001e e e call the meeting to order please rise and join us for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to 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 thank you welcome this evening we are going to start off with our good news reportan good evening we're here tonight uh a very exciting good news report um since 2017 we've had some wonderful Partners in our community in a business called the barrel house they have stepped up many many times uh to support students in need in the sual school district uh they have taken the time to understand the true need of uh our Child Nutrition department and feeding students who may or may not have uh
002the financial means in their families to do so um they have been a community advocate for the cause and back in 2017 when we started really looking actually I think it was like 145 we started really having um concern about uh school debt for lunches and in 2017 they stepped up to support us uh and are known by an organization called Hungry Hearts that's their nonprofit name um so gay Anderson is our Child Nutrition coordinator she will come up and share some information about the current situation of the sou fall School district and then um we'll have a great announcement following good evening everybody so a little bit about uh the slide that you see here in front of you right now I think you've all seen it probably before talking about where we're at
003with our free and reduced meals over the last number of years uh I can share with you today that number for 46.7% is actually at 47.3 4% uh going forward with that um but deian shared a little bit about the history of the Angel funds how this all got started a lot of talk in 2014 started about what do you do with unpaid meals and how do you handle all of that um we had two years in there where we had free meals for everybody parents got uh used to not having to pay for meals it was a wonderful thing at that time and then all of a sudden we came back and parents had to start paying for their meals and we started seeing the debt start going up immensely um um actually we
004were looking at about $3,000 a day last year in November that we were going up in debt how many businesses would open their doors and say hey let's lose $3,000 today um so with some of the different things that were put in place by the you as the board with our unpaid meal policy we all agreed on this about a year and a half ago that yes we need to follow the policy the way it stands and so we um set the time and the date for December 1st we reset all the U student debt last December first to 0 everybody had an equal playing field and then we um began to um follow with follow the policy as it stands and that kind of starts where it's like from Z to $20 families that
005um have money still in their account we started notifying them letting them know this is where you're at you need to start thinking about putting money in the accounts and then when we had um 0 then it would be also that would become a daily notific a the 20 to Z was once a week notifying we would send out letters also once a week notifying families of what the debt was and if they did have debt at Z we did not we don't serve breakfast and that's part of our policy uh then when we get to - $20 and up to -75 which we have not hit yet thank goodness um atus $20 we offer a smart snack and last year we did about 760 smart snacks um so it was a lot fewer than
006what I thought it would have been this year we are close to about 500 right now but um it is still helping us working with what our debt had been and again as I said we have not had anybody who's reached that $75 negative yet and I hope and I don't expect it'll happen the way things are trending um so with that we also started a tiered matching uh piece um brought on by um ideas with community members talking about how how can we do this and solve this puzzle try to use our donor's money to the best Advantage as you can see a family of four uh federal poverty level of 130% um is at $31,200 up to 185% is 577 and there so the conversation shifted to how can we help these families
007that miss it by that much I've seen as low as a dollar in some situations to $40 with you know they make too $40 too much in a year and they don't get to qualify and so the the idea was born that how about uh we take care of covering those kids whose families are in that 185 to 200% of federal poverty levels and so we have covered those meals for a number of students in the last year and now again this year uh with our donor's money there's a one rule in place you have to have completed a free and reduced application before any Angel funds are considered um as you can see currently we have 296 students that are qualified for this we have had 87 families say nope let's save it for
008someone else who needs it more than I do um and then we have these tiered groups so that's 100% free meals for them and then we have our tiered groups between 2011 and 215% of federal poverty level uh for every $1 the family puts in we have a $3 match for that and that's been really helpful with uh negative accounts then we take it one step further 216 to 230% uh that's reversed then so for every $3 they put in a dollar as matched for them and you can see the numbers of students that are being helped it's right around that 500 number range uh for those that who uh whose families haven't declined as I said um our current debt actually I looked at it this morning it's it is down it's under 12,000
009right now uh we had some funds come in for taking care of some others but you can see total free students we have 8,220 students that are on free reduced 2667 and then again our total combined of 1188 7 so with this we've kind of looked at what the cost has been for covering those families from August uh 22nd through the end of October uh what those matching funds and the covering the meals for the free and reduced students has been and so we've looked at those first two months and one and a half weeks or whatever 46,000 over $46,000 there I projected It Out by number of days served going forward looking at the total for the year in the end is going to be about 175,000 uh in need and then along with
010that the other piece is still covering some of that like that 12,000 or 11,000 debt and some of those other families and situations that come up and that brings us to really what the good news piece is all about and I'm going to invite Jesse and Mark to come up to well both of you can come on up and they can share their big uh announcement here first of all I want to thank you guys for allowing us to come today and speak in front of everybody um like gay and uh Dean have said we've been doing this since 2017 my name is Jesse Severson this is Mark founder uh president and Co vice president of hungry Hearts um we've been trying to help you guys in in the kids of our community since 2017
011um this year what we're going to do is we're going to match up to $100,000 um that's donated to the angel fund um so the the public anyone can go um I'm sure the and we'll have all that up there we got a PayPal a venmo um that you can get on uh and uh donate on there and help these kids like uh gay said they need almost $200,000 to make sure every kid in those in those brackets get a hot meal um and that's the biggest thing that we want to convey is um we're just here to make sure kids eat you know I mean they can't they can't learn they can't listen to their stomach to their teachers if they're listening to their stomachs so that's what we're doing so we're we're calling
012out the community please step up and uh we will match everything up to $100,000 is just to clarify is there a time frame for donations or it's like now through the end of the school year or what are we is we wanted to make the announcement today November 25th knowing that a lot of people are preparing um in their giftgiving mode if you will uh but there isn't a time frame on the match um wouldn't it be great if we got to that by the end of the calendar year uh but graciously Mark and Jesse have indicated that U they will match the 100,000 whenever that happens so we are here today to just um as people are considering their giftgiving and uh what the end of the year may look like uh for their
