001Sorry. Anyway, >> there we go. Can you hear me? All right. Um, good evening members of the board. Dr. Hy. My name is Neil Chalmer's. I have taught in this district for 30 years, including grades 6 through 12 and including our ALC students. I am here tonight regarding the proposal to move a valuable a vulnerable population of our students who can be as uh high school age to age 21 into a building that already houses a vulnerable population ages 11 to 13. I'm here to talk about moving the ALC to Southwest. Moving the ALC to Southwest is one of the most Albertly things ever, and that is to find something that works like Southwest and say, "Hey, that works. Let's change it. To think this won't have substantial negative effects is unrealistic. And I'm sure
002parents back here and other staff will address safety and logistical concerns and the potential unintended consequences this proposal would bring. But I want to focus on the gamble that we are taking with our students education both at the ALC and at Southwest Middle School is currently something that this district gets right for our students. It's important to know that getting a school right doesn't always happen and the fact that we get this right is not an accident. Principal Tyler Johnson has transformed Southwest into a school specifically built for middle schoolers to be su to succeed. Mr. Johnson personally connects with students daily and the students really respond to him. Mr. Johnson has also developed important spaces for students to get the individual help they need. This proposal would undo much of the positive things that
003Mr. Johnson has done at Southwest. And remember, Mr. Johnson can only give 100%. This proposal asks him to give 200% and he can't do that. for the ALC. We have seen time and time again how a full-time administrator can help these students not only succeed but excel. Um when Johanna Thomas or Eric Van Brocklin were Eric Van Brocklin were full-time at the ALC, we saw less discipline problems and we saw more students graduating. So let's do that because this proposal effectively short changes our two most vulnerable populations. Those navigating early adolescence and those fighting for a second chance at their future. Asking one administrator to manage two distinct schools with vastly different needs will dilute the leadership that these schools need and that these school students deserve. >> Thank you, Neil. >> Thank you, >>
004Jill Nelson. Good evening members of the board and Dr. Hy. My name is Jill Nelson and I am also a teacher at Southwest Middle School. I am here to add to what Mr. Chmers has said about the value of leadership and the efforts of Mr. Tyler Johnson has made at Southwest. Tyler Johnson is truly the best administrator I have ever worked for. He is truly kind, does what's best for kids, and cares tremendously for his staff and students. Tonight, I'm here to say that I think moving the ALC to Southwest is a mistake. Tyler does not deserve to have two jobs given to him. The physical building itself is not set up for this. The area that the ALC would move to is a hightraic area that is used daily by our social workers, counselors,
005and special education students. We have created safe spaces for students to self-regulate and a place where students feel safe to discuss personal issues. The space also houses a large conference room and the only dedicated bathrooms for the staff to utilize. Moving the ALC to Southwest displaces the students and staff who find that area of our school invaluable. I'm a math teacher, so I'm going to leave you with some math facts to ponder tonight. Number one, the transition to middle school is already a time of uncertainty and fear for families. If this move causes about 12 families to leave the district, the loss our district would incur in state funding would have paid for a dedicated principal just for the ALC. Number two, mathematically, if you take each administr administrator to student ratio, the Southwest principal
006would be taking on way more than any other administrator in this district. In closing, leadership matters. Let's not change something that is working so well. This decision requires more thought and more consideration. Both the students and staff at Southwest and the ALC deserve better than this plan offers. Adding another school to Tyler's plate, which is already full, is not fair for any of us involved. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you, JILL. >> Casey Walters. Hello, I'm Casey Walters. Uh, I appreciated being uh on the facility task force and having an opportunity to serve as a parent, former schoolboard candidate, and someone who has attended nearly every schoolboard meeting in the last 5 years. I came in feeling very informed. We reviewed extensive data on the buildings, enrollment trends, staffing, programming, transportation, and finances.
007It was not a simple decision. It's a very complex puzzle with many moving parts, and I'm grateful for the stakeholders that took the time to participate, share feedback, and share their perspectives throughout the process. We had six meetings and two public sessions, including a survey, and we worked to evaluate how to best use our facilities while being mindful of costs and future needs. I'll admit, I initially hoped we would be removing 8th grade from the high school. It has been a very um controversial topic in the last few years. Uh but as I learned more, my perspective evolved. The reality is enrollment is declining and our costs are rising due to many different factors. Uh we cannot continue to maintain underused space. Personally, I would rather see a building closed than use valuable staff or
008student programming. Our high school offers the most available space and the proposed model of sixth and seventh as a grade uh or sixth and seventh grade school within a school is a meaningful improvement over our current setup of 8 through 12. This shift will allow us to reconfigure other buildings, creating an intermediate school for our fifth and sixth graders and consolidate elementary from four buildings to three. Every pro possible scenario was evaluated, including costs, logistics, student transitions, and long-term sustainability. Now, it's up to the admin and school board to make the best decision. Change is difficult and it's often emotional, and we cannot get stuck on past decisions. I do not want to see our taxes pay for empty buildings, and I do not want to see student programs be cut. >> Thank you, Casey.
009Uh, Craig Rosselle. >> Did I butcher that, Craig? >> No, you got it. That's >> good. Good. >> Uh, my name is Craig Rosselle and I'm a district parent and I'm here to ask that we prioritize our students development and school environment regarding the moving seventh grade. If there is any perception that the task force had meaningful community engagement, the data does not support it. Today, we were infor informed that the information online is inaccurate. The final sample size survey was 565. Though, this still only represents roughly 3.8% of the community and just 280 parents. Even if we had the numbers wrong, based on online data, the task force was not asking the right questions. Based on the questions asked, the average family couldn't have known the chase changes we'd be facing. And it is
010also unclear how accessible these were across demographics in a district with 14% non-English learners. Once the task force knew what might be coming, perhaps another survey was necessary. Simple questions. If we had to close an elementary school, would you feel comfortable with seventh grade in the high school? Would you feel comfortable with the ALC with fifth and sixth graders? We have spoken to staff members across many departments. Many have said they were unaware of the survey proposals until seeing our letters to the editor and Facebook posts. Were staff who understood who understand child development consulted? Was their input from uh school social workers and school psychologists? We understand closing an elementary school is fiscally necessary, but that does not mean abandoning the middle school model. Those are separate choices. We need to prioritize a developmental
011shield for our middlegrades, prioritizing student stability above all else, especially logistics and finances. Minimally any seat reconfiguration our district deserves our district community deserves to give meaningful input with any seat reconfiguration as well as a transparent road map detailing uh plan for grade level separation and any modification costs while ensuring we are putting student needs first. I urge you to choose a model that is scalable, fiscally responsible and most importantly developmentally safe for our children. Thank you. Thank you, Craig. Katie Roso, this is ready, right? Okay. All right. Uh, my name is Skate Rosel. I'm a district mother and a therapist. First, I want to thank the task force for their time and willingness to tackle district complexities. After only one week of immersing myself in available data and engaging in conversation, my understanding has
012grown. What started as a personal concern for my children and my clients has expanded to systemic worry. I've spoken with community members, parents, and school staff, and the message is very clear. They were either unaware or they have not felt heard. Last year, I watched elementary parents leave the district because they lost trust in their school's ability to provide an environment that would meet their child's social and emotional needs. When that's missing, families leave. We have teachers who do not enroll their own children in our district. To me, this suggests a crisis of school culture. We need to prioritize the human experience of our staff and students if we expect to retain them. As it appears now, we may be asking fifth, sixth, and seventh graders to share environments with peers which they are developmentally
013mismatched for. Playing with seats rather than appropriateness of fit. A district's financial health is sustained by retaining students, not by filling buildings that families are actively trying to avoid due to their environments. In reality, as neighboring districts start to close their open enrollment around us, our families are becoming locked in. We don't have the options. If our families have little choice other than to stay, it's imperative that we build a district that meets our needs for this entire district as well as anybody who might be incoming. I'm looking through three lenses. As a social worker evaluating systemic health, as a therapist who hears the direct fears, pressures, and struggles of our students across every background. And as a mother, looking at my own children and asking if I'm advocating for my children's development and safety
014or just their attendance. Are we choosing the best model or logistical solution? I leave you with the mission statement which is to ensure individual academic, social and emotional growth. Thank you. >> Thank you Katie >> and Jody Westerm. My name is Jodie Westerm and I'm speaking of as a parent of one graduate and two students at El Al Elbertly Area Schools. I'm also speaking from the perspective of a teacher at Austin Public Schools. In the 22 years that I've taught there, I've seen the effects of the many transitions that the buildings there have had with a kindergarten center, first through fourth grade building, 56 intermediate school, 78 middle school, and 912 high school. We saw the issues that arose from having too many transitions. Each transition requires building processes, reteing, which is especially difficult for
015ELLL students. A large number of students are new each year, making it hard for staff to really get to know students over a period of time. Parents are not as involved. It's easier for them to be less involved, and they're more inconvenience with multiple drop offs, making it difficult for larger families. Um, smaller grade levels are less role models for kids. Teachers in isol isolation are less aware of the grade level expectations of the grades following where they're at. Um large teams of teachers re resulted in unhealthy oneupmanship from um colleagues and favorite teams amongst families. Um failing kids in fifth and sixth grade were not ready for middle school. Seeing these issues have prompted changes. They closed the kindergarten center. They moved kindergarten back into buildings. The fifth and sixth grade intermediate school has
