program offerings, relationship buildings with students and families, job satisfaction for current staff, and it

074uh makes it difficult to recruit new staff for those positions when they become open. We also have issues where we have non-speists working in areas outside their specialization. So, you might have an instrumentalist teaching vocal or a vocal person trying to teach people how to play trumpet. Um we understand that uh in this budget environment that our dreams our full dreams cannot be realized. Um and if the full-time specialist is not achievable right now, a huge gain can still be made for staff and students by minimizing the number of elementary specialists who are asked to move to different building assignments at the beginning of each year. So we are hoping that in the staffing process this year that can be a point of focus to try to keep our elementary specialists in the buildings that

075they are in right now if at all possible. Our third goal is to reestablish a district fine arts facilitator position to provide support for our fine arts staff and students as well as district level leaders. Uh this position can add tremendous value to uh the district and free up time and other resources that are currently spread among many people. The role can provide assistance in leadership and curriculum, budgeting and resource management, coaching and professional support that is relevant to our arts staff, recruitment and retention of fine arts staff, logistical support for events, advocacy, community outreach, and many other things. So, these are our goals and like I said, we understand the financial environment that we are operating in. Um, but we're truly grateful for uh this even being considered and any step forward is really

076meaningful. Uh, as a fine arts teacher in Cedar Rapids, the best thing about working here is that I don't have to explain to anybody that an investment in the fine arts is just that. It is an investment. It is not an expense and that there is a direct correlation between participation in arts and athletic activities and student achievement and their commitment to our school and community. Um, another thing that I would like to add, and I think this was shown in the parent survey results, is that our activities, programs, and our athletic programs are the number one reason that people are seeking out uh, Cedar Rapids schools and in the environment around the state where you have the home of the Iowa High School Music Association, Boone Community School District, um, ending their 100-year-old orchestra

077program, I think Cedar Rapids can send a strong message that, yeah, we're going through tough times, But this is really important. And so we're going to do what we can do to advance these programs. And uh when I spoke in August, I said this, I'm going to say it again. Our fine arts and our activities programs are going to be what attract people in the district. So I believe that this investment will pay for itself and then some over time. Thank you for considering. >> Okay. Thank you. And that took care of re again 9 and 88,653 reductions from the ELSC reallocating $500,000 in addition to that to um our buildings. Thank you um to our staff members for coming to share tonight. And then in terms of relocating, this was another question that was

078raised. What positions can be relocated? housed out of the ELSC into buildings. Now, this was a huge conversation um with the principles. Principles, if I misstate something, you just wave your hand and come up and correct me. Uh but basically, it came down to the principal saying it's really not helpful to them to have people at their building located who have other jobs to do and they cannot help them if they need someone to do, you know, lunch duty, help support a student um you know, in need. And many of our staff members while they're housed here, they have to travel to all other schools to be able to do their job. And so that is said that that would actually hurt their culture more than it would help their culture. So they and most

079of the times they don't even have space for anybody to be housed out of their building. So that was eye opening. Um sometimes we think that we can be helping and hurting and so I really did appreciate that feedback. However, there was one department where we felt like it was a natural fit. Um, and they're in the buildings all the time anyway. And that's our safe and secure learning team, Janessa and her team. Uh, we'll have to figure out uh where they're going. Um, but they welcome those folks to come out to their buildings to help provide some support. So, um, we've already spoken with Janessa and we will continue those conversations going forward. R, did you want to add something? >> I think you pretty much hit on it all, but um, just again

080the process of determining what people might be best to be relocated out to buildings. The feedback from our principles was um we only want it to be people who can truly be in our building more than just passing through, right? Because then they're just taking up space. Um because many of those individuals that support our schools kind of live out of their car because they're driving between buildings all day. However, our safe and secure learning team um those three members plus Janessa tend to have longer stays at buildings because they're working on uh maybe a situation that's ongoing or they're more targeted with their their focus. So, we did believe that that could be a team um basically just following the path they're already taking now um and kind of putting themselves in buildings based

081on need that will continue that next year and then that will free up space here um because they're kind of uh they have a home base and buildings and then they also have a home base here. So, we can just free up some space here by just making their home base out at buildings uh moving forward to next year. >> Okay, very good. I think we only have maybe two more categories to go. Salary increases. Carla, are you doing this one or am I doing this one? Go ahead. Okay, wonderful. Happy to. Uh, salary increases for FY27. I think we all understand. Um, Carla did a great job of walking us through uh how we have funded our salary increases for the district over the years and it's been incredibly difficult uh for the district

082when we are spending more than our new money. So, our recommendation here is the board gets to decide and of course you typically do that in um close session u to kind of discuss uh some of those items or exempt session. Liz, I'm always getting those two confused. The exempt exempt session. Very good. I want to be on the record correctly. Thank you, Darius. Exempt session where you can discuss it. Um of course you have your different work groups. We just ask that we give all of our new money to staff but not more. just whatever new money we get, we give it to our staff, however you bargain. But let's try not to go over that, especially during a time when we are trying to make sure uh we can sustain the budget. Um,

083as it relates to uh administrators, I guess I don't have this on a slide, but I know it's supposed to be here. As it relates to administrators, we're also recommending um a pay freeze, no raises for administrators. That also includes me. Um, and also, um, I can continue the conversation, uh, with the board, uh, whenever we're discussing my contract. Um, I do think again that leadership is important and I recognize, uh, where we are as a school district and I want to make sure that I'm doing um, my part as well when we take a look at my overall compensation and how I can support the effort. Uh, but fully committed to that discussion. um as well as fully committed to taking a pay freeze along with our other administrators. So, this takes care of

084all of our presentations. We want to circle back through. Um now, we'll go I'll have Jillian go one by one and this is the time. So, whoever is responsible for it, they'll be available for questions, but we'll just ask the board if you have questions on any of these. We want to make sure that we talk about the ones um that you would like to discuss more. Jillian, so we're going to circle back. We're going to all the way to the beginning to slide 11, which is going back to any questions that are remaining around consulting services. We I just wanted to note that they had been separated out before between instructional empowerment and other contracted services. You see them those dollar amounts, the 2.2 2 represents both of the IE and the other contracted

085services together because they are contracted consulting services. Since this was one of our highest percentages, it just gives me a bit of pause. In my time on the board, um you know, we we were thinking bigger picture. We were making some purchases. I instructional empowerment, the CKLA. I I would be curious um if we can get more information just for long term because I think this is this is we're in agreement here for tonight, but um just on instructional empowerment um like how it's going if people are uh we've gotten some presentations, but I just I want more of like a a why I guess of why that scored so high um so that we can determine what that looks like then maybe next year or the following there. Um, so just as we assess

086future costs, can we uh get clarity on those percentages? >> Yeah, I know that this is for this year, but as we think about the costs that might be for continued training and additional um what you know, there are still some potential expenses in the future. So, I just want to get a sense of before we go forward with that, you know, next year, the following year. um maybe why that's scored so high if we can get to the root of that so that we feel really good about continuing that work. >> Okay. Yes. So in terms of instructional empowerment itself, we've already started some of those conversations getting feedback. We started with the teacher cabinet. Um and so I just want to clarify that our model of instruction is not going away. Instruction empowerment

087is just one model. There are many different models out there. Um, and so we have a strong foundation with that because we've already started early training. We use one-time funding to be able to support that. I think um, what I learned throughout this process, which was great and and thank you all. I just feel like I'm more informed too by going through this. If you were um, a focus school and you had people coming to your school every day, they just had more exposure to it. We try we rolled it out districtwide in different schools. They received different tiers of support. if you were um a foundational school, you were just beginning, right? And so over time, you would have had the more in-depth learning, but they've not had that learning yet. Um and so

088we're going to depend highly on our uh coaches u because a lot of the training was with the coaches um to continue the work. Nicole is is amazing um and she's great. But as far as instructional empowerment, we've already notified them that we weren't going to extend our contract. the remainder of what we have for this year's contract, we're going to utilize that instead of them going to maybe meet with the principal or certain schools, we're going to focus in on our train of trainers. And so then we'll see where we go from there. Um, I think we've heard a lot of feedback in terms of take the learning that we have and wherever we want to go, we can build that in-house. We can build our own model. I mean, we all have expertise

089in many different ways. I'm excited about that. But our foundation is strong. what we've learned about engaging students um moving into the new economy of where the students are doing the learning, the talking, the critical thinking and what we're looking for in the classroom, but maybe all parts and pieces of it doesn't work very well. Maybe for some of like the specialist if I'm in a music class, do we need to customize it for that? Um I think there was still some concern over how much do I need to do in every content area every day. So those are the things that we have to process through um as we go forward. But I think as a whole collective, principles, teachers, if I'm wrong, you all can just raise your hand or something like that.

