001Thank you to Miss Ays, Miss Gibson, Mlean, myself, Mr. Jones, and Miss Marquez for being here. And we do have somebody else on the dis with us today, Mr. Ben Castillo. All right. Um, that brings us to 1B. And I think it's important for us to start off not only our study sessions, but we can talk about what that looks like in the boardroom, but to really on our mindset work to really ground us in the work that we're about to do. So the framework for student outcomes focused governance is built around six researchinformed competencies that describe school board behaviors and the degree to which they create the conditions for improvements in student outcomes. vision and goals, values and guardrails, monitoring and accountability, communication and collaboration, unity and trust in continuous improvement. And with that,
002Mr. J. Man will be facilitating our today's mindset activity. Mr. Man, >> apologize, President Curio, I just need a moment to reconnect up here. Um, there. Okay. Well, thank you for uh letting me lead our mindset work today. Um this work is really important. I've asked Mr. Castillo, who's a board member in a district in Texas, in addition to his expertise as the board's attorney, to give me a grade at the end of this as to how well I did with with mindset work. So, since he's our our outside observer, um but what's important to remember is the reason we do mindset work is because student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change. And we know that our schools exist to improve student outcomes. But in order to do that, I need to be the
003genesis of change, which ultimately means that student outcomes don't change until my behaviors change. So the way that we become very aware of our behaviors is by engaging in mindset work. I think particularly for some of the work that we'll be doing today around um our school district policies um related to our policy diet. um conversations we'll have about budget and what what the status of our budget is um and other work that the board will be doing is always critical that it be um informed by our focus on this behavior change. So what we'll open with is the first question of the mindset work which is what is an example of a time when my choices my adult behavior may have made it harder for students to be successful and I'll encourage us to
004think of a time perhaps in the last 60 to 90 days so it's fairly recent when my choices my adult behavior may have made it harder for students to be successful. Uh, Mr. Man, I can go ahead and lead with that one. I believe two weeks ago our deadline to submit our progress mon report questions was due. I believe that was February 6. Um, and I did not submit my questions in time even though I allowed the team to um, expect of me to submitting them before 5:00 p.m. So, to me, that's an adult behavior that made it harder for our students to be successful because I turned in my questions late and gave the team less time to figure out the answers. Um, so yeah, that's mine. >> Thank you. Thank you both for
005being the first to go to provide an example and also for the the vulnerability. Would anyone else like to share? >> Well, mine is that I just didn't submit questions. So, there's that. And I've I've made that commitment before and I just didn't follow through. over to our agenda item I I mean 1 C which is discussion information on board policy review diet. This is our second reading. This is amazing work because one of the things that I believe I personally believe and feel the board also values is that our policies should reflect our own unique crane community. Our policies should not be duplicated in the same as our neighboring districts, let alone some districts that are in rural areas that have different needs. So this is going to be a great opportunity for us
006to really dive into our policies, figure out what what needs to go in in our policies, but also differentiate what needs to be said as you know procedures versus them living in our policy and taking up um time or space in our in our policies. So with that, I'll turn it over to Mr. Ben Castillo to start leading us on this policy diet. >> Well, good morning. Good morning. >> Thank you guys for for allowing me to be here today. Uh I do want to congratulate you. This is a a huge endeavor uh to to start your policy diet to work on it. You have approximately 203 policies uh that pretty much deal with everything that you that deals with Kraton School District. Uh a big portion of uh the edits are going to be
007in your chapter 1 and chapter 2. There's a lot of stuff that is required in there by statute. Uh but there's also ways for the board to ad uh to delegate administratively the procedures to the superintendent. Uh so with that, I have my my law partner here with me, Mr. Ramidz. He's going to help me with the the presentation portion. Uh and if it's okay with you guys, I'll start at the high level. Uh and then we could kind of go one by one if you guys want. I'll go high level on each of the policies that were edited. And then if there's any more if there's specific questions with that, we could pull them up here and we could go through them. Is that okay? >> Sounds good. >> That sounds good. >> All
008right. Well, good morning. So, today the the district's policy diet, it's going to be a structured review of our policy manual to ensure our governance systems align with student outcome focused government governance. Uh the I guess the bottom line uh for today is Arizona law does give the board broad authority to adopt, revise and organize district policy to direct administration through appropriate delegation and administrative procedures so long as we maintain the required legal coverage and take actions in a properly noticed meeting. In other words, the board can diet the policy manual by keeping board policy focused on governance and outcomes and moving operational detail to administrative regulations uh and procedures were legally permissible. So, you guys had access to the Google Chrome document, I believe. Uh, and I know I I noticed that some folks
009did, uh, you know, put in their edits. I edited a couple as well, but most of the edits that were in there, uh, were fine and legally permissible. Uh, my edits were more, uh, kind of on the legal side. Uh, but we'll go through these right now. So, when it comes to your policy, chapter one, which is district governance. So chapter one is literally where uh SOFG lives. It defines the board's role, authority, meeting practices, and ethical governance guardrails. This chapter sets out the conditions for SOFG to work. Uh clarity on who does what and a meeting system that is focused on goals, guardrails, and monitoring. The chapter 1 edited policies in the packet are 1-102, 1-103, 1-105, procedure 1-105A, 1-301, and 1-302. So with respect to policy 1-102, board authority, responsibilities and immunities, there
010was a lot of work done on this one. Uh so this is this is the board's who we are and what we do policy. It ties the board's statutory governance role to SFG by explicitly identifying the board's role in adopting the district mission, vision, student outcome goals, and guardrails. the board's role in monitoring progress and compliance and the superintendent as the board's single employee with management and operational authority delegated consistent with law and board policy. So SOFG works only if policy clearly separates the governance from management and keeps the board's focus on outcomes and monitoring. This policy is the foundation for that separation. So, I guess my first question, I don't know if you guys have had a chance to review them, but the first question is, are you comfortable stating in board policy that
011the superintendent is the board's full employee and the operational decisions are delegated to administration within guardrails? Is everybody okay with that? >> Are you comfortable with the concept that the board will devote the majority of the meeting time to monitoring progress on goals and guardrails and using monitoring reports as the main accountability tool? Yes. >> Yes. >> And do you want quarterly board self-evaluation language in the governance policy as part of the SOFG system? >> Yes. >> So I think I hit all of them at that point. Right. And so that individual board members shall not offer uh operational advice to staff, direct staff actions or act as spokespersons to the district without without uh unless authorized by the full board. You guys okay with that? Sorry, which >> this one is >> policy one
012102. >> I'm sorry. >> Okay. >> One 102. >> Okay. >> And then if you scroll down to page two. >> Okay. >> It's one of the last. It's right before oath of office where we're at. Individual board members shall not offer operation advice to staff, direct staff actions, or act as a spokesperson for the district unless authorized by the full board. >> I I don't know that like that one. I think um it it seems to Sorry, let me kind of gather my thoughts on it so I get I want to get the words out right. Um because when I read that like, you know, I'm I'm a very hands-on parent. I'm at the school very frequently. I'm at district events. Um I talk to teachers, everyone. And I'm going give my two cents.
013I'm going to give what might be taken as advice, but not but I'm not going around bossing anybody or telling them you have to do it this way. So this feels like shut up, don't say nothing. Um uh and then you know or where is it? Not offer personalized or act as a spokesperson for district unless authorized. So I get like yeah like I'm not going up and being a spokesperson but when you're out in the community and if you're talking to people I wouldn't want someone to be like well you were at this legislative event and you said blah blah blah and you're not our spokesperson like I don't know. Yeah, it just seems kind of like too broad. And >> are you talking about the Are you talking about >> the the red
014one >> and the purple or the red? >> And the red >> and I and I have a couple comments to that >> to the wrong one. >> No, no, no. It's okay. And I still think everything that you're saying does not pertain to you specifically because you giving your advice to people is very different than you giving advice on how to operate the district based off of what you heard. Those are two separate things. And from what I'm hearing from you is that you're not giving advice on operations. You're basically just, hey, I saw this. I heard this. There's a distinction or there's a distinct difference between, hey, I was out in community and I heard XYZ. Like, what's happening? Can we look into this? Right? That's a difference than between, you know, saying,
015I heard this, Jay, now you got to go and get your staff. or hey um Lissa I heard this and you need to go find and find out XYZ or go do this. Those are two different things. Um as to appear as the spokesperson if you are out in community nobody's taking your elected position away. you are an elected official of this community and I would hope that we are out in community and representing the values of the district but it's very different when you go and say you know on behalf of Kraton school district this is XYZ that is not an acceptable form because we that's different right your role as an elected official nobody can take that away from you and I still believe that you're in in your government government um official
016role and It's not breaching this. This is more specifically like me emailing Vanessa and saying, you know, the band teacher needs $100,000 for XYZ um instrument. Why aren't you doing anything about it? That's operational advice to staff. If I go and tell Vanessa, hey, I've heard through the community there there's some issues on the instruments. I've already talked to the principal. Nothing's going on over there. Can we figure this out? That's a little bit different of you saying, "Hey, I've heard that this is a problem. How can we check up on this?" Does that make sense? >> Yeah. And however, I think maybe it's the way that it's worded. Shall not offer operational advice. It's like offering advice like we do that every day. >> Operational advice. You telling somebody how to change mechanisms and
017operations >> just um shall not direct operational activity. I don't know like Yeah, because it's almost sound like if you're offering advice like that's that's not a directive that's a suggestion and I think that's that's an opinion we're allowed to kind of give that and I don't think it should be so yeah I think just the way that's worded right there >> I've seen it worded where it's where board member shall not direct uh as opposed to the way it's worded there. So if the board's okay with that we could adjust that to direct. >> Yeah. I mean uh that would well >> so then it would just be individual board members shall not direct staff actions >> act >> or act as a spokesperson and then just leave out offer operational advice. >> Yeah.
018I think so. >> There we go. So >> there we go. Individual board members shall not direct operational uh >> actions. >> Yeah. Action >> here. I'm here. >> Oh yeah. Yeah. Maybe take out >> I'm waiting for my buddy over here to update the >> shall not direct operational staff or actions that or act as a spokesperson for the district unless authorized by the full board. >> Direct staff direct staff actions or act as that works. >> Sold. >> And then the spokesperson part. Yeah. As an individual, you could say what you got to say, but what this really is uh uh referring to is official uh uh communications from the district, >> right? Yeah. So if like a person comes like what you know what how does the board or how does the
019district feel about >> fight that happened I'm not a spokesperson but >> more so the media you know >> yeah yeah media >> and there will be times where the um our communications will tell us yes absolutely you go do and you can do this there I'm not saying that that's never not happened but yeah for the majority part we don't want to be speaking on behalf of the whole district and the whole board >> okay >> it's also not uncommon for the board to take a vote for someone to be a spokesperson for something. But I think I think the important thing to keep in mind here is that the board is a body of five individuals that when they come to consensus or basically when they have a vote a majority vote of
020the board has decision-making authority including decision-m authority around being spokespeople. But as individuals um that power doesn't exist. It only exists as a body. Perfect. >> I think we're good with this policy. >> Hilda, advice. Should we I know this is second read. Should the board take action as we complete each policy or on the body of them once we're done? >> Probably once we at the next board meeting. >> Yeah. Okay. I was going to say if we take action on these in the board meeting in case anybody else as we're reviewing them if anybody else some questions wonderings you can make a side note if you decide to go back and look at it and then we'll have one more opportunity before we adopt these at our next board meeting in March. >>
021Thank you. >> Okay, I think we're good on policy 11 102. >> Perfect. That was quick. If we man if we could go through all the policies like that we'll be done in 30 minutes. Okay. All right. The next one with edits is policy 11 103 governing board organization. Uh what this policy does, this policy covers the board's organizational meeting officer roles and how the board organizes itself to do its work. Uh the SOFG align edits emphasize the board president as the lead governance officer responsible for maintaining focus on student outcomes. agenda setting that prioritizes goals, guardrails, and monitoring, and an organizational meeting structure that maintains continuity and alignment, including the ability to hold an annual organization meeting even in non-election years. So, so sg requires discipline, time, agendas, and roles have to support monitoring
022and accountability, not drift into operational management. And so, that that's what most of those edits do kind of high level, but they're right there in front of you if you guys want to see them. And just so we are clear on this, um this is why we did um vice president and president roles are every two years because it's going to be every election year. So next January will go up for that and it will be a two-year rule. Whoever gets president and vice president um in 2027, just so we know. >> Okay. Yeah. I wanted to to ask that. I recall at the um last year's January meeting it came up that the vote was every two years and which >> and that's just by statute. Um there was a different policy that we
023used that they made it up themselves to take the point of every yearly. >> Okay. >> But >> yeah cuz I was wondering I was like what what was the mixup on that? So >> yeah but actual statute just says every election year. So it's every two years. >> So that that's the question for the board, right? Do you want the annual organization meeting language to remain as written, including non-election years, or do you want the limit or do you want to limit it to election years only? >> Election years only. >> Correct. >> I just think there's more consistency when you have a vice president and a president, especially with student outcomes focused work. It's It's a lot. >> Yeah. And one year flies by. >> Yes, it does. >> Is that the way
024it's written right now? Okay. Then on the order, >> you got to delete the the second sentence, >> but we're going to we're going to just align it with statute January after a re-election. >> Yeah. >> I mean, we got to make sure it gets fixed. >> So, the second sentence probably just needs to be crossed out. The board may also conduct an annual organizational meeting during non-election years. >> Governing board will meet in January following each >> regular election to organize. >> Second sentence needs to be crossed out. this one. >> Yeah. >> Are you paying attention >> to do uh you you have to go to the pin on the top and put suggest right there instead of editing on the top right corner. There's a little pin. Put suggest. And that's how
025you track changes on Google Docs. And I wonder if the board would like to capture there's the end of that sentence. It was added to ensure alignment with um >> Oh, if you want to put that at the end of the first sentence. >> Yeah. To ensure alignment of board leadership with its adopted student outcome goals because what I heard President Curio say is the reason we're doing it this way is to make sure we have this continuity for >> Yeah. >> for those goals. Yeah. >> So if we append that on there. Yeah. >> Oh, he's not on our Google Doc. I was like, "Why is this not showing up when he's doing?" And then I realized we're not on the same Google doc. >> Oh, that's why. Yeah. I was like, "I can't
026see it." >> Here, let me >> You're not on our Google Doc. >> Whatever you said. >> Oh, it should update >> here. Let me share it with you. >> As you can see, nobody else is logged into this. >> Eden, what's your email? 808 Westgmail 808 West 808 West at Gmail. >> Yes. >> Okay. I just made you an editor and send it to you. Okay. You should have it in your drive now. >> Okay. >> There we go. I see you. >> Oh, look at that. >> Sorry. I'm such a band now. >> No, you're not. >> And then the the other question I have for the board is the board comfortable with the president superintendent collaboration model for agenda development with explicit prioritization of goals, guardrails, and monitoring. >> Yes, I don't
027know what that means. >> That's all under board president. >> It's basically what we've been doing now where the president sets the agenda with um the superintendent, but we really stick our agenda to focus on student outcome goals. So, just scroll down to board presidency. You see where that's underlined, Nicole? >> Yeah. >> It's that section underneath there. >> Okay. >> Focus on student outcomes. >> Just really the structure of your agendas. >> Okay. >> Meaning that 15 years from now, a president couldn't just add nothing on student outcomes on the agenda. It's like a set standard. >> Okay. And it does align with statute as well because state statute has information on agenda setting as well. >> Got it. Uh question sorry popping back up to vice president. Um is vi may elect a
028vice president or should we shall elect like because that kind of shows that it's optional to have a vice president. >> Oh, I see. It might have been May because it used to not be a vice president position. It was like a clerk position. So, >> it might also just be May because it's not I don't know that it is required by required by that's >> Oh, okay. >> I don't think we're prevented from putting shell. So, the question that she's asking, >> yeah, we can do shell. So, we always have to >> Yeah. You wouldn't have to. >> We can change that policy and put shell. Yeah. Thank you. >> Thank you for catching that. >> Everybody okay with this policy? >> Okay. The next policy that there are edits under this chapter is
029policy uh 105 board member conflicts of interest. And so what this policy does, this policy addresses board member conflicts, disclo disclosure obligations, abstension and certain employment restrictions. The diet version at the end is intended as a sofgline governance statement with operational procedures housed elsewhere. So there there is a key decision point in here that I I need direction from the board. The way it's written right now, uh you guys are adopting a bright line rule prohibiting purchases/contracts with a board member and with vendors where a board member has a substantial interest. Uh that's not what statute requires. statute actually allows for limited purchase uh from board members. Uh but I wanted to get your direction here. Again, the way it's drafted right now, it's just a straight out restriction. Uh and so I just I
030I needed a discussion on this one. I'm going to make a comment on this because this has been an issue that um I have firsthand like knowledge with and I think that we need to keep it very clear that we just don't >> especially with with finances and the way things are going in Arizona and I just think it gets very convoluted um and it looks it has a bad look. >> I agree. Y >> and just so you guys understand I we this I think pertains more for like rural districts where they have no option. Sometimes you have the principal and the superintendent and your local print shop doing all everything at once. So I understand why. But for places like us in our district, I I agree. I think we should not have
031it and just be very explicit that that will not be done in the district. Um, I know that for years we've kind of wanted to have and we've seen this play out on other boards and not necessarily our own, but just to kind of nip it in the bud proactively. I know that everything refers to a substantial interest and when you go to um sorry ARS 38-502 that has the definitions for substantial and remote interest. So um a substantial interest means any non-speculative pecuniary or proprietary interest either direct or indirect other than a remote interest. Um because that one just spells out proprietary and pecuniary. My concern has always been that um there are other interests you could have um that aren't proprietary or pecuniary that I still think that that we that I think
032most of us probably believe are a conflict of interest. And so I'm not quite sure how to word it exactly, but um one of the examples would be for example often times on like the Phoenix Union board, people serve in the legislature and on the school board or they serve in the city council and on the school board and they will vote on and now now I guess let me go back to the remote interest. I didn't look at the they will vote and discuss things that have to do with um like this like this like a city department. So maybe they're not getting a pecunary a proprietary uh gain from it, but it still seems um icky that they're doing that and then voting on something like that, but there's nothing preventing them doing
033that. So that's just one example. There's other examples I could think of, but I'm tired right now. And so I would want to maybe if we can expand from substantial or remote interest to also include like >> perception. >> Yeah. I I don't know how I know >> that I'm not going to make a policy based off of people's perception. That's not what we're here to do. >> Well, it's just like Well, I mean, it's just like as lawyers. >> Well, no, I was just saying to I was like it's just like, you know, like you don't want to do something that could um >> No, I understand what you're saying. appear to be uh you know inappropriate essentially >> like I I'll give you an example like I I serve as a city attorney
034in the school in the city where I serve on the school board and there's a lot of uh partnerships, right? >> Yeah. >> And so I'm always in that weird position. Do I abstain? Do I not abstain? >> And maybe somebody you work with at the city isn't your relative and you're not going to get any personal financial >> Yeah. No, there's no actually legal conflict perception >> wise. But this is weird. It's a it it it's like an appearance of a conflict of interest essentially. >> Yeah. >> Not an appearance of impropriety, but like not necessarily directly. That's my concern. And that's where I've had issues with other boards in the past because I'm like, okay, well, this is strange. >> Should we bring up something that hasn't been an issue on our board
035though before? Should we be basing like I I just it seems that we're getting into the weeds of something that hasn't happened here? >> I just think that this I think the state law needs to change, but we're not going to do that. And so I would rather we have a more strict policy on our board so that in the future we never have the issue and that we're operating like at a higher ethical level than any other school board because they choose not to adopt something like that. >> And I'm sorry what like is there what paragraph or specific section are we? So if you look at um >> if you look at a board member shall not participate in discuss or vote on any matter in which the member or relative has a
036substantial interest nor use their position for personal gain. I mean that I >> that kind of covers it depending on how you define personal gain and all substantial interest shall be disclosed in the district's official record. So that's the sentence >> maybe we should define personal gain >> that might be helpful I think is really Yeah. >> Okay. Can can we uh put a pin on that one and give us some time to work on that? >> Yeah. >> Uh before your next board meeting. >> Yeah. We need to discuss this more because stifling something like that and putting a policy can have unintended consequences too. That just because something's perceived doesn't mean that there's anything not happening. >> Yeah. This isn't about perception. >> Yeah. But person >> they're per they could be using
037a personal gain could mean a whole lot of things. And if I define it one way and you define it another, I could be doing something that I think is totally fine, but you think is >> a little slimy. >> Yeah. >> Right. And that's to me perception. >> I think there's some lines where perception is interesting. I I don't know. I don't know. I guess I'm just operating like how we do in the legal world, which is with the appearance of if you're pro, if you have an appearance of impropriety, there's something bad going on. Like you should just avoid the appearance of impropriety in all that you do. >> And good thing we're not in the legal field, right? We're an educational school district. >> Sure. And I would hope that we have
038heightened standards. That's wherever I operate. I would hope that we all hold each other to heightened standards. But that's just me, >> which I think we do because we haven't had an issue. That's what I'm saying. Like I I think we do. They're doing these so that the future is dictated, not by the five of us. I don't have any questions about the five of us right now. This is all me looking projectively, >> right? I just saying that we need Yeah, we should discuss this a little bit more and be careful with what we're putting in here because at the end of the day, that can have unintended consequences and stifle other things. >> Okay. I'm Can you tell me what number we're on? Like I want to Sorry, I'm still not >> 105.
039Scroll down to diet version two. >> H2. Yeah, the second sentence in the diet version. >> The second >> and in the red ink where it says diet version, right below diet version. >> There's one ars 38. Right below that. >> Okay, now I found it. >> Yeah. >> Question. When did we want to have this voted on by? >> March. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, on that one, if you give me a if you give me and then a little bit of time to maybe kind of word something, >> uh, and maybe that's all the all the governing board members could be comfortable with. >> Uh, but yeah, it's it's it's interesting, right? Probably reason why it's not in statute because it's kind of hard to address. >> Well, also the people making
040the statutes don't want to have to abide by it. >> Oh, there you go, too. >> Yeah. And I mean, I could see how like >> that's fair. kind of like what Sophia was saying how it could have like an unintended like you know so let's just say I was on the legislature and I knew that some bill was coming down the pipeline and that if we voted on some particular policy it could I don't know yeah I mean I could see how like like you were describing like if somebody's holding two positions or they've got proprietary information or no >> proprietary already covered yeah >> yeah um >> it's the gray area we're talking about. Yeah. >> And for me, gray areas are really hard to put policies on because it's it's left off
041to the perception or the situation, and that just creates a bigger mess for me than anything in my experience of >> discuss >> gray area policies. >> I actually kind of think this the definition of substantial interest is a little bit vague, too. >> I think so, too. But we can't change that. >> Yeah. So, if there is there like uh Katie like maybe like a particular wording that that's in your mind that you would like to see plugged in here. Does that make sense? I just want to get my wrap my head around a while around what um what you're seeing that that could be an issue or or that you would like to see in here to cover that concern. Um, I mean, we had I've looked at a few different things from
042other states, but I didn't like come up with any particular warning. I think if we just think about personal gain and maybe we're not even using that term, but like Ben said, if we come back to it or give him some time, I can also look at some things. >> Okay. >> Yeah. In my mind, the way to kind and this is preliminary, right, just right here, right now, >> is we define what personal gain is. that might that might be able to address it, but define it in a very objective way. Yeah. Not >> and so but I I just need time to think about that. >> Okay. Agree. Yeah. >> Oh, everybody okay with this one for the most part? >> Yeah. >> All right. The next one uh that we had edited
043on was on procedure 105A board member conflicts of interest uh requirements. And so what this procedure does this is the implementation tool disclos disclosure timing forms and recordkeeping and sof terms. The board sets the guard row and policy and administration maintains a procedure and records. Uh so this is the right kind of item for an administrative procedure because it's operational, repeatable and complianceoriented. And so are you comfortable keeping the disclosure mechanics and procedure rather than in board policy? >> Yes. I got to find it. >> Wait, you said that's still on 11 105. >> Uh, yes. Procedure. >> Well, 1058. >> We just don't have that on our folder. >> Oh, okay. I was going to say I didn't see you. >> Oh, it's at the end. >> Oh, I see it. >> Thank you,
044Eden. There it is. Okay. And then uh does the board want annual disclosure timing and disclose when in doubt expectations to remain as the compliance standard? And so I can tell you as a practical uh kind of situation, that's generally our advice anyway. Just disclose when in doubt uh just to avoid any situations. Uh so putting it in your procedure, I don't think is a is a bad thing. >> Yeah, I like this. Yep. Thumbs up. >> All right. Uh so moving on the next policy uh 301 1-301 rules of order. So what this policy does, this is a simplified rules of order policy to keep meetings orderly and efficient. Motion second amendments and suspending rules. It's intended to support meeting discipline so the board can spend time on monitoring and outcomes rather than process
045confusion. SOFG requires consistent meeting execution so the board could focus on monitoring and governance level decisions. Uh so is the board comfortable adopting these rules as the board's default meeting mechanics? Wait, where are we still on the same thing? >> No, we're in 301. 301. >> Oh, we skipped the twos. >> Yeah. >> Okay, that's why I was getting confused. >> I love how this one adds motions lacking a second shall not be considered. So, just know that we all are aware of that. That each motion has to have a second. If there's no second, then it doesn't get heard. and p and speaking in practical ter terms, Robert's rules of order is the norm uh as far as the parliamentary procedure. So just kind of uh making it official that would >> and if
046we need some kind of retouch on what Robert's rules of orders are, we can definitely have a session or a study session on that if you guys want that in the future since we're not all um um since we have new board members. So that's something that we can request to just so you guys know. >> Yeah, if you can please disclose that to us and then if we ever need to have a one hour study session before a board meeting or something to go through it, we can do definitely do that. >> Yeah, but this policy is not holding us to Robert's rules of order, right? I mean, it doesn't say on here anywhere. >> Robert's or his rules of order. The >> It is, but you're also able to suspend them if you
047need to. >> Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, I've got nothing against it, but I wasn't sure if it needs to be explicit in here that we'll use Robert's rules of order in a outcomes focused manner or something. >> And you never really want to use Robert rules of order, all of it, just because it's very restrictive. Oh, okay. I see what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. >> A question online for was there a reason we changed I mean it sounds like the same thing. What decorum? So on number four, just think of a situation uh maybe you have someone in the audience disrupting the meeting. Uh or and I've I've been seeing some board meetings on the news where even board members are kind of getting into it and the board president's able just to recess.
