001good evening and welcome to the 233 Board of Education meeting the meeting is now called to order do we have a motion to approve the agenda I move that the agenda of Monday October 23rd 2023 Board of Education meeting be approved as set forth and that each item is considered ready for discussion Andor action is there a second second this is a roll call vote director rry I director bardine I director Garlock hi director humbles hi director Newman hi president tinsky I'll now turn the meeting over to superintendent Grover for her report wonderful thank you so much president zinsky here I wanted to start this evening with an update on Taft and Harding Middle Schools as you are aware we closed the Taff Middle School's East Dome on October the 11th of this year and
002we have continuu to work with raiker Road Structural Engineering in conjunction with teron testing agency and Solem Lane Architects along with McComas Len's construction to further inspect and test the remaining Dome portions of both Taft and hard and middle schools um as you also know we did not have staff or students in the buildings today and so so we had scheduled uh that review of all of the domes today and today's investigation it revealed additional damage which was not seen on our visual evaluations um they were able to go uh to the site and to take a look uh more closely and as we also think about the winter months coming and the extra weight of the snow and ice on the domes this would definitely put more stress on the beams causing things to
003shift and move knowing this information we are taking extreme precaution in closing all of the four domes our engineers and Architects they are developing a comprehensive repair plan for all four domes uh we're hoping to have that information tomorrow afternoon at that point we should be able to establish a timeline for the repair I want to thank um our internal team here uh for working alongside the principles of both of those campuses uh to make sure that they can relocate students uh during this particular time we are looking at having two portables over to Taft middle school and uh the principal is looking for ways to relocate students throughout the building um at harden at this particular time uh they should be able to accommodate um the feeding of the students um as well as
004performing arts and PE classes we will potentially have to look offsite uh for um activities that would normally take place in the gym such as practices or competitions and they will communicate that information out so I just want to thank everyone for working together uh for these unforeseen uh events um that have taken place uh but definitely we're looking to keep safety a top priority uh for our students and staff uh just a reminder um in regards to the trunka treat event this is the fourth annual one for uh CA um our teachers union along with the Cedar Rapids Community School District um this will be on Sunday October the 29th and so if you don't have a trunk that you're opening you can still come out and help uh Pass Out treats to uh
005all of the students they are expecting thousands of students and so I know I'm looking forward to it uh there is a trophy and bragging rights uh for the best trunk as voted on by the trick-or-treaters you know our students they're going to be judging um I have been told that uh Pierce Elementary trunk has won it every year so far all right so game on uh but that's not all high school student organizations and clubs have also been invited to host the trunk too so prepare to Be Wild by their creative and festive displays um the event is taking place at kingstom stadium parking lot from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. that will be this Sunday on October the 29th um the Cedar Rapid Community School District elementary schools they celebrate America's reads this past
006Friday this annual literacy celebration is designed to highlight the importance of reading several community members parents School administrators and Board of Education members I think I know I saw director round Tre out at the school I was at and I know director Newman did I miss anyone else that out board members uh were also out reading as well um and so I'm looking forward uh to actually I have to do one makeup to hawaa we had a district issue so I didn't make it over there uh but I'm hoping I they would still let me come and read sometime uh next up we have today I wanted to bring the board an update on our safety advisory Council first of all a thank you to the Board of Education um for your your decision to
007reinstate a safe and secure uh learning environment coordinator uh which is Janessa Carr she's been on board with us since July 1st and um definitely quite a few different um initiatives um and situations that she's been able to deal with but we know the board has tasked us with making sure we can come forward with a comprehensive uh support plan for safe and secure learning environments uh so today was an eventful day as our safety advisory Council held their kickoff meeting here at the ELC uh the council is made up of a diverse group of leaders from various nonprofit and Educational Systems um I think uh today we had about 25 people in attendance I do believe there are about 35 people that are on the committee uh during the meeting the council began to
008uh do some Reflections on long and short-term goals uh to ensure that the framework is achievable and effective um maybe I just want to go over and this is in draft form here this is where the discussion lied today uh just so if we want to have any feedback uh from the board at whatever point I would definitely appreciate but these are where some of the conversations are going definitely looking to develop a framework and a philosophy as a group learning to share values as it relates to improving outcomes for our most vulnerable Youth and families identifying key Partners to help help support the work I think that was a common theme um Community Partners working alongside the school district um and they would be uh ready to present a strategic plan to the school
009board in the spring of 2024 uh some of the long-term goals um that were discussed uh were to develop a Community School site uh with collaboration of community stakeholders with a common Mission um U somewhat of a placement uh where students can receive their education as well as some of the additional services such as mental health therapy um and um other family supports that might be needed develop a districtwide uh restorative reentry process um if a student has to uh leave uh the campus whether it's a suspension or another situation what does that re-entry process um look like develop a districtwide restorative practice uh response to behaviors increased parents engagement M districtwide build the district's capacity to be proactive also decreasing the occurrences of fighting physical aggression and weapons in our schools increase our student
