001that's I was I finally went to the doctor today after so they either think walking the god are test done and now I have to go get oh I hope that goes I just need to I hav [Music] I am just went to the ENT this afternoon Jay are you able to hear us okay yep I can hear you loud and clear I am not hearing you right now oral steroid and I am not mut let me try a couple things here on my ends [Music] our sound is working on this side go caning can you try saying a few more things for us can you hear me now Russell y we sure can you are in with the room awesome thank you know just yeah the only time stud s in governance regardless so
002did it oh you did yeah oh yeah [Music] little oh yeah my daughter to tell me what go Little Giant little take okay I need to get and it's you know there's something about when you see people for the first time regard of time I always tell people then you can hear all the puzz get a note from fine is purpose yeah H all cards go to hild you can give it to me in the middle so kind of towards a little bit before the middle just okay long so I'm just going to read it for three minutes too CU you guys already rece do the three minutes it's usually uh yeah just do three minutes oh yes yes I'm on okay all right ma'am my tabl is Frozen thank you all right thank you
003to everybody graas we're gonna go ahead and get started Craton School District understands that our community of schools is located on the ancestral land of theam Jude and akam people who descended forok and have inhabited these lands since time IM Memorial the oam whose name translates literally to people are a vibrant culture and community spanning of countless Generations into the past continue to thrive in the present and carrying a powerful Legacy for Generations into the future with this acknowledgement the crane school district formerly recognizes that the traditional caring keeping of these lands by indigenous people is an aspirational model of community stewardship that we are committed to honor with practices policy and human Rel relation and Miss Caleb if you can please lead us in the pledge of allegiance to flag of the United States
004of America and to the repu for it stands one nation indivisible andice thank you that brings us to our next agenda item which is onc roll call we have Miss Mr Man online he's not feeling well but he is with us online so thank you for being with us um Miss Gibson McAn Miss SS myself Miss MB and Miss MC cheffrey and we want to welcome everyone to tonight's meeting and remind the audience to the request to address board cards must be completed and submitted to the board secretary if they wish to speak to an agenda item board policy provides for two cards White cards to be submitted in order to speak to an agenda item and blue cards to be submitted in order to speak during public comments due to open meeting law board
005members are not allowed to address items that are not on the agenda that brings us to approval of agenda I actually have a slight change so I move the governing board approve the or move 3D before 3A um for the agenda second all those in favor I I I sorry I was just trying to keep up with that District poetry contest winners yes so we're gonna do we just switched the agenda so we're gonna go ahead and start off our beautiful board meeting with the recognition of District poetry contest winners and for that I believe we're going to have Dr dupin thank you good evening Madam president members of the government board as you know one of kraton's longest standing Traditions is its poetry contest and this evening we're very proud to bring forward this
006year's award winners I'm going to invite forward Dr pombo Who will introduce our winners and invite them forward to share their original poems with us this evening I might repeat what you said a little bit so good evening president Kio doll and members of the governing board superintendent man and our executive team and honor of national poetry month we are proud to have student poets share their poems with you tonight each site held its own poetry contest with two categories novice and practitioner the top poems from each category were entered into the district contest and scored using poetry rubrics two District finalists from each category were selected in front of you are the copies of the 2024 kraton poetry anthology which includes the winning poems and honorable mentions our team judges included Dorothy Wrangle Jan
007wock Amber mlan and TAA Stanford and we're proud to announce the winners of our 2024 crean District poetry contest and share the poems tonight so I'd like to introduce um one of our coordinators Sarah Sarah Beth George and she's going to introduce the our winners tonight good evening so in the novice category so we will have our novice category winners read first and then our practitioner category winners will read theirs and I will read the poems for our students who are unable to attend tonight so we will start with Y from the Katon Academy for her poem [Applause] summertime spring birds chirping and sitting with with delight purple yellow white and blue flowers so bright rain passing with all it might insects passing with aite nature which is quite a sight green leaves grass and
008trees in the night which is quite all right and Mr carbajal is going to read her poem in Spanish and then you stand up acon [Applause] all right and our first place winner is leam manwal from builtmore Preparatory Academy is she was she able to make it okay all right so her poem is a dog named Millie there was a dog named Millie she was so silly she had a crown she also had a frown I think she likes to be silly all right and in the practitioner category second place is awarded to Valeria VOR from Kennedy at Linda for her [Applause] poem my mom immigrated to the United States she was 16 she's originally from chaning gero that is 1,629 .2 miles from Arizona she has been working her entire life raised herself and
009her six siblings she was forced to drop out of school she never lived the American dream my mother's dream was to attend a university attend Middle School I mean attend Medical School become a pediatrician she never wanted kids in reality none of this happened though she never finished high school or had her dream job dream job instead she had three kids and was forced into an exhausting marriage I have a lot of pressure on me I have to become something great be the first of my family to go to college my chest feels so heavy when I'm asked about my future what if I mess up my opportunity this opportunity what is the point of life if I cannot exceed if I nothing then her sacrifices were for nothing that means all her hard work
010will be pointless mom will you still love me if I'm not exceptional I'm her daughter an immigrant's daughter the only thing I will ever bleed is her tears and dreams Val in for [Applause] right first place was awarded to Isel iera for her poem unnamed as the leaves turn red all she wants to do is stay in bed while everyone is enjoying fall she just sits in her room staring at the wall while everyone gets seasonal treats from a cafe inside her apartment is where she would rather stay when everyone prepares for Halloween she'd rather wait until the leaves turn green everyone celebrates fall in Delight her personal demons she silently fights while everyone else's happiness outlasts she patiently waits for the flower to broom Bloom from the [Applause] grass thank you as you can
011see it was very hard to judge the poetry and it was amazing to read all their poetry so thank you again yeah thank you so much to everybody I'm gonna give the board an opportunity to give their comments and then after we're all done with our comments I am going to take a 10-minute recess real quick we have cookies if families want to take pictures whatever they want to do use this space as yours you're welcomed and um I'll go through the board reports and then we'll go into a quick 10-minute recess Miss MC cheffrey did you want to say something not board reports right no this is just no though poetry was one uh beautiful heartbreaking beautiful though um yeah same just I think the power of poetry is to move and Inspire emotion
012and you all have done that and it's beautiful so congratulations anything from you miss Gibson McLean um I just thanks for everybody coming out and thank you for sharing it's hard to do it in front of people or recite your poetry in front of people and I will say I do remember being something that's gone on the entire time I went to school here too so I feel like it's probably been happening for like 40 plus years so that's pretty exciting that we still carry this on every year so I'm glad to see it and same sment thank you for coming and um sharing your poem uh yours was very touching reminds me a lot of a lot of my students at my school and so thank you for sharing your story and I know
013your mom's very proud of you see it yeah thank you guys for taking the time and opportunity to be here sharing your most vulnerable awesome moments with us I know it's not an easy thing and your mom can be assured that you're not going to disappoint her you're already doing an amazing job at your age so you're already a leader so you're doing great thank you and then we can start our 10-minute recess thank you guys [Applause] said I don't think I have enough time don't get Qui we good okay one two three I love that dress when I saw the thought she was in talking about your skirt we like your skirt okay you look super slim if anybody can wear Stripes it's you well you can wear anything the baby sure I don't
014need toight [Music] one one of you and Mom okay all right you want to see actually taking care of a medical is it's not a side effect thing getting to a point where I'm starting to consider things because I can't me too to and I don't and honestly I have no interest our sign forar okay yeah let's get aide um p and it just went from there our B are the way our bodies are right I have no just and I don't have any other options and I don't have any other options but I'm e e e thank you all right our 10minute races is up we're going to go ahead and get started again that left us off on 3A which is governing board report and Miss MC cheffrey yeah um thank you so
015I know we have some public comments coming this evening and I just wanted to basically publicly apologize to this group of teachers that is here tonight and say thank you for coming tonight and for sharing a little bit about what you have been through with the hope that it doesn't happen again I know that you have all been through a lot and you've documented it You' followed policy you've followed up and followed up all to it seems to no avail and you have faced intimidation and retaliation which is what I had hoped would not happen um I'm disappointed and disgusted by what I've learned um and we wonder why we have a teacher retention problem um I want to be really clear that I believe this is the Legacy that is left by Donna Lewis
016this is a new era um I'm embarrassed to have my name associated with this toxic culture that I've learned about of intimidation and fear that exists on some of our campuses and the idea that some administrators will protect other administrators while leaving teachers and support staff out to dry is completely unacceptable last year we lost a large group of school psychologists and other staff and special ed who had similar complaints about intimidation retaliation and favoritism also uses of the r-word the nword used towards and around our kids homophobic slurs and bullying towards colleagues is complet completely unacceptable that is not who we are um it is disgusting and embarrassing to learn about and again I'm ashamed to have my name associated with instances like this that are going on I will say I had a
017difficult but very good conversation with Mr Man about this and I believe as we move forward we are on the same page and and believe that these things are unacceptable and I believe there's things coming into place that should help change this culture in lack of accountability um I think there's some misalignment with some of the professionals who we get advice from um and so I think some of these things are about to change but I just wanted to make an awareness that um there there's stuff it's just unbelievable that um people have had to work in these environments thank you Miss mcrey Miss MB um good evening um I know we're all in State Testing season and hopefully here into makeups um I want to give a big appreciation to all of the staff
018who help make testing go smoothly and all the teachers who have to stand and walk around and Proctor all day when I know that you'd rather be continuing working with your students so um I know it's a tough time to get through but I appreciate everybody's dedication and making sure that our kids have environments that will make them successful and I know you've all been working so hard with them all year um to get to this point and that's about all I have for tonight you miss SS sorry I'm still fighting this sickness but I finally went to the doctor today so hopefully we get it cleared up um I look forward to hearing about this problem that Miss MC cheffrey is talking about I have no clue what is going on with that right
019now so that'll be interesting um and I know it's testing season hopefully are almost done and I'm sure those of you that had to test today were really stressed out with um the internet being out because like that's just one thing that sets us off when we're teaching like when the internet's out uh it startes us out even when we're not teaching because we rely so heavily on um our technology um so I'm sure you guys had a difficult uh day to-day uh maneuvering around that um and thank you Jay for keeping us updated on that I appreciated that um so I hope that we're you're wrapping that up and uh getting that out of the way thank you Miss Gibson McAn um just to talk about the student conduct committee so um we've been