048>> Yeah, I really like this. It gives us the ability whether it's our own behaviors or >> order that would be order like the quorum. I don't know. Using the wrong language could be taken. >> Yeah, someone could weaponize that. But I see what you're saying, Tristan. >> What I mean, decorum is different than order. >> That is true. >> Let's change it to order. Maintain order and safety. >> Yeah. Yeah. Because sometimes some of us >> if someone spouts off and says a swear word just because they're worked up. >> Yeah. >> Oh, we got to recess the meeting. This guy's >> Yeah. >> I know. And that's the thing, Gray, that a lot of these their policies will have nuances. It's going to be up to who's delegating the meeting and everything. So,
049you're right, right? Somebody like me, I wouldn't end a meeting. I would let them do it a couple times and then you know like it is what it is but it might be different for somebody else. So yeah, thank you for considering that. >> Re request access or >> maybe you could also add a comment. >> Maybe I can request it. >> Yeah, you can add a comment still. >> So I'll just put right here and put a comment on it. >> We discuss Yeah, the last couple days I've been annoying single requesting access requesting access to add and a bunch of >> just >> Yeah, I was trying to figure out how to do that, but I couldn't. >> Okay, >> so we'll make that change. >> Uh, let's see. >> All right, our
050next policy is policy 1-302. And what this policy does, this policy is a board the board's meeting framework. It restates core opening meeting law concepts and sets local practices on notice, agenda, timing, and posting practices. Definition, public participation, and call to public, emergency meeting, recess meetings, and uh minutes and recordings. It also incorporates an SOFG aligned agenda concept. The board president and superintendent preparing agendas that prioritize monitoring of goals and guard rails. Uh the policy protects the board legally and protects SOFG implementation by building meeting structure around monitoring and accountability. And so my questions to you are does the board want meeting agendas to explicitly priorit prioritize monitoring reports as a structural expectation? Uh and is the board comfortable with the call to public framework and the boundaries on discussion legal action during the call
051to public? Hold on one second. And so that edit's just shortening what the law is already. >> So in terms of public participation, I've always been curious about this because I feel like school were abiding. Well, hold on. Where's the call to the I guess what I'm saying is is when it comes to call to the public and schoolboard meetings, it seems like our lawyers and how school boards operate in the state are vastly different than how like the state legislature operates under what would seemingly be the same open meeting laws and how they respond to people or how the open call to the public is. And so I'm just curious why school boards I mean I get it there's like risk involved but I'm just curious if this has just been a over time
052school boards have taken a more um risk averse approach to call to the public and what you can or cannot say or do in response to anything versus >> and so that was really curious too. I I was uh I I was reading that statute because on one of the sections it says board members may respond to individual criticism. >> Yeah. >> But then right after it says board members may not discuss what's talked about at call to public. >> Yeah. >> And so it's very very interesting and I was like hm >> uh and so I guess the most conservative advice you could get there so you don't so you don't risk violating your open meetings law because if you talk about something that's not on the agenda, you know, you could run into
053that issue. Uh but then you have that that ability in statute that says that you can respond to criticism. >> Uh and so >> but I thought it was like when you were publicly attacked that you personal like it was personal attacks because read this multiple times. I think that's what we've been told. But I think if a parent comes in and they have a valid concern that's saying, "Well, the districts isn't doing A and C and safety." >> That's district. That's like I I'm talking about like specifically if they came at you, >> right? >> But I don't think that's what the statute says. >> Yeah, that's not what the statute says. I think we can, for example, I was using that example. If somebody came and complained about the lunch, whatever, and then
054I respond and say, "Actually, we have, you know, our nutritional department. Have they done xyz?" I think that stays in the lane because you're responding. But we've been advised not to do any of that unless it's a personal attack. >> I'm pulling up the statute as my law partner always tell me. Have you read the statute? >> 15. >> Is it 38? 3843101. >> 431.01. >> So yeah, because it says well there at 8 board members shall not discuss or take legal actions. But I think like if someone >> here >> makes a comment and one person responds to that person, it's not a discussion. >> Well, here's what the board members. At the conclusion of an open call to the public, individual members of the public body may respond to criticism made by those
055who have addressed the public body, so it's not just you individually, >> may ask staff to review or ask review a matter or may ask that a matter be put on a future agenda. However, members of the public body shall not discuss or take legal action on matters raised during an open call to the public unless the matters are properly noticed for legal action. However, so it it's still a little confusing, but it still it doesn't say >> they kind of contradict. >> Yeah. And it doesn't say individual criticism either. It it is what Sophia is saying, which is up to like criticism of the public body, which is all of us as a whole, not us individually. >> General advice is don't engage. Right. >> Right. uh in every state. I mean, it's not
056just an Arizona thing. >> What is an Arizona thing >> should take a perusal of our state legislative committees. >> But what is an Arizona thing is that you have those two provisions in there that says, "Yeah, you can respond, but then you can't discuss something that's >> not Yeah, it is really weird. So, >> I wonder if in order because I've always thought of those as too because sometimes people have valid concerns and I hate just being, okay, well, thanks for your comment. Bye." You know, um that doesn't sound right. I wonder if we gave some authority to the president, vice president and then acknowledge but then turn it over, you know, our superintendent or team will look into this versus us actually going into this two-way communication, right? Because it could open up
057the doors and everything. Um, but I don't know, that's just a thought. >> Well, you may not be aware of this just because I'm I'm typically watching it as an observer and you're in the process of it, but you have traditionally um responded in that way. you've said we can't, you know, because we're not agendaized for it, we can't discuss your concern this evening, but our superintendent is here and we're directing. >> And this is and then this is also specifically talking about people who are coming up at the first call to the public. But if they're speaking on an agenda item, that's a whole different ball game, but this addresses both of those things. This section is addressing both of those things. So, one strategy that I've seen some districts do is right after
058the call to the public, you have an an item like superintendent report or something and uh if there's something that some egregious allegation or whatnot, then the superintendent can't address it there. It's like pop >> it into your report. >> That's not true. >> Okay. >> Or or something like that. And I've my superintendent does that in my district when somebody comes in and says something crazy. >> Yeah. That would take moving our public our reports after public comment. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And you would just start >> I actually like that because if there is something in there >> okay >> it also kind of sneakily gets you around it anyway because you can make your report about whatever you want, >> right? >> Yeah. And I mean if they bring up something that
059we know is already being handled, you know, then it can also be said, you know, >> and you can do it strategically. Oh, by the way, this week we were XYZ, your concern. Just kidding. >> Very good. >> Okay, I like that. Um, and I'll notate that some of where our agenda gets moved. >> Um, that sounds good. >> All right, let's see. >> So, we're good with this wording then, right? We're good as as is. >> Sure. Yeah, for now. Yeah. >> Okay. >> All right. And then did I hit all the edited policies? >> All right. So we're going to move on to chapter two, >> okay, >> which is administration, >> so chapter two defines the board superintendent relationship and the superintendent's accountability system. This is the core SOFG operating system. Uh
060in this packet, chapter 2 includes two edited policies 2-101 and 2-201. And so going to 2-101, the duties of the superintendent. This policy is the delegation backbone. It frames the superintendent as the board's sole employee. Uh accountable for achieving the board student outcome goals and operating within guard rails. Authorized to develop administrator administrative procedures to implement board policy and law. Uh and responsible for providing monitoring reports demonstr monitoring reports demonstrating progress and compliance. Uh so this is really how how the district handles preliminary. Oh, this is I need some direction on this >> purple. >> Uh let's see. Yes. Is that preliminary notice? Yeah. So, currently >> your your policy allows for the superintendent to issue the preliminary or the HR to issue preliminary notices uh of inadequate classroom performance and then the board has
061to approve them within 10 days. Do we want those preliminary notices to come to the board first or are we okay with the way the policy is written right now? I think your practice is more the other way. >> Yeah, it is the other way. And I feel like given our role in that, it feel it feels like a procedural fake thing anyway. So why does it matter? But we're not going to do anything about it. >> Yeah. The only thing that I'm that I do ask if it stays the same. Wait, can you remind me how is it right now? So, your policy says that your superintendent and your HR have the authority to do it, but your practice I believe right uh is they've been bringing them to you before issuing them. >>
062Okay. So, to tying everything up, if in practice we've been doing that, then the words need to match the practice and >> that would mean adding this purple sentence in then. Is that what you're saying, Ben? If that's for one for much >> if that's been the practice right now then yes our policy should match what the practice is occurring unless the practice changes is then we can change leave the wording >> and I may have misguided Mr. Castillo I want to check in with Dr. Lauren as to what our actual practice has been. >> So we bring to the board the um the authority to issue preliminary notices in the fall. Yeah. >> Uh and that's a board action item that we had I think in November or October. uh that was in anticipation
063of those performance improvement inacquy letters that are issued to the individuals once they are inadequately performing in their observation for their evaluation. So uh at that point the authority to issue the letter comes to us and we is issue the letter and then we use that uh 10-day notice for the governing board which is what you receive in the board updates. So that's current practice. >> Yeah. So, I think when I said we we typically get it approved first, what I meant was we do the annual approval. >> Okay. >> Um and so I probably without looking at it at the time um when we had the conversation, I I may have misguided because I I was thinking of it from the perspective of well every year we bring that in October or November and
064get the board to approve it. >> So, our practice would still fall under that purple thing because we're giving them the approval at the beginning of the year. It's just not on like a we're not getting notice of the specifics of it. It is essentially >> I guess the question is is is the purple referring to >> receiving the authority annually or is the purple referring to an individual being put >> that's yeah that's the issue >> the way I read it's individual. >> Okay. So if it's individual then I would say our practice is more aligned with what the policy currently says. And I think your practice, if I'm being honest with you, that's more aligned with >> S2FG. >> Yes. >> As opposed to as opposed to making sure that the board approves
065them first. And this is one of the employment adjacent uh uh delegations that the board can make when it comes to personnel. And so I I would advise that we just keep the same practice on this one. >> Yeah. Yeah. I would agree. So, we're going to have to >> I mean, these are Sorry. I always think these are silly anyway because what are we going to object to the issuance of the thing? >> Yeah. I mean, a preliminary notice just means like this your first warning. >> No, no, >> it means like a notice that you may not be >> the beginning of the process of a >> non renewal. Contract. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> And and your performance >> and it's specific to performance. It's not >> not because you violated board
066policy or something like that. That would be different. hypothetically like say if they get that notice and then they clean up their act and all of a sudden their students are doing great is are we bound to not giving them a contract? >> And I just want to make sure we're not specifically tying it to students because there could be a whole bunch of other issues not necessarily an academic performance. So I don't ever want that to be the the notion that this is happening because of the academic success because there could be a million and one more things occurring and behavior and you know tardiness that doesn't necessarily tie that in. So that's why I think it's important for us to let them handle that because they're in the inside of the schools 247,
067right? We only have the grand view. Um but just to clarify that and I didn't mean to interrupt you. Yeah, performance has to do with evaluation of their function as a teacher, not specific to student performance. So, this is teacher performance, not >> I would assume is I mean I'm sorry, just to to make sure that >> uh to recognize that the final evaluation score does include student data. Yes. >> Because that 33% of their final evaluation is based on classroom and site or site data depending on what their role is. Uh and the other piece is that keep in mind that in the process their due process as a teacher is to have a 45day window of improvement uh where that plan for improvement is part of the calculation of whether or not they're
068non-renewed uh or they're um able to receive a contract then for the next year. >> But classroom performance and improvement address a whole array of things, right? >> Yeah. Just not just tied down to that. >> Yeah. Yeah. I was just wondering like does that my my thing was >> preliminary notice is that a guaranteed you're not getting a contract or is there a chance for them getting >> yeah they have back together >> they'll have 45 days based on that improvement plan to to shape up >> all right >> 45 school days >> yeah okay thank you >> now and just one random um question is this the same standards that we have for principles and administrators and does that live in policy anywhere There's a different standard for renewal for administrators. Uh they
069can be non-renewed by uh notice prior to April 15th. Uh and they're just not issued a contract. Okay. >> So they're they're um their contract is an annual renewal. It's there's no guarantee that they don't have continuing status like a teacher might um where they would just roll into the next year and automatically be issued a contract if they're in good standing. Yeah, there's there's significantly less protections than than what we see here and that also is based on statute. Yes. Yeah. Psychologists as well. So those are the three uh employee groups that have that sort of evaluative piece that are based in stat statute. >> Okay. >> So we'll go ahead and revert to the original language in the policy. Everybody okay with that? Yes, please. >> Okay, but we're just going to take
070out the purple and revert to the original language. >> Yeah. >> All right. Well, I got my answer on that one. >> I'm commenting on your comment. What we agree to? >> She said tonight. >> This looks like a watch. Wonderful. >> So, this is partly a guardrail oversight issue. High stakes employment actions may warrant board reservation, but SOFG also depends on clear delegation and timely execution. Uh, I think we we hit everything on that one. Now, we're on the evaluation of the superintendent. Okay. Policy 2-201, evaluation of the superintendent. Uh, what this policy does, this policy codifies so the SOFG evaluation model. The board conducts a board self- evaluation using the SOFG instrument before the superintendent evaluation. The superintendent evaluation is based exclusively on progress towards student outcome goals and compliance with guardrails and
071standard/goals are confirmed publicly in the July September window with the evaluation documented through the SOFG rule rubric. This is the this is the board's accountability mechanism. It keeps the evaluation anchored to the board's right work outcomes and guardrail supported by monitoring evidence. So my question is to you is the board comfortable with the evaluation being exclusively tied to goals and guardwells uh and not broad operational criteria. >> Yes. The only concern that I have or question that I have is is there a midpoint? Should we do a midpoint review and then a final review? Because at the end of the day if we're evaluating our superintendent, it's hard to give feedback at the end of the year versus hey, you know, giving our superintendent an opportunity too. if for some weird reason we were not
072meeting anything, where does that year happen and do we give them enough time to fix those issues and then we do a final one? If I could just throw out because Dean and I had a conversation I think a couple weeks ago um because we used to have language around a midyear but technically the way we've structured under SOFG the superintendent evaluation all of my scoring is based on goals and guard rails whether the interim measures have been met or the annual targets have been accomplished and since we every month are reviewing our goals in the public meeting and to date I know there's going to be discussion later. We've had presentations in consent for the board and those progress for the guardrails and those progress monitoring reports are being approved by the board. We're
073fundamentally reviewing my evaluation every board meeting or at least a portion of my evaluation every board meeting. So the time when I would make the board aware like I have no problem with us having a midyear and you know having a conversation about how things are going but functionally to the point of the student outcomes focused governance. Um myself with support from the team we're really kind of walking the board through what's going well, what are we struggling with, why are we struggling with it, like is there if there's a legitimate reason we're off course with something that's when we're going to provide that reason. we're just going to do it without excuses, right? So, um, so I I'm comfortable with whatever the board would like to do. I just wanted to make sure I
074made that point because it does feel like that's kind of the focus of what we do every board meeting. >> Yeah. >> Do you think this is fair though? >> I hate to weigh in on fairness. >> Yeah. No, I know. It's It's so funny because there's It it comes back to your comment earlier um about what's within our sphere sphere of control and what's outside of our sphere of control. There are many things in the superintendence valuation, you know, that are in those different spheres, right? But for me, I don't I it is my personal belief that there's you should not take the role of superintendent if you're not willing to own what's outside of your sphere of control and to influence it to the best of your ability by focusing on what's within
075your sphere of control. So it's I mean I think it is fair because the only reason my role exists is to improve student outcomes. So if what we're me if we're accurately measuring our efforts to improve student outcomes and that's what I'm being evaluated on, I shouldn't be we're not an employment agency. I shouldn't be taking this job to get salary and benefits. I should be taking this job um to achieve those student outcomes, which is what we're measuring. I don't know if that directly answered your question. I tried it. We're going >> I'm rubber stamping this. Yes. >> Yeah. maybe making a lot of other superintendents uncomfortable. >> Um, maybe they need to be uncomfortable. Anyways, >> couple other wonderings. Now, I haven't I recall we've done one review or evaluation since I've been
076on the board, but is there any like >> um like uh words work? Um so like so so like your underlings, that's the wrong word. like like a really exceptional team like because I mean we see you on this one but we don't know what's happening out out there like >> you know so my my my thought is like yeah we're evaluating on this >> but you know what do we get to take into consideration or account or see like what is what the rest of the employees how they feel working underneath the superintendent. So, so the challenge with that is how people feel is not just a function of of my behavior and and my actions, it's also a function of their behavior and their actions. So, when you hold someone accountable, while they
077certainly have the opportunity to say, "Thank you, sir. I really appreciate being held accountable because it means I'm improving student outcomes." Sometimes people that are being held accountable are like, "You're the problem." Right? So, so it's that would definitely be a way of measurement that would not only be unfair, it would be problematic because it would require the board to get deep into operations to make a determination about the root causes of why that person or that group of people feel that way. And so, I do think it is virtually impossible to be superintendent in a district without upsetting some people along the way. And of course, probably the the um there's a a really famous book called Who Moved Who Moved the Cheese, I think is the title of it, right? So, um and
078if you want to think about an activity that would be the greatest moving of cheese that's probably ever happened in this district, it would be the implementation of student outcomes focused governance, right? So um you know we have created a great deal of discomfort for people throughout the system including myself and and our executive team but we engage in that discomfort because you know in instruction um Dr. Pombo and her team often talk to our principles, leaders, um, teachers and staff about productive discomfort for students, right? Like if we kept students comfortable all the time, what only thing I can guarantee for you is that their student performance would not improve. The way that we improve is through productive discomfort. So therefore, I'm the chief discomforter. >> And so it's >> second chief. We're the
079first chief. >> Oh, true. The board the board is definitely the top discomforting chief. And so and that is right and that is thankfully in no ways that have caused me to need to request some sort of remuneration. But um but the um >> yeah well so um but the the the challenge there is there's there's always going to be we need to disrupt the system in order to be able to move the system forward. And so if we're going to measure based on everybody's happiness, I mean my ultimate goal is I want everyone to be exceptionally happy and in part because they are so excited that we've improved student outcomes. But if my choice is between improving student outcomes or happiness, obviously my role is to ensure that we are moving forward with improving
080outcomes for our students because that's the reason our organization exists. Does that make any sense? >> Uh yeah. Yeah, I get that part. Um, and also like going back to say like our superintendent guard rail. So there's a lot that's about um like the teacher. >> Yeah. Yeah. So I guess in that sense like like you know maybe from the bottom up and >> do you see >> our guard rails and goals being our superintendent adhering to this or Yeah. I don't anyways but it's not like this big thing that I that I want. I was just like yeah see if if that >> aside from what I have seen the valuation be you know because I I feel very deeply that taking into account you know how you know the well-being of the staff
081and students and all and and I have no doubt that that you're >> hopefully my actions reflect that. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um so but yeah anyway so I yeah I was wondering if there was any mechanism for taking that into account with evaluation >> right >> um and not necessarily in the evaluation because like we said and people's emotions will change daytoday based on the circumstance that happens one day I may like somebody and one day I love them you know it's just human nature but I do it is taken into account within our guard rails because when we're doing our stuff um when they have to do their staff climate, all that gets released to us and then it's our job, you know, to start being, hey, little red flag. Why are 90%
082of our teachers upset? You know what I mean? So there that's that's why the guardrails do live there because even though we're not focusing our board time in those conversations, it doesn't mean that it's not being tracked and there isn't a mechanism out in the district that it lives in. So I think we still get that aspect of it. Especially us being in a community, I think we would know right away if you know certain individuals that have leadership roles were being nice or not. Right. Right. >> Um but this work necessarily isn't about how nice or how not nice someone is perceived to be. It's are they actually hiring the individuals that they need to move the stu, you know, the needle for our students, >> right? Yeah. And that clarifies it because you
083made the point like we're looking at our guard rails monthly and that's where that lives. >> Yeah. And for the board, I think what's important and and to President Couo's point, um the interim, we bring in we recommend interim measures every year, right? The board approves those interim measures for those guard rails. So if the board was seeing a pattern that they had concerns about in relation to one of those, you could challenge me on like if I bring you an interim measure and I say, "Well, we're going to check how many tic tacs I'm handing out to staff." And you're like, "No, no, no, no. What we want to check is our staff survey data. Does it does it improve or does it decline?" um you know then we okay well we'll come back
084with a replacement guardrail and then we would bring you back another guardrail and you would be able to review it and say does this get at what we're trying to get at. So when we look at like the recruitment and retention guardrail as an example, each each of the past two years that we've set interim measures for that guardrail, they've been different based on what we consider to be hotspots that we're focusing on in relation to making sure that we're in alignment with that guardrail. And the board obviously reviews and approves it. But I only bring it up because I think it's important to to have a reminder that that's why it's so important when we're setting those that the board is looking at them critically because that for that next year that is how
085you will evaluate me determine whether I'm being successful and by virtue of evaluating me since I'm the only employee of the district by our recent policy edit um we um also have an executive team and all these folks that are hired by the superintendent. And we have as a system aligned their evaluations with my evaluation because we're trying to create a vertical articulation throughout the system um to make certain that everyone is aligning to the goals and guard rails that the governing board has set. Does that help? >> Yes. Yes. Okay. Now moving on my next wondering or question. So when I'm at this policy 2201 evaluation of superintendent but then it's open with governing board shall conduct its annual self-evaluation like it reads this first opening paragraph reads very much as evaluation of the
086board. Do we have a separate policy for board self-evaluation or is this combined here? >> No, we do but I also think it's very important to set the tone. We are the commanders of chiefs of this district even though we have one employee. So I think starting it off with you know the the annual su super superintendent eval will you know happen after our annual like that that just makes sense. I like that wording in there because it sets the tone that not only is we're requiring our superintendent to do it but as the governing board we're leading and doing that as well. But there is another section where that board self eval and it happens in a quarterly. It was in the 100s um docket or policies. >> And so basically what that just
087says is that you guys are going to do your board self-evaluation prior to the superintendent. >> Okay. >> We're going to evaluate our f ourselves first before we're evaluating our employee. >> Got it. >> It goes back to that parallel processing and vertical articulation. >> It's probably already in your accountability calendar. >> Yeah. And it's it's quarterly in the accountability calendar, so it should should be a pretty easy bar to hit. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> That was my second question if you guys are okay with that. So you you asked >> I asked uh and to answer your question too was your guardrails are going to be part of that evaluation criteria. So So you should you should be able to address any of those issues that you may have. Okay. >> So is
088everybody okay with this uh language? >> Yes. All right. So, then we're moving on to chapter three. I hit all the edited versions in chapter two, right in there? >> Yes. >> All right. Perfect. >> All right. Chapter three, business operations. So, chapter 3 is the district's business and finance policy. There's 78 items total, uh, much of which is operational. So, SOFG does not remove fiscal oversight. Instead, it reframes it. The board sets the financial guardrails and fiscal accountability except expectations and administration manages procurement, accounting and operations within that fra framework. >> Uh so uh this trunch focuses on the sofal backbone for finance budget adoption and revenue. The edited items here are policy 3-101 and procedure 3-101A and policy 3-102. So the edits in policy 3-101 budget adoption. So, this policy sets the board
089budget adoption responsibilities, requires public notice and hearing, including truth and taxation hearing when applicable. Uh, positions the budget as a resource plan that supports the board's student outcome goals and adds an SOFG requirement. The board adopts the budget only after determining it determining it aligns with goals and guard rails. So, budget is a governance governance tool under SOFG. It's how the board funds priorities tied to outcomes with guardrails, controlling risks and values. So, is the board comfortable with the policy explicitly linking budget adoption to goals guardrails alignment? >> Absolutely. >> All right. Perfect. And does the board want to combine hearings, budget, and truth and taxation when legally permissible as a standard practice? >> Yes. >> Yeah, that sounds perfect. >> And that has been our practice in the past. I was just that's why
090I was thinking because sometimes it seems like it's a lot of information crammed in one. It doesn't. So that's why I was like but that just puts the responsibility back on of us of actually doing our homework and being engaged >> and it's often a timing challenge. Yeah. Not because of the board but because the legislature is really timely and providing us our annual budget. >> Yeah, that's fine. >> I'm sorry Russell, my computer's frozen. Do you guys want to take a quick break while we get that or we we move along? >> No, we can move along. >> All right. >> Okay. So, the next one, if everybody's okay with that, uh, is procedure 3-101A, budget adoption preparation. And so, what this procedure does, uh, this is the operational implementation tool. It assigns preparation
091and submission responsibilities to the superintendent and staff. >> Yeah. Incorporate sitebased budget planning and tracks the required state deadlines. Uh so board policy defines the why and guardrails. Procedure def guard rails uh procedure defines the how. This is appropriate for administrative procedure. It is process driven. Is the board comfortable with budget preparation details staying in procedure with board policy focus on adoption priorities and monitoring? Yeah, I love this and I really think as we start implementing these new changes, we can really be like the shining stars when it comes to our budget and how we're doing our budgets in the district. This is great. >> And then the second question is, what monitoring reports does the board want during the year to tie budget implementation back to student outcomes? >> Uh, Mr. Shapiro, do you
092have any ideas on what that would look like or any suggestions that we can consider? >> Whoopa. >> I think we do this currently process. I guess it's uh seems to be saying um providing something additional whereas uh kind of what we've done with our SOFG framework um has been to align it so closely that it's a part of the framework of the budget process. And so a lot of the things that we do within building the budget is in um efficiencies that were built. We've had these discussions as we were developing a resource aligned budget that developing uh resources and efficiencies are framework and they're kind of like breathing. So you don't think about them. You actually don't need to even recognize they're there because we've been doing the work and we've been articulating
093that work to the governing board through board meetings and board updates. So when we talk about a summary, I mean everything in the budget is is SOFG. The whole budget is an SOFG budget. So it'd be really hard for me to pull out something that's, you know, to say, well, this part's the SOFG part. There isn't. The whole thing is. Um, but what we could potentially do is work with Lissa's team. Um, so we did this last year. Um, I can show it uh when we do our budget. um uh piece is that we were going to do something that was uh new and on top of the aligned budget and so we called that out in the budget process and we added that as a line item that was when we were um changing
094the coaching model. It was a pretty significant change for our district and we knew that it was entirely SOFG driven. So we added that in as a line item on the budget just to call the attention to the board. Whereas in the board uh budget planning process in the back end, it was um already um in in the budget uh we called it out. U like we do the meet and confer dollars and some of the other items when we say uh when we start our budget update, we say if everything stays the same, um we think that this is going to go up, we think this is going to go down, we think we're going to have more of this or less of that. We kind of go through that process. So, I is
095the board wanting me to take that out of the budget process and put it into a summary? Um, I I I I mean, maybe this is something that we need a little bit more further discussion because I think we would like to see some kind of form on how that's being aligned versus what we've been receiving. Um, because it's very broad. >> Um, but I'm not sure what that looks like. Miss Shapiro, like today you're going to be doing some work with the board. >> Yes. >> It'll be addressing some of these areas, correct? >> Well, it'll be discussing how we've done resource adjustments to align uh with efficiencies that support um student outcomes. >> Maybe we'll go through that first and then if we see any gaps, maybe we can discuss what that looks
096like because I haven't seen the fully obviously seen you present. So maybe that will answer some of these questions in itself >> and after we do that presentation maybe we can figure out if we need additional paperwork or what that looks like. >> Yeah. I mean I I want to give an example of something really quickly that would be a resource adjustment. Um so recently the board received an update and um it came to the board under the consent agreement for Commerce Bank >> and uh Commerce Bank uh process and relationship with them is moving our accounts payable from a very paper manual driven process to uh electronic uh a payments that'll be done automatically. Um, so that not only increased the ability to get our vendors paid a lot quicker, um, but it also
097and more efficiently. Um, it also increased efficiencies in the finance department. And on a on a third level, um, we we're in a a revenue share agreement with Commerce Bank. So, um, we we actually get a portion of revenues back towards us, uh, just for processing our accounts payable. So those are the types of actions that we take to align our resources um under an SOFG lens. So it's uh increasing efficiency on a multiple levels and it's also uh uh becoming a revenue generator. It's not huge but it's but it's something. So those are the types of adjustments that we're making constantly. Um I do try to keep the board apprised through updates. So I guess I'm just trying to figure out how that how that would look. I guess in a summary. So I
098mean maybe let's be thoughtful of that when we go through the budget presentation today about uh how many actions we're taking constantly especially on the operational side and how that would come to the board in a summary. I guess I my concern is I don't want there to be something that says well this is all we did um because we're doing a lot. We we check um we check that pulse constantly and daily uh when it comes to resource alignment. Well, and it may just be that we want. So, I think the timing of doing the budget work today is really appropriate, especially in alignment with the policy work that we're doing, the time of year, and some of the other conversations we're having around our student outcomes focused governance. And so it made us
099be that annually when we have this February um study session that one of the items that we include is this budgetary review overview summary right and so as we go through it today it'll having being fresh related to the policy I think to President Curio's point it'd be a great time for the board to be able to say what we see here that's helpful to us is the additional things that would be helpful would be these, right? Because it'll all be fresh for us in that moment. >> Um that and also uh we're currently working as a team and um have some documentation that we're aligning all operational areas in and maybe it's just bringing that document uh that strategic document that we that we're working on. Um maybe it's bringing that document with the
100budget >> to look at all areas besides operational. >> Yeah, we can always provide more. Or I think what we need to establish is what the minimum is, right? >> Yeah. And having something um consistent >> and that it's it looks the same every year when it comes back. I I wouldn't want it to be something different every year. >> Correct. >> I think there is a solution in there. >> Okay. >> Is already in in the works and that we're working on right now. >> Okay. Perfect. Thank you. >> Any other questions on this one? I think Superintendent Man is correct on that. I think uh part of this process like you guys are having your your board retreat today. I think maybe that that this presentation that you're going to get on the
101budget could incorporate this portion of it. Um and it's a good beta beta test for today. So the board likes it, they don't like it or what more information do they want >> to that. But >> uh I think practically that makes sense. Uh so moving on to policy 3-102 revenue. And so what this policy addresses uh this policy addresses revenue handling at the board level, bank accounts deposit/accounting expectations and annual investment authorization vote. This is a guardrail level fiscal uh integrity policy board oversight of revenue handling and investment authorization with administrative implementation through USFR and internal controls. So is the board comfortable with the annual investment authorization vote remaining as the board level control point? >> Yes. All right. Well, that that was easy. And then so, uh, we're moving on to the next
102chapter, which is chapter 4, human resources. So, chapter 4, 33 items, many are legally driven. Uh, evaluations, discipline, termination, personnel records, mandatory reporting, etc. Most HR policies are compliance heavily heavy and soft often means keep what the board keep what must be board adopted or what the board wants as a guardrail. put operational mechanics in procedure and ensure superintendent authority is clear and consistent with board guard rails. So, we already talked about the prelim the preliminary notice. We're going to keep it as is. >> Uh that was really the big uh uh edit here in this chapter with respect to uh board approval prior or after. So, we're going to leave it as is on uh policy 2-101. And so, that's it for this chapter because a lot of it is really statutory driven. >>
103Uh and a lot of it doesn't necessarily need to be in there uh based on statute. So, the next one that we're going to go through is chapter 5. Chapter 5 overview. Chapter 5 is a student facing policy. There's 72 items. Many of these are legally legally required. And so SOFG alignment usually means pres preserve required legal coverage, clarify board level guardrails, safety, safety, equity, due process, and move operational program implementation to administrative procedures were appropriate. Uh again, this chapter is largely not part of of today's discussion, but it's a major area for phase work because of statutory and federal requirements. >> Yeah. And I think eventually we would have our own study session in this because we have in our future agenda item a student um bill of rights that I eventually I want
104us to include in policy. So I think this is a living breathing as as we get our ideas and get that started going implemented because just how we have expectations of ourselves and our superintendent I want the adults in this institution to know what their responsibilities are when inter you know interacting with kids and their expectations on what students would want out of us as the adults in the institution. So, I think this is a a livable um and we'll have to, you know, go back and discuss this chapter. >> Yeah. And that's going to be one where we're going to need to heavily collaborate with the superintendent >> uh just because it is one of, like you said, the main reason for being superintendent is for student outcomes and this is all that's about