013own family consider how we might be able to help other families in need if we all come together and and support this cause so U again we're very grateful uh for Jesse and Mark they they've gone to meetings after meetings after meetings to understand this issue and uh have supported the students along the way they just their hearts are truly in it uh as is it in their name as well hungry Hearts so um if any community members have any questions or additional information that's needed you can find that information on our website or also contact uh gay at Child Nutrition um and certainly we will answer any questions that are out there from the community thank you you know one of the things that I really like is sorry is um this was not
014like a we feed them or we don't like there's not there's a there's not a magic equation there's not a magic number to say what do we look at and so to to break it down to the point of these people in this group really need this and we're going to partner with them to get them this where these people in this group need something different and so we're going to partner with them to give them something different so it wasn't a one-sized fits-all it's know we we talk a lot about Partnerships in our district and it's not just business partners it's our partners with our students and their families and how can we get them to feel like they're contributing to their um their child's lunch account and they know that they're getting fed
015but they're also knowing that we're we're helping them along the way so I love that there's you know that variety of how we're helping people meeting them where they are um and our community has always been very generous and so I'm really excited to see how this changes and how this takes off and hopefully like you said by the end of the year can have if not paid off uh or collected at least a really really good chunk um towards that so thank you both for your generosity and and for your help um it really does take a village of all of us to make sure our kids are taken care of and eating is the first thing that that needs to happen for them to learn so thank you again yes you can CL
016awesome thank you if you don't want to stay you don't have to no offense taken thank you guys all right can I get a motion in a second for approval of the minutes for the meeting held on November 12 204 2024 please second I have a motion and a second all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose same sign those minutes are approved uh we have one person wishing to address the board on a non-agenda item so we'll do five minutes if Chad wants to come on up know where our time is good evening my name is Chad bishop and I live at 7405 South Valencia Drive here in sou Falls I would like to thank the board for providing the opportunity to participate in the survey regarding the selection of the new
017superintendent I'd like to share the qualifications and requirements I submitted as essential at least in my view for the next leader of our school district number one commitment to academic Excellence prioritizing rigorous academic standards and evidence-based curricula over ideological content number two neutrality in education ensuring that educational content remains free from political or ideological bias promoting critical thinking and open inquiry number three transparency and accountability maintaining open communication with parents and the community providing clear information about education materials and policies access to all materials in machine readable format is required number four focus on individual Merit emphasizing individual achievement and personal responsibility rather than group identity in student development and assessment number five resistance to ideological indoctrination actively opposing the incorporation of critical race Theory and similar Frameworks into curriculum viewing them as dis divisive
018and not conducive to educational goals number six focus on results for higher efficiency demonstrating a results oriented approach to education setting measurable goals for academic Improvement and driving higher Proficiency in core subjects like reading math and science number seven understanding optimal nutrition and physical exercise recognizing that proper nutrition and regular physical activity are critical to Preparing students Minds which are part of the body for Effective learning and incorporating programs that support all these fundamentals into the school environment number eight removal of diversity equity and inclusion from all policies eliminating all Dei related policies and practices addressing the over racial and ideological discrimination these policies represent and restoring a focus on equal opportunity and fairness for all students and staff specifically the idea that we should hire or Fire based upon how someone looks is antithetical
019to our shared values on November 25th the National Review published an article entitled Dei training material increases perception of non-existent prejudice quoting from the article in the experiment focused on Race the researchers randomly assigned 423 Rutgers University undergraduates into two groups one control group exposed to a neutral essay about us corn production and the other exposed to an essay that combined material from e ebram x ky's book how to be an anti-racist and Robin D'Angelo's book White fragility after exposure to either text participants were presented with the following race neutral scenario quote a student applied to an elite East Coast University in Fall of 24 during the application process he was interviewed by an admissions officer ultimately the student's application was rejected unquote the results showed that the participants primed with Kendy and D'Angelo's materials
020pursued more discrimination from the admissions officer despite the absence of any racial identification and evidence of discrimination those participants also believe that admission the admissions officer was more unfair to the applicant had caused more harm to the applicant and had committed quote microaggressions in addition to imputing bias without evidence the participants who read kendi and D'Angelo were 12% more willing to support suspending the admissions officer for a semester 16% more willing to demand a public apology to the applicant and 12% more willing to require additional Dei training to correct the officer compared to participants in the control group quote educational materials from some of the most well-published and well-known Dei Scholars not only failed to positively enhance interracial attitudes they provoked baseless suspicion and encouraged encouraged punitive attitudes unquote our next superintendent should have Clarity
021on this subject and remove these regressive ideas behind diversity Equity inclusion from every policy in The District in closing I would like to take this opportunity to once again request that you make George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm required reading across the district for all Juniors and seniors thank you for your time thank you can I get a motion in a second for approval of tonight's agenda so moved second all those in favor signify by saying I I I oppose same sign the agenda is approved with no conflicts of interest this evening can I get a motion in a second for approval of the consent agenda please second have a motion and a second all those in favor signify by saying I I I I oppose same sign the consent agenda is approved and a
022motion in a second for the supplemental consent agenda A1 and two please so move second I have a motion in the second all those in favor signify by saying I I I oppose same sign that motion is or that agenda is passed with one exstension from myself and then we will move on to the reports of the superintendent a few reports tonight first up is Christin grager to go over our results of our AP and dual credit reports and we um this is something we've been working on for a number of years even prior to my joining the district but this is something that we have heard and continue to hear from our students that they don't always um seem as familiar with these opportunities as we want them to be but yet our numbers
023show some really impressive growth over time so we're here to celebrate that and continue working on that so that'll turn that over to you I really feel like I'm here to give you a second good news report tonight um I think as you uh hear about and and see the statistics from AP this year you will agree um we are really lucky in sou Falls that we offer uh opportunities for high school students to take a number of AP courses in our district and you can see them listed up here on our on the screen uh we have uh courses all across different disciplines and content areas this last year we had 30 different classes that students could participate in uh and during the 2023 24 school year we had 1,814 students take 3,250 exams