020working well I'm not really doing a whole lot other than answering questions but they've been working diligently um even at adding extra meetings um to try to meet our timeline however I'll just put that this out here to set the stage hopefully so that nobody's caught off guard that it's it's looking like you know um it's a big task right and so there might be a few policies that we don't get to and we were trying to emphasize or the committee is trying to emphasize quality over quantity and so I just want everyone to be prepared that there's a possibility that one of the recommendations could be that this committee continues its work into the next school year but there will be I think quite a few recommendations that will be made to the board
021and so over the next week or two we're going to be working on um the presentation to the community council and then also the presentation to the board and so I'm excited for everybody to see what we've been working on and we have a meeting next Tuesday we're always here if we're not at the board meeting we're here so come see us you can hang out next Tuesday thank you I'm gonna hold my board report until we go into our nsba conversation and our student outcomes focused governance framework conversation um that's going to bring us our to next agenda item which is 3B which is the superintendent report thank you madam president members of the board um I'm not gonna say a lot because I'm going to try to preserve voice but um I just
022wanted to give um the the internet issues came up and I just wanted to give a a shout out to everyone um in the organization who who worked so quickly to try to find work grounds and solutions and keep us moving forward today but I especially wanted to give a shout to Miss Shapiro uh Mr denal and his team and the uh Herculean efforts that they went to to try to you know soften the blow as much as they could and get the Solutions in place as quickly as they could you this was not something we could have foreseen it was it was due to an accident um on the street um while it wasn't extended outage um our our partner provider really did move very quickly uh and running again and I'm gonna leave
023it at oh actually one other thing I just wanted to say thank you again to those poetry uh contestants amazing poetry and I know we'll be talking about our student outcomes Focus governance work tonight and I just felt it was important to say that while we are focused on those um smart goal measurable outcomes because that's the format of the governance work um I do believe that things like our poetry contrast winners uh the output for our annual art show um our our band and choir festivals um all of those things are outputs it's more than just what we consider the Reading Writing and rithmetic it's also um these these excellent examples of quality in the Arts that are outcomes that are our students demonstrate so and with that I will uh wrap up my
024my report thank you thank you that brings us to our next agenda item which is 3C the nsba annual conference report myself Miss Aon and Mr Man were there um Miss SS if you want to go ahead and share your experience there then I can share mine and then whatever finishing touches superintendent man wants to do then he can do so all right sorry so uh the first thing I want to talk about is our main keynote speakers that we got um the privilege of hearing um Ruby Bridges was there the first day to talk to us and like it was amazing I I was like so excited um and it was really weird because when she first came out I was like wow she's not really that old and then she said oh I
025was born in 19 1954 which literally 69 cuz that would be the par my parents age my parents were both born in 54 so um it kind of blew my mind that she was like still so young and this hasn't been like super long ago um but it was such a privilege to like be able to like listen to her and then Jay and I later like met some other people uh later we were talking to him and like this this lady didn't even literally know who Ruby Bridges was and I was like astounded um and so I I don't know just history um but I want to talk about the key points that she made in one one key point that really resonated with me um because of course we talked about inequalities in
026education um especially with um children of color but at the end she said it doesn't matter what color we are because being a mean person comes from every race so she talks about being kind and that um The Real Enemy is like the people that are just truly mean people um and so I just really connected um with that um and then the second keynote um he talked a lot about dignity uh so it kind of went in the same same place and then um we got to the dignity index that U Miss MC cheffrey and Mr Man had brought to um the board from your other conference um and I picked up a ton of those cuz was like Hey there there's a bunch on the seat so I'll bring those for people that
027that don't have them because I thought it would just be nice to have them because I think they're quite lovely um so the Keyes were Keynotes were really great um a couple of the the workshops that I went to um that I really liked was the first one was engaging families through advocacy um so it focused on building Partnerships with families through um relationships and Trust um from from the board and then of course advocating um for our constituent especially our families on all levels um state and local levels so just talking about how we can get families involved um on a state and local level um and the other interesting one that I really liked was the education um with AI um it was actually done by the National Education Association a person from
028there and um it was fun because he talked about a lot about what AI is and what AI isn't so like AI isn't like people because we're like always scared that they're going to like take over our job someday like if we're teaching right and so they're like not like to replace people but they are great tools for example they personalize our students learning um they offer ways to differentiate for our students um and they build they can build language um with our students so those were um some of the highlights of the trip besides just being in New Orleans it was my first time and um it it was it was kind of like what people think it is like so yeah and it was kind of humid and I hate humidity so um
029so I like dry heat I'm a dry heat girl but it was fun I thought you said I hate Humanity humidity I do not hate Humanity humidity okay just for everybody to understand humidity definitely not Humanity thank you thank you for that um next time I'll make sure I go first you did a lot of my pointers but one of the overall um I I believe in the Synergy right with even the work that we're doing here at the district at a national level they were really talking and going back to that one common phrase that we've been using through this adoption is that student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change and they really emphasized on how the adults in the institution can be the hindrance of even the growth or what a child
030is learning in the environment so even when um Ruby Bridget said that even Richard um our hot Cheeto guy um we call him our hot Cheeto master who created Hot Cheetos he kind of said the same thing in the environment and how I became from a janitor to becoming you know this creation but it really had to do with the networking the Rel ships and other people not you know putting up barriers in place just because he was the quote unquote janitor of that institution so it it there was just a lot of synergy in the rooms um what other Schoolboard members Nationwide not just here in Phoenix are doing to really start grasping and seeing what we can actually do for our students is gather the data that we have knowing what's working what's
031not working for them and going back to kind of what Miss mcsheffrey said is holding the individuals of the institutions that are being those barriers accountable it's as simple as that we suspend kids we give them referrals we do all these crazy things for our students and we can't hold the same standards for the adults in the room that just makes no sense and that starts with me as well right um that's inner work and this is why the framework that we're in not only focuses on the Academia part of it but it really is a mindset shift that I have the power to change that and depending on what behaviors I as a person am exhibiting either in my board role my parent role or my community role is going to directly impact the
032outcome that I have for my personal children or the students that I'm here to serve so it's always inspirational to go to these um conferences and learning and knowing that we're moving in the right direction and getting more um support on how we can move and move the needle forward especially with all the things we're dealing with right now in the state of Arizona vouchers there's so many things coming at all these different whirlwinds and we cannot lose our Focus which is our students and making sure that they are thriving and not just surviving in this institution um and with that I will leave it over to Mr Man thank you so much um you both captured a lot of a lot of you know what my experience was and I um really had two
033further comments sorry we're getting really bad feedback give me one second yeah okay try to talk now Mr Man one thing that I was very heartened by was the number of Arizona people that I ran into at the conference so it's amazing you know you're you're uh hundreds of miles away from home and you run into people that you never get to see when you're in town um but the reason that that was heartening to me is it shows that we have a lot of people working in our school systems who are focused on the students who are trying to make those adult Behavior changes and you know hopefully someday we'll have more support at the legislative level at oh can you hear me Jay I I can hear you okay we were getting the
034feedback again I'm so sorry we getting feedback I I think we should be okay go sorry it's okay I'll try to speak I'll try speak quickly um I was very heartened to see a lot of people from Arizona there because it shows there are a lot of adults who are trying to make shifts in their adult behaviors to support our students in our state and my hope is that someday we see our legislature and uh the leadership at our Department of Education as well to to support that work that's happening um we uh one of the other things that was very interesting um that was sort of outside of the conference and both of you shared a lot of the the conference things uh was we made a lot of contacts both at the conference
035and even outside of the con conference that may be helpful and so I'll just share a quick weird one uh Miss SS and I were in line in our hotel for something and she met a gentleman who was in town for an osteopathic doctor conference and um when he found out uh that we were from a school district we were able to connect with them it turns out he is the Doctor Who is updating all of the student energy standards for schools throughout the nation and so he's um been looking for where they may not have closed the loop on all of the information that they need to do their work and so we'll be connect ing them with our Child Nutrition and wellness team because apparently they have not had conversations with those folks
036over the years they've they've talked to superintendents and nurses but never to the folks who are actually Ser you know preparing and serving the meals in the cafeteria so I just you never know where that connection is going to come from and it was just a great opportunity to learn a lot and connect with a lot of people to bring more back for our district and our community thank you so much Mr Man all right that brings us to 4A which is the student outcomes for focused governance update discuss and consider goals and guardrails um before I get started into that conversation um I just wanted to read um something real quick from the book um given the closure of our site councils our cafos and getting the feedback from the community there's one very
037um popular um opinion or I would say um concern about the framework and it's that we're focusing a lot of our energy on testing and numbers right and they a lot of the parents in the community I've heard several from different locations talk about how we should be focusing more on the experiences that our children are having whether they're happy with the material or they're not happy with it right one of the things that this framework has helped us as governing board members is really definate and set apart what our governing board role on holding the institution accountable for what it's doing for our students versus all the other stuff which is like what curriculum is being used and all those things not that we lose our power or our voice on what's going in
038but it really sets us apart in make sure that we're setting goals to make sure that our students are you know being equipped to when we send them off to high school so one of the things that in the book that I found is kind of to get an explanation to that concern um AJ um States in his book great on their behalf he says students having a positive learning experience is a means not an end if schools ensure that children go on field trips and are happy about their schooling but the children don't actually learn anything that is not a victory that is malpractice a wonderful culture in climate isn't is an adult input not a student outcome it is necessary but it is insufficient and it's neither why school system exists nor why
039School boards exist so one of the things that I want us to start getting into knowing about this framework is that what the community wants and what's important to us whether it's teacher retention the morale culture that doesn't mean that doesn't coexist in what we're trying to do that's all um evaluated under the superintendent guard rails and we let him know this is the problems we're having in our district this is we're going to make it a guardrail for you to get to the bottom of it and it's not fixed and that's how our administrators are going to be held accountable to the system but for us we really as governing board members as the five elected ones here I'm not talking about teachers or any other administrators but us as setting the the policy