016moved back to an elementary model due to the multiple failing kids and behaviors that they experience there. Please learn from our neighbors mistakes. Um, keep larger bands of grades together. Keep appropriate ages together. Um, research shows that schools with larger grades spans and lower number of students per grade, socioeconomic disadvantaged students do better in these instances. Um, so I fear we will continue to lose students to online and open enrollment opportunities, especially if we move seventh grade to the high school. >> Thank you, Jody. >> Okay. Um, just have a couple additions to the agenda before we approve it today. Uh, we are adding 9.15 to the agenda which is the elderly education association 2025 2027 master agreement. It's an action item and also 9.16 which is a memorandum of understanding with the Albertly Education
017Association. That's also an action item. I will look for approval of today's agenda. >> Okay. is second. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. >> I oppose the same sign. Okay. Motion carries 70. Okay. Mr. Durban. >> Good evening. Thank you, Chair Clatt. School board superintendent Hy uh continuing our practice of recognizing our uh donors uh to district 241. Um as you see on the screen before you, just uh asking for approval of our March donations. Um and you see a quite a significant uh total here. Um so a lot of appreciation on a a good significant portion of this coming from the education foundation uh here in Albertly. So um just go through the list. Albertly U Education Foundation, $1,000 to the high school Tiger Pride. Uh
018$600 to Southwest for student yearbooks. Um the Lake View Heart Challenge, $60, uh going to their spe special project fund. Um Lake View um Leso, uh $500 donation to the snack cart. And then uh these that say St. Paul and Minnesota Foundation, uh I believe are through the education foundation through a trust there at the St. Paul, Minnesota Foundation. Is that correct, Mr. Score with the Ed Foundation >> to the school? Okay. >> Okay. So, the uh first one there, the large donation of $19,99343 uh to the Tiger Alumni Student Assistance Fund. So, our Tiger Fund and then a $1,565 donation towards band students to attend camp and $1,986 uh to scholarship program at Albertly High School. Uh and then we uh received donations at our concerts. So, thank you for those in attendance that
019contributed to the donations. uh received $313.30 from various uh donors there at the event. Um and the Union Center donations here, there are two of them. Uh one towards early learning tuition assistance uh there that will go to our fund for um which goes towards our early early learning programs and then uh $4,000 donation towards our spring sports uh activities. And then um the Blackbod giving fund, $42 towards the Brookside early childhood special education. And then the last one here, um, and I believe, uh, Director Schindler has brought, um, this up before, we've recognized this donation, the Navy Healthcare Foundation providing a generous donation of $13,800 to go towards our, uh, athletic trainer, our activities, and uh, coach training, I believe there is the description, but I think it was for athletic trainer uh, purposes
020there um, with the high school. So there's your list. >> So I ask for approval of those donations. >> Thank you. >> Is there a second? Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. >> I oppose the same sign. >> Thank you, Mr. Durban. Motion carries. Okay, down to the consent items. Is there a motion to accept the consent items as written? >> Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> You'll second. All right. So, we got a motion and a second. Is there any uh discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I oppose the same sign. Motion carries and that will bring us on to reports and uh Superintendent Hy, you lead us off. >> Yeah, I'm I'm going make it easy. There's enough further
021on the agenda, so we'll just skip right on over me. And I'm even going to make a Well, no, I'm not going to make that. So, we'll go right into school board. Sorry, Alandre, you'll be pretty quick. Schoolboard member reports. Let's go, Davey. Anything special? >> Sure. I don't have a whole lot to report. Um, haven't had a lot of meetings lately. I did get to tour the ALC today, which was really nice. Um, got a lot of feedback. Um, a nice view of how ALC looks. Um, it was actually really interesting. We had some questions. We had, uh, a lot of answers. And, um, it was, it was really nice to be able to tour it. and thank you for letting us do that. >> Uh no committee reports, just a lot of phone
022calls, emails, meetings. Uh thanks to the task force for all their hours and hours and hours of work. Um and look forward to that discussion tonight. Um similar comments, just very focused right now on wrapping my head around the big decisions that we're talking about tonight. um was able to tour the ALC with Davey and Gary was there too. Then went to the middle school with Gary to look at where the ALC could go and then also the high school to look at how that could be set up too. So >> lot to report but I'll keep it short. um tooken some track and the best response I got I teach uh US history at Riverland and there's a couple of there's an Austin and Oatama student that have self-disclosed their PSCO and they said
023they love coming to Albert Lee for track because of the facilities so that was pretty neat to hear took in the play and uh boy what an experience I've been singing he had it coming it I can't get it out of my head uh facilities task force curriculum committee I think there might have been a policy committee in there someplace. Met with Steve, Dr. Hy to talk about budget and the facility tours that Angie uh mentioned. Served on the administrative uh negotiations team. I want to express my appreciation to Paul and Ashley for making me feel a part of the team. I wasn't I didn't feel I was just an observer that I could make some contributions. I appreciate that opportunity. Oh, hey, I got to say one thing. A shout out to uh this
024Alahasa plug. Uh I read an article by Rice Bcher Bcher on the um uh renewal of the Klux Clan in southern Minnesota in the 1920s. I teach that in my Minnesota history class at Riverland. So I'm going to include his research in my class. So I thought that was pretty cool. And let's see. Um, and then the foundation, we met and approved the pause business. Um, I've been working with uh Kathy uh Neore about perhaps more of a presence on the school district page for the foundation just to promote our programming and opportunities to donate. I think that's adequate. >> I will also make it short. I I attended the uh spring musical and uh it was quite a performance. I was really uh really impressed with the every aspect of the production. This the
025students were really involved and they own the parts they played. It was terrific. uh met uh with Jess Hatland at the high school last week. Uh uh two as uh actually I just witnessed their selection of the recipients of this year's scholarships. Uh that's one of the u one of the uh programs of the education foundation too which uh in which I'm pretty much involved. And so that event is coming up on May 6th. Uh the awards uh presentation is going to be a little different this year. Instead of everybody meeting in the caf in the auditorium and the old audiences plagued with listening two speakers uh announce every scholarship award. Now the event will be held in in the gymnasium where there will be tables where each uh uh entity awarding scholarships will be
026stationed and the students will go to those tables and receive the scholarship and it'll it'll it'll be a much better arrangement. I think Jess did a good job of organizing this and uh the awarders of the scholarships can now have a little bit more time to have uh some communication with the recipients. um went to you. I was uh as Gary and uh Angie I believe uh attended the curriculum committee meeting. >> It was me. >> Oh, it was you. I'm sorry. I cobwebs are creeping into my mind at an increasing rate. Um the the one thing that's uh that uh stood out for me was the um Brian Blad. He's going to extend his anatomy and physiology class course from one semester to a full year, which will allow a lot more time for
027lab work, and that should be that should be pretty good. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um I was going to say the same thing. I have anatomy physiology down here, uh going from one semester to a full year. I also just want to thank um Tanya and her team. Um they do a lot of work. uh that I can appreciate grant writing and uh we know that that's grant season coming up and just the explanation around title one and title two funding the carryover opportunities um and why maybe there was some carry carryover funds so um and then um it was a little distracting because there was a track meet going on but we made it through so um and then also I am part of the PAR negotiations and I um I also serve
028on some scholarship ship uh review teams just impressive students their stories and and uh their commitment to the work was very impressive. >> Uh a couple things. First, I want to uh thank our task force committee for all the meetings you did. I was able to make about half of them. But I see a number of members year and it was a was an awesome opportunity to uh see a lot of information that uh was put together that you just might not think about when it comes to different buildings. So that was interesting and uh spent a lot of time uh the last couple weeks probably more like 10 days on some great discussion and information on what as Angie said we'll be discussing tonight a little bit with the task force recommendations. Um I
029had an opportunity to see Chicago the play and it was a lot better than I think going to the city of Chicago was awesome. They did a wonderful job. It was a lot of fun to see what the kids and uh Diane Haney could put together with their uh orchestra and everything. Uh we're in the midst of baseball, so we'll get Alandre, our manager, out of there soon. So, got a game going on now that I won't make tonight. But one last thing I just wanted to mention was I had the um opportunity to um uh from the MSBA board since I'm our treasurer for the state able to go to my first big four meeting. Basically, it's the uh associations of cities and counties and townships through the state of Minnesota. Each had representatives
030and then we did also from the MSBA. And uh had a lot of great information, but I'll just tell you one of the most fun people that I listened to was our state auditor, bright young lady, and had a great presentation. And she got to the end of this presentation, and she goes, "This is my happy slide. We're going to see probably about two to two and a quarter percent revenue increase in the state of Minnesota this next coming year. Everybody's pretty excited. And then sheepishly I raised my hand and I said, "Are you going to overset that with your projected expenses of being a little over 3%." She said, "You weren't supposed to ask that question." So, it's not just us. We see it across the state of Minnesota. and uh thank you for
031being very willing to do the things we are to try to contain our budget. But uh it didn't look too bright from the uh state end either. So enough of that. So I will move on. Let's see. Do we have uh uh let's see. Let's let's go to uh Janice Jeff, our teacher. What? Well, we were Oh, I'm sorry. Janice, I jumped over. Alandre and Carly will see. So Alandre, start away. >> Okay. So I will be leaving after the Band and Orchestra New York City presentation because I got the opportunity to go to New York City for spring break which is why I wasn't at the last meeting. But honestly New York was a lot more fun. No offense to you guys. You guys are great. But New York I it was so much
032fun and we'll get to talk about it in a little bit. But love you Dave. You're great. Um so recently um National Honor Society held a leadership conference which was a part of Austin people from Austin got to come and Alden Conger got to come too. So we got to talk about a lot of fun sessions about how to be a leader, how your influence can be a lot greater than your title and it was a great turnout um along with a clothing drive that we had last week. So, anybody was able to bring in donations. And then on Saturday from 3:00 to 7:00, we had just like a free clothing drive. And I think we had a little over a hundred people from the community come in and get a lot of clothes. A
033lot of our clothes did end up um going away to people who needed it. And then what was left over, we did donate some to the care closet and then a lot to Salvation Army, too. So, that was really good and really good turnout. and student council has Earth Day actually this Friday and it's a student council and NHS thing. So, we're all going to go out and, you know, try to clean up our area of mainly just as far as the distance we can walk from the high school to around. So, and then we also had final four March Madness because that's another big thing that our flex does with Centers Flex taking off the overall win in the dodgeball tournament, but oh well. Um, we also had the musical which was really exciting.