090We're committed to a solid model of instruction that is consistent across our school district. We're going to lean heavily on our own staff to uh lead the training efforts going forward. As far as some of the other um contracted services that are up there, I mean, I think just out of full transparency and something we need to embrace depending on where your priorities are. We're not saying that we won't ever use a consulting group in the future. That's just not our priority right now. So, for example, many years ago. Um, the district invested in professional learning communities. You probably heard of PLC's. A lot of school districts all across the country did. Solution tree right here. You spent a lot of money sending people to the solution tree training. They came here. All those types

091of things. So, it probably just depends on what the district's focus is at that particular time. So, but this is our commitment as it relates to our current context. And like always, we'll continue to bring you updates um throughout the year. >> Just there we go. Thanks, Justin. Um I think I would certainly welcome a work session just on an update on that. That was this is a recent decision, right? So, the new board members might not remember, but we just approved lots of funding for instructional empowerment. Um, and it was money well spent is what we were told, right? So, the idea that our district is in a spot where we don't need to invest that money, but we can still see the benefits that we were talking about because it was all about

092student achievement and that this was the best way to do it and to free up those um that money to make sure that we could afford uh to pay the to get the training that we needed. So, I just want to make sure as long as that is still absolutely true and student achievement is still on track to do what we were talking about in those work sessions when we were talking about instructional empowerment in the first place, I'm excited that the district is in a place where we can take that on. Um, but I would also, you know, welcome the conversation in the future if we see removing this $1.8 $8 million. We see a decline that we didn't expect that we talk about that as soon as possible because the achievement piece is

093certainly the thing that needs to remain our top priority. >> You took the word sort of out of my mouth. Director Taminsky, I I want to just always reenter the board on what our little name plates say. How how does this decision impact our students? And I think we did invest a lot of money in instructional empowerment because we recognized that our student achievement required drastic action. And I'll call out JSA because they keep inviting us over to see what's going on in their classrooms. And they're doing a wonderful job with instructional empowerment. It does produce results and and I have some hesitation about taking this down to zero because we are seeing results and I'm going to put my confidence in our folks who are trained and can carry this process forward. We're not

094giving up on instructional empowerment. I want to make that clear. We are using the folks within our district who are trained and ready to go and are showing us positive results. I just want to circle back to um to something that Dr. Lenon said just about um the these consulting contracts and how um it is still important to leave that space for um should we need to bring in another consulting firm for something. And so one of the questions that I had um was just maybe a clarification just how much do we have how much wiggle room do we have um outside of these reductions to work with other consulting firms in the future? I'm just curious about how that works. I know we Yeah. Yeah. So, we are proposing um over $12 million worth

095of reductions. We we don't really know what our enrollment will look like next fall. And so in our projections, we're projecting additional open enrollment out and um that will drive the budget when we really finalize it in the fall. Um along with um what we give for raises, how much staff turnover we have. Um how much we have in teacher uh lane changes every year. It varies. Um, so we won't know exactly to the fine detail until next fall. Um, but we are anticipating that we will have a little bit of wiggle room within this this budget structure. >> I guess I was just um I appreciate that answer. My question is just sort of around how much are we eliminating and what is left? Um, and so I appreciate that that feedback. Thank you.

096And I'll just uh maybe make this comment since we're talking about consulting and I just think that that's probably another work session all by itself for so that people can understand how it works within an organization. So for example, we still do have some grant the people still have budgets. People still have budgets. Now we don't need to go over your budget. Let's just be clear. But for example, you have a magnet program within the organization, which that's a topic I want to talk about at another time. But it's expected that you train people like that's part of the grant and that's how you receive those dollars. Sometimes we have our schools, they may go and write their own grants. Um we we for example Iowa big, they have a huge grant that they've written

097and they might hire a consultant to do some training or professional learning, right? But I think what we're committed to is the scrutiny around consultants. Are we taking the opportunity to understand if any of this work can be done inhouse? What's the long-term investment? And in many cases, what are you kind of trading off? In terms of the work that we've done here, those were um expiring funds that we used. And that's the best thing to do is invest in your people. That's knowledge that they have. You can't take it away. opposed to when you're using expiring funds for long-term costs, that's when we get into trouble. So, it's really more understanding if the board would like to develop a policy around consultants or some more guidelines. Um, but I would be hardressed to say

098that we won't ever use someone to come in and train our district. But I just said we need to how we do how we prioritize it and just making sure that u we've taken into account um other areas that where we can spend that money and that we're just following with our strategic plan in our budgeting process every year. >> Quick on the enrollment projections that were just shared. Did those take into account the newest charter coming through the Science Horizon Science Academy? Yeah. So, the thing with charter enrollment is it's slightly different than open enrollment. Uh, our charter um enrollment from the fall of 2025 gets taken off of the top of our state aid that's paid back in FY27. So the the charters that are opening or expanding in the fall of 2026

099that will be taken off of the top of our state aid for FY28. So it's a year in a rears. The state actually pays the charter and then we pay the state back the following year. And I know that. So that's great to clarify the we saw some chart with those enrollment projections that is baked in then to the 2028. >> That's so yep. So for 2027 it's our our uh enrollment from this fall from um empowering excellent choice charter and CR Prep. That that enrollment that we have from this fall Derek is it like 360 students? 360 students that gets uh the state takes that money back in FY27. So, anything new that opens next fall won't take effect until FY28. The also the other unique thing about charters uh is um that it's

100you're charged a daily rate. So if we have any charter students that are coming back to Cedar Rapids now, we won't get charged the full annual rate on those students just for the days that they attend the charter. >> Can I ask a clarifying question because this might have been what you were asking. Do we have projections on enrollment for next year at this point? So, in the projection that I gave for the $3.5 million, it's projecting it's it's the it's the additional amount going out for the charters from this fall. And it's projecting an increase in open enrollment of 100 students, which is about what we had as an increase this past fall. Does that help? It does. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. >> And then shifting gears, I just wanted to clarify

101district management group, that was just a one-year deal, right? That was helping us with the So, I'm curious if that's >> the district management group. This 268,000 is our special education opportunity review um that was paid out of of the instructional support levy. >> I I think I heard this. Just want to make sure. So the the funds to train the trainers are this year's funds that were already committed. We're just shifting that. Then there is not funding after that. Did I understand that correct? >> Yes, sir. >> Thank you. Appreciate that. And then I think just to you know I think this has been quite quite the first few months as a board member, right? And uh and even if you're not new, it's been quite a few first months being cut off here.

102Uh the you know, I I just want to say I I think as much as we can stay ahead of this and have these conversations, I like that. Um and keep keep on that. I mean, there are a couple things on here that if we ultimately approve them, I'd be they'd be like on the top of my list to unapprove if we have the money available to to put it back out there. And we can talk about that as we go. But I do appreciate that conversation about kind of the the target and how it moves and and that sort of thing and keeping an eye on that as a board. >> I think for some context, um I asked uh Sarah Cruzie today about the district management group and since the connection to special

103ed and it was like if we get rid of that, is that going to like totally derail things that we're doing and think good things we're doing for students? And she doesn't have to come up here. But she said, "No, no, we're like on the tail end of that, so we're good." So, she assured that that we weren't going we don't want to derail student success and um so that was that was good to hear. And also I think with the instructional empowerment I don't even know if it would be on the table if if our teachers weren't saying you know 80% 92% you know they were they were like we feel good we feel okay to let go of this and take the reigns. So um so we appreciate that input. I know we're

104always trying to get that uh from our staff. So, thank you to your earlier Scott point Scott. Um, are everything that's on the table, just to clarify, are is it is it possible to make any amendments tonight? Are we able to pause on anything if we're not feeling comfortable kind of what's the how is what lay the context if you have a moment? >> We can make amendments to that resolution. Um, we do need to balance the budget. So, Okay. All right. At this time we will go to the next topic which is mentoring and induction and our subject matter expertise is here I believe. Yes. If we have any if there are any additional questions around that. There wasn't any specifics around how many teachers the they'll be supporting. Um, I don't know how

105many they're supporting currently or how many what that looks like in house or if there's a sweet spot, but just want to make sure that we have parameters so they could be successful. >> Sure. Thank you. Good evening. Um, so yes, so right now under Grant Wood's model, they um the number varies that an induction coach supports for beginning educators, but it's right in the like 17 to 19 beginning educators. Um, we really don't want to see it go over 20. Um, an ideal state is 15, but it's been a long time. Um, and even when I was in a different area of the state, it's very hard to get 15. Um, just because then you have to increase your FTE and the cost goes up. Um, so we've seen it be very successful right

106under 20. Uh, I am optimistic bringing it back to Cedar Rapids that we'll be able to keep it right around that 17 to 19. Um, there won't be the drive time that our induction coaches have now traveling to different districts. I mean, obviously, we have a lot of square footage in our district. Um, but it won't be like what they have now. So, we're pretty confident that we'll be able to keep it right around that ratio. >> Yeah, I appreciate the confidence there and and the the focus. I I do would say, you know, if if we get into it and it's not working the way that we were seeing it and hoping it to work, I I hope we hear more about that and how we can continue to support it because it's a

107very important piece, especially with the number of new uh new team members we have each year here at the district. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> And Nicole, I think you're you're pieces next to around curriculum purchase. Was there anything else for mentoring induction? Okay. So we can move to curriculum and that curriculum purchases the freeze. >> Okay. Wow. >> I I didn't want you to go without a question. I um appreciate it. I I I just I um I >> Are we going to be kicking the can? We've talked about kicking the can down the road. It's one of the reasons why we're here tonight and we're doing what we're doing, right? Are we kicking the can down the road at all by delaying these purchases? Can you kind of talk about how

108how we're mitigating, Matt? >> Yeah. Um so the short answer is yes. Um however and we just haven't had an opportunity when I say we my team to look at um our schedule again because we spent a lot of time doing that last year planning out the next five years looking at um when standards would be new standards would potentially be updated um when we have purchased the most recent curriculum in that particular area um grade level content area. So we need to remap that out. Um, so there could be a little bit of a strain in the next couple years, but we won't do anything that we feel like we can't handle. And so there are some that we can push out a little bit. And we've already talked to content leads that help

