10-16-2025 Special Board Meeting

001in the time uh place schedule for North School District Board of Director's work setting. So you have a flag here somewhere. That's why you can also the flag >> of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Now we have Julie Her Megan Pro Roberts myself Anna Huitt all aboard and first item on the agenda is the um approval of the agenda. Do I have a motion? >> I'm in a motion to add service credits seven. >> Any objection to that? All right. So number seven be number adjourned which is seven becomes eight and number seven is these uh service credits issue. All right uh having made that motion do we have a second? >> Second. >> We have

002a second. Uh all in favor say I. >> I opposed none opposed. So we move on to the local option levy issue here. First off, I think we have a presentation by David Williams of Piper Stan. >> That must be you. >> That is me. >> You got mentioned before you. >> Yes, >> I'm a random guy in the soup. And I think he's bringing up my slides. While while he does, um, let me just give a little bit of like, okay, why is Piper Sandler here talking about local option lobby? I mean, we of course um, by and large school districts around their uh, debt financing and school bond related needs. uh we are a a financial services underwriting but um that positions us to have some unique expertise around the property tax system

003in Logan because of course interact with property tax system and so we like to share that that expertise when we can um and help you all understand um this interesting tool of the local option levy um me personally um I've been with Piper for about two and a half years now um before that I had my own 25 year career in Morgan's K12 system. I'm not an educator. Um but I did work for the rural school boards association um a large district river and another large district centered around a footwear company in Beaverton. Um and then Northwest P2 ESD in a variety of strategic initiative and chief staff on the board. So I also have that base of knowledge having school funding and other school tax related independent issues. So I've been mentally um very

004honored to be here. Thank you for having me. Uh thank you all for your service on the board. Um having worked for OSPA and four boards and districts I know that they were shocked to do so. So thank you. So let's talk about local option levy. Um please. So local option levy. What is this? This is an interesting thing. So, local option levy is a unique opportunity for a school district to raise additional funds for operating funds locally in the form of a profit test. Um, this is this tool was created in 1997 under ballot measure 50. Um, we're going to talk a little bit about measure 50 because that is the reason it's here. Measure 50 enforces what gave us the wonderful little assessed value framework in the way we uh levy and collect

005taxes in Oregon. And it created this other tool because it knew that there was going to be suppression of value for jurisdictions, not just school districts, but all jurisdictions um I shouldn't say all, for school districts, cities, counties, special districts to look to to um seek voter approval for serial uh local option. Um, notably, we'll get to this, ESDs uh, do not have this authority and community colleges may or may not. It's not been tested and none of them have state. Um, you do have actually two opportunities for a local option levy. You can do an operating levy, which is a five-year limit um, per voter approval or a 10-year capital levy. I would note that nobody in the state has ever done a 10-year capital levy, mostly because a a a bond levy is

006a far more powerful tool because a capital levy at a local option levy authority as we'll get into is affected by this thing called compression. So it is a variable collection tool whereas a bond levy is a fixed collection tool that does not vary. So that that's why you have that idea. Um, the local option levy can be levied as a fixed dollar amount or a rate per thousand much like a capital levy. No state on the school district side has ever levered a fixed dollar amount um because again of your inability in that stage to take advantage of value growth during the life of the levy. So levying as a levy rate instead of a fixed dollar amount allows the levy to float as values in the community go up and those values go

007down they it will slip down. It is subject to majority voter approval um at either the May or November election and do latently uh in full um you know do all my homework you do actually have the ability to go in a September or March election but those elections still have a double majority requirement. You have to get a 50% yes and a 50% term. So nobody uses those collections at all anymore with all may next slide. Okay. So um this is just again the operating and capital levy. I'm not going to go into too much detail about the capital entitlement of it. Um the operating levy part of this the fiveyear serial levy notably it can basically be used for any legal expense of the district. You can spend it on anything you are

008legally allowed to spend money. It is fully uh discretionary uh funds for uh the school district. Um when you we were talking about this earlier when you put a bond on the ballot and you get a bond approval um you are tied to the ballot title which describes what the bond can be spent on um a local option levy while a ballot title will reasonably describe what you expect to spend those funds on. It is not it is not binding unlike a moment time. Next slide please and I'm trying to run through this quickly. I understand you have a big agenda. I am totally okay with questions as we go too. So feel free to interject. So we do have to do a little bit of a property tax history lesson in order to understand

009the uniqueness of the local option levy and also some key caveats with it when you think about it as a tool for raising operation dollars. Okay. So the first thing we had was back in 1990 we had ballot measure 5 passed. Ballot measure five capped the total amount of property taxes that can be collected on an individual property. It said $15 per 1,000 of real market value. You notice I I highlight R&B, real market. And it broke that down further. It said no more than $5 per thousand for all education entities, which are only the three school district, ESDA, community college, and $10 for all other local governments. So, city, county, if you have separate fire jurisdictions with parks districts or library districts, etc., they all fall under that $10. Okay? you have your separate

010sort of schools have their own special lane over here with the five bucks and then 10 bucks for all general government and again that's on real bargain values. So that that passed in 1990 and that cruised along as a as an attempt to um sort of lower property taxes statewide. Well, of course what happened in the '9s, you had just phenomenal value growth during the 1990s and that again created another round of property tax reform. There was ballot measure 47 which was unworkable. So the legislature kicked out as a way to modify it ballot measure 50 in 1997 which was the roof. And what measure 50 did is it left measure five in place. So you still have these caps on real market value tax collections. But it said instead of levying your taxes say

011that $5 on the VA the real market value of the property we're going to levy it on something called assessed value. So, we're going to create a framework that says we're going to value your your property and then we're going to cap the growth of that value year over year. So, we capped it that the the the measure caps it at 3%. So, your property, every property in the state of Oregon, their growth in assessed value is capped at 3% a year. It cannot grow more than 3% a year. It could grow less if market value collapsed and and you push that downward. It would go down, right? But it can't go any lower than 3%. Notably, unlike uh certain states south of here, that doesn't change if you sell the property, right? That that

012will be in perpetuity unless we amend the constitution. So every property will just grow at that 3% a year forever and ever, right? So you can imagine a scenario where your market values are going up 6 7 8% a year but your assessed value is only going up at 3% a year. So you're creating this gap between assessed value and real market value. Okay. Now remember our rates over here are $5 and $10. Those are limits on the dollars collected as it relates to real market value. But the levies now, these rates are now being applied to assessed value, right? We we create new rates. We just said we'll take whatever that is, that five bucks, and we're going to put it on assessed value. So that $5 is going to collect less and less

013as it relates to real market value. So that $5 in 1997 was collecting five bucks per thousand real market value. Today, that five bucks is probably collecting 350. it's not actually collecting $5 because of that change 350 in real market value. Right? So that's a that's a key framework here. Okay. The other thing 19 in 1997 that measure 50 did is it assigned every jurisdiction in the state what's called a permanent rate. So the school district every year and you board adopt your budget resolution. You levy your permanent rate. You can't change it. There's no opportunity. You can't levy lower or higher. And it's what people decide 430. No, that's the total 4 416ish. We I've got that on. You'll see. So, you have a permanent rate that you're levying every year and the the

014community college is like 70 cents and the ESD is like 40 cents, right? So, those rates are non-changeable and that that is what is generating revenue for the school district. now in school district land. Of course, that's all offset in the state schools fund formula and more or less spread around statewide uh along with all the other school district from the race in the state. Right? So, that's a key piece. The last thing that measure 50 did is it created this local option levy authority and said, "We know these things are going to get funny. So, let's go ahead and give you the authority to ask your voters for an additional levy above your perimeter, but still underneath that measure five cap, that $5 per thousand of real market revenue require." That's what it said.

015So, that's okay. So, we know the creation. So there are a couple of other pieces that have been added to this that uh sort of limit your ability to collect and attempt to equalize it. We're going to get to some math in a minute so we can show you what this looks like. Right. So we also the state said we don't want too many districts to get too far outside of the sort of rough equalization ban with a local option levy. So we're going to cap the amount. There are three caps. One is that constitutional measure five limit. The other is a dollars per student that is increased every year by 3%. That actually was 2,000 when it was initially enacted and it's going up 3% a year. It's now at that 23 of 80

016major, right? And then or 25% of your total for me. You'll see later on a spreadsheet we have for North Bend the and it's your cap is the lower of any of those. For North Bend, your cap was the measure five limit that would collect that that is the lowest of those three um limits and therefore you could theoretically collect no more than $6.5 million. Okay, keep that in mind. Equalization grants. The state also said, hey, we know that not every community has an equal ability based on property valuable community to levy an equal rate. A dollar here is not the same as a dollar in Lake Arena. So, we're going to give uh some grants to kind of try to balance it out if you pass a local option. So, they said, "We're going

017to take all the districts in the state. We want to find out what's the 70th percentile in sort of property value student." Okay? And if you're below that level and you pass a local option level levy, we will chew you up as though you were at that 70th percentile. Okay? Today, if you had a local option levy in place today for fiscal 25, I should say, you would have received a 103% grant, right? That means you're you're you're well below that 70th percentage and whatever you if you levied a million dollars, you would get a million and three in a local optionization grant from the state. This comes out of the state school fund bianually um and is appropriated by the legislature. I note this one that that's a pretty powerful grant that will be

018one of the highest there I think only six districts that are receiving equalization grants because you'll see the list of districts that have levies later. Um this is subject to state appropriation, right? So while this has never been a problem because it's a carve out of the state school fund, nobody ever bats an eye at it. um more and more districts considering a local option levy if they fall into this that dollar amount could start to get um fairly large. Now I think in your case it would not be large enough to sort of pause any political constrnation from the powers that be but there are for instance we were presenting a similar representation to the Salem Kaiser school district and in their case given size and scale you're talking about maybe upwards of a

01920 million equalization grant from the state all of a sudden that really shows up in a meaningful way. So it's just caveat that that does require annual appropriation from the state. Okay, so you have these limits and you have some equalization. Next step. Okay, so back to figuring out how much we're going to rate. So remember this. So this this chart just visually shows you kind of what that gap looks like. This is statewide. This is not Northbend. You can see the the the where the two lines diverge in 97. So your blue line is that 3% very predictable growth rate over time. And then your dashed uh orange line is the real market value. And you can see what happened uh in 2008 through 2011 when obvious housing crisis and declined property values. Now

020this graph will look different jurisdiction by jurisdiction notably to shoot county that dash line goes well below the blue line in 2018 right they were well underwater at that point they are now back above it but they were well underwater. So you know notably that would happen and when that does your assessed values get suppressed in that instance you don't maintain a higher AV you they get suppressed committee okay but that space between those two lines is really what we're talking about where the local option would be exists next okay so further figuring out how to calculate this and this is important because calculating how much you will collect in the local option levy gets a little complicated for um this reason called compression. Okay, so um the the the tax is levied on individual

021properties, right? So every property pays their property tax bill and I encourage you all to go home tonight, pull up your property tax bill and see what's on there. You can see all the various levies that are being levied. You can see what your real market value is and what your assessed value is. They would be different. The jurisdictional average of s is 54%. So the average property in Northbend is 54 is worth 54% of its real market value. That's the gap between those two. Okay, that's average. And in the world of local option levies, averages mean nothing. They don't help us, right, when understanding how much this would for a variety of reasons. Okay, so um some property. So you remember if we go back don't go back a few slides but if we

022go back a few slides in our head if you remember you have this $5 per thousand real market value cap right and then you have the levy rates being applied to assessed value. So if your house is worth 50% the assessed value is 50% of its real market value your local op your permanent rate collections your permanent rates are going to be I think we decided $5.30 30 cents is the total. You're going to pay the full 53. But if your piece of property happened to be 100% of real market value, you'd only pay five bucks. You wouldn't pay 53. So it would get compressed. All the levies would get compressed down to that $5, okay, in the per rates. And you'll see we have some math to show you there are some properties for

023which this is the case. Not many, but there are some. There's a way to figure that out. But as you add levy rings on top of that $5.30, let's say you added a dollar levy, now you're at $6.30 as a levy against a property owner. More properties will get closer to that $5 levy. And therefore, when that happens, the first thing that is compressed is the local option down to whatever would equal $5 per thousand real market value in tax collections, right? uh you can borrow the the the the next to last bullet. There's no competition among competing organiz competing uh jurisdictions for you all. That's in the local government side. Um and um yeah, good. Next slide. All right. So, let's talk about what that looks like because again, this is property by property.