105>> uh and their required protections. So, so yeah, and again, just to kind of reiterate, a lot of this stuff is required to be in here because of statute and uh state statute, federal statute, all that good stuff. So, uh we're going to have to go through this one through a fine uh pig comb. So, >> and Mr. Castillo um our our board vice president uh Gibson Mlan and I sit exeicio with a board um created committee that's actually reviewing all of the student conduct policies currently. So there there will be some recommendations for some changes to student conduct policies coming forward in the spring and our current policy uh set does include some uh previous recommendations from that group. In fact, um, Miss Marquez was one of the members of that committee prior to
106becoming a board member here in the district. >> Awesome. >> So, we'll we'll we'll, uh, roll up our sleeves on that chapter. Uh, along with all your guys' recommendations and help on that. And so, that's pretty much we're we're wrapping up the big main uh, topics for today were chapter one and chapter two, uh, aligning your practices and processes and putting them into policy. And so again, the key takeaways for today are confirm the board's policy versus procedure threshold under the SFG governance level direction uh you know operational detail moves to administrative regulation procedure were legally permissible and I already got direction on what I needed on the conflict and the preliminary notice and again president I know she stepped out and but governing board members I'm happy to walk back through any specific policy
107or help frame decision points for discussion with the superintendent and governance coach when appropriate. I'm laughing because I didn't know we had a patriotic exercises and observance days. And then under Declaration of Independence, it says, "Each student in grades four through six shall recite the following passage from the Declaration of Independence at the commencement of the first class of the school day." Um, >> wait, where's that? >> That seems a little excessive. Just Sorry, I was going down a rabbit hole. >> I know. I was like, is this required? But we obviously are not doing this. >> Is this one of these procedures required? >> No, I think statute. >> No, no, this is a policy. We have 5201 patriotic exercises and observance days because I was like, what is that? And then there's some
108interesting things in here. Anyway, >> there was a statute last year related to that policy. So, um I'm assuming the policy complies with that statute, but that's certainly one we would want to look at to verify that it is not exceeding the statutory requirements. Yeah, I was curious cuz I thought, wow, are people in grades four through six actually doing this every morning? >> Yeah, this might be a conversation for next Wednesday. >> Okay, our junior high seventh and eighth graders need to have legible copy of Constitution adjacent to each classroom flag. >> This Yeah. Anyway, something to talk about on Wednesday in the US. >> I just never noticed it before. Yeah. I believe there's also a moment of silence that's required. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> But at least in Texas, in Texas, they're
109making us adopt procedures for Christian prayer. >> Oh, yeah. >> And put the Ten Commandments on the wall. >> So, that that's been real fun to deal with legally. But anyway, so that that wraps it up. board president. Uh we went through the two main ones, chapter one and chapter 2. Uh super man said on chapter 4 that they have a committee that they're working on uh with respect to kind of the recommendations and whatnot, but I think you guys made a great progress with respect to your governance structure and uh the superintendent's duties and responsibilities and how how the board uh u wants him to operate the district. >> Thank you so much, Mr. Cassillo, for that. And this is exciting. I know that our vice president, Miss Gibson McClean, has been dying for
110us to include our SOFG into our policy. So, I'm glad we're finally at this rate of including it in all the policies that we have to ensure that everybody knows the expectations of the district whether this board is here or not or whether we have this cabinet team or not. So, that was amazing. Thank you so much for all your help, Mr. Castillo. >> Not a problem. Thank you for having me. >> All right. And that brings us to What time is it? >> 10:56. Do you guys want to take a quick break or can we can we keep going? Keep going. Perfect. >> Um, so that brings us to our discussion of schoolboard school. All right. Um, Miss, um, Huarees sent you guys an email about an outline that we have of what the
111school board of school is. Um the purpose of this is to build understanding of the responsibilities, mindset and commitments of effective governing board members focused on improving student outcomes. The school board of school will help us give out information not only to our community members and to our parents and on the work that we're doing but also upcoming new board members. And I would love to have Mr. Jones and Mrs. Marquez um perspective on this because this is something that I think the board initiated with them kind of try to give them the framework and where our goals were at. So any um experiences that you had, any things that you wish you would have known, this is where it lives because at the end of the day as we go on and we don't
112want to rerun. I think one of our biggest um the opportunities that we have is to ensure that we're keeping equipping new incoming board members or anybody that's interested in running in this district to let them know what the expectations, the vision and the goals are so they can continue the student outcomes momentum. So this is a great place for us to tailor this to Kraton Community District and then eventually these are the ones that we're presenting at, you know, our PTOs and our town halls that we want to host or any new oncoming board members that will be um joining us. So are there have you guys had an opportunity to look at the document? >> Yeah, I know I got to go ahead Marcus. I got I got to look through it. Um
113I mean I think my situation was kind of unique because I was already like in communication with you. I had learned about SOFG. I did some training. Um but I could see how this is going to be helpful because say next round of elections we've got maybe two board members, let's just say who won't run for re-election, then we're due for two new. Um it would be great to make sure that whoever that any that those candidates know what they're coming into um and and that they're ready. So I was able to to jump in and kind of hit the ground running um because I had all that knowledge prior. Um, but I could see something like this would be great for for even like even if someone is not a candidate and they're just
114considering it, you know, just to kind of help what's the word? Um, we'll just help help the district, I guess, essentially recruit better candidates. um that we'll be able to to to really understand what what they're stepping into to continue because that that's one thing with SOFG um that initially I a concern I had was like well how sustainable is this if our goals are five years but our terms are four and obviously with the work we did today excuse me enshrining this some of the SOFG work into our policy you know, it's going to ensure that we are able to kind of keep on that trajectory. Um, but also if you've got people coming in who don't want to do it or are incompetent in in doing this, then you know it's it's going
115to be a hot mess. Um, so yeah, I think you know this is a good kind of draft outline. Uh, question, what's LSG? because it says right here for getting LSG aligned. >> Yeah. So LSG is the Lonear governance that Texas has taken over. So that's actually a statewide implementation and I think that's where because we got this from somebody in Texas. This is just a rough draft, >> but that's what LSG is. It's the governance structure that they have for the whole state of Texas in education. Um yeah, thank you for >> So that's the training that they give to their board members. So, it's a state mandate. >> State mandate to do this. >> And then, Mr. Castillo, since you're in Texas, if you want to >> No, LSG, Nicole, is like the
116state's version of SLFG. It's just like enshrined in their >> They just call, >> right? No, I'm I'm familiar with it. I've heard of it. Um, >> it's just called Lonear Governance as opposed to student outcome focus governance. >> So, this is a a draft of what would what a 4-hour community candidate orientation would look like, but it's aligned to the LSG standards. >> I don't think so. I think that's what I'm saying. Is that a typo? >> I think it's a typo. I don't know who drafted this, but I think it's a typo. >> I just want to say it wasn't me. >> Um, so here are some of the areas where I think we can improve this, right? Giving this I think we need to add a section where it talks about adult
117behaviors. You know, our model student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change. and adding a section in this that really leaves a reflection portion of it because that's part of a lot of the work that we do is mindset, right? Um in portion three where we're talking about different case studies. I know that it says case studies from Arizona, but I think this is the opportunity for us to use an actual student outcome goal that the district will have at that time. a real progress monitoring report and a real guardrail because I think walking through what these different reports look like, what is an outcome goal, what's in a guardrail, that's a lot of different lingual. So including that in this framework would be really helpful not only to an upcoming board member or somebody
118who wants to be on the board but community in itself. Um, and I think this is also going to be helpful just because in my own experience, you know, when I first ran, I had some individual agendas that I thought I wanted to come on the board and and support. And in reality, you know, the the number one goal that we should have is moving the needle for our students and making sure that they're they're exceptional selves. So, this also helps lay down the the framework of what that true governance role is versus bringing on our personal agendas to the board and causing disruptions that shouldn't be there. >> Um, is there a way for me to I made a copy of this so it's editable. Can I share my screen? >> Yeah. >> So,
119I can type what she's written. >> Absolutely. If you in the upper If you drag down in the upper right, there should be an icon with two squares. >> Oh, just the screen mirroring. Okay. >> Should hopefully >> Oh, I'm not connected to the Wi-Fi here. >> Oh, you would need to be okay. >> It's okay. You can still >> I just need a password. I don't have a password. >> Can you share the password? I think I can. Or try to log it in. >> Hold on. Let me turn off my thing. If you choose LAN one, I believe >> CS1 >> and then >> No, I'm trying. >> She's helping me. There we go. >> Cool. Thank you. Says weak security, y'all. Just kidding. >> We have weak internet. >> I have a
120question while we're waiting. >> Yeah, of course. Where would this fit in on the timeline of like would it be the year preceding an election year? Would it be in the year of the election? where would we be would this be like a district uh recruitment for p prospective schoolboard candidates or would this just be we're going to do this once we know we have candidates that I know it's outside of the draft but I think that's kind of an important question >> you're absolutely right and I think this is an ongoing um uh town hall or whatever we want to call it that happens even if it's not an election year because this can inspire other individuals to maybe want to run. So the main purpose of the school board of school is for
121community members to understand the role of a governing board and what is exactly happening within that district and that's to inform community members obviously right our parents caregivers but then when election years are happening if we do see other board members then I can I think we can strategize in election years what this looks like but in general it should be an ongoing living town hall or community event that we're having either on a quarterly basis or whatever we decide on that just because it's an ongoing information. We always have new parents, community members wanting to know what do you mean by student outcome goals and this is just lives within all the pre of what we are instead of them coming straight to a meeting and not knowing really what's happening. This is an
122ongoing livable thing. But I think that's really going to be up to us on what that looks like. And a suggestion for that is us creating some ad hoc committees. Maybe you know we can have an ad hoc committee that's a two-way communication meeting and one of us is running that on what does that two-way communication look like in our district instead of you know having one person specifically doing that. We can have an ad hoc committee on specifically the school board of school on what are what are those timelines having somebody strategize that and putting in paper. This is just the very beginning phases of it. But I think all those questions are valid and that lives within us and how we want to control that. But for me, it makes more sense to
123have it as an ongoing thing because you always want to be informing your community and having that two-way communication and hopefully it will inspire individuals to actually want to be part of this amazing work that we're doing um for our students. So, I'm hoping that kind of answers your question. >> Yeah. Um I didn't know what you meant right here. Sorry. A a real goal. >> Oh yeah. So um a real progress monitoring um report an actual goal like we have five goals. Maybe stick down to one of the actual goals that we have. Use that as an example. Include a monitoring report based off of that goal. Um and then provide an actual guard rail report that we have in the district. whatever is going to be the most recent of whatever time frame
124we're doing this. I would call it a town hall, school board of school town hall. >> Okay. >> Um I also added somewhere that we should add an adult behavior reflection component. >> Yeah, >> I also think we should add some re a research component. There's a lot of research out there that has been done for years or nationwide that validates why having a governing board that focuses on student outcomes and what the connection of having a focus board and how that translate to outcomes. There's a specific study called the lighthouse study that's really important. So maybe adding some kind of research component into this so when we have individuals, you know, trying to do more reading, we we can add that in and it helps Um, what else? It just adds a little bit
125more credibility. >> Um, well, we started doing this, too. >> Yeah, >> it really helped. Uh, >> yeah. Do you have any experience since you've guys done it? That that would be great, too. >> Yeah, we we did it in my district. I know a couple of other districts starting to do it as well. just setting the expectation of what a board member is because a lot of people run they don't know what a board member does. Uh and to be honest with you and and I think SinTo this is Sinto's quote. How do board members learn to be board members? From the behavior of previous board members, right? >> And so uh if you guys are setting the tone with the school board school, it really helps. We had one new trustee coming in
126in my district uh and we had the school board school set up for all candidates and he came in and hit the ground running. He knew what it was about. out. He knew what his role was. We didn't have to teach him anything. I mean, he still had to go through all the training and stuff, but he at least had a general idea. So, I think it's a really good idea. >> Yeah. Thank you. And I also want to emphasize the importance of having an attorney who's actually a governing board member in a different state is a mix. So, I just want to point that out that not only are we getting legal aspect, but we're having it from the brain of somebody who is in our role at other times in a different state.
127So, I just want to make sure that we know that that this is awesome because it helps support our governing board work even more. >> Thank you for that. >> Um, couple questions. Yeah. Um, >> and you know, just let me know if I'm wandering off course. Um, so for this particular schoolboard training, what who bears the cost? Like are are we running it? Is leadership running it? Who's >> that? Is us >> to come in and do like how's >> No, eventually it's going to be us. It's a governing board role. And sure, sometimes we may need to collaborate um with our district team if we need a facility to use or whatever that looks like. But this is strictly us. We should not be depending on our staff members or cabinet to be
128putting out any paperwork, writing anything up. This is directly governing board work and this needs to be led by the governing board. And then um my next wondering because this is not something that I've I've asked for before or or thought to look at but it just hit me. Like so as far as um for the SOFG work we've been doing and the coaching what has been the cost for that? >> Um that's oh first of all I don't know if that's something that we can discuss because it's not on the agenda item and if it is I can have and if it's not we can have that sent in an email and get you all the breakdown of that because that's not agendaized today. >> Okay. Thank you. And that's why I was put
129that caveat at first. I'm like, I'm not sure if this >> Yeah, no worries. >> Was that going to lead to a second question though that you >> No. And then I did want to add to that that this is why this is good for us to have because at some point a coach doesn't stick with us forever, right? We're going to have to end services with a coach at some point and then we become the coaches and we become the experts of this. So, school board of school is another leverage of us handling it, setting the tone without having to have that consistent, you know, we will need assistance from here and there in coaching, but not at the rate that we've been doing it where it's been, you know, a whole year contract
130or whatever that looks like. >> Okay. Right. Yeah. Cuz I know from I recall from reading the book and just what I've everything I've learned about this. So, of gee, it's like the districts that only do training and have no coach, their results are the same as if they never even did training. Um, and so, yeah, the concern is is if we let go of the coaches and then then it can very easily just like fall flat. And then if we're committed to it by policy, but we've got, you know, maybe perhaps some new members on the board or somehow like and all of a sudden we don't know what we're doing. Um well then what where does that leave the district and then it's a hot mess. >> And that's why I believe given
131all your concerns, the school board of school is an important implementation that we need to start working on and having as a non-negotiable because you're right. you know, we will probably get to the point where that happens. But if we have the school board and we're already letting our community, the most beautiful thing out of this, I believe, and this is what I see is I envision our parents knowing exactly what our job is and them coming in here and saying, "You're not being held responsible to what you said you would do for my student." But they can't do that if we they don't know what my role is. They can't do that if they don't know how we're working on pivoting different strategies to increase those outcomes. Right. So, you're right and I think
132that's where all this lives because it sets a foundation. It's an ongoing thing and there we're we're educating as they're inquiring on how they can be on this board or how they can be more involved with the board. >> Okay. Thank you. >> You're welcome. Um, I'm trying to see. Yeah, I think those are pretty much the add-ons that I had on for the research portion, the adult behavior one, and just focusing really on Kraton versus the whole state of Arizona. Um, and this is >> where did you Sorry, where was that part? Because I want to make sure we added that in >> on >> where would I put that? >> I I think you put it on part three. Um, where it talks about student outcome goals, guardrails, and progress monitoring. >> So,
133when you're talking about giving the specific examples >> Yeah. >> Oh, okay. Okay. Gotcha. I didn't real I didn't see the top bullet point. That's why. Okay. >> I think this is a good start. the school board of school will eventually start having more conversations. The only thing that I want us to really start thinking about this is that maybe an ad hoc committee to start this would be nice because it's going to take a lot of, you know, um, working together. It's going to take a lot of creating documents. It's going to take a lot of back and forth conversations. And maybe we can add this even as a an item. I don't know what that looks like, but this is something that we also need to prioritize as we're doing everything because it's
134important for us to have something structured and start coming going out to community and letting them know the work that we're doing. >> When you say ad hoc committee, what do you mean? >> Or like a subcommittee. I know that they're called ad hoc committee somewhere else or a subcommittee. >> But I meant like are you wanting a superintendent committee or a board committee? >> No, board committee. >> Okay. >> Who would be on? >> And and and I'm just throwing that out as an idea. It doesn't have to happen that way. There's different million ways that we can do this. That's just an idea that I have. >> Do we know are there you might know other school districts that are doing have done this or are there any other like school boards that
135we can >> I know borrow stuff from. >> It's it's very uh it's new. It's not something that's been really established. I I know like some of the school districts that we're a part of, they're relying heavily on the governance coach to lead the uh the schoolboard school. what you guys are talking about is being it board driven which is really cool to be honest with you. Uh and I think at a and you guys are way ahead I think of all the school districts that I represent that are in this governance framework probably three that have done the policy diet. So you guys are super ahead. So I I think it'd be really cool to see the board uh lead that training uh if you guys are are are willing to do that. And
136so, yeah. >> And I do know um our neighbor Roosevelt um I was going to say Roosevelt had one >> in January. >> January. I knew it was I knew it was just several weeks ago. Yeah. >> So, we don't really have uh we have other partners like Roosevelt has starting it and eventually they want to do like a tri district one. So, we have moments for collaboration. We can meet with them. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. they probably have some amazing things in there going on already because they did a first presentation already um in January. So, that's definitely something that we can um discuss and and head it on with them and figure out how they've been doing it. >> What's our goal for when we want to do this for
137the first time? >> Thank you for that. I love that. Right. Because if you don't put any time limits in something, it just lives out in space. Um, I would really like for us to have something and go into the second phase of this by June. That gives us three months. Well, more than three months. >> I'm sorry. What do you mean by second phase? Just >> second phase meaning that we're actually figuring out, you know, are we going to keep the goals? And if we're going to do a mindset activity within this, what does that look like? like starting >> scaling down the actual out or the actual >> yeah the actual line outline of the framework and maybe even have some documents already spread out that you know presentations are going to have
138to be created all these different things live within this right >> were you also hoping to have like the logistical stuff figured out as well >> okay now I think looking at it election year-wise um well I know I know for sure right now we just have two candidates running for school board here um uh for this this cycle. Um and so you know I yeah so I think at least if we're going to try to hold one this year you know it doesn't necessarily need to be um targeted to like candidates but perhaps somehow >> more information >> like yeah like informational or something like have you ever considered or what you know what do you you know and they wondered what what does it to be on a school board to really start
139kind of like tapping people for two, four, six years down the road. Um >> and uh >> and we don't even have to keep this name of school board of school, right? That's just something that we said, but it could be like what is a governing board role member and then you just invite people in and then we give this whole presentation, right? It it could be named differently and I think you're right. just because it's an election year, we're not going to be prepared for that, which is fine. But I I I would hope that in the winter, that is my actual ultimate goal, that by either October, November, December, we have at least one community meeting where this is already done and and played out and we can pivot as we need to.
140But yes, that's what I was kind of alluding to to Mr. Jones point Jones point of view u I mean question earlier that this isn't just going to be a recruiting members mechanism. this is going to serve also as just a standard >> education. This is what we do. This is why we're here. These are the expectations of Kraton and these are the values. That kind of thing. >> Would the community council meetings be a good uh setting for something like this or is that overstepping into >> I personally do not believe it's overstepping. I believe that's a place where we can collaborate and and if we can use that space since we already have people then yes. Right. Um, and also we're going to have to get created what other spaces, neighborhood associations, there's
141so many other spaces that we can be doing this. But yes, I also believe that it can live in um in our Kraton community council meetings. >> Yeah, I think a community council meeting would require like a a mini version um because just knowing as a parent being there like dude, I won't sit through no school of scores like if it's not something I'm interested in. But that's where you do find the engaged parents and community members. Yeah. And obviously we're not giving them a little taste and then inviting. >> Yeah. And we wouldn't do a 4 hour. Yeah. We would do a shorter version of it. >> Oh gosh. >> Oh, tr Trust me, we will be discussing that a little bit later. >> Yeah. Well, right before games. >> Right before games. Correct.
142I'm going to start every game with a mindset practice. All right. Do we have any other feedback? I'm really excited about this, guys. This just is a testament to all the hard work that we've been doing. And to Ben's point, the fact that we're even having conversations of creating our own school board of school and doing all these things really shows to the work that we've been doing and the commitment that we have to not only our students, but to our community because I think our community members should know how to hold their elected officials accountable and this is the perfect way of them holding us accountable to what their students need. So, I'm really excited about this and I thank you guys for being a part of these conversations and wanting to be a
143part of it. >> Nice shared Rilda. >> Awesome. Um, and this is like I said, this will be an ongoing conversation. We can bring it up again either at another board meeting or create another s study session for it now that we have our antlers going on. But is anybody interested in actually leading this work or is there not a preference? I will volunteer as tribute then. >> If I wait on >> pause, >> we just had thisation. You just said that you don't say no to things and you over over um commit. So I and I was just about to say myself, I don't have the capacity to do this as fun as it sounds, but I don't have the time for it. So are you sure that you can take this on? >>
144Yes, because this is going to make it easier in the long run, so it's fine. But in the short term, do you are you going to be able to get to this spot by June that we're talking about? >> Um, yes. >> I'm committing it in a public meeting. Yes. >> Okay. I'll help. >> Okay. Thank you. So, um, just so we know, so we're not breaking open meeting law as we're having offline conversations. Um, Nicole and I will tackle this and then we'll go from there as however that looks like. do is I will add Nicole to this too and then you all can take me off of it. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Take me off. >> All right. Any other comments or discussions on our lovely school board of school? >>
145It's just Marquez, right? >> Yes. >> Whenever I for anytime I type your name in, it doesn't autopop populate for some reason. >> Oh. >> And I'm like, what do you have? I'm like, does she have a different last name? >> My other one. >> There it is. It it does your personal one every time. >> There's lots of N and Mark Enmma in the district. >> All right. Um what time is it? 11:20. I think this is a perfect time to do a lunch. Go into our lunch and take a quick break. Are we thinking Oh, it's not here yet. Oh, perfect. >> Oh, I love the picture. Um, for our lunch break, >> I could stream Leela's musical. >> For our lunch break, what do we want to do? Do we want to
146do 15 minutes, 30 minutes? >> What? We just have the the budget thing. >> Yes. And our guardrail conversations. >> How long is um, Vanessa, are you >> Well, it depends how many questions we have. >> Okay. Student outcomes focus governance guardrails. What are we doing with the guardrail conversation? Sorry. Um, we're having conversations on guardrails and whether we want to put them back on the agenda >> and move them from consent. >> Okay. But we're not talking about we're not changing guardrails. Okay. >> None of that. >> Since lunch isn't here. Did you want to do that or do first or do you want budget before I mean >> let's do the guardrails conversation right now. >> Whichever would fit in probably half an hour. >> Then I have to go for the agenda.
147>> No, we can move it. Okay. We can go into the governing um guards conversations. >> Okay. Perfect. >> Then that way we can do bunch uh budget after lunch. Although that makes me nervous. >> I will have activities to keep everybody. >> You can tell after lunch. >> We can all stand for your presentation. >> Look at my spreadsheet. >> If we start putting our heads down though. I just asked do we have money? >> That's the bottom line. >> They just say no. >> I know, right? All right. Then we'll go into our conversation about guardrails. Um I know that I had Miss Hilda email all of us a document on u why guard rails, values, and freedom. That's what the worksheet is called if you guys want to pull that up as
148we're having this conversation. And I just kind of wanted to um have this on why our guard rails exist and what lane we are in in the board into those um coming to those guard rails. Um our role is to represent the community vision and values through our goals and guardrails. Once those are adopted, our job shifts to monitoring progress towards student outcomes. So, one of the things that um one of the things that here in Kraton that we've done is that we've committed already and obviously through even our board policies that we will be focusing on goals and progress measures more guardrails. They do matter deeply, but once adopted, our responsibility is to monitor adherence and not manage implementation. Um, so those one of the things that I want to make sure that when
149we're talking about our guard rails and asking questions that we really focus and reenter ourselves on what our role is in those and it's like I said before to monitor that at hearings and not necessarily manage the implementation of what's going on in the inputs. Um, and I know another discussion that we've had in the past and there's some concerns about our guard rails being in our consent agenda items versus having conversations of them in our board meetings and how they do not count towards our student outcome goal time. Um, just one of the things that I have to say about that is that the values of the district and what's going on does it it intertwines with meeting our goals, but it's not necessarily moving the needle in certain outcomes when it comes to
150strategies or what we're doing in the district. Um, I do believe the the cabinet does a good job of submitting us with the board reports and videos and we still have that opportunity to ask questions on guardrails back and forth. It's just that they're not discussed in the public time because at times we can't even get board members to ask questions on goals that are moving the needle for students, let alone having conversations that could lead into, you know, um directives versus on directives on operations. So, that's just the kind of things that I have. I don't know if anybody else has any questions or comments on on our guardrails. >> I do. >> Yeah. um because obviously this is the that I'm I'm the one who kind of brought this up a few meetings
151ago and um so just to give some background um you know prior to being on the board when the the the previous board and leadership team were discussing um coming to the community with with the proposed goals and everything um I myself and I know other parents as well we had some major concerns that every goal was tied to a standardized test and standardized tests being inherently inequitable and on a certain level racist. We're like, yo, this we're are we setting our kids up to fail like like why why are these all um quantitative goals? Where's the where does the qualitative goal live? Where how how are we measuring that? And then after some discuss discussions with President Gario and and um even um AJ Crabel himself, you know, I you know it was at
152least my understanding of it became like well a lot of that um the qualitative stuff lives in the guard rails like the social emotional learning the the the well-being um so like you know the values the values of our our community live in the guardrails and so for me um when I saw that we're putting our guard rails into consent like like I didn't I I was like why are we just pushing it into here like to me and and in my mind as a parent and community member like I I see a major value in looking at those guardrails and even seeing um the the most recent progress monitoring report like you know there I had I had a lot of questions I I want to see what's happening to what our district is
153doing to um to you know ensure we've got a proper system for recruiting and retaining these teachers and you know keeping our teacher quality teachers strong teachers here in our district. Um um so so yeah for me I think what's happening within under the guard rails like that stuff does bleed into improving outcomes for students. So that's why I would like to see it also be part in that the time that we're we're discussing or 50% time um devoted to to to outcomes or I think initially in my mind I was looking at a 50% of time working on the SOFG stuff. Um but again, you know, if we're we're um representing the vision and values of the community, that should be also presented to the community at our board meetings. Um, you know, and
154I think there's important stuff and there's a lot of great questions that could be asked in regards to that that can then again bleed into the part where we're improving outcomes, where we're, you know, getting our quantitative um, numbers up. So, so yeah, I very much am for, you know, consistently openly discussing the guard rails cuz let's be honest, like we're we're not asking not all of us are posing our questions to to to these progress monitoring reports when we should or how we should, you know, and so if it's something's going to be in consent, well, we're going to look at it even less. Um, and I think if we're committing to SOFG, we need to commit heavily to these guard roles, too, because that that's I think we're really, you know, strengthening our
155kids character and leadership and taking care of our our um teachers and staff that I see that living there. I'm down. Okay. So, here's what I, you know, I I hear your concerns. And if we were to move that back into the meeting and if we were to count it as part of our time, my condition for me to vote for that would be that we increase the percentage of time in our meeting that we spend on SOFG stuff. So, we would increase the number from 50%. So for me, if we were to add that back and count guard rails to toward that percentage time, I would want the percentage time increased >> so that we're making a compromise that still like I guess achieves the goals that we're looking to achieve. >> That's the
156only way I would personally be committed to that. >> Yeah. >> I mean, I could see myself asking a lot of questions on guard roll stuff. So I I >> andor breaking that down and keeping >> disagregating the percentage of the time, whatever that may be, but also increasing it so that this portion of that percentage has to be done on goals and this portions of that percentage has to be done on guardrail so that we're not overpowering our goals conversation would also be what I would look for. If we don't want to get into those weeds, then then maybe I'm not unless somebody has another compromise that they're think would be good. >> I I'm agreeable to that. I I think that that's a a fair way of of Yeah. making sure that >>
157I'm curious what Tristan or Heather think about all this. >> Me, too. >> Um I think guard roles are just as important as goals. So, if you wanted more time, I'm not a big fan of that. I think 50% is a big chunk of the meeting anyway. I could see something like 4020 if we wanted to increase the time. That seems reasonable. But maybe you're thinking a bigger number. >> No, I was thinking somewhere in the ballpark. I mean 75 is a lot, but like I was thinking 60 65, right? 60. >> I mean, we haven't even been able to get to 50%. What makes you guys think that we're going to get to 60%. >> That's a real question. He's saying 60% or 40% would be goals, 20% would be guard rails of that
158percentage. >> 50% >> is what he's saying. >> Okay. >> And that's what I was saying when breaking down that percentage so that you also don't then switch and spend all your time on guardrails and don't talk about why I also wanted that breakdown. >> I I think breaking Oh, I was just going to ask I'm not sure. We probably have to ask our coach, but I think in the success criteria for the um the percentage, it's only on the goals. Like the guardrail says you cannot count any of this time. >> Yeah. But we've been given the opportunity by sin though to say that we can amend the success. >> I thought that was >> part of the and I think like trying to to break it down well this much percentage has to
159be goals this much percentage has to be guards. I think that's too much. But I think if we stick to like okay 60% of our meetings discussing outcomes through goals and guard roles. Big concern then though is that you take 60% and then instead of devoting enough time to goals, we're then spending >> 50% of that 60% of the meeting >> on guard rails and barely spending any time on goals. You get what I'm saying? >> Yeah. Well, I think that's if someone's trying to really rush through it. But I I I mean I know personally like if I've got a question, I'm going ask it. >> Um whether it's on both, but Go ahead, >> May I ask a follow-up question? What has held you back from getting those questions answered since they do
160give us our board reports and our agendas and ahead of time? Is there is there somewhere where there's been a breakdown where you haven't been able to ask those questions and get your answers? >> No, I think a lot of times you get to the meeting and oh, now I got another question and I want to ask it. But also, I think going back to like that transparency and showing the community this is what we're doing. um whereas they're not going to be popping into the agenda and clicking open consent and looking at the thing. >> Okay. And I love that you said that because I think we have to center ourselves in what we do on the governing board. Um when we're having business time, right? I look at our governing board time as
161our business and operations time. We only have a few hours a month to figure out our finances, figure out what the district's doing to improve student outcomes, budget, all those different things, right? You said it yourself. Guard rails live in the community and we are representing the values of the community. It is our job and it is my personal belief that I should not be eating up operational time to inform my community. That lives in two-way community communication. We should be absolutely in community and telling our individuals these are the guardrails. We should be carrying presentations like hey did you guys look at these last YouTube videos? This is why everything is accessible and open for the public because that is a two-way communication with our community members. Now, when we are in a governing
162board meeting, I'm not saying that none of that stuff lives there. If there's some a huge red flag where there's a guard rail in consent um and and just because something is a consent doesn't mean that the information is not provided to us ahead of time. It doesn't mean that we don't we can't ask questions ahead of time. But I think the whole purpose of that I think we need also at some point need to start taking some ownership of where those places live. Two-way communication lives in community and our guard rails are a huge part of that. So if we're not out in community and hosting our own town halls or using other, you know, abilities to communicate that, then we're also not really >> hearing from from them right now. If you see
163a guardrail and 99% of our staff are back and saying we're really upset, absolutely that needs to be put in, you know, just because something isn't consent doesn't mean that eventually it can't be moved into another place for discussion. But to have that on every single board meeting, I believe it would not be prudent or fruitful to our time knowing how easily we can get and not just I'm speaking for myself, it's really easy to get into the weeds of X, Y, and Z, especially when it comes to values. So, that's one of the distinctions I want us to really take into consideration as we decide this because and I'm going to read this excer um this quote from not only the book but one of the documents that Dr. Ramos has said um sent
164us and it says why do we have school systems? School system exists to improve student outcomes. School systems do not exist to have great buildings, have happy parents, have balanced budgets, have satisfied teachers, provide student lunches, provide employment in the city, county, or anything else. Those are all means to the ends and they are incredibly important means. They are incredibly important means. However, they are not the end results. None of these are student outcomes. They are not measures of what a student knows or is able to do. And school systems exist for one reason only. And that reason is to improve student outcomes. Now, with that being said, that does not mean that they do not exist in a study session. That does not mean that they do not exist out in a PTO meeting.