024this is an all-time high which is really fabulous uh students stud at the end of their AP course are encouraged to take the AP exam uh students score from one to five on that exam and a score of three or higher is considered a passing grade and then students uh can often earn college credit based on their score uh chart a shows the number of students who took an exam by grade we do encourage students to take at least one class class during their time in high school and you can see that those numbers uh continue to rise with 306 freshmen 370 sophomores 616 Juniors and 522 seniors many students choose to take more than one exam while they are in high school and this last year that number also grew we had 744 students
025who took two or more AP exams uh during their time in high school so not only are we seeing numbers increasing across the board but we also are working to increase um diversity among the our AP students and so chart C shows uh how we are improving in that area as well and you can see that we held steady or had growth uh particularly among our Black and Hispanic students we saw some great growth this last year of those uh 3,250 exams we had 2,425 student exams that received a passing score of three or higher and you can see in chart G that that shows we had a 74% pass rate which is phenomenal um it's well above our state average of 69% and honestly we're the biggest school district so we really pull up
026that state average and then uh much higher than the global pass rate at 64% as well students who take AP exams can receive a awards from college board and we had 573 students who were honored with ap scholar Awards 246 got the AP scholar award and that means they had three or higher on three or more exams 120 had the AP scholar with honors so they had an average of 3.25 on all AP exams and a score of three on four or more exams the AP scholar with distinction they have a 3.5 on all AP exams and a threeyear higher on five or more exams and then we had three students who earned the AP Capstone diploma which means they earned a three or higher in AP seminar and research and four additional AP exams
027another way that students can earn college Credit in high school is through our dual credit program students can enroll in these courses as long as they meet the eligibility criteria set by the South Dakota Board of Regents or if they are working with a postsecondary institution students can take dual credit courses online but we also are offering several College dual credit courses taught by teachers in our building and this last year we had fundamentals of communication or speech college algebra and government and this year we added anatomy and physiology so we continue to grow those dual credit opportunities in addition students who are taking courses at our CTE Academy the opportunity to earn dual credits and then students who are in the classrooms to careers or the AA Academy are earning dual credits through Southeast
028Technical College our numbers of dual credit students have stayed strong but where we really see the growth is in the total of number of credits that students took so that went to an all-time high this last year of over just over 2400 stud of 2400 credits earned by students we have a budget for for our AP program and last year that was $124,700 for the AP seminar in research those cost $146 but we never want to say no to a student who wants to take an AP class college board and the South Dakota Department of Education have criteria that allow some students to take exams for free but we also want to support students who have Financial need so this last year 354 exams for 187 students students qualified for fee reduction through college board
029and then our school district covered an additional 145 exams for 88 students we continue to have exceptional AP program and a very strong dual credit program which provide opportunities for students to earn college credit I think I want to say just once again we had a 7 4% pass rate and a record number of students who took um AP classes and at this time I'd ask the board if they have any questions or comments certainly good things to celebrate and love the fact that the program is growing are we having any trouble uh getting teachers trained to teach the AP courses as our student numbers are growing we haven't in fact fact we have uh we have a a new class a new AP class this year African-American studies um is a a new AP
030course offered through college board and so that's being piloted at Washington High School this year and will be added at other high schools next year so teachers continue to look for those opportunities yeah just celebrating all those numbers and the opportunities available to our students I have a 16-year-old at home who was taking AP and claimed she had no idea that dual credit existed she's a smart gal she is but somehow missed that so how are students receiving the information about those college credit opportunities sure okay so when our counselors go and talk to eighth graders our incoming nth graders it's part of that presentation counselors will also be going into classrooms December and January as we get ready for registration and talk about dual credit opportunities then as well um it's on our it's
031on our website there's a tab right there that talks about dual credit opportunities uh and then certainly our teachers are talking about dual credit courses um probably mostly about the ones that we're offering inhouse because we're super excited about those and continue to we have a couple of proposals coming to curriculum Council in fact to add more in-house dual credit um so there's talk about that as well correct me if I'm wrong for AP you can take it as a freshman sophomore junior senior correct but for dual credit you have to be a junior or a senior you do have to be a junior or senior so sometimes I think that that's you know we talk to them in eighth grade but they really can't take it for three more years they kind of lose
032that there's a lot in eth grade that changes when they get to nth grade yes um so I just think that that continuous message whether it's at conferences or whether it's you know with the counselors I think is is so important um I just did a really quick math and really the normal cost for that 2400 credits would be about $600,000 is what our students would have paid and they paid about 144 so you think about the actual Financial impact to each of those students and each of those families it's it's huge um and being able to continue to go on whether it's to a four-year or to a two-year or just to get a certificate just to have those credits really makes a big difference to them so um D just pay $508 a
033credit when they do dual credit which is a huge savings yeah my only other question and I don't expect you to have the answer but um when we look at the pass rate which is very good have we ever looked at I know we do we look at pass rate by class and then make adjustments to see how can we try to impact those individual classes so we do we actually look at classes and we look at teachers too knowing that sometimes teachers who teach an AP course for the first time um it's it's a huge undertaking and and uh so we make sure that teachers are well trained we do collaboration across the district with our AP teachers so that if students and teachers are having success we share those ideas and we just
034continue to try to help everybody improve awesome very nice Kristen can you just talk a little bit more on the Dual credit side what is required for a teacher to be eligible to teach dual credit right so the Board of Regents has specific requirements in that uh if a teacher is going to be the teacher of record for a dual credit course that teacher has to have 18 credit hours in that content area beyond their master's degree we have a few teachers who've done that uh so for example in our college algebra we have one teacher who meets that requirement most teachers don't seek uh credits beyond their Ma Ms in their content area they're often doing leadership or other um degrees and so then we partner with a university and they provide the teacher
