001look at the is beautiful yeah it really does look nice yes they done a good job it looks bigger you know it is got it I'm ready all right well welcome everyone um we'll go ahead and call the meeting to order and if you would please rise and we will say the Pledge I pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation God indivisible withy and justice for all thank you we were just commenting on how beautiful the room is it has just been um what seems like more than I I more than redone it's had new fabrics and it just looks fabulous so please um let South the staff itself South know thank you for letting us come and see their new Auditorium we
002will move on now to celebrating Oreos our favorite um activity of the whole month and I'm going to turn it over to Dr wendam thank you Mrs angelart members of the board we're really excited to recognize uh two individuals uh from Avon High School and we will start with Mr Matt Hines so Matt if you'd like to work your way up here uh Mr Hines was recognized by the Indiana Association of School principles as the district 8 High School assistant principal of the year just to give a little context there are 12 districts that make up Indiana and District District 8 represents the west central part of the state and is made up of nine counties and Mr Hines was selected uh from that District uh Mr Hines began his career as a math teacher
003and then became an assistant principal at Western Middle School in Frankfurt high school before coming to Avon in 2018 he has focused heavily on building collaborative teams and promoting a positive culture at Avon High School and Mr shley has shared uh that Matt is a of ideas and action with a laser focus on creating a school culture that inspires students and staff to be the best that they can be so particularly with all of the CH challenges that we uh have faced in a very unconventional school year uh Matt's leadership at the high school and and really within our district has been Monumental and it's just great to see him recognized uh within such a competitive group uh to be the district 8 assistant principal of the year [Applause] well we would like to you
004letter and have our picture congratulations so um probably have you stand here I'll give this to you and still I want to there we go there we go yeah that's good congratulations we appreciate you so stand out here then Matt you stand in the middle in the middle okay where's the middle the middle of the you just stand and we will and we will yeah there we go aome perfect that's perfect right there congratulations that was such a fun night to me would you like to introduce your family with here too yes absolutely we do on microphone sure yeah so my wife uh Kristen is here and my oldest daughter Addison and then my youngest daughter Emma are all here so thank you I just want to say thank you uh to to uh the
005school board for for recognizing um this award and accomplishment for me this has been awesome uh to to have and I appreciate an uh coming to the banquet and Scott and Terry um being there and it was really awesome to be there with uh Matt and uh his family as well so I appreciate uh everything and um thanks to my family uh they sacrifice a lot to allow me to be a part of uh this school corporation and work really hard to to help serve our students so uh thank you to all to you and really appreciate you Matt um taking a chance on me a couple years ago and uh feel like uh super grateful to have you and and ultimately work on the team that we have at the high school because uh
006I feel very blessed to have a fantastic staff uh and administrative team and and a great group of students so thank you you Jason I'm probably going to need your help at some point clearly clearly not doing this right sure so the next recognition that we would like to do is for uh Mr Matt shakley principal of Avon High School and uh we are so fortunate to have Mr shockley's leadership in this community and at the high school and I will not uh State everything that I know Mrs anglehart is going to read in the comments ation uh but I will say uh Matt was selected as the district 8 High School principal of the year as well but then he was also selected to represent or to be awarded the state level recognition as
007the high school principal of the year so we are so proud of Matt and uh in addition to everything that Mrs anglehart is going to read no school has been impacted to the level that Avon High School has this year and that's leadership and his steadfast calming presence in leading over 3,000 students and uh almost 200 staff through a very challenging year cannot be overstated so I am so thankful for Matt's leadership and the way that he leads our uh high school and I will pass it over to Mrs anglehart to to uh read the Commendation well it is my honor and privileged to read this resolution of commendation the Avon Community School Corporation Board of school trustees would like to congratulate Matthew a shley with passage of the following resolution whereas Matthew a shley
008was named the 2020 Indiana Association of School principles High School principal of the Year whereas Matthew a shakley is the only principal in Indiana to have received this honor Twice first in 2009 as principal of Cent Gro High School where Matthew a shakley has been the Principal of Avon High School school for seven years whereas B shley has been named the 2019 Indiana music Education Association outstanding administrator of the Year whereas Matthew B shley has established the Junior Day of caring jobs for America graduates program and work-based learning program whereas Matthew B shley has demonstrated excellent work ethic determination and commitment whereas Matthew a shley earned the respect of the entire School Community for his high standards and expectation whereas the highest level of Distinction given by the Avon Community School Corporation is commodation for
009the from the board of school trustee therefore let it be resolved Matthew a shley is thereby commended for his success and achievement and I'll entertain a motion Board second motion by Greg second by Kim is there any discussion all high five fin congratulations sooud there go congratulations conations sir congratulations perfect right thank con just to uh follow up with what Matt said um I am in the middle of my e8th year and uh I'll be forever grateful to the board Dr hornman and continued support of Dr Windam and the administration here uh in Avon uh when I first came uh this has been uh just uh the best uh place I could be uh at this time in my career and I know it's been a great thing for my family uh having a daughter
010graduate from Avon High School and my son here in May doing the same uh just could not be more grateful uh to be in this community serving in this community uh with Avon schools it's been uh just the the best part of my career no doubt about it and uh as I said I I've said this in in a couple of news things I know that people have reached out to me about is that there is no way that I could be getting this award without others around me i' I've got a wonderful administrative team uh teaching staff secretarial staff uh it's truly what we've been able to do together to get to where we're at and uh I am grateful for them because with without them I I I would not be getting any
011honor like this so very humbled and grateful uh for the support of the Avon Community and the Aon Community School Corporation so thank you very much and thank you to my wife I do need to do that yes my wife huge thank you huge thank you board members would you like to share any thoughts uh well I'll I'll start um you know m there are um I I have often said to my Indiana Schoolboard Association Compadres we have the best um principal in the state of Indiana and I've repeated it over and over again and this year it's true so uh I think it just took a while for that to catch up with the reality that um you really do exemplify the very best in teaching and learning in the state of Indiana um
012and a lot of accolades could go to us as a board and to central office ad administrative team but uh the true measure I think of the um effect of a leader is to see what those subordinate to that leader how they react um there have been few things that have touched me as much as the day after you were awarded this you taking that long stroll down the middle of your school with every single teacher and administrator substitute teacher uh bus driver lunch l everyone um standing up and cheering you is just an example of true servant leadership um and I appreciate that U more than you'll ever know because it is through acts like that that you not only teach students um the way to be great citizens but you teach um our
013adults that work um that have the honor to work in your organization to be the same congratulations on a very very Welles daughter I too would like to add my congratulations I'm going to start with Mr uh shley and it's quite the honor for being named the principal High School principal of the year for 2020 congratulations there uh what an honor for you Mr shley and the Avon High School also um another congratulations goes to Mr Hind for being named the state assistant principal District 8 for 2020 uh it looks like these two administrators are work quite well together uh and they make a winning team because they both won awards now and they've got Avon going so they're a winning team there I know that principes are always busy with their duties when I
014attend um outside the school functions I see often them all the time there at different things uh I know it's been busy even more busier this year 2020 I admire that you two administrators for a job well done congratulations so I'll um Echo what my peers have said I think to both of you gentlemen first of all thank you first I always want to start by thank you for bringing your talents to our town as a parent before I got on the school board uh I always knew all along the way that I trusted the building administrators that I gave my to and that so I knew Avon had Strong building administrators in all of our buildings and I still believe that very firmly um as I got on the board and get visibility to