024So, we have two different properties here. These are these are random. They're not well then. They're just um math problems to show us. So on one hand, we have a house that it's got a real market value of $600,000, but it's only got an assessed value now of 360,000, right? That's about 60% of uh of its value, right? So it's got a gap there. So I could levy in that space because it's got pretty good space. But over on the other side now we've got a commercial building where it's real market value and assessed value. Assessed value is 99% of real market value. Right? So on that property I'm probably not going to have much space. My levy's probably going to get compressed over and that is by and large the case with commercial industrial

025properties. They have different ways of depreciating assets and revaluing assets to the degree that their assessed value is often very much 90% to 100% market. >> By and large, your residential properties districtwide will be the ones driving that gap to 54%. So if the average in the jurisdiction is 54%. I would hazard to say the average residential home, residential from zoning R1, not necessarily a residents living there, but a house that that uh assessed value is probably going to be below in some cases below 50% of the real. So by and large that will be the base of properties where the local exist. So let's go to the next Okay. So then we get the question of well so is this worth it? How much is this going to collect? What do we need? And

026there's a slide here with a whole lot of numbers on it. And I'm not going to go into a lot of them. We may go back one to see this, but go forward one slide where I call out just 2020. Okay. So let's walk through this slide a little bit. I'm going to start on the left hand side. You have, you know, 3,400 plus students. You've got state school fund revenue. This is fiscal 25 say school fund revenue is a 37 and change million. Um below that you can see the permanent rates. So these are the unchangeable rates when you adopt your budget. You adopt a $416 cents uh permanent rate levy. New college 70 cents EST 44 cents for a total of flat food. That that's on the permanent rate sector. Then just below

027that I can see, oh wait a minute, because we can get this from the assessor, you are actually losing some money to compression. The school district itself is losing out on a grand total of $17,000 274 in due to compression. So that's telling me right off the bat. There's not a lot, but there are some properties that are not paying that full $5.30 le the perman right because you're losing money. So some amount of that is being compressed out of the system. You can see 3,000 for the community college, 18800 for the ESD, right? So not a lot, but there is some. So as I think remember my exercise here is I got to figure out how how much do we think we can estimate a local option. Okay, so let's go to the middle

028part. So we start there with total property values. You've got three billion just over three billion dollars in total taxable property in jurisdiction. Okay, but your AV, your total A assessed value of those collected properties is $1.6 billion, right? So that's that 54%. That's the average. That's average district one, right? So, okay. So 1.6 billion is what we would be levying against because levying on assessed values, not on reality. Okay, we got a little another compression example below where we figure that out. So we figured, you know, okay, the math here gets pretty easy then at this point to create a theoretical maximum collection. The math so that's a dollar per thousand, right? What was our number up there of total AB? 1.67 billion. Well, guess what? A dollar per thousand raises 1.67 million because

029you just move the decimal points. And that's your theoret on a dollar per thousand local option your theoretical maximum is 1.67 million right and you can see that the math is simple at 50 cents or a buck 50 or frankly on up as high as you want to go. Now we do over on the far right column we do look at your uh your limits that exist and we know you know your constitutional limit is the one that applies at 6.5 million if you remember that from earlier. Obviously these led rates you're not approaching that 6.5 million. So there's plenty of space within those limits. There are districts that hit that limit. Um Portland public is is at that limit. Think higher value districts like Asiggo Ashland. Uh they are both at their limits. Their

030limits are actually the um dollars per student. Hence the law change to index that and raise that all the time. So you have a lot of space there. Great. So let's go back to that theoretical levy collection. Okay. So let's say a dollar per thousand and $1.67 million. So why is that a theoretical maximum and why should I be concerned if I'm going out to the voters? I don't want to say we're going to get $1.67 million because you remember over here compression books. There are properties that are not paying the full $530. So, if I add a buck on that $530, they will pay zero of that buck because they're already not paying some portion of the permanent rates. They will pay zero. And because I'm adding a buck on top of that, I'm

031going to have some other unknown number of properties get into compression and pay somewhere between a dollar and zero. They're going to fall somewhere on that spectrum. So, it will be less. There is not without doing a property bypropy analysis literally getting from the assessor a an Excel file of every single property in the district there's not a way of reasonably projecting what that would be so you all as a jurisdiction have to decide sort of either you do that you do that probably or you make some educated guesses okay and those educated guesses go something like this okay if I'm going to go out to the voters I want to be able to have a reasonable conversation with them about what a levy is going to collect because what are we paying for that

032with that levy? Some portion of operations and I want to be able to note what that is. That's the selling world of NP, right? Just like a bond, I want to say what I'm building with it. Here you want to say what you're buying. But you don't want to overpromise and all of a sudden you pass this and it turns out you're collecting 1.2 million instead of 1.6 million, right? And whoops, actually that's, you know, five positions I can't hire anymore. So we we need to make sure we're sort of on the underpromise when we're going to right. So yes. >> So does urban renewal at all affect the option levies? >> So um urban renewal is really interesting. Um so urban renewal um when an urban rule is in place >> it it cuts

033it reduces your permanent rate collections because it it sort of still collects it but it moves it over to local governments. Mhm. >> Okay. Weirdly enough, if you have a local option levy, that means fewer properties would be in compression on the education side, the local option level. Right? That's the weird interaction between urban renewal and a local option. So, if an urban renewal comes off, your permanent rate collections go up. Therefore, throwing more properties into compression on the school district side, your local option levy can collect for less. Okay. >> It is it is a weird twist with the way urban reneur works and the way these two limits the $5 and the $10 bounces off each other. >> So, but I'm wondering So, but does any of the local options that doesn't get

034diverted to the urban renewal? It's just instead reducing, you know, the $5. >> Okay, that's what I wanted to make sure. >> Perfect. >> That's excellent question. >> So, so the next question I would get is Okay. So, great. I could just make up a number. Let's take 10% off of that. Let's take 20%. I don't know. How do I know what kind of haircut I should give to my projected local option levy collections? Obviously, once you levy a tax and you have experience, you now are levying it maybe two, three years down the road, you'll have a reliable sense of what the collections are. This is all about that first instance about knowing what you're going to get the first time, right? So, so next slide. So the best way we can do this

035at more sort of the nap math approach is let's just look at everybody that has a local option levy and see how much they're losing right and it's kind of ballpark. Now if you look at this list this is the universe of all districts with the local option levy. There's a really really tiny footnote down there adding one to the list school district up the coast. They passed one in bay. um we don't have any experience for them yet of collections. Therefore, they're not pulled out separately. But they do have one that just won't. You'll notice the second to last column, the percent loss, that is how much is being lost to compression in each of those jurisdictions. And you'll notice it's kind of all over the place, right? So, we have to we have

036to make some educated guesses about what is going on in those areas. There are some obvious. The higher the levy rate, the more likely you're going to push more properties into compression, right? So obviously the higher up. The lower the le rate, the less likely you are to push properties into compression because you're just not building as high of a total tax, right? But we see low numbers near the top and high numbers near the bottom. So what does that mean? The next thing we have to do is we have to make some assumptions about what those communities look like. And the best again without doing the full property by property analysis, the best tool you can do is to look at this list and kind of try to figure out which of those jurisdictions

037is most like North and decide does their loss of compression is that a rational number for you to begin to use first your estimates. Again, remember it doesn't impact actual collection. ential collections will be what they are and once you have experience you'll know what it is but it's about making that first estimate and I I emphasize this because uh Sherwood school district they had some financial exigence two years ago um deficit spending they were in real trouble. They went to their voters and they said, "Hey, um, our bad. Things got messed up. We need a local option." And they passed a local option. And they had some estimates and they made an assumption that I'm sure Sherwood is a largely residential community, right? Well, look at their number up there. They're losing 16% to

038compression. That surprised them. They thought more like 5%. More like our friends in Lake Aswa is what they were projecting. So that shocked them and what they realized at because they did an after action report and looked at all their properties they had far more light industrial and utility properties than they realized and that's where that loss occurred. Right? So the the the the nearest trend you can draw from this is jurisdictions that are largely residential. So, Legos we go up there at the top, fall city, seaside, sweet home, sisters, right? Largely residential properties, not big industrial place. They don't have downtown like all that kind of stuff. Um, those are going to be in the lower single digit in loss of commission because remember most houses, most residential properties will have a far wider

039count. jurisdictions with more industrial base. Portland downtown, right? Um North Clakamus, a lot of southeast Portland industrial space. Uh Corvalis with um also non-taxial property west, right? Um West and Wilsonville was probably a little bit of a surprise. Um Pood River, a lot of industrial property out there. Tigers and a lot of commercial property. They're all losing significantly more compression because of that dynamic where a lot of your industrial and commercial property will be much closer closer to that percent. Right? So the caution here is as you think about this, if you were to say great, let's go for a buck. What was it? 1.67 million. Let's go for a buck. We think that's great. you probably need to make some rational assessment around where what sort of haircut you want to give to that

040number when talking with voters about what you think you can reasonably expect to do in the first year. The other caveat that I think a lot of your colleague districts on here would say in that first year is be cautious with budgeting the first cycle. Right? So if you were to put this on the May ballot and pass it, you will levy it for fiscal 27. Right? We're in fiscal 26 right now. you would levy it for the fiscal 27 budget along with passing your budget, right? Be cautious in budgeting robustly for the expenditure of it in fiscal 27 because of that timing. So figure out where is the balance point, the tolerance for how much to budget or how much to amend a budget mid year when the revenues do materialize, right? That would

041be the the question that so great question. And so if you remember the local option equalization grant, you're eligible for 103%. And that's not respective to the dollar amount you raise, right? So you raise 500,000, you got 103% of that. You raise 1.5 million, you got 103%, right? Um the because it is a legislative appropriation every bianium. You only get it for the bianium following passage. So if you pass in May of 26, you got to wait until fiscal 28, right? So there's a full legislative session in spring of 27 for a budget for the 2729 bianium. That would be the first benium in which you would receive the lower. So fiscal I know the fiscal years get confusing. We'll start doing well. Well, in fiscal 26 right now, we don't have a local option.

042If you passed one, you would begin to collect and therefore be able to spend in fiscal 27 and then you would receive the local option equalization grant in addition in fiscal 28. So a year later so be great great clarification. Um I think there's not another slide and we'll advance forward just make sure but I think that's where we're at. I'm happy to answer. Oh, but a good summary study. It's very complicated. Local option levy has lots of weird vagaries in it. It's a challenge to predict. However, it is probably the only meaningful choice you have for raising additional revenue for operations really is um happy to answer any questions now. Also feel free to follow them through Tim as they come through later um as you think about this discount. There was component on

043there the the does that change the great. So let's go up a couple slides by one that has like a thousand numbers in it. >> So the local option one more local option utilization r is you know every year is going to get calculated and again remember it's based on that 70th percentile. If you can make out the very bottom orange bar on here, you'll notice that your back math on this, your theoretical ran varied quite wildly over the last time. 123% 143 203 2011 108 103. So there are a couple of drivers there that are important to know. Um one is where you fall on that 70%. So some one part of that is what is happening with property value in the whole state right because your relative valuation but a very important driver

044which is probably why it has declined to the point where it's at 103 versus 203 is your student enrollment. So if you remember your rent based on your property value per student it's not relative to students individuals it's property value. So, if you think year-over-year, the property value in in Northbend doesn't change dramatically, right? It goes up or down a couple percentage points, right? It's not going 20%. Now, if you all of a sudden take 20% of your students out of the calculation, the remaining students have a much higher property value per student. That will move you up the ranking list, right? You'll be closer to that 70%. If you add 20% of the students on top, now your property value per student goes way down. You'll go down and your grant would go up.

045So that's what's happening here between 22 and 25 is really a loss of students. >> And so which year would they use? So if they're not awarding it year, >> so so in fiscal year 28, whatever it is, they awarded that year and then Okay. >> I mean, it's it's technically the the one year behind, right? Because in fiscal 28 we don't have fiscal 28 numbers yet. So >> 27 but then it' be each year >> and each year from >> I have a question. >> Yes. So it cannot be passed if 50% of the voters do not cast a vote. >> No that's only in March and September elections which are loans anyway. So it's just a simple 50% yes in May only. Oh of votes. >> So 25% of voters could vote in

046May. It could be 12 voters and as long as you get seven, you pass. >> Yeah, technically we say 50% plus one, but not for [Music] >> I know there's a lot I know there's a lot of moving parts in this thing. Um >> I guess one more thing too is just you know one of the benefits of this versus bonds too is there's not a little cost to trying it out. Correct. I mean isn't it just putting it on? >> Yeah. I mean, there's a there there's a like >> putting something on the ballot, you incur a nominal fee to pay for the election itself, >> right? There's that bit and obviously there's the conversation with the public that has to impermanent um but right, you're not going through um for instance a facilities

047assessment or things like that uh to determine it is a um lowcost opportunity for the district to have that conversation. You know, when when people ask me, you know, what's the lead time for putting things on the ballot with a bond? I say you got to you need at least a year because you've got to do that because you can work. You got to figure out the project plan. You got to talk about it with the public. You buy it in, then you put on the ballot, then you run a campaign. With a local option levy, it's not. It's more of a six to eight month dynamic because, you know, it's like as you're thinking about now for May, right? And that's the appropriate timeline to begin to think about having an effective conversation in

048votes. You get you know with a bond you think about it when you start a bond process you're not having the conversation with the builders yet and doing a lot of development on the front end the development is right now this it's it's not super complicated from that absolutely any other questions how about the public any questions for David this is fantastic information to have have you join us I mean there's so much information here that we need to for that. So we as um and I think you know some of the key takeaways just the concept of compression we don't want to um went for that dollar we wouldn't want to go out and say we're going to collect 1.6 you know, you want to build in my lovely garden maybe 15% or so

049say less amount of deliver type thing. And I also think it was being very prudent for us if we were to recommend this to the voters to to also say to ourselves as a district in order to be responsible that we would not use the grant itself for staffing because there's too much variability to that or too much potential for variability. Instead, we could take that grant money, set it aside, use it to help balance out that compression up and down, and then after that's realized, after that's balanced, we could then take that money and stick it in our facilities funds at that that level. So, so we're getting sort of the best of both worlds for that fiveyear actually. So, quite quite quite a lot of very important there and that's at the dollar,

050you know, and so we'd also have to consider at what rate we we want to go out for. Um, like we when we get our last couple just under a dollar, I believe that a lot better talk about some of the things that might be coming off the ballot. Um, so there might be an opportunity for us to present to those others. Um, but I think there there's a few steps we wish to go to. Christina is going to talk about some of the work that she's done with the union and the political action committee there and um you know in terms of of a union's work you know they they would get some things out there planned for us we would work together on the message to put on the ballot and then we

051we would we would do some sort of public work together before we brought it to the vote and then at that point we would be stepping back as a district we're not going to be involved in the review If we did pass it and the dollars did come, I know that like the superintendent a lot of she had a lot of ideas on what will be beneficial to budgets the money. >> Well, technically the district will budget the money, but what we would want to be very transparent about is whatever process we use like so so and let Christine you want to go ahead and present what your process and then come back to because I think she might she might capture that. I shall do my best and I want to thank you guys

052very much for making time on the agenda for this presentation. I wanted to talk to you guys a little bit about the why we're asking for this and a little bit about what the next steps would be. So, we've been knowing we've known about declining enrollment for a long time. We've heard about it for at least the last three years. And as you guys know, this spring we did the reassignments. We did the reduction in force. The district tried to do it the best way possible where we didn't have to cut anybody who and we didn't have anybody really lose a job who was on contract. We had a few people that were on temporary assignments that lost, but they tried to lessen the blow as much as possible. But it was it was still