040of the institution and the goals of where our student accountable so instead of focusing us as five board members on the whirlwinds that occur um when it comes to the goals not the guards two separate things then that's where we really feel that we can start moving the needle forward for our students that our data has shown that we have not been meeting the needs of our kids it's out there we've discussed it and it's not acceptable so that was just one of the things that I wanted to bring up and hopefully has a little bit more clarification because this is on new I'm also learning I'm in a 9month um cohort learning along with my board members so it's it's a lot of work on us we're we're learning we're reading we're we're doing
041and and this is why we're going to be going out to the community every quarter and updating and if something needs to change with the teacher teers um help with their staff help and the communities and parents will make those changes but it's all for the students it's not for for me to be comfortable it's not for administrators to be comfortable it's time for us to get uncomfortable for the betterment of these students so with that being said um we did have some recommendations that came back from Administration on altering our goals so um um I want to know if anybody has any specific questions to Mr Man or to our administrators on the goal recommendations one I'm sorry just one second yeah share a little bit yeah go ahead um I mean I think
042when I was reading the revisions it was funny because then I went back to our initial notes when we were all pulling the data and brainstorming and honestly a lot of the revisions are a version of things that we started with because we started with like what 10 goals and we had to you know parse it down and um consolidate things I I really value the current goals we have however I know from feedback I've heard the written feedback we've received um I think there were uh valid points um with regards to the English Learners um and I actually feel better that we have one goal focus focused or measured by a zela rather than half of the goals um additionally I think you know if we look at the revisions we do have a
043little bit better spread of addressing um areas that we receive feedback on as far as specific grade levels special education um so I'm not opposed to the revisions I guess is my point um I think the original ones we had also have value but I do feel that these revisions encompass a great deal of what we heard um from academic feedback around the goals thank you Miss MB anybody have yeah um so as far as goal number two goes um I'm still pretty adamant about us keeping that goal as it is um the De Moines Public Schools in Iowa the district there adopted student outcomes focused governments and one of their goals in De MO in the de moin schools district is goal number two the percent of black male third grade students on track
044in Reading will increase from 35% to 72% by June 203 2023 as measured by fast which is their assessment also their third goal is the percentage of black male students completing Algebra 1 with a b or higher by the end of grade nine will increase from 17% to 35% by August 2023 now on their website they do a great job of explaining why why they are adopting race based goals why specify black males in two of the three goals they take it even a step further right black males the data tells us that this group has the lowest rates of achievement in the district it doesn't mean that black males are low Achievers but that's our system's performance in creating success for black males is critically low and it needs to be named and addressed
045it recognizes the Need For Change within the system to evolve into one that does not continue to marginalize various student populations this means that in a system operated by adults success will be driven through support and development of adult Behavior change doing things the same way and expecting different results has proven to be ineffective that resonates with me I I'm one of the proponents of this goal to begin with I think that we need to stick with it I don't shy away from these things and it's going to be a hard cell to change my mind on this and and I usually try to keep an open mind but this is something that I developed in my work in education and continues to be um reinforced in what I witness every with the school to
046prison Pipeline and we cannot we can't like shy away from identifying how we failed black kids in our district we just can't do it that's unacceptable we have to face it and we have to figure out how to fix it so I'm not okay with changing it to the new recommendation I think it needs to remain as it is thank you um Miss SS do you have any questions input concerns no I don't um but I do agree age um I do agree with you um I feel that that needs to stay um the same I think this is not just uh an issue that this District faces but across the state that we face um and I know that we're focusing on this District but I I do strongly agree um with this one
047as well and it completely the revision on here is for a completely different subgroup um it's not even the same um so yeah um thank you Miss MC cheffrey um so on that on that particular one um I totally agree with you Katie as well um I guess my only issue with it is I would love to have the time to Circle back with those kids who we heard feedback from and just out of respect to them you know um so um that's my only hang up on it really and I do think um three and four it does seem like it is a larger subset of kids and you know we did the when we worked on this originally we did get numbers on what these groups consisted of and I forgot to ask
048for this but I thought that would that would be probably helpful to know also like what size what are the different sizes yeah like how many kids are we affecting you know I like the idea of certainly you know it affecting more kids not that that's exactly the point of it but it's I just like that idea so thank you um yeah and one of the things that also with this framework is that I agree with um Miss Gibson McLean and um Miss SS on number two the point of this framework too is to do away with what we historically have been doing that has historically been failing not just 1 2 3 4 5 six years we're talking about data that we just started looking at at 2015 I can only imagine what before
0492015 looks like right and part of this framework is to disrupt the normal things that have been going on like in Den Mo they say and in this book they go back and reiterate the same whirlwinds is not going to get us any anything different and my my concern is when we start getting larger groups I think think even though some goals are okay I don't want us to fall back into the habit of having way too many subgroups and then we just went back to square one where we're all over the place running around again and then we're spreading everybody too thin we're coming up with all these subgroups and now we have to take care of everybody and that kind of does away with what even the framework was supposed to be intended
050to it was really intended to focus and make sure that our most vulnerable students are being impacted and our resources eventually are going to have to line up to that there's a lot more to this framework than just accepting goals and hey look pretty we have goals party over no this is an ongoing quarterly monitoring going back to the community having budget talks that we probably haven't had in the past reigning resources and if we start getting into the whole field of doing too many goals with too many subgroups I think it's going to put us back in my personal opinion in the world that we're in right now I say the world warwind because that's what the book likes to call us that we get stuck with all these little things you know like
051the test and the curriculum and the vouchers and all these different things and then it puts us as governing board members in this Whirlwind where we're trying to accommodate um everybody and everything and our students are not learning and our students are the ones that are failing due to those worldwinds so um I personally would like to keep you know one and two as they are I don't know um I don't know how I feel about three and four just because it's putting us in that huge subgroup again so maybe um I need a second just to process and maybe I can ask a question on how because I understand how interim goals work and eventually we're going to have subgroups within these goals but I don't want us to be spread too thin either
052so um did I make a yes meeting with them but because of the State Testing that you know that was not possible um is is it possible to maybe just let us marinate on this a little bit longer um so that we can just check in with them and then also maybe we can find out what the actual get the numbers on to compare three and four the um current goal how many students that is and then how many students it is for the revision like I'd be curious just to know that with that requests being made of Miss MC cheffrey I would like to First how much time would it take from staff to actually come up I think those numbers will be easy to obtain within a couple of days at most Okay
053then if the board is okay with that I don't mind doing this one more time so we can get the last input especially since Dr dupin is saying that it's not a hard task for them to do so if you guys are okay with that we can do it move it to the next board meeting and have it there that way everybody kind of has a clear option as well too and if you guys have more feedback or anything that's okay too but I'm willing to move it um to the next board meeting well I was on on the zel one so on the original number three one of the things that was brought up um by multiple people I talked to which is a good point is if we're just looking our eighth grade
054El students it is a very small sample size and often there's a lot of other factors going on not just like language immersion or um language acquisition um and so you when you're looking at eighth grade eals sometimes it's kids that are just stuck in this system because the aola test quite frankly is often more difficult than even our state Ela tests um or there's undiagnosed or you know undetermined special education needs um or we have often Middle School Refugee students who come in and it's unrealistic to expect them to immediately pass that test a year um so I I know the like all that being said I just wanted to share some of the context of looking at altering the um elll goal that being said I think getting the numbers will help because
055I am a little wary about having half of the goals be such large groups um so I don't know I don't have the perfect answer maybe it's not all El students maybe it's a grade and I don't know and just um happy medium you know right and just some food for thought too with what you said is that part of this framework too is with the interim goals is that's going to be um superintendent man's job to figure out for example if he finds out that there is an issue because we have you know other students that don't speak the language or there might be something with this test that could be an intrum goal of him focusing and saying now I found what the actual problem is and now we're going to bring in
056resources to figure that out so sometimes when w with what you said yes I can see how that can be a concern because of all the out and barriers but this is what this these goals are supposed to bring up is all those added on barriers so our administrators are bringing us options on like hey this is what the real issue is and now we're going to have to divert from what we've been doing to now this and I think that's what the cause of all these goals is is that we get really to the root issues versus keep on buying new curricul curriculum and doing all these things and we're just adding adding adding and nothing is being done does that make sense yeah no it it definitely does I just think like initially
057we had an eighth grade and a third grade El right I think there's been a lot of feedback on keeping the like we want to address El we also there was a lot of feedback about addressing third grade language arts so I'm just trying to think I I don't know that I would out of any of these four be like feel really good about picking to as they are I think getting some more numbers and getting some more feedback from the students because I feel like there's an in between area here that we're not finding if that makes sense yeah president C you may I make a comment real quick absolutely I want to point out a key difference with within goal three the original goal was about proficiency which is the end Target the
058revision addresses Movement by one or two grade levels or not grade levels I'm sorry proficiency levels so the way aella works is it has four maybe five I forget proficiency bands so there's pre-emergent emergent basic and then proficient so the focus here was to move kids up levels so regardless of the direction the board chooses to go we can either use the the recommendation keep the original goal maybe a change the group or the grade level focus and even add movement between proficiency bands as interim targets because that movement is what will ultimately lead to proficiency so they really do go together and in to miss mb's point it's often it can be often very difficult to make that proficiency leap in one year but they do capture we are able often to capture a
059lot of growth within those proficiency bands and I think that's like there's a balance we want we need to set high expectations we need to set all the interim goals um so I just want to be clear that I absolutely don't want to like fluff the goals um I just also want to be realistic because we not just Katon every district has a tendency to put these as you were mentioning these huge groups and these huge lofty goals you know and we're never getting there and so there's you know it's finding the line there what what is realistic and we talked a lot about that when we were looking at the initial data and say you know looking at the percentage jumps but I think when you're looking at a zala specifically it's not realistic