010sense of safety and belonging um and develop a districtwide student code of conduct that builds in systems of support character development and disciplinary actions that are considered uh that are consistent and culturally responsive to the needs of our district um I guess just a little bit of the feedback from today from the group um as I was in attendance uh people are very passionate they do feel like this is the right work um they want to make sure that we actually Come Away with some results um some that we also had some staff members there U from District as well as campuses we want to make sure that we're taking the opportunity to learn about some of the best practices that may already be happening out at some of our buildings and how we can
011replicate some of those and maybe just a focus in on you know what are the priorities um especially for year one or year two when you have too many priorities sometimes it's is hard to be good at something I think that was some of their concern uh but overall it was a great starting point the next meeting we will be looking at the possibility of working towards getting a consultant or a facilitator that can come in to ensure some of this work actually happens and to have that um objective uh View point to kind of guide the group uh as well as to develop some norms and begin some of the work around the framework uh for the comprehensive plan we also had the opportunity last week to host a District bus tour again I
012know we had several of our uh board members uh there I think I know we had Mrs humbles president tamsky again director Round Tree did I miss anyone uh thank you all so much the reason why I'm calling it out and I know we had board meetings last week and this tour lasted about four and a half hours or so and so just thank you for your commitment to getting out communicating with community members um and giving them a firsthand tour of our buildings U so we had several Business Leaders Community Partners government representatives and members of the media I think we have a busload of about 40 people touring Kennedy High School Franklin Middle School author and Maple Grove elementaries our participants they learned about about the different qualities of the current District facilities
013they saw some of the challenges um as well as they got a chance to witness our dedicated Educators and our wonderful students um we had the opportunity to share information about the new strategic plan um with including the need to improve the high school's Career and Technical education programs and elements of the Bond speaking of the bond um we are definitely wanting to to make sure that we get good information out accurate information out to our community so the Cedar Rapid Community School District administrators uh will be hosting Community Information sessions you can see the dates times and locations here on the screen we want to invite our staff as well as our parents community members you don't have to have students inside um of the Cedar Rapids Community School District in order to attend
014these sessions as you know we have a couple um that are in the morning I believe that there should be a virtual option in case you can't make it on site this will definitely allow uh the opportunity to learn more information where we will share an overview of the bond the projects included and the financial impacts but more importantly we want to Avail ourselves to be able to answer any questions um that you might have um to be able to get the information directly from us to get the best information about uh the bond um definitely we should have all the facts related to it and I guess one fact to note is that uh the Cedar Rapid Community School District um Bond will be on the November 7th ballot you can go to the
015L County website to find out more information about your voting if you want more information about the bond you can go to B.C schools. us and that concludes my report for tonight thank you for the report um on the information sessions where can the community find those are those posted on our website will they be on social um yes uh they should be up on our website and please uh if you looked earlier please go back and take another look as well as definitely should be on our social media platforms we did have to make one change thank you president toiny to the Wednesday November 1st session that will be held at Maple Grove we had to change it from Harden for the reasons I stated earlier in my report I know as somebody that
016was able to participate on that on bus tour what a tremendous opportunity that was for this entire community and I think what I heard from a number of folks is that hopefully we see opportunities like that continue in the community so I think there's a lot of people that um no others that I think would benefit from that so hopefully we continue to see that thank you um any board reports we will now hear from those who were requested to address the board Ryan do we have any members of the public that have requested to address the board yes uh how many speakers do we have signed up for public comment one uh with one speaker this evening uh you will be given five minutes for your remarks U please respect the time allotted to
017uh to the speaker uh board secretary rram will serve as your timer and indicate when your time has expired the time is yours to use and may not be yielded to another speaker um if you have um submitted a request to address the board and choose not to speak in the interest of equity and fairness your time may not be yielded to another speaker in order to abide by open meeting law there will be no dialogue between board members and the public during this time except to clarify the nature of questions or comments from the individual speaking we ask that the audience and speakers refrain from using inappropriate language and Outburst as a matter of respect for all those in attendance this board has zero tolerance for profanity vulgarity demeaning language or threats of any
018kind lastly I'd like to remind our speaker that the board is unable to address personnel and student matters there is a process outlined in board policy which provides guidance on how to address and resolve concerns we ask that speakers refrain from using personal name and information during public comment um before we begin I'd like to remind our speaker to please state your name and address for the record when call it to the podium Ryan please call our speaker Laura pelich and she will be speaking on re inappropriate reading materials in school libraries thank you school board members for allowing me to speak my name is Laura pelich and my husband and I reside at 430 Liberty Drive Southeast Cedar Rapids I'm glad you mentioned in your preface that inappropriate language profanity vulgarity and demeaning language