109lead and support those areas. So we feel okay with where we are with pausing. Um, and then we'll work to readjust and move forward moving into the next school year. Okay, our next topic is the behavior support and mental health community partners. I just want to say I'm glad we've been able to maintain uh those partnership partnerships. I we hear from our staff about behavior supports and mental health supports. So, um, it that is a really high priority, I think, for the board and glad we could, uh, keep those partners with us. >> I definitely agree. There's really important work happening here. Can someone clarify um because I heard Ry's the is the model changing like how does the money currently allocated and how are we allocating the money going forward? Is that changing? >>

110Yes. So we are engaging in a new needs assessment and then a tiered allocation of resources based on that needs assessment. So that's a new process we're engaging in with next year's um allocation. And so we've started this year in defining what does need look like, what metrics are we using? Um and then we worked through does that show us any kind of natural taring in our district when we look at like needs. Um, and then we looked at based on tier of need, how much of the total pie would that building get? And we're applying that philosophy to how we would allocate resources with community partners. So, that's new. Um, in the past it's been a little bit more organic, a little bit more fluid of maybe where they started like a willing pilot

111building and then um some growth over time but it's not been done based on need metrics in the past. Is this still being driven by the community partners in terms of they are um they're funding a lot of it still their their services through different grants and their own fundraising? >> Yeah, they contribute to the budget. >> Okay. >> Yes. And they are a partner in the in the development of the plan of the allocation all of that. >> So extension of the early question. So who is deciding? I'm just trying to feel like is this our district-wide approach to this because um even when we look at the community partners like there are some that are mental health providers and then some that are it's an afterchool extracurric you know program behavior supports so

112the difference between like a social worker versus a peace circle those are you know providing different services so I want to make sure that there aren't supports being removed from our schools and maybe just more clarity and who's determining that? What's our approach as a district for making sure that we have equitable services based on the needs of the building? It's a lot one question, but starting with how do we determine that? Who's who's determining is it is it us or is it the partner? Yes. So, we are using our internal metrics for needs assessment. Um, and so there's a variet there's probably like 14 different metrics we looked at from percentage of low income, um, turnover in staff, um, behavior data, uh, there's a whole bunch and we'd be happy to share those with

113you to show how we would al uh, determine need. And then that gave us information about um, how we would go about saying this is our what the amount that every building will get. And then based on those metrics, you might get more um if we uh determine that your building had a higher need. >> And I I just want to add here in terms of the budget, what we're talking about tonight is that there's no reduction in the amount of funding from last year to this year in regards to what's available for our community partners. What we have done is that we have put a focus around behavior supports and mental health with our community partners and uh Jennifer Vanfleet and her team they have done a wonderful job of developing a matrix to

114understand how that funding is assigned to the campuses um based on the scoring that she's talked about. But the principles have a lot of voice in terms of what's their priority. For some of them, they might be focused on after school and we already know where um in that particular partner, kids on course, they're able to determine too where their sites are. Um but one school might be more focused on peace facilitators and behavior supports. Another one may be more focused on um therapy services. Um but that's where we lean in on the principles to kind of guide where they want to spend their dollars. And and the other piece that's added, we just want to make sure that we're also getting a return on our investment. And that's where we're collecting the data in

115terms of what's the impact for students after they've had these services. We can also bring this back as a separate report to the board. Just we want to just make sure that we you understand the budget allocations for tonight's conversation. >> Oh, thank you. Um I guess yeah just in another separate conversation just h why are we changing the format that we've had in the past and but yes so positive to see that we're not taking any funding from this as behavior and mental health are are hugely important. So thank you. >> Thank you. >> I have a quick funding question on that. I noticed we had over $100,000 in the current state that came from the magnet school grant and we're moving away from that. So, um, but I don't see is is more

116of that coming from the dropout prevention funds or or general budget or how are we >> I'm going to lean on my cabinet friends to help me with that. >> Well, I I can I don't know what's on your sheet uh in terms of maybe I should be looking at it. >> I mean, that that's there. There's just not like a >> the actual state of where that's and and I don't have to have the answer tonight. I I mean it doesn't change I think how we vote tonight. I I am thinking about sustainability and how we get prepared for this conversation next year or maybe avoid this kind having to have the conversation next year because we've got it all squared away. So just I'd be interested in knowing that at some point if

117we can >> No, that's perfect. I do plan on bringing that back uh Vice President Dresky in terms of where some of our funding is coming from um to help us. So, for example, with our magnet dollars, uh we still have about $15 million worth of magnet dollars and that's going to fade out here like in the next 45 years. And so, we do want to be able to have that conversation. I was hoping to mention that at the end of the presentation in terms of how we bring back and so we can see how certain things are funded so we can begin to plan for that. >> Thank There's there's one thing I would add to that too around the MSAP funding is that as as we all know there's some cost share because

118some of these partners they have fundraising and so we're able to access resources at a reduced cost. Um there are some instances at our MSAP schools where they might have wanted an additional um therapist or peace facilitator but we've maximized what we can with the cost share. So we're paying for that at a higher FT like at a higher cost. So, we're trying to like maximize the cost share opportunities without necessarily going over. We've had um some instances where we would love to have an additional um therapist, but they might not have enough therapists to be able to provide to us. So, it's just kind of making a balance with all of that. >> Thank you. So, I'm I do have just one last comment on that. I think just because as my wheels are

119turning here, we do with, you know, when we have principal turnover, we have changes in the buildings. I also just want to make sure familiarity with the programs, with the provider, with the needs of the building that, you know, if that changes and something's working well, we don't just like shuffle it up. Um, so I'm sure you're overseeing that, but just I'm trying to think through all the scenarios as we kind of rework this because, you know, you might have one building where they believe uh they have a different philosophy around something and then a different building. So, how do we ensure that we're all these all of our kids' needs are being met? Maybe that's not a conversation for today, but just something that we need to um have a conversation um continue to

120just better understand how that functions so that we as a district can do that most effectively. And then um something to the last thought escaped me. That's all for now. Thank you. >> So, we'll advance to special education. >> I I have a question on that. So, the need continues to grow, right? And and I understand that and we've we've kind of held it sacred this year. How long can we do that for? So, you may remember um when we were meeting last week, I had spoken a little bit about our um fiscal stewardship and being good stewards of our resources. And so, one of the ways that we are doing that, we're in the throws of this process right now is really taking a close hard look first of all at our our special

121education finance state in terms of ensuring that everything coming out of special education makes sense to come out of special education. And then once we have a very clear picture of that um ensuring that we are both compliant uh in our IEPs and how they are uh being served but also making sure that it's what's best for kids. So there's the compliance piece and then there's the best practice piece and that's what we're striving to achieve in our work. I think it's also we were on a call this morning learning context around just special education across the state. They're short about two to 300 um special education teachers. It's a very serious um issue that many districts are facing. It's not just us. Um so just something to keep in mind and as we kind

122of think toward um not just cuts but like what's a larger fix for special education in in our district. um what are our unique needs? Because this seems to be an ongoing problem that we don't have the funding at the state level. You know, these all compile, but um you know, where are we short staff? Where are we overstaff? Just maybe another time for our board to to learn about kind of what's the crux of the issue and how can we think more strategically about providing those supports in the right spots. >> Am I correct in assuming that the DM group is helping us? It's like she knew and she was at our conversation. So, so yes, um, Director Garlic actually had that the very idea I shared with our committee today. Um, the recommendations

123of the DM group and how it ties so much into the the efforts that have been underway, but also where we're seeking to potentially go and the efforts of consolidation of our buildings um, and bringing together those expertes into into localized areas. So, perfect timing for that conversation. And I believe I just got an email in my inbox about a future work session around that. So more to come too. All right, moving into Grantwood Day EA contracts. So, this is a smaller number than what I think we had in one of the early versions of that. Um, I think just just for clarity for everybody who doesn't have this big thing in front of us here. Can you talk through what changed there? Yeah. So, when we sent out the feedback for this from staff,

124there was some confusion because what was included in the initial number was the director of behavior supports position um which is Tammy We moved her to the ELSC reductions because when we sent this survey out, most people didn't realize that she was on a contract from the Aea. So, they didn't see her as part of this. So there was a lot of confusion because they saw her as director of behavior sports, Cedar Rapids um uh staff member, which is a testament to Tammy um that she was very much seen as one of us. So it created a lot of confusion about like what that piece was. So we moved it out of the A.E.A. um consulting piece and we moved it into to demonstrate kind of how people would feel the loss of that position.

125Does that make sense? >> Yeah, it does. Thank you. Then the the one other thing I just wanted to ask about was um I I know that as we've made adjustments in the last year with the staffing model, that sort of thing. Um the librarian positions in our schools have been one of the things that's been impacted there. Um and again, I'm not sure exactly how the consultant plays a role in that helps or doesn't help, but just wanted to make sure that we're, you know, not making that even more difficult here um with this reduction. >> Yeah. Um, I'm going to let Nicole talk about that a little bit. I'm more of the SEBH side of the house. So, >> Sure. Thanks, Ry. >> Uh, yeah. So, this year we had contracted with Grantwood.