060for a pre-emergent student to become proficient in a year that's not the way the entire um test is designed so I I do really appreciate that language regardless of what subgroup we pick I think addressing the increasing on one more levels on Aela makes way more sense than just the proficient I have a question about this one um the 25% is that like grades k through eight are you talking about goal three yeah the third one so we're still on the third one um yes that is increase looking at the aggregate through eight so right now we're saying that only 25% go of one or more levels that's in K8 okay um I might make just a suggest question um and something to think about is maybe we take like a grade level band and
061like continue to follow those students throughout um the years a cohort instead of just saying because what happens is then you're comparing apples to oranges because the group of kids we want to see if these kids are improving as a group as they're moving or are they staying the same instead of keeping testing the different kids every time so just something to think about and actually I believe Phoenix Elementary has one of their goals in a band like that I believe because I've heard them so I'll make sure I go back and watch their meetings but it might be helpful for our administrators to touch Bas over there too because I think they have something like that going on where it's on a band so that's that's actually pretty nifty thinking I like that yeah
062okay um yeah did you have a question concern coming had something else I was going to add but I didn't know what where you were moving next oh just dependent on what you were about to say um so any other questions or concerns or additional comments for the board goals um just while we're on this agenda item I did want to address the email that we got um because I talked to Dr Samson as well and we can do that right hildra since we're on sofg yes okay um we you can you can address J I'm sorry I don't mean to interrupt you just address generic topics don't address specifically what's being said if that makes sense okay so I mean I think there's just a general concern recently um uh feedback you know more
063feedback is the focus on the testing um and you know my kids are not on campus anymore so I'm not seeing this stuff but um Dr Samson you know said you know there's communication out there like be on time there's prizes If You're Not absent there's parties if you reach a certain growth um measurement you know and so the unattended um consequence of that is kids are getting left out maybe shamed maybe bullied over it you know it's a bullying opportunity um I this brings me back to when my daughter was in third and fourth grade these little kids like with a stomach ache that they're about to vomit every year with the testing you know and then when we move to a different school they don't talk about it at all like it can
064be done um so I think this was like I you know it just was a reminder for me that that's not what this is about we need to get away from scaring our kids about these tests it should be like any other Benchmark to them um and I know and it's just again it's a culture I think we have that's been going on for a very long time and my eye has got been off the ball on that but we don't want our kids feeling sick to their stomach and not wanting to come to school because it's test day I mean that we're having the opposite effect uh on what we want so I I I task Mr Man and Miss um I'm always afraid of pronouncing your name is wasc um on the communication
065like I think we should standardize it across the district and really we want kids to be present at their desk every day of school not just testing we want parents to have supports at home to help them with math and and reading every day not just testing week not until we're not waiting until April to do that we need it done all year long so if we can just kind of reinvent this communication strategy around the testing um that's mandatory or we are gonna be focusing too much on the test it's already happening so I think that's I appreciate Dr Samson bringing us that feedback because that wasn't really something I was aware of or even concerned about but it's it will definitely cause us problem um if we don't you know pay attention to
066that um that's what I was comment on so um as a student in this District 30 plus years ago I was faced with the same kind of pressure for Stanford Nines in Phoenix Union I was given incentive on incentive to come to the ases and take it every year it was ridiculous um and so I would hate to see that happen happen again and so when we started adopting these things I'm a skeptical person I don't buy into things I ask a lot of questions if people haven't noticed um and I was like what is all this who's this dude what are we paying for this what is going on here why are we focused on testing blah blah blah and then I we you know you got us this book and I was like
067all right I'll finally read this book so on uh I did appreciate when we got to chat and for people who haven't read the book yet admin please do chapter 10 understanding assessments I'll also add if you don't know this about me I have my bachelor's in education I worked in education for five years before I became a lawyer but um inappropriate use of standardized assessments an assessment of what our students know and are able to do is a valuable tool but tools that are not used as intended can do more harm than good and so it moves on to talk about how standardized assessments can never tell you a child's worth about how if students are assessed in what they do but nothing is done with that data that's an inappropriate use of standardized
068test and even more so it goes into the myth perpetuated by testing companies he calls out that you need to teach to the test and so I don't have to tell teachers that that's a myth um because that's preaching to the choir I don't want them to feel like they're being pressured by the border Administration and thinking that that's what needs to be done in order to achieve these goals because I know it's not and so we need to be creative we to think outside of the box yes these are the data points for measuring because this is the data that we have okay this is all we can measure how do we get there by doing things differently and so I don't I really am concerned if I'm hearing anything about incentives about pressuring
069students about kids stressed out parents none of that should be happening and this this one thing stuck with me what improves performance on standardized assessments when students are taught the assess material to a depth of knowledge that allows them to use the material in new ways there's no shortcuts and we already know what proficiency is we already know how to engage our kids and material we already know what that looks like when they are proficient in things um we just can't do it by teaching to the test because it's going to create all of these issues that we've already discussed and so I don't know if that looks like getting a specific guard rail but there's a couple guard rails that I think it could fall under but I just want to be absolutely clear
070that's what I mean by these guard rails so the superintendent will not cause or allow conditions practices or procedures that are inequitable or insufficient for students I think this squarely falls into that and we should not be doing that according to that guard reel and I think the very last one also the superintendent shall not allow adult convenience or preference to take priority over the academic progress of students like I mean obviously I'm not trying to get into any personal things but like admin at the district teacher coaches admin at schools your job is to figure out new ways to help our teachers have the tools they need to be able to do these things without teaching to the test and so we can't just fall back on the things we've always done because that's
071what we know how to do and so we got to figure this out without falling into this incentive and stressing everybody out so when I'm saying what I see these guardrails I'm not I'm expecting to hear none of this this time next year about incentives and to come to that point right this is why the super I mean the guardrail conversation is so important and maybe lack of my leadership that I haven't really been on the guardrail we've been so focused on the goals and making sure that we're listening to everybody but within the guard rail that's how we're going to hold this institution and our superintendent our administrators if our community which it's loud and clear our community does not want us incentivizing doesn't want us to bring this anxiety Then we put that
072in the guardrail it might have to do culture changes where nobody's promoting an incentive for testing and if that's what our community wants this framework says we're going to speak to and create guardrails and goals to the community and the vision of our to whatever the vision and the community needs and throughout everything I'm hearing not necessarily that they're against us doing this but they really want to make sure that what's going inside the everyday of the kids that it's not being emphasized and that's going to be something that we're going to have to hold um Mr C Mr Man accountable to once we get into these God rails and them intram is like what other things are you doing and come and prove to us that you're incentivizing with not not even incentivizing that
073you're doing different things and our kids are still empowering there you go different ways not show up and you get an ice cream on test day like yeah I can see how that is wrong but that takes away also that's Mr man's job to be like hey this is not what we want we heard from the community now you go and figure it out within your people and tell us how you're not going to do this so she that is a very valid point and I think when we bring back our guard rails we really need to revise our guard rails and make sure that that's emphasized in the guard rails that we do not want that climate because it it really goes back to the climate and culture of of the district and I
074just think it just needs to be communicated just very clearly and we kind of missed that in this so so I appreciate the feedback and that brings another Point too um Communications seems to be a very common discrepancy in our district and we can make that a guardrail too and making sure that that two-way communication I mean even in the staff feedback that we got when we did that Equity communication was at our lowest so if that's something that we as a district and a board needs to start focusing and making sure that that two-way communication is being processed to our community our parents even our teachers and staff members um there's some teachers that I know or staff members that have no idea what we're even doing and if we're trying to move the
075needle for our students how are we not all taking part in this in this together so that could be a guard rail too and that's a very good conversation to have this is why these guard rails get implemented and these interim guard rails to make sure that we're not just saying this is what it's going to look like in five years and from here until then we'll just sit here and talk about everything else but what we wanted to in these guard rails and goals so those are very valid points and I think once we bring it back I would love love to have you guys um us switch this bring what ideas we want for the god rails and talk about that when we bring it back for the board goals as well because
076those are very important issues that I continue hearing at different sites and I think we've different perspective absolutely as a teacher so I think until the state stops making everything punitive I feel like that's where it's coming from so we come from this state level where if your kids don't perform at the district level then it's punitive because you get a letter grade and then it continues to be punitive to the principles who aren't doing their job at their site because their teachers aren't doing their job and then the teachers aren't doing their job because they're in direct contact with their students and it's punitive so it continues to remain this punitive um system and until change it at the state level that's where the stress and the the this is coming from um we
077do the same thing at my school like you know please be here like every day I mean I try not to stress my kids out because you know my feelings about State Testing I've I've mentioned it a million times um and luckily I don't I don't feel as much stress as maybe some other people do but the punitive is where maybe we need need to think about like how are we being punitive certainly to the people that work here and the people that live in this community and our students so we can't continue to say um you can't do this to get your kids to do stuff if we're constantly wagging on them about getting an F score or a d score like you can't have it both ways it just doesn't work that way
078so we either need to be supportive of what our sites are do doing and what grade they get or we need to be punitive and demand more from them it just doesn't work both ways and so I I once again feel like I I don't rag on people for their scores um and what's going on but then also looking at this now we're talking about okay so these eighth grade students are going to score minimul proficient on aesa well we got to get into the school like we're focusing once again on test scores and I think a lot of that email was about test scores and I don't feel like we have any other way at the moment due to state regulations to do anything about other than grading off of a test score but
079I think what you're saying is important yes what is the difference is how we are framing that right and I think that at many districts the problem is is that they're chasing their damn tail all the time at the school board members and they're like oh no no and they're concerned with the things I know a couple of you are leaving hopefully you're coming back the two of us that are staying are sure as hell aren't scared of the Arizona Department of Education so I can tell you right now whatever we got to do to fix things for us is what we're going to do at least that's what I'm on because we're not here to be scaredy-cats of the Arizona Department of Education well I'm not either I mean I know but I'm saying