035of record and and that's how we're able to offer so so many dual credit courses in our buildings and continue to grow that as well does that answer what you were asking yes um a few years ago well it's probably been more than a few now some of those requirements became much more strict for the require ments to teach dual credit and so it requires a big commitment on the part of our teachers you have a master's you may go on to an administrative program but they they typically may not have pursued those content area credits and so then sometimes we ask them to go back and get them or um you know figure it out kind of from there but it's it's a big load they're they're also required to kind of exist in
036two platforms our district platform as well as the higher ed and institution in terms of grading and navigating both of those and and that also requires a lot um from their time and just their commitment to dual credit so we appreciate both the AP and the Dual credit teachers who are willing to take that on so do we have kids leaving our campus and going to Auggie and we have a we have a few students who go to campus and and take classes at Augustana or a university of suf or they can go to the university center Southeast um but most are taking either classes that we're offering in our buildings are doing courses online but we really find that it's a wonderful bridge when they can do the Dual credit with a teacher in
037the building uh students who take it online or even go to a college campus and only have to go to class two or three times a week think they have all this free time time and then soon discover that college courses are pretty rigorous and they need to to fill that free time doing work for those courses so our teachers kind of help bridge that and and help them adjust to what it's like to do some independent rigorous work but have that teacher support to say don't forget about this keep on top of all these items that you need to doome anybody else thank you it was great news so appreciate you sharing that uh can I get a motion in a second for acknowledgement of the advance placement and dual enrollment report please so
038second I have a motion and a second all those in favor signify by saying I I I oppose same sign that is acknowledged thank you okay next report Dr n is gonna give us an update on class sizes and provide some context although this is a complex area but this will give you a nice um kind of an overview as well as some of the many factors that are considered in How We Do Staffing so with that I'll turn it over good good evening uh tonight's report will be on class size or generally what's referred to as class size the purpose of the report is really to look at that full-time equivalent or that FTE that we call it the allocations that come of that and really it results in our student to teacher ratios
039or our class sizes the priority area hits each one of these areas as we look through the Student Success the well-being of both staff and students staff excellence and effective use of resources and really this starts out with the budgetary process that the school board is heavily involved in and sets that or establishes the general budget each year part of that General bu budget Works into the allocations of FTE which is approved through the programming and our allocation on our student ratios and so we go through that whole process and this information uh in this report we'll go through each of those I'm going to primarily focus on the elementary level we could go through each one but to give an in-depth look I'll look at the elementary level and so when we look at
040this first of all as an overview of all FTE we go through and the student ratios for high school is 25.12 Middle School 24.4 one and Elementary 24.3 so that's what we look at as our Base number and it's truly what you look at when you're approving a budget because the largest part of our budget is truly Staffing and so we go through with our allocation uh percents or our ratios and utilize that and so pulled these numbers that we go through and show you and these will be of October 30th of this year and so the number that we will use are actual numbers at that point in time so going through the traditional classrooms these traditional classrooms we're looking at all the elementary schools and we'll also include the specialized uh programs that
041we have of Sonia sod My All City Elementary uh the elementary immersion Center in Eugene Field I'll talk about a few other specialized programs after this but we'll start out with those there are currently 443 traditional classrooms classroom teachers in the sou fall School District in those courses or in those buildings when we look at the average class size or the teacher ratios for those you'll see as we go through from kindergarten on up to fifth grade and I'll explain a little bit more about kindergarten in first grade but Kindergarten has a 20.5 2:1 ratio these are actual numbers right now as of October 30th 22.83 for first grade and then it continues to go up till we hit hit the fifth grade which is at a 24.6 7 and again just as a reminder
042our our ratio that we utilize for allocation for the elementary level is 24.3 to1 so that's what we use for our budgetary processes and figuring out what that will be the overall traditional Elementary class size right now is 23.3 one so that's actual number to one this accounts for an equ you know about equivalent of 18 FTE over the targeted budget ratio and I'll talk more about that as we come up but that is our our current reality of 23.3 1 to1 for our elementary schools now as I look and break down a few of these CU some going look at what's some of the outliers in here our lowest School ratio right now is at LBA and we have an 18.9 to1 ratio there our highest is renberg renberg is a one-section school I
043was out there earlier today and it's hard because really it truly is built for a one-section school it's 26.2 to1 uh the next highest after that is Sonia sod my 25.5 to1 and then all other elementaries are 24.7 or lower on their student to teer ratio 92 of the classes of the 443 that I referenced are at 20 or fewer students so that's about 21% of the students are are at that 182 of the classes are between 20.1 and 24 students that accounts for about 41% of our classes so there's about 62% of our our classes currently in the elementary level that are at 24 or below 161 of those this will be the bulk of that then the next level that are between 24.1 and 29.9 that's 36% and then we have 1.8% uh
044that are classes that have 30 or more and so a little bit below 2% of those do have 30 or more when we look at those schools that have 30 or more in a single classroom uh Hawthorne has two of those and their overall School average is 22.3 to1 so they look at that and decide where do they want their ft to go to and they've dedicated more of that to the kindergarten first grade and second grade levels uh you look at renberg that I talked about that's a one section school they also have two uh two of their grades are at 30 one's at 31 one's at 32 Robert Frost has one and JFK uh has three and they're at a 24.1 to1 ratio so those are the eight classes that are over the
045bulk of the the class is obviously 60 some per or 24 or below and our overall for all Elementary is 23.3 one to one we'll look at this a little bit different with our two-way immersion classes those two uh programs are at Hayward and Rosa Parks and you'll see a lot of time with the immersion programs this is going to be true with Sonia soda my as well with the one-way immersion you'll see it larger at the kindergarten level because they have some attrition that happens as it goes throughout into the fifth grade and that is true with our our two-way immersion as well so you see in those the kindergarten start out larger because they realize they'll lose some of those students as they go through into the fifth grade and we see the
046same thing here so in those uh kindergarten overall it's a 27 to one ratio and then you get to fifth grade and it's 23.3 to one ratio overall the the ratio for the two-way immersion classes is 24.9 to1 additional information uh for the two-way immersion there's no classes over 30 there's three interns that assist in the 2-way immersion program and then we also have some additional over enrollment EAS that assist especially in the kindergarten areas in the first and second grade but especially in that kindergarten and first grade areas and so we do have some additional supports in there because we realize their kindergarten classes will be larger than traditionally we see and so we we allocate those in there and I'll talk a little bit more about with the interns as well as an