034I mean, Chicago is such a great play and I know that they all worked really hard. So, that's it for me. >> They need you in the dugout >> after after number eight. >> Yep. Okay, Carly. >> Okay. So this past weekend, well Thursday, Friday, Saturday, we went up to Minneapolis for the Stu National Student Journalism Convention, um our my co-editor KB won first place for her sports writing, our literary magazine 1/5, and then our newspaper um website 1/5th as well. Um it was also the 100th birthday of Quill and Scroll which is um which is um like a student organization um of newspapers um and the Alahasa is one of the founding members. We are over a hundred years old. Um and then today actually C-SPAN awarded six ALH members, LA Alhs members um
035with some prize money for their student cam videos. So Belle Bachan, Michaela Hansen, and Danica Ptorius one for theirs. And then Kira Ericson, Danny Jensen, and Addie Gilliam won for theirs. And then the Glow Run is on May 15th. It is for mental health awareness and it's put on by our um counselors or our Yeah. And then FFA state convention is today and prom is on Saturday. So that's really exciting. So that's Janice. >> All right. I've been crossing things off as I hear them spoken so they don't get repeated. Um, let's see. Fun nights at the elementary have been happening. Uh, 3rd through 11th grade are in the midst of MCA testing season. The online learning academy has reported an increase 20 percentage uh increase by 20 percentage points of credit acquisition from last
036year to this year. Um the transition program students from the transitions program are going to Rochester on the 16th to attend the annual work skills challenge day event with roughly 100 other students from southeastern Minnesota. Uh the area learning center is sending star uh students to the map stars conference on May 7th and 8th to showcase art um artistic career and life skills. And quarter 3 of 2026 was the highest number of credits earned by ALC students going back to 2018. And finally, uh during the open form, you heard from our Southwest teachers expressing concerns about the ALC uh the possibility of the ALC move to Southwest. Our ALC teachers have also sent letters and talked to several school board members uh regarding their concerns and they're very hopeful that those concerns will be taken
037into consideration tonight during the discussion. Thank you. >> Thank you, Janice. Okay, let's see. Um principal's report. Mr. Johnson. All right. Thanks for having me, board. Superintendent Hy, Superintendent Hy. Uh, today I'm just going to talk briefly to you guys uh about our lunch circle program. Uh, we were looking at our five building goals that we had for the year. Unfortunately, we won't be able to give you an update on any of those until the month of May when all those things happen. So, um, for my principal report, I just been kind of thinking about what it is that we could give you an update on. And, uh, it is our lunch circle that, uh, here we go. All right. So, uh, just a quick snippet exactly what a lunch circle is. Uh, so when
038a student is sent to the office for a mid to minor behavior, um, uh, they are more often than not assigned a lunch circle where they eat their lunch with one of our social workers. And the goal there is to work on that um that behavior um that got them sent to the office in the first place. Uh and so just a quick little timeline uh as far as uh where we are today. Um now this is just my fifth year in this role. So some of these years I had to kind of go back uh to our uh more veteran teachers. Uh and so the 2010 2011ish is uh when we uh at Southwest developed the tab or tab out process which is a form of restorative practice where again um we're not excluding
039the student from learning u but we're trying to give them uh opportunities to learn from their behaviors. And so TAB is an acronym take a break. Uh and so 2010 2011 is when that happened. 2014 uh Minnesota state law required schools to use more restorative practices in school targeted more towards at bullying incidences. Um and then 2023 2024 school year uh is when the non-exclusionary disciplinary law came into effect as well um where as you can see there mandates that schools use restorative non-exclusionary policies and practices before restoring to suspensions or expulsions. So that was the first year that we implemented our lunch circles. In the past, it was uh typically just a lunch detention where the student would eat their lunch in the office. But at that time, they weren't working on that behavior.
040They were just eating their lunch in the office. Um I also put in there, too, because uh I think it's important to note uh that that was the same year also that we uh had school resource officer Hughes here. Um he would love to come up here and talk. Uh but uh no, I'm just kidding. the uh uh so so I do think uh that obviously plays a a big role in uh the data that we're about to see as well. Um he's been a big asset to not only Southwest but uh to our district as well. Uh and then uh this last year was our first year of um doing what's called the be good people uh social emotional curriculum then as well which we do one time a week during our advisory. All
041right. Uh so I'll just explain this first slide and then I'm just going to add every year on. Um but you can see 2021 2022 that would have been my first year. So 5 years ago. Uh the first column in or row in gray shows us the number of students. Um in red is all in school suspension data. So you can see the total number of inschool suspensions. There was 73 in that school year. Uh the total days. Um so out of those 73 there's a total of 105 days. So sometimes it's a half day, sometimes it's a full day. Just depends on the uh consequence given. And then the number of students with at least one inschool suspension. Um so I put it in as percentages because our numbers um fluctuate from year to
042year. Uh and so we can see 10% of our students had at least one inschool suspension that year. And our blue is our out of school suspension data. Um so again set up the same way. It's just out of school suspension. So 75 out of school suspensions that year. Um there was a total of 273 days. Um and then 9 and a half% had at least one out of school suspension. Now there could be some students that intermix in that in school and out of school data as well. Um and then you'll see on that bottom row the total number of lunch circles assigned. We didn't have lunch circles there. So that's why it says NA. So then as we go into the following school year again exact same data just different year um or
043set up just different data. And then our first year with our lunch circles. Uh so again now we can see that there was 400 lunch circles assigned that first year. Um which does seem like a lot and it is a lot. Uh but when you have 478 students and then there's 167ish days every year um that adds up to a lot of opportunities um for that then as well. Uh and then 24 25 same data and then this year and so this year obviously still has about a month leftish a little more than a month. Uh so this data was pulled from um after Friday. Uh so our 25 2026 school year uh is just showing up until last Friday data. So those numbers will change as we finish out the year then as well.