019of any kind would not be tolerated in this meeting that is actually directly connected to the concern that I would like to present tonight the crude vulgar demeaning and graphic pornographic materials that are still found in many of the books in all of the Cedar Rapids high schools and a few books in the middle schools as evidenced in the research I did just last week I'm concerned and curious that books containing vulgarity profanity demeaning and graphic pornographic images and words are not tolerated in a Schoolboard meeting here but are available in our school libraries books such as lucky push not that bad rape culture sold all boys aren't blue assassination classroom gender queer tricks this book is gay the The Bluest Eye the hate you give and flamer all rated four or five on the
020rating scale provided by rated books.org and let me just read to you what four and five are four is explicit sexual nudity depiction depictions of sexual organs organs in a state of arousal obscenity references to sexual activities involving anal oral or vaginal intercourse fingering I don't know that word or ejaculation five aberant content explicit references to aberant sexual activities sexual assault battery beastiality or sedom masochistic abuse so those ratings four and five are in all of those books plus about 60 others I have a reference here as far as which books are in the libraries as of now um I would encourage you to look look up some of these books and see for yourself if they are books you would want your teenager to read or see the graphics of that they got from
021the school library in the book I hate you uh hate you give by Angie Thomas six profanity words were listed profanity words that start with the letters a b f n P and S for a total of 236 times in one book alone I'm concerned and curious that books containing vulgarity profanity demeaning and graphic pornographic images and words are in our school libraries with no penalty when if I'm not mistaken the mandatory reporter training that every teacher in this district is required to be certified in clearly states the point of mandatory reporting is to protect children in all cases and Report imminent danger to law enforcement another Point made is children and dependent adults in Iowa deserve the greatest possible protection from abuse General categories of sexual abuse include unwanted remarks or comments on someone's
022appearance or body intimate referencing fondling and obscure obscene language or gestures additionally rape molestation incest and sexual harassment are also different occurrences of sexual abuse I'd like to read a few lines from a sampling of the books I found in our libraries but I'm not sure how to do that since vulgarity profanity demeaning and graphic pornographic images are not tolerated in this meeting I am a survivor of sexual trauma childhood sexual trauma myself and a counselor of 11 years their research confirms what I have dealt with personally in my life and see frequently in my practice what does the research tell us I think I better go to these pornographic pornography creates confusing expectations attitudes and beliefs about what to expect in a healthy sexual interaction pornography makes sexual violence seem okay that being aggressive
023will get you what you want and that no means yes pornography reinforces gender stereotypes such as guys call all the shots and girls are meant to be used for sexual purpose it portrays people as objects a thing to be used and not as a person one more thing I'd really like to know what lit what literary value anyone of these or the 60 other books have that contribute to their education and development thank you for your time I will email you a copy of my sharing and look forward to your response moving on to our consent agenda are there any items that a board member would like to pull for a comment question or a separate vote do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved is there a second second uh
024any further discussion this is a roll call vote due to the Personnel report director bardine hi director gar hi director humbles director Newman director rry hi president tinsky I moving on to Administration we have a few resolutions the first is appointing paying agent escro agent and registar in transfer agents um and authorizing the execution of the same do we have a motion to approve the first resolution so moved is there a second this is a roll call vote director Garlock hi director humbles hi director Newman hi director rry hi director bardine hi president tinsky I our second resolution is the approval of continuing disclosure certificate is there a motion to approve the resolution so moved is there a second second this is a roll call vote as well director humbles hi Newman hi director rree
025hi director borine hi director Garlock president tinsky and the final resolution is the issuance and providing for and securing the payment of the bonds is there a motion to approve this resolution so moved is there a second second uh this is roll call vote director Newman hi director round hi director bardine hi director Garlock hi director humbles president tosky Hi next we hear from Carla the fiscal year 2023 financial highlights good evening board of directors tonight I'll present to you our FY 23 financial highlights uh we have been working with our Auditors all this information is based on our C certified annual report that was loaded to the state uh by the deadline of September 15th and when you uh receive your acfr you'll notice that there will be some audited adjustments compared to this
026information so the total revenue in fy22 was almost $38 million while in FY 23 it was $326 million for all of our funds in fy22 our expenses were $315 million while in FY 23 it was $37 million for Revenue $10 million of this was the Trailside bonds that were issued in fy2 three and there were no bonds issued for any projects in fy22 the district was closing out the Maple Grove project by expending funds that were already received in fy22 in FY 23 Esser was $15.6 million and this is primarily in the general fund with 633 th000 in Pebble and 2.38 million in save we'll do a deeper dive into the specific funds in the presentation as you know the general fund is our primary operating fund of the district and the general fund in