047overall number because there are also interns that serve at at sonota my as well rise classrooms reaching uh Independence through structured education that's our severely handicapped students and so we go through and look at our rise classrooms and right now we have those allocated out over to five different schools that that host the rise programs a good thing next year we'll add in Marcelo labau Elementary which will be a rise side as well so that'll take some of that uh size and the numbers away from some of those schools that we currently have in existence there's 111 current rise students that we serve in our programs there some of those are part-time some are full-time into the Rise program there's 13 sections of Rise as we look through all those Elementary buildings we look at
048that generally as an allocation of 10:1 it can go from 8 to 10:1 uh our current reality is 8.5 to one and so that's what our current reality of the ratio of Rise students to teachers is and we also allocate two EAS for every rise teacher now there could be some other uh individual I or IEPs that call for some individual time with an EA but overall we at least add that two additional EAS for every teacher that teaches in The Rise program and you'll see that through the the elementary middle school and high school programming we look at additional teachers overall in the elementary level and first of all we look at the gifted programming we have 6.75 additional teachers that's beyond that allocation that we use with the ratio of our 24.3 to1
049uh the elementary specials teachers so you look at Art choir orchestra and band and that's allocated at the elementary a little bit differently than it is the middle and high school it's part of their General FTE allocation where in the elementary it's outside of that cuz that's how they help to plan for the planning time for the teachers in the elementary buildings uh but you can see there music Art band and Orchestra uh 21.8 22.33% we do have our our coaches that are part of the FTE allocation and that generally will run through our title dollars that we utilize Title One title two uh some of that will also go through special education dollars that we receive there's 18 General content uh instructional coaches at the elementary and two that are literacy toses we also
050have reading teachers still at the elementary level with the sips programming there's 15 teachers that are allocated for that then the elementary counselors and success coordinators and school sites are also part of that allocation some additional numbers go through here with our speech therapists and our El teachers because there is an allocation of el teachers that's over and Beyond uh what the allocation is for the general classroom then the elementary resource special education teachers there's 85 that will work on pull out programming or they will go into classrooms work with teacher or with students individually within the classroom so in class programming that they will do as well our elementary tier tier 2 Programs you'll see it a lot of our our uh title schools they'll have possibly a tier 2 program or they also
051use a combination of class size reduction and earlier I told you that we're 18 teachers over the allocation so we're actually truly allocated right now at a 23.3 to teach to one teacher where the allocation ratio for budgetary purposes is 24.3 to one part of that comes up in the difference that we do have 15 teachers that are class size reduction so it's not that we're off by $18 or 18 teachers on our projection and and we're losing that amount of money on the allocation it's so we do a class size reduction class size reduction will go to the title schools to help even shrink the size of those kindergarten first and second grade classrooms predominantly in kindergarten and first grade uh Sonia s you also look there that there's three English teachers we have
052to help with that English language uh comprehension and then the Librarians that go into this count as well so currently additional teacher allocations there 343.50 ft that's allocated to the elementary besides the traditional classroom teachers and the rise teachers some additional support staff that we have at the elementary level are bcba's board certified uh Behavior analysts there's 5.5 uh that's an increase that we've had over the last couple of years and they helped truly with students to develop plans for Behavior programming we have our elementary Behavior specialist there's 10 of those are Elementary Behavior facilitators there's 34.25 predominance of those be located at at our horse man program where they have additional supports and help that is needed we also have our elementary sped resource EAS that are allocated to the buildings following still more
053with the additional supports that are in there are rise EAS that I talked about earlier because there's at least two rise EAS for each teacher that's at 31 our over enrollment EA so classes that are larger we'll look at that especially at the elementary uh first and second grade or kindergarten first and second grade and then our Amity interns for Spanish oneway and two-way There are 16 three of those were for uh the two-way immersion the other 13 work at the Spanish uh oneway immersion which is at Sonia SAR so there's 297.00 as a total sum and then they figure it out by the classes that are signed up for by the students El uh programming a lot of that is to support uh to reduce some of those class sizes so the support that's
054given in El programming or El FTE takes some of those class sizes of what would normally be 25 and reduces it down to 18 so it's to offset some of that size class size difference but many of these things are very straightforward in their allocation to the schools and then they determine where the students have signed up and that's where they allocate the teachers in summary the alloc of staff is truly determined through the budget process and the sou fall school district one thing that we have had over the years is the soua school board has prioritized maintaining the current class sizes over raising class sizes for budgetary savings because you see even reducing the elementary by one FTE or I'm Sorry by one student in class size when we went from 24.3 to 23.3
055one it's a it's a difference of 18 teachers uh so it'd be an easy way to say well let's just raise class sizes and and we can reduce costs that way the bo board has maintained over multiple years um to not do that and to look for other ways to be able to cut so it doesn't impact directly into the classroom and so the current allocation ratios for our general classrooms is 24.3 to1 at the elementary level 24.4 one for the middle school and 25.12 at the high school so I re uh I just asked recog recommendation to recognize the sua school district class siiz board report as presented and I'd stand by any questions thank you anybody have questions or comments they like to make they do yeah question uh Dr N I might
056didn't miss this um do all of our Title One schools have CSR for K1 so we have given over the years some choice they will all have it for K uh some will have it for K1 and some will even have some at additional besides just the one allocated depending on the size of the school some have opted to give up one of those to have a tier 2 program or additional Staffing there so they've had a little bit of choice on where that extra ft will go to and some have opted with the tier 2 programming because they'll have the Ft with the teacher and the additional support uh of the behavior facilitator that would be included in that uh but all of which would have that at the at the K level the
057kindergarten level uh may not depending on how they choose to do that at the first grade level and some will have multiple especially dependent on the size of the building um I just want to say thank you for the update I know that was a lot of numbers to go through and it takes time to I enjoyed I I bet you do good for you swear you're there and I'm here um so thank you for all that I do want to take a second to acknowledge the staff in the room um who are representing sou fall school district and we have Richie Hutchinson here George McGovern um we have Kira mahek of Rosa Parks and we have two custodial staff at from Hayward Tina and Rosa Parks again with Tim so I know having them