015more I actually see all of the extra things you're doing the superum things you're doing the um culture you're trying to instill the way you're trying to bring groups with different opinions together to have be pulling the rope in the same direction to lead that High School even when there are differing opinions at the beginning of the day and those extra things you've had to do especially this year which is probably I would guess both of you would say one of the more challenging years of your careers to shine in that environment um you know congratulations and and again just thank you so much for doing that without our kids thank you to both M and congratulations uh you have time to set more records and that's it's an honor I think to have two
016at the same school so congratulations well only thing I want to add is um Mr Hines you have really come here in a short time left an impact and I just really um I just really want to point that out that that is the heart of a true leader a true um follower in in a healthy in a healthy thought and um I just want to say thank you for that um coming here and just jumping in and obviously making such an impact and I'm just really excited about your future I just think you have you know the sky limit for you and I'm really excited for you and um thank you for coming here and taking a chance on us I mean you don't always know right so thank you and thank you for
017sharing your family and thank you for family sharing your your husband because it the family of of assistant principal it can be really daunting and I'm so thank you for that um Mr shley I'm just was not surprised and I'm just so proud of you I'm so proud of really when Maggie first told me Harman first told me who she wanted to hire and I just thought oh my word we have landed on the moon and um you have more than proven that really we landed on the Mars and um but um but thank you so much for taking a chance on us thank you for coming here thank you for um just giving your very best every day to our to our students but also to our community and you know what we left
018off of there was the was the lifp up I mean my goodness he's a star but um and um thank you Mrs shley for um for the daunting task of being the principal's wife and I know it can be very challenging and this year especially has been very challenging and there's been a lot of critics and that's okay that's leadership there's times in leadership that we have that and um thank you for being at a side all right well we're going to move on to our presentation um with um can't remember if we start with boundaries or with boundary presentation thank you [Applause] you C it okay good evening uh members of the board thank you for allowing us to uh present to you kind of our final wrapup of our boundary adjustment process tonight
019we would just like to explain a little bit about the feedback that we've received kind of where it's come from and and give some input we did give you a uh a packet recently but we'll go ahead and summarize that publicly for you also and uh I I asked Dr L to help me tonight so I'll turn this over and let him do a few slides and then I'll jump back in thank you drun um members of the board thank you Dr wendam um first we have uh a few goals uh this evening for an overview we will review how uh the community feedback was received we want to touch base and review each map uh again and then we'll revisit sces demographic background breakdowns and then give a short recap and feedback based off
020of the survey that uh we sent to the community so just a to touch Bas take us back a little bit um from Community feedback standpoint we had um two evenings where we had Community forums uh on November 12th and 19th really want to give a special shout out to all the members of the board that were able to attend uh Transportation was well represented with Teresa Clark and Keith hon and really uh our principls were able to attend as well to to just answer questions for anybody that uh had wanted to discuss what the plans were looking like um we did have they weren't well attended certainly uh for good reason uh with the pandemic but uh we did have U parents attend as great questions they varied from you know just trying to
021figure out what school their child would attend uh you know I had uh a conversation with parent she just wanted to be able to share with her daughter which friends were going to be in which model so just parents seeking good information and it's always our practice to make sure that we want to give those parents an opportunity and a form to to ask questions and share thoughts we then um shifted in really knowing that the uh environment that we're in and that um it would be challenging for parents to attend the community forums really um promoted our survey uh it was sent out to all elementary families uh we did have 344 responses and as Dr T mentioned those are in um your uh board packet this evening um again that survey provided a
022means to leave thoughts on each map so every single model we had gave parents an opportunity to provide feedback and that gave us good information that we needed to take our next steps so this was kind of a breakdown of um who responded um River Birch had a lot of responses uh because they could be impacted significantly by a couple of the MS so that's not surprising you can also see Sycamore same thing they could also be impacted by several of the maps and then this just gives a breakdown by the grade fourth grade had the fewest responses but those children are moving on to the intermediate so it doesn't impact them nearly as much but this just gives you a snap shot on uh who responded by what grade so just another piece of
023information for us and then we will turn it back over to drun to go over um this is what you're seeing now the current map but then we'll go over the details of each map and the survey results as Dr L said this is our current map uh you can see the current configurations it was designed about 10 years ago and we have just unfortunately outgrown that map and with updating our buildings and things we're in a position now to uh begin to to look at our boundaries once again so we will start with the southern two options first uh we labeled those uh 1B and 2B for South and the distinctions would be white oak uh all the white oak children that are south of us36 will go to pine tree and in this
024particular model 1B um the biggest difference is that Glenfield will now go to Hickory and Glenfield is a small subdivision um just kind of by the roundabout there just south of the high school or yeah so recapping briefly we shared this last month but of the two models this happens to be probably the best balance as far as free and reduced goes El is pretty similar and again our diversity looks as balanced as probably we could get it on the south side but looking at comments um both of the Southern boundaries a lot of people made the comment that they're very similar and they really are uh our committee found that um really the options presented uh just were very very similar and and allowed just simply the fact that trying to give uh Cedar
025the amount of room to grow as much as possible was one of the the objects so in this particular 1B map um it moves fewer kids um but it it probably moves the most of the two maps again probably 25 to 30 kids children uh it does allow for the more growth or the higher growth potential at Cedar uh SCS is slightly better in this one and a lot of people commented they like this one the best uh out of the responses uh negative comments were that um people do not like how far uh pine tree is from their home and that was more of a personal response and I will say in every map all five options on the positive and the negative there was always comments about my child either having to move
026schools or my child does not have to move schools so I'm not going to say that again but just note in every map there was a positive or A negative and it just depended on whether their child had to move in that particular map um moving on to the next map this is the one where Glenfield would stay at Cedar and the sces the one difference is hickory's free and reduced count goes down just slightly uh is probably the biggest difference in this particular model and as far as the summary goes uh there were 37 positive comments 29 that were kind of negative uh overall some people preferred this model uh and again it was because of keeping Glenfield with cedar where it started um negative comments pertain to SCS disparity is not quite as
027good as the other model again they're very very similar but not quite uh and again many people said it's looks about the same as the other map and it does we'll acknowledge that those are the two kind of Southern boundaries moving on to the north our First Option 1 a u is the one where maple kind of wraps around part of Sycamore and then a little shorter distance Sycamore would include uh Windbrook and Avon States up kind of in that upper corner uh this map uh interestingly enough had the most negative comments of all three of all five of our Maps I'll say that definitely all the most negative comments of any northern map but overall it actually had more negative comments but it did positive comments um but on the positive side someone noted
028several people noted there are some Transportation efficiencies that would be found in this model um the largest comment again was about children moving and then that was a positive that their child wouldn't move and then there were comments directly related to Windbrook moving to symore which was noted as a shorter distance for students in that area on the negative side uh demographics and the SC are not nearly as good um on this particular map which is up here right now and you can see it's got a bigger spread there's about a 10 point spread on free and reduced rate in this particular map which is probably the greatest of of all three Northern maps and uh other notes would be that this happened to move the most children which was kind of viewed as a