027FY 23 had a $3.3 million surplus this is due to the district using eser funds to cover allocated expenses positions being unfilled and a slower turnover rate and by a slower turnover rate I mean mean the time that it takes to fill a vacancy in the system after resignation or retirement the annual budget showed a district deficit spending of $1.8 million however after all the Departments uh the Departments didn't spend their maximum budgets and most departments and schools had unspent allocations this shows our general fund historical summary and as you notice our actual revenue and expenditure comparison for fy18 to FY 23 notice that preco we ran a deficit of $1 million in fy19 and $4 million in fy20 Esther has been used in the fiscal years 21 22 and 23 to create a surplus
028in FY 23 our Surplus was 3.3 million and we currently have almost a $43 million fund balance this is 2.21 months of fund balance to carry us through the summer summer months when we don't receive state aid we are going to use the Surplus that we had in fy21 22 and 23 to help us cover our Esser spending Cliff that's coming at the end of fy2 the next slide shows you our unspent balance report and notice in the green at the very bottom on line 34 our estimated unspent balance is almost $3.8 million for FY 23 it had a slight upward change since fy22 which was $30.6 Million this has grown since fy1 17 but leveled off since in fy22 to 23 the goal is for the district to spend as close as possible in
029what we receive in general fund for our student needs so we are right on target our current solvency ratio this year is 16.8% the district has a target of 10 to 15% this is slightly more than that due to a lot of Esser expenditures this calculation is our unassigned fund balance minus our AA flowr divided by our total revenue notice that the rate has grown significantly since fy20 this is due to Esser and Staffing shortages as I noted before this calculation is also used by standards and pores when they do our rating and this is part of the reason for us maintaining our A+ rating with our current Trailside bonds the next slide shows Student Activity historical fund summary Student Activity is the fund used to fund all Student Activities in our high schools and
030our middle schools Student Activity had deficit spending of 135,000 compared to fy22 where it had a surplus of 441,000 of that $441,000 Surplus it had in fy22 the District had transferred $366,000 from the general fund to help offset the decreased Revenue in our Student Activities due to coid the schools now are utilizing this allocation to help defray the cost in the Student Activity fund management fund is our used for insurance early retirement incentive payments and unemployment the district had a surplus of 1.47 million in FY 23 and almost and a fund balance of almost $1 million the district is aware that this balance is growing and will work at possibly decreasing the revenue in the management Fund in fy2 this shows our safe historical summary and save is secure Advanced Vision for Education which is
031the Statewide Penny sales tax that the district receives funding for we had a surplus of $9.3 million in save in FY 23 this fund also pays for our elementary school construction projects it and other construction Pro projects Trailside balance of bonds on June 30th 2023 was $5.6 Million so of the uh ending fund balance which was 28 million 5.6 million of that actually belong to Trailside for their project so the ending fund balance was $22.7 Million that is available and will be used for future Elementary projects next is our physical plant and Equipment Levy which is used for uh construction projects and uh we had a def we had deficit spending in in the pebble fund of $160,000 notice that prior to that prior to fy22 we were carrying forward uh almost $2 million uh
032from fy19 to fy21 and the district is using that funding now to complete projects um we want to do all the projects to the buildings that are needed so we will continue to spend down that balance debt service is funded through save since we only have save bonds outstanding at this time so Debt Service is the fund that all of the funds go uh are transferred into to pay our bonds and so the fund balance and Debt Service is rest restricted carryover for future payments of bond debt next is our nutrition fund our nutrition fund is used for our food and nutrition programs notice that employee benefits is negative that's because of our net ipers pension liability of 1.71 five million compared to uh fy22 which was $532,000 the surplus of 2.56 million includes the
0331.7 million so the actual dollars are inflated the actual change in the nutrition fund was only $840,000 next is the child care and as you know we closed down our child care um in fy22 Rockwell closed in fy21 Five Seasons Child Care closed in fy22 so we still have funds uh remaining in the child care fund and uh before the end of this year we'll have to decide what we do with that current cash on the child care fund is $1.36 million the uh local Revenue uh of $1.56 s million in our child care fund was to remove the uh net pension liability uh from the books do you have any questions lots of numbers okay um so we have uh excess Revenue sitting in the child care fund that you said we're going to
034have to decide what to do with are there yeah we can close that fund okay so we can close it are there restrictions on how we can move that money no we can move it to the general fund um by board action and a resolution okay so we will be discussing that at the end of this year we wanted to leave that fund open one year Beyond um and then this for this year decided Well we leave it open uh one more year to just make sure uh that we don't want to reopen a child care okay but we can move that to the general fund on board action can you help me understand how the pepal fund historical summary and The Debt Service fund historical summary are the same numbers Deb service double Deb
035service I have two different ones um I think there was an updated slide presentation to your original one that was sent I I'll email you the new one okay thank you because the ones on the screen should not have matched different okay should have been two different ones yes I'll email that out solvency history and current report can you just maybe yep talk a little bit more about that so 16.8 higher than what you said is the ideal range of 10 to 15 there was a reference there ERS so if you could just maybe yep so it's 16.8 now um and that is because our um total revenue is higher um notice in actual in fy21 is 227 million actual in fy22 is 235 million and then actual in FY 23 is 236 million that's