165That does not mean that they don't exist in community council meeting. But for our operational time that we get as governing board members to really figure out what we're doing to increase student outcomes, it's very limited. And I feel that adding on guardrails to an open discussion where there's we're not keeping the public away. Everything's on YouTube. All our agenda items are accessible and we all have a shared responsibility of where we need to seek for information. And it's our job to be bringing that to the community, not necessarily using our business operations time that we get once a month to disclose all that. But it does live in the system. And that's just the way that I perceive it or see it as, especially when we're going to go back and change 30% here,
16620%, that just adds a lot more confusion to what we've already standardize and set. Um, I think also, you know, just like the schoolboard school taking ownership of that, it's there's nothing here that says that and just as Sophia had just said about town halls or whatever it may be, you know, maybe maybe the easiest way for you to do that is through your work in in PTO or something, wherever that may be, you can have these conversations and get feedback on these things in a creative way that isn't necessarily at the schoolboard meeting. I I also hear your concerns about about transparency, but I think that we've done the best that we can. It would be one thing if we just voted on the guard rail things on the consent agenda and we didn't.
167I think these videos are very transparent and and good and and the the public has access to them and they take a long time to make and so and they're informative and they address all the things in the guardrail. So I feel like the the videos themselves are transparent and more than just, you know, a PDF or presentation. It it supplements them with explanation and and description. So I guess in terms of achieving transparency while at the same time being efficient, I feel like we've done the best we can so far. >> I just don't want us to get to a point where we agree to disagree today and then continue to pull pull this off the consent agenda. That's my only concern because I feel like we need to come to some sort of
168consensus. And one thing I will add is that I also believe that even though it is not the district's job to do this, they also have set out their own, you know, incorporated in community council meetings. For example, we have one of our guard rails on I think it's they did chronic absenteem as an intra measure for a guardrail that we had and they themselves took it upon themselves to go out into community and do a whole presentation on what that looks like and why that's important. To me, that's all livable, breathable things where I don't feel we're not being transparent because they've came with their own creative solutions on making sure that the public and our community and caregivers know that, hey, these are the guardrails of the district and this is how we're
169implementing them. So, um, I do see that we're also doing that on the district side, even though I believe it's a little bit more of the board's responsibility, but I'm I'm happy that that has been on the way and they have taken our guard rails also very seriously because they've created full presentations on them and helping um, our community members better understand how they can support moving these guardrails along. And we had a great I think feedback from TCA, one of the schools, and they were at the I think they were the highest in absenteeism. Like they did really good when it came to keeping online kids. But that's neither here or there. That's just what I'm thinking and I'm I'm processing at the moment. >> Yeah. And um you know and I know I
170mean I'm I go out into the community, I talk to people, but I know if there's someone who wants to find me, they're going to know they can find me here, you know, one Tuesday a month. Um and this is Yeah. You know, I'm I'm not in business and operations. I'm in governance and reviewing, you know, the progress monitoring reports. I'm just saying where my values are. The guard rails sit heavily in that. And I think I would like to to be able to go over those and ask questions and review it and present it at a board meeting. Um, not to say I'm not going to be up here keep everybody two extra hours. Um, I'm not saying that that it's going to go longer than the goals progress monitoring. I got more questions
171about numbers than than the other stuff like trying to understand it. But, you know, I I I don't see this all of a sudden dragging our our our meetings out. >> So, let me just ask your request is to either So, first question, real short. Yes or no? Do you want to if we were to move this to the meeting? You want to continue or stop making the videos if this were to get moved to the meeting agenda? >> So, I've seen one of the videos and I don't know if maybe I'm missing it. I've seen the other ones as present like slides. So, maybe I didn't have my volume on. Um, >> yeah, the videos are are voiced over. So, it's it's basically the slide deck of the presentation. So fundamentally what they represent
172what is in that exactly what would have been presented from >> a real quick I'm just trying to keep us on track here because I know it's almost lunch time. So the question is is if you were and I'm I have a line of questioning we're going to get >> Yeah. Um the question is is if this were get moved into the agenda off the consent agenda into the regular agenda, would you want those videos to continue or would you see that as supple as supplanting basically or replacing the video if they were to come present? Is that what you're asking is someone to come in here and present like we do on the goals and then ask them questions and you're submitting questions ahead of time. I would >> we are already submitting questions
173ahead of time but >> yeah I honestly I could take it presented or watched but it would be nice to have you know um I'm guessing it would be Dr. Bergus up there to to ask the questions too. >> Okay. What um what I guess if you could s succinctly because I'm just having a hard time understanding what um are the ends that you're trying to reach in doing this in the board meeting. I guess I'm still having a hard time understanding. Not that's like I understand this is important to you, but as far as like the actual doing this during the board meeting, what are we achieving in doing that? And I'm and I'm not trying to be difficult. I'm just trying to completely understand. I think um showing the community, showing staff, showing
174parents, students that we're we value um all all, you know, the the qualitative stuff, the the social emotional learning that we're not just like standardized test test because honestly I look up here and I just see, >> you know, benchmark, pre-EST, post, post test, other test. My my follow-up question to that, cuz I understand that, is in your questioning for um the goals and the progress monitoring reports, are you taking the time to incorporate those qualitative measurements and or like qualitative angles to the questions that you ask when it comes to the goals? Because I feel like there are ways to model your questions about the goals that incorporate the guardrails. And I'm wondering if that's something that is a missing piece here. I don't think so cuz I'm I typically always look at it
175through a lens of like teacher student family community well-being. Um, >> I guess what I'm the way the reason I'm asking that question is when I see a presentation that tells me about inputs on a goal, I'm going to look at those inputs and ask myself how are the how are those inputs aligned with the guard rails, right? Or within the bounds of the guardrails. And so for me, when I'm thinking about this in the big picture and I'm looking at the goals presentation, there's going to be interweaving and integration fully of the guard rails if they're doing things correctly in terms of the inputs and the outcomes. You get what I'm saying? >> Kind of. Yeah. But I also see how like there's stuff going on inputs within like the guardrails portion, say ruler
176>> that we're not looking at at all in goals. And then do you have meetings? Do you do regular one-on- ones with Jay? >> Yes. >> Okay. And are you addressing any of those concerns with him at your one-on- ones? >> Um, maybe not so much. >> Okay. And I'm also just thinking also the other place that this could be done, and I know people this is up to you, but like even if you don't have time or capacity to hold meetings, you are an elected official, you have social media platforms. I'm just saying that I think that if we're sticking to the operational things, there's probably other places where we can get this information out. Um, but I'm just not sure I and I haven't seen it also in the meetings where we've actually
177put it on the agenda where any kind of real conversation ends up happening is my other concern. And also I think um from what I'm hearing this I I can say that I can do a better job at supporting you on what strategic questions would look like for our goals and intertwining our guard rails because you're absolutely are right as the goals are coming out and as they're presenting there has to be some kind of intertwinness with okay are you honoring XYZ guard row but maybe that's a lack of you know me not helping you or maybe figuring out solutions on how we can start making those questions more strategic. And you absolutely can ask questions that tie into guard rails of and how we're receiving these outcomes. There's a way to do that. Um,
178which is totally valid, right? Um, we all have different levels. I also completed a nine-month training on this, so I can see where it's easy to me, but then how do I become a better um, I guess leader in that, right? And you just brought up an aha moment for myself and I think there's ways and conversations of that and we can totally talk to Dr. Ramos about that and not that I'm trying to like our board meeting should be I that's how I feel focus on the business figure it out but we definitely need to be out in community and doing all this and she brought up a good idea reposting those YouTube videos those are a public we can do that with their community we can ask our PTO's to share those we
179you know not not that we're making them do it like these are conversations that we can have where we can think of beautiful other out ofthe- box ideas to keep our community informed right? Because that's where that elected community portion of it lives. Um, but if that's something that you're willing to do before we actually take action and see if that meets your need, I'm willing to try that first. Um, but if not and you want to continue that, that's okay. We can make a decision, too. I'm just trying to make think of creative ways that we can all sustain this momentum and feel like all the needs and have your concerns validated as well and making sure that they're working they're being worked on. >> Yeah. And again, I think the the level of
180importance I feel it holds warrants it being discussed on the dis at a board meeting and I think I don't know I haven't heard anything from Heather and I want to back >> I don't know >> um so I'm glad that you said what you said because I I literally feel like they don't need to be discussed so if you think about like I was thinking about mission and visions right that that we hold and like values that we have and those aren't stated every day, they're shown, right? So, I really do think that um through like the strategic questions like that, those can be answered. Um and I was even thinking like that could be, you know, even with Jay too, if not Sophia. um you know ask those questions and you know maybe
181maybe that's something when we do presentations like that's something to keep in the uh background in our minds as well um to like link those things together. I mean, I think they are. For me, they are, but maybe it's just because um we understand the links between those, but I do think that that's more of a community thing as well. Um going out in the community, and I'm just wondering, like I know it's our job to bring things to the public, but I'm just wondering how many other people like actually want to know about those things. Like, >> and let's keep it real, there ain't nobody here from the public most of the time, and there's probably nobody watching on YouTube. And if we really want people to get in the know and connected with
182what we're doing, we're going to have to do the work ourselves is what I'm saying. I mean, they I don't know how many people go back and watch the videos after the fact. I guess I could go check it out on our YouTube channel, but it ain't very many. Um, and so if we're just keeping it real, doing that I don't think actually accomplishes what you're trying to accomplish because I think we we have to find more creative ways to to reach our community because we're not necessarily doing it right now if I were to be completely honest. >> And Dr. um Pombo, did you have something to say? >> I was going to say um what I'm hearing you speak and it just made some connections for me too is like the last uh
183progress monitoring report we did, we talked a lot about learning walks, which two of our guardrails has learning walks in there. I think we could do a good job of like connecting those like this is part of our guardrails. We're reporting on this goal, but we were showing you the data for the learning walks for that goal and how it was tied to the goal. So, those are just some things that we can think about. And then what President Curio said meeting with um Mr. Carvajal, I know uh Superintendent Man meets when I meet with them too. everything that he's doing, we're saying, can you align it to the goals or the guardrails like community council, the Native American knights, um our SEI knights, we're trying to make sure we are tying that, interweaving it
184with everything so we could be more um explicit in tying that when we're doing the progress monitoring reports. >> That's kind of what I was getting at is just being a little bit more >> I didn't think of that till you were you both were saying that like, oh, we could make that more clear. >> Okay. Um, there's a possible action on it. Before we do that, is there any other comments or wonderings on this? Okay, I'm going to make a motion. I move the governing board keep the guard rails as is in agendas until that's just it. >> Hold on. Sorry. My what I wanted addressed was just so we're aware moving forward. Is it your intention to still and and it's not something we can vote on. Nobody can force you to do
185anything, but just so I'm aware and prepared. Are you still going to be asking to take this off consent at each meeting? >> Um, not at each meeting, but I'll commit to reviewing those presentations before, but if I come into a meeting with more questions, I'll be pulling. >> Okay. >> And I will be do a better job at communicating with you too, um, Miss Marquez, and helping um, strategize those those questions and even with Dr. Romos if if it's some coach support that we can get. Um okay. So I move the governing board approve our guard rails in agenda and consent agenda as a consent agenda item as is. >> Wait, do we have to take any action? >> Oh, sorry. Okay. I just didn't know why we were voting. All right, >> I'm
186going to second it. >> Okay, Miss er um seconded. All those in favor? I >> I >> Miss Marquez. >> Nay. >> And Mr. Jones? >> Nay. >> Okay. So, we have three yays to nays. Motion passes. >> All right. And that brings us >> lunch. >> Yeah. To our lunch break. >> Yes. Lunch is here. >> I hope our food. >> Okay. Awesome. Um, so one quick question to how many how long do we want to recess for? We got 30 minutes, 20 minutes, 15 minutes. >> How without questions, how long do you anticipate your presentation to be Vanessa? >> And there's a correct answer. >> Roughly. >> So, uh, we discussed a twohour presentation and I was struggling. >> Oh. >> Um, so I I feel like I can do two or less.
187>> Got with questions could be >> put I have activities in there. It depends on how long we take on the activities and there'll be opportunities for you to have breakout so it's about a 2-hour presentation >> and it isn't just >> spreadsheets. I love that. Thank you so much for doing that too. I appreciate that. So we will go into a 30 minute lunch break. That means that we would have to be back ready and prepared at 12:30. Do we all agree? >> Yes. >> Awesome. See you guys at 12:30. Thank you >> friends. I'm going to excuse myself. You're so cute. >> A God, I love it. >> All right, good afternoon everybody. Thank you so much. We are going to proceed with our meeting. Lunch is over and we have our last
188agenda item for today which is the presentation on our budget our budget projections. And with that I will go ahead and turn it over to Miss Shapiro. Uh >> thank you board members and uh President Curio. We are going to um Oh, there we go. Get it all set up and one second. Continuing our theme of pictures. >> I love that. >> Oh, it didn't do it. I was like, it'll just do it. It didn't do it. Okay, hang on. >> And I had sent you guys her presentation, but she did an update, so I'm going to send another one. >> Okay, thank you. I got some assistance from my team on how to properly put together learning targets and success criteria. Uh because I feel like if we're going to hold our kids to
189those standards, we should hold ourselves to those standards. It is a work in progress for me. Obviously, uh I'm on the budget side of the house, but um it it is like everything that we do a one lens focus on our student outcomes. Uh so I do believe that those things should be brought into all of the budget side >> and I appreciate that because I don't know that I've seen many budget presentations with that type of information in it. So kaduce to you and the team for setting that example. All right, I need the presenter view full screen. Is there a slideshow? >> Yes. Okay. >> Yay. All right. So, today our learning targets and success criteria. I just want to go over that. Um, we're going to be evaluating the district's budget development
190framework. Um, and the board is pretty used to me coming to the board with our budget update. And it's a dig it's a deep dive into that budget update to kind of show how each of those numbers that come on that um that little square sheet that I bring with the what's coming in and what's going out. It's us going and digging into that of how those numbers are created and where they come from. So, um it also navigates some of those impacts that we have on enrollment shifts that we're seeing in our district and then how that uh staffing uh affects the budget. So at the end uh what I hope we can take away from this is that I can explain how historical trends and fund or the board members can explain how
191historical trends and fund balance reserves dictate current spending limits. Uh the board can analyze the specific ways declining enrollment triggers uh staffing adjustments within the budget and how the board can access and utilize the shared budget dashboard materials to answer stakeholder questions. Um Hilda is sending you a link. the link is to the actual documents that I'll be referring to in the presentation so that you can pull those up and look at them and follow along, but also to have access uh as a board to dig into those uh areas and just kind of um if you have any wonderings or questions. So, a big piece of what pushes our budget obviously is our student counts. Um we do a significant amount of work on our en enrollment uh tracking our history uh but uh
192so we can have trend analysis. Trend analysis is a um large portion of budget planning and pro projection. Um and so we do this by a variety of ways. I'm going to go ahead and take us into some of these areas. Uh let's see if I can do it from here. Okay. Nope. I gotta go put that on that screen. And that didn't work. And neither did that. >> Rosel, how do I switch between presentation and the items I want to show? >> And do I have to do it every time? So if you Let's just drag. Do you do you want all of these tabs or just the one? >> Uh, it can be all of them. >> Just drag that over. >> Oh, I can just drag. >> Yeah. Over. >> But then
193how do I Oh, good. And my mouse is over there. Fantastic. I can't see it, but wonderful. All right, let's see. Is that I need my other glasses. Okay. So, I just wanted to kind of give you an example of some of the um district work that goes into tracking enrollment and how we historically track it. You can see that um I believe this says there we go 10th day enrollment. So, for the first 10 days of school, we track enrollment daily uh to try to keep an eye on trends. uh we're not really making any kind of big decisions during those first 10 days because we know that we're waiting for kids to to show up. Uh and we have 10 days for that to happen. If those students who have rolled over um
194since from the previous year into this year don't show up in the 10 days, on the 11th day, we're required to legally uh uh withdraw them from school. So uh 10day uh enrollment is very important. But then also um 40th day is one of our big measures. It was very critical in prior year funding. Um, still very critical in current year funding. And we're going to get into some of the effects on the budget between the changes when we used to be funded based on our numbers for prior year versus how we're funded now under uh current year funding for student enrollment. Um, so then the the 40th day is another number that we look at for trend analysis. How is the district trending? You can see that the district is trending down. Uh so
195there's a bar graph right there. Um pretty much shows you what has happened in the district over the last um 10 years. Uh it's pretty significant. Then uh 100 day is a really important number because those are the days that we get credit for in funding. And as we've discussed before, this is enrollment. It is a different set of data versus um average daily membership ADM but they are they do correlate. So when you see a drop in enrollment you will typically see a drop a corresponding drop in ADM which is your funding. So this is one of the the ways that the district um keeps an eye and then that's our last day of school. So you can kind of see some of the trends uh and and where by last day of school
196you can see something that that typically happens is that we will get a bump after 100 day uh and that's when students come back into our district and uh unfortunately at that point you don't get additional resources for those students. So keeping that in mind is that we only get funded for the first 100 days. any students that come after the first 100 days, um there is no additional funding for those students. And there's a variety of reasons why students would come to us after 100 day. Um perhaps they no longer are eligible to be in a private school. Uh sometimes that happens. Uh charters and privates have very high requirements. If the students aren't meeting those requirements, they they don't get to continue. They'll come back to public schools. That's a really politically nice
197way for you to say that. >> Okay, we got the money and now we don't need you. >> So, um, anyways, I need to look at that a little closer. >> Okay. >> So, also, >> so we so last year we looked we're we looked at like a basically a 7%ish drop in enrollment. Mhm. >> Has that been Well, and it I mean it's going down obviously, but it's not going down at like a steep curve is what I'm seeing. >> Um >> like it could be there's some districts that have some worse things going on. >> I will say that this is the biggest cliff that uh Kraton hasn't uh experienced in the last 10 years. And I have some data that's uh shows that specifically versus, you know, looking at um those one
198point in time measurements. talking about from one year to the next >> from one year to the next. Um, but we do budget with averages. So, uh, it's very insightful to point out that our decline is steady. It's a steady decline. It doesn't have sharp peaks. >> Yeah. >> And lows. Um, and which makes average budgeting uh typically more effective and successful because we are uh taking like a snapshot of I typically use five years. what's the average decline over five years? And those are some of the ways that we project out uh future decline. Um and it's, you know, it's as effective as it is. Uh so we'll discuss a little more of that as we get into it. And then I just want to show that um uh Russell's team really digs into
199the student data. We don't just track how many kids are enrolled in our in our schools. We have to do very effective tracking to ensure that we have the supports necessary. And I know this is very tiny, but that's why we gave you access to these documents. Um, obviously we keep track of all of our different populations, our special needs, our preschools, free and reduced, uh, lots of different demographic data uh, that we also are required to report out on. So Russell's team uh, are the ones that put this together and they do this historically and has been uh, one of the things that I find in budget planning is Historic data is king. When you can see past trends, it helps you to predict the future better. Um, and especially in our district, uh,
200understanding our district's culture versus other districts cultures helps us to be more effective in our, um, selections and choices as we project things into the future. >> Um, just a regular like a wondering that I'm having as we're processing this information. And I think what I personally um would like to see as well and then I can leave it up to the board members um to they agree. For example, if we know we're in declining enrollment, right? And our goal, one of our goals is on third grade proficiency early literacy, right? I think the things that I would like to see is given the information that we are a declining enrollment district, what portion of our MO is maybe going into those interventions and if declining enrollment is an issue are we prioritizing any of
201those interventions in case we got next let's say next year we get hit with a bigger percent and we're in this budget constraint. What does that look like when it comes to the money that we're supporting certain interventions? I guess the way that I try to tie these budget reports to is what are we safeguarding and what what are we also with our dollars saying this is non-negotiable whether we drop in more enrollment or we lose 20% here. Right? I think those are the connections I'm trying to look at as well as and I don't know if it's coming forth or not but that's just the stuff that I'm thinking about. >> Yes. Um definitely keep those wonderings. We will have opportunities um as we go through the presentation to uh put that information especially
202into a format if it isn't answered today uh I have the ability to gather information and get answers back to the board at a later date. Um so another area uh that we utilize in planning um keep in mind there are many layers when it comes to budget planning and budget development. Um, it's a two-way conversation as we discuss needs with our school sites, but also our departments. We have a budget uh calendar that allows us to kind of um track when our needs need to be uh brought forward. So, um such as capital items. Capital items have a long lead time. We have those discussions earlier than the maintenance and operations. um pretty much that maintenance and operations are those ongoing expenses that we know that we have year-to-year. Some are affected by declining
203enrollment and some are fixed costs. So, uh an example of a fixed cost is our payroll coordinator. Um we have one payroll coordinator. She processes payroll and make sure that everybody in the district is paid. Uh it doesn't matter how far our declining enrollment goes down. We do need someone to process our payroll. Now, maybe it looks different. Maybe it's uh um I I would I don't know. I can't imagine messing with payroll. Uh it is such a critical area. So, that to me is a an example of a fixed cost. We need someone to pay our teachers. Um and declining enrollment. If I had an office of payroll staff, we would look at declines in that payroll operational department as it related to uh enrollment decline. But we have one person in that office.