029negative and that was one of our goals was to move as few children as possible and then white oak students traveling to River birs was seen as a negative by many white oak families the second northern map 2A is the one where Maple extends kind of a long US 36 and then wraps up into the Oak Oak Bend area this map had um the most positive comments it had almost 2 to one positive comments over negative 198 positive comments to about 102 negative um clearly the strength of this map is the free and reduced count and and the demographic breakdown this is the most uh balanced of all three Maps if you will for the northern section uh responses from our survey were were just that that the sces and demographics are are most balanced
030and the most balanced of any of the three Northern Maps uh this one moves fewer students than the first map which was was noted several times about 20 times and some people felt it was the right amount of students to move if you have to move some kids they felt like having some of their friends go with them was seen as a positive but not too many uh White Oak students moving to Maple was viewed as a positive and uh Believe It or Not 32 different people rated this as the best map or the preferred map that they saw which was interesting because that wasn't asked but but they went ahead and left that in the comments in negative there were about I say 100 negative comments and one of the negative comments was that
031new sub divisions no longer go to Maple and if you think back to our current map where anytime a newer subdivision was built we kind of added that even though it was not necessarily in the maple area uh bus routes may be too long uh Windbrook is still a long way from River Birch for some people um Oak Bend residents said moving to Sycamore would make more sense or to stay at River Birch and one person noted that Sycamore has high eel demands and our final map is one that is kind of differentiated by Avon Avenue if you will uh Sycamore and Maple's boundaries kind of go right up to Avon Avenue which is a nice way to kind of differentiate it as well as Maple retaining some of those those uh areas that that
032we have given them as they've been built the demographics um not quite as good as as 2A but still really good and within our boundaries or within our parameters that we were looking at so it would be an acceptable map or a good map for us to use and then comments um it's good to know that there were more positive comments on this one there were 134 positive comments but there were 104 negative uh the single biggest response to this was uh again That Someone's Child didn't move and even though this was not as balanced as 2A it's significantly better than our current status as several people said um that our our SCS and disparity is is at least reasonable it moves the least overall amount of K kids which was a positive White Oak
033students still go to Maple uh those newer subdivisions stay at Maple and clean boundary lines people like clean boundary lines one of the problems with the very first map on the Northern side is people did not like how it was broken up they thought it would be a problem for transportation I said no no problem they can get kids from anywhere uh that's okay but people just did act like that negatives for 3A uh include the sces and ethnicity could be better addressed through 2A the distance for River bir children is still a long commute and some children from River bir are going to be relocated to camore Or Maple um and with that that's kind of The quick summary if you will of the positive and negative comments that we've received mostly through the
034surveys a few of those would have been through our feedback from our our public open forums but we'd like to say thank you to the members of our committee uh thank you to Transportation especially Teresa and Keith They they've been at everything we've been at we appreciate all your work um Dr wendham and his support and then our curriculum team Vicky Ling Jason's helped quite a bit even though he's not on the curriculum team uh Brianna moss and and Barb marot and then also Stephanie for continuously updating like my Powerpoints and different things and greatly appreciate with that finally what we'd like to say is uh as we wrap up the process uh we'd like to help begin your discussions I know you're about ready to kind of maybe discuss things uh from The District's
035point of view if you look at the southern boundaries we would like to say that any map that gives us the most room for Cedar to grow would be preferable um map and I don't want to say this is our choice but map 1B kind of helps get that in the right direction uh for Northern Maps either of the options 2A or 3A probably have the best overall combination of moving fewer kids along with kind of meeting some of those goals for SCS and demographics and with that we'll turn it over to to Mrs Englehart right well thank you thank you so much and thank you for the 11 member um group that came together and I know worked multiple times and for multiple hours and did it all with trying to be socially distant
036wear mask and thank you so much for a really a very effective um red Dix routine and um just really appreciate everything that you've done to help us get to this point um board members I'd like to go ahead and open up some discussion um why don't we start with the southern boundaries um where there's two maps and get your thoughts on those um two two maps of the Southern um part of the of the township um Dr trun you I caught that 2A and 3A were preferable by the study group that and did you say that 1B was also the one that um the group felt was most equitable I I would say 1B gives Cedar the most opportunity to continue to to have space to grow okay because it does move a small
037group of kids kind of out of the Glenfield area unfortunately but that does allow for more grow okay um well one thing that you know I realize that we have what might be called the natural barrier which is us36 um but it is bothersome to me as I just did the highs and lows on what I feel are the two most um sensitive Andor time intensive or resource intensive groups those being free and reduced in elll um it's scary to me that we have such disparity even in these models with a high of 42.9% at Pine Tree in two models a free and reduced and then a low really uh 19% points lower than that um at River Birch in one of the models um and I'm sure that there is that the team did
038as much as they could to create that Equity uh but that has been and I think I've said this before that's been a Hallmark of our um school board over the course of time is the belief that we do not want to create a situation of um those are the Hales and the have not schools or a feeling or Sensation that any of our schools is valued less than any of our other schools so I think it's important as we cruise through this information that we keep that in mind and that we as a school corporation despite the fact that there may be this natural boundary which which creates those highs and lows that it is important that we as a school corporation be able to devote the necessary resources to make sure that those
039schools that are not as Equitable as other schools get even more of a share of the resources in order to overcome that um you know I I definitely believe that um some of the things that you reflect in a survey are change related right that's why every single survey had I like it because my kid doesn't move I hate it because my kid moves on you know because what's in it for me is typically what everyone's lens is uh but certainly looking at an ad opting the model that best um um allows for teaching and learning in an equitable environment while creating less disruption um you know especially when our world has been upheaved in this pandemic I think to be able to minimize that disruption is um important um so you know having said
040that um I really did like like model 1B uh personally um as I reviewed those models I felt that um that it was a good model although I didn't really the team's work has been exemplary because I didn't really have one that I just discounted and said no that's outlandish that we do that I do think that obviously in elementary transportation is of utmost importance and what that travel time is um and we've been talking tangentially about that I think that that is an important consideration also and we did try to provide you with a kind of a snapshot of kind of the longest Transportation times across the district and then some average from larger districts or larger subdivisions around that Raceway area to give you some some perspective on and again there was a
041huge disparity in that you know I mean some of those total travel times were near an hour um where as others were total travel time of only 34 35 minutes so I mean it is what it is and when you get to those outer edges uh priest will tell you it gets difficult to get a short time because our schools are located where they're at Cally yes exactly right I had a comment on the 1B I like it too but there's a difference I thought a noticeable difference between the enrollment of Cedar having 665 how many students will that building actually hold and then I heard you say that there's room for it to grow yes that building will hold 700 is designed I guess it say to hold 732 okay River bir has shown
042that we can go a little over that but we don't like to do that if we can help it breathing room we can give them right now especially as the settlement that subis and and Open Homes and things now will the fairwoods go to Cedar also correct no fairwoods would in this in both models would go to Hickory Hickory okay okay and that was one of the big changes was kind of preparing for that that actually was Transportation kind of foresight to to to rec that one of the models in our group really like that idea okay all the other items there were well balanced uh I thought that was great but I just couldn't grasp the difference in the population are right behind High School okay used to be cedar or it's current okay