036because it Al it contains um all of our eser so we spent uh last year just over $15 million of eser uh once we go back um since you use actual revenue and don't exclude categoricals next year our uh well not next year FY 25 it'll go back down uh notice in fy20 it was uh our total revenue was $25 million and that's about where we should be 215 to 220 million but those numbers are being um elevated due to eser sure so you're I mean you're is there a way to back that out well and to even kind of predict what the solvency rate would be based on what you just shared like it's going to go back down within it's going to go back down yeah within a normal range yeah okay because
037it's actual revenues and it's all general fund revenues and Esser is primarily general fund okay additional questions I think for the general public you know obviously tons of numbers and yeah I think I always make a joke of going through like School Finance workshops when I go out to the ISB conference but you know would you consider that the district is in good financial position based on everything that that you just shared with us it is because we're uh we're using Esser allocations to fund uh some programs uh that normally the district would not be using Sr funds for so we are elevating that balance and we will have to start in FY 25 and 26 using that balance to offset expenditures good thank you car the last item on the agenda is an update
038on the par professional staffing and hiring I will turn the meeting over to Darius Ballard thank you hello everyone I am getting the privilege to talk to you a little bit about our Paras we've talked a lot about teachers to start the year we kind of had a ticker running all the way up until the first day of school on how close we get to filling every one of our classrooms with a highly qualified teacher um but there were a lot of questions about what what is our current state of teacher Associates our paers in our in our school system uh what are their roles how do we place them where's our biggest needs where are we growing you name it so I'm going to try and give you a quick reader digest version of
039where we are our current state and where we're hoping to go next today so we're going to use um a protocol we've used in schools for a while the describe ascribe and prescribe or adap protocol uh describe is going to give you our current state where we are that context the ascribe is going to be the why why are we there what can we attribute it to and last but not least we'll prescribe it which is what comes next both in shortterm and long term so first and foremost when we talk about our background there's three categories of our pair of professionals the first of which is our special education then we have general education and our early learning now general education and early learning are primarily a onetoone relationship so we have Security in
040our building if one security were to leave another person would take that spot so those positions are pretty stable they're pretty consistent but the one that does change from year to here is our special education population and so I wanted to give you a quick outline of what that posting process looks like so Step One is we determine the disabilities for the student two is determining their least restrictive learning environment so where are they going to be most successful and it still feel like a traditional classroom experience for that student the third thing we do then is we Define those accommodations for that school for that student and that's done with the help of their IEP team next with the approval of what we call an Lea which is our agency rep who has the
041ability to look at our resources that we provide for that student they are looking at what that support is and if if that includes a paah then the last step is making that posting uh with support from HR special ed directors Etc so what do we use those pairs for then well of course we just talked about that special ed role and some of those things are up here but other things include one-on-one Services Health intervention data collection for Medicaid uh extracurricular help behavioral Intervention Program support skill reinforcement or acquisition in the first place study hall monitoring Credit Recovery facilitation General classroom backup as I kind of put it Transportation Behavior Support plans and security uh the big three there are the ones that are bold in a little bit bigger skill reinforcement acquisition the
042classroom backup and the behavioral intervention so that's where a lot of our our pairs are but they feel a lot of needs for our students throughout our system so other facts that I figured you might want to know we are at 2669 in terms of Staff members in our Workforce uh compliments of our information team and from there our PA of support is 537 of our of our community here and so that is about 20% of our Workforce of those positions we talked a little bit about Esser a few moments ago only seven of those positions are Esser funded and those are primarily going to be in that gened domain um so we're talking about additional supports we might want to have on the short term and then last but not least our sped Paras
043serve 2,483 students who have IEPs within our district at this time drilling down a little further to give you a really good Rich background uh we wanted to look at the positions that we have for our peras and so actually I was able to get the PA of positions for 21 22 22 23 and 23 24 so not even just the 23 24 up there um you can see the the orange line is the positions not filled or the overall positions whereas that purple line is the positions that we have filled within our district so On Any Given year if we look at 2122 we had 456 total positions for Pais ear marked we had 416 people take those roles leaving us with 40 vacant positions for that school year in 22 23 again we
044have 470 positions total 428 people took that challenge for us and then this year we have 537 total positions 482 sit filled as of a week ago so the big thing I wanted you to see there is the fill rate is staying roughly similar we're just increasing annually how many Paras we need in our district and again those are going to be Prim primarily in that special ed umbrella vacancies for this year in case you wanted to know Darius where are we with our 55 for now and again these are the vacancies as of the 13th of this month so there's been actually a a few more that have been added since then but this is the breakdown J Ed makes up 11 special ed makes up 38 and our early learning is six giving