044So so yes well I like to take the credit for this but really all I do is I hand the student the slip to have a lunch circle. So I don't necessarily do anything uh other than that. So um but again just to kind of see like exactly what we're we're working with here. So now it's just the last three years of data. Um so you can see the total number of lunch circles assigned. Um the number of students who had at least one lunch circle and then the number of students who had just one lunch circle, the number of students who had just two lunch circles, three lunch circles, and then that four or more lunch circles in as well. And then at the bottom there uh just because I think that's important as
045well is the number of students who did not receive a single lunch circle um is listed there as well. Uh and so this is a form that our our social workers have the students fill out at the end of their lunch circle as well. So that gives them feedback then as well. Uh and you can see uh on the right side there the middle two questions there is that um how can the Southwest staff better support you and then do you have a positive uh connection and adult at Southwest? Those are two important pieces as well. Um so that way if they click no on one of those questions that we can make sure that we follow up and um they can be connected with an adult. So, uh, one of the last slides here
046again, uh, this is where I just like to publicly give a big shout out to our two social workers, Miss Carrie Far and Miss, um, Steph anger Bretson. Um, they are great, uh, to work with, um, and they do great work with our students, um, both in lunch circles and outside of lunch circles, our office staff. So, um, Secretary Jill, um, you know, she takes care of all the paperwork. Jackie Klson, our dean, and of course, our school resource officer, Hughes, um, all play a big role in that. And of course, our teachers play a big role in this, too. um because without their buyin um this wouldn't um work either. Uh and they still are doing that tab tab out process and so um they do a great job too. Rachel Crosby's our counselor
047and so this year she's actually doing um what's called flex bunches and so based on um some of the students needs she actually is pulling them in during our flex time and working on those skills as well. So um it's great to see and like I said just wanted to celebrate the uh the success that we're seeing so far um with that lunch circle program. All right. And then just a few uh important dates coming up uh on the year here. Um so we do have our time capsule ceremony uh set. Uh I believe 1:30. >> Yeah. >> Well, yeah. So still working out the details, but at 1:30 is when we're going to have that ceremony um with the time capsule. So digging up the 50-year time capsule and then Mr. Schlmer's has been
048heading up the new time capsule as well. And so he's done a great job um you know organizing committees uh and those committees have committees. Uh but uh no the students are doing a really good job um with this time capsule project and it like I said it's been led by Mr. Talmer's as well. So >> and we're hoping to find the old one sometime soon. >> Yes, we got to there's looking at pictures and trying to match it up and back in the day it was a ramp. So yes, trying to figure out where that is but I think we'll get to it. >> Uh May 14th, 1976. Yes. So, and then we will uh our exploratory day is that last Friday of the school year as well. So, students got that catalog last
049Friday. So, um and then our pickum will be that May 1st, that first Friday of May. So, it's always an exciting time for our students as well. All right, that is all I have. Is there any questions or any questions for uh Principal Johnson? Thank you very much. Okay, we've got 8.1 uh band orchestra New York City presentation. Suzanne Mower. >> Yep. >> Uh hello. Good evening. Uh we took about not about we took 39 kids and four chaperons to New York over spring break. Uh we left on March 13th, hopped on a bus, stayed overnight on that bus. Uh and headed out. So go ahead and flip to the next slide or do I get to do that? Yay. >> I can be the clicker. >> Oh, good. You be the clicker. Long as
050it works. >> Uh so our first uh day we headed right out to the Statue of Liberty. um took a boat out to Statue Island. We also visited Ellis Island. Um the kids had a great time with that. It was beautiful weather. >> It was windy but wonderful. Yes. >> But better than some of the other days. >> Uh and go ahead. Yeah. >> We took a group picture at the Statue of Liberty. It is hard to get everybody in one place at one time multiple times, but we did manage. Uh so that is our Statue of Liberty and uh we actually started that day in New Jersey, took the boat to Statue Island, Ellis Island, and then the boat back to the New York side. Uh and then we walked up to the 911
051Memorial and Museum. And that was uh very moving. I think the kids did really well with that. It's a tough subject. Um, but the museum is done amazingly well. Um, one of our chaperrons was kind enough to bring several uh flags and little flower bouquets with little things that we could tie on and make a message. Um, and you can see in the right-hand picture uh some of the things that we left there at the memorial. It >> it's a living thing, so it it continually gets things added to. There's a nice blending of um what am I looking for? Like stuff and like people describing what happened. So it was a really good blend of that. >> And uh we had dinner in Little Italy that night which was great. Then we went to
052the top of the Empire State Building and we were extremely happy that we had the weather we did that day because the next day it rained and we would not have seen anything if we had been at the top of the Empire State Building that day. Okay, feel free to pop in anytime if you have something to add. Um, the next morning we went to the Museum of Broadway, which was very cool. And, uh, we knew in a couple of days we were going to see Wicked. So, that was really interesting. They actually have that three-dimensional model of the entire backstage of Wicked in the Museum of Broadway. So, that was really interesting to see ahead of time. And then I had to throw in the picture on the right because uh when we were
053in the Museum of Broadway, I saw see that shoe hanger. Okay. What's inside of that is mic packs and I saw that and went what? That is the best. So during Chicago the musical, we had our very own shoe holder with all the mic packs in it and it worked beautifully. So I that was one of the things I took away from our New York trip and brought back with me. Um we went on a tour of Radio City Music Hall which was a really interesting tour. They're great tour guides and just that space is amazing. Um and that was fun. We got to meet a rocket and have her picture taken with her. So that was fun. Uh we had lunch around that area and then we headed out to our performance. Um, we
054performed at the Care One at the Koopa in Pamis, New Jersey. Uh, which is senior center. You can see up in the top right, uh, sort of a side view of our audience. Um, the audience was great. The kids did great. Took us a really long time to put the drum set together. So, we really didn't get to warm up together at all. Uh, so I was impressed because also, if you do the math, this is like day three, so they haven't played since Friday and now it's Monday. Um, and they did a fantastic job. When we were done performing, uh, we had them go out and chitchat with residents and they did an awesome job with that and made some connections. Even found some people who were from Minnesota who had moved out there.
055So, >> every person there was like, "These are fabulous kids. They sound so amazing." And we were very well represented um, over there. >> Uh, we had some New York pizza that night and then we headed to Madame Tuso's. You can see a few of our uh famous friends there. Kids had fun with that. Uh the next day was St. Patrick's Day, so it took us a really long time to get through the Lincoln Tunnel. Um we were supposed to walk around Central Park a little bit and we were still on the bus, so we kind of missed that. Uh but we went to the Museum of Natural History, which is huge and has just tons of stuff. There's some friends there with our Moai sculpture. Um, and then we also had lunch there and
056then we headed on to a Lincoln Center tour. So, we got to see Giuliard. We saw Alice Tully Theater or Alice Tully Hall. Um, the one that's Avery Fischer Hall, but it has a different name now. I don't know what it is. Um, and the New York City Ballet Theater. And what was cool is there was actually stuff going on in the halls. So, um, we saw a choir rehearsing in Avery Fischer Hall and, uh, you can kind of see a few of the little, uh, ballet friends down there from the New York City Ballet, uh, in that theater. So, that was exciting. Uh, then we headed to Times Square and we had a little bit of free time there in Time Square where they could go, you know, lots of them went to the
057M&M store, the Nintendo store, that kind of thing. Um, and then we met at the Hard Rock Cafe for supper that evening before going to Wicked on Broadway, uh, which everyone just loved. And there were some kids who had never been to anything like that before who absolutely fell in love with it and are like want to go back and go to more musicals. So, that was really cool. Um because you know you don't you don't always know who's going to all of a sudden pick up on that. Um the kids were literally amazing. They were so fantastic. They were perfect little angels basically the whole time. I couldn't believe it. They didn't even get crabby at the end. No. >> Like this ride was fabulous. We didn't have to wait for anybody. They came
058on time. Every single location. Albert Lee Kids. We are fabulous. And then right after Wicked, we hopped on the bus and headed for home. And we managed to miss all of the weather. The day before we left, it was >> 60 mph winds. The day after we left, there was a blizzard. But we hit it perfectly. So, I kept waiting for something to go wrong on this trip and it just never did. It was, you know, there's always something, but there just wasn't. It was an absolutely fantastic trip. Alandre, >> was actually so much fun. I actually never really liked Wicked on like a movie and then I'm like I was so skeptical to go watch it on Broadway, but then I'm like, "Okay, now I understand." Um, it was actually so fun. I even
059got to catch a little bit of that St. Patrick's Day parade. Um, got a random little shirt in Little Italy, which might may or may not say mommy's little meatball in the slideshow. And I think I would totally go back to New York if I had the opportunity to >> um it's a 20our drive. So 20 hours plus stops. It took us about >> a day, 24 hours to get there. Yeah. So >> yeah, but they bonded on the bus. It was good. >> Anything else? Awesome. >> Thank you. >> Okay, we're at number nine, effective and efficient operations. 9.1 is a district task force committee presentation recommendation. Dr. Hy and S Bagley. S. >> Hello. Good evening. Um, thanks for having us. Um, some words already got said earlier tonight, but I wanted to
060kind of uh emphasize the thanks to the task force. Several members are here this evening. Several of you were observers to the process. And even for those who couldn't be here with us tonight, um, it was a commitment of time. We had six meetings that were each hour and a half, two hours. There was out of um, task force meeting time, you know, homework assignments. Um, and I know people thought about it a lot and talked about it a lot. Um, because there was always a a healthy, robust amount of questions at the beginning of every meeting. Um, also with me is my colleague Tyler Erdle over here. Um, so if um I'm going to go through this kind of as fast as I can with giving it the respect it deserves, but we had
061more than 12 hours of meetings and I would guess we don't want to be here for 12 hours. So um, so I'll keep it high level, but we can always dive in deeper. Um, and certainly Dr. Hy, if you want to jump in anytime, please do. Okay. Um, so we're gonna for an agenda today. >> Oh, okay. Sounds good. Um we will go over the overview um purpose and outcome of the task force. We'll talk a little bit about the timeline. Um we will talk uh quite a bit about capacity and enrollment which was obviously one of the key drivers for uh the task force to be commissioned. Um we will get through some of the consensus the task force formed things that were close to consensus but not um fully formed. Um and then
062some of the realities that we had to spend a lot of time talking about. Um, I appreciated many of the comments that were said at the beginning of the meeting and um, we had discussions like that at the task force and change is hard and um, we spent a lot of time talking about disruption and appropriateness and things like that. Um, we eventually came to what seemed like three plans. Um, there were kind of tessillations of those plans at times um, and a final recommendation as well as um, next steps and action. and then if we need to get into it um we do have the full capacity analysis kind of as an addendum. Um so the overview and purpose for the task force was to study how the district facilities and operational costs can
063align with your current and future needs. Um so that task force spent a lot of time analyzing data. Um Casey mentioned it in her comment earlier today, but um kind of the first two or three meetings were pretty data intensive, a lot of um reviewing of data. Then the middle of the process was a lot of discussion about um you know what could we do about it, brainstorming of ideas and options and kind of the back third was analysis of those options and um the pros and cons of them. Um and then our most recent meeting at meeting six was where these kind of three um three um paths emerged. So the intent was to have a um you know set of recommendations to guide facility planning for the next decade um as we want