058here representing um who they represent is equally as important and these numbers obviously impact you all every single day in the work that you do so I just want to thank you for being here tonight I know it can be uh you could be doing a million other things but you represent and thank you thank you from the bottom of my heart for being in here and um supporting our students and staff um so yeah a lot of numbers so little I think it's going to take a little time to process so it'd be really helpful that we could get that in a printed format or just email electronic format a quick question I have is how are the um how are sped kids factored in with the class count um and then also what
059are the behavior sites what are those numbers um looking like so I I'll start with your first question then I may have to ask you to repeat the second parts of it okay so the first part of it uh working with special education so we look at our rise and it was determined a few years back uh through board approval our rise sites are Standalone so the allocation of FTE to the rise sites is independent of the general student count and so that is allocated to each of those buildings independently so if they have 25 students in the rise and it's allocated at at eight or 10 depending on the number they but 10 to one they'd have two and a half staff that's separate from their general education count now a lot of our
060resource students they're counted into that plus there's teachers that are added in to help and assist besides where they're counted into the general count so if we have a class size of of 24 that will include some students that are on IEPs that could receive some specialized services and there's another teacher that will be in addition to the classroom teacher that would pull them out at times or go into the classroom and work with them at times to help an assist system so it is not it is we use the resource numbers as part of the general count and then there's also additional FTE that's given to the building to help with special education services if that explained the first one your second question yeah it might be unique to kind of look into that
061you know specific area a little a little more um what are we doing with the specialized schools that are not the title one um when students students are moving into that neighborhood and they're having to you know they have their class size at the beginning of the year as we know that changes and fluctuate how do we account for kids that are moving in to a school that is already you know at their capacity great question uh so I mean part of that will be and if you talked about behaviors so I mean we do have we started a program a couple years ago and it was approved by the board through the budgetary process where we had Behavior Specialists that oversaw the behavior facilitators we took those teams and instead of having as District
062teams we use those and allocated amount throughout the building so they were established in each of the buildings so they could help within the buildings get to know those students and be able to work in and build plans for each one of those students now if you're talking about class sizes that continue to grow we look at some of that to see if they need additional EA support so some of those buildings will have if the class continues to grow in size they'll have over enrollment EAS and we allocate those EA to them to be able to help in that situation there's also at times where we've looked and worked with Becky Dorman and Human Resources where at semester time do we need to move a teacher in case there is some that are growing
063beyond what they need to for capacity that'll also be a little bit hindered depending on what they have for space available within a building and so each one of those we look at uh independently to make sure that we're taking care of each one of the schools last year there was a handful of teachers that we moved at the start of the second semester uh to make sure that we accounted for those buildings that had some growth and some of those that had some reduction you hate to do that as much in the elementary it's easier in the middle and high school uh because they do have if we're taking a teacher from one location and moving it uh there's a reduction at that school so there's a shuffling that happens sometimes there's a hiring
064of new teacher depends on how many students are at that school now but we have tried to answer that as far as uh when you talked about Behavior by taking those District teams and increasing the size of those and allocating them to the building so they have somebody right in the building that can help and work with the students that's outside of our title schools because our title schools have the tier 2 programming that I talked about a little bit earlier that'll have a teacher that's dedicated towards uh helping students be successful how's that working in the classroom when you have so you have a teacher and then you have a child on a specialized education plan it's also and maybe has another you know a teacher um helping them through their IEP while the
065teacher is teaching and then maybe an EA in the classroom and you know I don't know maybe 28 29 30 kids in the class it would be interesting just to kind of look at that you know a little more and that since we don't have too many classes that are in that situation just kind of dig into a little more um and then I just want to make sure I have that right that 38% of the elementary level classrooms would be overc capacity they wouldn't be over capacity it's more so in a or not over capacity but over the ratio yeah the allocation ratio all and you will absolutely see that um at every level every level will do that where the principal and they have discretion that they're able to utilize within their building
066because as you can see with the kindergarten classes they will absolutely keep those smaller so they keep kindergarten small a choice yep and so they take a lot of that FTE so even some of the classes or the the buildings that have a couple classes that are 31 32 they have opted to keep even though they're not part of class size reduction or anything of that nature they've opted to keep their kindergarten below 20 and then they've said it's okay for us with our fifth grade to be above 30 and so all choice about where we'd put that allocation we'd do the same thing at the high school I'd make sure that our our English classes were smaller because there's a lot of papers to read and things of that nature especially if we want
067to make sure our kids are advanced in their writing then the teachers have to be able to read that and give them feedback so we keep a lot of our English classes smaller and sometimes that would then mean some of our other classes like social studies would be just a little bit larger and so we would give an offset on that with the FTE knowing as you know building administrators where there's some of the greater difficulty I smiled at Mr M because he was our social stud teacher that had the larger class size and so we' absolutely go through that and and determine where we'd want that FTE to go in the elementary they're very adamant about kindergarten in first grade they'll make that small and then they'll allow their fifth grade to be larger
068he's thinking about the classroom of fifth grader or 30 fifth graders that that might be appe PE that's why I didn't teach um I have a quick question um about kind of Trends so have we noticed or have we broken down by Elementary School you know what does their number say on the last Friday of September and then what is their number November or whatever and do we have a cons consistency where like one school always seems to grow more from there and and if we see that do we try to proactive and maybe giving them a little bit more FTE at the beginning of the year so that we're not beg borrowing and stealing or trying to hire somebody or whatever kind of mid year that would be our goal to never have to