053a blow. It was still very a very tough spring knowing that we our class sizes were going to be bigger knowing that we were going to be teaching different things. Some people are teach were going to be teaching at different levels and we were pretty glump. So through my work with the OEA park I came up with the idea and pitched it to Eva and some of the other folks about what if we pursue a levy. This is something that we can do as teachers, as staff, as a community and say we did what was necessary to balance the budget, but we know that we can do better for our kids. We know we can do better for the community and that the levy is how to do it. So, we identified our priorities. We

054want the levy to be about reducing class- size K12, about bringing back some of the electives that got cut K through 12, and for supporting our classified staff because they've had some reductions in force as well. So this summer, I met with the OEA pack political strategist, Elvis Zarga. I sent you guys. I think you all got the email of my brain dump. Here's all the stuff because I wanted you guys to be reassured that we this wasn't just a good idea. This is a concrete plan. We have resources through the OEA pack who can uh they're supported with donation by donations of some teachers. It's not something that comes out of our union dues, but those of us who are PAC board members pay or pack members pay for the this staff. So unlike

055what happened with the bond, the district isn't going to have to pay to survey the community. They're not going to have to pay to access the voter access network and figure out if we're going to send mailers, who are the our voters that are definitely going to buy that sort of thing. So I met with Elvis. I roughed out here's what we would need to do in order to come up with a levy and make a canv. So at the welcome back meeting on the very first day of inservice I met with both the classified and the certified staff and the teachers seemed really really happy that we had an idea of how we could make things better because by this time we're going into synergy. We're seeing our class sizes. We're opening the books

056and looking at the new curriculum. it's starting to sink in. Um, so and I gave out a survey to all of our all of our certified teachers, all of our union members la uh last week and twothirds of them say they have more students in the classroom. 50% of them say their assignment changed in some way. And you guys have heard of some of the big ones of people moving from one building to another. But we've also had people where the elective that they've taught for years got cut because they had to cover this required class or, you know, they were just doing one thing and now they've added another thing to pick up this lab. And so we had I put on there, what would you do to support the levy? And we had

057people that said they would can door to door, people who said that they would donate money and that sort of thing. So it sounds like we do have the support from the teachers. When we launched the bond, there were a few teachers who were very passionate about the bond, but overall the response was pretty tepid. I'm not feeling that with this. You guys wanted to make sure not sure if they're just being nice to me because they like me, but I think that and I've told them the thing that, you know, Kevin Bogatton's bond didn't pass. Christina Gman's levy isn't going to either. This has to be about all of the teachers, all of the staff, the whole community coming together and saying, "We're doing the best we can, but we can do better." So,

058what we're doing tonight is asking you guys if you think that this is worth pursuing because you have to say, if you say tonight, no, then we're we're stopping. We can't do this without you. If you say that you're willing to let us go a little bit further, what would happen is we're going to have meetings where we will definitely invite all of you and everybody, all teachers, students, if you want to come, we will invite, you know, anybody who wants the seat at the table who lives in North who works in Northmen to be affected by this um to write the levy. And the actual levy text is going to be pretty simple. just going to be here's our priorities and what number we're asking for. If we ask for around a dollar on

059thousand of assessed value, it would create about 10 teaching positions and possibly some classified staff as well. So, my house at 1535 Garfield, if you were wondering, that's a two-bedroom. It's uh real market value is 240,000, but its assessed value is only 110,000. So, I'd be paying an extra 110 on my taxes. And that was kind of my takeaway from your presentation was that it seems scary. The amount that we're going to have to pay each year seems scary when we look at what our houses are actually worth. When we look at the assessed value, I was like, you know what? I I could do that. Um, so in addition to writing like the text of the levy, we would figure out how are we going to be strategic about this? Because if we're asking

060the community for money, we need to make sure that we have a concrete plan. Here's how we're going to use it. Here's how we're going to make things better. And identify which positions in particular we would bring back. A couple that are at the top of the list already. If we can bring back an elementary music position, not only would those kids be getting music, but also it would fix the scheduling that they've been having trouble with. I know fifth grade at Hillrest and possibly North Bay. Their reading block is now in the afternoon. And if you've ever I used to have an elementary afternoon, that's when you do art and you do electives and you do the fun stuff because their focus is gone. And having to do reading, especially in a year where

061we do the state testing after lunch, that's really not what's best for the kiddos. Um, and at the middle school right now they're sharing most of their elective teachers with the high school. So in the morning they're having class sizes of 20 and then in the afternoon they're having class sizes of over 30 because of the scheduling. And we have one like rope gym class where there's nothing else available for an elective. They've got 43 in of them. Yeah. So what I'm trying to say with those examples is we can be strategic and even if it's just 10 positions, we could really make a difference and make things better for our kids, better for our teachers and that sort of thing. So what we would do is we would spend the next couple of months

062with uh heavy planning and then in January we would bring back here is the text of the levy schoolboard. here is what we've identified like have the the short version then the long version here is our plan of what we're going to do and if that works we would start our campaign and LV said that we would have to do some fundraising that it would be he estimates $20,000 for a campaign I think we paid significantly more than that for the bond but we have access to some things that through the pack that make our um our campaign more strategic where we're not sending out mailers to everybody in Northbend. We can target we can be like well Nathan will vote if it's only a dog catcher on the thing. He votes in every election

063and Michelle waits for the president and decide you know who gets that just you know just as an example because there are there are some people like that. I'm one of the people that votes every time even if I really don't care. I don't know. Feels my civic duty. I'm rambling now. I'm sorry. I get nervous about this because I want I feel very passionately about this. I love my school district. I love my school. My co-workers are my best co-workers. I just really feel bad that my best this year isn't the same as my best last year. And I this is the only way I can figure out better. So, do you guys have any questions for me? Is there anything I can do to clarif what what Christina the number she's she's coming

064up with there for the number of teachers in classified is taking into account um you know about buffer there compression loss which is which is an important factor in that we that came in and and you're absolutely right you know it's not it's not Christina's bond it's not the bond it's north school uh levy it's northb school districts levy um for the benefit of the children. It's the community loving related benefit of the children, but it's something that the side should pursue. And you're also 100% right. We didn't have the the buy in um with with staff who's on the ground and in this case I imagine we would see a lot of students helping with that process too. So there there's a lot of ways in which I could see this becoming very feasible

065for our community um versus which presented some challenges both times and and just didn't see that the people putting the effort into it. um in terms of a um oversight and that would be an important piece, right? We heard that that while it it is it is discretionary money truly um something that the district ultimately will will do what they choose, we we're not going to do that. We're going to say we're going to go out to the public and ask for the money for certain things. That's what we're going to hold ourselves to. And one way of doing that was suggested is to just have something in every school board packet that shows you what is actually being funded with the money. So that way the public gets to see very transparency transparently what

066is the funding and that will help us review the levy. It would also potentially build the trust necessary with our community if we decided to go out for a bond in the future if we needed to build another one. So there's a lot of benefits to this too. um if we decide to do it, it it it obviously on the flip side of that is it, you know, might not get it. Um and and it is asking for an outer tax from our from our public. However, we can see the potential single taxes coming off as well, which could help offset this. >> A big part of it is education to the public because there people may not know the difference between a levy and a bond. Yeah. And they hear they hear levy and

067they're thinking bond. >> Yeah. Yeah. And and and there's a huge difference between these two. And then on the flip side, are we not interested in a bond in any future? Because if we are, this could keep us from that happening. So I I love the idea, but then we have to kind of figure out where we're going to what what we're doing. Is the bond going to be five years down the road or 10 or another or because we can't have both. >> You can have you could have both a lot of places, >> but I don't think we would ever pass both. pass them at the same time because you pass this one for five years and then hopefully people forget two years later. >> I don't I don't know. Michelle has a

068good point there. What Kim is hoping is with the matching grant that they mentioned that we would get from OD that isn't promise to personnel the way that a levy is in general. So even if we didn't have a bond to build a new school, we could use that money to fix the boiler in the high school so we have consistent heat. We could use it to fix some of the other things that's wrong with the district. >> If we go forward though, I just want to make sure that we educate that a very small percentage of what a bond would be. >> Yeah, that's very true. >> A lot of people don't know that. >> Yeah. Much less. And if we if we get lucky and the container port gets filled, our enrollment could

069go up to the point where in five years when we reassess, we go, you know what, we don't need a levy. Let's try let's switch it to a bond. Keep the same rate so we're not adding an extra extra tax to people and then we could use that to, you know, build the school. It's just hard because I know what you're thinking and I don't want us to tie our hands for something that we use in the future, but >> Michelle, it's bad. >> I do want just as a point of clarity that does work out. >> We put a brand new we put a brand new control system in the building over the summer and the some of the wires got crossed. So, if you have noticed, we've had some people from Portland and

070Vancouver over the week in the high school building trying to fix those controls. Um and and we do actually have have the money for or the upgrade plan. What we need to do is this Oregon Department of Education assessment so we can actually figure out the best way to address the high school, but there will always be with a with a district like ours with any district. We can build a brand new building and there's going to be facility needs. So we're always getting facility needs. So something like this would help contribute to that. But yes, if we needed to build school, you know, I'm hearing like $63 million, you know, actually to blow over a new school, right? You know, um so um we would need a bond, no doubt, for that type of

071process. Um if that's the case, um you're right, there's a couple ways we could approach that, right? And and potentially even have um a topic later on the agenda that that talks about ways we can maybe postpone that for a little bit. So today you're just asking for permission to start doing research and processing material but ask for actual permission to go. >> Yes. >> No action. Um essentially sort of just a sort of consensus. Do you would you like to see this pursuit a little bit more some more information some maybe a committee forum and some some input from stakeholders including board members >> and the tentative date if you if you greenlight us we our next union meeting is November 17th at 4:15 if if you greenlight us we would be that could

072be a great date for us to as a levy committee >> I don't want to book the cart before the horse I just want you to reassure you that >> November 9th ninth week. The 19th is a Wednesday. 17th is a Saturday. 17th is >> when you said it earlier tonight and is the third class. >> So the question is we're not going to vote. There's no official vote, but but the consensus of the board as to whether we want to move forward or let them move forward to see where we go with this. See if they have a problem. I appreciate the initiative and the passion a lot and I think that's great. So, thank you. >> I would love to. >> All right. Well, then I will send you out an official invitation

073for >> if you're available and we'll see you again in January with our presentation. >> Fair enough. >> Thank you so much. >> All right. Next item on the agenda is policy IK graduation requirements review and studies >> policy requirements uh excuse me graduation requirements >> graduation requirement. So, um, we we we've brought some nice folks here tonight with some policy IKF. What we put out tonight is what could potentially be used as a first read um because it is a suggested warning and we could potentially change some of that wording and in order to bring back maybe the policy for a second meeting. What where this is coming from is um there's a couple things in here. First of all, last school year we added what was called the Northbend diploma. And the Northbend

074diploma is essentially no different than the standard Oregon diploma aside from an essential skills requirement. And the essential skills requirement was taking the Oregon state assessment or passing alternative um which right now would be would be essentially an assessment if you didn't pass that that Oregon state assessment. The the credits are the same. Now the thing is about that essential skills department is it's coming back anyways. So the essential skills piece of that that we really had a desire to make sure we had in the Oregon diploma by creating the Northland diploma was it's already going to be it's already going to come back. The second part of that is was going to go in effect this school year. And as we know we have a lot of change happening in all of our schools.

075We have a lot of pressure on our our certified staff, on our classified staff, on our administration. And asking these people to track all these extra requirements is a big task in and of itself. Perhaps even an extra person required to do this properly. And that's something that we we started this conversation by saying, you know what, maybe we just postpone this a year, ask the board to change the date and then as we got deeper into the conversation, the conversations were hearing and and and the talk is, well, the this assessment is coming back this essential skills requiring what's so different about the Northbend diploma that it makes students and families want to go. Is it something that's super desirable? You know, are there other service components? There's not there's really nothing interesting in

076there aside from the essential skills fees. So in those discussions we kind of evolved into well what if we put a policy together that actually was proposed that took out the northb diploma because we're not entirely sure everybody and I think she traced to this a little more and more depth that everybody's really aware of this or what it is or or have the motivation to go out and get this when in reality they're they're going they're doing the same thing even. So with that, I'll turn it over to you. >> And you have an example of what was and what is. children. Okay. So, some of the information that uh Tracy is handing out here um sort of is some information straight from the building of the website where it talks about the purpose

077of the smarter balance assessment with the OSAS. Um there's also uh some information as far as where our juniors last year and landed as far as the number of percentages of students who where they feel achievement lies on the ELA math and science tests. on those that's public information. So the requirements as they stand now are will be very problematic for us into this year. Okay. So if you look at uh for example math if you look at math that's there that that is by the way those numbers are similar to cross right now. Okay. Um but if we look at that so 77% of our juniors last year did not meet or exceed the OSAS U math test as far as the requirements. So that would would mean as the policy reads now, 77%

078of our graduating seniors currently would not qualify for a Northbend diploma. In order to qualify for a Northbend diploma, they would have to submit work samples from all required Oregon tests for math and science. This is problematic for us logistically this year for a number of reasons. Okay. Uh first of all um work samples were not being tracked freshman through junior year. Okay. Um so we do not have record of successful work samples as they work their way through math through science. Okay. Or uh through ELA. Okay. So we would have to to find a way for them to successfully uh complete work samples this year before graduation in order to do that. Okay. These requirements were not considered when they when the current schedule and student schedules were being built. So, we have students

079who in order to to get the Northbend diploma would have to submit work samples for math or science who aren't currently enrolled in a math or science class. Okay? To be able to offer those classes, for example, we got into the second semester to be able to offer those classes. Because of the re realignment in place, our teachers are tapped out scheduling. We're looking at hiring a teacher that would somehow be able to teach course and and guide students through work samples in math, science, and we all had 11 and we would have to make that hire very very quick. >> Yeah. Mhm. >> And primarily I want to point to you that point you to that um the document from OD people who want us taking the smarter balance test. Okay. From OD their