126Oh, sorry, >> I'm shorter. Uh, we had contracted with Grantwood point4 um for a librarian consultant and that person um really had two primary has had two primary roles this year. Um, so we were able to purchase with ELI funds, which is early learning literacy funds, uh, um, supplemental CKLA trade books for all of our elementary schools, which was part of our overall plan when we adopted CKLA a couple years ago, but we were able to just get that in motion this year. Um, so it was like 70 pallets of U books that came in, which is really exciting to be able to deliver those out to schools. this person from Grantwood helped us with all of the inventory. So like when they came into the um warehouse, everything had to be barcoded and put

127in our Destiny database system and then organized to be able to ship out to school. So that was a very like shortterm project. Um I only have one and a half uh FTE in the warehouse. So this would have overwhelmed our already very full um system downstairs. So was instrumental in helping us with that. She had the expertise because she knew how to do all of that. And then she has supported some of our schools um where there are media secretaries more often than there are teacher librarians. Um however, I've had a lot of conversations with our librarian content lead who is at Roosevelt. She's housed out of Roosevelt and she felt very um confident that we'd be able to move move forward without that point4 of that contract. >> Thank you. Mhm. >> Are

128the individuals at the G GWA able to be contracted in when needed? So, for example, you said there was a big project, this librarian consultant helped with that, >> but maybe not an ongoing person. We can contract them in when we need. >> Yes. Yep. Um, so when Grantwood um or all AAS across the state had to start charging for their services a couple years ago, they um really structured it two ways. one districts districts could buy their contracts or part of their contracts which is what this is about and then the other one is we can um basically request services for half days or full days and we probably still will do that. it's a much lower cost um when we might need help with um delivering professional learning to different groups or helping

129us plan um because there we they do still have a lot of really great experts in the areas of curriculum and instruction. Um so we'll probably use them as needed on occasion. I just wanted to put one plug in too. Vice President Rzinski, thank you for for this um sparked in me to remind people a little commercial break that if we do have the packets that are in front of you posted online. So if you're watching from home or if you're here tonight and you want to go back and you want to know what are the what are the board members looking at um it is on our website crschools. us if you click at the very top planning for the future really close to the top of that you'll see the packet that everyone

130is referring to tonight. So, I just wanted to put a plug in for that to let everybody know at home that it's there and available for you. Sorry, I'm in a microphone desert over here. Okay. Um, this one I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that Grantwood AAA has been a long-term partner of our district. So, to me, this just, you know, I I understand the this the need for this and that this could go really well. I just want to draw attention to that because there's been a lot of incredible supports they provided and it feels a little shocking to like pull away pull away from them. Um but I I'm curious then with you know potentially some cuts at the ELSC paired with this bringing this in house do we feel

131we'll have um enough people supports for our teachers and staff through some of these major transitions? Yeah, that's a that's a big question, right? So, um that's something with um and I'll kind of rope Tammy into this too if that's okay because that's kind of part of this bigger picture. Um as you know, we have a therapeutic grant that we've been awarded this year. The SCBH support, social emotional behavioral health support that we've added this year is to coach and train our positions that are kind of doing the functions of that grant. We're stairstepping that down next year um from 3.45 45 um in consulting from the AA down to two and then we'll stair step it down one more time is the plan that following year to one person at 045 to gradually release

132um off of that coaching. The experts at the AA are amazing. They truly are a wonderful partner. However, they are also consulting. So, we're trying to move those um those pieces and create that expertise inhouse um just because of the new landscape we're in. So, do we feel confident that we could do it? Yes. Do we think there will be some growing pains with it? Absolutely. And we're working through how all these pieces will fit um in the new landscape of the AA and also the new landscape of the supports that we're able to offer here and how we'll move um responsibilities and and coaching supports around. So, we will get it done. Um it'll be um it'll be a journey, but we will get it done for our students and staff. >> Yeah. At

133some point, you know, we're going to run out of time for more work sessions, but under truly understanding the relationship with Grantwood AEA over the years, kind of what's changed in the last few years. When I look at the results, right, we have 61% up there, which is what the three and the four, but it is pretty evenly split, right? So, when I look at >> this, it says strongly opposed is 19%, two is almost 20%. So, it seems like there's an opportunity for us to maybe learn more about specifically what we're using Grantwood for, why we can be bringing these things in and be potentially more successful in those ways. So, would probably just encourage more information, you know, at the board table on that relationship. >> Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to do that.

134I I also think a piece of going through the feedback we got from staff, there is a misconception that this is special education support and it is not. Um so that is a different funding with the AA bill. I don't even know House file 26 something um of how the allocations work right so the special ed dollars that we receive continues 90% of those continue to flow to the AA to provide OT PT speech therapy um building supports for our special education students that is not changing this are this is a piece of the media and edserve funding that we now have discretion over that didn't exist before that legislation >> and I think if we had another header up there just for clarity sake it would say coaching and consulting from Grantwood Aea for

135very um for really I say central office staff or staff members that were assigned to the building for SEBH just to bring that distinction that that's what this is no impact on our direct services uh to our students or the Grantwood staff that would be going to the building to support our teachers especially with some of our high need students all of that remains the Okay, we can move to software. I guess I'll just say I think this is the simplest thing that I think most of us can agree on and I think it's really responsible. So, kudos to you all. And I promise you no one will feel bad. You don't have to do a courtesy question if you don't want to. Okay. Travel. Um just one thought. I know that this is um

136you know these are all necessary things. Um but we we do in order to remain competitive as a district there are things that we need to do. Um sometimes when you're facing these types of issues um and these storms, we actually need more training to figure out how to get out of a pickle, right? But um or we need, you know, to be able to be competitive to go find the to fill these special education um gaps. Uh so I just want to draw attention to when we're when we're slashing this, that also means that we, you know, going to those job fairs, doing some of that recruiting, it does impact those things. So um important to note that I hope this isn't a forever forever thing. >> I think we also need to remember

137that sometimes when we have people from our district who are actually presenting at some of these conferences particularly national conferences that it does bring attention to the good things that we have going on in our district and it is a very strong recruitment tool. Um, if if you're in New York City listening to Carla speak about the staffing model and you're like impressed by what's going on here in Cedar Rapids, then that might be talent that might decide to come here. So, uh, this travel not only helps us learn, but it helps the rest of the world learn about the good things we're doing. >> And what we'll be able to bring back at a future work session like next year, um, is we will have a much better picture of where we're traveling to

138and the and the connections we're building and what we're presenting on. And so we look forward to be able being able to through this process now that we'll be systemwide be able to to be really more clear, more exact and precise around where we're going and and um the learning people are seeking food again because we have a moment to address the fact that, you know, um there are other schools in town who are having food and alcohol on campuses and fundraisers and other things. These are the title waves at our ESAs and other things that happen at the state level. We're cutting food. I just want to draw attention to the fact that this is the repercussion of some of those things. Um >> and water. I'm saving this bottle. >> Okay. Okay. Then

139we go into our backpack and supplemental funding. >> I just say these the these funds I I I will I'll support this ultimately, but these funds do some amazing things in our schools and and uh heard a lot of positives about them. And so this would be one that I'd put on the list that if we end up having the money to do something and I know it's based upon an allocation. Um but things cost more each year as well. And so this would be a place where I'd certainly consider looking at u you know I guess you call it a cost of living raise uh for for backpack funds in the future. Um and and again it's it's a reason why we have to keep focused on how we make smart uh decisions to

140manage our budget and spend our money in the future even beyond this year after we solve this particular budget year issue because these are the sorts of things that make a huge difference in our students lives and uh and we need to make sure we're keeping up with costs that are associated with those going forward. Thank you. Maybe just want to draw attention that the fiscal year 26 on this the cost is a little over $4 million and the fiscal year 27 is 3.8. So when we see that 28, you know, $29,000 reduction, I mean that is not a tiny number and it is based on enrollment. So totally agree with you that these these dollars to me are well spent. So, just to make sure that we're paying attention to to what they're coming

141from, but 28 $29,000 on a $4 million budget seems like a pretty reasonable amount. >> All right. And then coupled with that would be the building budgets also based on enrollment. Okay, moving down to our staffing model. going to try to think through this on the fly. Last year we did a lot of right sizing. Um, and there were a lot of cuts made to buildings. So, um, I'm just wanting to get some clarity on when we're talking about like the base number of people in a building. Some of these buildings are continuing to lose a lot of people yeartoear and we don't really have a fix for that. My concern is that we're now getting to this like level where we have a certain number of people that um we need in a building

142and you know pulling out a couple wash at seven T Franklin I think was five T these are concern just concerns me um because not only does it change the the culture of that space I think they wash for example lost 20 last year now another seven these are real scenarios happening those building changes the whole building culture It changes the um you know who those students are seeing every day. Um and then on top of that, we just we don't really have a a long-term fix for that is my concern. So this seems like an ongoing issue. Um and I'm just trying to get a sense of are we just digging digging a hole here um in some of these cases and how do we get out of that? >> Yeah. So this staffing

143is truly based on the staffing model that we started last year and um the 33.3 teachers is based on the 622 students we lost. So it is right sizing our district um to the staffing we have um this year. Uh and that's why we had to reduce so much last year because this the district didn't have a staffing model. we had no way to adjust our enrollment as it continued to decline. So this is the way the district um the staffing model that we use to rightsize our staffing. Now, next year when we look at consolidations, the staffing will be adjusted based on the consolidated numbers. Maybe not necessarily the um staffing model that we have today that we're using, but it still will adjust staffing based on enrollment in those buildings. And the district