064to effectively support teaching and learning while being fiscally responsible. Um so to start the task force um Tyler and I started meeting with the district about almost a year ago. I think it was July or June of last year um to do a facilities study. So we looked at capacity as well as condition of the buildings. We did spend a lot more time in the task force talking about capacity but I can talk about condition if anybody would like tonight. Um kind of another key point uh that we spent a lot of time talking about, not a surprise to anyone here, um is that the district is projected to decline in enrollment and continue to face budget pressures and any ideas to um reexamine or save on operating costs were an intended outcome. Um and
065then we did have some moments for community input. We had some in-person meetings. We had survey um and then we also did ask task force members to please communicate and talk to their um colleagues, families, and friends. um overview and Paul jump in if you'd like to at all here. Um some key points I think probably everyone on the board is well aware of these but always good to revisit for the audience. Um that the district is in a stable financial position um but did not meet your balance fund balance target last year. Um traditional response to declining enrollments is to reduce staffing. And there's some notes here on reductions that were done in um past couple fiscal years and the anticipation for the upcoming um and kind of if nothing is done that that
066fund balance will be depleted within two years, right? Um well, you also talked about educational impact and what is um important to maintain. So, we talked about minimizing impact to the classroom and um class size implications, minimizing impact to educational programming, um increasing staff effectiveness, finding creative solutions um for long-term success, and building a continuum for the district to serve kind of all age levels from preK and probably your daycare all the way up to adult education. Um brief overview of timeline. Um we were at the board meeting in September to do a um presentation of the findings of the facility study. Um we did a update to the finance committee right before that. Um and that also was the night that we reviewed the charge statement for the task force. Um and actually a
067version of this timeline um ended up being slightly different um but pretty darn close. Um in October um is when we started looking more at the condition of the district's buildings. Um and then that is when we had task force application invitations out. Um during November um we that I should just say that facilities um condition study took a couple of months. Um but we did have meetings number one and two for the task force in November. They were approximately two weeks apart um and about two hours each. Um then in December we had task force meeting number three. Um and we had some initial survey results. We were displeased with the um volume at that time and I think I can speak for the whole task force. I'm here as facilitator, right? um that
068everybody wanted as much engagement as possible and so we actually decided at that meeting that we wanted the survey to live out in the public for longer. We wanted more results. Um so more publishing and advertising was done. Um then at the beginning of this year we looked over those um results um and uh the community input sessions that were had during the month of January. We had two options. There was a lunchtime option one day and then an evening option a couple days later. Um and then we started looking at initial concepts in January and we'll get through some of that later in the presentation. Then the task force loot went on a little bit of a hiatus for about five six weeks. Um so we had gotten enough out of them for the
069administration to go study and look at pros and cons and impacts. I'll talk a little bit about some of those specific conversations later. And then we got back together recently um to kind of um I don't know share what we've learned, get task force further input and then prepare for this evening. The intent would be uh that going forward um there'd be continued updates on planning um and elementary school combinations and of course any any planning for school closure decisions and things of that nature. So we're not at the end of the road here. We're in the middle of the process. As I go into capacity and enrollment, um I do want to emphasize um you know that we could pull an enrollment chart probably every single day and it's slightly different than the day
070before, right? Um but I think you know macro trends have not changed. We did provide the task force um or I should say Paul provided the task force with I think two or three different um enrollment projections as they came into view. All kind of telling the same story but of course it changes with every every individual family's choices. Um so to start with that um here is a chart of the buildings that the district currently has serving um grades K through 12. Um in the blue is the target capacity. Um, so that is really the capacity of the facility if we're at that kind of ideal planning class size. And then the max capacity is in the red column. Um, that's really if like every classroom is at its kind of maximum recommended class
071size. Um, so you can choose to think of it as a range. Um, we generally with the task force talked about um, using the target for planning purposes, right? We're not planning to be at that maximum capacity. So across your four elementary schools, you have a capacity for 1562 students. Um at Southwest Middle School, 668 and then um at the high school 1515 for a total of uh 3745 seats. Um this this data was presented to the task force a couple of different times. Um just what um by building, by grade level, what section counts were looking like. Um so in addition to looking at things in a more I might go back one kind of building wide level we did start looking at you know what are class sizes across your elementary schools in
072particular um what are the drivers to why they might vary um so you can see here an example we've got Halverson and Hawthorne here um the day that this was pulled which I think was um about a week ago um you can see the number of sections at each of these buildings in each of the grades for example and what the average class size was um And so this was provided to the task force um for comparison sake across the four elementary schools as we talked about discrepancies and why some buildings might have higher class sizes than others. Um here's the overall across all kind or um K through five uh grade levels across all four buildings. So you can see the number of kindergarten, first grade, second grade, etc. sections that you have and
073then the average class size. Again, that average does not speak to every building having that experience, but if you normalize across all four, um, similar data was reviewed for um, your secondary buildings. You can see that information here. So, we were trying to keep the task force kind of as apprised as possible of um, what life was looking like. Um, and we did do some comparisons. I I went over this at our uh, presentation in September um, uh, to uh, MDE guidelines. And then we spent a lot of time looking at enrollment projections. So this is a big chart of numbers, right? Um it's the enrollment projections and history for the district. Um I believe we've had one uh substantive change or update to this during the task force process which they got to see.
074Um but the way to read this chart is that all of the grade levels are on um they are in the rows. You can kind of go top to bottom to see those. And then years are the columns. So across the top um so it goes back to 201819 and then um we've got 20 2025 through 2030 as projections. Obviously we're living in the 2526 school year right now. Um and then at the very bottom you can see the anticipated percent change. So high level you can see that over the next four years the way this chart would show would show a slight um decline every single one of those years. Um, we've spent some time talking about um, you know, what that might look like across your facilities. We've spent some time talking about
075which um, kind of grade cohorts are your large ones. Um, so in general um, you are exiting larger 12th grade classes than you have entering kindergarten classes. Um, and so that's often talked about as like a structural imbalance, right? That will naturally lead to decline every year even if all the other grades were the same, right? So, we looked at this um at almost every meeting with the task force and like I said, we we did a major update at one point when we had gotten a recent one. I think that was in February. Yeah, February, we'd gotten a an updated didn't really tell a different story, but every time we got new data, we try to share it. Um so then, um if you look at this chart, so this is those same target
076and max capacity columns. So, no change to those. Um but a couple things added to it just to help you kind of put it into context. So the third column over in the green um was current enrollment at least at the day that the task force looked at it. Um and then the last column in the kind of the orange um would be how full is the building and again that's compared against the target not the max. Um so you can look down every any individual building and see how it compares against its capacity. Um so the task force spent a lot of time talking this and then of course at the bottom um being at 76% of your target capacity as a organization or a system. Um in case looking at charts isn't your
077thing we can certainly look at um graphs. So this is K through five capacity versus enrollment. Just a brief explanation. So that target capacity is the green dotted line. The max is blue. Again, that would be every class at kind of that max class size, which is not what we planned around. Um, and then the enrollment projection in the orange. Um, so you can see that slight decline um for grades 6 through 7. And then lastly, grades 8 through 12, which of course is your current grade configuration, how your buildings are being used, and then K through 12. Um, we did spend a little time at our first meeting talking about ND MDE guidelines. So, Minnesota Department of Education. This is not a big driver of task force decisions, but um, some discussion about if
078we were planning schools today, for example, what size would we plan for? And so, just to teach people how to read this quickly, on the very right hand side, you can see the Minnesota Department of Education has what they call square foot per student guidelines. Um, and they are ranges. Um, and they are ranges for a reason to allow for some variation. And then there are actually different ranges depending on building size. So these are for your size building. Um, so you can see Halverson um the recommended MD range for an elementary school of approximately 500 students um is 125 to 155 square foot per student. Um right now for example you have a little bit over 200 square foot per student there. So again just other benchmarks to look against. Obviously, we are not
079in the position of looking to replace all the buildings with new buildings, but it is um I think helpful things to put um your facilities um challenge in context. Um so I mentioned a little bit when I went through the timeline, but um we kind of had a trajectory of the task force of learning about facilities and capacity and financial pressures and things of that nature. um input phase and a lot of ideas brainstorming and then the last third kind of the last two meetings we're more trying to decide what what are rational solutions that could actually um help help us with these challenges. So I'm going to go through some summary of those and we can dive into any of them if people would like. Um so the kind of the things that were
080agreed upon um were that um we want to use space as efficiently as possible. Um, we did want to reduce or limit overall disruption to the district as much as possible. So, I'll just maybe take that bullet point to say that there were six or seven other options that you're not going to see in the presentation tonight. Um, that were very disruptive kind of everybody up and moving to another building and, you know, people had ideas of, oh, would that solve or would that fill that building up better or what would that do? And, um, just very disruptive. And so, they did not make the cut in the end. When we looked at the pros and the cons, um it became pretty clear to the task force that reducing a site, possibly an elementary site
081given population, makes sense. Um they tried on, like I said, lots of configurations for sizes to try to um determine what would make the most sense. Um we spent some time talking about a plan will take multiple years to implement. Um so there might be kind of a phase or a stage one and then a phase or a stage two as you watch what your enrollment does. Um, so if it declines as the projection says today, you might have different choices in the future. Um, if it stabilizes or if it were to reverse and you were to be in a slight growth situation. So obviously want to be nimble. Um, wanting to limit impacts to academic and co-curricular programming as much as possible. That's one of the reasons why facilities are being talked about, right?