080words specifically if you look on the back page and highlighted section. It is not intended to be an assessment that places or or or assesses where ch where kids are. It is is to give the district and state data to inform our instructional practices to inform or we want to improve. Okay. But it is not intended to be a diagnostic test as far as placement for our students in honors program or anything. And so uh the placement of that in Northbend diploma requirements and also the honors diploma requirement was problematic um by OD. Okay. Um so those are that that is the primary reason why it's problematic for us this year. It would be problematic for us in upcoming years for the same reason if those numbers hold out. Okay, even if we move the

081needle somewhere, if those need if those members hold out and our juniors the same around the same percentage of our juniors need to submit successful work samples to meet that requirement next year. That means next year as we're forecast in our classes, we're assessing arguing staff wise again we not have the capacity to add classes for them to go to meet uh those work center requirements. Um, so we're hiring staff so we can add the classes necessary for them to do that. Um, what time's the budget right here? That's that's a big ask as far as being sustained. So think of these possible. >> Yeah. And the question is the question is if terms of choice what are we giving up in order to create a space for for kids to go develop and submit

082a successful book that so that is why it's problematic. Any any questions? >> Yeah. Um the first one is when we first talked about this being outstret >> I am not sure of any of our kids who actually know the different levels of other than honors than the regular diploma. I'm not sure how the market is. It was just I don't believe there's a purpose like what would be the benefit of getting I mean I don't see I don't see any benefit to it >> to the north end of >> correct >> I don't believe it's going to get them any further in terms of college or jobs or anything like that >> I I agree with you I don't believe it's >> so students probably aren't very interested >> I don't believe >> some

083students do you know being more excited is how >> I don't need to make sure about that. I agree to be honest. Um but that basically the question I think math grounds you're saying graduates that were juniors last year have to take science and math state test they are not a goal in any of those classes. No. So what I'm saying is if let's say you took the smart balance test and didn't meet the requirement they did well didn't meet that requirement if a happens you take the test the following year or you got to be able to success what they call work samples which demonstrated efficiency >> understand >> okay So what if you met the requirements but you didn't do so well you said as it would opportunity you don't have to >>

084so according to the policy as it currently reads you not qualified for diploma or an honor >> standard or just besides the honors percentage of kids are that opt out of state testing and how does that affect Northbend High School diploma because I didn't even know there wasn't as a parent I didn't know there was a Northb high school diploma versus a regular Oregon diploma and I am a parent that has opted my child out of state testing and so now to go back and I mean that's not I don't think it's well known to the public that there is a different diploma. That's not something I've ever been told in my childhood in the North since sixth grade and she's a senior this year. So, that is something that is not very well communicated

085to the public. >> And this is exactly why we're saying we're proposing a policy that takes it back. >> It's it it it doesn't it wasn't it it it hasn't been communicated in a way that is actually of value. Now, I I think the vision behind it was of value. You know, the idea that we could potentially create something that people in our community and and employers in our community said, "Wow, this student has a Northbend diploma. This is a fantastic thing." But all the pieces weren't put into place and it wasn't communicated and is only taking an essential skills requirement. that piece that's missing probably not because the things we value in the community are they go are much broader than maybe the employers would know what an offended is because my child's not

086affected says your offender if an employer is not going to know that >> so all of those reasons that you're speaking of that that why we're asking that it be taken out of that policy um but we are also asking that it be tabled and taken off of the honors one as well for those same reasons. Um just because of we have for example we had seven last year who were not able to take the science portion due to something that was kind of out of their control. We do have some in that group who are eligible for honors. There is not work samples for honors because um that was not that was not one of the tested areas when work samples were initially developed. We don't have things in place. The students who are

087eligible who have who did not pass their state testing have not been notified. They don't know that they have to make this up. They may not be in a math class or a science class right now that they have to finish this and that they have to take that test. So this proposal also hasn't taken up. >> No. And that is still >> we do not we're not saying that >> that is not we're supporting taking the north end. That's >> well I just wanted to say when when the original vision of the board was like you're saying to make it um something that people strive to do but it it did not get communicated down to you if you didn't even know about this. So there was a good intention in this. However, listening

088to the workload and so forth, I understand that that piece. So >> something you really anticipate. >> Yes. Yes. But that but I was just going to say but then with the honors um the as a board we we talked about because so many people were opting out of the testing and it's hard for us to gauge um it it we need to have results in order to know the district and how we are doing. >> And so this was a way for us to encourage especially for honors. We want them to be required and if they're getting an honors diploma, then they should also be able to take the test and pass the test. >> There's another interject. >> Hold on one second. There's another component of this that I want to add regarding

089that honors diploma and and having that test being taken. It's that the state is coming through and we we've seen recently the governor has been getting some accountability measures that really are outside of our control, right? But we're going to be held accountable for them. And and if we don't have this these students that that can pass these tests, take the tests and show that as a district we are actually because our teachers are doing a fantastic job. Our students are amazing and our students are great. And if we're not showing that, there's this risk of of not meeting these requirements for two years and and having the state actually come in and say, you know what, we're going to control how you spend 25% of your budget. And that is the last thing that

090we want is to lose control over our budget. like Tracy then because we didn't they don't they don't they don't know at this time that that they are not eligible at this time because they may not know that they did not pass the math in the >> I speak to a larger issue that I have I want to be transparent just something as I was preparing as I was there some things that I saw What about the kids who opt out for religious or cultural reasons? >> That's that was my question. >> If they're not able to receive an honors diploma. >> Yeah. >> So, if you want to keep that in here, >> I've heard you say that. >> Well, no, there's a there's another there's another way to do it. You don't have

091to take the test. and to take the interim assessment which is a component of the test that we're embedding into classroom instruction in order to also play instruction. >> But is that going to affect the kids who don't have because there was there was having to have the teachers that are going to teach the course. Does that apply to what you're talking about? Because then that brings in the study issue or the assessment without being >> okay thank you. Okay. Um, so the kids who are unaware that they may not get that I I mean how how I don't know how to say this. How how was what was the intention to communicate that to them when these standards were put into place? >> That was something that we had not discussed yet. It was

092>> okay. So is there a is there a space where we can set these standards up for future but the kids who fell through the cracks of this it doesn't affect them because that's I don't think it's to kind of punish them for something that they have no control over but we can do our best anymore if this if you want to move forward with it as far as the honor programs go and I still would like to see a space that for kids for for religious reasons cultural reasons blah blah that they also are allowed to have their honors um and not have to kind of sacrifice what they've been brought up in in their homeless space. Um but then set those very clearly for a future time. I would be more comfortable with

093that. >> Every year they're going to still take the test at the same time and not know the results until the same time every year. I don't know what would change. >> They have two years to do it though. >> But did they not were they not informed that if they don't pass that test, they will not get the honors? Were they aware of that aspect? >> The junior >> they may not have the results, but that's juniors last year. Yes, they were because I went to all of the classes before they took the test. Okay. >> And explained all of the differences um and what was what was going to be happening. >> Okay. >> Uh if students were absent that day or not there, they may not have. But I did that to

094all of the junior classes. I did not get to the sophomore. >> Okay. Tim, you're saying that we need to have a test, but it doesn't necessarily have to be an increase in that, but it doesn't necessarily have to lose it. Well, with your honors diploma, I just made sense to have it diploma track because there was also alternative option that exists within that and this was communicated last year and the expectations were um set for the high school what's the alternative track versus assessments which are embedded in so you can pass the state assessment or if for some reason you and you take it the following year, senior year, or you can pass another alternative assessment and we've been using the interim assessment. >> My issue is what about kids that don't take tests?

095Well, that that's what I'm concerned about right now. That's that's what I'm assessing. They are normal performance. >> Okay, that's what I wanted to know is like it's still not a fair reflection. >> No, because I I feel like one test some kids just have anxiety issues, don't test well. >> All very good. >> So, there there is. >> Okay. And Okay, then. Okay. Okay. >> Do they have to pass this test every year? At the same time, it's >> so it's just one time. >> Just their senior year. >> Just their junior year. >> And then they can do it their senior year if they didn't pass it. >> If they didn't pass, then they can do their >> And that's for honors. >> But they don't find out until when that they take

096the test now. It's within about two weeks out and they take the test, let them know the result. >> But these seniors this year don't know the result. And here it is. >> They may have gotten it in emails or I don't know if they can log on to get it. I'm not sure how the seniors are notified. Can you help us? >> You don't. Okay. So, that would be something. >> So, that would be something then that I need to either print them off, call the students down or something to notify them of their >> and they just told you I think some of the I I think some of the teachers may have been able to pull it off. 17. >> Yes. >> Um I would um my my my primary concern is

097when you look at the proposed um policy. I believe there should be some language on that specifically states the alternative track >> to the honors diploma if they don't do the sex because if we do have kids that opt out for reasons I believe I believe we're subject to legal challenge that's my opinion >> it also can approve this proposal you guys could come back >> it does have those changes >> it does have it in here and it does it follows a performance task that they do not pass the the test in there. If you remember, I sat in those meetings as a lot of us did and we talked honors diploma. We talked about proving that they deserve that level of a diploma, not just two more credits, but they needed to prove

098that they were above and beyond to issue that honors diploma. And one of the things that the board at the time decided was if they passed that assessment can prove they passed that assessment, they demonstrate that ability to earn an honors diploma at that point. So other than that, we're saying take two more classes and you get an honors diploma. >> So they wanted to make it a more rigorous requirement than just taking two additional classes in there. It is a little more tracking to do, but counselors were aware of that. I've had conversations with the counseling department over and with grad coaches that know some of these things at the high school. I'm not sure who's tracking what. I'm not involved in the high school on a daily basis, so I don't know. But

099I think we could find out pretty easily and come up with a system because when we're talking honors diploma, we're talking a much smaller portion of the kids than we're talking making a North Bend diploma available for everybody anymore. >> And I sorry, go ahead. >> I'm okay with taking I I've been saying the whole time get rid of but I think as far as the honor stud I haven't read anyone. too. I'd love to know if other districts do they have service requirement student what do they do for their owners because like like but I also really worry about testing because there are kids that just don't test well it doesn't necessarily reflect on their intell the Oregon state assessment you know it's it's you're measuring all the standards in that in that particular

100subject area whereas the alternative if people were to not pass it or not not taking it took alternative. It's it's measuring small group. It's not measuring all it's it's essentially life and essential scale which is not passing the broad spectrum standard to take the test. So it is it is a it's not as rigorous as passing the entire state assessment but it is something. >> Can you expand on the religious and cultural I've never heard of that like what >> because they they have to take tests in school like I don't know what the difference is. assess they are allowed to to >> but I mean only in science >> what >> in science they can and in the area of science and it's actually not an exemption in science it's considered a I'm sorry

101it's not a it's um considered an exemption because of the religious >> but not with math >> they can opt out of those they can say I'm not taking those but in science the The only way that you're not taking that is if you exempt yourself because of a religious slur. >> Well, if they do, then >> we would just >> Well, the bottom line is they still no matter what qualify for a diploma, an Oregon diploma, >> right? The testing has nothing to do with that. They qualify to graduate from honors program. They don't >> just they don't have the honor diploma option. >> Real quick to that point because there are different test um on the proposed language. I noticed this as I was just kind of reading through it again before I

102got up here. Um on items 12, 13, and 14 on the honors diploma. I believe there should be some language in there that that includes all Oregon State Assessment tests. by saying just the origin assessment testable there's actually the requirement to take these two math to be a subject so I put some language you won't be that's all >> I believe we're looking at different >> yeah no well this I think >> yeah you got a good point here we came here I mean the issue is here was basically we're want to change it to illuminate diploma now we've morphed into an area about that. I think we need maybe suggestions of language from uh from staff so that we can consider those. So and physically I think we talked about a little different things

103but the focus needs right now to be are we interested in the current proposal which would make them as well. >> Thank you. So I think what we would we would probably sit down with the the board leadership and plan the next board meeting then we could about decide whether or not to bring a second meeting at the next meeting that has been proposed and and is there aside from the suggestion to add all that were there any other pros were any other suggestion would be for the honors would be community That was funny. >> And I know I'm not supposed to talk about that. I think that would be added in June. So then we want to make sure we had a timeline on that. No, that's >> that would apply to >> um

104I I also would like more information on >> how we can track um >> how all of these all these things that either we are doing or we're talking about how we can effectively communicate that to the parents and the kids and and make sure that the information like not just throw it out there but also double back and make sure that they I know that's hard but I think that's a one of the bigger issues here is just trying to get to make sure the parents and the students and everyone fully understands not only what's required of them, but just understands how all of this works. >> Uh I have a my oldest daughter is a ninth grader this year, so I'm also learning a lot about high school and it's a lot. There's

105a lot to get your head around. So, um, yeah, and I would love for more information about the alternate to testing for some of those kids with the the religion or cultural opting out and, um, just what that looks like because I I just don't know anything about that. >> It should start they should start communicating with parents in the junior high to get them ready for high school. What is that at the eighth grade year? and let them know that this are going to be some requirements if they're trying not honors. >> Is there anything like that already happening? >> The honors diploma is spelled out in the bulletin. And where else do you guys when you start talking about that freshman? >> I would imagine we start covering that with the eighth graders

106when the counselors go over to start talking with them initially about. >> Okay. So, it starts like the beginning. >> Yeah, it's all in the hand. I know it's all in the hand. It's all laid out with the credits and all of that stuff. >> How many parents bring up >> the biggest challenges I think of the high school and probably the other building run into is when you look on the website, the first handbook you see is the North School District. >> And not everybody realizes that you have to scroll down to see the additional ones for the buildings. >> Okay. I have students come in all the time going, "Nope, it's not in there. I read the handbook, right?" Well, I bet you read the district one. I didn't. And they don't realize

107they have to scroll down. >> Okay. >> So, it is it is in there. And it is something that I know they start talking about pretty early on. I would imagine they talk about it with the eighth graders, but that is something that I will look into with our counselors just to make sure that they do. >> Okay. That they're introducing it early on to say, "These are the options. this is what you can expect coming in >> and have them start setting goals. >> Okay, that's wonderful. >> And it would be very easy with our new communication system parent square to just send out a quick one pager, you know, hey, but you know, and just kind of have some simple things to maybe make some direct attention towards that expected. >> So, >>