144um has ran a deficit for a few years because we aren't adjusting our staffing. we are continuing to have more staff in the buildings than we have students to support. So, um I would encourage the board to continue to look at our staffing model um going forward so that we can continue to rightsize our buildings every year uh so we don't get into a situation where we have to make such large reductions if that makes sense. >> I think Carla makes a good point that we also need to keep in mind. Um, we are talking about reductions like money reductions, but in the future we do have to address the closing of buildings and the redrawing of boundaries so that we don't have one school that year after year is losing staff that we equalize

145the enrollment across the district. Um, and it will help alleviate exactly the problem that you're talking about, Director Buyers. It's it's more than just what we're doing tonight. It's a multi-prong approach. >> Yeah, Dr. Garlock, Director, Dr. I just may give you a degree there. Uh Director Garlock, I I agree with that. And again, it's why we have to come back and and uh build um you know, a plan based on the work of the community coalition and and what they're suggesting because I do think the solution is to have the right number of schools. Um, you know, I just appreciate the numbers and again it's in the packet that you can find online that just talk about kind of the range of kids that are in a a classroom and you know, you may

146have 28 fourth graders in one classroom and 17 in another. And uh, you know, it's great for the 17. Uh, although that teacher might be all by themselves in a building teaching a grade all by themselves. Um, and it's not obviously it's good for the the 28, right? And and so um, again, as we look at this, it's it's painful, right? I mean, this is painful and I'm not surprised that it's not a popular item with with staff because it's not a popular item, I'm sure, on the board as well. Um, but uh getting our schools to the to a place where we've got the right number and we have uh teachers that are able to share kids and grades and and things like that will be be helpful. I know that's painful. I don't

147want to make it one sentence and make it seem easy uh because it's not. But um that that to me is how we have to address this so that we can make sure we've got enough teachers in each of our schools. >> Kind of to that point, I know some of these reductions we're looking at are going to be a one-time and done, right? The i.e. that's going to give us what 1.8 million, but that isn't sustainable um to to address our deficit. So, I feel like this, you know, this is one of those that will help us be sustainable in years to come. Um, I did want to ask for clarification and context. Tammy, I think, um, we had the conversation. Um, and so we will lose 33 teachers approximately based on attrition, but

148how how many staff do we lose every year to whether they retire or they leave our district or um, and then how many do we typically hire in the fall or Yeah. Darius, did that make sense that question? >> It does. I was outstanding. >> So, so we average about 120 uh hires every year for our teachers because we lose about 120 teachers most years. And that's just teachers. That doesn't count a lot of our support staff. >> While you're up there, um going back to I totally understand running a deficit. We got to consolidate. I'm just trying to be mindful of the buildings and the unique culture of those buildings. So I'm trying to think of in the interim is there any wiggle room on some of the numbers that are set um based

149on the model? Right? Because so the question is um going back to that how many people do we need minimally to run these spaces? Do we have a chart of that? >> Okay. Uh yeah. So I think I think you're touching on a couple things there. We've talked about there's the staffing model and then there's the staffing process. And then as we've talked with our friends the last couple years in district management group or DMG as we call them, uh they talked about like every a lot of districts are having that baseline minimum number of individuals to fully serve a building. You need counselors, you need an administrator, you need some teachers, you need a nurse, uh among other things. And so there is a a minimum number that we've come up with for our

150model that we've determined this is what we need for all of our buildings today. Now in addition to the model part, you have the process itself which is then going to rely upon our area chiefs to go out to those schools, have those conversations with those principles. And there may be principles who say, I don't know how to structure my day with that number of individuals to meet the needs. And so those those individuals get coaching. We see if there's any gaps between the numbers versus reality and we make some adjustments if necessary there. But we try and start with the model first so we have some consistency. >> Okay. There is some flexibility though. I'm also thinking about when you take going back to seven, you lose some essential programs in that building too.

151So I just want to be mindful of what's actually being lost when we take those numbers away. Um and painting that whole picture there. So I appreciate just clarity in that. um just trying to process what that looks like building by building. >> One other thing I want to add in there too is you're talking about those those opportunities, we're also really being sensitive to our class sizes. And so we want to make sure that what we are continuing to offer, make sure that we have as options are going to be well attended because it's a lot tougher if one classroom has three people in it because then that needs to offset that. Another several classrooms are at 28, 29 and we're just pushing toward that cap. So we want to make sure that whatever

152we're offering is being taken by enough students to make it viable. >> Okay. So a little bit what I'm hearing is we're we are deferring to principles like we we're not just saying like okay wash you lose seven make it work. We're deferring to principles a little bit because we also know that students around our uh district some require more adults in their life. Um, so I that's what I'm hearing that we're going to be talking with our with our principles and leadership out in the buildings. >> I'd say yes with the caveat of within reason. If a principal says I can only do it with nine and they were already expected to reduce seven, they're not going to get nine. They may not get all seven back. So it'll be within reason to try

153and get there. I was just going to add I think that um because of the language that we talk that director buyers was talking about like our one pers like the guaranteed staffing that you have at your school to ensure you have your counselor your instructional coach and some of those things so that doesn't impact this would be around um being able to maintain the the class size given the enrollment of students. Um, and then just wondering if I could throw it over to somebody to speak to the that we honor the that we readjust and that the one-on-one meetings and just some of those things to voice to put into the room. >> Yeah. So, so last year when we did this because it was kind of our maiden voyage with the model, we

154we had an opportunity with all our collective principles in one room. They were able to give some feedback and they gave quite a bit of feedback. After that time, there were follow-up sessions. There was another set of iteration uh conversations here at the central office and then there were follow-ups with all of our area chiefs and then for certain principles they also received an additional follow-up with our area chiefs based upon what we needed to do to be able to reduce but also do so in such a way that we can still continue to offer the opportunities we want in our buildings. And now Carla. >> And so the other thing that we do um we in the summer continue to meet. Um we started in May and we met every other week to look

155at what our registration was coming in at our elementarymentaries. And then um we we started in June moving teachers based on those enrollment numbers and those calculations and lots of conversations from the area chiefs with their principal. Is your numbers coming in higher than you expected, lower than you expected? What do you what do we attribute that to? And so we made a commitment last year that we would uh move not move any staff after July 15th. And so we continued to make adjustments and move uh people out of some buildings and into other based on enrollment. And we will continue to do that this year that over the summer we'll look at enrollment and see what it looks like in a particular building to know whether they need more staff or less staff. The

156other thing um to kind of talk about and think about is we're talking about this with a deficit and that we need to help cover the deficit. There might uh come a time when our enrollment's increasing and we'll use the staffing model to adjust those buildings and and adjust the the overall teaching staff to meet the the need of the buildings and the enrollment that we have in those buildings. So really, it's for the financial health of the district. It can be declining, but it also at some point might be increasing. So we're going to use the model that we have to make those adjustments, whether it be a consolidated model or the model we have today. Okay, we'll move to the innovative school options. I will say of all the proposals that we're considering,

157this one is giving me the most heartburn. Um, I know that we get questions about City View and Iowa Big and the cost per student of both of those programs. I can also tell you that these are very unique programs that attract very unique students that if these programs are not available and functioning at a high level um we do risk losing those students to other opportunities. I wanted to just speak very briefly about City View in particular. Um they're housed out at the Kirkwood Center and I was able to make it to their um little showcase that they did the other night and I will tell you even as a board member I wasn't as aware of what was happening out there as I maybe should have been. Those kids are amazing. That program

158is amazing. The things that they could talk about and interact with adults about their learning, it was absolutely incredible. And again, I will remind us all, how do these changes or how do these decisions impact our students? Um, I I just want us to be very careful if we proceed with this to save some money and and bring these programs here. Um, that we don't limit the opportunities that those kids are having. Uh the kids at at um City View are taking Kirkwood classes like they were so proud to talk about how many college credits they had got already received because they were at City View. So I just want us to be very mindful of making sure those opportunities continue to exist. Thank you. My understanding about of this one is really just where

159they're located. And I know some some of these programs have been moved around quite a few times um in their existence. And I I feel like as long as they're okay with it and and they see this as sustainable, then then that would also be a really cool use of this building, which a lot of our community has suggested. Um so, and then one more thing. Oh, and also staffing. So, let's say homeschool numbers are light one year, like those staff can assist and vice versa. And I imagine they're feeling like that's okay, too. That's something they wouldn't mind to do. Plus, bringing these programs together. Sorry, I I see a lot of the benefits bringing these programs together. You could be pairing a uh I don't know, a virtual learning kid that also wants

160to homeschool, you know, at the same time. So, hopefully we see we all a lot of us see the benefits. Well, >> yeah, I agree with what you just said there, Director Zimmerman. And I I would just add um very active parent organization as well. And so, uh my encouragement to our staff would just be to pull them in and have them be part of the conversation. They have been moved around a lot. Um and uh and there does seem to be some synergies with Kirkwood, although there's synergies in other places, too, and other opportunities and and maybe some some benefits of of the move. So I would just ask that as this moves forward that those parents and each of the programs are a big part of helping uh create the model and the

161solution there. >> Can I just clarify? So a vote on this tonight, it looks like it's a reduction of at least 250 215,000. So what does um a vote on this reduction look like? Is it just to give the opportunity to explore and then when if we do talk about City View and decide after communication that staying remaining at Kirkwood is the best option just as an example does that come back to the board for conversation? >> Yes, short answer. Um the 215 is a conservative number. Um I think the heartburn that you have all expressed is what we feel and um the parents will be involved in this. So, this gives us an opportunity to engage them um see what's possible, explore what the costs of moving students here would actually be um and