204Can't decrease that. And do you want to explain that a little better? >> Well, I I just kind of want to make an important point because I know um somebody shared last Tuesday that there's been over 4,000 bills put forward by the legislature. If you look at those bills, a lot of them contain um no additional funds, but a lot of additional reporting requirements. Yes. >> So, so one of the things that creates the problem, like people always say, well, if your students are declining, why aren't you cutting all these heads at the district office, the problem is we still have to fulfill all of those requirements for everything we have to report. Like, we can't say, well, we just won't do an audit this year, right? Because if we don't do the audit, we
205won't get federal or state funds. We can't choose to not report to OCR, uh, the Office of Civil Rights, right? Like so there's all these statistical things we have to do and there's all these state specific requirements for reporting and all of our funding is dependent on it. So, you know, it's it's always interesting and somewhat entertaining to me in a perverse way that you'll hear people at the legislature say, "Well, the problem is they have all those darned administrators." And yet, a good percentage of those darned administrators that we have, we have because the legislature puts continually adds more and more requirements on school districts and unfortunately does not comatately add more and more funding for the school districts to cover those costs. But part of a um an SOFG aligned resource process is
206to constantly be looking at those measures. So we keep an eye on our admin cost uh and ensure that that's not creeping up uh inappropriately. Um we make sure that we stay within a certain percentage of of admin if we're specifically talking about admin. Um but also operationally uh it is a constant conversation with my operational directors um that we're looking at uh structure and determining if there's more efficient ways to process things. I think we've just been very successful in the finance office for sure. Um but also in our food service department, we recently uh rolled out uh and we had gotten some questions on anou to work with another child nutrition software group. Um not to say that we're unhappy with ours, but we see that there might be some value in building
207a system that actually is is uh collaborate a collaboration with child nutrition staff. And so we're kind of excited about this um relationship with Apollo. It doesn't mean that we're going to switch to them or use them. Um, but they will be built based on input and um, uh, collaboration with actual CH people in the field as opposed to a system that was built by people who think they know what we need. Apollo is trying to make a system that actually fulfills what we need based on our comments and and input. So, that's what that um,ou was uh, about. And again, it doesn't mean we're going to do it, but if we did, uh, we would actually be able to join that um, and utilize that system at a greatly discounted price because we were
208willing to jump in and be a part of the, uh, the conversations. So, we're looking for those types of opportunities as much as we can um, in all of the areas, and all of the operational areas. Um but we'll get into you know some more of that stuff but um you can see that with the items that we bring to the board. So we have EV buses. Um that's an energy efficiency process uh progress pro so sorry project. Uh there's a lot of layers to that. We have um developed uh HVAC systems, HVAC systems that we um got tax rebates for and it's going to save us I can't remember exactly how many millions but I do have that in the presentation. So these are just some of the layers of operational decisions but again
209one of the biggest driving factors in our budget is enrollment. So we have to really dig deep into enrollment and understand what's happening to our families and our households and our community. And so, uh, one of the ways that we do that is through a demographers's report. Um, again, this is another thing that you want to do on a regular basis so you can kind of stay on top of changes. The demographers report is not intended to be exactly um on point or correct with the with the like I've had people say, well, the demographer said we were going to have 4,500 kids this year and we have 43. They were wrong. No, what they're doing is looking at trends and gathering information we don't have access to and putting it into one report as
210an additional tool for us to utilize along with our other tools. So, this um demog demographic and enrollment analysis update. Um this is just a uh the summary of it that we wanted to have ready for our meet and confer conversations. And so this uh takes the main report which is in the documents that we gave you access to um and and kind of has that highlevel summary of the impacts that they're seeing in our district. Uh what's really nice about this is it does break it down into the grade level characteristics. So, uh, when we're talking about impacts in certain areas like third grade or eighth grade, this is one of those reports that can help us, uh, in alignment to direct our resources to those most impacted groups. Um, it also allows us
211to take a look at where our kids are coming from and where our kids are going and, uh, some of those characteristics of our our community. uh where are are the housing where's the housing market going? What are new developments looking like? Um and they have some really far out ability to see where developers are going to be developing and um and some of those enrollment projections. So they plan our demographics based on these grids so that our attendance boundaries don't affect it. um it remains unchanged over time. So, it allows us to have some more consistent information. Trend analysis is very important when you're looking at this type of data. Here's our headcount. Uh enrollment it's talking again that's that trend as Katie pointed out. it. I mean, I would say there's good dips
212in there uh especially uh for 2526 which we did realize. So, enrollment uh as you take a look at this has declined every year. Um they average less than 2%. You were asking about the percentage and that is a percentage that's in my budget work. Um obviously the pandemic has its own effect and that makes budgeting uh looking at those historical trends pretty difficult. Um and since then our uh average losses have elevated to about 4%. So, uh, at the time the demographer pulled this report, um, >> so that 2010, and this is something Miss Shapiro actually dug into, if you recall, was SP 1070. That's right. >> So, you'll see you'll see a consistency of experience to the recent sudden drop and the sudden drop that we experienced in 2010. Gotcha. Okay. come um
213and this the demographer doesn't have access they have access to the data at the time we we've given it to them and so uh these were some of our projection numbers uh we realized more than a 6% uh decline in our student enrollment this year this is really interesting um the out how do I make it so you can see the whole slide wait is it that nope >> well you could Open it with the P. Just click on Yeah. Open. No. Um download. Sorry. Go back. >> Okay. No. >> No. >> Just go back to that tab. You have it right there. >> Right here. >> Um you should be able to down. See the arrow going down into the all the way on the left. There's page five of 13. Right next to
214that. >> I see. >> Download it. And then Yeah, >> it'll come up better. >> Um now you got to open it. There we go. >> Oh yeah. Okay, let's see if that gets the whole thing on the screen. >> And then you can just adjust the view. >> You might be able to do F11 for full screen mode. >> I just want you to be able to see the whole trend and the words. Um so on this out of district enrollment, this is something that's kind of interesting that came out in this this most recent uh demography report is that in addition to our in district open enrollment. So we would expect our in district open enrollment to be in decline because our students are in decline. Uh but uh in the past our
215outofd district enrollment stayed pretty steady coming in from outside of our district boundaries. we're uh realizing a decline in that out of district enrollment. Uh so we're starting to see that that decline is happening in those other areas and less people are coming in from outside our boundaries uh to come into our schools and um that can be impactful. Uh we do have some strategies as we've uh been digging into this. So, we lost about 170 out of district students this year versus 120 internal district students. >> You said 107. Okay. >> 170. Okay. Sorry. >> Um, here's where we start digging into the enrollment by those grade cohorts. Uh, projections for enrollment each year. So we would move kindergarten to first, first to second, second to third, eighth comes off, and then we have
216projections on where we think kindergarten is going to come in. So the sixth to eighth grade cohort is the largest, but not uh more different. It's not significantly different than the others, but K2 has not declined significantly faster since 23 uh 223. So we're a little different. We're we what this tells me is we are more successful at bringing the kindergarteners and then the younger age students into our district based on the different um programs that we have. We have a lot of preschools in our district which I think helps to contribute to this. We're very preschool friendly. uh we offer um you know facilities used to some of the preschools so that we can partner with them and when they're on our campuses what we've seen is a big high success of them coming
217into our schools. So this is one of those um practices that we use to mitigate declining enrollment. Declining enrollment is going to happen no matter what we're doing because birth rates have gone down. Housing costs are really high in our district which makes it a struggle to bring families in um in the district itself. those housing costs are kind of prohibitive. It's prohibitive to our teachers and to our families. So, what we're seeing is an increase of um older people coming into our district to purchase these homes who either have children who have already aged out or they're retirees and don't have kids. And I love us having this information, but one of the things that I also want us to push a little bit further is that we know that we're in a declining
218school district and for the next 10 years, it looks like we're going to decline even more, right? Mhm. >> So I guess the questions are instead of us mitigating that loss year after year is what are some of the interventions that we're doing whether that's contraction whether that's other things like what what does that look like because we you know we know that we're declining and that's not going to change unless you know something miraculously happens. So, >> and I think because we're in a study session, I'll I'll feel more comfortable um doing it in the in the enrollment part. Let me go back and talk about >> Well, I was also going to make a comment about the demographic trends really quick. >> I'd be really curious to see these demographic trends um subtracting
219the portion of the district that's north of Indian School Road. >> Sure. cuz I have a feeling that skews things a bit in what from our reality >> and and some of that >> how many students are attending our schools like you know what I'm saying like in terms of when we're talking about the number of homeowners 55 plus >> has declined sure maybe I'm curious about these demographic trends on this on this sheet without that portion of the district and I'm just curious >> this is very summary I'm sorry Jay and I also have the full report available to the board. I just felt this was a better one to do, too. And you can get that type of information >> and and be able to dig in a little deeper um school by
220school and by area. >> And all I was going to say is the gentrification has continued to move south. So I while what you're saying is likely true, I don't think it's as much of a skew as it was 10 years ago because what we're seeing is a lot of homes that our families used to live in being torn out even south of um even south of Thomas at this point where those homes are being removed and expensive condos are going in their place and the people who are moving into those condos are not families with six kids. their um totally older retirees and whatnot. >> It's just we've always had that I mean we've always had that section and not even maybe south of Indian school but north of Stanford or north of the
221canal that's just feels like no man's land for our district seems like it's there serving no purpose other than to give us tax dollars which we're grateful for all of their money up there in Paradise Valley. Vanessa, do you have >> the numbers on people living in the district with school age children who are using ESA vouchers who are sending their kids to schools and like Madison or even charter schools? I mean, do we have that? >> We do have some information on where uh kids are going if they're going out to some of the charters. If they're selecting a private school though, we don't have as much. But what we can see is how many kids are in our district and what percentage of capture rate do we have. So >> you say in
222our district, you mean >> in our attendance boundaries living in our district. >> Living in our attendance boundaries and the demographers report goes pretty deeply into the students that are available to capture and uh who's going out and who's coming in. So there are more details of uh but whether they're using an a voucher or not, we're not able to we're not able to determine that with this type of data, but you can kind of make a presumption of it. Um and so as we're looking at where the market's going and what is building, we are building. So that's great. You know, we've gone through some periods of time where building slowed or stopped. Uh so there are new developments going and unfortunately those are mostly multifamily homes and those don't tend to give us
223as many students. Um but also a part of the capture rate that we were just discussing uh in the past Kraton had up to an 80% capture rate of the students within our attendance boundaries and right now we're hovering about 60%. So when we're talking about mitigation, it's looking at this type of data, getting that type of information, and then having those conversations of what can we do uh to capture not only more of the population within our boundaries, but as we saw, we are very much supported by students coming from outside of our district to um participate in our programs. So what can we do to elevate that since we're seeing a drop in that area? That's a big concern. Um we're having discussions right now of a expanded uh transportation program um and
224what that could potentially look like. Part of the conversation that has happened so far in committee and some of the things that we we've been taking to meet confer uh we know that our excellencia start time is causing some negative effects on our our staff uh and families where they can't participate in uh some of the afterchool things. Uh it's very late for students. there's been um pretty big voice on wanting to get that it up to uh our other schools and not be such an outlier. So that kind of generated this conversation about transportation. Um in order to do something like that, if that ends up being um what the committees recommend and what the surveys support, we would need to expand our transportation. So, since we're already looking at an expansion for a
225solution, uh one of the ideas that came up in committee was what if uh with open enrollment, you have to transport your kids uh yourself. It's a big commitment. Those are very involved parents. Um they're great parents to have. Uh one of the things that we thought with seeing that decline in those out of district students was to create hubs outside of our boundaries, especially if we could target areas where there's school closures in other districts. you have parents who are looking for options and solutions and Kraton's a great solution. So, a part of that pilot could include um making our transportation. We have buses in our district from other districts all the time. Um a lot of this is through McKenna Vento. Uh there's some legal requirement that you have to bus them. Um,
226but we were looking at a more strategic plan to create hubs outside of our district that would allow those out of enrollment parents to come to one place, not have to come all the way in and know that their kids could get bus to the school of choice. So, um, that would do a lot of things for us. Um, it also would reduce some congestion at our schools and things like that. So there's a lot of ideas uh especially when we see these types of uh demographer reports and which key students that we are losing. Um that helps to guide some of the conversations in committees and this is that thing we were just talking about. This is the u school age population and service rate. So this is the kids um who are in
227our boundaries that we service and then the kids who are outside. So you can see that blue is the outside uh or no blue is the school age population. That service rate is of the school age population how many students are coming into our district. And that's that purple line. So there's a a capture rate there. Um, and we think that perhaps expanded transportation and a shuttle-like service within our district could potentially uh recapture some of that 60% and bump that number up. So, we're looking at um strategies that will need to be community uh communicated out to our community, getting that input from the community if they feel that these would be strategies that would help them make choices to come to Kraton schools. >> Do we Again, I'm going back to the geographic
228stuff. Do we know if this is different in different like is this drastically different in northern part of the district versus the southern part of the district? >> Which part drastic >> as in like how many kids that are school age children are choosing to not go to school in our district that live in our district? >> I can dig into that data. It is absolutely there. I just don't know that I've specifically looked at the data in that way. But if you're wanting to get a little deeper dive into the dem demographers report, I can for sure take a look at what's there and answer those questions. So you're wanting more specific like Well, it's right there. The the reports here. So >> is it in the list of stuff that we have that
229I can just look at? >> Yes. >> Oh, okay. I thought there was something in addition to this that we didn't have yet. Okay. >> Nope. Nope. It is. It is in that list uh that Hilda sent you a link and this is the deep report that's 50 pages. Oh wait, let me go put it on that side. So the summary is just a handful of page pages to get the the highlighted items. This is the actual okay >> deep report. It's in draft status because I haven't approved it yet. um we take a really good look at it and make sure that we agree with some of the uh demographers um outcomes and then we say hey uh so like last year no year before um they didn't really get Kennedy uh right uh
230because it was a school closure and then we reopened and we were only reopening at a grade level at you know a time like we did with uh TCA so they didn't capture that in the report we had to go back so there's a ton of information in here. You can see that it starts really breaking out our district into these areas. Um, and then uh you can see, let me get to the page. You can see where kids live. >> Okay, cool. >> Right. And you can see where they're capturing and seeing. So, we have the ability to kind of say, "Oh, we've got a bunch of kids coming right here. If we had a hub right here, could we capture even more kids out of that area?" >> It is kind of what
231I was assuming. >> Yeah. And then and then look at that. >> This is from my personal experience obviously too. >> Exactly. So if we already have these this many kids coming from this area right here, we create a hub. They're friends. Word of mouth. Hey, get on the bus with us and let's go to school with our friends. Right. Uh these are the kids that they live near and the people that they play with every day. So these are some of the strategies that we've been discussing and uh talking about when we uh think about creating hubs. So this information is really important and you can dig into it however you want. Um we also have uh by schools you we have some heat maps. We also have uh a lot of information about
232how many kids are in that area uh of the attend. So like uh Builtmore is one where h let me go find that one. Let's see. This also talks about households and and where they're located. you get, you know, household dem uh demographic data. Um, it's deep. You can you can just really get into all of this. >> Really nerd out here. >> You can nerd out. It's it's broken out by cohort uh trends. >> It's um >> Thank you. >> And I and I love these. And maybe I should just reserve my questions till the end, but I love this. But for example, I was reading over this, right? And they talk about two specific schools that have the greatest amount of loss to students. and those schools historically are the ones. So, at
233what point, cuz this is great information, right? I love this and I think we do need to have this and touch base on this. However, at what point are we getting guidance from the district on what strategies are going to be taken in order to fill those gaps or that's that's what we bring to you guys um consistently like with the transportation plan that's in committee. Um Jay, some of the other um strategies that we've used, >> one of the others, it's a perfect example is we've we've combined dealing with what you might consider excess space, right? So we if we when we have open space on campuses, one of our preferred strategies is to find a high yield preschool partner to plug into that space because then they're helping cover the cost of operating
234that space, which takes that burden off the district. But at the same time, through that partnership, we're able to, you know, mitigate the enrollment loss because now we're introducing new families who are utilizing those preschool services to our campuses and and capturing a percentage of people. >> Yeah. And I love that. And I guess where I'm going at because I'm always very like root cause versus putting band-aid solutions. The fact that we have to find a partner to fill in that lease is a band-aid solution for me, right? We're already lost all those kids. something happened. But given the data and this portion that I was geeking out over, it seems like in certain areas it's a consistent thing. It seems that in certain areas of schools it's every year it's declining and declining faster
235than others. So I'm at some point I'm also eager to find out what solutions do we have at maybe site level basis and I know that we have stuff going on with our student outcomes and and that kind of goes in there but what targeted interventions are we doing especially when we have data saying that certain areas historically are losing these amount of kids more than any other of the schools in the district. Right? So those are the kind of wonderings that I get as a governing board member too is like I love this data I understand the leases but to the to me those are a little too late which are great solutions my but I would >> for me it's not even losing but the area around you're not maybe you're not losing
236a bunch of people in the area around BPA but they just ain't there to begin with. That's >> right. That's yeah. So, so I I just want to caution us that what we don't want to do is jump to the conclusion that certain specific schools are losing enrollment because of something that's necessarily programmatic or performance-wise at the school because sometimes it has to do with the geographic location and what the demographic shifts in that location are. And then the other thing that you know if you look at this >> post pandemic is where you suddenly see an increase in the decline. But the other thing that's shifted in the post pandemic um is that we have universal vouchers which we didn't have prior to the end of the pandemic. And so there are other you
237know extrinsic factors that have an impact on that enrollment. Now that's not me making an excuse and that we shouldn't focus in and find solutions. Absolutely. We're having those conversations. We put some of those solutions in place already. But I I just don't want us to make any to jump to any solutions about the cause because then the solutions that we put into place will be misaligned to how we might actually mitigate or um reduce the loss and potentially perhaps reverse the course and increase the enrollment that we're receiving. >> Well, and I and I think we need to be very cautious too about how much and I think it was uh Tristan who talked about it earlier. what can I control and what can I not? Um we don't have a lot of control
238over housing costs. And so we can see that uh the housing um market is a big driver as to and as we were talking about gentrification, they're knocking down more affordable homes to put in million-dollar homes. And then who affords that? Uh not people with kids. >> There are so many kids in boxes six, seven, five. What I'm trying to say is four, five, six, seven, three. Tons of kids. >> Yeah. >> A lot of money. But what I'm saying is they don't go to our schools. >> And that's what I'm trying to get at. Like I understand all these other things because within in the report they even say that there's just a specific school that will probably have more kids coming in because and I just the way that my brain works, I'm
239like, "Oh, then there must be something in that specific area that the community is looking for, right?" Because they get so many people. I'm just trying to say like yes, I understand that we need to be cautious when we're looking at that info, but at some point we do need to micro look at these things and there might be other things than just housing because that's going to happen tomorrow. know it's going to happen next year and we can't continue seeing and using that as the prime like what are we doing internally whether it's culturally whether it's information wise community based >> I like go to go to these houses in four 5 6 7 15 14 13 the sparest areas and find those child those homes with with children and find out why they're
240sending their kids somewhere else on >> well we know which which houses have have children we have marketing strategies and we do exactly that. So, I just want to assure you this is not the only things that that we're doing and uh you know, obviously part of this process is to articulate some of the things that we're doing so that the board's aware um that we're not just reacting to declining enrollment. We are actually going out and doing innovative changes uh to try to affect that enrollment in in a variety of ways. again the transportation >> are we getting to the root of to why people are not sending their kids to school in our >> there's there's multiple routes so so >> that's not just that's like actually talking to the people and not
241friends >> a a perfect example is excellencia >> so we know for a fact that we have a number of families who don't cho choose to go there because the start and end times are a problem for them so that's why um but also look at excellencia I see a big concentration of purple dots So I'm I'm more like let's get hyperfocused on these areas where there very clearly are probably more kids living here but there ain't very many purple dots in the box is what I'm talking about >> and when pocket and that's the capture of where we're capturing 60% of the students in the district we're trying to increase that capture rate. >> Okay. >> So that would be the targeted strategies looking exactly Katie exactly what you're saying which is where are
242those kids and identifying why aren't they going to our schools. Um, so we do have strategies for that and we have ability to to look at and as you dig into that report, you'll see where kids are located and we can see some effect like where 2,000 kids are going to these private schools and where they're located. There's also some charter information in here where you can see those kids are going outside of the district to charters or even within the district to some of the charters that are in our district. So that information is in here. We utilize that to target those marketing strategies. I know if Emily was here, I think she could talk a little deeper about some of that. >> Yeah, I was just going to share a little bit too
243that >> I I get what you're saying and I'm sorry. I'll just put it at this. I get all that targeting marketing strategies, but how are we targeting people if we don't know why they're going somewhere else? How do we market to them if we don't know why they're going somewhere else? >> We do get some information on why students are leaving the district if they're in our district and we um have a >> withdraw in our district to begin with. Are we reaching those people? That's the question. When I've gone doortodoor, what I hear from a really good percentage of people who are choosing to not be in the districts is that their child is in a parochial school. >> So that's I mean that like honestly 60% of the families that I've engaged
244with. >> Yeah. And I'm not saying that as an excuse. I'm just saying school for religious reasons either because I my kid goes to pres my younger one goes to preschool at Villa and these people be sending their kids to All Saints. They be sending their kid. They're not religious. They just think it's a good school and they're in this weird social bubble of like we got to go, you know, my kids's going to be in kindergarten. I'm doing interviews and walkthroughs at PCDS and I'm already looking at Brophie like crazy town. Okay. So my and I know people aren't just going to from the beginning of time people go to parochial schools that aren't religious. So I'm trying to get in the weeds of this now, but I'm just saying like I think there's
245like a missing piece here which is I mean maybe the answer is racism. I don't know possibly. But number two, the missing pieces is like why if you never come to our district or you're not even thinking about public schools at all, which I see that mindset when I'm with parents at Villa Monasuri with my younger kid and it blows my mind like there's no concept of the default being public school. >> Yeah, that's that's shifted in the last 20 years. >> Yeah. And so that's why I'm saying we need to figure out what would it take to move the needle in some of these boxes where that is the norm socially. How do you get people to buy into our district? I don't know what the answer is to that, but they may never
246have been enrolled in our district and we need to be figuring out from those people why they're sending them some. >> Yeah, I would say a healthy percentage of the people who aren't sending kids to our schools aren't people who have left our schools. They're people who have never enrolled in our schools. >> And Dr. Pombo, did you have something? >> Well, I don't know if this um helps answer the part of the question is that in January, we met with our during our um school leadership council, we met with our leaders and talked to them about the enrollment trends and that our first step is that we need to retain the students that we have. We can't continue to lose students every year. So, everyone committed made a little action plan of what they're
247going to do this semester or, you know, these next two quarters to retain the students that we have. And I could read you a couple of things that they did, but um one of the things and they we actually have time scheduled next leadership council for them to share their ideas, >> but the first thing from um Vanessa's team is Russell made everything available online. So they have to first verify that they're coming back next year. And then um cuz before that wasn't that was just by word if you're coming back or not or like Vanessa said sharing like you know we have 30 kindergarteners we have 30 kindergarten next year. So now is verifying enrollment online with parent view also online enrollment making sure that we have online enrollment available for our students but
248we talked about how do we make it easy for our parents because it is hard to go on a computer and do that. So the some of the strategies they talked about is um they want to me have members of their team schedule time with next year's teachers to visit younger grades and then they als for that part they want to have a iPads in the office and help them fill it out or if they need to schedule how to fill out the um online enrollment or also verify their enrollment. They're going to have like a some of them talked about having swag and h building relationships with kids and talking to families why they're coming back. So like continuing those relationships to find out why they're coming back and we have to tie it
249to attendance because we know that once attendance starts to decrease then we start losing that student. So engaging in those relationships. So they have a lot of strategies for attendance and also to retain the students that they have. And in that conversation, we talked about how are we going to let's just do retention first because that's the first step and then we can go to marketing. >> And so that will be the next step. But this quarter, these next couple quarters, we're just focusing on let's stop the bleeding and try to and make sure we keep the students that we have and then we'll start marketing. And I think also with our student outcome focused governance. If we have letter grades that are improving, which we already had this last year, we had several schools
250improve their letter grades. That's what community looks for. I know as a parent when I was a young parent, I was looking for that. And so we can improve that and then start marketing. We're hoping this year, like based on our data that things are getting better, that we'll be able to have um those grade those grades improved so we can market a lot of our uh a lot of our schools because I know that's what parents are looking for. >> Awesome. Thank you. So, um, as we said, the reports there, you know, it's it's it's interesting information and you can come up with a lot of different strategies based on a lot of different intents and um, uh, and and Katie definitely taking note of the what you're you're sharing. I think the key
251takeaway that I have from what you're sharing is sure we can have all these marketing strategies, but if we don't pinpoint the reasons uh and actual data that families aren't coming and choosing our schools, uh then how are we going to make sure that our marketing strategies are efficient and directed in the ways that we want them to be? And I absolutely uh hear that and that's a great takeaway for us. I know that um you know sometimes the uh the response is but we do that we do that we do that and I don't want to say that to you what I want to say is that we're always looking to improve I think it's a great strategy to how do we get out there and talk to those families I think some of
252that is by word of mouth definitely you know when when your kids playing with this kid who's just really excited about school >> and really excited about where they go and how they go um some of the things that I think are just you know other than the door a door, you know, why aren't you here? Um, but and and some of that is looks and and we layer all of these things. Um, let me get back into the >> and I appreciate you, Dr. Pomo, for sharing that because, you know, it also brings context into like how you prioritize all this. So, I appreciate you sharing that. Um, and I'm not saying by any means we should be prioritizing what I'm asking about. I was just when we do get to that issue, those
253were my concerns and curiosities. But I do hear you and I'm glad we're doing those things because it makes sense to prioritize retention. So, >> and and I think the intent here is to really just build that foundation of all the things that impact dollars, but at the end of the day, it's how many kids and how we get more kids and where are the kids going and uh are they in here? Are they out of there? And how do we address these needs? that is just a wealth of choices and collaboration and committees and thought processes and having these types of interactions because we value um what the board brings to us. You're out in the community and you can hear and and see what's going on out there. Um so just you know
254going back to some of those mitigation strategies that transportation when when an electric bus drives by you might be interested if that's in your neighborhood. Wow, that's interesting. Look at that shiny electric bus. Wow, what's great about, you know, um uh we have u advertising campaigns on billboards. Um we are actively working with our meet and confer groups to recruit and retain strong teachers and um in alignment with our guard rails. So, uh marketing, something that's been coming up and that we're exploring and investigating is central enrollment. Um, central enrollment gives us an ability to market ourselves in a very strategic way. >> And what is central enrollment? >> Central enrollment means that parents have one-stop shop to get into our schools and then we have the ability to really cater that marketing as opposed
255to showing up to a school and saying, "Well, this is the school closest to me, so this is the one I'm going to go to." Um, it gives us the ability to lean in as we were talking about in layered strategies. Let's work on retaining what we have now, but then as we're moving forward, let's start looking at LCK, perfect example. It's an outdoor learning school. Who who knows that? Um, who knows that it's an outdoor learning school. We we get it out on our social media. We have projects. Martha's doing a fantastic job. But when you when you walk into a central enrollment, we have the ability with an expanded transportation model to get kids to whatever school is going to fit their needs. as a kid to get them excited about learning. We
256have a um a giant professional grade soccer field at Lum Linda. If I walk in and I say, "Well, I want to send my kid to school. This is the school that's here, but I don't know. He's not excited." Well, Lomol Linda is your kid into sports. Lolinda has this sports program. Um it's supported by community partners. You get the kid into the school that they're excited about, right? um dual language, all of these different things and strategies. But with open enrollment, sometimes we have challenges for parents to be able to get their kids to those schools. So, how do I how do we help our in district families get to the school and make the choice that's best for them? So, the expanded transportation gives us it just opens up this whole world. Central
257enrollment allows us to talk to those parents and actually deep dive into the needs of the individual student and then go put them on an electric bus and go take a field trip in our district. >> We can format that from that central enrollment place. I love all those ideas and actually thank you for sharing all those comments because uh a lot of the times is I want to hear not necessarily what we're doing to the demographic aging declined but what are we doing to remain competitive and I think sometimes focusing on how we remain competitive to maybe the students that we are losing to the charter or the private school will bring that in. So, thank you for saying that because just sometimes when we have plain reports like that, it makes it seem
258like we're just focusing on this demographic declining issue, which we already know we are, but obviously we need to come out with other strategies that remains us in the competitive field versus the losing enrollment because if we just >> do things to make sure that we're keeping kids like that's not even going to grow us, right? So, thank you for sharing all those because that's exactly what I was hoping I would hear out of all these conversations. >> Let me get to the other slide. Um, and part of this is is again alignment with SOFG. So, if we keep doing things the same way we've been doing them, we are going to keep having the same outcome. A lot of this is is not what other schools are doing. Uh, the expanded transportation, that's not
259what other schools are doing. Uh, they're pulling in uh because of declining enrollment. And I'm like, that's fine. I'll come get your kids. >> I love that. >> Uh so, um you know, a lot of these and then, you know, when we were talking about LCK, >> that's a part of spreading that that message. When people drive by that school, they go, "Wow, what is that?" So, creating spaces that are exciting and that people want to be at and people say, "Wow, this is an amazing place." I mean, we're about to do a rebuild for Builtmore. Um and and we're we're moving that along through the path. We're doing facility studies. We're trying to figure out what our next plan's going to be. Um, our family resource center, that's another innovative project that other districts
260are not necessarily in the same uh position to support it. We're very lucky that our community supports us through uh the bond initiative. And through that and through passing that bond, we were able to get dollars to put specifically towards our family resource center. it's not as much or that we would want to have. So, we're continuing to look to expand that project to be bigger than just a, you know, remodel few buildings. Uh, we want something exciting. We want to support our community that supports us. We want to provide um medical services, dental services, uh, uh, behavioral health services in a one-stop shop. Again, transportation expansion is going to allow our community to take advantage of these resources if we have an ongoing shuttle type service within our district. These are some of the
261innovative ideas that are coming up in our committees. And so then it comes back to me to say, oh, how do we how do we make that happen? How do we make that a reality? Um, so we've been piloting uh certain ideas to see is this going to be something we can we can afford? Is this something that we can uh put in place with the resources we already existingly have and just kind of alter them a little bit? Um we had a situation just recently that really speaks to how we can target this transportation model in innovative ways. Um so one of the ideas that had come up was what if we have attendance problems and somebody is truining and we just they're you know they need to walk to school but parents don't
262get up in time to walk them and they don't want to walk them by themselves. It's not safe. Uh, one of the targeted ideas was if we have a good van pool non CDL driver population, we can based on support measures with the school site, target those students, go pick them up right at their door, get them to school, right? We know that attendance is affecting us. We just recently had a situation uh with everything that's been going on where several of our families did not feel safe to walk their kids to school. Um, what they expressed to the school was, "We're just going to keep our kids home. We know that that's going to be so detrimental to those students and their learning loss. Uh but this the parents didn't know what to do,
263they were afraid. So we set it up to send a van driver to pick up about six families. We have that ongoing right now. Uh those families are able to get onto a van and get to school and bring their students and feel safe and not have to go into that walking situation that they felt uncomfortable with. We want to expand that. we can't we don't have the resources right now. But we saw that it was effective and it immediately got those six families to get their kids to school. >> And I love that innovative thinking because that even goes into our guard rails right of safety and that creates safety in the community and safety looks different for every community and I feel that that really holds on to the value of what safety
264means in Kraton. Also with that innovative thinking, I love that idea because we've been having a lot of issues in the district where kids are being walking by themselves and people are approaching them on the streets and that's another sense of safety, right? And I love that innovative thinking. So, thank you for that because that ties in directly to our outcomes and our guard rails and this is how everything starts, you know, coming in in together. And I don't think if we would have been on this journey, it would have given us that space or that ability to be like, what are we going to do differently to make sure that we're meeting all these poor um portions of thinking? It's also been beneficial if the board supported both of our assistant superintendents being part
265of an SFG cohort because I don't think there's there may not be any other districts in the country that have that level of expertise with the two district experts who are most directly impacting operations and instruction within the district. And so that's been really a powerful lens for them to be able to bring back and you know implement at our schools. So, we're fortunate both for the individuals and we're fortunate for that opportunity. Um, and the other thing I will say, there are a lot of districts that when enrollment starts to decline, like their first reaction is, I know how we can save money. Let's cut these assistant superintendent positions, >> but I can guarantee you is all these innovative strategies you're hearing, we would not have the ability to implement them without the team
266members that we have. And so sometimes it's it's like that old expression, you're cutting off your nose to spite your face, right? Like do we want to give up our ability to innovate and grow and develop and reverse the course of events that are occurring? Um and you can't do that like if if all you're doing is self harm to the district by cutting away critical resources that you need. >> Yeah, I agree. And that's one of the things that I would not want to happen is that all of a sudden we're saying, "Hey, we're in this hole and now we have to go cut xy amount of whatever that is. To me, that's not a solid solution." So, I appreciate all this work being put into it. Miss Marquez. >> Yeah. Um, also to
267echo what you're saying, like I love that um, you know, this this innovative thinking and you're talking about like the a district shuttle because I remember a few years ago thinking I'm like, man, our district's small enough like if we had some kind of a shuttle system like I know in Tempe they have like this thing called the orbit. It's like set routes that run consistently and like it gets you anywhere in the city pretty quick. Um, but something like that, you know, could be beneficial to families, to kids, even if for like, you know, getting them to community council or after school sports or something. Um, and then I wanted to put this out here because this conversation took me back to something my daughter said cuz I remember asking her like, "What would
268make you want to go to school more?" She goes, "Well, of course, lunch. That's always been her big thing, like we need better food." Um, but also she goes, "If they would let us pick our classes and I, you know, so it got me thinking about like, okay, well, what are like the main things they have to have?" Like, so yeah, English, math, and then what are kind of like the extras? And so I mean this is way out of the box, but I'm going to throw it out here since we're on the topic. But like I was imagining like you know how when you go to like community college or whatever and they've got the big schedule and you can pick your classes and it's going to be here here. But like so yeah.