043okay I wanted too to ask um the people that work in transportation what are your feelings if you're would like to share what are your feelings on all this do you think it's all going to work or is there one you think would be better or do you have any insight on this we kind of looked at everything but like Dr said we can make anything work some of it will put the children on the bus a little longer and uh there could be a few more kids and adjustments there okay okay and we appreciate that you guys are all stars too but we we recognize the gymnastics you guys have to do to make this work so thank you um I have a bunch of thoughts I the travel time thing makes me lose
044sleep I mean I feel like I live in the middle of Montana when you're telling me that I have kids that have to ride the bus for 50 or 55 minutes to get to school but that's total time too in PR school right yeah but but you know and I and I from conversations we had around this parent nights I realized that a lot of that time is actually in their own subdivision spinning around picking up lots of kids so I it it would be a little bit of a culture shock and I recognize I've been in this District long enough to know that it's only been very recently when we weren't picking up kids at every house which I thought was insane that day I moved here um I I served the breakfast too
045and yeah exactly ballet service and so I I would really I think we're going to end up with a river birch model that still picks up in book and I I would just really encourage transportation and the administration to bring us a policy change where we do maybe two or three stops in that subdivision the parents got to you know the kids got to go a little bit longer under in the you know under their safety guidelines and things that we have to pay attention to there but anything we can do to get those buses spent less time in the subdivision to keep those kids off the bus I and I will say to to Transportation credit and Teresa can correct me if I'm wrong but I believe they added a bus route there this
046year to shorten some of those times and things to help with that uh very pause what you mentioned so you can't have good you always have to give something up I'm probably going to give have to give that up to go to get at peace with some of these but that that commute bothers me um when I went into this there one b and 1 a I was just thinking and I I learned and so thank you for this if you're going to move that one subdivision you need a really good reason so it sounds like we have a really good reason which is the preparing for Cedar growth I think it's really really important we roll out to those families we recognize that it's not ideal for you guys to mooving you're taking one
047for the team here and just be honest with them that we're asking them to take one for the team in order to not have to do this again in 3 years but so I think we have the reason but the way we roll that out to those families and that sub I think is really important um I wholly agree with everything Kim said about free reduced in English language Learners you're still going to end up with a 10 or 12 point difference no matter what between your highest and lowest in any of these models and that's a little bit disturbing but and I I will note when we did this 10 years ago it was I think a 12 or so Point difference between the high and low at the time those numbers were lower
048increasing but but about that same ball which is I I'll say probably for the record that consideration would be the primary consideration for me and then River Birch growth I think it's it's bursting at the seams right now we know that taking it down to six something I don't remember the exact number just under 600 so it's going to have without trailers it's going to have room to take on another 100 120ish so it just I guess based on what you all and Ann and some other people who are familiar with real estate and Anders County Indiana know that's going to last us a couple years CU that's the growth that I'm worried about I feel like like it's going to be that growth that's going to make us do this again whether that be
049in five or six or seven or 10 or 15 or 20 whenever the next time we do this again it's going to be River probably that puts us there so I just want to make sure I think everyone here kindly see Dr I think we would all agree with your your estimation right there or your your your opinion that that area it was really important to get it under 600 or about 600 which is hopefully where we'll end up at and uh with the thought that grow comes it could rise pretty quickly again the only other thing I common I want to make publicly we don't really have a whole bunch of the parents that F the survey here but I would take Kos to the parents they're you always have your outliers where you
050say where did that com come from but the the most of the comments I thought were pretty on point and showed that they value the same things we value and so that I I was impressed with the amount of people who who said you know this really does a good job of of balancing ours or this does a good job of moving and they're thinking about travel times and they're yes so it it it it was I just it made me feel really good about our community that that's a community that cares about the same the student athlet the student well-being and the the um you know the the diversity and all of that breath of the whole child that we talk about our our parents without saying whole child did that in most of
051their comments and so I just want publicly recognize that okay and about everything been asked but I did have one B for the South and 2 a for the north for mine I'm sorry I'm sorry you said 2A was your preferred and what was no one B for the the souy one for the 2 a for the 2 a for the north yeah so um something you've alluded to in our this conversation is growth we talk about it a lot and um I know that in the area that where Cedar um is districted there are some rather large Parcels that are being looked at pretty heavily for development and um I think one of them probably will impact Us in the next five years so I I agree that we need to give Cedar as
052much um room even if it's 25 students it's still a classroom and I I think it's important that we give them that space I I I I hate moving those students but I think it could potentially put us off a couple extra years by doing it now as opposed to sooner um and so I and I think that's kind of the um what I'm hearing and I would enter so let's go ahead and have the discussion for the second part so we can take take motions together let's um have a discussion um and I I think some of us alluded to it but let's talk about the northern um aspect the northern Maps the model 1A 2A and 3A um what I've heard from many of you what's so what's most important is both that
053balance of moving as minimal students as possible in the sces and I think given what these Maps provide I think that puts us really on more of a 2B or I'm sorry a three sorry two I get them mixed up the 2A and the 3A seems like that's probably in more in the ballpark that fits the criteria um and again I you know we talked about development I also was weighing which one gave um River Birch the least amount of students and they're virtually the same 584 and 590 so I was glad to see we see seems like that's as low as we're going to be able to get the river bur because that whole Northern flank that Northern corner of our Township is now receiving sewer it's probably more than you want to know
054but development always follows sewer so we know development is coming in that area in the next 5 10 years so um so I'm really interested in your thoughts of 2A and 3A probably more specifically is I see on there that it says white oak students to Maple is that all white oak students all that are north of us and all the South go to a pine tree right okay so it's just a two two divide okay that's just and I thought that was another aspect yes I saw that yes any thoughts on the 2A 3A well um you know River Birch has always been the the boundaries that span the entire breadth of the entire Township and you know the 2A and 3A model don't really change anything about that one thing I wanted to
055go back to on Transportation is it is a little troubling on two-way that um some of the comments were that there were the bus routes were too long on 2way but it's hard for me to know in context is that really with regard to um our present bus routes or is that specific to the two-way model I mean I don't know I don't think we're going to know that um and I also know that we have never been able to really quantify the number of students that are transported daily versus those that that are transported on the bus daily and I think that um it would behoove us to find out um to make a concerted effort to do a little more digging on the transportation side you know are you transporting your child yes
056or no and if you are are you doing that because you prefer to spend that time with your child your child doesn't want to ride the bus for whatever reason or because you find that you can get 10 more minutes sleep or your child can because if you transport them due to these long bus routes that becomes problematic I just really think that getting more information about transportation and how we can best serve I think will be an important dialogue um I again will say when you take a look at the El and elll and the um free and reduced this model really doesn't um change a lot between three 2A and 3A in terms of those two demographics but again it's quite different from the south for sure um one thing that I do