045us our percentages of special ed being 69% of our vacancies at this point while Early Learning is making up almost 11 and Jed is that last 20% so with all that information that's a lot of where we currently sit here's why here's the here's the big takeaways I want you to take and and kind of our wise so more jobs have been filled than last year but more vacancies have been created than last year and if you look look back at that diagram uh it's increased every year the bulk of the positions are dependent on our special ed population and we've kind of gone over what that process looks like so that means that either students are getting diagnosed more more students are entering our system that have been diagnosed or they need additional supports
046or any combination of those three um why what's going on with our fill rate why are we averaging about 50 that aren't being filled well it's a pretty competitive sector in finding candidates our our numberers $15 an hour um and and as we got up to that number a lot of other Industries we also getting to that $15 an hour so we are fighting uh tooth and nail to get really qualified candidates to work with our students every day um but I I think we're to some extent we're succeeding because we're finding more and more candidates every year we're just not meeting the need fully yet um $15 an hour in case you're curious is the most common hiring wage in our Corridor so we're about on track with virtually every other District um and
047the other challenge that we've been trying to work through is who's the best hiring agents I think there's always the question of should every one of our schools hire their pa profession professionals at this time of the year or should we centralize it should the central office do all of that hiring and then Place students or I'm sorry Paris support and we've kind of gone back and forth because there's some challenges with both systems fit in that school setting connection to that side of town or that Community familiarity with the support but then also time on both parts so trying to really answer to Bell for all of those things want to show you a little briefly here also our hiring wages um and then kind of walk you through our what I've said Pay
048bump or for our teachers we say Lane change is not exactly the same language so these are all the options that people can come into our district as a PA of professional and kind of their starting wage so on the far left there we have high school folks who come in which is the high school diplom I should say um and you you start at 1510 generalist uh certification 1520 with a specialist certification of 1530 um the the associates uh will get you 1545 unless you you have one in education and then neba will start you at a570 with a teacher certification starting you at 1580 per hour so that's the starting wage and I figured you may also ask well what if I want to move up how do I get advancement in terms
049of my wage so the next slide here kind of walks you through there and I I I set up kind of a a scenario so let's say for instance I started at a high school level which means my starting wage is going to be that 1510 and I'm working for8 hours a day so I'm an 8 Hour employee so I wanted to look at how much money we're talking about so that 1510 as we move up the range so you can start at that High School range or work keys is the test that we have people take if they just have a high school diploma and they wanted to then get their generalist certification well by getting that generalist certification which is a which is a coursework essentially um you can get a 3% bump
050which is going to be about 45 cents an hour um and that'll give you an average increase of about 76 $6 per year and those things compound so once you have that generalist that's 3% bump for 47 cents that specialist will take you to a 48% bump the AA will give you a 50 um and the list kind of goes up from there and so this the final sticker price is you can get to about 50 to70 more per year if you take all of those bumps um and that just requires additional learning certification um some class we offer some you have to go to to different universities around the area to get last piece here is our are prescribing um here's where we are I mean I've kind of talked about some of the
051things but currently we're looking for more Paras so we're working with um with admin in all our buildings uh hr's working on that Special Ed's working on that we're trying to fill all those needs as much as possible to get that close that close to zero as possible as close to zero as possible I should say um increase our efficacy of our Paris one of the things we want to do is make sure we keep all our Paris and so to do so we want to make sure they feel very confident in their role um and so one of the things we've tackled this year is actually having professional learning we're offering monthly sessions to all our pair of professionals um it's it's kind of collaboration between special ed and uh and HR to make
052sure that they're getting the need that's going to be most applicable to help them in their in their assignments and then finally we've got two District task forces that are just getting off the ground um and they're all in our energizing the staff sort of sphere of our strategic plan uh we're looking at our development and promotion and also our staff efficacy and uh our promotion development is is getting off the ground you'll probably get an update on on what we're doing and how we're really trying to help every work group um in about a month and uh the staff efficacy group has also gotten this group off the board call the president board and so it represents sort of the presidents or the lead of all of our contract groups that come to together
053they talk about specifically right now what are our biggest barriers that are holding back our Workforce so that we can come up with a plan to really tackle that for every single group that we have in our district and then last but not least it's kind of um a pipeline a dream so to speak for me right now but I think it's not too far off for us uh on the far left we have we have our pair of professionals and and one of the things I want to do is I also want to make sure that we've got a a real plan or a pipeline if people want to see change in title as part of their promotion and development and so if you're a par professional I I want to make sure that
054there are opportunities for advancement in the form of either Behavior text and engagement Specialists and then also making sure that our Behavior text and engagement Specialists if they wish to pursue um have an opportunity to become a teacher in our district um and then teachers can in turn become teacher leaders and the list goes on and on from there but really making sure that that's an attainable thing for everybody they feel like it's a real concrete pathway um and should they want to explore it they don't have to feel alone and that concludes the presentation and I'm ready for any questions you may have once I grab a pen thank you for the presentation defer to my fellow board members for any questions just a clarifying question on on your slides so the hiring wages