269So it's like you know schedule of like these are like ELA intro ELA1 and the times and the dates and and shoot. I I don't know. This is way out there, but like you know, yeah, she's going to take her ELA and her math at TCA, but she really likes the music and arts at LCK, >> right? >> And I know so again, I don't know, but I'm, you know, planting little seeds, but >> there has been some some discussions around that, Nicole. That's not uh I again because we are trying to say what are all the things you know brainstorming um and and it's fun to do this but it getting it put in place is where you know boots meet the ground and so expanding transportation comes from uh a lot of different
270levels there's a lot of different pieces in place to try to we have to take it to meet and confer we have to develop a new schedule for nonCDL drivers we have to increase our um bus driver rate to pay up to a level that's better than those around us so that we can bring in those drivers. Um we're looking at that van driver solution because one of the things that we were thinking about when it comes to the math goal is kids who are excited about math and who want to be into those um uh advanced classes. Maybe that class isn't available at their site because they're over at the sports one and the focus is this. I mean, obviously there's math in every school, uh, but there are different classes available and advanced
271classes and so there could be some opportunity. I would say that there's a lot of steps between here and there. Nothing's off the plate or off the table. Um, but it starts with the basic. How do we make it happen? How do we take it from all of this brainstorming thought process and start making it happen? And that's what we've been working on in the background uh with the committees and then we're actually taking a piece for the transportation expansion to meet for this year. Um but also I want to make sure we understand just because we want to do things we could take all of our resources and put them in these areas but our resources are getting smaller. So in addition to planning those resources effectively and supporting our our SFOG lens, we
272need to figure out ways to generate more revenue. And so um and we're trying to do it in every area at every level. We're looking at facilities use. We're very outdated on some of those things. Um we're looking at our prepaid medical process. I'm wanting to bring something new to the board uh uh during the next budget cycle, not this one. Um the commerce bank where just we're going to get money to do our job like we we cut checks, but now we're going to get money because we cut checks in a different way. Uh so we're looking for those opportunities to generate non- studentent driven revenues uh so that we can support some of the innovative things that we're wanting to do. And then looking at some of those partnerships, I can't stress how
273partnerships really do move us along. Um they are critical and valuable and they allow us to offer more to our community than we could ever do on our own. So um those are some of our mitigation strategies. Um let's see. Okay. So I think we talked a lot about enrollment. I think I'm hoping that um we've got some good understanding about what the enrollment looks like over the next 10 years. If anyone wants to kind of give me their thought about what they think enrollment looks like over the next 10 years, >> the interactive this is hard for me. I'm usually just talk talk. So would like to share their thoughts about that. Unless things in the state change, then it's going to keep declining. >> Yeah. >> I feel like I feel like public
274education. So, >> I I don't think it's going away entirely. I think we're just looking at declining population as far as >> Birth rates overall. >> I will be happy. I watch it every year and I and I see did it bump and guess what? We got a little slight bump in the um demographic of 30-year-olds. all of a sudden 30 year olds are having a slight increase in birth rates. So I'm very excited to watch to see what happens. So it might just be that um you know our kids are saying hey we want to wait till later to have our kids but as soon as we start seeing that then we know in five years well my kids sorry my kids >> they said no that's later 30 is later to have a
275kid. Okay. >> Well I was 19 I don't know there's definitely that the clock gets louder at 30. Yeah, >> I was talking from having my kids after 30, but I'm just saying that seems to be the norm for people my age is to have kids after. >> It is. People are waiting till later to to have kids and it's and it's safer than it has ever been. Um, and then some of the things I'm hoping that we talked about today were the things that are impacting student enrollment in public schools. And we know that's those vouchers, it's housing rates, it's our performance. >> And I think Sophia gets behind that. Like the reason that we have goals is because we need to improve our performance. >> So if we do nothing else, that's going
276to make us attractive. So focusing in and that laser focus on our goals, we can't go wrong because that is what we're here to do is to educate kids. All of this other stuff is great. That's what you have operational staff to do. uh it's for us to have these thought processes and try to be innovative and try to put the dollars to it, but really keeping our eyes on the ball of student outcomes is focusing on those goals because when we we keep improving and making that happen, people are going to want to come to Kraton honestly for more than any of the things that we had on that list. So, I'm going to try to do this um oops, go back. >> I'm going to try to do this uh mentometer activity for
277you guys. If you have your phone, it's one of those where um I'll launch this and then you get to get a QR code. Uh there'll be two items. So, one is just putting in a wondering that you have about declining enrollment. Maybe something that I didn't answer today or something that we could bring back later. Um, and we have this uh QR code and it's going to put those wonderings up so you'll get to see each other's. It should anyways. >> Does it work? >> Yeah, I got it. >> Okay, good. Oh, it doesn't it doesn't show yet. I think I have to do something. >> How do I show? >> See, this is why we do this. Four responded. >> It is. >> Please wait for the presenter to change slides. >> There
278it is. There's one. >> Oh, that's cool. >> Such a broad question, >> but an interesting one >> emerging with another district. >> And I don't >> I don't think we're going to answer these questions. I just want to get them uh recorded. >> We're just wondering >> because these are just wonderings. you know, because Yeah. Never mind. >> Yeah. >> Um Garrett Archer, you know, the numbers guy at ABC15, I don't know if anybody watches the local news, but Garrett Archer is like the data guy there. He two days ago had a story where he basically summarized the findings of all the Arizona audits, school audits. >> Uhhuh. >> And you know, one of our neighboring districts is now at high risk. >> Oh, did everybody see that um on the auditor general? >>
279Yes. report. Yes. >> Oh, I think Tristan, you brought it up brought that up in the board meeting. >> It was interesting seeing his report because >> it was interesting to see also several times over and over again our neighboring districts are struggling in some of these areas and I was glad to not see our name in this report a thousand times on the news. >> Okay. And Oh, Nicole, are you gonna You look like you're doing you're >> Oh, no. Sorry. I don't have any wonder right now. >> Um >> I I really don't. >> It was Mrs. Heirs that >> Yeah, I don't have Not a Not a problem. Doesn't have to do it. I'm just trying to break up the day supposed to Vanessa and her spreadsheets. >> Pivot. >> Oh, sure.
280>> Sorry, my my eyeballs can't see the answers down there. >> And then, you know, you guys have great ideas and you've brought some up and so I wanted to kind of capture any strategies that you may be thinking about. I know Katie had talked about um banging on doors. Um so >> doesn't I think Mr. Man has a story about Emily and him uh running from a dog after banging on a door. >> I wonder. And actually, did you get to experience a dog when you were with us, Russell? >> No, I I don't remember. >> I don't know the answer to this one. >> Yeah, it's typically pit bulls. >> That's true. >> Now, imagine having to >> But I really do value the input that the board brings and I just think
281you have a different lens. A lot of times I'm really stuck into the, you know, the numbers. Uh, and so I really like getting and and honestly that's why I really enjoy facilitating uh the committees that I do have uh with me this year, which was the compensation and compression committee and then also the fiscal stewardship committee. Um it has been uh just a very productive year and you could see how um when we were looking at some of those mitigation strategies those are coming out of those committees. >> Dang who's yelling >> I know >> the president is yelling >> knew it was >> I mean I just have some facitious things to add but nothing our district can do. >> Is that that adage if you don't have something nice to say? Yeah,
282I'm thinking about oversight for >> you. >> Oh, grace. >> Absolutely. >> Let me get some of those innovative things in there. We don't even talk to each other and our answer is the exact same. >> That is fantastic. >> In case anyone's ever wondering out there. >> Yeah, we don't. Half of the time we don't. We just show up and we're like, "Oh, we're aligned. Great." I I put like a voting thing for people to vote on it, but I was like, you know what, it's fine. Uh I don't think that's necessary. I was just excited. I was turning things on with this tool. Um it's the first time I've used a tool like this, but I know that um we've had this tool used in some of our other uh presentations, so I
283was excited to kind of bring something like that forward for us. A little something different. Yeah, I remember there was something similar used at one of the ASPA conferences and and I forget what I don't know it was something like as a schoolboard member how do you you know stay balanced or keep something like that and like it was surprising how big alcohol kept getting. Oh my gosh. >> It's where the words get bigger as more people type it in. >> So does go. >> Okay. >> Cuz it's like anonymous. someone can see who's >> Yeah. But but yeah. >> Wow. >> So, these are things that um have been gone over in the budgeting process quite a few times with some of the um uh more experienced board members, and I wanted to make
284sure that our new board members had access to some of these tools and documents. So, the the school finance manual is a document that's created by the Arizona Association of School Business Officials. It's an it's an effort to try to make school finance a little more um uh easy to disseminate by layman people who aren't finance people. So, it is it's it's absolutely meant to kind of say where do these dollars come for schools and and where do they go? And Nicole, you'll have access to all of this. um in May computers >> Russell these aren't items that I'm going to go through today. Uh we've just made a for you and your your use and I would highly recommend going through uh the school finance manual. Uh in May of 2025, we also did
285a budget 101 presentation at a board meeting. Um this document is still very relevant. Some of the numbers have changed. Obviously, there's some references to that year's uh information, but that document is translated. >> So, it's a it's a nice uh presentation to be able to have if you're wanting something that already has a translation built into it. >> Thank you. >> And then um the uniform system of financial reporting. This is just one of the guidance documents that drives what we do. And this is the legal stuff. So when we talk about how we do pro like purchasing and procurement and um h how we select vendors and how we manage cash in our district uh how you write a receipt all of those things are in the uniform system of financial reporting that
286is what we are audited on when uh Josh came and talked to us about our audit findings that was the un uh the USFR uh compliance questionnaire there's 170 questions this year. It changes every year. It's gone up to like 200, over 200 at some points. Um, depends on what problems are found out in school districts as they audit or as the AG goes out and does performance audits. Every time something happens out there, uh, they put more focus on some of the questionnaires to help auditors direct that in a systematic way. So, like an example is uh back in the day at one point there were some border Arizona districts who were allowing students in from outside of Arizona uh borders and they were coming in like from California, sorry, New Mexico. Um and
287the students that are getting a free education, public education in Arizona are Arizona students. Um and uh so out of state, and I'm not talking about out of country, I'm just talking about out of state in Mexico, California. um that resulted in a huge process that we uh do to in the middle of Phoenix, we have to prove where you live. And so there's a um a piece in our registration packet that you have to provide like a a bill or something showing that where you live. That came from that that that actually came from that. So we didn't do anything wrong but now there's this extra regulation this extra uh statutory compliance item that we have to follow because something happened somewhere else at some point in time. So um when you look at
288the uniform system of financial reporting if you look at those words you could say it's you suffer. That's kind of what we say >> suffer. Um our chart of accounts is really uh fantastic. There's about a bazillion pieces in that account code that I love so much. Um, but it really does dig into some of the fund information that we talk about at the board. And Tristan, what I was saying are these are items that I wanted to provide to new board members that um dig into the budgeting process. We've done some of this in the past, so I wanted to make this available um for you guys because today I really wanted to get into the next level of the budgeting planning. I kind of want to pull back the curtain and talk about
289when I'm bringing those numbers to you guys, what where did those numbers come from and how were they developed? Uh what are the strategies that we use to try to um make sure that we're on the right path and we're targeting things appropriately and I am going to do some look backs to say here's what we said was going to happen and how did it turn out. Um, and then navigating our fund balance reserves, managing that budget balance carry forward, and then just kind of projecting budgeting, like what's the known and the unknowns and and how do we make sure that we're safe through all of that. So, that's going to be the the second half of the budget presentation. Um, and before we get into that, I wanted to do a breakout. I just
290have a quick question as um before we go into this one. Do we have a document out there that has a crosswalk of how much of our budget is going into each goal or is that something that can be eventually explored so it it lets us know like how much of our funds are going into like board goal one or board goal two? >> All of it. >> Okay, cool. >> I I don't know that I would. It's aligned. So >> yeah, I think >> do you have an idea of may I mean we could do some like >> Yeah, I I think there's some >> and that's just an out there. It doesn't have to be answered right now, but that's just where my head goes as we think about future um budget hearings
291if we have a crosswalk sheet or if something can I don't know what that looks like, but that's just a wondering I have. >> We can look for something we might be able to do. I think the biggest challenge with it is and I'll just give a quick example. Um, you know, we do training with our staff on um, tier good solid tier one instruction, right? So, creating learning targets, success criteria, writing a lesson plan, um, engagement, right? >> Well, um, some of the goals are math goals and some of the goals are literacy goals, but those things apply to all four goals. So, then how do you divvy like how do you take those dollars that are expended on that and divvy them up? They're actually across all four. So we can think about
292a way we might be >> but I think you answered the question that money would be put in there because it goes through it doesn't just meet the goal of one goal. It meets all of them. So that money could >> still be you know that's still a good tactic of saying hey this is much going into tier one and it's going into tier one because of XYZ and this is how it's related and okay bam next. I think we're doing that and I guess what I would say is I think we're doing that with the any changes, you know, as we go through and and develop things that we strategically abandon or and then we bring on something new. Um, I think we could like like we did last year when we brought the
293coaching model and we put that as a special line on the budget because we wanted to draw the board's attention that we were changing and going to go down a different path and we're going to offer something new. we put our resources to it and that made it um stand out because it was new. Whereas like right now if we're talking about eighth grade math, if I'm looking at staffing, kindergarten helps >> Eighth grade math. I mean, if we don't do the right things in kindergarten, kids in eighth grade aren't going to be able to pass math. So, it's it's a little harder to pull out things that are already existing. But I think we've really put in a good framework to um tie those cost to new things. And I I think we had
294talked with Lissa and the board had maybe brought that up during one of the um uh presentations uh when we were talking a goal present. I I don't know which one it was. It was an interim measure and I think we were looking to put dollars to some of those things when it has dollars. Is that kind of like where you were going? Right. Yes. So that when we're do doing the presentation on the goals and the interim measures, we can say uh the the district invested, you know, this much money on this software >> almost $60,000 into like as an example, I think we had a conversation at one point about um the co the extra coaching support, not just like in our internal coaching staff, but the additional coaching support from an external
295math consultant, right? just like we had brought in an external language acquisition consultant the prior year. So those are the types of things that I think it would be easy for us to assign dollar amounts to. >> Yes. >> Yeah. And that the only reason why I say that is because eventually we're going out in public and saying well what new interventions or what new dollars are you using on X Y and Z to support this? And then I look at them and I'm like well I don't know I know it's being done. So if there's just a place where that lives on, it gives us easier access to go out in community and really pinpoint, you know, x amount of dollars was put in this and this is, you know, what what Mr. Man
296just referred to >> crossf functionally and I just want to give some kudos to this right now because topically like this aligns um Miss Shapiro um Dr. Pombo and um uh Miss Wizak's team um so their teams and Miss Wizak's team have also gone out and said what do we need? What grants exist out there? So they've actually brought in new dollars that we didn't have before and then those dollars have been targeted specifically at SOFGL. So when you when you look at something like the implementation of a pilot with the mirror this year the AI reading intervention um we didn't redirect exist we didn't take money away from say reading interventionists to pay for that that's additional dollars coming into the system from a new grant that we received in order to pay for
297that. Um, in addition to that, I think through that same granting program, we were able to get to be able to pilot uh the virtual coaching option. So that way where we might not have, you know, we only have so many coaches, right? So we could expand the amount of coaching we can put into our system by having virtual coaching available for some of our teachers as well. And then the beauty of those solutions is not only did we expand the pool of available dollars and use them for those things that are specifically targeted at SOFG because we're able to pilot them in that way. We'll have data on was this effective. And so then that will help us whether we're deciding to redirect existing funding from something that's less successful to that in the
298future or whether we're continuing to be successful and find additional funding resources. Well, when we find them, should we put them into a mirror? If it's not working, let's not put more money into it. But if it's working exceptionally and it would be helpful to have it available to more grade levels of students, then let's make certain that we do go about finding the availability of funding to be able to support. And I love that because I know it's sometimes hard to put a time frame on new strategies to see how much time you need to give something in order for it to work. But I do believe those time frames are going to be needed regardless because at a certain point we have to say, "Hey, this is no longer working. Why are we
299just continuing to spend and spend when it hasn't produced the outcome that we wanted?" So, thank you for clarifying that. our our the our wonderful tech support here today, Russell got tasked um I think it was last year that we started the project with leading our strategic abandonment process for us. >> Yes. >> And so and I don't know that this district has ever done >> I'm sure we have but not in such an intentional way strategic abandonment with the focus being on is this driving our SOFG goals forward? um you know because you you can't you can't continue to add things to the system, you'll break people. So if you're going to be bringing in new things that are going to move the needle for you, something's got to go right. And so and
300it and it supports it removing those things supports growth and development in two ways. One, it frees up fiscal resources for those other things, but the other is it frees up brains, right? It frees up hands. And so um >> so we're not in a cognitive decline. >> Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And and so you know that we're being very intentional about that. And one of the things that I think is really hard for me and I think I think my colleagues would probably um agree with me on this is, you know, we we talked earlier about the limited amount of time we have to have conversations in a board meeting setting. you know, there's a lot that goes on that we really want to create visibility for the board on, but you know, there's limited
301windows of opportunity to do that. And so that's why sometimes it may feel like, well, are they even doing anything with this? But then when you have a chance, like today, to have a deeper conversation with Miss Shapiro, then you get to hear about like all of these other innovative things that are happening. And she's not working on them by herself, as she pointed out earlier. She's working on them with with committees, you know. um Dr. Pombo's team doing the same thing working with um you know uh Dr. Burgess is working with teams um you know um Dr. Dodd's Karen is working with teams you know other members of her teams we look at um Ivon Carvajal in community ed he has pivoted that entire team to have more of an academic focus starting last
302year right and so that's why we have like our language acquisition nights and things like that that are being supported by community ed Dr. Lauren's been doing the same thing as as he has teams that are looking at things like pay for performance like how do we make shifts in those arenas that help us create stronger alignment for the guard rails how do we make shifts in those area you recruitment retention how do we make shifts in those areas that bring stronger alignment to sof I feel very fortunate to get to work in an organization where through so many of the layers there's such a depth of commitment and focus, but because we eat, breathe, sleep, you know, commute to work with it on our minds all the time, it's sometimes difficult for us to
303even be able to adequately express how much depth of work there is in trying to create as much alignment as possible. So, I'm sorry, I just >> No, that's okay. Just something you had mentioned when we were talking about teams. There's another thing that um we've been strategic. I go in now uh to Lissa's team meetings to ensure uh that the operational team is in alignment when we have our leadership uh council agenda building. And that's not something that had happened in the past, but we we saw that that wasn't putting us both on the same path. So, we look for those opportunities to to imsh ourselves even more than we have in the past. And I think that it's really good points that you're bringing because as Jay's saying, we want you to know
304all the things that that we're doing. And so, you know, I'll I'll be a little more strategic. I think we have some things coming in the future, especially with um on the on the guardrail side that'll talk about each of the different areas and some of the things that we're achieving and how we're achieving those. And I think that'll be good information. Um but it it is kind of disconnected, but uh I think the board update is where a lot of this stuff ends up. It's just not all in one one picture. So maybe uh some combination of that at some point so we can say here's all the things we did, you know, this year. But um it is hard though because we're moving fast and we want to try to keep you as
305up to date as possible. So um with that, I'd like to move on to the next item so that then we can finish off with uh the actual budget update and where we are um how this enrollment affected us. But um so uh I wanted to give you guys an opportunity to have some strategic thought processes on if I had a million dollars. Um so I'd like you guys to break out into groups and I'm I'm thinking we'll do the same groups, the partners group, if you're okay with that, Mr. Man. Um and I have a couple of um choices and I'd like you to take a look at those and prioritize. Each one of them is a $1 million expenditure, so you have to only pick one. How would you prioritize your choice? How
306does it align with SOFG? Um, I've given you some pros and cons of the uh choices and then I'd like you to create one pro and one con statement for the choice that you select and just be ready to come back and share that with the group and discuss your choice. >> So, I was trying to make a copy of it and it wouldn't let me. >> It doesn't. What does that mean? Because if I write on this, it's going to write everybody's. And I was just trying to make a copy. So, >> you should be able to. >> It wouldn't let me. Yeah, it wouldn't let me. >> Really? >> Let's see. >> We should be able to go like this. >> It says I need permission to file. >> You got to pick
307the folder. That's >> make copy. >> Make a copy. And then before just saying yes, decide what folder you're going to put in. And it's not letting you add to this folder. >> So, see on your own folder. >> Yeah, mine just did it. >> So, you had it the wrong default. That's okay. >> Got it. Got it fixed. Thank you. Um, so you know, obviously you can't really see them. Well, that's why I wanted you to have access to it yourself. >> Commercial driver's license and it's required. >> And these are your um selections. Allocated reserves, invest in staffing, expan, expand transportation, um, additional coaches. I've got some pros and cons in there for all of these items. And then also medical benefits. uh you can only pick one and you have to justify
308your reason. You also need to pro I I did give you some guiding questions to kind of help your thought process along >> and then create a pro a con and then um discuss that sof alignment. >> Okay? >> And I'm going to give you guys about 15 minutes. Uh >> each column is one of the choices. Each column is one choice and you have to pick one of the choices. >> Okay? >> Each of these is a million dollar choice. >> So you've given us five different choices and we have to choose one. >> And you have to choose one. >> Okay. Whatever you choose. >> Can you come up with a new one? >> Yeah. I think expanding transportation >> allocate reserves, invest in staffing, expandation, additional coaches in transportation and we get
309more kids so we have more money. >> I mean basically that's what it comes down to. >> We're not going to get more kids. >> Create one pro for your selection. >> Medical benefits. I mean, >> wait, she already did. >> She did it for myself. >> And allocating. I don't know. >> I think that just seems >> put all your money in. >> I would say that the pro it expands more transportation meaning focuses on equity. >> My second one would probably be >> and expands parents >> invest in staffing. >> None of them are >> like the problem with that is like our staffing pools are going down so much >> invest in staffing. We're good. >> Not or expand transportation is >> Oh, yes. Yes. I love it. We're gonna make this
310happen. We're universe is gonna happen. >> Sorry, Vanessa. >> I think we're going to cause you major headaches. >> Tutoring as well, >> right? Yeah. >> Sorry, D. They're going to cost you that are dedicated to >> I Staffing isn't necessarily just >> that allows you to also retain those quality teachers and the main thing you're going to lose. So, >> we're going to do it. >> So, I will save. >> Yeah. And I think that's >> I'm just going to start making a folder for this on my website. um you know like reading interventionist. >> Don't forget to do a con for your choice. >> Um those that's all things that are going >> the con is you making me choose a con. How about that? >> And also like you know >> I
311don't believe in focusing negativity. How about great teacher. >> They're more likely to stay in that position if they know they've got strong, >> you know, whether it's like, you know, >> I think it's ready for someone who actually >> Yeah. Or like >> I don't think we have enough. >> Okay. Um, let's see. So, the one that's on there, >> you think we still have coffee? >> Three over here earlier, too. >> Oh, thanks. Sometimes he's like um a lot of >> I mean, I probably could do >> Yeah, I guess the con might be there's, >> you know, and they do they have great benefits, >> less teachers being teachers. They have a great union >> who are higher education right now. >> But then also again like now >> staffing >> it
312would be >> I know a lot of people obvious >> next choice would have been top right. >> Yeah. I mean, if it's, you know, I think in in this scenario where it's like you have a million dollars, we're gonna put it here. >> Well, I think from >> million dollar, >> we're going to do it. We're >> gone. Excited. It's gonna happen. >> They're just not, >> right? >> And so, >> you're just watching us squirm. >> So, I'm kind of typing in typing in. We're sitting there talking about type. >> Well, I was just going to write it down, >> but I don't think I'll get >> I made a copy. So, I'll give these an interview later to focus on early childhood. >> I was going to ask preschool like that's going
313to set us up. >> I should Yeah, that's true. >> Cuz the thing is like they were saying, won't you >> I had somebody help me. >> If you get them in in preschool, then you're more likely to keep them through kindergarten. >> I don't know if it >> Yes, just kidding. I don't know. >> We're a body of one. That's why. Just kidding. >> Wonder when the last time this happened. >> Has it ever happened here? >> I wonder what's going to happen. Just two elementary school districts because what I found so far is I don't know that. No, but I haven't found one talking about the other one. Okay. Did we think of a con? >> Uh, well, I was in that sort of general area. >> I can't wait to go back
314and geek out more on this on this one. >> Oh, yeah. >> This one's one of my favorites. >> How do I filter this white filter? I don't know how to use content types, cases. Oh, there's only two cases inside the statue. That is from >> 1986. Okay. These two cases are from 85 and 87. >> Oh, wow. Because even like not I mean, >> yeah, I think we >> Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think >> so. This one, it's kind of addressed here, but >> they're also need strong to higher quality staff risk of nepotism. >> I told you something that I heard. I think I need to >> some by the way. >> Well, if they're quality, but sometimes it's like >> that's the one that we had, right? >> I know. I was
315like, this is a whole other topic. >> I know, but our synergy was down for like >> maybe that's not the right term to use, but >> this one. >> So, we have about seven minutes. >> It was really hard, >> but we can wrap up earlier if you guys get wrapped up before then. But we got about seven minutes left. >> Nintend somebody somebody was hired, someone who already worked in a different position at that school, does have family relation at that school. And then other people are like, "Well, how come we weren't even given a chance?" >> But I think you can just I think he was just in I think he was just referencing that like we got a good kind of >> Yeah. But one off >> if it's in there
316>> scenario, but then I've heard of pull up more to do with HR polic. >> What's his first name? >> Garrett Archer. >> Yeah. >> And then >> reaching for a con. >> Okay. I'm gonna Yeah. So it goes back to a strong process or >> well I guess directly well because we're talking about >> should I share it to this school one >> what could happen is you'd have >> personal >> well honestly it's not that because you have >> okay so right here >> greater >> proportion of teachers to >> might be easier to share school >> teachers to students greater >> staff or you know retaining more staff already. >> But some people say, "Well, you're retaining too many staff for the declining enrollment project." >> Yeah. >> I don't know if
317they are, but they >> If you'll recall, >> they literally let it sit for like three or four years. So they meet everybody here >> somewhere in the last few days since you were talking Tuesday. >> They weren't here Tuesday. >> Yeah, they were not here Tuesday and every Tuesday. >> When am I going to get my hooks? >> Somebody obviously somebody heard. >> Did you get one too? >> Yeah, she got one. >> She noticed. >> Okay. By one of their buildings. >> Yeah, I know. I got >> All right. I shared it with you. >> It holds my water bottle perfectly. >> But if you have any suggestions or >> You still dropped your >> Well, I I didn't know Somebody that's in the business world helped me with it. >> I literally
318>> screwed. I just don't know how >> it's just glue in two screws, >> but it is screwed. >> Two screws. So, >> nice and tight in there. >> Hold big weight. >> It's not. >> Oh, SG alignment finishes. >> You ready to come back and share with Okay. So what else? >> How will you >> if I need to update or replace it on board? >> The only pro the only weird thing is is like that year that I had like outside of the classroom. It was hard to like transfer that >> um because it was an admin job. So, I kind of want to show her that, >> you know, for the purpose of the jobs, >> but I expect that more jobs will be releasing in the next couple weeks. >> He
319said, "What?" >> I said, "When >> I think that's a good thing." >> Like, we're looking at stuff next week, so it should be up in the next couple weeks. >> Did you look at the Do we think we're done early? >> Yeah, >> we could wrap up early. Okay. >> Solve the problem. >> Okay. Fantastic. >> And we are >> right. >> Okay. >> Um just want to give you guys an opportunity to whichever way you want to start, whoever wants to start to share out which option you picked. Um share your pros and cons. It's sof alignment and just maybe some insight into why you picked it. So whoever wants to go first. >> I'll go first. >> Miss Marquez. So >> um so we chose invest in staffing um obvious there's a
320lot of pros I think but you can retain better support staff um because better support staff can help you keep good teachers. So um and then obviously keep classroom sizes smaller if you've got more teachers. Uh a con uh one thing was you know if you're putting more money into staffing then there might be less money to go elsewhere. Um, also needing need to ensure that there's a a strong process that you're hiring quality staff and um because I know there's sometimes there's been situations where positions opened up in a school and then it hasn't necessarily been posted but then posted in >> uh dang it I'm spilling tea here. Um but >> which school is that? No, I'm just Can I get some no names? But no but but you know it's been hired
321filled internally but that has m so position and f fil filled internally by someone's already employed at the school but then however then you don't get to see if there's any better qualified candidates. So um yeah there's there's more money to hire more people. Let's make sure that the people we are hiring aren't just getting preferential treatment because they know somebody who knows somebody, but that it's somebody who's very qualified for that job and is going to do best for our kids. Um, as far as SOFG alignment is, you know, it'll we'll be operating with a system, you know, to recruit and retain strong teachers. If you've got more money to recruit and retain strong teachers, then that falls within the guardrail. Fantastic. >> Thank you. Tristan, did you wanna >> Oh, well, we were
322working together, but I would add that um literacy and >> Mr. Jones, I'm so sorry. >> What did you call me? >> Hey, buddy. >> Steve, >> I call you Vanessa. pal. >> Um, >> here >> since we we were working on the same one and we actually came up like we both agreed that was our top choice. >> Uh, I had written down literacy and math intervention specialists and after school tutors directly improve uh your goals. So uh and then my con that I was spitballing was a little less money on say like benefits like which you said that's a major driver for retention but with staff so you wouldn't be able to do that and then also there comes a point with you have too much staff for a projected enrollment which you
323would you would have to strategic about these staffing choices with that million dollars. But I think tutors and uh intervention specialists, especially when we can start catching those second graders and third graders. >> Fantastic. You guys are very thoughtful. Thank you. And um I appreciate that for sure. All right. >> Um Katie and I discussed and we chose expanding transportation. We chose expanding pres um transportation because we go back to our first comment. I think you said it yourself, Mr. Shapiro, that we have to try new different things in order for get different outcomes. We have to try try different strategies and I believe that um given the place that we're in, this would be a completely new strategy. And at the end of the day, if we want to pay have more additional coaches,
324if we want to invest in staff and we want to have the ability to allocate reserves the way that we want to, we're going to need more money. And if we're not getting the help from our lovely legislature, if we're not having help from other departments, what are we going to do to increase that? And I think by expanding our transportation services, it expands parent choice as well. and that will retain or allow us to get more um students into the district and build that trust with families. So, that's the pro. Obviously, it's to me it's SOF um FG alignment in many of the guardrails. Um a con obviously to this is, you know, and you named it, we're going to have to have more money for bus drivers. We're going to have to ensure
325that we already have a shortage with the amount of buses routes that we have now. So, really get creative on recruitment and that might spend a little bit more dollars to begin with, but I think overall it would offset the overall goal that we're trying to get at. I don't know if Katie wants to add anything to that. >> Thank you. >> This is theirs. Um, so we also we also talked about the expand transportation. So I'm just going to add on maybe a couple points to to what Sophia said. I think we've tried everything else. Um, I think districts I I think districts literally have tried everything else. This is the first time that I' that I've ever heard of the expand transportation. This is if if we're saying this is a one time
326$1 million, right? Like we do need funds to continue to come in and how do we do that? that we get more kids, right? >> Um and so, uh I think to get more kids, then you have the additional funds to then do the other things. Um I feel like I mean allocating reserves, I don't think that's going to do much right now. Invest in staffing, sure, but who hasn't who hasn't done that? We all invest in staffing. People leave every year. People are leaving by the droves every year. like I want to leave because like literally this teaching is it gets harder every year. Um and we've seen like the data just overall that public teachers are feeling that because they feel disrespected. They feel underfunded and that has really nothing to do with
327the districts. Um because we would love to give them more money. we we just can't because of our legislation uh and what we have um additional coaches. I haven't I mean I I know that we've seen like some changes here but once again finding people finding the right people because it takes like a right person to be that coach and medical benefits. I mean, I would love to continue to pay medical benefits to people, but once again, I it's not going to I don't think it's going to keep us going in the long run. >> Mr. Only thing I will add to my eloquent governing board's points on expand transportation is I'll throw a con out there which is um it can be challenging to then maintain that additional staff that you've added because of
328the dance of the drivers. So that would be a con that we'd have to keep an eye on because like you can build it but if you can't maintain it then you know you've kind of exposed everybody to look how wonderful this is and then but you've got to be making certain that you're bu structuring it in such a way that it's sustainable over time otherwise you'll have a broken promise to people. >> Exactly. Thank you. And um luckily >> luckily >> million dollars >> uh we we've got a little bit more um but these are all strategies that we use in Kraton uh to align our resources. So um in the real world we don't have to pick just one >> right >> uh but these are all real strategies that we are um
329focused on discussing and planning for um but it does uh take some work when we're back there doing that to to look at each and every one of these and find the value and find the alignment. So, I kind of wanted to show you some of the conversations that happen when we discuss these areas uh and um as we move forward to make decisions on where are we going to uh support and and direct those resources and how how do we align it. Uh it's not an easy question. Um but I think that using layered approaches and having balanced um budgets that I I I don't I think I've said it before um but I am a conservative budget planner. Um, so I tend to have a conservative view and I'm going to jump into
330the maybe the boring stuff now, which is the what happens behind the scenes to have make these things happen and how does that work in the budget process and how do we have the million dollars to be able to fund some of these um ideas that I think have been really good ideas that have come forward. So, let me get into that. >> That was a good activity. >> Yeah, >> that was fun. >> Yeah, that was good. That's way better than the hold one that AI told me I should try to do. >> Was it Texas Holdem? Because we would have needed to keep would have needed to keep Ben and Eden to help us with Texas >> Hold some kind of hold thing and I was like I can't find anything I like.