057like about uh 2A is it always seems outrageous to me that we have this big swath in the middle of Sycamore that's carved out for Maple and that you basically bounce across the school corporation um probably making things difficult for car pooling parents or parents that are um you know trying to um uh maybe Child Care issues become a little more difficult in that scenario um but I do agree that 2A and 3A definitely look to me as though those are more B bed models then 1 a I kind of just to tip my hand I discounted 1 a as the model right out of the gate I agree with everything Kim just said um while pre and reduced and E are similar between 2A and 3A 2A is R 4% more free introduced fun
058from 3A so everything else being more equal um having lived in Stratford of Avon for 17 years and knowing that River bir is two minutes away I can tell you it would not have bothered me if you told me I had to drive four minutes to get the m so um those other considerations I would say would probably mess in my mind yeah I would just try to boost the streu number as much as possible and I had two a of the north that look said the most Bal looking at the fre well and the difference between those two is um 115 more students are moved um with two-way and I think that's something else that we need to weigh is that's all the that's the strap of Avon and no kids not going through
059the Birch anymore in order to balance them over for free and then 3A the um the sces the is still within the 9% of what we um requested so 3A probably fits our request best but yet I also agree I just have thought it was odd to put a part of Maple in the middle of Sycamore thought that was kind but it was it's like that now there right so not really anything new but I've always agree that that's kind of like that's kind of odd mhm any more thoughts on the 2A versus the 3A I don't feel like I um I'm I'm will entertain a motion if anyone is is feels like we have a good consensus do we need to move these tonight yes okay Kim talk about getting more information so I
060in the process oh yeah just overall for transportation I I think that we um you know we sometimes don't have we have a lot of of ability to use our great sophisticated technology tools to plot um bus routes but I don't know that we have a great deal of information about why that service is not what many many of our parents choose I think I would just like to know that because if really it isn't at all about ride times cool I I I believe it will be but I think we should just know more data about what is in that service botel that isn't fitting a number of families can I put you on the spot a little bit then if we have to vote you're an open parent mhm what do you think
061about the trade opportunity moving us to get a couple of percentage points closer versus the impact Onision well you know openend them before and openend them now are really quite a bit different um as well yeah the the um younger demographic there are a lot a lot a lot of U Middle School and Intermediate School students returning to Oak Bend and that was not the case until just several years ago um so I think that it is disruptive I think that if we can achieve something similar without moving that subdivision um just due to the the nature of how many students are there I I think I would be in favor of that um but that said I have to believe that that's happening all over Avon and not just in those two subdivisions you
062know that there is a ever younger population um that will um be impacted by this simply because we have a lot of families with elementary students that are returning to those older subdivisions any other thoughts I I think I land on um 3A because I really wanted to move as few students as possible um I um you know I shared the story of my children and never thought about it but my children were the two of 39 to have not been moved and that was kind of devastating to them and so I again I always go back to when we have these discussions I go back to that story and that reality of what we faced at our house and um I just want to keep as many students together as possible especially during times
063like this where relationships are so key and that's um um to me that's what stands out to what is important to me personally um so I just wanted to share that you just said something that resonated with me that I want actually make you to turn into one of my public comments we have a generation here of disaffected kids from this pandemic their social opportunities are much fewer than they had been we're going to be seeing the mental health impacts on these kids for years to come and so relationship preservation probably should be more important to us than it would in a normal time right and that's where at the end every time I've gone through these and we've been through it a few times I've always that's what I've always just kind of landed
064on in my heart as you know it's yes as trustee but also as a parent um I want to want my kids to have those relationships as intact as possible um is anyone I can make the motion if um if is there any more discussion before I make a motion no um I move that the board of school trustees approved bound re adjustment option um 3A for the North and 1 B for the South as presented second motion by an second by and I lost my pen is there any more discussion all in favor tesi all right well again thank you thank you thank you to our seven parents um please um share with them um we are so grateful for their time and so grateful for the work that they have um and just
065the service that they've brought to our community and now we're going to move on to the discussion on proposed school start and end times 2122 Dr W thank you so in addition to um working through the redistricting process one of the other pieces that we have been looking at over the last couple of months has been the look examining school start and end times um and given that the board has taken action on redistricting we wanted to put this as a discussion point for today's meeting not so that the board can take any action uh we talked about this briefly with you at uh the November working session we wanted to come back and go through it in a little bit more depth for uh another discussion um so that you could feel prepared and
066give us some guidance ultimately uh our goal is to make a recommendation in January for board action uh but we wanted to talk through what that process would look like so so our work looking at school start and end time has really kind of gone along parallel to what's been happening by the great work of the redistricting committee so we have had a group that's been providing us some feedback representing um every school in the district and our friends at Transportation who seem to be working even more overtime than they typically do because of all the different uh jobs that we are looking at and different research that we are doing we've had a few meetings with this group talked about it at the November working session have talked about it with our uh the
067Avon Federation of teachers and then wanted to provide you an update this evening as well so one of the things that I would like to start with is to talk about uh and the board is aware of this from our previous conversations but our Focus as we have studied our growth and focus on improving academic achievement uh our work at having a consistent Focus across the district on professional learning communities or plc's collaborative team time for our teachers and so uh our schools have pockets of great work happening across the district and what we've really looked at uh with Dr trun and Dr lame and our principles is that we need to have a a district approach of how we use we harness the power of the wisdom that our teachers have and build in
068some time each week for that job embedded professional development professional uh relationship that they are having to improve what what they're doing for their students in their classrooms so this group really started with two primary goals the first one being to establish a consistent time each week for plc's to meet k12 and then also explore other avenues for efficiencies that may be gained by examining school start and end times and this was the perfect time for us to do that because we know we're going from seven k4s to six that more evenly sized elementary schools and and having a preschool Center at White Oak that we need to be planning for so the the timing was perfect for us to really study this and make sure um we could we could work towards these two
069goals so why is consistent PLC time a priority one of the things that we know about uh improving the academic achievement of students is that teachers collaborating with other teachers is one of the most powerful things that we can do but what we hear all the time is we just don't have enough time there isn't enough time for teachers to do that work and so that's one of the primary reasons that this is a priority we also know that pulling teachers out for professional development days has an impact on academic achievement a best thing for a student is their teacher in their classroom every day and if we are pulling teachers out for professional development too much that can have an impact so embedding that into the schedule is important not to say there aren't
070times where we need professional development days but we believe there's a more effective way to to do that um across the district and then finding that dedicated time so that we can uh have provide to our teachers the time that they need to have the conversations that they they need to be having to improve the work that we're doing for our students so as we looked at how would we accomplish structured time each week for our teachers to have those collaborative team times we looked at five or six different options and we threw out three or four of them and we really spent most of our time looking at these two options because we felt like these were the the best approach for what uh we were trying to accomplish the first option was to