082If we don't talk about facilities changes, all of your um, budget reallocations will have to come from more of the academic or co-curricular side. So kind of the kind of the whole reason the task force existed. Um and then of course look for ways to expand programming and the efficiencies, right? Kind of the opposite of could we make it even better. Um so then some of the more near consensus items um heard about a little bit of them um earlier in the meeting tonight and um strong debate in the task force um survey results split on some of these topics, right? Um but wanted to make sure to address them. Um, so there was some strong voices throughout the process that eighth graders developmentally don't fit well at the high school. Um, it was kind
083of determined that that is that is appropriate, right? Especially the way it's being done today. Um, and that eighth grade students need that middle school philosophy and shouldn't be viewed as high school students. That's not really how programming is being delivered for them today. Um, and then there was al oops didn't mean to click that way. Um, an alternate belief um that the high school should absorb 7th grade and become a 712. um and some some thoughts around that being appropriate with the caveats of not doing it just the way you're doing eighth grade, right? And I'm going to get into that. I think it's my next slide. Um so the challenge and I'll I probably won't read all the numbers to you. If you look at the bottom two bullet points, so the high
084school, if we took eighth grade out, as many in the community survey wanted to do, um is well under capacity. So in the 2728 school year, um you'd be at 65% full there. and at the 30 31 so the enrollment projection a few years down the road um you'd be at 62%. And then with seventh and eighth grade you get much closer to that target capacity but of course it's more complicated than just numbers and does it fit. Um so as we talk about and Dr. Hil if you want to jump in any more here I'll I'll go over it and then you can give your commentary. um you know the many of the viable options studied well all of our options we're trying to figure out how do we use our buildings better right
085um so the three routes I'm going to dive more in detail today um all consider a 712 model at the high school um like I said alternative options really um can either just moved the problem to a different building um or really left the the high school being underutilized and as one of your biggest buildings is a is a huge drag on your budget Um so the priorities that were discussed and would need further discussion and planning um was to maintain age appropriate curriculum and ensure a clear separation between 7th and 8th grade and 9th through 12th. So not just do they fit but can we actually have a um school within a school type experience at the high school. Um, so some topics that have been discussed about is having a middle school model
086with its own principal and dean, its own schedule, lunch, electives, um, you know, physical separation within the building for core classes as opposed to or separate or distinct from the high school model, which would be principal, um, assistant principal and dean, their own schedule, lunches, etc. um some items that probably make sense to do together like yearbook and student council um dances and age appropriate activities being separated um to try to use this as an opportunity to embrace um the educational benefits that could come from it. So the electives that could be offered to seventh grade um for example um the connection to activities which are already in many cases starting at seventh grade um and we I I didn't talk about it much in this presentation but we did do a lot of study
087of other districts and what they're doing and how they're doing it. Um and so Delano and Redwing both are um districts that have operated with a 7 through 12 >> is there anything you want to add to that? >> So conversations because of course it doesn't just exist with me. So working with our administration um and there's there's two big middle school guys in the district. Myself very middle school trained um and Tyler. Tyler is a very middle school uh minded principal. Conversations that we had is um he would absolutely like the challenge of the 78 middle school. So, him and I have talked about um if we proceed forward with this um getting him to work as a 78 middle school principal, providing him with a dean um working through the bell schedule in
088combination with Sean at the high school, taking the 912 uh with Amy Steels the AP and then another dean um and working on those schedules. So, um I owe Tyler a couple emails on on a couple schedules that I've used uh myself um in this um grade configuration. Um but that that's kind of the basis of of kind of how we're looking at this. The other piece is um and I I call them e- house or e-wing is securing one of those either first or second floor um and putting the majority of the core classes for middle school students in there. Um and that will um not eliminate but limit uh the mixing the the areas that you run into and I can tell you from being at Delano um is they have one science
089area too because those are very specialized classrooms. Um so those students would um in the Delano model walk up uh the school to um the science area. Um they also share the same music areas um pieces like that. So um with this model um then that allows you to run that intermediate school uh fifth and sixth grade um at the southwest campus. Um, and I've talked a little bit with some of the music department, not all of it, about how expanding programming could bring that instrumental music down and really start to focus on that fine arts part of the music um along with um in seventh and eighth grade potential uh for uh foreign language. So, there's a lot of of fairly easy Whoops. a lot of fairly easy steps that we can take there.
090The key in the situation though is having that principal who's in charge of 78. Um you'll find uh schools that um don't delineate that out and that's how I had it at Delano. I had an assistant principal that was in charge of 78 and an assistant principal that was in charge of 912. It's a smaller student population. Um but the building and we had just one office area. Um, but that helps to keep that delineation or that separation and then it's just the the staff knows this is who I go to for this or this is who I go to for that. So, um, it it it by far can work and I've seen it work really well. So, I know Redwing's exploring that right now um, in their community because they're moving to the
091712 model. >> Um, and I'll try to get through the rest of the recommendation then would love to take comments and questions. Um, so what I mentioned a couple times now that there were a lot of ideas that were um, talked about. There were kind of six dis distinct different options that all didn't make the presentation tonight for one of these reasons or maybe they check checked a few boxes themselves. Um, so one of there was a lot of ideas around this building, the building we're sitting in today and what if we took this out and put that in and move them there and right all of that kind of thing. Um and many of those options um created a lot of like capital cost, right? So classrooms would have to get turned into offices
092and offices would have to get turned back into classrooms. Um and it was it was hard to say what what was the benefit in the end other than racking up some renovation costs, right? Um and then daycare and early learning changing location. Um there was some ideas that were pondered about either relocating um daycare andor preschool to an elementary building or maybe all elementary buildings. Um there was, you know, a a pre-K through two or preK through one ideas, all these ideas. Um but they currently work together and share administration. Um and many of the daycare kids use early learning programming. Um and there's specialized spaces here that have been purpose created for those for that age group and what have you. So it it was another instance of um you know we could remodel
093things just to remodel it and move people and disrupt people but there wasn't a clear benefit in the end. Um and kind of kind of segus into our next bullet point. So either a prek through or an early learning center. Um so some space issues and daycare issues like I already mentioned and again it was just costly to remodel to relocate programming. um all ideas that were worthy of discussion. Um but when ideas that were less disruptive and didn't incur renovation costs were on the table, it was hard to advance those ones. Um other grade level band configurations. So many of the ideas that were not advanced ultimately or brought to you as a recommendation um were kind of strong clear um grade level banding options. So, for example, all first grade in one building,
094all second grade in one building, all third grade in one building. Um, it was challenging to get it all to fit well with um some capacity issues. Um, like I said, it was a lot of moving just to move. So, it was disruptive to almost everyone in the entire system. Um, it created a lot of transitions for staff. Um, right, it was like either you know sometimes in in some of the plans every other year students moving to a new building, right? Um we heard from um some um surrounding districts who have tried it and have reversed back from it. Um and there was a lot of uh strong feelings in survey results around pure grade level banding. Um and then I think most important well one of the most important I should say is
095um that the transportation costs um were would go up with that. Um so it would create a multiple routes. um you would have to change start and finish times and it was especially impactful to students who live in your more rural areas um with a lot of waiting around time at school. So um it was a lot of disruption and cost. So most of those ideas were not advanced. Um and then the 4-day school week was brought up I think at a community meeting for the first time. Um and the the main topic around that um was that child care on that fifth day for families is always difficult, right? uh many families really need the school day to provide um child care for them when they are working. Um and at the end of
096the day, that does not really address the the the fact that you have excess space in your facilities. It was another cost-saving idea that somebody brought up at a um community meeting. Okay. So, I'm going to go through um there is an ultimate one plan being recommended this evening, but I'm going to go through kind of the three frontr runners that emerged. Um we'll talk about kind of the pros and cons of each. Um, and then we've got some summary stuff here. So, again, derived from community input. Um, and like I said, I think the task force wishes we had every resident in town had responded to the survey. Um, agreed on that part. Um, lot of task force input. I I went through the priorities earlier in the presentation. Um, so all three of
097them include the closure of an elementary school. So, we do not have a recommendation at this time and working with the administration of exactly what that would save. We have it on the slide here as a a range from $500,000 to $750,000 annually. And that would be between um the ability to staff things differently. Um you would not have that building to clean, you would not have that building to do maintenance on, and you would not have that building to heat and cool, right? Um and so the range is really because you would have to do a couple of things to be able to hone that in better. One is actually probably select which building we're talking about. Then attendance areas would have to be selected and then transportation routing would have to be determined,