331So I just made one up. >> I like a good one. >> So um but I wanted to use real world stuff. >> So I want to talk about >> Yeah. Actually I'll just stand. Okay. Um, so when we're talking about funds, we've talked about funds before in some of our budget update meetings. And we know that like maintenance and operations is one of our uh that's our general operating budget. It's our big budget that uh manages mostly salaries and benefits of our staff. It's the thing that makes everything go. Um we have capital budget sources that build things. You cannot interchange those. Uh so that means that they're slightly restrictive. So some of the strategies that we use in budget planning or that I use in budget planning is that I determine which of
332our funds are very very restrictive. They have a lot of legal guidelines. They have a lot of compliance. They're harder to use. Those are the ones that take you time uh and thoughtfulness to ensure that you're structuring them to stay within all of those boundaries. Some examples of those funds are, and I'm going to go into these funds in a little more detail um in just a bit, but um an example of that is grants. A grant funding uh from the federal government has a lot of restrictions. As Jay was saying that or Mr. May was saying, a lot of um our FTE in the grants areas is just to manage and ensure that we stay in compliance and don't lose these funding sources. Um, our instructional improvement fund. Uh, that's another fund that has
333a a high regulation. It's very structured on what you can spend it on. Um, it also has a supplanting rule, meaning that you cannot replace anything that you're already paying for with it. It has to be over and above new expenditures. Same thing with our classroom site fund. So, part of a a budgeting strategy is maximizing these first because they're not flexible. Um and then the other one is to create capacity in one-time use funds that align with our annual revenues. So an example of this is say um and when I'm looking at those funds uh let's say it's um Medicaid. So Medicaid is a funding source where we bill for uh services that are uh students receive like speech and OT and transportation. uh we we bill Medicaid for that and we receive some
334dollars in. Um there's an annual revenue cap that we get with that Medicaid. So since it's one-time monies and it it depends. It's very fluid. Sometimes we get more, sometimes we get less, you're never going to want to put an ongoing expense in a funding source that isn't going to support the ongoing expense. Um and so you don't want to exceed, and I shouldn't put the word never because that's not true. you you uh typically don't want to exceed annual revenues. I don't know why, but never. Probably because it was like 1:00 in the morning when I wrote. Um and then these are really great funds when you need to fund a one-time expense or an emergency expense. Um or do something to help with your reserves and uh additional revenue inputs like uh prepaid
335medical. So, you know, I'm going to talk in deep deeper uh detail of some of the strategies, but then the other things that can't go off the radar is our custodial funds, and those are those student funds, tax credit, gifts, and donations. It's a very smaller bucket. It's it's intentional, but you want to keep an eye on those funds. You don't want to start accumulating dollars in those funds. You get a student activities report monthly. Um, you want to make sure that the students who are raising those funds or who are benefiting from those funds. And you want to make sure that the donors from gifts and donations and tax credit that the monies are using uh being used as the way the donor indicated. So those aren't funds that we use in any strategic
336way. They're just as needed and as uh indicated. So we're not carrying balances there. Those are not funds that we would be able to use um in any emergency or any reserve um situation. >> Okay. And on this one, I got to reset up my notes. Okay, give me one second to do the technology part. So, we need to take the slideshow. Okay. So that is very very tiny. Um so there is a link there to the AFR. Now this is the summary page that uh comes with the annual financial report. The annual financial report if you remember it looks very similar when you look at all the spreadsheets that I that we bring the packet uh to the budget. Um so when we bring in the budget to propose the budget and then the
337annual financial report is how did we spend that bud budget that is the the where did the actual dollars go. This is one of u my favorite pages in the AFR. I think I told you guys that when we presented to AFR this is a summary page. Um and this one just kind of gives a nice overview of all of the funds without getting into too much of the weeds. So, um, and you and you can't really see. So, that's why I gave you the AFR, um, link. So, you can open the AFR and go, uh, on the tabs to the summary page, and that way you can kind of go along with the funds that we discuss. So, as we talked about, um, M Oh, where's my mouse? There it is. and and we're
338just going to talk about some strategies just so you have some basic foundational knowledge when I move into the budget update of where the the budget update is. And that really is just the M budget update. When I come and uh present that little slide to you guys of what is our M budget going to be next year, what are we projecting and how was it affected in this year? Um there is there are all those funds that are listed there and under the state and federal there's probably another I don't know 30 funds that we manage. So those are the different types of funds that we manage that we have money in. Uh M's at main operating budget for the district. It is restrictive in that it is only for operating costs. You can't
339use these dollars for uh to go build a building. Um, we use these dollars to pay salaries and benefits, um, dues and fees, supplies, repairs. Um, the fund balance that you see there, it it looks pretty big. I think it says $16 million. Um, these are some of the problems that we that we're working through right now in school finance when it comes to dead cash. I know you guys have heard this before. Um so what dead cash equates to is um fixing where things have gone wrong usually not because of our making. Uh tax collections can affect uh dead cash and dead cash is uh about the allocation of that fund balance minus the carry forward from the year before. Um, and I think our carry forward the year before was I 7 7
340something million. So that means that there's about 9.1 million of allocated cash in that M. But what we found is four or five years ago, the county stopped allocating our cash into the proper buckets. So we get cash from taxpayers. It goes into our county bank and then it's supposed to go into the right buckets. They used to allocate that properly. Um and then at some point they stopped doing that. We didn't necessarily know that right away. Um our auditors had brought some of that to our attention. So we needed to create processes that allow us to allocate those funding sources into the right bucket. It's still not a great science. Uh because this is >> just the choice of a specific county treasur or is that just now a policy? >> Yeah, it was
341the county upgrade >> update of their system financial system. So they they completely replaced their financial system. It's 6 years ago. >> Has it been like six? I found out in Paradise Valley when I tried to upload checks and they wouldn't go. >> Well, there were there were there were two years where they didn't make us aware that the new system didn't do that. They just didn't go >> and then the auditors figured it out and then there was a notice that went out from I think the county treasur's office or the H's office. So, it's only been about four years that we've been trying to correct for it, but I think the problem's been in place for about six, >> right? >> It predates the pandemic when it originally happened, as I recall. >>
342So, on on top of an accumulation happening of dead cash, which is um the timing of cash collection. So, not every taxpayer pays their taxes on time. Um we don't get exactly what we need from the taxpayers. Uh and sometimes those dollars have dollars included in them that are from prior years where taxpayers are getting, you know, caught caught up. It's kind of like this moving target. We have to use ratios uh in order to determine how much of our revenue should be going into M and how much should be going into capital. So we're actually uh really close to a fix on this uh process because of the work of Mr. Ruth. He really dug in and wanted to make sure that we knew uh where our cash dollars should sit. He's reconciled the
343district. He's gone back and done some uh historic looks. So right now there's about 9.1 million of allocated capital cash that's sitting in the M fund balance. So that $16 million is $9 million overstated. It needs to be in that other line which says unrestricted capital. And the the column we're looking at is the fund balance at the end. The fund balance is the beginning fund balance, revenues and transfers minus expenditures, and then that's your fund balance. Um, so what that means is that our capital cash is about $4.3 million short. Once that's cleared, uh, the district now has about 4 um 8 million of dead cash. There are some conversations going on out there with our uh, lobbyist groups on how to settle this dead cash issue. I will say that I was very
344grateful for the dead cash. That is how we paid our portion of the $1.6 million for the uh Kismmeer lawsuit uh that happened last year. And then we discussed um that we were going to utilize our dead cash, which was wonderful because we had dead cash. Some districts have no dead cash. And uh oh, child abduction. >> I really did turn mine off apparently. Oh, never mind. >> And Aendale Um and so we are looking at uh some resolution. But another factor and something that uh I'm going to talk about just a couple slides is um setting the tax rates properly and ensuring that you have enough cash to cover your expenditures and your allocated budgets. So the way that we set those tax rates is with our adopted budget. And it's really important that
345you're very strategic when you set those budgets in order to create the scenario that we have enough cash collections, especially if not every taxpayer is paying their taxes. Um there's uh some districts that are short on cash collections even if they're setting their tax rate properly. Uh an example would be Isaac. Isaac went for many many years not bringing in the cash collections that they needed to support their their budget capacity. Um so you know I I don't want to discuss what they should or shouldn't have done but it should have been very clear through the process if you're keeping an eye on your cash and keeping an eye on setting your tax rate um whether you have enough cash it's sustainable. There are actions that you can take to push those dollars around a
346little bit. We don't have a lot of effect on it. Um, but we do have some effect and we do our best to set that tax rate to be appropriate to our taxpayers of what we've told them we were going to do and to bring in enough cash uh for our district. So, that's one of the the more complicated funding sources that we're dealing with, which is the the M and capital. It seems pretty straightforward, but there's a lot that goes on in the background when we're planning. Um, that unrestricted capital is also that uh district additional assistance. The override falls into that. Um, and that's a also a budgeted fund. A budgeted fund means that we can't spend more than our budget capacity. So I might have an extra $16 million in that fund
347balance, but I can in M and capital I can only spend what the budgeted amounts are in that other column. It's all we can spend and we can't go over that. We statutoily cannot go over that amount. That's why we do strategic carry forward planning so we can affect that fund balance. So technically without the dead cash that fund balance should be the dollars that we carried forward from the year before and the way that we carry forward for forward dollars is we don't spend every penny of our budget. Um we ensure fund balance reserves. We set that between that 10 and 20% sliding scale and then we manage our expenditures so that we have funds to carry forward. Um and then those funds become available to us in the next budget cycle. So instead
348of having a $32 million budget, if you roll forward 7 million, now you have a $39 million budget capacity. And that allows us to spend more than what our initial budgets are. And this is where I'm going to lose everybody because it's after lunch. But this is the the stuff that goes into budget planning. Um those two funds kind of connected when we talk about cash uh and how we plan for them. that capital cannot be used of to pay salaries and benefits. So people are like, "Well, you got all this money over here. What are you gonna do?" Well, not really that much. >> And that's why it's so good to have a distinction between capital funds and other different funds because each bucket has its own proper amount of money. And if we
349ever have questions on those buckets, make sure that you're reaching out because we never want to be conveying the wrong information to community members and them thinking, well, you just passed a $60 million >> plan and why am I only getting paid $16 an hour or whatever the case is, right? There's a lot of misconceptions in that. So, thank you for sharing that, Map Shapiro. >> And if you look at that capital line, that is the line that we would have available to build a school. you can see that it is very insufficient, which is why we do have to go out to our our voters for bonds in order to have enough funding. Um, we get about >> 2 million two $2 million, a little more than $2 million in that capital funding. Um,
350and then we get about $2.9 million in the override. So, each year we're getting approximately 5 million in a capital bucket. >> And how much does it take to um rebuild a school mission? >> I don't know. Should I say that number right now? No, I got to lead you guys up to that number. >> Fall out of their chair. >> Start. >> Perfect. Okay, better question. >> Numbing them to the number. Just >> start numbing them. >> Is $4 million enough to meet the needs of the structural issues that we have in this district. >> Maybe in 10 years of co of of saving that money and not doing anything else with that money besides saving that money and uh getting interest. 10 years that bucket may build a school for you. Thank you.
351>> But 10 years from now, it's going to cost even more. So, probably it won't. >> So, >> thank you. >> The classroom site fund. This is a really cool fund. Uh this one is specific to teacher pay. Uh there's a slight bit you can pay to to non-defined teachers uh but other certified staff and then some direct uh student support staff. But, uh this is also a budgeted fund. Uh you have to stay within your budget. Um the budget capacity is pretty big. It's very restrictive. Uh it used to be broken into three different areas and we had to account for every single area and each one uh contributed to teacher pay in a different way and it had its own rules. Uh but they took away that in some recentish uh laws change.
352Um but uh the way we account for these monies it now that they've made that change it makes it easier to apply to teacher pay. So, if you'll notice, there's a fund balance in there. Um, since I've gotten here, and and because that fund is so restrictive, it's really hard to spend that fund balance down. One of the ways you can do it is to um create a performance-based pay plan that allows you to increase um components uh for teacher base um bonus pay uh and and spend those dollars as opposed to letting them sit into a bucket that nobody can touch. Uh that's one component. Um the other component it is it is a part of teacher pay but you can only use it in teacher pay for new new amounts. So if you
353give uh teachers a 2% raise you can uh fund a portion of that 2% from these classroom site funds. Again it's very restrictive. It has supplanting meaning that you can't use it to replace something you're already paying. You can only pay for new. And um so that's why we're really excited this year because it is the timing of us restructuring our performance-based pay uh plan and um uh Dr. Lauren's been working on that uh and uh we might get to talk about that a little bit depending upon the time. Okay. Um and we are redesigning that performance-based pay to have an SOFG alignment. It did not have an alignment uh prior other than it's a teacher um pay and teachers are aligned, they're teaching kids, but now it it is actually uh the proposed plan
354that we haven't um completely rolled out. We're taking that back to committee does have an SOFG uh component uh when they're meeting those goals. So, instructional improvement, another one that is really tricky to to move around. That's um half of the revenue per statute has to go towards teacher pay and the other half has to go to uh dropout prevention. Dropout prevention is very um structured and they have a little list and it's very hard to meet that requirement. Uh becauseraton has been utilizing the same process for over a decade. Uh we're actually um utilizing those funds for dropout prevention in our sports programs. It goes to paying uh coaching stipens and a portion of the um assistant principal pay as they oversight those uh sports events. Um it's real hard to to put any
355more into that uh because the dropout prevention programs that are eligible aren't things that elementary kids use. So it's not just we think this is dropout prevention. you have to actually utilize one of these resources that the state um gave along with the bucket of money and said use these things again restrictions that make it hard for us to spend the money. What's really nice though is half of that money gets to go to uh increasing teacher pay. We do that by taking half of those revenues and you can see the revenues coming in. They're not that much. They're what are they instructional improvement 377,000. So about um we take half of that which is a drop in the bucket and we put that towards medical costs for teachers. Meaning we don't put that cost
356towards teachers and in turn we're that's pay that they're getting that would have had to go towards medical cost. So that's how we manage that fund. It's a um we do the best we can. Again sometimes it comes down to pennies. uh onetime monies. When we were talking about fund strategies and we're talking about these onetime monies, indirect cost, that's an allowable charge in grant funding that includes the food service um dollars. We charge an indirect cost to all of those grant funds and then we we have uh access to those dollars to pay for those things that are hard to track. So, an example of that is um if your grants uh if one of your finance people is doing a journal entry for grants, she's on the computer, I got electricity, we got
357the computer time, that's not the whole part of her job or her day. That's just one journal entry. How do I account for the cost of that? Uh because that portion of it is entirely in grants, but she's doing all sorts of other finance things for the rest of the day. It's an indirect cost. It's hard to determine what it is. The way that we actually then use those dollars is we take a portion of the people who manage grants and we pay their salaries with that. Um but also this is an incredibly flexible fund. Um this is the fund that we accumulate fund balance in in order to mitigate the federal impacts to grant funding. So, when we talk about how are we going to handle the grants, I've been actively um keeping these
358one-time dollars in this bucket in case uh we see the fruition of the things that we've been being threatened with for quite a few years now. Um so, two years ago it was like maybe even three, uh we're going to lose at least 20% of grant funding and it's going away and we're not going to have it. And we're like, uhoh. uh and it didn't happen. Uh the next year we're going to lose at least 20%, we're going to cut grants and it was a big in the news and lots of programs were um stopped and kids were very impacted in Kraton. We said no, no matter what these programs are important to our kids and we have some funding to help us along the way if those monies are cut. So we're not going
359to make the choice to cut those programs. We're going to continue them. We were able to do this because we have dollars in this bucket to support those programs. Guess what? The funds were not cut. So, we continued our programs appropriately and if they were to be cut, we have money to support those programs temporarily because these are one-time dollars. Once they're gone, they can't support an ongoing process. But what it does do is it allows us the time and the space to have the good conversations and determine the best choices for our students moving forward when we do get impacted by these types of situations that we have no control over. So, it's not that the monies are or are not cut. It's do we have the funding uh reserves to be able to
360have an entire year to cover it and then make good decisions before we eliminate our strategic abandonment. Um, I think sometimes that's what your reserves are really for. They're an ability to have time to make good decisions versus wake up tomorrow and say we have to close four schools. And that's something I have actively work on is to ensure that we have reserves. This is the conservative part of my budget planning. And those reserves are strategically placed in funding sources that are flexible that can be used in an emergency as needed without a lot of restrictions. So that's what that indirect cost bucket does for us. Medicaid is very similar. How we get the money in is is you know got a lot of rules and guidelines and structures but it is also one-time monies.
361Um where we are looking to lean in on our Medicaid dollars is we have had a dramatic increase in contracted teacher cost um especially in the special needs area. Those staff tend to be pretty expensive. We did some analysis for our meet and confer. Um, what we can see is, uh, and Dr. Lauren did a great, uh, I actually want to bring that up. Oh, it's going to mess up my whole thing. Um, no, I don't. In those list of documents, it's it's in there. It's a contracted teacher. Maybe it is. I'll make sure it's in there. Um what it does is it looks at if we hired the staff member how much would they cost and compared to how much we're paying for the contracted teachers staff. It's also pair of professionals, special ed
362teachers, regular ed teachers. Our contracted costs have significantly gone up. Um so that's something that like there's not really a good strategy to to plan for that. But some of the ideas that we have floating around is we're spending the dollars anyways. Sometimes people have a sticker shock. They say, "Well, we're spending $5 million on contracted uh staff." Well, we'd be paying $4 million if it was our staff, right? So, really, there's only a $1 million increase. What would I do with a million dollars? One of the strategies that we're looking at taking to meet and confer is if we took half of that million dollars and put it into our schedules for those staff that are affected, would that bring in more? We're spending it anyways. we might as well try to get half
363of the savings of the million dollars and bring in employees and staff that we hire on our own. And maybe it will reduce the contracted teacher um needs. Maybe it won't. If we put it in the schedule, it only gets used if it gets used. So, we're already spending the million dollars. It's a net zero decision. And it could save us money by bringing in uh employees to save us half of the million if that makes sense. Those are some of the strategies we talk about, but Medicaid is the the funding source that's going to help um support us while we figure out what to do about that problem because it is a problem. It's not built into the ongoing budget. It's not a good ongoing cost um and it's an increase. So, we were
364trying to look at ways to mitigate it. We have a year to talk about it, make some plans. We have another year to see if those plans actually work. So, that's when we talk about planning forward. We give ourselves space to try some of those things and as you had said earlier Sophia about sometimes you need to try something and see if it's but you don't just keep on keeping on and when it's failing. Uh, so these are some of the strategies that we're using and these are the funding sources so that we're not hitting our main M bucket, right? >> Isn't that a common thing happening across districts though? I mean, >> um, because I know that it happens in my district where we contract most of those people out because there just aren't
365>> enough people, but you have to have those people. >> You have to in special ed. There's no you just have to. That's not a Yeah. So, we're looking at ways to navigate it. It's it's a have to cost. How do we make it a little cheaper and more affordable and where do we fund it from? Those are the conversations that we're having. >> But it is affecting all districts. Like it's probably the number one conversation that comes attendance get together. >> Yeah, I'm sure it is cuz I mean >> I do want to show you uh something really quick as to why um I know that it's a a big factor here in Kraton. Uh let's take a look at my All right. Here's my magic sheet. Here's the here's behind the curtain, guys.