071look at a weekly delay or early dismissal for K12 uh for all of our K12 schools that would allow teachers to have that collaboration time and you can see that is what happens in many of our U neighboring districts or districts that we are often uh compared to in our conference and in our league uh Westfield Brownsburg Greenwood caramel Grove um is so that is a model that is frequently used the other model that we looked at was to reduce the instructional day slightly 5 or 10 minutes to allow us to bank that time for our teachers so that they could work longer one day a week with uh and accomplish that PLC time without extending the teacher day that's a model that Mor moresville had recently implemented and as we studied this we really
072landed on option two and the reason that we land landed on option two was for the consist consistency that it provides to our families option one means for instance on Wednesdays kids might come late to school or might go home early and we know that that's an inconvenience to parents to have to plan for that one day a week versus this model where we can have a consistent school start and end time every day and as we dug into this a little bit more when we talked to you in November we were looking at 10 minutes a day the model I'm going to show you we've reduced that to 5 minutes a day so shortening the instructional day just 5 minutes allows us to bank that time for our teachers uh to accomplish what we
073want them to accomplish with plc's and allows parents to have a consistent schedule 5 days a week for their their children in both of these as we explored this with our team the monthly 1hour delay days would be removed and that is something that we've heard from parents that those days sneak up on you I felt that as a parent uh that those days sneak up on you and so uh if as we move forward forward with this process and with these conversations that would be a part of the recommendation because we have found a way to build that in on a weekly basis we would not need that 1 hour uh release time uh once a month the other piece that uh I mentioned earlier was looking at Transportation efficiencies and again this is
074the time to do this as we head towards redistricting and our new structure of six K4 schools so one of the things that we have been working closely with uh transportation is to look at three tier transportation and what that means is basically we would divide the district into three bus routes that every driver would drive in the morning and they would drive in the afternoon right now we have drivers that do two routes or even one route this would make sure that we have three routes for every driver to do that you have to lengthen the day a bit so you have to add some time on the morning and add some time on the afternoon and kind of spread it out a little bit to accomplish the efficiencies of that three- tier approach
075this would reduce the number of drivers and school buses that we need by about 15 to 20 and would allow us to increase the pay for those drivers as you know one of the biggest challenges that we Face even pre pandemic is finding CDL licensed drivers to drive our buses and keeping them here once we've trained them and and helped them obtain their CDL so recruiting drivers maintaining drivers is key and to uh be more to to be able to offer a stronger package to the drivers that we're hiring because they're guaranteed three routes um and to to reduce the number of drivers that we need would be very uh helpful as well as we know that through attrition those 15 to 20 drivers that's not we don't expect that we'll be cutting 15 to
07620 drivers We Believe through attrition we would be able to accomplish that Franklin Township Wayne Township IPS Perry Township have already moved to a three- tier system Hamilton sou Eastern is going through a similar process now with redistricting and looking at three- tier transportation and we're aware that others are studying it as well this would lead to a cost savings on the conservative side of about $900,000 a year to our operations fund so very significant cost savings and that's even accounting for paying the drivers more to do the three tiers so you might think what would we do with $900,000 into our operations fund that would allow us to make more progress in replacing our Fleet of buses so when when we looked at that 28 of our buses are 15 to 16 or 15
077or 16 years old in 2021 82 of our buses are more than 12 years old that's 55% of our Fleet not because we don't want to replace buses but because of property tax caps we have just not been able to replace the buses at the rate we used to all of our buses even our 15 16e buses pass inspection they are safe transportation makes sure of that and their team they're inspected often but there's no doubt that a bus that's 15 or 16 years old poses challenges and has additional costs so uh that's a significant cost savings that we would be able to better replace our buses on a more consistent basis than we have been able to I don't know if it's the mass or the amount of talking but I need a drink
078for and it's War mhm the other piece that we have looked at is the research on school start and end times and I won't go through all of these for you CU they're in your packet and we will we will share these on our website but as you know you can find a study to support just about anything you want what we looked at was what are some of the really respected organizations that focus on student youth adolescent health and the impacts of school start and end time so you can see we've got the Centers for Disease Control CDC that talks about the importance of adolescents getting enough sleep and how early school start times impact that the American Academy of Pediatrics that talks about school start times before 8:30 for adolescents poses challenges Center
079for Applied research and educational Improvement again high schools that start at 8:30 or later see more benefits because students are getting more sleep the American Psychological Association found numerous benefits as they examined studies of schools that shifted to later start times for their adolescent aged students ranging from attendance to discipline GPA assessment scores attention in the classroom American Association for the advancement of science look specifically at Seattle schools and progress that they had made when they pushed back their Secondary School start times the national sleep Foundation focusing on again schools for adolescents that start at 8:30 or later New Jersey school boards Association talking about the power and the positive impacts of delaying school start times for secondary schools so this is our current school starting and ending times so you can see the variation
080that we have across the district with our earliest schools Middle School South and middle school north starting uh earliest at 7:45 Avon High School starting at 8: then our elementaries uh start somewhere between 8:25 and 850 intermediate East and Intermediate West being our latest schools and then our preschool time as well so now I'm going to walk you through three options that this group study We examined more options than this but these were the three that we spent our most time on so in option one this model keeps all four schools together in tier three so you can start to see middle school north and Middle School South South are still earliest Avon High School gets moved a little bit later to 8:20 and then all k4s stay in that third tier this does shift
081the intermediates to be a little bit earlier in the day well a lot earlier if you're Intermediate West going to 7:20 from 9:05 when we looked at this and studied the pros and the cons of this option as with anything there are both there are pros and there are cons some pros all k4s having a similar start at end time is helpful we don't have that now they start at different times but that certainly is a pro both middle schools and Avon High School would be home before all k4s would be home for families that maybe rely on a middle school or High School sibling to watch their younger siblings we like but you'll see this in all of the models the later start time at Avon High School all three models push the start
082time of Avon High School back to 820 we weren't able to get to that 8:30 Mark but we were able to get to 820 um we address traffic issues at East and West because you can see that they are separated by an hour um and that's the reason why Hickory and uh is separate from all the others is from transportation and working with uh Chief Le that even that 5 minute Gap allows for some traffic between uh to to be uh relieved a little bit between Hickory and Cedar that's why that that distinction is there um Pros West and East being earlier was something that was viewed as a pro simply because at West and East we start to see some more behaviors from kids as they're getting to 2:00 3:00 4:00 the that age
083group tends to do a little bit better in the morning and we're keeping them there until 3 or 4:00 some cons for this m model are the different start and end times at East and West we' worked really hard to have those schools have consistent starting and ending time times and those buildings collaborate closely with one another and have some shared staff so that poses a challenge the biggest concern for this and for option number two is moving North and South even earlier than they are and so North and South start at 745 right now to expect adolescents uh to come to school at 7:20 is a concern um when especially knowing what what we just talked about with research there's also a challenge when it relates to our middle school students who partic who
084parti ipate in athletics so right now when school ends at um 2:35 many times our students who participate in athletics have to go home at 2:35 and then come back to go to an away game because they typically leave at 4:15 or something like that so that poses a challenge to our families that have to figure out how to get their child back uh for a 4:00 for or 415 departure or in many cases our coaches or our teachers will say you can hang out in my room for an hour half until you have to leave to to go to the bus so uh pushing that even earlier would make that an even greater challenge that gap between um 205 in this model and when students would have to leave for an athletic event and