162get a real number to the board before a decision on that is made. The 215 is made up of a gap in funding um between our homeschool program um and the revenue. So, that's closing that gap as well as reducing um part of an FTE each year this year um and then next year at City View. I still see these programs as just an opportunity to re to reverse that trend of declining enrollment, right? I think so many of us feel that same way. So, I think it's already been stated, but I just want to double click because several of us have had kids that have participated in these programs and I can't stop singing its praises when we were talking about travel going out and actually talking about Iowa Big. I mean, this is

163I I I've heard I used to hear all the time people celebrate Iowa Big outside of this community than they seem to inside of it. Um because it is a truly innovative program. So to talk to those engaged families about how to grow it. If the LSC is the best place for it to thrive, awesome. If it's someplace else, awesome. Let's look at those options. Um, but the irony is not lost on me that City View is a name because it was in that downtown area so they could actually view the city. Um, and you can see it from here, but I think the access to partners, there's just a lot more of these partners that we've been talking about throughout the night uh that are centrally located uh closer to that downtown area. And

164I and I agree with the partnership with Kirkwood seems to be working well. I was really sad to be out of town to to miss that showcase with City View students because those are just a phenomenal opportunity. So, >> do you know how long we're in that Kirkwood contract? >> It's year to year. >> It is year to year. Okay. And then I just wanted to draw attention like these alternative options are big right now, right? People want choice. They want this kind of flexibility. So, I think it's important to provide that. I also want to draw attention to the fact that we have 55 students and we've spent a lot of money on this um in the EA and here just the reality of the situation. If we have, you know, invested that amount

165of money, we got to figure out ways to get more kids in these programs, make them more accessible. I don't know if that's like amping up our marketing around that or um getting people exposure to the program that you went that you went to. Um you know, how do we think about transportation? that is only an option for certain kids. Uh so just that's kind of where my mind's going. Um because I think we had anticipated a you know an outpouring of sport and they're a bit underenrolled as we had shared before. So just kind of what is our plan for that growth? How do we consistently see an uptick there? Because again, you know, we think about per people how much we're spending. Um and I want to make sure we center on that

166as well. And I would say the teams mentioned here came together um today um and have are beginning to get a plan together. Would love to bring that back um as we shape up the next set. We're also getting feedback from City View families around a potential move and what they find valuable at Kirkwood. We'll bring that back as well. >> Thank you. >> Okay, moving into Personify Health. Okay. And then insurance stipened. I would just say I think as board members, we got lots of emails on lots of different subjects. This one was very consistent. I don't think anybody liked the idea of giving away uh the stipen. So, I appreciate just kind of taking a better a closer look at this, turning this number into zero. I note that was real dollars uh

167to staff. Um and certainly as a board member, I'm not looking at taking away benefits uh from any of our staff. I do understand that there's probably maybe a different way to do this. So in the future to continue to evaluate um because we did make a significant change to the way insurance is. So that idea of being self-insured, making sure that everybody's aware of what those changes really mean. Uh because that presentation that we heard a couple weeks ago, I thought it was pretty compelling. Um but again, it was loud and clear from the folks that are receiving this stipen that this is um this is not something that they would they would be excited about at all. >> Yeah. And there's not too many ways we incentivize teachers to stay super long. There's

168no like, oh, you hit your tenure, you get a bonus like maybe in the private sector. So, it's kind of nice that that we did take this or table this um just so we can acknowledge that those staffs those staff have been um faithful to our district and we appreciate them. Okay. And then circling back, you had the opportunity to ask questions around LSC reductions. Any additional questions regarding that? >> I see the salary increase. It's like on that budget recommendations, it's a number of $3.5 million. So, I just want to make sure that I'm clear on what exactly that number represents because I think there was maybe a five $4.5 million number and so is this I might start to answer the question but it was you know whatever we get from SSA I

169mean traditionally we've looked at that as guidance but we've tended to give more than just that because it's so small >> and it seems insignificant but it does feel like that's putting us in this situation because we're spending more um than what the state is actually allocating through SSA. >> Yes, and you're absolutely right. Um so our starting point is 3% which gives us that uh $4.8 million. So that is baked into um our deficit and what we're trying to solve here. Um so our proposal is essentially just giving that new money. We're freezing um admin admin uh salary and then giving that SSA that uh 1% budget guarantee money uh 1.2 million to all other staff members. So essentially, you know, that we're saving that 3.5 because we're only giving that new money. So

170>> that's a separate conversation, correct? >> We're not voting on that tonight. Okay. >> Okay. Right. Right. Right. Yes. >> Can you can you ask that again? Clarify that again. >> Are we voting on that particular? >> No. So that is in exempt session. So Okay. The final decision there. Yes. Yes. >> Thank you. >> So we are this is all-encompassing ELSC reduction. What was proposed? That's what we're Okay. just because I know I jumped the gun before. So, um, >> or I'm sorry, was did I answer your question or was that different? >> I think I just want to make sure that it's it's so clear. Every year we talk about state supplemental aid and how we need at least 5%. And when you look at the chart, it has been historically too low.

171Okay? >> And this is the type of reason, right, is that 5% is a starting conversation should be. But, you know, I mean, I've I've heard from people that you should probably plan on zero this year, >> right? >> And that's devastating. And I think we should all agree that that is simply just not acceptable. Um, so I just want to, you know, make sure that that's clear that that's where that's why we're going to the state to advocate on behalf of this district and other districts are doing the same thing. And this is what's happening when we're consistently giving, you know, really low numbers, 2 3 4% 4%. I I forget the last time we got that high. Um but you know, at least 5%. And I I think on the chart that we

172saw, there was one time maybe it actually hit 10, but that was a generation ago. >> Be amazing. >> Yeah. >> Director buyers, did you have >> um Yeah. I just I want some a little bit more clarity here. There's last year we had a pretty major reshuffle restructure of the ALSC. We're still kind of feeling out some of that. Um, now we're going into another reduction. Um, and we, these are pretty quick decisions that, um, I'm feeling like maybe there's more discussion maybe that I'd be interested in having around this. Um, so I guess my question is we're limiting some of these roles. We're not sure the specifics on some of those roles and their responsibilities and how they may or may not provide a bridge to our schools and our support staff in

173those schools. So, it's it's um just trying to figure out if these roles are limited, how are how are we planning to um redistribute these responsibilities generally? Um because from what I understand, everybody's at capacity. So, that's where I'm having a tough time figuring out what it looks like in actuality. >> Right. Yeah. And that's I think um you know what we're trying to solve here. Can we do more with less? Um we've had the restructure uh this year going to the area model uh making cuts last year. So um people are doing more people are feeling that. Um but I mean I think I we're making do. Uh we are abs everybody's showing up every day and uh putting forth 100% effort literally blood sweat and tears. Um, so I think we are trying

174to make this work and um be fiscally responsible while we do so and just live within our means. >> I think we're asking all staff throughout the district to do more all the time. Um, I think in response to that question, I I would just remind everyone on the board that our job is to give financial guidance to the superintendent. Um, and how the superintendent builds their team is up to them. Our job is to to say yes, 988,653 seems reasonable. Now, build your team with that expectation. Um, that that's our role and that's the superintendent's role. >> I'm uh respect that completely. I just think as board members, we need the opportunity to understand how this is going to affect the whole system. And I'm not sure if I have that understanding at this

175point in time. I'm not trying to delay things. Um I I really just, you know, I'm really in support of this reallocation major majorly into the fine arts and to some of our elementaryaries that are larger. I want all of these things to map out, but I do want to understand the direct impacts and have clarification around that. Otherwise, there may be other repercussions that we haven't anticipated or had the opportunity to have a conversation. So, I'm requesting is there um I know we're moving quickly on a lot of things and this is a big number. Um but do we have the opportunity to have a conversation with you Dr. went in as a board to I since it's personnel I'm just trying to determine what are our options here for really getting to the

176granular um because you know our job is to see that systems approach big uh bigger picture and I just want to make sure there's not ramifications to this decision that we may not anticipate at this moment. Well, I really do appreciate u the conversation and I think when we look at the chart here um you know there's just a lot of conversation around the ELSC. I think we're trying to be very responsive to all of the feedback uh that we've received. Um and as you can see um since I've been here um we have eliminated a lot of people out of the ELSC but we continue to hear but I think a lot of it is that people don't understand what actually happens up here. Um, and but to that end, I will say that

177there's been a lot of conversations among our teams and we've asked all of our departments to try to problem solve because at the end of the day, we want what's best for our students. We just know that we can serve our students better. We want to do that and we're working extremely hard every day to do that. And right now with the way that our budget is, we just can't give back to the campuses with what we have right now. And I just think people are willing, just as Derek stated, people are showing up every day. They're giving their all. Um, right now we don't hardly even care what our titles are. It's just like whoever get in the room and let's just figure it out. Like that's how we're working right now. That is

178the truth of our reality because we want to see our student achievement go up. We want to see our culture better. We want our community to understand the work that we're trying to do here better. And I think that's why people are showing up every single day. But to answer your question about the process, I mean the principles are here. We've had conversations with them so that they can understand what this impact might be um from department to department. Um we have our executive directors, our student services department curriculum. They all were in the table trying to figure out how we can move things around, how we can shift things, what does that look like, all with the same end goal in mind. And so I feel like we shared these uh specific reductions with