069move any and we've started to see last year there was a a larger growth at a couple of our schools with Garfield and and Hayward uh where we saw some numbers start to increase and we tried to keep them fairly low and we keep a watch on that we look at those numbers or I have almost every Monday to go in and just check on a couple of those to make sure they're at LBA is one that normally would start to get an influx at the start of the year they didn't this year uh so even though you track some of those things and you keep an eye on it it doesn't always happen so LBA as I showed was by far our lowest ratio we anticipated that to grow at the beginning of the
070year and it didn't this year um where a couple of the other ones started to take a few more uh students in and you saw a little bit bit of that where we showed with the reports early on that our Kinder kindergarten numbers were down well that impacted some of our lbas and and haywards and Garfield that they didn't have some of those numbers to start with which is okay kept kept the class size is smaller but you'd love to be able to predict that as a absolute but it just can't be I would just chime in on that as well I just had that conversation with the principal today on a building visit is there's also the reality of splitting classes mid year yeah and many of us who've experienced that know that's just
071not great and it um changes relationships they're loyal to their teachers it's a hard go for a new teacher to step in and they make or may not have the space and so class sizes are this really funky blend of looking at math and looking at everything but math and trying to make decisions based on completely unknown variables like people moving in and out of a city and so um we come really close but it it is hard and we know that I remember the year that every new student I got as a principal was in third grade and I had to be the one to go tell our teachers that you get yet another student and then what are we going to do if we go over a particular point because there aren't any
072more classrooms and that would have been very new at that grade level and so then of course a couple left over the next few months too so it's tricky business and and um we really try and be intentional about that and I think we've Managed IT well over the last several years to see where that growth is and try to make sure that we plan an advance for that we do still have some ele Elementary classrooms where they might be Blended right so we might have a a 3 four or a four five I believe there was five of those total in the district show there a few that utilize that rather than than going larger in one and the other they'll do a blended version so we do have a few of that and
073I think that's that's what I appreciate is that the building principal really knows their building and so they might know that they have a really really great group of fourth graders for example and if you had more of them in a classroom that would be okay because that group is well behaved or they you know whatever it might be but they also might know that they have a really challenging group of second graders and so the ability for that principle to say okay I think that this is what makes the most sense for our building this year will it look like that next year probably not but in that situation you know I like that they can kind of be the masters of what their school um gets to choose and what's best for their
074current population of students so yeah I mean it's nice that they get to choose but the reality of it is they're underne budget constraints um you know well absolutely there's always budget constra yeah and building constraints because if we lowered the class size by two we'd have to build some new buildings because if you do that you're going to add additional teachers and you got to have space to put them in so no question there's budget constraints that fall in the line we yes anybody else have any questions or com thank you very much for the detailed report really appre appreciate it can I get a motion in a second to acknowledge the class size report please so I have a motion in a second all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose
075same sign that is acknowledged thank you and our budget timeline from seated Todd yes thanks I was prepared to talk about the budget tonight but I believe Dr n handled it so we can probably just stop no I'll uh I'll just go quickly through the budget timeline and then kind of our guidelines what we looked at um so uh we met a few weeks ago with the the two members the president and the vice president of the board who are on the budget committee and we went through the timelines and guidelines and that's what we're going to present tonight and of course that's the 25th so we're getting approval from you then in the meantime we've sent out to our cost center supervisors for them to gather their names of the members on that we
076have 19 committees and they're made up of Administrators teachers community members uh custodians for the operational Services budgets Specialists and the like uh and those are due due to us on Monday um the business manager I guess that's me will develop enrollment projections by the second we're pretty much done but by the second of December and we'll give those out to the budget makers so as Dr n just went through those projections are very very very big part of where most of the money of the budget goes and Bas based on those um oh and just one offand comment going back to the previous report I hear often when I've under projected a building I rarely hear when I over project a building so next year um anyway um we're going to meet with the
077directors on the 4th of December and go through what we're talking about here tonight so they know the rules for preparing their budget um and uh very big deal to us is on the 3 of January we're gonna ask all of them to complete their level three budget which is level three is what's it going to cost next year to do what you're doing this year and that'll give us a good a real good fix I mean we have a projection right now but that'll give us a good fix on where we stand next year what it's going to cost us and then if we plug in the governor state aid uh recommendation we can kind of have a good feel of of where we stand versus where we thought we were going to scan
078next year so that that's a big date at least for me it's really important um the uh budgets uh by the end of U item eight I think it is we're going to have ask them to by the 27th of January have their at least a rough draft their their cost center budgets done so we can look through those and try to make sure things uh read the same throughout throughout the budgets and and look for any any you know anomalies in there um the budget bus are due finally on the 27th of February and uh by the end of February we should also have building enrollment projections distributed even Elementary this year we're going to do that um on the 13th of well on the 12th of March we'll get a preliminary Revenue budget
079projected that's one day before the legislature ends but we'll have a pretty good idea by then I think what we're going to have for money and then the next day we Willet meet um there's about 22 members once again teachers administrators the two board members uh building principles special ed staff we'll meet and we'll go through all those budgets that are been prepared by those 19 committees and uh we will make a recommendation develop a recommendation to bring the full board later then on the 26th of the the last Wednesday in March we'll meet for one of two Public Work sessions on the budget to through that and then we'll have a followup a week later on the 2nd of April where any questions at the most of the other three board members have because
080they weren't in on those meetings any any questions that came up or any other any other items of Interest we'll go through and and kind of finalize our our our our deal and then bring it on the first regular meeting in April which is the 14th this year it's as late as it can be second Monday of April we'll bring to the board um the budget and and the for ATT tenative adoption and then on the 14th of July which is our first regular meeting of the new fiscal year um we will adopt the the uh actually it's it says 25 it's the 26 budget um we will do that and uh we'll certify the levies to the Auditors and then by the no later than August 15th we have to publish it in our