085then of course West would move significantly earlier and for some that might be a positive for some that might be a con we felt like that was a pretty significant change for West to move that much earlier but I know some people really like that idea and even at West have even said I like the idea of being there a little bit earlier option number oh so we did when we looked at this we really felt like the reason we could not recommend this model was moving the middle schools even earlier that was the biggest challenge why we didn't feel like this was a model that we could recommend um you'll see the difference in option number two this keeps the this is the most similar to what we do right now in that it
086keeps the middle schools early and it keeps the intermediates later and then the elementaries are sprinkled uh across all three tiers and again Avon High School is moved to 820 some pros of this one it is the most similar to what we do right now again the later start time at Avon High School it does help alleviate traffic issues at Hickory and cedar because they would be in different tiers uh it would the F minute offset between East and West would allow us to uh try to offset that as much as possible this model does allow West and East and North and South to be on about the same schedules so that they can and collaborate among teachers uh among those buildings and also for the purposes of shared staff one point that our transportation
087colleagues made is by spreading out the elementaries across the tiers that does actually help our our families who use our commercial dayc carees that provide a bus to pick up children um I see a lot of those at Hickory uh every day but I don't know if that's cuz I drive by Hickory a lot that's where most of them are um but this would allow them potentially to hit more schools cuz when the schools are all on the same time the bus can't be at all the different schools so that might help some of our families um cons of this model the k4s having different starting and ending times again we don't have that now um that because they are on different schedules but we felt like this that would be a con to this
088model that they would still be on different schedules the biggest one and the reason it's bolded is north and south being 20 minutes earlier than what they are now uh the same challenge with Middle School athletics pine tree and Cedar and bus model would get home before Avon High School for any families that need high school students to help supervise younger siblings and then kind of the same thing with uh West that we talked about earlier Cedar and this model is moved significantly earlier again I think that's could be a pro that could be a con depending on what you prefer so that led us to option number three and option number three um really tries to solve the issue of the biggest con that we had in option number one and number two was
089the Middle School piece and moving Middle School even earlier so in this model we said well what if we flipped middle schools later intermediates earlier so that's really the difference in this model intermediates would be in tier one middle schools would be in tier three and then again the elementaries are sprinkled across the three tiers so the pros of this model it accomplishes the later start time at Avon High School it allows that collaboration between East West and north and south by keeping them the same it moves Middle School starttime later which is supported by research and does solve some some of those challenges we talked about with Middle School athletics same thing with commercial daycares that would be able to transport students at different elementaries and shifting East and West earlier in the day
090um may be helpful for our younger students that are uh better equipped for school earlier in the day than they are at that 3 or four time the challenges of this model are the different start and end times at k4s which we've already talked about this would put Middle School getting home later than most of our k4s for supervision purposes and Avon High School would get home later than pine tree and Cedar and then the final challenge of this one is just it is a significant change for intermediate and north and south to do that flip and the other one that should probably be on there is Cedar it's a significant change for Cedar as well going from a later starting school uh to being in tier one so that is the model that we
091um would we have spent the most time talking about and that we feel like solves uh the majority of the challenges that that we have talked through this model is this uh slide I'm sorry is really just to highlight for you how we would structure the the PLC time that we started this conversation about so the yellow is the teacher day you can see how on Wednesdays we would extend the teacher day uh a little bit because of the time that we had have um set aside for for plc's the blue being the student day staying at 6 hours and 45 minutes across the board and then this just shows you uh this is an example of a school on Wednesdays that might PLC before students arrive in the morning because of their schedule and
092then this is an example at the bottom of a school that based on their schedule it might make more sense for them to PLC in the afternoon after kids have gone but the consistency across the day across the week for our students for their starting and ending time so our next steps as we um have kind of processed this internally um is starting tomorrow uh we would communicate with parents uh sharing a link to information on our website as well as a chance to provide some online feedback particularly about that third model um because that's really where we feel like uh the majority of our um challenges that we work through as a group are addressed in that third model we would hold a community Forum on January 6th in the auditorium for anyone who
093would like to come get this see this presentation get a little bit more information and share feedback ultimately leading us uh to giving you some feedback in advance of the January 11th board meeting uh where we could uh request your consideration of school starting and ending times the reason why we want to accomplish that in January is is is um due to a couple of reasons one being that by the end of January we really need to start the redistricting process for our staff that need to identify teachers at White Oak that need to be reassigned to to another Elementary School teachers at riverb that may need to be reassigned and we all of our teachers licensed at the elementary level will be a part of that redistricting process and will identify to us their
094preferences and we feel like it's important for them to know what those starting and ending times are when they're making those preferences known and we also want to provide our families as much notice as we can too if we're going to make changes particularly some of these that are more significant we want to give our families as much notice as we can ultimately leading us to July 29th which would be the first day of the 2122 school year so that is a an update of where we're at on school starting and ending times I'm certainly glad to uh answer any questions transportation is here as well if uh there's any information that you would like uh now or that you would like us to gather as we go through the next month getting feedback and
095uh working this through uh in in even more detail um I have one data request in one com comment U my comment is that I think going to the three- tiered approach makes a lot of sense for us not just the cost savings not withstanding but um also because um filling our driver ranks is getting more and more difficult um and even once we're past the pandemic I think it will remain so um so to the extent that we can beef up and make fulltime and um lucratively compensated a smaller number of drivers versus trying to get more to do a few routes I think is a step in the right direction um the only thing that I will say and this is a big wrinkle is this um so on the three tier you
096mentioned Franklin Township Wayne Township IPS Perry Township and Hamilton Southeastern right my belief is that not a single one of those School corporations has the configuration and grades that we have I don't know that there are I think there are only three other schools in the entire state of Indiana that have a K4 56 78 High School model so that being said is there any additional efficiency in terms of Transportation Route reduction the time spent on the bus and uh redistricting because that is a big moving part in you in allowing a K4 and a 56 to travel together on the same bus because that is what we would find in those models um I believe that the the equation is a little bit different because school Township Wayne Township for example has K through
097six correct um and so they going to a three- tiered approach for them is a is quite a bit easier because you're you're taking one entire swath of schools out of the mix and you're then dividing uh the remainder in the three tier so I would I don't know what the answer is I don't have an an opinion about it but I think it would benefit us if we're sending a bus in to get all the K through six and delivered to two schools I think we just need to look at that possibility as well and we certainly can and I know there are some routes especially I believe you call them combo routes where you are able to do that if the schedule allows it but what we can certainly look at is if