080so I think when we have our people's back is what's really going to make the difference rather than turning our back because the state's telling us we should and as far as I know none of our schools are about to get taken over or anything like that so I think I think we can do what you're saying by having the back of our people and I totally agree with it but I'm just saying once again it starts with us right like our behaviors have to change so everyone else's Behavior can change so we can't say you know your test scores blah blah blah blah blah and then not expect like our principles and our admin to like push as hard as we can to get these kids to score so they get an A grade
081and they feel good for that one year I think too just I Echo everything everyone said and um I think you know definitely increasing communication I think we've taken longer to get these pieces finalized because we really want to do it right and we really wanted to get everyone's feedback that being said also just so everyone's aware like it's not always going to be hammering out the language of all these test score-based goals like the idea of this is this is finalized by the end of the school year so that moving forward every time we have this on the agenda we're talking about all of those pieces that go in every single day for the 150 whatever days before State Testing right and all the magic that the teachers do and all of those inputs
082and and those will be the conversations um that you know and the directives that we're giving to Mr Man and the administration based on what we're seeing and what we're continuing to hear so I also like I agree with everything but I also just wanted to remind everyone like every sofg conversation is not going to be picking apart test score we need it for the measurement that is what we have we know we need to move our kids and and help them be successful and they leave our district that and this is a measurement we have that being said once we have these goals these guard rails finalized we start working on inter goals and we can have those really deep meaningful conversations about how do we best support the teachers to do what they
083know they need to do in the classroom every day starting on the first day of school yeah and one thing I want everybody to know just to wrap it up is that this is not about being right getting it right or being wrong this isn't about it being good or you did a bad thing this is really about getting to the bottom of what's working for our students what's not realigning resources to the most vulnerable who are not learning and our data again shows that we consistently and cron have failed their students to learn a lot of anything and sending them off to high school to basically not be successful so this is not really about good or bad right or wrong this is about figuring out what's working what's not how do we align
084our resources to that and in reality it's going to bring in who's ready to do the work and who's not and if that means that we have to ship a different sale with different people then that's fine everything happens for a reason there's seasons for everything but this is really going to align the priorities and everybody's priority I don't care what title you have or what you do in the institution is for these students whether you're gardening the grass or your signing checks or I'm signing off on staff payroll it doesn't matter we're here for the students if we have no students I have no board presidency and nobody has a job that's who we're here for and this is what this framework is going to help us get there is to align our resources
085and really get to the bottom of how we can have um our students be empowered and for them to grow into high school and do whatever they want to do whether that's College small business whatever it is that there it is we're here to empower the students at the end of the day um so do we have any other comments Mr Man is there anything that you would like to add I know you're feeling a little under the weather but it's all good to add anything or close off with anything yeah the only other thing I wanted to share is that um our uh extended executive team with Dr pombo and members of her team had the opportunity to work with our coach um the board's coach Dr Ramos uh not this past Tuesday but
086the Tuesday before and um he walked us through some mindset work which was very much aligned with many of the comments you've made president CUO about you know focusing on um the student and instead of the adult uh but also um really kind of focusing in on getting us ready for the development of those interim uh basically interim goals and the interims for the um uh guard rails and so um we are excited we stand ready to take the next steps and uh are very much aligned with everything the board has shared this evening so thank you thank you um all right so I will move this over to our next board meeting just to make sure that we have the feedback from our student Congress and that we have a little bit of that
087more information oh yeah and Miss Dr dupin sorry the clarifying question so I can make sure when we go back we're going back with the right frame of mind so if we take this the same document with the recommendations and we go in and you know put another column or put in a call call out for the numbers would that be is that going to meet your expectations so for example with Goal one the percentage of eth grade students that score minimally proficient in ASA will decrease from 73% so if we put what that 73% was in terms of the number of kids last year will that and we just repeat that for the goals and the considerations will that work did you want it for all goals or just three and four since it
088was a bigger umbrella yeah actually three and four four yeah and then um just maybe maybe not in the table under the table maybe some different variations on the revised goal three that might be able to pull in like if it was a grade band if we looked at a cohort I don't know options okay so we'll we'll modify this document to just include the numbers for goals three and four and then options for goal three that reflect ranges yeah in between just eth grade El's and everybody I I do really like the idea of the cohort especially if we're focusing on five years and increasing one or more levels that just makes more sense um a smart goal is only smart if you're really matching the words that you're saying that you're going to
089measure to the the valid group of kids that you are measuring and theel is such a anomaly in how it's you know with all the levels so all right thank you just wanted to make sure we were accurate thank you any other comments real quick yes I'm not just going to keep going on number two but one thing I did notice in our consent agenda tonight is a travel request for the California Association of black school Educators Institute and the C caby Institute is a three-day convening designed to Foster collaborative action among education professionals committed to advancing equity for black students this conference is a unique Gathering of board members districts superintendents admin officials teachers leaders and decision makers from across the nation and so I think that if we're going to be spending time
090and money on that resource we should definitely be keeping goal number two but I will just leave that as it is thank you okay hearing nothing further that moves us to our next agenda item which is public comments and I'm going to go ahead and get started with Megan Ros yes um just as a quick since I have couple public comments if you can just state your name and then each one of you will have three minutes go ahead thank you good evening mad president and my name is Megan Rios and I currently teach seventh grade ELA at Kennedy at Linda I've had the opportunity to work with an awesome group of students this year and have had the privilege of working for Dr briess and Mr Breezy I am beyond grateful and truly appreciate
091their leadership skills however despite my positive experience this year I will not be returning to the district next year I chose not to return because of my negative experiences with the school district's systems and policies or lack thereof last year I worked at a different campus in our district April 2023 myself with Miss corneli Mr Grant and Miss Pierce filed a claim uh with the district addressing concerns we had at a different campus many of which negatively impacted students and staff to this day that claim is still open we participated in a process with the HR department for five months in September of 2023 we submitted our additional resolutions after rejecting the findings from their investigation we never received communication from the district stating that they read these resolutions nor were we contacted to meet
092and discussed these resolutions we sent another follow-up email in October of 2023 and never received a response I know that this is not a unique situation I requesting that the school board do an internal investigation looking into kraton school district's HR department I would like the board to look into how claims have been handled and tracked for the last three to five years to ensure that there is documentation that these claims have been investigated closed and if warranted that these claims have counted toward an individual's Progressive discipline plan I would also like the board to review current HR procedures identify those that need to be restructured and ensure that this restructuring occurs a lot of things are very unclear the entire claims process who is eligible to leave their contract without being financially penalized and
093what the progressive discipline plan is for staff due to the time limit I will be submitting additional written comments further explaining our request I would like to thank you for your time and consideration this evening thank you next we have Margaret CNA hi everyone um president Kio school board members and superintendent man up in the cloud uh my name is Margaret Cerna and I'm the mother of uh Natalie Cerna Chavez who has been at builtmore Academy for the past five years kindergarten through fourth grade in addition to being a proud mama I'm also a school administrator in the Scottsdale Unified School District so I do love education uh many time parents and community members are moved to come to the board meeting with concerns Andor issues tonight I'm on a mission I am here to
094brag about builtmore Prep Academy my daughter's school I want to compliment the teachers the students staff and the administration we are open enrolled at this awesome school and plan to be there through 8th grade one of the many reasons that we love our school is because of the incredible academic and social emotional opportunities that have been provided for our Natalie I'm here to speak to this honorable board to thank you for the education my daughter is receiving and to reiterate my family's pride and support of the builtmore Preparatory Academy The Learning Community is led by an outstanding education leader that I invited here tonight Dr dilmar principal Dr dmar whose exceptional students and staff have earned the Arizona Department a label for Stu for student achievement next our school was awarded a distinguish Arizona Education
095Foundation A+ designation designation wow um in a time when parent choice is abundant in the state of Arizona we choose buil more Preparatory Academy for our daughter's education in February of this year as a fourth grader Natalie and I were fortunately given the opportunity to participate in the Ed morio Exchange program I cannot begin to express how this adventure helped my daughter grow with confidence kindness and knowledge the amount of planning organization and managing of sending 20 students and their parent was and is Monumental thank you kraton board members principal dear and teacher Melinda Hutchinson and Monique sto for their sponsor sponsorship and coordination of this once in a lifetime trip for our kids please don't ever stop sending the kids to her Moro please pass on my Kudos and accolades to the entire BPA
096staff for everything they do for these young tiger Scholars every single day and I'm getting emotional the best recruitment for Arizona public education comes from Word of Mouth mostly from happy and energized parents one to another I I give you my word I will continue to help Market our awesome school with positive praise and with many awesome stories of our school's accomplishments and success thank [Applause] you thank you um next we have Ryan Kemet uh Madame President on the board uh my name is Ryan kemt and I'm uh taking on some of the roles that Matt Jude has previously had with our uh pack and we're gred gladly and willingly going to be helping the board in any way we can to uh you know pass any legislation that the Board needs to move forward
097with any bond proposer voted on so just wanted to give our encouragement to the board to move forward and know that we support you and what you're doing thank you so much and next we have Matt jitt thank you president Kio uh members of the governing board uh superintendent man and members of the administration um I think you all know me but my name is Matt JWT um I was a governing board member like yourselves so I appreciate your late nights your hard work and the uh the books that you are reading and conferences you were going to to um help uh create a better future for all of our students um you will be hearing later tonight about uh possible Capital plan and possible Bond and uh I am the chair of yes kraton