108all right, we're ready to move on. the north band. Yeah, if if the policy is still presented as is for maybe there is okay or two there and then uh we'll talk with school board leadership and then we'll bring it to the next board. >> Otherwise, It's as is and now has to requirement this year for a northbend diploma that people believe in. >> So are we comfortable moving ahead without the northbend diploma and move forward with the potential of the honors and start working with those students? Are we comfortable with that? >> Yes. More time. >> Yeah. Okay. I like that. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. [Music] >> That's good. There's also some credit changes that existed in the proposed policy because this one also addresses the semester requirement and the

109number of credits that are required versus the trimester which is a whole another set of credits. So this puts us back in line with what's happening elsewhere in the state and the number of credits. So we do need to update the number of credits in these >> that is an all right next item. uh graduation caps and boards discussing >> well just jump in. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> What is the current policy? >> So current policy is laid out. So this is the graduation agreement that all seniors have to sign in order to graduate. This is the third page out of our student. And I'm not trying to not We do have special copies. If you already have this one, actually Oh, yeah. We already have this one. >> Did I already did I hand

110that one out twice? It does. >> Sorry. >> I don't think I have this, but I don't have the graduation. Yeah. All right. >> Well, I guess we got tobody else. What brought us to this uh is a discussion about initially Scott reports um in the past very limits people where uh I'm looking at the >> well that was discriminated in the last few years because a few years ago they had >> in the graduation years of 21 22 and 23 those were the only three years that they had the election It's it it's it's closed. It we kept after that it went back to what it traditionally had been in the district which was academic based. >> Yeah. Just one minute academic. Um I'm looking at the the list that we were given from

111that Marshfield news school district allows and it's it's quite a bit larger than what we allow. And I don't know, I'm just thinking that um it's not our graduation, it's their I understand it, but it's the the clubs and the groups which decide whether they want or they make the right schools the budget because I actually like I got that before I realized Michelle I got that from Eli during the day myself the principal over um and what I what I do appreciate about that we are going to have the conversation about expanding of the courts my recommendation you need to do something like Marshall does not every club gets a cord and if you look at that they're all academic based >> okay there's a there is a specific requirement so for example they

112they have a core for social studies which meant you took four years of social or science where you where you where you met certain achievement levels in the area of science and math a trio was on which is college career ready where they completed a certain number of steps that are preparing them for college they are all academic based not academic clubs so for example fishing fund I love a fisherman as anybody in this room. I guarantee you I would not have a board for the fishing for the Dungeons and Dragons, >> right? >> These are all academic based club. So if the conversation does swing towards maybe expanding what students are able to display as far as their involvement, I would highly recommend we adopt something very similar to that, which is where it's

113still academic based, but maybe expands the the I guess level recognition for for the variety of things that you've been involved with. >> I understand that's your opinion. I have a different thing. There are kids in this district who will have you know who will be wearing they'll be valid to support college or whatever it is. There are kids in school for years of dungeons and dragons and they work hard and they get it right and dragon. >> Yeah. five words for all kids if they learned they still that's my opinion but on your I'm I had a similar track as Anna I I understand the importance of having it academic academically based and you know that's maybe there could be ways with Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is that we can find some

114kind of an academic twist But all kids shine and excel in different ways. And when you build that confidence in their high school years of like, you know, I wasn't a mathematician. I I I barely passed my math classes. I didn't start making good grades in math till I was in college. Don't know why. But if if uh you know, if they had let you know, I was in lacrosse club because it wasn't a sanctioned sport in high school. Well, it took us tooth and nail just to fight to get a letterman's jacket and to get some kind of recognition, but like I was really good at lacrosse. I was good at arts. I was good at my classes. I did okay. But when I got to college, it was the confidence from those things

115that I think fueled my academics because I went from being a CD student to being an AD student in college. And so, I think I think there's way we can kind of meet in the middle. And I because I would like to see kids shining and and feeling happy about because not not everyone grows up and their career gets to be the thing that also completely fulfills them. But you know for some people it's it's what fulfills them the most is outside of their job. So I I don't know. I would like to find more ways to celebrate them. >> As an example, what if they're at their you know maybe they >> maybe you ride a Dungeons and Dragons is on it is on. So here's the other thing I would say where I

116see ones that don't really seem academic space, I see a community service component, >> which I love that. So >> I I think that that is that that is like, you know, a good addition, too. There's either volunteer hours or community service or some sort of thing where you're benefiting it all. And so that might be a way to bridge the gap. >> Yeah. Lots of ways to do that. >> Oh, totally. And like just because we've been talking about Dungeons and Dragons and I happen to like that, it'd be fun if if there's a high school club that that has a Dungeons and Dragons club, whatever. If there was a way that they could teach middle school kids how to play and have a a fun little kid campaign and they're serving the those

117kids in the communities, teaching them new skills, you know, teaching them how to do fun things because that's problem solving, that's working together, that's all the things, you know. So, you know, I would I would love to see the older kids guiding in the younger kids because it's I think it gives the older kids a lot of confidence, but I think it binds the community together a lot when you have the older kids serving the younger kids when it seems appropriate to all of the staff advisors that that are in charge of the public. every school sponsored club must have. >> So likely it be that we just say yes to caps and the unique discretion but to stack the majority of the since we don't know what the clubs do or any effort put

118into but that is too great. >> So that a little bit of a cave too. >> Yeah. I I I almost be the next part of the discussion. I am much more apt to to go the board route my as far as my recommendation and keep the caps and I have reasons for that. Um but I'd be much more apt to to discuss the board option where again put it on club to decide what their criteria is for the code from their club. So it's not just any person that's >> that's what I'm saying like they show up for the last meeting and get it but like >> I I would ask I would ask clubs to have it in their their charter their their rules their bylaws to decide if you want a court

119from these club what the participation level has to be the clubs would be responsible paying for those cords as well so it's not so expensive also the student district and beside and have the club decide who wears those at graduation. >> Yeah. There's one other thing too that Mr. Ron and I had talked about that came up in a previous discussion that I think brings even more kids into it and that is having an NBHS school >> that all the kids can have that they can put their Letterman pins on, they can put their club pins on, they can put their academic pins on, they can have a fishing club pin, they can have a Dungeons and Dragons pin that they have earned and they can wear them at graduation. situation and everybody can have

120a stole and so that way because I'm just going to pick on our current sports. Okay, volleyball doesn't have football doesn't have the and I'm just going to say and I'm just going to pick out the team. I don't think we want football players showing up in their paths to graduation. I don't think we do. But if we had the stool so we can do a cool NBHS at the bottom, they could put their letter in pins for how many years they lettered us. But you guys talk about budgets because aiming for all those >> the cloth has to buy each individual child. Did you say everybody at graduation has one or you would provide the sto? >> You would provide provide the stole which is the cost of that out of curiosity. Any idea?

121>> Oh, we we haven't looked at that yet, but it's something that >> So every child that's graduating is wearing one of those >> if they would like one. >> If they don't have any kids. >> Yeah. >> Well, yeah. But I mean that's going to be oddball out. You're not going to be well the same or whatever your kid is that you're going for at graduation without wearing all the cords. If there's kids that are wearing sun and sudden aren't >> well it it's up to the child if they don't want. >> It's up to the child. Yeah. They don't have to earn it. Everyone gets the option. >> Everybody gets the option to have it. >> But if they >> at no cost to them. >> Yeah. Okay. They're not going to get

122charged for the stole. But if their their group, whether it's a team or whether it's a club, wants to do a pin and they have their criteria set, then it's not an issue of who has what color porn. They can have their pins and then they can put them on there however they want to and they can display those at graduation, crossing the stage and doing all of that. >> Can I ask where you found that idea? Do other schools in Oregon do that? No. That was just a giant brainstorm session that just kind of evolved. >> I'm just curious what it looked like. >> Okay. >> That conversation, but so we're comparing that. >> I think I think that's a great option. I would like. >> So, and if that is an option that

123a direction that we want to go, uh the group that does our um caps and gowns might be able to, but we would have to get on that right away from the clubs. >> I would be interested in some feedback even just from the clubs themselves. I mean, it might be hard to do a whole, you know, schoolwide thing, but I would want feedback versus pens versus honestly. I I don't care. I mean, what do they want? And it so I I'd be very interested in that. >> Yeah, I would love to hear what the kids have to say >> because I would love pins. >> I would I would have all the pins that I could have. But yeah, some kids are like whatever. I don't care. >> Yeah, a pen would kind of

124be cooler than a board in a way. But so I'd like to know what they would I'd like to know their thoughts on it. Even if just the clubs, you know, that you kind of surveyed. >> Well, it expands into sports too. >> Oh, sports. That's what I mean. I mean like but the people that be providing that the sports versus fans, what are they thinking? So we're talking pins instead of boards. >> Those things like floating ideas still >> the honors board would still be there. That's a separate policy. >> Okay. >> When pens were discussed, one of the things that was mentioned was >> what what are you more likely to keep over a period of time? And the pen would signify something instead of a small spot that it would remind you

125of what you learned your time in high school. It would be with you for as long as >> I still have I still have my lacrosse pin that I mean that makes more sense to me, but I still would want a little insert. >> When I graduated from North High School, they gave me a bulldog pin. It was a little bulldog. I keep it. I wear it on my sports show when I wear my sports go to this one and I graduated 1976. So pins do make a difference for me. >> I think it's great. throw that out there. >> Any thoughts for students? >> Um, as for the ST or what have they >> I wouldn't have an issue with that. I mean, I wouldn't mind decorating the school, but again, that goes back

126that's conversation because that's about that next. I don't have an issue with that. I would [Music] >> want a court. What would you prefer? A pen or >> Well, as a student who doesn't participate in any of the wars that are listed like Z club, the wire band, um I would be doing anything like I wouldn't even clean. But that's just me personally. But if you did say something like you're going to go into I would want to wear a nursing. Yeah, sure. have a job nursing now. So, would you be able to wear like a nursing pin? >> Yeah, I would. >> Amazing. >> That's already benefiting what we all have. So, I think that that's great. >> Yeah. >> Well, that's the that's a potential direction we need from academic boards and potentially

127stole things. Yeah, I would I want to see if the kids get excited about that. I want I want to see if the students get excited about that. If they like don't care, then it may not be worth all the effort, but if they get really hyped about it, then it'd be worth the effort. >> Well, I just from talking to my kids, they they they're a little messed up. They can't wear different things like that. But if they can wear a pin, you know, we get academic authority to put a pin for soccer or whatever else they're involved and I think that will be that'll be good. I think that it's sort of a good middle ground and I still think I think with a stove pins on it, couple cords or whatever >>

128it looks like to get and stuff. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And the athletes normally get their pens when they play sport. So that's a they don't have to purchase correct they would already have their soccer ball if they have yeah pins >> hats my hat. >> Oh yeah. >> Talk about hats. So as far as caps, my my concern with decorating caps is as soon as we open it up to a personal message on cap with the idea that somebody from the district will decide if something is offensive or not doesn't qualify. We immediately open the door to a first amendment issue because at what point does somebody challenge us and say you're challenging my first amendment rights and the potent I believe caps have more of a potential to divide our community rather than

129unite our community in celebration of our gratitudes. We will have people on both sides of the spectrum, political spectrum in our audience. And is is a MAGA message offensive to somebody? Is a pro-LGBTQ plus message offensive to people maybe on the far right? Um we have we have a hunting and fishing culture. So somebody has something like that on their cap. It's offensive to somebody who who's dedicated animal rights and wants to be appealing, but it has more of a the potential for dividing our community is far greater than united for the for a common celebration of our graduates. That is my primary concern. >> I like the idea of just keeping the decorations whether they're or stole to to school oriented to school clubs related to something. it it keep the theme related to

130school. Whether we decorate the caps or whether we decorate like the stalls, we should I mean if we're going to open that up, it should stay oriented because that's what we're good for. That's >> Yeah. Yeah. >> I just want to point out you mentioned that that opens a door to people who are opening clubs and whatever they may be. We have clubs that advertise everything about that. So if that's not if that's opening a door, have those clubs been attacked as my question. >> Yes. Yeah. >> Have you had any complaints about the um GSA um being attacked? >> Yes. >> So you still have those clubs in the school? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yes. They've had their banners ripped out. >> So that would be school related to celebrated on their behalf.

131>> But again, >> it's a club at the school. >> What we're doing is we're we're kicking the door open again for for an issue that could divide rather than night for one night. this our opportunity to come together as one night and as a united community to just celebrate our North Pin graduates. >> Why wouldn't those clubs divide the community? >> I I don't see clubs having the same potential problem. I mean I understand we just come from school. It's uh and I mean can you limit it to non-political nonoffensive but then you say what's makes that call if we did a student who shows up with their cap even though we said you can't have this this and they have it created confidence tonight is graduation >> y >> well you know >>

132these kids this is their night this is their night >> to celebrate them and if they show up and they've got you know something on happen that really is offensive and that's the actual consequence that shouldn't be there. You can put things in place where they have to get approved a few weeks ahead of time and there's all kinds of stuff we could do but >> decide what's offense. >> Isn't there isn't there already in in the handbook as far as what kids can wear on their shirts, what's the appropriate graphics, blah blah blah blah. Can those same rules just apply? >> They could they could apply, but for example, what is not in our dress code? So in our dress code, you can't advertise alcoholic beverages, drugs, things like that. can't have hate messages.