098right? Plus many other things, right? But though all of those choices would change that savings quite significantly. Um so thought it was responsible to reflect as a range right now. Um we did have to talk about that with the task force quite a bit. And like I mentioned, transportation costs would be different in each model. Um we did also spend a lot of time with special services thinking about how these models would impact programming for students and they would be a little different. and I have some of the feedback we got from them um for each model. And then goes without saying, but student counts per building are really dependent on attendance areas. So um when I go through the plans, I'll kind of explain how that impacts things. Um so proposed plan one um
099is to close an elementary school site and you have three remaining elementary schools that would house grades K through four. um K through four is really what would fit in the buildings if you were down one building. Um having fifth grade back in that um would put all of the buildings over their well I guess I'm I'm going to talk like all three of them are equally perfectly equally sized buildings which might not be what it is in the end, right? Um but that would put the buildings over capacity at least for the first couple of years. You maybe could grow into that over time. Um so that's why it's K through four. Um as it's already been mentioned a couple times this evening. Um, that would put Southwest as a 56 and Albert Lee
100Area High School as a 712, which really is a 78 middle school and a 912 high school, right? That would be the intent of delivery. Um, there's a potential um, if you continue to decline that you could re-evaluate this um, and maybe take a couple of different steps. You could have 2K3 buildings and Southwest Intermediate could be a 46. Um, you would not fit in that configuration today, right? So, just as the the task force spent a lot of time pre-planning for the future, right? And we we don't know what will happen in the 5 to 10 year window range. So, like I said, we wanted a plan that could work for you into the future. Um, so here are some um numbers of how enrollment or um yeah, I would call it enrollment could
101look um at each of those buildings. Um I will said that they are estimates, right? Like I said, the attendance areas across these three elementary schools are not known. Um, so you can see it's shown as like a lower and upper. You can think of that as a range. Um, I think it's probably safe to say they would not be perfectly equal. Um, and then you can see across the next fourish years what that would look like, right? So in 2028 what it would look like and then out to 2031 um, as long as you stay on the projection that you're on today. Um then at a grades 56 building you can see in 2028 estimate estimated to be at about 453 getting down to 393 at the end of the projection and then 712
1021495 getting down to 1378 and I should emphasize I think estimate is the right way to talk about this right um because attendance areas and projections are both things that need to be studied more and watched. Uh so when we talk about savings um you would have fixed costs um every year of closing the building like I mentioned it's the heating and cooling it's the maintenance it's the cleaning it's things of that nature um staffing efficiencies in grades 5 through 12 you would be you already are banded in grades 6 through 12 and by that I mean all sections of a given grade level are at one site right so this would add fifth grade to that um and you would still have three um elementary um they wouldn't so you would be down one
103ele one neighborhood school but it's um very close to what you have today right so there'd be three buildings that would be K through four any of these plans we're talking about have disruption so we're kind of pointing out the main disruptions in all of this so closing a school site of course creates um boundaries for some families and boundaries will change transportation adjustments and walk zones um there would have to be realigned staffing right we can't um we would have to reassess the whole system whether that's teaching or custodial or administration. Um but this option was seen as the the least disruptive especially as I mentioned some of the option we're not even going to go through tonight were kind of upsetting the all of the apples in the apple cart. Um Albert Lee
104Bus was consulted on all of these plans and this was the preferred plan from a disruption perspective and a cost perspective um from from them. Um and special services had similar feelings. Um so grade level banding pure grade level banding was challenging to imagine how to deliver services properly for them um that wouldn't increase costs. Um there was some um discussion about adjusting services for fifth grade. Um so elementary to southwest and seventh grade to the high school. Um and then a short list I would say of the pros and cons. You could probably go pro and con for every grade level, every building. But um again to reiterate preferred plan from transportation special services the initial disruption is more minimal. Um it can evenly distribute ADMs um with boundary redraw and it uses building
105um capacities um quite efficiently. We actually have a plan I'll go through in a minute here that uses them more efficiently um but it's much more disruptive. Um and then matching enrollments to building capacities. um cons um it is not maximizing savings now. Um so you'll see the second bullet point there. The financial benefit has significant savings and um in that 500 to 750 range um but having three K through fours limit some benefits. So some of the pure grade level banding options would in theory save more money but very disruptive. Um proposed plan two what's similar about it is an elementary school site would close. Um but this is a more pure banded option. Um so buildings not known but you uh having a K through one site, a two through three site, a
106fourth grade site and then fifth, sixth at Southwest and 712 at the high school. Um task force critique of this option was um again transitions lots of them um fourth grade or one any one grade alone in a building on their own seemed odd to the task force. Um, but like I already mentioned, um, doesn't quite fit any other way. >> And you you'll see on that one, it it they suggested like if you were going to do one grade by itself and eventually that grade was going to move to Southwest, you'd probably house that at Sibi so that they're on the same campus just adjusting a building. >> But again, it seemed weird for the entire task force to discuss it that way. And um I probably should have gone over it, but you
107know, if you stay on the trajectory that enrollment projections show, fourth grade would fit at Southwest down the line, it wouldn't fit today, right? Or or next year or two years from now. Um so here are those same um estimations of what student counts per site would look like. Um so you can see the um you know, K1. Um, these are a little bit easier to estimate because we no longer have to take like the kindergarten grade level and divide it by three, right? This is all kindergarteners and all first graders at one building, all second graders and all third graders. Um, and then all fourth graders. And then you'll see the numbers for 5 through 12 do not change. Um, savings would have the same savings of the annual cost of closing a building.
108Um, and you could get those staffing efficiencies in all grade levels. So K through 12 would all be grade level banded. Um disruption of course same thing closing a school site, train changes, walk zones and transportation and um staffing. Um but obviously with going to a pure grade level banning it's more disruptive to more people in the system. Um this was the least preferred plan from Albert Lee bus. Um projected significant in increase in transportation costs. So you can imagine the way that they pick up students is generally by where they live and then having to get them to all these different sites, right? Um so the special services um want to be from their perspective, you really like want great alike peers at um every site. Um and there was some challenges. Um and
109in particular, we spent a lot of time with um talking about transitions here, right? It's every two years if not every one year. you know, getting to know a new set of staff, getting to know a new building, all of that. Uh, pros and cons. Um, so it's very efficient from a like operational standpoint. Um, and there could be benefits from having all grade alike peers in one building, right? You could talk about, you know, consistency and, you know, all grade level teachers getting to plan together and things of that nature. Um, but then the cons is it really disrupts kind of everyone year one. um increased transportation costs. Um this would uh emphasize that rural riders would have longer wait times. Um and then in town increase of routes and multiple routes which will
110require start times to change um special education services spread out by grade level increments and then like I said elementary students moving like every other year very disruptive. Um and then proposed plan three, um it's a little bit of a hybrid between one and two. So it closes one elementary site and then you would have two kindergarten through third grade buildings, a fourth grade building and then 56 712. Um what Dr. Hil already said could be true in this, you know, in down the road if fourth grade fit in Southwest 456 there. Um and then have two K3s. Um, obviously that's um not you wouldn't fit in that configuration today, but it leaves that potential into the future. Um, here are those estimated student counts by site um based on that concept. Obviously, no change
111to the 5 through 12, the K through 3es. So, you'd have two of those K through 3s and then again a standalone for fourth grade. Um, many of the same savings. So you would have um the fixed cost of closing a building and then here you would have um staffing of like all efficiencies 4 through 12 because those would all be banded and then you would have um two K through 3es, right? So you'd have kind of half and half. So still more efficient than what you're doing today but not as financially efficient as a as a peer bandon. Um I won't reread the disruption to you. I think it's all becoming pretty obvious and apparent um what what happens there. Um this was kind of the middle of the road um option from a
112transportation and special services perspective. So um so it's kind of the if if they had to rank them one two three this was number two. Um the initial disruption is more minimal um than option especially than plan two. Um you can evenly distribute people um using buildings as designed and you have that future choice if you have to use it. Um then under cons, it's potential for more future disruption um and it has um significant savings um but it's not quite as much as plan two. So when it comes to a final recommendation um plan one if I go back to it. So that was the to remind you that was the three elementary K through four buildings. Um was the most favorable option. I would say this says from the task force but I
113would also say from the work we've done with administration. Um, it's the least amount of disruption. Um, it does maintain three neighborhood schools, although those would be redefined. Um, maximizes busing and special services programming. Um, it gives you choices into the future. I've mentioned this a couple times, but you know, if you continue to decline um into 2031, might you have to make another step at that choice or at that moment? Maybe. Um, if you stabilize or grow um you are not um maximum efficiency in this plan. So, this is not every seat on the plane full. Um, right? So, we're not planning to be tight. Um, so you would have choices at that time. Um, would create a middle school with a middle school philosophy within a secondary building. Um, and then like I