098kids and have been this is my fourth cycle um you saw I have someone else who's a helper here because I'm trying to I keep saying every time that this is going to be my last time but I think it finally is so um but we are happy to get more and more community members um suzan schwager nitel continues as our Treasurer I think that you know she's interested in also moving on if you know anyone who's interested in filing Financial reports for campaign um send them our way but um we stand fully behind whatever you decide tonight and if you decide to go to the voters and ask for support on a bond we are here to support you in that and we will bring to the table the resources that a political action
099committee can do thank you very much thank you and Miss wattis I believe we have an online have a email I mean emailed yeah thank you let me start this because it's also three minutes this is from Miss Carrie Samson um dear kraton Elementary School District board members first thank you for your work and dedicating your time and service to the kraton community I know it's a lot in your leadership does not go unnoticed on your agenda tonight you are planning to discuss and possibly vote on the student outcome Focus governance framewor workk goals tonight I am concerned a few weeks ago I removed my son who was in third grade from the Craton Academy and the Craton Elementary School District I remained however a voting resident of this District part of this move of
100my son was because of bullying but the other part that solidified my decision was because of the overcrowded classes he was in and the hyperfocus on test prep of the latter for example in February the school instituted March Madness which required teachers to remove 20 minutes of social studies instruction each day in order to go over five test questions this lasted about six weeks there were also dozens of messages including details about incentives that can be dehumanizing for our children sent to parents concerning the need for their children to show up and do well on the test this had my son full of anxiety about the possible consequences of missing the test or doing poorly I had to continuously reiterate that he is more valuable than a test score and that he doesn't need to
101be concerned with his performance for an 8-year-old child to feel this anxious about testing is ridiculous how many children felt this and I bet parents whose children are in schools located in more affluent areas don't experience this if I could I would opt my kids out of testing but there are very few options without taking them out of school the entire time with these goals I am concerned that this hyperfocus on testing will only be intensif IED the framework you are about to vote on is focused on student outcomes that are solely standardized test scores this is extremely narrow my concern is that high stakes accountability testing is dangerous and is often not achievable and or unsustainable instead I would love to see the district adopt goals that include less narrow outcomes aside from test
102scores examples would be assessing students level of Engagement in learning their excitement about reading and math and science students feeling safe and happy at our schools families feeling increasingly satisfied with the level in which their children are valued in schools and the level in which they feel their children are learning Etc other goals include discipline outcomes I urge the district to identify outcomes aligned with AC academic research which lead to Student Learning including small class sizes culturally relevant curriculum Etc there are ways to measure these outcomes again I am not supportive of these test Focus goals and and I think all the board has a copy of this email thank you Miss [Music] wates okay with that moves to our next approval of consent which is our item six on the agenda can I pull
103one absolutely sorry you go ahead and you can go ahead and make the motion yeah um can uh I move to approve uh consent agenda items 6A through 6f 6A through what 6f F so you're pulling G yes okay one it's okay yeah not for bad reasons is there a second I'll second okay thank you for being here thank you all those in favor I apologize I I go ahead Miss MB um no I uh again not bad reasons um I pulled it because um I just wanted to make sure that there was space we have representative from not my kid here tonight so if there were any questions or comments from the board um I just wanted it's an amazing opportunity and partnership so I wanted to call it out because it was a
104little strange to me for it to just be consent I don't know if there's specific questions or if we want a little um I do not have any specific questions does anybody have any questions or comments I don't see any um so I'm thankful for the opportunity for this partnership and we can go ahead and move on to approve it yeah I've heard great things about the organization as well so I think it just I just want to emphasize that you know especially because we've been a lot of like test scores right um the these are those pieces that are those additional inputs that fall into those guardrails that make sure that our kids are emotionally safe and healthy and are able to get to the learning so it's just really important that we continue
105to expand Partnerships like this not to like single you out but is there anything you feel moved to share after listening to our conversation this evening you don't have to say anything I'm just making sure can you please make it right to the pum yeah come in yeah since you're here thank you well um thank you I'm Caitlyn I'm Caitlyn de I'm with not my kid I'm the grants and contracts manager and no I think after listening and hearing to everything that everyone has said I think what our mission is that my kid really aligns and can support with challenges that your school district and a lot of different school districts are experiencing at this time and really excited to extend a partnership where we can support resiliency help build life skills um healthy coping
106skills with the youth in cron School District thank you I appreciate you being here tonight okay all right I move we approve item uh consent agenda item 6G I all those in favor I perfect motion passes and that brings us to personnel which is item 8A and I will take that over to Mr Man or Dr Lauren yeah um I'm gonna go ahead and kick us off and then I'm gonna ask Dr dupin to help me out for a second and then yeah of course we'll go to Dr Lauren so um you know this this one's a little unusual so I wanted to just kind of point point to the fact that um it it is a restructure and it is based on a number of different things that actually date back to my time
107um as a candidate for superintendent uh the 90-day plan uh input and information from our governing board about a desire to evaluate some of our systems and so um we did bring in an outside consultant who did an evaluation um of our structures and systems um what what we're bringing before you is in alignment with the feedback that we received um and uh you know when you do a restructure like this it's a little bit different than when you're adding positions because one of the goals was uh to try to reduce administrative cost and reduce total number of administrative positions without losing capacity to continue to bring in the critical funding that we need to do the work that we do and so with that I'm going to ask Dr dup because I am not
108very eloquent tonight with um my voice failing me but I was hoping Dr dupin could maybe add a little bit more detail to that and then turn it over to Dr Lauren uh to bring forth the item thank you Mr Man thank you president kadu this reorganization that is before you for consideration this evening reflects a great deal of intentionality around um purpose and role alignment so there's there's probably a lot of different ways reorganization could be accomplished but when thinking about effective schools and our grants in particular the number one priority of those entitlement programs is to ensure that resources are directed much in alignment with our student outcomes focused governance conversations toward supports services that create greater opportunities and reduce gaps in achievement for students particularly our most marginalized that's the whole intent
109of of the grants fundamentally that are managed in effective School in addition to that and I believe it was you president C who talked about the importance of communication relative to engagement when you think about also the purpose of of of title one especially but all the entitlement grants the intention is to ensure that people who would otherwise be marginalized have a say so in the governance of their schools in the planning and the selection of those reports and services and in order to do that effective communication has to occur and it can't be communication that's one way from the school system to the families it has to be both ways and it needs to be in languages that are accessible to all involved and it takes quite a deal quite a quite a large
110amount of effort and planning and hard work to make that possible we have a wonderful Community engagement and Outreach department but that alone isn't enough to fully uh achieve the the intention of the grants that we that we have to provide services and supports to our kids so the rationale for this particular restructure which blends effective schools and Communications is to ensure that we are re streamlining our administrative roles in order to reduce costs meet our intentions of student outcomes focused governance and the entitlement programs that we oversee so that we can maximize our impact and it was felt that these this particular combination of roles was the best way to accomplish all of those objectives um of the variety of possibilities and we're fortunate that we have Personnel within the district at this time
111who although the learning curve will be steep um they won't be learning alone and they have the capacity to step into that um and do so with great effect do we have any questions or comments um the only comment that I have is that I'm thankful that Mr Man went around and administration did this um in my one in-one conversation with him we did have some hard conversations and obviously we have to do what's best for students and one of the biggest things that we continually see is that our Communications does need a more support it's impossible for one person to hold one job and be able to be everywhere at once especially with the Family Resource Center stuff that we're doing there's just so much stuff going on that our families and communities to
112be informed of that with this restructuring and how it was explained in the 101 I feel that not only is it aligned to what we're trying to get at with the framework but it also it's going to be a more of effective tool so this is part of making hard decisions um but I believe that it it is going to be one that that is going to be effective for the betterment of our students so um with that being said and having no other no comments did you need to add something oh yeah sorry I was already going and I'm like yes heard everything uh nothing much to add just to note that there are two separate items that are contained in this uh motion that Al that include the approval of the job description
113for the executive director of effective schools and Communications uh that role uh many of the aspects of the two current roles the director positions for Effective schools and the director for communications and marketing are combined uh we tried to really look at what those job responsibilities would be so that we could streamline those roles as well as have support from manager level positions and that's all outlined in that uh structural organization chart um we're looking as it says in the notes approximately for $54,000 saving over time uh that doesn't decrease the Staffing either that is the support staff because I think uh rightfully so in the conversations that we've had about the very important work that our grants team does as well as the need for effective communication is we really want to make sure
114that the structur are in place for us not only to be successful in our entitlement grants but in the future as we start to deal with declining enrollment or continue to deal with declining enrollment then how do we go out and look for competitive grants and how do we make sure that we have opportunities that that aren't missed or a ways to support if individual sites want to pursue grants or what that process would look like as well so we look at it as a way to expand capacity as well as kind of streamline that function uh so that job description is there uh Emily wck is being recommended as the executive director um her bio is there I think we all know Emily really well from our experience in the district um she's currently
115our director of communications and marketing and uh we bring her name forward is part of that restructuring thank you any comments okay I move the governing board approve the job description of executive director of effective schools and Communications and approve Emily wasik for the position effect of April 25th 2024 second all those in favor I I motion passes congratulations more work now yeah that brings us to our next item which is 10A so Madame President members of the board um I am going to not even Preamble this one I'm going to hand it over to the more than capable Miss Shapiro to uh walk you through the the bond resolution thank you used it all I'm trying not to do what I did last time which is help help help but um help help help
116did exactly what I was told to do this time I did do it I plugged it in can just click on the one you want put dirty okay thank you I used to do I do that at home yay only started doing that as an adult and I thought it was really clever I was like everyone probably thank you for your patience I had got that set up uh and put that there not uh president kuo board members superintendent man I am happy to bring an item for the board to consider discuss amend if desired and deemed advisable to adopt a resolution ordering and calling a special bond election um prior to uh bringing that item and asking the board to take action um I would like to present the recommendation of the fiscal stewardship