133>> Okay. But if a kid shows up >> with a message that's pro such and such group, we do not send them home. >> Someone could interpretate it. Inter. So here's So I guess here's my question. I'll be honest. When I first read that, I was like, "Oh, I'll let them decorate it." Like I want to But you know, my my eldest daughter is homeschooled now because of a little bit of some bullying because she belongs to the LGBTQ community. It does happen. And I also have to balance that part of be proud of who you are, but be safe because I don't want you to get hurt. So, I mean, I don't and and there is a lot in the political climate right now that is a little feels a little scarier than normal

134for some people. Um, is is there is there a space I know we don't have a lot of time necessarily to brainstorm ideas of of how we could try to come up with some ways and maybe some rules to let the kids even maybe just a little bit like you could have a small corner. It can't have political messaging. It has to represent your club. It has to represent your sport. It has to something like that. Or is that are we on a time crunch where there's not time to kind of brainstorm a little bit further? So the question of I I think one came up with session where where I would continue to sort of express my concern >> and I think your concern is valid >> because if somebody comes forward with with

135and missing and I say that's not appropriate and they want to take that up a level. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Just that those >> So, so if they have pins that represent their clubs and stuff, >> is there less a concern about those potential messages because I guess the pins are being handed from a teacher to the student and we already know that's okay versus them just showing up and we don't know what they're showing up with. >> And then or if we got them Yeah. >> Well, okay. I I I do see your point, but you know, I also want this kids to because it's always going to be just like that one or two kid that tries to push it too far and I want it to show all the other kids who

136just want to make it. >> But there is but there is legal precedent for with things like this being challenged on personality basis. >> Okay. >> And the current trend legally is that that complainer will win. >> I can't do a soccer game. There was a parent out there with this shirt on that was offensive. And guess what? I dealt with it. Like it's public. They're going to see that as society. It's there tonight. I don't know why. >> And most of them are 18. A lot of them are already 18 and making choices. >> And I want to point out G's comment. It's real world problems. Like people go to the grocery store and get targeted for being your race, your like all the different things in the world. It's a real world problem.

137And if students, if 18-year-old students can't handle that one night, they become bigger issues. Then >> I guess if there's verbal fights or physical fights and they just they have to leave. at the same time. But that that's where that's where >> down into the gym and receive the rest of our diplomas because you'll fully get your diploma when you walk stage. You don't just get to walk out and be done. You have to go through and if a student were to make a comment then there's you guys are quoting that already and I want to thank Miss Alhill and Hale for making some really valid points because we should be able to celebrate our volunteer hours. We have a life outside of high school like our high school doesn't revolve around going to school

138and going home. We have activities outside of it that I think that we should be able to show and how I spent the last four years of my life. Like this is it on a cap and I don't think that it's fair. I just met Mr. Brown this year and he's deciding if I get to celebrate my four years. I don't think that that's fair at all. And I've known Miss Lang for two years now. I don't think that it's appropriate that they get to decide how we celebrate our caps. Like if obvious appropriate I'm not saying come in with like hate and we want to if graduation is exciting. We worked hard for this moment. We worked really hard to get where we are now. I don't think that it's fair that we just

139get to be told that we don't get to decorate our caps. >> What kind of decorations are we talking about? I guess I never decorated my cap, so I just don't even know. What does it look like? What are we talking about? >> A friend who decorated her cap and she but like something in Spanish. It was like for my parents who came with nothing and they gave me everything. I think that's a super cute. >> So it's like inspirational like it's more like that. >> People like I don't know people like to adapt to the couch. like to make their um I don't remember when they called that like the the or whatever when they call the mascots like somebody who now like of a lion like since that was their college university but

140they're going to mascot like I think that they're they I'm not disagreeing with them at all like I do get that especially with students I mean kids now in this age like there is a bunch of haters but it's a real normal problem it's not a high school you know it's not only high school I don't think that we should be affected because of something that's going on in the world and based on what's posted on social media if they're influenced by us every day. >> What if we required them to turn anyone who wanted to decorate their cap had to turn it in a week early >> like something like that >> because we're back to the same place before of who's deciding what's offensive and what's not first. But one of the things

141that I think we need to follow through with which is a great point. Most of the kids on the floor are 18 and as adults you got to realize sometimes there's rules you have to follow whether you like them or not. >> Yes. I just say real quick, first of all, first of all, first thing said, >> hope all of our graduates are as well spoken as you do. >> I'm so happy you guys are here. >> So, very, very, very well said. I respectfully disagree with some of your points, but very well said. >> Thank you. Um to the point what we're talking about is all this conflict resolution. how we resolve all these different conflicts which is not there is no conflict if we stick with what we're doing but where we're not

142creating a conflict by allowing this >> because there have been past conflicts like do we have history where we're concerned about because one of my thoughts is too is I think some of the dumbest decisions are made spur of the moment and so I I part of it is is that if you have to turn them in a week ahead of time I think there's a less less like likelihood that there's going to be a lot of offensive things that are turned in or if it's even more than that. And before I'd make a decision, I honestly I know there's a lot changing in schools with the first amendment rights and everything. And I I would want to talk to our legal counsel about it. I mean, I definitely would want to investigate that further

143and kind of see where we are, what the rules are because what you bring up, I I understand that that can be an issue and and I want I'd want to know how we deal with it. But at the same time, you know, I would like to something as simple as, you know, just a cap decoration and maybe the nodding clubs. That sounds nice. Inspirational messages, having a bit of you that's unique. I mean, I like the idea of that, but I also understand the pitfalls. I'd want to know a little bit more about that and then try try and figure out a way that it might, you know, >> Is this new to North High School? Have they been allowed to decorate their caps in the past? >> There were two. There were two

144years that they were allowed to decorate caps and that was number one was in 2020 during the drive graduation and the other one was the fast in 21 where it was raining on the hill. >> Oh were the only two years and what that's what I >> and did any major issues or conflict arise out of those two years? Darl, what what other >> Hi Daryl. >> I was told it was just really >> I was going to be calling you anyway. >> So I will say this this was an issue every year at high school because the starting graduating class of um they all wanted to Well, I'll start with anything express and it became quite contentious because then there's a significant our school community. No tradition have us not be a dictator but

145disregard the tradition. I never felt um I I guess more uh guilty feel not mistakes like they have presented really small arguments by but but at the same time I you know we're just making decisions the board and leadership and we stick with um and one of the reasons that We're about to pull back from security while we support certain. So that that was problematic. So then [Music] was 2020. But but you know kids regularly to decorate their room 22. So the kids turn their zero zero. Were there kids who had painted up bonds and gifts? Yep. But that was totally getting pulled out the caps. >> 2023 same thing. the kids during the camps. Um I think there were kids that actually lost the camps and so we will keep extra kids and so

146there was I understand what we make somebody what >> it's just about do they act on their anger that's okay if it makes somebody mad >> here some really contentious issues about you know civilizing the honor there was zero technician never change. You guys have to make a decision. That's my kids. And I'm just saying during those three years, four years where I'm feel able to move. It seemed to be something that added value to their graduation >> and if there's an opportunity to add value, it's their graduation. That's helpful. >> I'd like to find out similar to what Megan thought about this. What limitations can I think maybe asking our council to look into that? I think because ideally in my mind if we're going to do that we might absolutely want obviously nothing

147and I I understand you know that's subjective and and non put those frameworks can we put those frameworks on there >> and if so >> not we control that liability exposure do we have >> I've had two kids graduate here already I have two more to come they graduated in 22 and 24. So, one of them has a cat decorated on the wall. I'm not the caps I'm not worried about. I know both of those graduations I watch kids out there smoking cigars on our turf. >> I was worried about our soccer players t. We have bigger names to worry about really because I guarantee you there's going to be some cigars getting smoked out there. Well, maybe you can work on it more on our side and come up with some ideas and help

148out. Maybe you can go back to your to the students and brainstorm like if we want to do this, how can we what are some things that we can do to kind of show them that that we're serious and we'll do this the right way? And then that's a good way for us to maybe meet in the middle a little bit. >> It's like okay, I don't understand. I don't understand the cigar, but I know most of our class doesn't understand it either. Like there's going to be maybe 10% of students who will be out there smoking cigar. And that's like that's a big issue. Like just like they were saying, like that's a whole another topic. We're talking about decorating our tracks to represent ourselves. Like I bet some of the students represent themselves

149in ways that other students didn't know. Like I bet a lot of students don't know that I, you know, I'm trying to get be a nurse. I'm taking everything I can do. I have a job. Like I'm trying to that's like if that would be my way of expressing myself as an expression and that would be obviously school appropriate. I want to show that on my cap. >> It's not just about high school. It really isn't. It's about your accomplishments that you're going to accomplish later in life and what you do and how you accomplish that. Whether that be more years or after. Another thing I want to point out is high school is hard. High school is so hard. And that is if that's for me one little like dip in the water of

150how like motivating that would be, how much more motivated I would be to go to class, to want to go to graduation, to want to graduate. I would be a hundred times more motivated to do that to graduate with straight A's what do whatever I can do to decorate my cap. I promise you I'm not the best and I'm gonna be so honest. I I'm not the best. But if you're going to sit there and you guys are going to tell me that I can decorate my caps if I go to class and I graduate with great grades, I will be more than happy to be more motivated to go to class knowing that I can decorate my cap when I go off that stage. I think I'm willing to think about it and I

151think Megan's idea is great because our friendly safety guards and you know discussion I would not mind putting my cap in just so you guys can I don't care who has to approve it >> and would that take some pressure off of >> whoever used to have to approve the caps. I don't know what the board's role could be in that, but maybe we did the policy. >> So, we could put the policy in, but make sure it doesn't all the burden doesn't go to one. Yes. You know, like try to spread it out so not one person's having to do it all. >> But again, that's volunteers. >> So, I I do want to jump in provide some guidance here. I I I think that there are some excellent arguments on both sides. Um,

152I think ultimately from my own perspective, it is it is honestly a student day, but that doesn't mean that it can just be a free. I think that we can put some guidelines in place that that create some of the safety nets that we want to see. I think if the the if if you know, like you said, the rules are in place, right, regarding offensive things, things that are going to cause problems. If we have a timeline in place, can obviously um take those off the table. know if it's not approved. That provides parents with with the opportunity to then um appeal that decision, you know, through a normal pay process like they normally would for anything else. And um and we have a couple weeks to try to resolve that situation. Um in

153in terms of making the decision, we don't have to make it tonight, but I do think that we should have student voice involved. I'd like to see student council leadership involvement like to see us come back to have a discussion to board with and let's and let's put some of these problem solving issues in the students hands so that way they can take some ownership and how how they can make sure that we're not going to be faced with all the problem. That's right. I mean, I wouldn't mind trace because that that's saying we're hearing two different things here. I mean that schools I think, you know, let's get a whole stole and and see what that looks like. I think that'll be an easy one to get a hold of. >> An issue of

154budget. We provide our own guess our own decorations for our own cap. If that saves school some money, still need it. we can decorate our tabs and that's another great event that the school saves and money like obviously wouldn't provide our own thing and I really appreciate um Mr. Johnson saying um like you said >> uh and if that was like I said it just goes back to saving money like I know that's a big issue right now. So why are we going to put oursel in more financial burdened with something that we can provide ourselves >> on the sto? >> Yeah. >> Depending on I don't know how much they cost. >> We'll find out how much they cost because we will be asking the club then to come up with the money for

155the actual pin. You know there be some fundraising pieces of that. So we wouldn't want to put too much too much dirt in our hands. you know, they'd like to make sure everybody has but but that's I I think that's a valid point too. Let's find out nominal cost. Um that's one discussion and then I think if we can um get some student voice involved in that discussion and then I would say probably another work session topic will be appropriate then if not maybe bring some more voices to the table and kind of get a broader perspective and right now um you have a policy there and it doesn't include the the cast you know it is a voice discretion for all city. So is is that something but I don't think that this doesn't

156suddenly need to be controlled type policy. I think it's something that really we should just have the students help us put some parameters in place and and I think we can have a successful graduation where everybody's honored and everybody's respected. >> All right. >> Quick question. Is the work session and the meetings open to public? Right. >> Yes. >> So are they put in the announcements for the students and parents to see? >> What's that? What's >> so the work sessions and the meetings? Yeah. that the board has. Are they are those put into the announcements for parents to see and be invited to? >> They're publicly posted on our website. We send information out um through the calendar. It's on the calendar. I'm not quite sure if it if it's in the announcements for

157the high school. >> So, most parents probably read the announcements. >> Quite a few of them would read the announcements versus going to the district website to find out when the next meeting is. Is that something that can be put in for students? parent square. I got like a notice of this one. >> I did not sign up. You know, you're signed up for >> I am I get other I get their attendance every day. So, I would even be here if it wasn't for >> Yeah. The students had no idea. I reached out to some students and they have no idea either. to them to come. If there was another way of doing also have student reps that come to our board, I mean, you know who your student reps are. Uh he was

158very leadership leadership. >> But all work sessions are not like this. >> Usually in a small room. >> It it does sound like they're going on flash alert though. Not ter. >> I'm just trying to get more people involved and know what's going on. Absolutely. Great. That's great. I think that >> All right, let's move on to the next item. Elevator screen reconfiguration. >> All right. Now we >> So we're going to go through. You guys want to go through this? >> Let's do a presentation. >> Well, I can go through this and we can come back to another session. We have people that are states. >> Yeah, let's do it. >> This is elementary school reconfiguration. Um, can we present? Yeah, >> I thought I was on focus for this and we had lots

159of robust conversations that got my going lots of different direction. Um, but one direction that we will stay focused on is what's best for students and what's best for our community. Um, one thing that has come up a discussion last year during strategic planning was um the concept of reconfiguring our elementary schools and creating a a K through two elementary school and a 3 through five intermediate school. Um, this is something that has happened in other parts of Oregon and I was out of Baptist speaking to the superintendent investigative yesterday and they are actually going through the same process next school year. They will be implementing this this process. They have taken their two elementary schools that were both K5s and they are now making them K2 and K5. Um, their problem the reasoning would

160would is the opposite of ours. They're growing at exponential rates in their elementary schools. Each of their elementary schools have more students than their high school has. Um, and that's because so many people are moving there. It's the fastest growing area of Oregon right now. But, but when I was talking to superintendent, the reason that we want to do it is also the very valid reason and the reason we're considering it. Um, first of all, um, we want to talk about the objective of aligning instruction by developmental stages and balancing enrollment. Um and again it came through from our strategic planning group. Next slide. Um and and it was on two teams. It came up in the core planning team and the instructional planning team. Our enrollment trends do suggest an opportunity to realignment um