179our executive leadership team today. I didn't hear any push back. Um they understand in terms of maybe steps we're taking this year, but I think that we just need to be mindful going forward that as we continue to strengthen our finances that we need to continue to evaluate it every year. So, while we're willing to make these reductions, but when we get stronger, if we feel like we do need something, we need people to understand that, too. Um, and I just think it's all about evaluating where you are each and every year, coming together collectively to try to make sure that we have a clear direction. And that is the reason why adopting a strategic plan in our school district is critically important. When we know our goals and we know what we're going after,

180where our priorities are, we can focus our resources in that direction and hopefully we can get the outcomes that we want for students. >> If I can can add to Caitlyn's question and and make a request here. Um, this is a structural um decision that's being made or this is a financial decision that will affect the structure that's being made. And I think it will also take time for those roles and responsibilities to play out and be fully assigned and even to see if they are working. Um, I would like to see us at one of our work sessions, one of our many many work sessions we've already talked about, but we also have like our our quarterly um off meetings that we have too where we have a idea of what the org chart

181looks like and how it's changed, what those responsibilities look like and just get a feel for how this is looking and how the plan is coming together. I think that I I agree with Dr. Dr. buyers. Geez, director buyers that um that this could have some pretty serious impacts along with all the other cuts that we're talking about. So, if we can just have eyes on that and and get some report back on what this structure is shaking out to be and do we see any areas where we are very concerned or or even concerned um that we can't deliver on something and what we can do about it. I don't mean to keep harping on this, but you know, in these major these are major decisions, you know, and we haven't been at a

182at a crux a point like this yet in my time in the board. So, we do hold the liability or the responsibility of these actions, right, as a board. And so I just in good faith I'm wanting to get more clarity on what this looks like because I would hate to in in good faith like to tonight just say all right we're passing this without really having um we're moving quickly you know and and these are real people and roles. I'm not saying that it's the wrong decision. I'm just I'm requesting to have um a conversation to understand bigger picture what this looks like um for our district because um I don't at this time have a full understanding of the potential consequences of removing these individuals >> and I don't think we do either.

183I mean, if you if in terms of the impact in terms of how we thought about where duties and responsibilities will lie and maybe I just need a clear direction like are we looking for the job descriptions of what these responsibilities are going to be. I think I walked through each already and I'm always open to talking with the board and you know that um in terms of the organizational uh structure we definitely we can take a look at that but I do believe that we're trying to do multiple things here and that is we're trying to address the budget and the language that we use in our department um we we we are getting leaner and meaner meaning that even though we may be reducing what we try to discuss is how can we

184be more effective Ive what parts of our systems can we operate better? Um and so in terms of when we're looking at the changes that are before you and I don't know if you have um I mean legally we shouldn't be discussing people's names or roles. So I'm not sure how that all that works. >> Um but we've heard a lot of good uh feedback um in terms of what's going to be important to our buildings. I think that's where we try to focus um as we make the reductions um and moving forward. As far as the executive cabinet is concerned, I think I was uh very open here and really trying to paint the picture of why it's important for our human resources department and our finance department to come together. They already work

185very closely together. Um and oftent times they need to agree upon how those systems work and having that uh one chief that oversees all of that operations. Um it allows uh for that continuity that we actually need to improve upon um our systems. And then keeping to your point, we know that we couldn't keep operations over there because that's a huge department. If we had finances set up the way that it currently is now and added HR to it, then I do agree that that would be overwhelming. So basically you just swapped out one department for the other. We removed operations and we added u HR so that they could connect together. Um and then the other in operations moving to um data communications um that department a lot of opportunities for us to uh

186work together there and understand our systems better. So yes, um we can definitely talk about that and if the board would like to see us, I thought it was my understanding that we were told to go and look for additional reductions beyond the $500,000. Um and that's what we did. Um if that's not the direction, um then we need to probably rethink that. Um and we can certainly um take another look at it. Uh but we were very thoughtful throughout that process. I do believe we have a plan going forward. I just want to say um I think you know as a board our role is governance and I think we need as a board right now just need to understand the the difference between governance and then the the managing side of things and

187there is a policy that I know that I've read recently and I think it's something that we should revisit but right now I think we are operating outside of our scope unfortunately. >> I'm just going to go back to our goal our role is oversight. I'm not trying to manage. I'm not able to determine when we take teacher leader positions away or we take a chief away after we um we're just even got a rundown this morning of all of the all of the things happening that are really important and we're prioritizing retention and uh recruitment. I just I'm looking for a bit more conversation and I know that we can't have that in this setting. So, I'm just wondering if there is another opportunity. Does this happen? Does this happen have to happen tonight?

188Can we allow for more conversation with Dr. Lannon as a board to clarify? Because again, we've made a lot of decisions. I just want to feel comfortable that in my role as oversight that we understand some of the longer term implications of removing some of these individuals or roles, not individuals, the roles. We do have a resolution on the agenda tonight and the board can choose to move that forward or choose not to move that forward. If we choose not to move that forward, that that will have some consequences in timing and planning because these things are pretty important to get established now before our budgeting process really begins in earnest. Um, I think that the conversation can continue. I don't know that it would change the reductions necessarily or if it would just we

189would have to find other opportunities to fill those in in different ways with other aspects of our budget. We have to cut regardless, right? And sometimes we're robbing Peter to pay Paul. And right now we're we're robbing Peter to not cut teachers is what we're doing. Additional teachers. >> And I know that these cuts have to be made. going back to my other points, but I so we we did say there were opportunities for amendments and there might have been a topic on the table tonight that one of our board members wasn't comfortable with and that we needed to pause and have more conversation. This is the one that I'm pausing on and so I'm just wondering if there is addition if there are additional options. I'm not saying that I don't think we should

190make the cuts. I'm looking for more clarity around the long-term impacts of making some of these cuts. So, I think your avenue tonight is that you can make a motion to amend it to um table potentially ELSC staff cuts or to reduce the amount. Um and if you get a second and it goes to a vote, then that's how that works. So, that you know, that's that's within your purview to do that. >> I I will just uh again, I've been sitting here listening. I appreciate this. This is um this I think goes a long way to talk about how tough uh this is, right? And um uh I sat in that part of the room at the first or second I guess the first in-person uh community coalition meeting and heard someone who cares

191very much about our district and about our kids say that's not enough. You're going to have to do more. When the $500,000 that was originally proposed was up there. um this is the the do more. This is what I think I've heard a lot from the community. It doesn't mean I like it. It doesn't mean that I feel like um you know like like we're doing great things here, but we're doing what we need to do to balance a budget and and behind each of these titles here is a person. Um I know there's a few open positions and and there'll be that, but even there there's other people who will be picking up work. The work's not going away. uh if anything it's getting more difficult. So again, I I I one of the

192things that, you know, I've seen a lot of people say is with cut the ELSC, there's still it's people, right? Um and hardworking people who care a lot about our kids and and do good things. And I I'm hearing that and your passion um uh director buyers and and certainly there in the end though, we do have to cut budget um and uh and I do want to try to protect as many uh teacher roles and and classroom roles as as possible there. Um, so, um, you know, I just understand the the the tough situation that we're in here, but again, this is certainly something the community has spoken up and said they would like us to do. And I I appreciate the effort to find additional money, but also to look at ways that

193we can can put some of the the staffing back into the schools as well. >> I want to provide one piece of clarity, too, as we walk through this. Um, in terms of whenever we're talking about these hard conversations, I don't want anyone to think that we're not talking about people because people talk enough about me that I know how that feels. Okay? So, I just want to be clear there. But just for clarity, we're talking about eight FTEEs here and three of them are already vacant and so five individuals and we've already had conversations with all of the individuals that are impacted here. Um and just like um the carefulness that we took when we had to go through the overall staffing model for our campuses um we will do the same thing here.

194Um we any positions uh that are realigned here they will be posted. Individuals will have the opportunity to apply with our teacher leader positions um they will go to the surplus opportunity. Um, and so we're going to make sure that we um handle our people with care and as we move through this and I am glad that you are asking this question on the front end. I think we're trying to do our part as the ELSC. But I will also put it out there that if we have to come back that we will hope that you will have that consideration because that's sometimes what people look at there say well you cut but then you added back. We need that opportunity to see what the overall impact is going to be. I think we have

195a solid plan. people are committed, but sometimes people eb and flow and depending that's another thing about our organization. Sustainability here at the ELSC is just as important as it is at the campus level. That's why our people say they don't know who's up here. Um so we need to do our best job to try to keep people um in place. Um, and so just that opportunity to evaluate as you mentioned earlier and and please know uh to the board. I'm happy to have um any one-on-one questions to try to uh explain more and again it's personnel so it's hard to have um it in an open work session but whatever is appropriate I'm willing to do it. I think it's important to remember that all of these reductions that we're considering have the potential

196to have impact, a negative impact or a positive impact. And part of the job, our job, administration's job, staff job is to monitor these changes and see how they're doing. And it it may be ELSC staff. It may be what's the future of instructional empowerment. It might be how's our mentoring going. Like those are all things that are going to change and we have to be very mindful of making sure that the changes are not that that we are minimizing any harm in those changes. So whether it's the ALSC staff or mentoring it, it doesn't matter. It's up to all of us to make sure that we are doing the least harm possible. I just appreciate the amount of time um and conversations that have been put into this plan that's come before us um

197that we've had an opportunity to discuss over the last several meetings. I just want maybe a point of clarification because I think you said this Dr. Atlanta, but I just want to make sure that that's what I heard, which is we're what we're looking at. All of this in its entirety is the strategic budget realignment plan. This is the best recommendation that we can make with the information that we have right now. As we make decisions and move forward, if we get new information and we discover that something isn't quite working, we need to trim that back or there's maybe a place that we can do more. There's an opportunity for us passing this resolution today just simply gives the green light to say, I respect this plan as it is. I know that this