117committee and I have a quick presentation before we bring that resolution item forward so I did want to just very quickly um review in more of a simplified format What bond dollars are used for I know sometimes there's confusion uh this is money generated from a bond election it can only be spent on specific things like buildings grounds Furniture those Capital items and needs for a district um also Transportation Vehicles bonding authorization is good for 10 years districts use these funds as a loan so you want to make sure that these um items that we're purchasing these assets for our district have a lifespan longer than five years and um uh and and stay within that process and what Bond dollars are specifically for versus regular Capital dollars Bond dollars typically cannot be spend on
118salaries I wouldn't say never um but it's very um spe specified and what they can be used for is like if you had a construction project manager who is overseeing a bond construction project then some of those dollars could be used to pay for a potentially a salary these dollars cannot be used for districtwide uh salary support purposes in 2016 the district uh called and successfully passed at $85 million Bond over an eight-year period those Bond dollars have been used for campus rebuilds and construction the kraton academy the new brand new Kennedy School that's going on the Beautiful um new gymnasium at the builtmore newly remodeled Middle School Wing at the builtmore amphitheater Sports field Mont Vista districtwide um remodels um restroom remodels I know there's been a lot of conversations when those came forward
119uh to the board um enhanced learning spaces um there was an open roof for a Better Learning space at uh excellencia believe not I believe as um multiple purpose room remodels at gayway and excellencia we did replace 17 buses and then a very large portion of your needs when you talk about Bond dollars are those life cycle projects that are going to extend the asset so you want to make sure that you stay up and not let things you know drift away you want to make sure you have weather ration parking lot um resurfacing uh and so we did do those at a lot of our schools but I was really excited to see the high efficiency air conditioning units those are great uh definitely have a longer lifespan that's a smart purchase um we've
120been uh participating in district-wide energy and Water Conservation upgrades um again weatherization flooring this is just a small portion of the things that the bond dollars have been used for and uh very successful um Bond project but unfortunately those Bond dollars do not last forever and it is coming time to have discussions about how do we continue to keep our life cycle projects going how do we support the rebuilds and remodels of campuses that we do not receive dollars from the state to to support and maintain so the fiscal stewardship committee uh and repurposed for Capital planning they were able to review the planning and oversight recommendations for Bond and capital resources uh ensure that those were in alignment with the governing board Direction and superintendent goals um we did have some conversations regarding our
121student out comes Focus governance which kind of came almost you know parallel as we were um developing these Community or these I'm sorry committee meetings um and they wanted to make sure that they had an opportunity to review the bond options for potential future bond election and bring that recommendation to the governing board so that was their purpose the committee members um are listed here and um I think we ended up with four meetings dedicated to reviewing the materials um these were some of the items that were reviewed in the committee process those past 2016 Bond and capital planning documents obviously but some really insightful information um that we have shared with the board through updates were the facilities condition assessments the bill built more Loma Linda structural reports um life cycle expectations for facilities
122and then some of those um sfob life cycle requirements because what how long they think a building will last isn't necessarily how long the building will last uh so it's very important to make sure that we we know what those life cycle should be so we can plan ahead when something's going to last 50 years we need to make sure it lasts 50 years uh we also uh gathered staff input so these were just a few of the items um that we reviewed through that committee process in order to bring a recommendation to the board what was identified um through that process was that um the builtmore main campus Building is 70 years old the lifespan for a building is uh 46 to 60 years so we've already outp uh Pac that published lifespan from
123sfob lomalinda main campus Building is 75 years old and then we also have many campus buildings around the district that need remodeling or structural repair um um our life cycle projects are those ongoing projects as we said weatherization HVAC Roofing playgrounds we need to continue to maintain our bus fleet so that we have safe operating vehicles for our students the district has um gone forward with an energy savings project that the board approved through vary uh that's a part of these Bond dollars the Safety and Security project which is bringing the safety um up to a districtwide standard at all of our campuses so that we have a minimum standard to meet for that and just grow from there and then uh any technology upgrades would be included in these Bond dollars we have a
124big focus on cyber security so the recommendation coming before the board is the fiscal stewardship committee brings a recommendation to the kraton governing board to approve the call for a bond election providing the necessary funding to address ongoing needs for General and itive maintenance on all buildings replacement of major systems that have failed become unsafe or outlive their use of lives with more energy efficient models construction or renovation of school buildings to include the replacement of dilapidated structures districtwide Safety and Security improvements and upgrades improvements to school grounds Furniture technology and equipment to replace or supplement worn out unsafe or outdated items replacement of our oldest student transportation vehicles and an energy saving solar and and shading project the committee supports a bond that saves taxpayers money over the life of the bond and allows
125flexibility with shorter lifespan projects such as the Safety and Security project this recommendation supports a 10cent increase in the bond tax rate the prior 2016 Bond supported a 35 Cent increase in bond tax rate and with that I believe I pass it over to is it a roll call oh I need questions yeah any questions comments concerns the only thing I found is in the um is uh the sample ballot has a random question mark those draft items as we build the after there's just some random typos everything else looks amazing items will be uh gone through with our bond Council and um the experts and so some of that information is uh put in there after uh the board calls for the election so if we if we're looking at this amount um we
126do have Representatives here for any questions also okay thank you because I know last time we talked about it um only Built more was uh discussed as far as Renovations um or re builds and now I see Lolinda on here as well which I'm happy to see because when we did this last time it was between lck and lalinda um so is the looking at all of the documents and everything the committee feel that both of those sites then could be addressed yes with this fond okay any other questions comments um you know I'm not a math person so the 10 C increase in the bond tax rate is that an on top of the 35% the 35 C increase from 2016 starting over starting over Okay cool so this is kind of like a
127home equity line of credit on the district level like we're assessing our values they're giving us some money we're using it to make improvements I'm trying to make this as simple as possible for people to understand I agree yeah okay I think it just Megan has good information with all of the bond tax rate and all that right yeah it is taking a loan out uh through the sales of bonds and as we're talking about keeping it simple and are the bonds based on your assessed values or no yes yeah okay that's why I was like okay this kind of just feels like when you're improving your house okay yeah Madam president and members of the board um executive staff uh thanks for being letting us be here tonight I'm happy to answer any questions
128but yeah a bond I mean it's similarly I guess it's not how I would put it but I get what I get how you're equating it but yeah your bond tax rate is already in place so you have existing Bonds in place that have been sold and when they sell it's like your mortgage your home mortgage like your principal and interest payments are locked in um and so those repayments stay the same unless you were to refinance your home mortgage so those rates and um those dollar amounts are already locked in and based on your current assessed value and what the existing bonds are you have a tax rate of a126 on your bonds and so what we're proposing to do is or what we're discussing um is Raising that future tax rate up to
129A1 36 to help support um getting the district $85 million for these projects over the life of six to eight years thank you thank you the plan also saves taxpayers over the lifespan of the bond approximately 3 million dollar okay cool yeah yeah because we're increasing the rate or potentially increasing the rate you sell the bonds you advertise the bonds quicker and therefore you have a lower interest rate or sorry a low lower interest cost um saving you know what you have to pay back in debt service and um residents will not really notice a huge change because we've had this bond in place for 10 years right and I know there is some good news in the neighborhood too because we have that Big Data Center being built and that's going to contribute a
130little bit more um to the district tax burden for residents so the the burden on residents will be a little bit less less correct y thank you for coming and sitting through our meeting for back here TI thank you you we'll just have Megan come every time sure for her thank you Megan any other questions or comments I don't have any either I think we did a pretty good job at the study sessions we've had a couple meetings I think we've asked a right questions and um I think we're ready to move forward so with that being said um I I move the governing board approve the job oops wrong one I already did that I move the governing board approved the resolution calling for a board a bond election in November of 2024 second
131all those in favor I I I does it have to be roll call do we need a roll call no okay I I I I motion passes thank you and I look forward to all the work in collaboration thank you all right and our next agenda item is the budget information update I am set up and ready to [Laughter] go so um we're heading into budget Revis revision season which is in May we'll be bringing that uh to a board meeting I believe May 7th uh for the the budget revision for our current uh 23 24 District budget um so coming in new to the process I am picking up what things have already been in place and bringing some information to add to our process but there were some changes that have been um
132happening and we started seeing them in the new AFR requirements so we saw this last year so you'll remember when we brought the AFR we were like oh my gosh they changed the forms they didn't give us notice there were a lot of items on there that um there was a lot of confusion on many District's Parts on on what Our obligation was um they actually told us after the the deadline to post our AFR that some of those items were optional um but the consensus out there and the information that we're getting is that these are optional items right now but they're heading toward required so we're anticipating some of this may be required in our next AFR and it's regarding fund balance management and fund balance balance reserves so um you know just
133some things to be keeping in mind as we go through a a budget development and um and some of those considerations that I'm looking at as I'm building the budget scenarios and the different options that may be available to us to do the things um that that the board and the District administration is focused on so I wanted to couple cover a couple areas um those new AFR requirements some budget scenarios and start talking about maybe some trigger language option excuse me options um I know that there uh is interest in our budget balance carry forward process and our fund balance reserves which we will need to uh develop and then future budget development considerations and then just you know kind of tying that back the way that we manage those uh budgets do have
134um some reflection in our bond credit rating and how well we do when we sell those bonds so just trying to tie it all together there so tonight's informational piece um is in the hopes that over some time as we go through I'll give you some information and what to expect in the May revision but then also be working towards uh per chance developing a governing board policy that helps to direct the budget development process so that it's very clear and transparent so those new um AFR requirements this was the section it's uh asked about a lot of different funds that we don't typically report out anything other than uh beginning fund balance revenues that came in expenditures that went out ending fund balance um this section was required uh there was no notification and
135we didn't necessarily have a plan or a process to answer the questions that were being asked of us um because it isn't something that one person like a budget Creator could answer these are things that need to be developed through our budget process um the optional questions were talking about and it's very tiny but it's like what is your fund balance Reserve process or policy there are districts that do have um some of these pieces already written into policy so this was optional in FY 2223 may be required 2324 we're still waiting to find out um the intent stated intent is to create a more transparent fund balance management process but there is some concerns with how um when we talk about information not necessarily being used with the intent that's put out there um