081official newspaper so that's the timeline any questions on that and then uh the guidelines are fairly similar to the past as Dr uh n talked about we we strive to maintain class size we say that it's kind of that's what we want to protect it's easy to cut the budget by add a student to a classroom it's also easy to increase the budget by add adding one to the classroom but with all those teachers he's talked about you know when you add a when a student or reduce a student from a classroom can affect the budget in a huge way so we want to look at doing that last um not make it easy to to to do your budget cuts we're asking for a level three budget of course is the 100% And then
082we say go go to a 96% cut that's a 4% cut we haven't uh got a lot of cuts over the last few years but if a if a if a there's a maybe three or four um cost centers that have made significant Cuts over the last two years then we would maybe adjust that and say you can put it in there but but the recommendation of course will just be because you've already made your 4% cut that we've been looking for so we've got a 96 and a 98% to try to get there in the next few years um of course if you go 96 then you're probably not going to cut it anymore after that but we still want to look at what it is we want each uh where possible to get
083a return on investments especially in new Investments that have made the last four or five years which have been significant we're going to ask them to to work with the data department and and show some hey this is what we've done and this is what we can show this is what we thought would happen this is what we can show for that so we're asking that and uh we want you obviously any Cuts you're going to make they have to comply with state law they have to comply with the negotiated agreements and um we want uh to prepare an impact on program narrative and um and spefic specific and it relates to the district priorities so you don't say well this will be bad you say these are this is a district priority and this
084is how that will affect that priority and then we always uh lately anyway have wanted kind of the uh Central leadership team and the budget Advisory Group to look at what are some maybe things we can look globally and not just not not cost center by cost center maybe make some recommendations on that well and bring that to that March meeting that we we've talked about uh so the budget Review Committee we're going to set a revenue level that we are comfortable with the two board members that are in the committee and uh then we're going to draw a line and we're going to see what we're going to rank and see what comes in above and below that and then within a half million dollars either way of that we're not GNA have a
085long discussion on that lately we haven't spent as much time on that in that budget review meeting but we're going to do that this year and so we're going to ask all our groups to take very seriously what those cuts are and we're going to have the group look ahead of time and bring questions to the meeting and we're going to say here's the here's what we think our Revenue number should be and this is where this is what Falls below and this is what Falls above and that'll be a part of that and uh we always prepare Revenue deficit options if that line isn't doesn't look too favorable to the board and so the board can decide yeah if we're going to move the line down which is accepting you know these are the
086top priorities these are the lowest if we're going to move that line down then we need more revenue and is that is that option okay to fund more thing more items and bring that to the full board that's pretty much it I mean it's kind of the same way we do things but we're gonna we're GNA take that line a little bit more we're going to spend more time on that line this year in that meeting in March so i' I'd stand by for any questions or sit by for any questions or uh if not or either way I we just ask that you approve the budget timeline thanks um Todd I find it very encouraging that you're activating your fan Network um as well as utilizing the data assessment technology and the gr information
087that they have those you know couped together um to really look at that Roi on our exist existing programs uh because that will create a compelling story going forward if we need additional funding in those areas whether it's those Federal grant dollars whether we're looking at um local um local dollars or private dollars um just really taking a critical look at the programs that we have in our district and where we can you know really impact uh the students with those limited dollars and and then you using that um in addition to how we're able to just in general how we're able to get more direct support feet on the ground people that are directly impacting our students um I think those two two areas of concentration to help that impact and add information to
088how we develop our budget can be really useful um and so I found that's encouraging um that you're really putting concentrated effort in that area yeah and for those in the audience are listening at home that don't know what don't know what fan is it's it's our short term for finance Action Network it's a group of Business Leaders in the community that occasionally and it's not every year but we're going to do that this year come in and look at our budget and see make sure that we're uh operating efficiently and they make suggestions about possible Revenue enhancements and things like that um so that that group we are we've talked in earlier meetings this year that we're going to bring that group back together as part of this budget process and and just kind
089of look at where we're at compared to last time we met I think was in 2019 so yeah I mean there are little you things like a asking the question to the K through five building principles canvas is that utilized we really kind of getting nitty-gritty with some of that programming and being creative and and um and thoughtful okay anybody else have any questions no all right can I get a motion in a second to approve the FY 26 budget timeline and guidelines as presented so moved second I have a motion in a second all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose same sign those are approved thank you last but not least got a bunch of policies policy was busy this last month so we turned it over to you to walk
090us through yeah so um I'm here again tonight as a part of our Contin continual review of policies and regulations and tonight I'm bringing forward seven policies on behalf of the policy Review Committee these are up for approval tonight on our review Revis with only minor revisions to the policy policies or their regulations uh the first policy diie and it's ACC companying regulation uh has a small change to increase the frequency to every year for the selection of a CPA firm and that's just done by the board and its annual meeting uh policy EI a similar change uh that's changing the selection to every year for the insurance agent again at the annual meeting policy EGA there's some clarifying language about the employee cell phone stiffened uh that's just a lump sum and then there
091was some Legacy language in there about uh reimbursement for costs that's no longer necessary um and then jlc medication administration we're adding uh just a a little language tweak to allow elementary schools to participate in the department of Health's uh opioid antagonist program and then uh policy kec the public concerns complaints and ideas about programs or instructional materials there's just a reference change in there for um a member of our staff and then finally policies emdb and EMG are just up on a review with no changes being uh recommended so unless the board has any questions about these policies uh I'd ask for approval of the seven policies and they're accompanying regulations any questions or comments anything to add from the budget folks no the policy committee went through them and and andc folks we
092were we were good we had some good discussion on why things are changing it's mostly to update language or to be in um be with the law the way it stands and and U they're all good changes and so I would if I can I'll just make a motion to approve the policy changes as presented and a second second I have a motion and a second all those in favor sign five are saying I I oppose same sign those policies are approved as presented can I get a motion and a second for executive session sdcl 1-2-2 parentheses 1 please so move second I have a motion and a second all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose same sign we are an executive session have fun