098there are any additional combo routes that could be added around those purposes but I know that's part of what Transportation does if they can in certain situations middle middle school with high school those kinds of things right we obviously don't want high school students in elementary students ever populating the same bus but uh K through six is a different matter just in my opinion and I should say and I'm glad you you said that too one of the things that that Transportation shared as we looked at this structure when schools start at 7:20 one of the things that they that we looked at was you know what does that mean for our kids that ride the bus how early could students be picked up or how late could they be dropped off right now our
099earliest pickup is at 6:45 in the morning in our current schedule in this schedule our earliest pickup would be 6:30 so it moves at 15 minutes earlier and it's the same at the back end of the day so on the back end of the day our latest drop off right now is 4:40 in this schedule our latest drop off would be 455 trying to make sure kids are home by 5:00 so we do have to lengthen that day but we felt like 15 minutes on the front 15 minutes on the back is not uh too significant when you think about the efficiencies that that this would gain as well looking at those times let's go uh East is is that 7:20 when the class begins or students entering no that's when school begins so so
100the kids in what time then 10 minutes before 10 before and then that's when school ends at 2:05 or they're out the door yep okay so you know I made the comment in the last discussion that we were going to talk about moving some families and I they we need a really really good reason to do it as you talk to the community about do this $900,000 is a really really really good reason to do something so I don't know that you have a choice I would like to petition my friends of Transportation D part that $900,000 an extra bus out the wind BR it all connects right we 15 passenger something um I'm thinking white bues too you know so I I don't know that you have a choice to save $900,000 and to
101the person issues that you're talking about and that $900,000 specifically in transportation when we're in our fund constraints right you you have to do this um so yeah um I it whatever I guess I toly agree that you if you can get the high school and middle schools out of the early mornings that's I'm the brainer and use the phrase I Ed in last discussion there are some folks that are going to take one just really important talkity about why yeah we have to do this well and I think that's a great point and and one of the reasons why we focus so much on option three was as we worked and and to transportations credit they've been talking about three years or three tier for years uh because of the efficiencies that it's gained
102the the efficiencies that it provides but really we looked at exactly what you said there's really there there is such strong reasons why we need to do this but if we're going to do it why not solve as many problem as many challenges as we can as we do it and that's where we really looked at that research on school starting and ending time so and I say that so this is going to make me wake up early yes I know right but I'm willing to take that for the team to save the 900,000 you're such a guy that's awesome sign him up one of those two elementaries thinks about being what I call Early school you know I think so much of it is on your personal preference and your your family Dynamics I
103think there are people that will love it there are people that will hate it and I think that's why we we just want to make sure our teachers know that when they're looking at where do they want to teach next year right um now our families don't have that same luxury um to to to make that decision but that's why if we can give them six months to plan and six months to to um work together and figure out what this would look like there's no doubt it's an impact on on a family and could require change to your child care the nice thing is we have the why um in in all of our schools but some families uh don't can't can't or don't access that and and this gives them time to make
104other arrangements but I do think so much of it is just driven by your personal I think you're going to find that with the teachers too A lot of the teachers uh particularly Elementary would like to get up and get going and get out of there yep and uh I'm I'm anxious to see how that goes when I was a teacher I I taught in an early school and I taught in a late school I Lov the early school cuz when you when you left you had a pretty good chunk of your afternoon still free but others would would prefer the the the the later start you know it's just what you prefer and what works best for your family I think when I was teaching it was 7:50 the kids came in at 8:00
105class started and then they got we started getting them ready to go maybe 310 250 something like that now they start kids come in at 7:15 and they start school at 7:30 the them all the elementaries and which Kim said are K through six so as we have looked and and you made reference to you know the importance of how we message this to to our community we really have talked and Mr car has been very helpful talking about really focusing our communication on this option and talking about what the advantages are of this option and getting feedback on this option as opposed to getting two bog down in one and two which which we're not sure really solve what what we need to solve to so if we can get some feedback on this
106option and maybe there are some some tweaks that we can make with transportation's help maybe there is some feedback that we'll get on this that would allow us to make some adjustments but we' really like to focus our communication on this to guide us and to come back with with a solid recommendation down the road um let me two things um one with the efficiencies in transportation and and I agree with you by the time this rolls out we may already be down 10 15 drivers but not I want to accommodate them um because our drivers have really been there and theyve really they they really take great great care of our kids I mean we just have so few issues and I really want to make sure we accommodate if we're not at the
10710 to5 um and then I think my only um my only concern is the and again it's up there that all the elementaries um start at different times and that concerns me that you know are all the fourth grade teachers really going to be able to work together are all the first grade teachers going to be able to put together the great um curriculum and discussion I think that's that's a real concern because that's that's K through four that's five of our 12 grades and so that to me is still really concerning and I I can't say that I have peace on it at this point and I'm sure we'll get there and I I'm sure we'll be able to figure it out but that probably creates the most concern for me is those teachers
108being able to have that time and and we spent a good deal of time talking about that as well that that was a concern for us and the reason why we were comfortable moving forward with this is a couple of things number one this schedule at least allows for the fourth grade teachers at each school to have time built in to collaborate so while they might not be able to collaborate Cedar to Hickory to pine tree at least the fourth grade teach at Cedar are going to have time built into their schedule the other piece that we looked at is right now there isn't time uh there because our lfk floors don't start at similar times now there really isn't a lot of that cross School collaboration the way that there is at East and
109West and north and south so when we talked with those representatives from those schools it felt like taking a step backwards to split up east and west and north and south when they are so used to collaborating across cross schools that this felt a little bit at least at K4 this is this is status quo at the K4 level and maybe I think better because they're able to collaborate um time built into their schedule at least within their school and preserves the great work happening across buildings at intermediate and middle school can you remind me I should know this does this get rid of the one hour delays right yes so and we're going to look at in minutes some alternative things for this year days I think we just shouldn't lose s of what
110just mentioned we've heard from intermediate teachers that they can tell which elementary kids school the kids come from and we need to try to not make that the case so we still now would have with some e learning some other things we should think about ways to make sure we allow those elementaries to collaborate across at least May monthly and a lot of that too you know with our structure that we will have in January with a director of teaching and learning at the K4 prek fourth grade level Miss Al day when she starts part of her job is to help ensure that consistency at the K4 level while Dr trun focuses more on 512 so I do think in January um we'll have some additional things in place even at the this school year
111that will hopefully help to sum of exactly what you're you're describing any other questions we will if not we will uh continue to work and and pull together information and start communicating tomorrow um to get some feedback on this right so parents can look for emails yep that will um give them the updates give them an opportunity to give feedback and um and that's correct we look forward to reading their feedback so thank you yes Dr W the teacher will they have a big say in this between now and yes I'm so glad you you asked that question so that that survey would go to parents and that same survey would go to staff okay and so all of our staff teachers bus drivers assistants Food Service would be able to give us some insight
112we would be able to to distinguish um based on what school they work at or attend and what their role is thank you y all right thank you for a great evening of discussion and um it's been been it's been really nice to be able to think about the future and think about how we can provide better programming for our students and um so thank you to everyone that's been involved to Transportation thank you we're going to move on to the consent agenda