366Here's where all the magic happens. All right. So, this is the um historic M budget and expenditure analysis that I use for projections and to kind of keep my pulse on things. Um but I want to show you column, let's see. So, it goes back to 1516. This is the student. Oh, let me get rid of this. Let's get rid of this. Here we go. Okay. So, you can see the um I have the student ADM and that's different from enrollment and how much we decline. I have a calculation here just giving me a regular raw number that sometimes when I'm looking at averages, this is when we switch to current year funding. Uh there's a reason why I have that marked out. And then you can take a look and see this is the
367percentage of decrease in ADM which is correlative but not completely matched to enrollment. And then we have enrollment at 100 day our enrollment decline. But here's what I want to show you over here. Sped percentage of enrollment. You can see that over time that percentage has grown year after year after year to now at 12%. 12% of our enrollment are students receiving sped category support. We do not get a sufficient funding amount for our sped students. >> Public schools educate all students. We don't get to turn them away. So, not that we would, but charters and privates, they don't have that same obligation. So what's happening you can see as they're being picky who and student and student counts are going down and now there's a smaller population of kids who's getting the special needs
368public schools are. This is a really big target we need to be discussing and creating solutions for. So as I'm managing the budget these are the types of things that I have to really keep an eye on. And this is why this spreadsheet exists. So I can see these trends. And I know that we talk about well trends isn't everything. Trends is a lot when it comes to planning and and knowing what is pushing those dollars. Why do we have the contracted teachers? Well, because our population's bigger. But what I can tell you is as our enrollment goes down and we have great strategies right now for um attrition planned reductions in staffing. um the fewer staff we have, if we invest in ourselves and we invest in our staffing, what that will do as
369we increase those salary schedules and those around us are not and they are closing schools and there's more and more staff out there in the market. We will then be in a position if we continue to focus over and over to invest in ourselves as we move down the path of declining enrollment and increased special needs. We will have the ability to pick and choose from the most highly qualified staff because we will be paying more than those around us. People are going to want to work for us because we have an efficient SOFG resource aligned, productive and performing district. The better we do at our goals, the better we do at alignment, the better we have strategies for our resources, that's what's going to make teachers want to be here. So, I guess I
370can't stress enough that yes, these are all the things that are happening. We cannot lose sight that the future is just as important as today. And that's what I think about when we're doing budget planning. >> So, it doesn't surprise me the contracted teacher. It is we're going to pay the five million no matter what. Let's take the the difference and reinvest that in to our schedules and be ready to go when those people become available as schools close around us. Teachers are going to be looking for jobs. Um so that was that was the reason the 12% is or 12.9 we're almost at 13%. Oops. Just sit with that for a minute. Anyways, this is the the magic sheet. It keeps track of a lot of things, but it also gives me the ability
371to project where I think we're going to end up this year. Um, I keep my notes in here. It allows me because we haven't finished the year. Um, I'm like I said, we're going to lean heavily on that Medicaid to help with the contracted teacher solution while we're still working on how's that going to look in the future and what's the solution, what's the plan. We got ideas out there. you just don't you can't fix things instantly, but you need to have time to have the space to have the good conversations with the experts to go out and collect data and to um even look out at what other people are doing to see has somebody found a good solution. And we're doing all of those things. It also gives us the ability to go
372ahead and plan for next year. And this leads me right into our budget update that we usually get. um our 2% and our fund balance reserves. I want to go back to our fund balance reserves because I'm going to talk about this for a second. So, when we finally um got our reserve process in place from the fiscal um stewardship committee and then we brought that recommendation to the board that we not put this in policy per se, but put this in a board approved process and procedure that goes through committee. Um that way the committee holds me on task to bring the information they need to help set the target re uh fund balance reserves. Again those are the dollars that we roll over to the next year and then I bring that information
373to exec and then we bring that information to the board. So in that first year the uh committee had made a recommendation of a 20% fund balance reserve. in uh 25 26 they also made a 20% that I pushed back on and I said we're in a situation um that our enrollment didn't show up the enrollment didn't show up that we projected for uh and this is when fund balance reserves come into play so I said I think that we need to settle at 15% that's where I feel comfortable uh with the fiscal health of our budget it and so uh taking that information back to the uh fiscal stewardship committee they did agree with me and brought back a recommendation to the board uh for the 15% moving forward um we have some changes
374going on so now I want to go back to the sheet that you guys are very used to seeing uh let's put this one down and let's go over here over Oh no, everything's messed up, go. Oh, there we go. Uh, that was the fund balance reserves and I've lost my notes, so give me one second. There we go. Okay, talking about those fund balance reserves, this is what allows us to pivot and cover those operating expenses. Um, and this happened through the highest enrollment decline Kraton has experienced in the last 10 years. This year was the highest enrollment decline in the last 10 years. >> So this is what fund balance reserve does. It gives us that breathing space to make strategic decisions. It's intended to be used and not stuck into an account
375and just never touched again. This is for the emergency. This amount of enrollment decline is an emergency. We were able to maintain our operations and do status quo for the entire year because of our fund balance reserve. It's intended to be used and then build back up. Um that's why we have the sliding scale that we brought to the board, the 10 to 20%. It wasn't intended to be 20% every time. It's intended to flex as our needs flex. So, um, one of the targets that I hope that we'll get back to after we deal with this decline, this cliff is I'm going to probably bring something to the board to help us with the medical side of the house, which is our medical prepay. One of the things that we do for our medical
376to help reduce costs for the district is that we prepay those amounts ahead of time. Anything that we put into that prepay earns interest. My goal is to have two times our cost of medical prepay in our account earning dollars. Um so currently our medical prepay is about 5 million um for what we put in there in 2024. uh through efficient phasing out of the esser funds and having some of those extra reserves built up because of it, we were way higher than our our 20%. Um we were able to put an extra million dollars in there to earn interest. So we went from earning very little interest to now we're currently at a $2.3 million um above what we have to put in there. That helps to mitigate some of the increases in the
377costs that we have in our medical. So, I would just highly recommend that we focus on our prepaid medical in the future. I'll be bringing more information back to the board uh on how we plan on doing that. But here is the document that we've um presented to the board in the past. This will be the last thing that I cover and I am going to kind of try to get through it. Um but I wanted to share a lot of the practices and the thought processes behind how we build the dollars and and then how what works and what doesn't. So, when we go back to what I presented to the board last year, that's the budget item that's on the uh la left, that's what I presented to the board, I believe in
378uh March of 2025. It wasn't the final budget update. Um, but this was the preliminary one that was happening about the same time that my new one is happening. Um, again, areas of conservative uh of projection. I want to move up where I see talk to the board. >> Okay. So, the the premise with the budget update item is that the budget is going from status quo. So, this is how the budget ended. It's what we spent and now we're going to look forward to the next year and say what is going to change from our budget, what's going to go up and what's going to go down. So, the one thing that we know, the things that we know is that we're going to have enrollment decline. The other thing that we know is
379that we have to adopt a budget that allows us to have the cash resources to cover our budget capacity and that is in alignment with what we've um told our taxpayers that we would do. So, something that I noticed when I got to Kraton is that we had some different processes of going into that adopted budget. Um, and that's where you can see the FY25 adjustment went up $2.3 million. That's because when I adopted the budget that year, I went ahead and put our enrollment decline in the adopted budget number. So, I declined our number, which means when that conservative decline didn't >> occur, I was able to put 2.3 million back in the budget. But what that did was that underserved our tax rate, meaning that we didn't bring in as much cash that
380year because I declined us. So, I thought that's not the necessarily the best strategy, but we do have uh sufficient cash collection. So, I don't need to worry too much. Um, but I definitely wanted to make sure that we got that tax rate up to the level that it needed to be. So, this last year when we adopted the budget, I made no change in the budget itself when we adopted it, but on my budget magic spreadsheet, I declined our number. We also had made some staffing decisions. Um, we do that right now. We're working on staffing right now in February to try to figure out what we're going to need in August. So, we did that last year. Um, for our staffing, we decreased the staffing by 2%. I had a concern about the
3812%, but at the time, um, we had actually done something we hadn't done before, which was we grew uh, our enrollment on 100 day. We weren't seeing the immigration impacts that we kept thinking we were going to see. I brought to the board a research study that had been done by ASU showing our two steepest decline um enrollment years were SB1070. So we kind of had I just had this feeling. I was like man I I know we're not seeing it but I'm really concerned about it. So because of that, um, instead of decreasing staffing by 5%, which was what our initial thoughts and conversations were about, um, we went ahead and and pulled that back to 2% thinking that that would be the best support for our students in our SOFG goals. We were
382getting momentum. Uh, we were starting to see movement in areas we hadn't seen before, and we were really concerned, but cutting that staffing was going to impact SOFG goals directly. Um, so despite my little inner turnurning, um, we went ahead and did the 2%. I still felt worried, so I did some back-end budget, um, conservative and I put another 5% in the budget number. Um, that's why we have this FY26 adjustment coming into 2627 was that I decreased it and knew that we were going to need some some buffer. um or if we didn't need the buffer, I would have had a positive number there. So, we went into it and our enrollment didn't decline 2%, it declined almost 10%. Enrollment, but because of the budget practices in the back end and because I took
383a conservative lens with the budget, the budget, if we go back to the magic spreadsheet, you'll see that the ADM cut that I accounted for was only a little over 5%. I calculated for a 4% decline. So my decline was only 1.4% more than what I put into the numbers. But our decline of staffing and what we should have staff for was 10%. So I don't want to use like overstaff because we didn't overstaff. What we did is we chose SOFG. We chose the lens of what's best for students and in a time of uncertainty. We didn't know what the next year's enrollment was going to look like, and it was in fact even worse than what we could have even projected for. But because we took some strategies, we actually were able to get
384$1.9 million to help support carrying those teachers through this year and not ending those contracts. the way that we will deal with this in the future. Uh you can kind of see on the staffing adjustments and the attrition that number is a lot bigger because that gave us this year to talk about the ratio and the alignment and what the plan is for next year and how we'll handle that through attrition. So obviously staffing numbers have to come down it the numbers of students don't support where we are in those staffing levels and it's not uh meeting the agreed upon ratio that we've brought to the board in the past the 27.5 So for forward planning, we're going to take care of that staffing adjustment through attrition. That's why we don't go back and say,
385"Oh, we're going to riff, you know, a bunch of jobs." We carried those jobs through this year because it was what was best for kids. So those are the types of decisions that the budget allows us to make because we have fund balance reserves. So, what's going to happen in order to make all of this happen and still have the operating budget and the investment in ourselves is that we're going to go through those um budget items, but also we're tracking a little bit less fund balance reserve. Uh I initially thought we were going to be at 10%. Um it's already starting to change based on uh where our expenditures are for the year and as I said some of those supportive measures for the contracted teachers. So, it's already back up to 12% fund
386balance reserve. I I don't want to anticipate it's going to go any higher. I'm perfectly comfortable with that. We did 15% last year. This continues to refund our fund balance reserve. It's a little bit less, but we have the other dollars that we accounted for in the planning. So, I know that sounds like back and forth. If we look at that spreadsheet, I can answer any questions on on how that works, but it is all about what we adopt and how much I think we're going to decline and then where we have the savings of those dollars and where did that $1.8 million hit get covered. It's covered right there between that fund balance change, the 5.8 million to the 4.6 million. Does that make sense? It's a little bit complex. >> Little bit. >>
387I'm so sorry, Nicole. So um but I think pointing out those numbers. So we have a negative up there that we have to account for we have a fund balance reserve from last year and then we have uh which is actually more than that 5.8 million and then we have a 4.6 million target uh for planning into next year. So that mitigates that deficit. All right. Then let's go into the things that are yellow, which are the things I don't know exactly right now, but I'm projecting another enrollment decrease next year. Here's the other reason why um the ADM budget number doesn't get hit as hard as the staffing number. So, what that means is the budget stays a little healthier. The expenditures go up. So, how much we spend in the year go up
388when we have that staffing. Um, but uh we're going to project an enrollment because I projected an enrollment decrease of uh 289 kids last year in ADM, which was why ADM was closer. I kind of stuff that number and I do that. That's what I do. I'm conservative. I make sure that I don't get us to the penny. I make sure there's there's flexibility in those numbers. Um, so for this next year, the pro projected enrollment decrease of 199 is in alignment with SB1070 work that I did. I'm not expecting another enrollment cliff, but I am expecting another decline. Um, the 2% base support, I I put 1.5 last year and honestly, I didn't like the way that I calculated it because I calculated it on that weighted student count. Weighted student count means we
389get one ADM for each kid, but then like K3 kids, we get an extra 1.18% of funding for that kid because they're K3. So those are weighted counts. A sped student gets um a little bit extra money because it's a a sped category. So I had costed that out on weighted counts. I think a more conservative way to calculate that 2% base support increase is to go on the nonweighted count means the numbers a little less. So that works. I'm saying we're going to get less. So I'm accounting for less. Most likely we'll get more, but I'm banking on what happens if we get less. So it's another way to protect the budget and still have the dollars for the needs. Um, the minimum wage, I want to bring that back on our radar because
390we're at 16.68. It's 1516. It's it's trending at like over a 3% increase each time. If I track that, that's about four years. We'll have to start talking about minimum wage. I just want to keep it on the radar. So, it's really important that we keep pushing those schedules. Part of the compression work that we're doing in meet and confer is going to push those schedules up from that 16 and keep us away from that minimum wage impact. So that's on our um staying ahead of it. Just staying ahead of it before we have to do it because now you're in a situation if you stay ahead of it, it's because we chose to and we did it strategically. If minimum wage catches you, you have to do it whether you have the dollars or
391not. It's a legal requirement. So it's really important to keep that on our radar. Medical cost increase is a very interesting topic we got going this year. Um, what I can tell you is based on what I had heard in our meetings and all sorts of uh, information and based on the history of Kraton, we were looking at a significant medical increase. We knew it was coming. I budgeted 15% in our budget last year for this, which was $750,000. Interestingly enough, it came back less. Um, the projections that came back were is a 13.4% 4% increase and an option for a 9.99% increase based on something that we took to meet and confer. We have the ability to move our maximum out-ofpocket cost up. So, it's an increase to maximum out of pocket. We felt
392that that's less um impactful on an employee than moving the deductible. So, if your deductible is $500 and then we say, "Oh, you know, that's one of the ways that you manage insurance costs. If you do it for your car, you raise and lower those deductibles. So, if we were to raise a deductible, that really impacts every single staff member. If you raise the maximum out of pocket, that just means that somebody who's already in that insurance thing is is going to end up paying more over the maximum. Does that make sense? Sorry, you got it. Nicole doesn't get it. Nicole, like uh when we do um or Miss Marquez um your insurance, Jay, do you know a good way to explain it? >> I always turn to you. >> So I So deductible is
393what you pay out of pocket of where the insurance begins to cover some of the cost. So you have a $500 deductible. You might have to pay medical expenses up to $500. Dollars 501 above might be covered at a certain percentage percent. Yeah. Um, maximum out of pocket means that let's say your maximum out of pocket is $3,500. Once you've passed that deductible, the next $3,500 that you spent out of your pocket, >> once you've done that, you are not paying out of pocket anymore. Now, insurance is covering all those at 100% all of the rest of those costs. So, let's say you went in for surgery and your surgery cost $5,000. you would pay all of the first 500. From 500 to 3500, you'd pay 80 or you'd pay 20% of it. And then
394once you got above the um 3500 mark, you'd pay all of it. So you'd pay the first 500, you would pay um >> Insurance would pay all of it after the 3500. >> I'm sorry. Yes. Insurance would pay all of it after 3500. So you'd pay the first 500, you'd pay 25% of the next three or sorry, 20% of the next 3,000, which would be another $600. So you're out of pocket for $1,100. And then everything beyond the $3500 insurance would pay. So that $5,000 surgery, if that was your only expense that year, you would be out of pocket for $1,100. If we increased the maximum from $3500 to $5,000, that shift of $1,500 would cause you cause you to pay 20% on an additional $1,500. So rather than that initial dollar amount, you'd pay
395an additional $300 out of pocket. >> Only if you're continuing after your deductible, though, right? >> Correct. Yeah. If you didn't have an expense that went that far, you wouldn't be affected. Which is why Miss Shapiro said it doesn't affect every employee. it. So instead of impacting every employee by shifting deductible, now you're only impacting the the small percentage of employees who get to the maximum out of pocket. >> It just means you're paying 20% longer >> is what it means when you get so you paid your deductible 500 now you're in an 8020 plan with the insurance. Insurance is paying 80 80% of it and you're paying 20% as your portion of whatever costs you got going on. It means you're going to keep paying that 20% for longer. The maximum out of pocket
396just means that it's the maximum you'll pay out of your pocket. So it it isn't, you know, cost prohibitive to our staff to increase that. It's the least damaging way to deal with the and so the choice is though increase that and that's what's on the table right now. We don't know what what Meat and Confer is going to determine is the best choice. But what happens is if we do move that medical um maximum out of pocket, we're able to move our insurance increase from 13.4% to uh 9.99%. So I've got the 13.4% right there at $615,000. the difference between the $615,000 if nobody decides to make any changes to our insurance um and the $750 that had already budgeted, the dollars are already there and earmarked is enough to cover the employees portion
397of this year's increase. Does it make sense to cover this year's increase with employees? That's some of the conversation we're having at meet and confer. Um so part of that may be we cover half of it. I we're not uh based on what we're getting from our insurance is that this is not the first of the increases. We're looking at increases for the next four to five years in insurance because of pharma and some other I mean that's a whole another that's a whole another study session and we bring them in to talk to you. I'm not the insurance expert but our insurance experts are saying four to five years of increases. So our staff will eventually experience increases. it's we don't have the district fiscal ability to continue covering it 100% forever. Well, it's
398not 100% but the portions that we we do cover. So, I mean, these are just some of the decisions that we're making right now on meet and confer. Um, but we do have the ability to cover that and that is like a very big topic in our employee surveys is that they are looking for those medical benefits. So, uh, something that was already planned, something we already had the dollars for, and this is on the medical side. And again, investing in our staff, investing in our staff and making this the place they want to come work. We also did some uh uh look at ourselves compared to our neighbors. We are doing well there. That's one of the reasons why um I'm recommending some lookouts at having the employees share the cost of the increase
399this year. not a full not putting the whole thing on employees but a shared inflation to cost and goods and services. I I realized that um last year I calculated that on salaries and benefits. So I went, "Oh, I shouldn't do that. That I made our number too big last year, but again that's a little conservative. Just gave us some extra dollars at the end to put into our fund balance reserve." I relooked at it. I recalculated it and that's where we are there. I'm not seeing any um major utilities increases this year. Um the ASRS decrease, the reason that number is different is because last year that ASRS decrease should have been 027 and that number should have been 74,000. Uh I had caught that on our budget item. I just wanted to point
400it out this year, but I had caught it before uh we took the final budget item to the board. Staffing adjustments through attrition. this is how we're going to deal with the staffing that we have this year that isn't in alignment with our ratio, our approved ratio. And so then that puts us at a budget balance carry forward estimated at 50 5.3 million. Um we're looking for um keeping that fund balance reserve target at 4.6 at 12%. But also wanted to put in um the meet and confer. These are the investments in our staff. Um the budget uh absolutely supports a $750,000 investment while also um supporting our fund balance reserves and rebuilding those up to levels that we use this year, the 1.9 million we used to cover teachers this year. So um we
401also are recommending the continuation of the 200,000 that is during the year compression fixes. This is stuff that um we discover with HR or something's really out of alignment. we wanted to have the ability to fix it and not have to wait for the next year to talk to meet and confer. Um so that's what that 200,000 is. We're recommending to bring that again this year. And then also um in our talks with meet and confer and what we determined in the compression uh uh compensation compression committee was that if we just don't focus on compression, we're never going to. So, um, right now we have a menu of options in the meet and confer uh portal that talks and I think that's in might be in the the documents that you have. I can
402go take a look and if not I'll show it to you. It's in progress. We're still working on the classified data. Um, but it is the the next level. So compression happens in phases. First we're fixing the compression of years of service. This is like I'm a teacher. I got here 10 years ago. I started working. I never came off of my schedule. I've just been making the same amount. Maybe we get a raise here and there. Um, but now I'm a teacher who has 10 years of experience and I start today. So, I'm making the same or more than the teacher who's been here for 10 years. So, what we did is we made sure that those teachers that are our teachers got credit for their years of service in Kraton. And we made
403a years of service adjustment last year with our um, meet and confer dollars. That was the first stage for compression for teachers. The other problem with teachers is that when you move from one year to the next year, not that we do years of service adjustments, but what we can do is it make those increments even. They were all over the place. They're not consistent. Like in some years, like if you've been on one place on the schedule, if you move to the next level, you lose money, which was weird. Uh the schedules were broken. So we have to do schedule repair and extend those schedules so that teachers have movement capability and that it's consistent. That's the only way you can deal with uh compression is to have consistency in your schedules. So the
404schedules were broken. We're doing schedule repair this year. Uh I believe that costs about 200 no wait 150ish. We gave them five different options for schedule repair. The other thing that was broken for teachers was moving from a bachelor's degree through the course of all your credits to like a master's. That also was broken. In some places, you would get very little increase because you went from a bachelor's to a master's and then other layers you would get like a $1,200 increase. So, going to fix that schedule costs money uh for the people who sit on it now. But once the schedule's broken, we can manage compression moving forward in the future. It is the one thing that will allow us to keep moving forward and keeping an eye on compression. So we did that
405for teachers. We brought that to meet and confer. That's on the table this year. We also brought the years of service adjustment for all of the rest of the groups. Uh admin is not included in that. Um we just haven't gotten to it in the committee yet. So, we have about $220,000 on the table to fix years of service for classified staff. Um, I think I may have shared with some people, we have people in the district who've been here 30 years who are making $17 an hour, have never moved off their schedule. So, um, we fix the schedules. We're putting them back on and giving them credit for the years of service. So, some of those people will be getting some pretty substantial increases in their pay. Um, the years of service is some
406will and some won't get dollars. That's the the pro and con of years of service. Uh we're fixing uh the broken ones, but then some people they came in already with 10 years experience. So they're just they're making more than they would have, right? Um also then we're going to tier two for classified. We're working in the committee right now frantically to fix and do schedule repair for classified. So all of those things are broken into compression fixes and that's pretty much all we've brought to meet and confer this year. um all of that would have to fall into whatever we could afford with the 750 and the 200. But what that does do, especially with the focus on the classified support staff, um that gets us in a much better place to handle future
407compression needs. So then we can make decisions in the future when we have a little bit of money and say, "Put it to this schedule or move this schedule up." We now have the ability to do that because we have repaired schedules. before we couldn't do it. Schedules were all over the place. People were off on their own schedule. We couldn't see who was out of sorts. Uh so we've brought everybody back in to consistent and repaired schedules. So that's kind of what's happened in meet and confer and that's the conversations that's going on there. Um there's more that needs to be done than what we have dollars for. So we're trying to be very strategic in which options they pick. And then that just brings us down to no surplus or deficit at this
408point. It will all depend on that budget balance carry forward number uh what we end up at the end of this year where our buckets actually end up here. But right now we're on track to have again despite the enrollment cliff because of the use of our fund balance reserves in the strategic way that they were planned for. and then also um prior planning for those adjustments. We're actually in a pretty good place fiscally despite the declining enrollment. So, I think that's what we're trying to go for. Uh we don't always want to just cry about declining enrollment. Uh we want to plan around it so that the declining enrollment isn't impacting our day-to-day services and the things that we provide kids. So, I think we successfully did that and I really want to congratulate
409the board on having a fund balance reserve process and supporting me and bringing that toraton. Um, we actually kind of had a celebration in our fiscal stewardship committee because it did exactly what it was intended to do. I hate that we had to put it in practice. Uh, but I was so glad it was there and I was so glad that everything that we planned in that committee actually worked. Um, so I want to give the committee a really big uh kudos and congratulations because that all came from their work and them um challenging me every time. Why would this work? Why do you think this? What's the data that supports it? What's on your magic spreadsheet? That all came from people challenging me and making sure that I was transparent and had a good
410process. So that's I have um like two more slides real quick and then I'm going to wrap it up. Thank you. >> Um, skip the activity >> activity. That's exactly what I just told you about meet confer >> bond and capital. I just want to give you an update on bond capital. Um, this one you can read on your own. Uh, but uh, want to let you know on these budgets that fiscal stewardship committee is working on the updated bond and capital plan. Um, that's because we know the $85 million isn't going to last as long as the last $85 million. So, we're being really intentional about that. Uh, we also are discussing our override and uh, IM and DAA district additional assistance override recommendation that is uh, we're in the election cycle. So, it's
411in our cycle. It's time to go out um, for this year, but we want to justify that and get all the information, bring that recommendation to the board. Um, we also have fund balance reserve recommendation, but I just showed you what it was going to be and now I've got to get it through that committee because they do um hold me hold my feet to the fire on those things. Bond budget review that came to you guys in a board update for the BPA uh rebuild update pretty much. I just want to tell you where we're at is about 42.8 million all-in cost, but that's not set. We're still working on it. Um, our director of bond and construction, Ben Parker, has been actively working on ways to uh keep those costs as low as
412possible. He gave you some of the strategies in that board update. So, if you want to dig into that, you can kind of see all of the things. Um, we're actually, interestingly enough, if we applied inflation and adjusted for the things that we need at Builmore that we didn't need at LCK, we're actually tracking about 2 million more uh than we would have spent at LCK. um two years ago when we built. So we use them as kind of a a barometer of are we on track with these costs? Is this unreasonable? Uh we checked other school districts, other builds that have been happening. Um this amount also includes the demo which we brought to the board separately when we built LCK. So that wasn't included uh with some of the board discussions and and
413budgets that you saw. So you know built more is just different. Um, but we did use LCK as as that barometer. Um, so we're going to try to keep cost low with uh three GMPS guaranteed maximum price. The first one's uh the electricity or electric what is it? Electrical. Electrical. >> Okay. It's basically the large panels that feed electricity to the school. There's there's an insane amount of lead time to get them. So, if we don't order them >> right away, then we won't it it'll actually delay the opening of the school. >> Delay the opening and cost us um a little over $100,000 more. So, in an effort to keep cost down, we've um decided to go with a three guaranteed uh maximum price process. So, we'll and that is in that update. That
414first one is going to be coming to the board in April. So, I'm so excited that we have Ben. He has just done just all the things that I didn't see happening when I got here at the tail end of LCK. Having our own person who's our advocate who's working on behalf of Kraton, it just makes a difference. It makes a difference in how well this build's going to go and the things that the strategies that we're talking about. We've we don't just have, oh, you know, money's too tight, just cut square footage. No, we're we're being very intentional about what students need. and having someone like Ben to work in all the areas and be the expert uh has just already we're already seeing the the benefits of that. Um so we've we were
415you know programming needs, the field lighting, the mill work. These are things that didn't happen at LCK but are going to happen at Builtmore. And you know, Ben is directly responsible for ensuring that these up higher level things that we could just cut out uh that we have the resources for because he's keeping cost down in other areas. So, um it's just it's been amazing to work with him and see him do this and I'm excited to see what he brings to the board uh when we get our final budget. But I did want to go ahead and just give you guys that's where we're at right now. I'm feeling pretty comfortable with that number. Um and uh yeah, so that's it. That's the the budget torment for today. And I just want one more
416screen. Nope. That's that success criteria. I think we did it. >> Those are our learning targets. That's what we were trying to do today. Uh I think we've talked about our historical trends, declining enrollment, shared budget. I I I can talk budget for four days. >> You got the bonus of learning the benefits of Ben. That's why they're called benefits. the benefits of Ben. And so I just wanted to say thank you to you guys and give you an opportunity one more one more thing. While the future of public education may seem blank, whatever that is in your head. And I hope that for Kraton that that's a positive word in that blank. And know if we do our Mad Libs and we put in an adjective in there, I think that um I see
417some really positive things with the way that our SOFG focus is pushing not only our resources and our staff, but also our budget and that alignment is it it's doing something. It allowed us to have a situation happen where other schools are experiencing this and they come to their board and say so sorry board but by the way we got to close four schools. That's not happening for us. We are planning ahead and it is entirely because of the s support of our board and because of this alignment. There's something about laser focus that makes it all the magic happen. So, our achievements, our focus on student outcomes shines above the rest, and it is an honor for me to work with you and this team, and I appreciate you letting me bring this information
418today. I know it is not the most exciting stuff. Uh, but I hope as we continue these conversations, and if you have wonderings, please make appointments with me. I'm happy to dig in deeper on budget stuff. >> Thank you so much for that, Miss Shapiro. I appreciate it. Board members, do we have any comments or wonderings? Uh Ben Parker is a parent. >> Yes. >> School children. Yeah. >> Yep. >> Yeah. >> Nepotism's great. >> I think it's more of a investment, personal investment on his part. >> Yeah. He he was not selected because he is apparently he's been selected for his expert >> closer to his heart. He has a big background in nonprofit and uh I'm sure some of us know with LCK we had a third party um that uh did what
419it >> did what it did >> it did what it did what it did. Um I I'm immediately seeing a benefit of having our own person uh hiring a third party who may or may not be working on our behalf. >> Yes. Um thank you so much for that. The only comment that I'm going to leave as we're going into me and comfort discussions and the team is that I'm hoping that a lot of the budgets that we're looking at it is not just focusing on stabilizing what we have, but how are we transforming it? Sometimes we do make decisions based off of what's been happening or what we've done in the past. And um for example, for me personally, and I always attribute that to this specific the 2% right to me that just
420seems like a stabil stabilizing mechanism to keep things stabilized. And I think because of declining enrollment and you said it yourself, I I truly believe in looking in generations ahead. That's the value of my work is thinking, you know, seven generations, not just one, two, three, four, five years. And this is a real reality that we have in the next coming years. So how are we looking at our budget in a transformative way? Um and attrition I I think that's a transformative aspect of this, right? So, if we could ever even transform even those dollars and put them somewhere else, if they're able to versus just doing this blanket because it's what we've done every year and it feels comfortable. Um, I would really love them to start strategizing or thinking it that way if
421they're not already. from what it sounds like it they are because I've seen some new ideas come out that I've never heard of but really string on to that as other things start happening around our community and you know other things start following through from what's coming on to the federal to the local level we don't know what this next legislative session is going to look like either um so there's just a lot of things and just staying in that transformative out of the box notion every single time we're touching any aspect of it, even when it comes to our dollars. >> Well, and I can definitely tell you it's not status quo in there this year. These are things we have and it isn't uh one for all, I guess I would say. And
422we and we have had some conversations about that that last year some teachers were very upset because they didn't get a years of service adjustment, but >> that's because they weren't out of out of alignment, right? >> And so some got and some didn't. And we had some comment this uh year. I was like, "Well, I I understand that, but the next phase um especially with our performance-based play uh changes and SOFG gives them an opportunity to get more dollars if we keep our focus on SOFG and we hit those goals." I I mean, I can't imagine um anyone saying I don't want that extra money, right? Um so teachers uh hopefully will appreciate that and then uh hopefully a big focus on our classified who had it the repair work there is heavy the
423lift is heavy and there are people who are you know 30 years in this district uh making $167 an hour and to me that is unacceptable and that's what we're bringing to meet confer so it looks like nothing we've brought before um and it isn't 2% across the board it's it's strategic in every area and looking at every staff member. Awesome. Thank you so much. All right. >> Thank you. >> All right. I have seeing no more comments or wonderings or discussions, we will move on to our next item, which is two. And I move we adjourn this special study session meeting. I'm going to remind everybody that we have a board meeting coming up on March 24th, 24th. So, we hope to see everybody there. Thank you guys very much. Muana. Excuse my dinner.