055slide where starts with 1510 over on the left and goes up to 1580 with Education certification and a ba is that different than the initial wages on the next page yeah I just noticed there is a typo there and I'm not sure what happen there I I will clean that up so this is right because that's just the starting wage and so and so what you're probably noticing and I noticed it too as I'm looking at it there is there's there's a mistake right there I do believe that the AA and any Fields a 50 Cent bump but then the the AA and education is a 48 Cent bum I think that's an issue that I will I'll fix I'll get you a better graph of that but yes this is the starting wage that
056is independent of the bump so the categories are the same and so no matter where you start this is this is just your starting wage depending on what certification you have when you come in and then you're still eligible for any bump beyond that and each one of those will give you 3% from whatever wage you are at good question thank you I'm looking at the the different levels I mean the if you want to go high school and then the generous certificate does the district provide some assistance for those that that would like to move forward I mean for like to get a certificate is it costly and is that it's not um incredibly costly a lot of things are actually working out with Partnerships that we've had with the with the associations around
057so like Kirkwood has actually been an ally and a support for us as people have gotten certifications in the past okay um it is it is a class and it would be a small investment but ideally over time with pay bumps you'd be able to make up for it you get your money back okay thank you you I have a question about um so on the slide that says sped Paris serve are 2,483 students yes with IEPs um what percentage of that of those Paras are paid through Medicaid reimbursement so you're asking me right here how many of those Paras y would be serving or would be reimbursed through Medicaid as currently constructed well anybody who's who's qualified to be doing work through their IEPs would qualify for Medicaid reimbursement is that the entire salary
058that gets and is it a year no it's not it's a percentage you can get that number for you okay I think that would be yeah I don't I there's no way for me to break that down on a person by person basis right here um I think I think part of it is also submitting it straight to the state to make sure that we can get those funds sure that's retro interactive it's reimbursement right yeah yeah like to see that thank you can can you maybe share a little bit more detail on the growth so you go on the on the positions in 2122 it was 456 and then it went up by 81 so to 537 so I know that that was one of the things you were pointing out is that it
059might look like a lot of open positions but there's also a lot of new positions so I just want to make sure that we're clear as a board what is driving that that type of growth over the last few years very good question thank you uh so so I think the the the main focus is just the diagnosis of students and the needs that they have so in some cases we're getting students who are enrolling that are immediately being determined that they do qualify for an IEP and once we determine they're going to qualify for an IP then it becomes a matter of what resources do they need to be successful and so that is driving some of the things and and um the challenge is as we continue to work through our our system
060as you matriculate from Early Childhood all the way through high school you're looking at specifically what are the things that they need so that they no longer need a parah um and so a lot of that driving factor is student progress toward their goals at the end of the day and what what goals have we identified and then what what scaffolds what supports do they need so a lot of it's coming from those IEP meetings based upon student data um that's been determined based upon disability when you talk about um I think it was efficacy right so recruitment I'm kind of curious to just I want to dig a little bit more into the prescrib so that this board kind of knows like what are some of the areas that we can be assisting and
061to make sure that we've got the best possible program that we've got so this from equipment perspective are there some other ideas that you think um that that we could you maybe expand on and um you know looking at the retention piece I mean I'm of course curious like you know when people join how long do they typically stay and is that career path that you shared does that feel like it's working or is it too soon to to know well I'll I'll start I'll answer in reverse order so I was say the the career path that I brought up is like in its infancy like that's a baby that just opened its eyes for the first time um because that's not been something that we've defined as a district yet um it's something that
062I've kind of talked to a lot of our work groups about this year for the first time um and so I believe that as we continue to look at what funds we have funding is always tough I think we would all agree with that and so what are the other things that we can do to promote retention and so one of the things that I've circled on my to-do list is to create that pathway for advancement and helping our our adults figure out what it advancement looks like because while I can't promise a huge influx of cash having Clarity and opportunity is something that we can create within our system um so so that's what I've that's why that's there but it it doesn't exist yet we're we're really starting to just kick the tires
063on the the idea of what that looks like um one of the things we're going to want to probably do is look at the Partnerships that we can develop so for instance we've got a couple of Partners right now um I think and we approved at one of our last meetings a memorandum of understanding for one of our new partners but we have u a pathway in place right now for folks uh to the left of teachers to become elementary teachers um as well as special ed teachers but other certifications don't currently exist within our model and those would be very beneficial positions so helping us create more Partnerships working with us as we create those Partnerships so that we can continue to expand opportunities so if you're a if you're a high school perah