114mentioned, you have the potential down the road of um, reconfiguring if you needed to. And Dr. H already mentioned the possibility of expanding instrumental music to fifth grade. Um, and aligns um, your staff teaching lensures to maximize staffing decisions. Um, so I can go back and take comments and questions. Um, but just to get everyone on the same page about next steps. So like I mentioned, we are not at the end of the process. We are midway through the process here. Um, so tonight I think the board's being asked to approve the task force recommendation and direct Superintendent Hy to move forward um to continue to hear more about that um school within a school model of a seventh and eighth grade middle school and a 9th through 12th grade high school um which would
115probably take into the fall. um the board to study um kind of study the buildings um to make a closure decision if that were your choice. Right? All of these are a little bit um dependent on that first bullet point. Um but we're not coming to you tonight with a building recommendation of which building. Um so all of that would have to be studied, attendance areas and things of that nature. Um if a building could be sold, for example, um and that community um meetings are intended to progress um as all of this work is being completed and decisions being made. So more more input and communication going forward. Um so I think I'll probably go back. Maybe I'll pause on the slide. Um comments, questions, Dr. Paul, anything you'd want to add? Like I
116said, I consolidated 12 hours into maybe I don't know how long I've been going, 40 minutes. So >> So I've been asked a couple of times why why 2031's where we stop. One, that's kind of where the projections stop. But the 2031 date, whether you look at it as 3031 or 3132 is an important date for the district because that's when when I say your average classes of 250 then come out like this is the last year like the 270 plus and then at that 31 is when the the last of the and this is the most updated. Not all the numbers are going to match on all those slides because it depends on which one of these >> new one every day. Yep. But you'll see um when you get to 2031, the senior
117class there, that's that 250. So they're getting there's some that fluctuate up and down in there, but that's kind of your last your last big one starting to come out of there. So that's when the district again is going to have to take another another real big look at everything. We'll we'll manage the budget through there. Um but that's where depending on what happens, right? So even even if four or five businesses expand, two or three businesses move to town, they do that, it's going to take them a couple years to sign the agreements, they're going to start building, they're going to start opening. They're they'll slowly have couple year plan of opening up again. That's going to get you down that road to that 31year, 32year, 33y year, but by then we'd have some
118data on kind of what's going on. Is the housing uh market expanding in Albertly, things like that. So there's a lot of whatifs, right? Here's what we know now. We do not want to take a huge gigantic step forward that creates so much disruption or constructs any of our buildings to where when we get to the 31 32 and if we've got to make another decision, we're either impaired by facilities or capital costs that we incurred over the next four years or how we redistributed within buildings. Because if we were to grow again, we're absolutely going to need to use spaces slightly different, right? So, I'll give the big what if. Everybody says, "What if you get big and seven, eighth grade comes out of the high school, right?" Okay. So, then they go back
119to Southwest. So, then uh um sixth grade joins southwest and is a six um 8 middle school. Okay. Fifth grade's got to go back to the elementary. That's got to push kindergarten somewhere, right? Well, if you're in increasing in enrollment, you probably can get a separate building for the ALC and open up classrooms here to have an early learning center. I don't know. That's an option. There's a lot of you'll have to look at what we look like and where the student need is once you get past that 31 day, but I also don't want to make such a drastic step that we create a lot of issues. So again, when you get to 31 32, you you can we as a district can realistically look at and say, "Here's where we're at. Now, what
120do we do?" So that's why I think the task force looked at plan one. Is it a drastic step? Closing an elementary is a drastic step, right? My mom went to Ramsay School for a couple of years before she moved out of Albertly. Now, when I go look at Ramsay school, because I drove her by it, she says, "I don't recognize it. It's apartments now." Right? But, um, communities have had to close buildings and then enrollment goes up and down and up and down, right? Um, but I just don't want the district to take such a big drastic step that we have a lot of other issues to to get over when you get to that 31 32. Um, and that's always been a date because that's when your enrollment is supposed to kind of
121be where it's going to be at, at least according to the projections. Um, it allows you to step backwards, it allows you to step forward, it allows you to stay the same. So, and talking with a lot of task force members, I can tell you we got to the end and there was that awkward I don't know what was it 45 seconds minute of silence where it was just silent there. And I can kind of remember just waiting for someone to say something. And I know one of the task force members, I know exactly who he was, said, "Well, it's obvious it's got to be one. Now, what are we doing?" And I said, 'Well, now it's now it's my job to work with the the school board and and Sal's job to work with
122the school board and say this is the direction and why. I do know that school within a school model works. I've already had some conver preliminary conversations with Tyler about it. I've had some preliminary uh conversations with Sean about it because I wanted to make sure the administrative teams that will be affected by that believe it could work too. and without speaking entirely for them, they said, "Yes, we we could make that work. We can make those schedules work." So So here we are. We don't want 45 seconds of silence, right, since we've been here. Thank you S for all the information and again the task force for all the different things and it was very in-depth the time that I was there and uh very interesting as as everything is summarized a little bit
123and pulled together and uh we'll definitely all get a chance to uh speak our piece I thought I would just start out um I guess when I looked at this plan the first thing I thought was are be are we being reactive or proactive and I think we're being proactive at this point because it's it's kind of like our fund balance. I don't like to see some of those numbers, but we're not cut in half. And that's the same thing as we look at our budget. I think going forward, any place that we can find efficiencies, I think, and I think that's in our own personal life and our business life, our home life, whatever that we need to find efficiencies. And that's what I looked at. I I think the most the biggest thing
124that I thought about was honestly was was what is less dup disruptive to our kids? And I taught a little bit. I'm not going to sit on that any longer. But each time they make a change, they make a move. I know you either go from being the youngest or you go being the oldest. You go from the oldest, you go to the youngest. That's hard on younger people. It's hard on older people, too. when I'm getting there. But I I want it at least erupt disruptive and flexibility because what if something does change? What if we do get more kids in this this uh district? I hope we do. But um I think the demographics we see are pretty close. Uh the other thing I I I like again with flexibility is the um
125the full service that we have in our buildings that we can we can use to our advantage. again for the flexibility if I sure didn't like that second plan where the kids are moving about every year because to me that's hard on kids but you know to have that you've got to be able to I mean and that's such a short-term plan to me that was that'd be a hard one to uh see that's like ultimate flexibility but then it might be ultimate nonflexibility. Um, the other thing I really liked was because we're so used to it and the second bullet point or minor bullet point on their maintain the three neighborhood schools. That's something Albert Lee's been. Now, I come from a place where we were in the conference of Alen Conger and we
126walked down the hall when I was a kindergartener and we high-fived them seniors. Okay? Didn't have any problems with them, but you know, it's different times. I'm not getting into that. We high-fived them when I was a senior. We high-fived those little kindergarten kids, too. And that wasn't a terrible thing because I mean, we ate in the lunchroom with them. We rode on the school bus with them. I'm not saying that's what I'm basing a decision on, but I'm thinking that least disruptive again the neighborhood schools. I mean, obviously uh something needs to change uh to help out our budget, but uh those are the main things I looked at. But I want to just say one last time, I think we're being very proactive at this point. We don't have to do it. We
127should do it and it should get something done, I think, for future uh financial success of our school system. So, that's my piece. Go ahead. Anyone that's >> Do you mind if I make one comment? I'm just realizing it wasn't said in the presentation, but um I don't think any of these changes would be pursued for this fall. I think that's that's obvious to me. We talked about a lot during the test, but I'm just d it's dawning on me that's not in this slideshow. >> No, the the this takes considerable planning. >> Yeah. >> Right. Cuz we we we only got one chance to get it right. There's only be one time that it opens, right? So, and I want to make sure that we give our 78 middle school and our 912 an
128amount of time to plan because it's going to be staff meetings. It's going to be working with staff differently, right? And then as we as a board look at um and as superintendent and as a board as we start to look at the elementary schools, right, we have to consider transportation walk zones, what do the neighborhood schools look like? What are the capacities of the building? And every time you adjust like special education and e programming at a building based on how you draw your um your lines um per building it adjusts like how many kids can be in there, right? So it it depends on how many uh setting three rooms you have, how many different uh e rooms you have, what population needs are. So then it it alters by a little bit
129the capacity of each building. So, we're really going to have to study it. And I don't I I can't say get it right. We can get it very close to right because no matter what you do, five years from now, it could alter a little bit where it is. Um, I've been told that history of of Lake View has altered a little bit here or there and they've redrawn boundaries for the school a couple of times and some people are happy and some people are not. But I think we have to keep that that idea that we got to get it as close to perfect or as close to correct as possible and then move forward and then just watch it and adjust as we go.