136there are some concerns with how this information may be used uh in a state that maybe doesn't have as much support to public education as others um so that's kind of what is triggering some of these conversations and the future information that I'll be bringing to the board is trying to develop what does that process look like in kraton and working with the board and our stakeholders to develop something that again is very transparent so as a part of that it's having those conversations of what happens with the budget how is it planned um what do you do with extra funding there have been Mo many budget years after we've planned the budget which I'm doing right now because as soon as we get that budget revision done for this year I need to bring
137a budget to the next year before we've even closed out this year before I even know where we're kind of sitting in the budget World um I have to produce a budget an adopt or proposed budget for the board to adopt so um after we've adopted that and let's say it's halfway through the year and the legislator legislation brings some additional revenues we don't really have a policy or a process in place to discuss what we would do with those additional revenues right now those just kind of go into the budget and they become a part of the budget balance carry forward so I've had some experience with developing language that kind of tells me as the budget Creator um when we do get extra funding where do we want to prioritize that where should
138that go and and when should it go it's not just that it's a couple extra dollars it needs to be enough dollars to make some difference uh so during that budget revision process we have a December revision um that's when we have some opportunities to say and develop some options with maybe our meet and confer team that talks about contingency language and these are all just options and ideas that we'll throw out there as we develop this budget process over time um so we could say something that if that extra funding is in excess of a percentage of this amount of this particular information piece it would trigger for an example a 1% onetime payment to all staff you know there are things that we can do to take make sure that those dollars go
139to where the priorities are um if it's not in some contingency language it could be assigned to a budget committee like the fiscal stewardship committee um or we could take recommendations back to meet and confer there's a lot of places we can go to determine as a group what are we going to do with these additional dollars that were not in the original budget process the other option is leave that in um in the budget and it rolls for with our budget balance carry forward um in December the board will receive a letter from the state that says that our budget is in excess of 1% higher than the adopted figure then we have to do a budget revision if our budget is not in excess of 1% meaning that we really were on Target
140and uh we projected our numbers very well for student enrollment very difficult and a declining enrollment situation um then we don't have to do a budget revision I'll remind the board this year we did not have to do a budget revision because uh prior budget Builders um Mr Man and Dena our Director of Finance did an excellent job putting together a budget that was spoton um I don't know that I've ever not gotten the letter so thought that was pretty uh fantastic um and so before the December revision you have some options and opportunity uh that we could develop some trigger language after December um it's just it's really too late so by the time we have to do our final May revisions if numbers have changed if our student um enrollment is recalculated not
141at the level that we thought it would be or other factors that can affect your budget by made it's it's just too late for any kind of trigger language what we would do is just roll that into the budget balance carry forward so this is the letter um it's published after October 1st it's addressed to the governing board um again it's if you exceed that 1% of the calculated budget bug limits and they require you to do a budget revision um it's the time for us to make some decisions budget balance carry forward that's um so our memo budget is determined by some our student counts our enrollment and some Transportation miles and that creates the formula that creates the dollars that come into our m&o budget um our budget is increased with a 15%
142M override uh passed in 2022 by our voters those overrides are for seven years with onethird reduction to each um in years six and seven it goes down by a third we will need to renew by year five to prevent that onethird reduction so when you're looking at a budget uh building process it's just always good to keep in mind that those override dollars are not a for certained um amount you don't always necessarily pass those overrides um but in this case we've got a few years to uh not have to worry about going out for another election or trying to pass another override so that is built into the budget process the budget balance carry forward is the amount of unspent budget and any prior budget balance carry forward so if you have a
143budget of $32 million and then you have some override dollars of let's say eight million and so you have A40 million budget if we spend 38 million 2 million is unspent out of the budget that would create a budget balance carry forward that then gets to come into the next year um this calculation if you're interested when I bring um some of these budget items to the board that's on page seven of the budget is where you can kind of see the details of that moving forward budget balance carry for is onetime monies so when you move that that two million once you spend it it's gone it's doesn't keep moving forward they're one-time dollars so creating policies and practices regarding these fund balance reserves are going to create also a positive credit rating outcome
144for debt issuance and that's where I was saying if we have good fund balance Reserve policies or procedures it really um helps us when it comes time to assign a rating to us from standard and poor or Moody's before we go out to sell bonds they want to see that you're managing your reserves properly uh and so I would want to make sure that the very least we're at the same reserves or level of reserves that we were um I believe we had a good like an AA rating at our last Bond sale so um we'd want to at least maintain that level of fund balance uh to ensure a good credit rating uh this is Page seven of the budget very tiny but um this is where all these numbers come to play and
145then you can see um on this s page there first page budget balance carry forward from the prior year there's the 8.6 million so this is a very busy sheet and I think it's the maybe one of the top three slides in this presentation for information um budget balance carry forward I've heard a lot of different things in the district I don't know if there's a lot of understanding how it works um but uh the things that affect budget balance carry forward so we did as we've spoken to the board in the past have a a very intent intenal process that we um accumulated some budget balance carry forward with the purpose of ensuring that we maximized our M dollars during the time period that we had Esser dollars um and then also um held
146those in reserve for when those items that were being covered with those additional monies move back into the M budget so it was a a process it was developed it was discussed through meet and confer um and I walked into a very good situation where we did have that budget balance carry forward um accumulated to handle very specific things coming back into our budget after Esser funds are sunsetting um so the items that can affect the total amount of budget BS Carri forward are going to be those uh recaptured M cost as Sr money Sunset one-time payments to our prepaid health insurance it's very important that we have a focus there so that we can maintain that District coverage levels if you uh don't put a focus there then what you will see is an
147increasing cost to our staff um as healthc care costs increase so as much as possible you want to navigate that with some interest earnings and that prepaid health insurance allows us to navigate that area um obviously we always have a focus on classroom dollars but in these future budgets I also have a focus on sofg driven expenditures so I think it's very important that we start talking and and about what do those dollars look like how much are we holding in reserve what you know how do we determine how those are directly supporting sofg goals those conversations need to happen so a very common way of uh managing fund balance and creating policies and practice is to create percentages of various elements um budget balance carry forward used to be restricted by the state to
148only to no more than 4% um there was a big push back from school districts that we they were constantly not able to perform in manage um emergencies or um the flexibility for those unseen needs we would have never gotten through covid with a 4% budget balance carry forward in fact I don't think most people can get through just the regular stuff non-co with a 4% um so it was eliminated in 2016 so where I found sustainable budget balance carry forward percentages fall looking through other districts and other District policies other District practi IES um kind of just finding that commonality it falls anywhere between 15% to 30% and that was before covid um as we talked about we had an intentional increase to budget balance co uh carry for during the four years of
149Esser funding so ours ended up this year currently at 22.7 one% that was that $8.6 million that you saw that was used to build this year's budget I won't know our budget balance carry forward into the next budget until we're done spending in this year that plan when I gave you this sheet you'll see that I had a budget balance carry forward Target spend down so that spend down was a 5% spend down of that se um that 22% to get us to the 17.71% for this year's budget which brings us to the 6.6 million which left $2 million to take to meet and confer and um I felt very confident in that number um those are for ongoing non onetime this these are not one-time expenditures that we took to meet and confer so
150what that means is that we're bringing those dollars at $2 million back into our budget that we haven't been spending so if our budget was 40 million let's just say we we spend 36 million we're going to bring 2 million back into our budget and go up to 38 million for our annual expenditures it's not that cut and dry and it's not that black and white I just want to say that it's not simple but it kind of is simple you know it is math um so that's how the $2 million came to be to take to meet and confer because that brings us to a 17.71% of budget balance carry forward this doesn't include how much will the complete amount that will be reduced uh as Esser funding sunsets um so we do know
151that we have those existing expenditures that have to come back in that was built into our budget also um what I'm recommending is creating a percentage phase down as we go through the Sesser sun setting to where we reduce the amount of budget balance carry forward down to something that I feel will be sustainable and provides good fiscal uh budgetary health for the district allows us to deal with unforeseen emergencies um right now we're dealing with the fact that our title dollars are being cut in we don't know where that's going to end up so when you have necessary um programs and Staffing and then they cut it what does a district do if you don't have additional dollars to support those programs and processes so um you know you always have to have some
152flexibility built in there I'm putting one option out there is that we move to a 20 to 30% um budget balance carry forward and that is of our Revenue control limit that's what tells us how much dollars we can bring in in a budget um so what I'm recommending for 2425 is a 20 to 30% I think that we're going to end up on the low end of that when we get done with this um fiscal year uh I believe we'll be right around the 20% um and that gives us next year to finalize Esser sunsetting so it gives us a little bit of cushion that was built over time specifically for that purpose and then I'm looking to move us to a 25 to TW and 25 26 to maybe a 15 to 20%
153and then in 26 uh 27 and ongoing a 12 to a 15% um percentage of budget balance carry forward that then puts us right in the bucket of not being saving or intentional about saving up those dollars for a specific purpose it just puts us in the operating ongoing of a budget management policy or process um obviously all of this is kind of up for conversation as we go through a budget development process but I just wanted to kind of get on paper something that I thought was sustainable that made sense that was in alignment with what other districts do and to express that I I've been in plenty of districts that did not have a policy I feel that our future is going to need one and before someone tries to put one want
154on us I think we should develop our own something that works for kraton something that works for supporting the initiatives that we're looking forward in the future to do and that's what these percentages will do um as we were talking about that budget development I just want to let you know I'm going to bring that final revision on May 15 we need to bring our Pro proposed and um have a adopted Budget prior to June 15th all of these are statutory processes these dates are um legal dates that we have to meet um and then again as we mentioned we have uh September and December potential revision um opportunities all of these uh requirements are audited by our Auditors did you get your budget approved by this date so it's you know just don't have
155it the time when we have to build budgets I've already gone over this a couple times uh with the board and