064and and you want to teach language arts that there's a very easy pathway for us to make that a reality I think that would do a that would do wonders for that growth and development that we're talking about within our district yeah I remember that um that on the agenda not that long ago about the pathway from perah to teachers so I was excited to see that and certainly looking at the different certifications and and watching that it was noticeable just the you know it was like a 10-cent difference but like in this way it almost seems like well I would rather start off as a High School your work keys and then just get the 3% bomb because those numbers started to get a little bit nicer so it's just interesting as we get
065into the work like how did we get Paris into this system and then how do we support them so they could be successful and the thought that they could move through this progression is is pretty exciting so hopefully it's something that works and if it's there's ways for us to help uh we certainly I think we would all want to hear that one other thing I just want to add to that because I agree with everything you're saying I also want to make sure that we also highlight that efficacy piece because I want them to feel like there's a pathway but I also want them to feel like they're being um supported and the right things are being reinforced so they feel confident that they're going to get that way and so we're trying to
066tackle both simultaneously so there's a path and there's people walking alongside you so you can be successful along it yeah to support our employees at every step right so I mean it's I mean to know that not everybody is looking for that particular career path so making sure that when they come into our system that we're supporting them the way that they need to be supported so I appreciate that Dr Bon yeah I I like that there are a lot of Tools around retention um I'm wondering if you have any data around attrition for Paris at this time we do not have that um that's as we're building our data and our ability to track things on our dashboard this year I'm hoping to be able to have that number for you but that one
067it's going to take a little time for us to build okay thank you and just to clarify you don't have that information available to you right correct okay yes not that we don't know it tonight there has to be a data collection process in order to thank you yes first your so doing like super rough math and I know that Paras aren't it's all over the board some are with a classroom Sumer one to one um with what we have right now it's it's one PA per 5.15 student with an IEP and if we were able to fill all our positions it would be 4.62 students how are we bridging that Gap right now to make sure all those students get the services they need that's a good question uh so we we have a
068lot of different things we're doing depending on which level of uh of programming we're talking about so in some cases with our gen Ed peras they may just be providing additional supervision but I think you're talking about solely special education talk about IEPs yeah yeah yeah so so in a lot of those cases we we have a couple of other individuals that are serving and helping so you'll see on the board that we had there the behavior teexs so some of them are playing more um they're playing a larger role in some of our classrooms than typically would be the case but due to some of those shortcomings in some of our classrooms they're filling in a different way not on the board at all we also have these this group called interventionists and so
069interventionists um kind of occupy a space similar to engagement Specialists uh but in our specialed world and so they are also uh existing in our system and they're filling in gaps where is necessary at this point those are kind of our two biggest things that we're using uh to help us as we support students this this is a question I know you can't quantify but how are they holding up right like are we providing enough support to get through while we work to hire the rest of this yeah I think I think that um that is that's a big challenge I think uh if I'm going to be honest that that's that is the challenge that's what has my team trying to work to fill those spaces because we know that we are asking a
070huge burden for our employees and they need help um I think they are holding up we're trying to do everything we can so to speak um to bring reinforcements as quickly as we can um and and that's why I said I mean every year the ask has been higher and we've we've done our bet best to meet that ask um and we may not have gotten 100% there but we have exceeded what we were able to do the year before so a lot of it is is processing through that is looking at what can we do so if there's a whole Suite of accommodations for a student and three of them are more applicable and they're they're more um efficacious at this time we try and make those our priority with that student and and
071among that staff so that way one it's workable with the workforce that we have in that room and then and we combine that with what's going to help that student be be successful that's how we've done it so far but of course we are always looking for more reinforcements and if you have some feel free to let me know thank you uh there in regards to that question thank you so much uh director Newman for the question I would say that that's one of the top concerned areas for staff members for principles teachers and parents alike uh for us it is quite challenging uh to be able to meet the needs and um it's actually a little bit more uh in depth than just a staffing and loan if you were to look at our
072numbers here and Craig I didn't do the percentages and I'm waiting on our report so we can be able to see how we compare to the state but if we have 2,483 students on an IEP that's high almost in any school district when we think about the percentage of students that we're serving so um Karine and her team they are also working with grantwood aea here now uh to evaluate our IEPs and the support we're also looking at our uh bibs our Behavior our intervention plans um as well and I do want to thank the grantwood aea because they are willing to help us conduct a complete needs assessment uh in regards to our special education programing at large uh and so we will um continue to work through that process once we have some
073information to report to the board we will bring it uh for your update so thank you so much for shedding light on that because that is a huge concern across the system any additional questions thank you darus thank you with no further business we stand a journ