161as we see declining enrollment in both of our elementary schools and perhaps a little bit more significantly in North Bay. Um we we could potentially see an issue where we end up with singletons again at North Bay. That creates a hard situation when it comes to planning, balancing classes, um multiple things, behavior balancing behaviors, IEPs and whatnot. Um, it could it reconfiguration could better align our instructional focus to IV age groups. Um, we also see that in the in the near future, we're going to have some housing come in um low-income housing in the Hillrest zone that will greatly impact Hillrest um because that's where it's zoned. And by not having zones potentially we we we eliminate all of those types of conflicts. You know it gives us the opportunity to address our declining enrollment

162and also gives us the scalability to address an an ever increasing enrollment which I believe will happen in the next 35 years. Okay. So, when we talked about um presenting this this evening, we really wanted to evaluate some of the benefits and challenges and determine next steps, really get the board's consensus on on where are we going with this. This is something we want to continue to look at this year. We want to hear from staff if possible parents and of course we would we would do more outreach to larger groups but we we need to start some go ahead some educational rationale strength streng strengthen early learning and foundational literacy we know um early literacy is a is a major focus in Oregon it's becoming something that we will continue to have put our

163efforts into and as we should. It also aligns perfectly with our strategic plan which has an early foundation skills component in early literacy, math and social emotional learning. It supports academic depth and indep independence and previve and it would improve grade level collaboration and curriculum continuity amongst those grade levels. We could potentially target professional development by the greybands. The schools themselves would have professional development divided between specific needs of those gray bands. Create some more opportunity for greater collaboration and say same grade level teachers. Concentration early intervention for literacy and numeracy. consistent expectations and structural practices amongst grade bands because these students ultimately end up in one of the same middle school. So we would see a lot of inconsistency and degrading by bringing students together. Administrative support during PLC's would increase because right now

164you have an administrator who's trying to get potentially to kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms which is impossible um in on any given Friday. Um however getting from K12 would be left and also administrative instructional coaches again aligned to the actual grade of school grade of the school. Balancing enrollment between the buildings is a big one that we talked about really really most recently and you know a perfect example is fourth grade at Hillrest fourth grade at North Bay when we're seeing numbers of of 31 at Hillrest and maybe 24 25 at Bay there's a big discrepancy between the teachers and what what it is they're asked to do you know and that can happen in any given year you know only and seeing maybe two or three difference is very common but sometimes these these

165anomal phones happen and that's a big discrepancy. So, you know, all the teachers care. They're going to try to do the best for each and every student, but you know, they they also know that perhaps a colleague is not having to do as many report cards, as many conferences, um monitor as many students, and it adds additional stress to them. And so, this would balance that. If you had all the fourth grade together in one building, you certainly would have the same size classes. You'd be able to balance the IEPs and students with IEP, special education students between classrooms. You'd be able to provide more opportunities for life skills students to be mainstreamed amongst more teachers versus a small number of teachers so that that that new teachers don't necessarily carry a load of all

166the students that are in that grade level. Um, another thing you know we talk about is like if you think about first grade at both schools, you have about 50 kids in each school. So there's two teachers per school. That's 25 students. Adding a third teacher to both schools, it's a huge burden on our finances. It takes the numbers really low and and it's not sustainable. But if you take 155 and put them together, adding a fifth teacher is something that could be sustained and takes the numbers to 20 and and it's fair for most schools. So I mean because it would all be one school. So that would be a reason for that as well. It gives us more flexibility when it comes to adding a teacher than we currently have between two buildings

167when they're set. Um so it's ensuring a balanced class will be would be potential benefits of this regulation. Uh maybe clarifies building identities in what grade are focused on potentially enhancing transitions to the middle school uh reduces two transacts of the new housing and eliminates need to zone in um depending on what happens. Um obviously we have a house building the housing uh uh track going up now that's going to impact bills greatly. If the shipping container port were to come in you know there you could see pockets of housing popping up throughout the area and how that impacts schools with the current zones is an issue. We might find ourselves reszoning every couple of years if in here you wouldn't have a reszoning issue at all. would just be saying day two drink um

168capable full operational. Um one thing that we worry about is when when you look at Hillrest when it was at its highest numbers um North Bay at its lowest we're down to where we potentially might need this one per grade level. Is it operationally efficient to keep the entire building open? We don't want to find ourselves in a situation where we're asking ourselves that question. We want to keep both those buildings open. So, um having that specific brain advance between the building to make sure that happens if we continue to see it decline in our enrollment over the next three to five years while we're waiting for that port to be built. So, quite a few things there to consider benefit wise. challenges I think are obvious. Um there the there's another transition. You know,

169we have we have students um now making that another transition after second degree. So something we want to consider, what does that transition look like? Um you know, how are we going to support it? How are we going to create that range from second to third if they're going to a new school? families with siblings in multiple schools who could potentially have kid child in four schools, you know, depending on the age range of the children. And so, I mean, how does that impact the families with that many children in different schools? Um, family resilience factors are are are something that comes into play when you have kids in multiple schools. Um, and and so, you know, bridge phobia is a real thing. Um, you know, some people don't want their kids going over the

170bridge and and so Would we address that? What would what would you know what would that look like? Which break band would fit at which school would be an issue? You know, would it make more sense to have your K2 schools, your K2 students, younger students in town versus your more older students out of town? Um, interesting fact. How many students that go to more pay then now? What's the percentage? >> What was that question? Uh, how many students that attend Brown Bay Elementary School >> live in town percentage less >> 60% 50 60 which is kind of surprising because you think way out there but actually half the students a little bit more than half of them are in town so they're already in town. They're already crossing the bridge. So, um, you know,

171it's not impacting quite as many as as kind of just might think on the surface. So, these are all things that we've been do research into. Transportation adjustments, increased routing, we'll have students getting picked up throughout both sides of town, getting taken to both sides of town as well. That could also create an opportunity to help with some of the family convenience factors in terms of bringing students back to a unified point for pickups. So is something that could be addressed um based on that on that actual complexity challenge. Um you look at some facility modifications just depending on on which building was decided for which and again both schools are designed well North Bay was designed as a middle school initially. So but but both are housing elementary students now day five. So you

172know there might be some minor occupations depending on on the needs of the building. Um, Hillrest has a whole hallway full classroom with a toilet in the classroom. So that might be a factor without two for the students that attend. Staff reassignment practical considerations would be a big challenge because we would want to make sure we did that in a way that honors what people want to teach and are successful teaching and honor the seniority and the schools of their preference. So, we would have to work um with the union and try to find some ways to make that fair, but the city process it. Some considerations we want to look into in depth. Uh bus sizes, restrooms available in the buildings, uh playground equipment, size of it for age appropriate use. um assess needs

173for safety, accessibility, traffic flow in the schools, evaluate our technology, library facilities, cafeteria spaces to make sure that they they make sense. I mean, right now they work or okay, and we just want to make sure that they were, you know, the best they could be for the member for serving the school. We're going to create that identity. We'll be looking at adjusting routes and schedules to align the reconfiguration, analyze the start end times and trying to communicate clearly with families and staff about the changes well in advance. Looking at how to reassign staff to align to the grade level needs, addressing seniority contract implications. Providing support professional development for staff transitions. conduct informal meetings with parents, staff, community, gather input, surveys and focus groups, maintain transparency throughout the process. I think that that you

174know essentially you know we can we can come up with lots of reasons why instruction makes sense and and I and I do believe that instruction makes a lot of sense but in the end this has impacted their school. So, if we want to continue to look at this further, if this is something that that we'd like to to find out some more information on um and and explore, then we need to look at the enrollment capacity of the schools, what transportation plan might look like, how it might save us um some money financially to do this. Um, we want to look at we want to lay out a plan for stakeholder engagement, create a plan for facility staffing, our curriculum, um, communicate our messaging, and then, um, have the board actually make some decisions.

175Um, so it will be a phased roll out throughout the school year. And if it's something that the board is is is interested in us exploring more um it's something that we could look into this year and in more it's you know it's something that we could say is is something we look at next year. It really comes down to what the needs are and I think a lot of it actually starts with some of that stakeholder engagement. um look you know essentially need to assess the potential cost savings. What are the one time and additional costs that might be associated with this and evaluate the impact on future tracking legal planning and with that I'm going to open it up to discussion and ideas from the board staff thought the process and go next.

176>> Not a bad idea. I I would like to see um a survey with the staff here I think just to get it um how they feel about it. Just put in just a two question like if this were to happen which would be your biggest basically I just I want to see like where they would be at like how much push we would have. >> Yeah. I don't want to do that. I guess even just stats like I want to see just how >> I well I think the question without laying out like without people really understanding what the benefits for this is because as a parent that go to Hillrest and that will now go to North Bay. >> Yeah, >> I understand that >> but knowing everything else that really outweighs it.

177But I mean you have to get a lot more information to people before you can ask them that question. Otherwise, it's going to end up with impatience first and then >> so basically I guess like how is there a way to dip our toe in water without pausing and panic? >> I think the transparency is the big thing. >> I think transparency is the big thing that we're talking about. I think that's the big thing. But I mean I think we have to drive the boat and decide what we think is best for the district. Honestly, I think it comes to us and our decisions and I don't think we need to put too much of that off. But I think we need to be very transparent about what we want to do and the

178reasons behind it. Um but you know like but what you're saying you know learning is one of the reasons I'm on this board. I really care. You know, my focus has been on the younger elementary ages and all the benefits that you site from this just, you know, it's supports that 100% and can do so much for the kids in our district and and you know, in addition to what you have up there, you know, some things I'd like to see in the schools too in the elementary level is, you know, after school clubs and you know, you can have more age appropriate ones. Um, I'd like to see those happen again. You know, the tag program, there's not enough done there. You could, you know, have them at each school. I mean there's just

179so many ways that something like this would benefit our students even though there are the drawbacks you talked about but um so you know from my point of view is even though yeah I won't be dropping my kids off at school anymore if that happens in years to me the benefits to them are immense. So >> I mean the mentioning that that gifting program is a really good point. You know it's something that you know the long-standing belief in that you know we just we don't see money allocated to those programs on the state and and you don't see the investment in students that are contributing and and having the students all together providing more opportunities to really differentiate for their students needs. That's a really good point in the bus sale. >> Um, is

180there um a school or a district in Oregon or or somewhere close that face the problems that we're facing and transition to this? >> Oh, I didn't know that. >> Yeah, I didn't know that. >> And like I said, as going through it now, the reason is different, but it's >> How long has that been going on? How long did they do that? >> Three, four years. Yeah. >> Okay. And how's that going? >> It's going. >> Yeah. >> Okay. I mean, >> I don't know. I wouldn't at that time that they did it because of declining enrollment that they did reconfigure at that time. >> Okay. But I guess I guess that's one thing I would love to see is if if we could look at a school that had declining enrollment or or

181just massive class or whatever just I guess see how much posit is it is it worth the headache. Is it actually that beneficial? And and that's kind of the thing with the est esicada is you know even though their their problem is opposite it's for the same purpose of of balancing and and so with with them and you know it's the same type of process that that we're starting now and and they're they've just been going through it too. I mean they're going to initiate this next year and and it's really coming through with those okay we've had the conversations we've gathered input not so much as is it about yes or no. It's more of what are the concerns? Let's see how we can help people. How let's see how we can overcome those.

182Is it a communication issue or are there things we can put in place to help mitigate some of the concerns for our families to make the transition smooth and for our students to make the transition smooth and then actually just implementing this what they went into. But yes, that's a great question. We could find out some other question. I would say another thing to it, you know, in the core planning sessions for strategic planning, one of the things that was brought up to is the transition from fifth grade to middle school and how that's been problematic in the past, especially for math actually, and how they weren't even allowing kids to go forward. Was it the algebra at a certain age because they thought everyone needed to be mixed together to help because it is

183the students that are stronger can help lift everyone up. Um, but if you have the kids combined at an earlier age, there's more opportunities and you're not going to be facing that issue when they get into middle school. They've already been, you know, students in years and full-time. >> You know, it's not uncommon for our district to have done different configurations. You know, we've done a lot of configuration in this district over time. We had a K2 school for a while. Sunny Hill was a K2 school. >> I went there. >> Yeah. So, we have had that and it functioned well when it did that. We've had uh we had a K6 school for a while. That's what elementary used to be. We had K4 elementaryaries. A lot of our needs have been based on

184facilities that we had available and resources that we had to staff those facilities to maximize the learning for kids as we move forward. Well, and I feel like as we deal with defining enrollment, we're going to deal with staffing issues and separating the schools like that, it does it does make sense, like you said, having two different teachers for school grade versus just one extra if they're all in that one building. I think that does make a lot of sense for the future that we might possibly be facing. Well, then if we do get a bunch of growth, fingers crossed, it it seems like it also works well for fast growth. It does. It does. It's a balanced field. >> Yeah. >> Oh, I I don't So, when I first hired at this district, I

185was hired as an elementary science specialist and I bounced about between Hill Preston, Darth doing fourth, fifth, and sixth grade science. And um and then we have to cut that program. Um but I feel like the science at the elementary level is something that's really lacking. And as an elementary teacher, I know that um it's a real struggle to set up labs at the elementary level when you're when you're doing every single subject, right? And if if we were able to configure something like this, I I could see even if we didn't have the money to hire, like I'm hoping, oh, Levy, maybe we can get an elementary science specialist again, right? But even if we didn't have that, it would be it would provide the possibility that if learn how to strengthen science that

186they would be able to say, "Okay, let you teach social studies, I'll teach science, and we'll just trade our kids throughout the day." And um and it would be equitable for the entire grade level because last year I had some flexibility in my schedule >> and because of my own um case load. And so I was able to like say, "Hey, fifth grade teachers at Press, I'm here. I have a little flexibility. I will teach a lab for you." and it worked really well but yet North Bay didn't get that and so there was connect it was connectable opportunity right but anyway so I think that >> is there should provide some opportunities for creative thinking >> is is there a um temperature with the other teachers and what what what you guys are thinking