198district needs to make cuts and I understand a lot of conversations went into this plan. Um, but as we learn more, we can re-evaluate. >> Certainly, we can do that. And I do I mentioned this a little earlier, but I want an opportunity because I I don't want any surprises and I love this opportunity to operate in transparency because I think it is necessary. One of the pieces that we have to understand for our budget, I alluded to it earlier that we have about $15 million worth of magnet grant money right now that is funding a number of our positions. So just like we had $52 million worth of ESR dollars, we had a total of $30 million worth of grant money that's associated with the magnet. So as we move forward, we need to

199have a work session so that you, the board and the community can understand how many of positions that we have right now at our campuses that are actually being funded out of the magnet dollars. We are going to have to compensate for that as we move forward. So making critical adjustments to our budget right now as much as we can can stand right and still making sure we can take care of our folks at the campus level. I think it is completely necessary because we're going to have to continue to make adjustments. We just hope that we don't wait and have to make them all at one time. >> To to that end, I I we spent a lot of time on the LSC. One of the things I've learned since I got on the

200board is what admin means and and that includes all of our building leadership, right? So, your principal um and uh and I I just want to recognize that this proposal also includes uh freezing their salaries this year. Um and I'm fairly certain based on my own research that their bills aren't frozen. Um you know, the cost of groceries isn't frozen. Um and uh and it that's an impact there, too. So, I I I throw that out not because I'm suggesting a change there, but because I think we also have to recognize as we continue this discussion on um how we uh how we manage budgets going forward that um we could do that again, but we'll start losing good people. And so, we have to be really careful on that side of it. It's why

201we have to continue on the conversations on on schools and that sort of thing. And so I appreciate the impact that it has on our our building administrators, our admin team. Um and uh and recognize that and and just wanted to make sure we're thinking about that too as we get past this first year of budget challenge. On top of the magnif >> I just wanted to add as a point of clarity too that in the resolution um there is room to make necessary adjustments to ensure fiscal accountability and transparency. So, I just wanted to point out that in the resolution there are there's language allowing for necessary adjustments. And furthermore, that that board or that um that segment of the resolution states that the superintendent shall continue to provide updates to the board regarding

202implementation progress, realize savings, and any necessary adjustments. It's not a oops that didn't work so we don't have to cut a million dollars kind of thing. But it is a hey this is working here and it's not working there and we need to figure something out and we need to potentially allocate something. >> I appreciate all the context and I'm just pairing urgency with systems thinking and what that looks like for us. So um this is the first time we're you know having this conversation and understanding how these roles affect the whole system. So that's where that's where I am right now. I'm just want to clarify with today's resolution, these eight roles are for sure that's a done deal. There's they're cut for the next budget for the upcoming year. Well, I think if

203we agree to that tonight, we need to do whatever we say that we're going to do. If we said we're going to cut H FTE, I don't know how we come back and do that without having a conversation. And I mean, I think that's what credibility is all about. So, if we don't feel like we should cut the eight, then maybe we should talk about reducing that or allowing me some flexibility. I just want to make sure because these are the discussions that we've had with our staff members. This is what we share and I want to make sure that I'm honoring that. And I think anytime we have new staff and FTE, the board has to approve has to approve it. Um, I just don't want it to feel like any type of bait

204and switch. If we're committing to this, I think we need to move forward with it. Okay, thank you for letting me know that. I I think I'm just walking in the space of like I don't know I guess without talking about personnel out in the open like when we say teacher leaders those three positions are those major bridges from our ELSC to our supports in our schools are we creating I was going to see if who's responsible who FTEES are those that are related to the teacher leader position I think we had one from the student services department Jennifer Van Fleet Nicole one from your area and RS I believe you had one if you want to speak to that >> and I do want to be careful I don't mean to jump in managerial

205discussing the details of it but I just do you understand where I'm coming from with just trying to get that larger scope >> I just want to just a point of clarity I just want to understand how to do this without talking about individuals um I I I just want to make sure I'm doing right by our people. I think we could talk a little bit about the process we went through with principles if that's okay. Just to kind of identify um opportunities to streamline the services um out of the ELSC, we can do that. Is that all right? Okay. >> You set up the process what we did last week. So last week uh we each came Nicole and Sarah and myself uh and others came to our principal leadership group with proposals with

206a variety of proposals of what potential cuts could look like from our respective departments. So we went through a SWAT analysis with them where they could share strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. What does that look like now? What are we worried about and not thinking about for ongoing? And we heard from every principal in that room. there's over 70 of them in the room looking at those proposals. Um, and then Sarah, Nicole, and I spent the better part of uh the afternoon putting all that together. We went through every single word, every single thought about that feedback and then um updated our proposals and brought those forward to cabinet which ended up um into the recommendations that you're seeing here. So, I'd invite our principles up to talk about that process. So, I just wanted

207to say I've been sitting there really I've been texting like can I say some I I just want to make sure the board knows and understands that you have an executive leadership cabinet or team that includes myself and every other building principle and how even how tough this has been. We recognize that we just want to take care of our people. It is from the cabinet to the principles. We all just want to do right. Which is why when you say administrative freeze, I'm okay with that because it means that our people will be okay or better off because of it. Right? So there's going to have to be some give and take from all of us and some sacrifice and but I want you to be rest assured that we were a part of

208the conversation. And not only that, when they came about what potential cuts they were thinking, it wasn't a here's what we're going to do. it was here's what we're thinking. What does this look like in your building? Right? So, there's been real intentionality about what cuts are going to be made and why and what impact that has directly to our students, our teachers, our staff because they're the ones that matter most to us and to all of us. And so, I just wanted to put that in the space like we were a part. And I I think about the amount of time and energy and reflecting and back and forth that we all have done. And I can't even imagine how much that has increased at the cabinet level that the initial 500,000 and we

209were able to come up even more just to show that we are in this together. These weren't made lightly. And so I want just to just know that as building principles, we also gave that input and feedback and I felt heard. So if you're thinking about cuts in any department here at the ELSC, I felt that there was real thought behind what does this mean for your building. Um yeah, >> I really appreciate you saying that because I we haven't been a part of that behind the scenes and these are very I mean this happened in the last week, right? Um, so I just I really appreciate you just touching on that and that clarifying that, you know, that's been a engaging process. You feel heard. That's really important to us. I understand this is

210hard. I'm just I that's what I'm looking for is that that larger that larger um thinking around it. >> Yeah, I think we have a lot of thanks to give to our um executive leadership team and our administrators. They've done so much work the last couple weeks just providing us information um on how they're feeling in the at the building level and and just to say that you're okay to take a pay freeze that like that's amazing. Thank you for doing that. Thank you for being willing and I hope we never have to be in a place like that again. So we appreciate it though all of our administrators. Thank you. >> Can I say one more thing? Um I um my team is all teacher leaders. Uh and in a size of district like

211Cedar Rapids, that's really unheard of to have one administrator overseeing curriculum and instruction. And I have been so blessed to have this team of teacher leaders that are teachers um by nature and that do the work of administration and have that skills and expertise and whether it's coaching or curriculum and instruction professional learning all of the things. And last week when we took the proposals uh to our executive leadership team um I think I could probably speak for all three of us. It was pretty vulnerable because we were like here's our people, right? just what what Jess was talking about like these are our people that we care about. Um and through that conversation they were sorry they were gentle um and they were honest and gave us a lot of feedback for us to

212take back and like Jen said we cleared our calendars and we typed in every single piece of feedback um and were able to come up with some revisions. So, it's been hard. Um, but we like Jess said and I think um to speak to what Jen said too, like uh we're in this together and um to say that we're not going to miss the work of the people is one thing, but to miss the people is is something totally different. Um but we'll we'll figure it out. Um it's what we do. I think classrooms do that, schools do that in their own system. So, um we're just trying to work together to to do what's best to get us, I think, to this end goal. Thank you. And we appreciate all the hard work that

213has gone into this and the hard discussions that are happening here, the harder discussions that are going to um be yet to come. Our goal is to make this so that we can make this a sustainable and stable and thriving district so we don't have to put everybody through this again. And thank you for your time and your passion. I think if there if there's any Yep. If we can go back to our um our administration item if there's no further discussions. All right. Next is the approval of the resolution strategic budget realignment 2627 school year. Is there a motion to approve the resolution strategic budget realignment 26 27th school year? >> I move to approve that resolution. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> This is a roll call vote. >> Director

214Taminsky. >> Director Buyers. >> Director Burns. >> I. >> Vice President Dinsky. >> I. >> Director Garlock. Hi. >> Director Zimmerman. Hi. >> President Newman. I >> the last item on our agenda is anformational item which states that the board will hold an exempt meeting for the purpose of discussing strategy sessions for union and non-union employee groups. I want we don't need a motion or anything on that, right? No, >> correct. Okay. Um I would like to provide a notice that the next board meeting will take place Monday, January 26th. uh 2020. >> I'm sorry. We're gonna pause for just a moment. >> Yeah. >> To recess. >> Okay. Just going to say it's not on my script here. So, um in order to um hold the exempt session, um I need a motion to

215recess. >> I move that we recess. >> Second. Is that a roll call vote or an voice vote? >> Nope. It's just a >> All in favor say I. All in favor say I. >> All right. The board will recess for exempt.