187>> I just threw that that's my own I know that's my exact speaking for the So, I was just curious with the other teachers that are here what their thoughts are. >> That'd be a big change. I think it's a lot to digest. You know, I mean, coming brought up in this area, we've seen the transition over the decades from neighborhood schools to consolidated schools. This is another step in that. So, that's a big deal. Um my other hand if there's a good case we get for the efficiency and for flexibility as a growth um not the elementary as I as I've worked with districts in my career one of the benefits I've seen to that model of having Florida east is culture. So right now you have two schools where you have two different

188groups of kids and when they get to middle school >> they're put together. >> Whereas with this model they've been with these kids. There's a consistency to the kids that they're working with and building relationships with that I think will pay off in a culture state as these kids move up together with these different we do have at least one program that will impact pretty substantially and that's our A level program which even does run out of Hillrest. So we would have to find some means to provide support for the other school for those students that would be in there because it is very little specific is to do that. We want to make sure that we get that support there are those issues. There are people who if they did want to speak at

189this sh anybody please >> like said it's a lot to digest and it it'll represent a huge cultural shift once my personal I but I don't it' be great to survey the teachers get [Music] I know that it's a lot of change personally That's >> just one last thing I wanted to in being in the schools you see classes that come through each school right now that have a huge certain students can have a huge impact if you only have three classrooms to to place them in just to split them up. And the other school may not have that particular problem that year but they have another grade level that have that problem. by combining equalizing the playing field and making things uh easier on teachers as you do that. I mean, it's going to

190split those kids up much easier in a in a grade level where you have more options. So, >> yeah, I feel like there will be growing pains if we didn't decide to go like this in the beginning, but once it smooths out, it might be beneficial, >> right? I mean, we found ourselves in a situation where we had to redraw our mountain rings. Anyways, I know what that also brings to. >> So, it sounds like this this doing by doing it this way, um, it would prevent us, it would prevent that from having to redraw the lines a bunch of times. As long as we are elementary school district, >> it's just like the issue with fourth grade this year about how big it is at Hillrest and whether you're going to send those kids

191back to North Bay where their district is, but they didn't want to because they've been there. But then it's it's to the detriment of the teachers here and some of the students that now have large class sizes and that just makes that go away, >> right? I I mean I do personally feel it disservice to a family when you say you go to this school and then all of a sudden you're calling parent >> it avoids running into those problems as well [Music] >> anybody else say >> well I have a parent and a teacher >> ask you what >> um I I really want to stay neutral for teacher sakes on um just because I know For some teachers, this feels like their role is crashing down. I do want to be the voice

192of that for them. Um because they've been taught and unschooled for decades and it just feels like now I have to change everything. But you know, Brian and I, you're from Oklahoma and our school was set up like this in Oklahoma. our kids through um schools that were laid out like this and it was very positive for a very small community with um you know two different populations and so the kids there weren't lines I guess and so our kids were friends with all kinds of kids I guess and there wasn't really any barriers to that and I can say I kind of see that in this community it makes me sad um having worked in those schools I you know, differences in validation. So, I I do support figuring out resources that we feel

193like we've got, but I do have a lot of teacher friends, but I think this will be sad for them, but I think that there's a lot of positive that could come out of this. I just I think it needs to be researched and I love that one opportunity. any principle I think um there's absolute pros and cons to this um I at the management level there's a lot of efficiencies that would like what Tim you know addressed up there just everything from PE to PLC's to um curriculum I mean there there's so many and class sizes there's there's so pros. Um I I also mean from a manager perspective um we have 100 kids at rest are not zone 100 of the 430 students in part of me wonders how many IT we would

194lose from that having to go to North Bay for a squat in North compared to having to impress. So that's one concern. Um, another concern would be really approaching this with staff and like what Leah said when you are a teacher and especially for those staff members who there are many of them who have only taught at or have only taught maybe at Preston and maybe one other district can't compare between and I think that that is a um that is something that needs to be treated and and stepped on very lightly because that is part of their identity and what they have their entirety of their career. Um, changing districts is is difficult. Changing buildings is difficult. Changing grade levels is difficult. I've done all of them. And they I know how much um

195how much you feel like you lose with your team members, your um your families, your parents. Um and then of course the loss of even not getting to see the kids go around a cage or a bad experience. Um there's other positives there though too. Then you build more team members, you build more efficiencies, you build more knowledge about what that means to look up within the grandad maybe right below or above you. Um and since I've been here, one thing that I have heard specifically from the middle schools, something that she mentioned was um when when we get kids from Hillrest, we know certain things based on this, this or this. When we get kids from our faith, we see this, this, or this. So, I know that they at the middle school recognize

196the differences, which is which is not fair. That is a very um that's just a sad thought that there's something there that is not happenable enough that kids and or the staff are not getting for each other. So, um my kids are graduated or senior high school issue. This does not affect me as as a parent, but I know how it will affect educators as just their identity and as I wanted to know in the last week I was supposed to session when the last >> would have been the elementary was the last configuration we had and we get a zone 15 or 16. >> That was the the last started. >> I can't remember the year. That was the last was a big >> Was it a rough time? >> I know. It was

197just one. It was not as rough a time for that one because you just kept the fourth grade that you had there and they stayed at fifth grade. So, it wasn't as rough for the kids. It was a little bit tougher on on staff because they had to move at that point. But that was one of the easier reconfigurations we had was keeping fifth grade at the elementary >> at that point. when we moved fifth grade the middle school which was four or five years before that that was a bigger that was a big deal at that point a big deal when we moved sixth grade to the elementary to the middle school >> so I have a question like following up on that like all these if we did this are we looking at

198more reconfigurations in the future or is this kind of how it is because I mean there is something to be said of some stability long term I mean >> are we we make this change, go in this direction, is there then going to be another change or is this kind of how it's going to be pretty long term? I I mean I feel like if we if we decided to go this route and it would create a system that would be able to um fluctuate either way even the population was going down or I can't without >> Yeah, it would definitely be nice to I mean you can't always predict those kinds of things in moment or whatever but yeah that whatever looks like it's going to be sustainable for the longest so we're not

199having to do a lot of bouncing around and switching around and all that. I think yeah, stability because I'm the same way. I my kids go to North Bay. My two younger kids and I love North Bay. My kids love North Bay and I, you know, as a parent, I'm like, "No, they have to stay there no matter what." But when I first saw this at like I was like, "Oh my god, no." But then I read through it and then I listened. I was like, "No, that's a lot of really positive." >> I mean, that's a lot of potential for a lot of good stuff. So, >> oh my god. No, that's >> need to reconfigure again. But I think it would be based upon space available kind of options. If you exceeded the

200spa space at both those schools, then you'd have to look at some other option as you go out there. Yeah. The other the other factor that comes in, you know, I was talking about interd district transfers, would we lose them, would we not? depending on the configuration. You know, if you had one school in town being a K2, you might give them a track more inner history transfers. And and the beauty of that, having been in this before, is you can give parents answers quicker. You don't wait till August to give answers, which has always bothered all of us, I think, not being able to definitively speak which school you're in and whether you can come in as a kindergartener. As a parent, that would just just rips your heart out to know that. And

201it would allow us to respond to the number of requests we have for ID2 keys earlier and fill staff and maybe create another position. Yeah. At that point and keep numbers realistic in there. Yeah. >> Overall, I I think there's a lot of good stuff. >> I it does help that I mean having the information first. And so I feel like letting letting the information get out there, working hard to make sure that people are understand like the proposing requirements that we're seeing and that have been set here. I think that that's an important first step to making sure that if we choose to it, it feels maybe a little less bumpy. >> Megan though, we got to be careful about surveys. If we put a survey out to parents, we have to respect what

202their answers are. And for sure, it's something we're going to do. >> We I mean, that's a really touching thing. Surveys. I mean, you don't ask a survey unless you're willing to take their positive feedback. Well, can we can we do kind of in ways like do just the staff first and get that feedback first and digest that and there or you think that's going to be the same the concept in terms of you know what potential challenges do you see? questions that we need to answer and you know what are the pros and cons because then then you're addressing those things is more the >> yes or no because because there might be might be reasons why you would lean to a yes and you don't want it to I mean the intent isn't

203to disrespect it >> is I think we have to be really careful all the time we're going to go out everybody had it before >> yeah I mean I I want to purchase. >> We have to be smart about how we think. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's a really good point. >> But I but I >> What's the next step? Um did you have one more comment? Oh, well I don't I know one thing I didn't notice mentioned at all is that our life skills program is already K235 and I didn't know if there was anything there that also needed to be communicated about um what we've learned from that or the impact that doing that has put on the on the spray bands that have such a concentrated population of life skills and wellbeings. That's

204a great question. I mean, we're so early in the process, but you know, we saw numbers go up much higher than we thought in third grade, for example, and yet you don't have enough sections to really get those kids in the classrooms the way you'd like to. Whereas, if you had a couple more classrooms, I think it would really help that program quite a bit. Um, of course, if if if in fact the reconfiguration led the 35 to be at the bay, then now that those groups, but they would now be transitioning and getting back to that school. Um, and and speaking of special education, that was a good point. Um I that that conversation I had earlier today with special education teacher just just the thought of having the five you know all those

205years with the same group of kids or the same families makes communication a little bit easier. So another transition piece to develop with a group of students who who potentially need some support. Um, I think what's next would be sort of some of the things we outlined on the on the presentation there. We I mean I think that there are some there's some valid information we need to gather from staff and parents about just thinking about the process and and seeing what kind of questions they have because even here tonight I'm I'm hearing things that you know I just hadn't thought of because I see certain things and so we want kind of elicit all those responses see what we need to answer and then perhaps have you know a couple more um open forums

206like this and kind of get people's input. Will you be able to kind of present what you just did with us to the staff? >> I absolutely can >> because that seems I mean like that's a huge thing for them. Even like then tonight you guys hearing some of the things was probably helpful. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> We have we have actually set up listening sessions with all of our schools. um directors, myself, we're going to go to different schools and talk to the teachers and we'll want to hear about some of the challenges they're facing, some of the successes and um it will be an appropriated time to kind of introduce these topics without taking up all the time, but at least get the information out there and and start and start getting staff

207thinking about it. So, those are starting next Monday. Um so, we'll do we'll do three schools next week and another school the following week. Following that, I wanted to get a couple board members into some schools, talk to administrators, and then, you know, also kind of in that whole concept build and survey community and staff about some of the things they have to submit to. >> All right, let's move on. So, that's a go get more information. >> Um, we're talking about ESP service credits. one action item that um I appreciate you adding to the agenda tonight. Um so, South Coast ESB as part of an educational service, we earn service credits um for the students that are enrolled in our school district that that are part of the larger community. So, that the ESB

208then provides service credits to us um per OS outlined there. Um we also have the opportunity to take a certain amount of those credits in lie of services as payment and we can take anywhere from so let's say our population generates a certain amount of dollars for the then come back to us in services 90% of those of the dollars our students bring have to come back to the northb school district in in services or um in in payment in little services by statute. So the ESDs allowed making 10% for their operational costs. 90% comes back. Um what happens is the superintendent of the region decide on on these sort of tiered model. Tier one services go to all students in the region. We all pitch into that equally. We then order off of a

209tier 2 menu for other services, things like speech and language pathologists, um you know, autism specialists or evaluations. um one to one nurses and when we need those are all ordered from this tier 2 and then anything left over goes into this tier three category. Um statute also gives us the ability though to withdraw um up to 100% of that 90%. So the ESD always gets to keep the 10% initially off the top so they can operate and then you could withdraw all your you would completely take 90% of cash on those services and then you we're out of the DSD. Now we could order services from them but at a premium. Um or you can take percentages and the board has the authority to decide what percentage that is. And if we take less

210than 50% we as a district and and we in general would have the ability to retain voting authority within the superintendence group for the services that ESD provides. Um right now we order quite a few services from our ESD. So um I 100% 100% support us saying in the ESD but we don't need to leave 100% of our 90% in the ESD. What I'm I'm requesting from the board is that we take 10% in li of services. Um and this has to be presented um board votes I present it to the GSD by November 1st for next school year. And for example, this school year we um we were allocated about 1.4 million in service credits. So this 10% would take out about $140,000. And instead of leaving it there, so let's say we pay

211for our tier one, we order off our tier 2 menu, and then anything left over, it's retained in the PSP. Well, that always leaves a question. Will we always have access to that? By taking the 10% off the top and having it paid to us and new services, we guarantee we get access to that because it's coming to us first. So, um, by taking the 10%, we still have the finances needed in the ESD to order the services we currently have and not leave that extra in there as an applicant. So, that's what I expect the authority to do. Take the 10%. >> Is that 10% to specifically program in our district? >> It goes to what we need to Yeah. So, what what we would essentially if we if we needed to um what

212if if we let's say we ordered our services from our tier 2 and we needed to get something else, we could still access it. We would just be paying for it. This money will pay for Yes. 100%. >> Keep having these dollar conversations about about specifically dollars that are being spent instead. I mean, I know you couldn't you can cash them out the year and spend them else wherever you like. >> We do spend them on sp I I think what we probably want to do is look at how much money we do spend on special education because we spend a considerable amount of our budget on it. So, even if it becomes part of a larger pot, it's still money that benefits it because we we pay we pay a lot of money from

213general fund for it. So, that's really what this would be for. It would it would allow us instead of having to border off of that menu if we needed to add an educational assistant or or a teacher we would have the resource to do it and hire ourselves and that's exactly what that for I would agree it should be money that's available for special education to support it in 100% anything else board want to make a motion I move that um that the district um request to receive 10% of cash and leave the services as provided under RS 334177 and that we authorize um superintendent to complete uh the documentation with South Coast ESD to receive the 10% cash and L uh services by November 1st, 2025 for the 26 27 school year. >> I'll

214second that. >> You did great. >> We got a motion in a second. Any further discussion? >> All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> We have some deep eyes that are getting >> now we have the test on levy. >> No, I'm not. >> Now we're at number eight. Ajourn.