001agenda. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? >> All right. So, board application. We were lucky enough to get Peter to come. Finland is one of our representatives and he is also the chair of the future of public education commission of chair of the house education and can help us at least understand where we are running water in the moment although there are no answers to big question. Uh, hi everybody. I am Peter Collin. I am a good Cornwall and I'm the chair of the House Education Committee. I'm also a 17-year veteran school board uh leadership. I was the chair of the Milbury Union High School Board and its final leaders as a single board and then was the chair of the United School Board in the first few years
002of its creation. All your service we're all struggling with. Uh so uh Mark asked me to come and kind of talk about act 73 um what it did what it might do in the future and kind of where things are now or what might happen next. So I think it's important to point out that uh act 73 was really full of a lot of what we call intent language which means this is what we intend to do in the future. And then really the concrete things that it sort of required was put into motion for uh 2025 or really the creation of the redistric redistricting task force with the boundary task force that's meeting currently. Their job is to bring to the legislature up to three maps with the state showing larger districts um for
003us to consider in our work. In a world being in the legislature for four and a half to five months, these um summer study committees uh are really important to get a lot of the whole work done before us ahead of time. So uh they have been meeting and working I would say very studiously. Um they've got an aggressive schedule ahead of them. There's lots of meetings, lots of calling time and lots of time just sort of looking at maps and trying to figure out what work best given all the goals that we have from what's best for students or sort of what's best in the economic world there. So act 73 created that work. Um it uh kind of narrowed the focus of the commission on the future of public education which I served
004on. Um and we're working off of sort of the four questions that um are for us to provide recommendations to the legislature on they're really about uh in a future state what should be the the roles and responsibilities of the school board which should be the roles and responsibilities of the electorate. What's the role of the state? was the role of local government um and a broader picture. Uh uh there are others we had a process for not losing community voice in the case of a school board deciding to close the school. Um and uh last one escaping the ethical moves too short. Uh the other thing that um act 73 did put in motion as kind of a definite action as opposed to an intended action in future was um essentially very much reduce
005the number of independent schools that are approved to extend tuition in those areas where um they are nonoperating issues. We don't really have around here but that's kind of big deal in other parts of the state. the future um is frankly the beginning where we were was a lot of work. The future is going to be awful. You know, one thing is that the three recommendations from the um district task force come through to probably the committee that I chair first and we're going to have a lot of discussion testimony and hard work that finalize those. Uh there's a lot of responsibilities on the agency of education that they need to accomplish before we can really move forward. Uh they're commissioning studies on everything from best way to fund special education, best way to govern
006fund career technical education. U big big group questions to answer such as uh if we move to larger districts, what do we do about debt? That was kind of a big deal in act 46. But as we move to larger districts, imagine you're Milton and you're in a district with uh Colchester, Burlington, and who among the three of them have $300 million, right? Take on 25% of that debt. Uh so that's a big should work out. uh we need to recalculate the foundation formula as each year passes because we have inflation. Um so there's just a lot left to do none of them easily most all of it controversial or very technical. Um there is work sort of from all all areas. Uh the agency has to help put a lot of the work out
007there. They're they're you know you ask them at their own work they hat the statewide school count something that's been trying for quarter century in order to be able to do um uh they are also tasked with coming up with standardized graduation requirements that we could escape across the state. These are all bigger lists than perhaps they might have anticipated u and a larger list is going to be about that is fairly big departure from sort of business as usual probably even more so than that 46 horse. This is a little more than our top down 46 kind of voluntary to a point um and are sort of moved beyond the act 46 has been uh voluntary such as the intended merger between Northwest and LA. Uh it could be different but it's going to
008be controversial. So that's where things stand. you know, I was actually Northeast School Board uh back a while board and uh they said, "What do we be worried about this year?" And you know, really this year continues to be business as usual. Um, however, given the fact that we really brought down property tax rates in the last legislative session by 7 billion dollars, that's a hole that we're going to have to figure out how to fill at a time we don't really have the dollars to do. And so I put the extra burden on you all to be thinking about tax rates as you budgets, but also sort of knowing that there could be you know a larger net change in realism due to you know due to tax last year. So that it's not
009really the fall of your expenses going up, it's the fall of returning money to the taxpayers last year and that same money not being available this year. Uh talk a little bit about school construction. That's another part of act 73 census in place sort of a process and framework to um restart the school construction program from the state level the most important part which is and uh I'm not sure if anybody's got a way to solve that problem the sort of fiscal predictions for the upcoming year in terms of the revenues that come into the uh you know income taxes and all the other taxes are uh they're meeting expectations and expectations were low and really the state is looking at um you know from certain budget but the governor talks to all of his
010uh agencies and says okay we're going to start budgeting for next year none of them have above a 3% increase. Well, just like in the school government um healthcare, you're already there. Uh so you know what is an increase where actually give reduction services and cuts to other places. So that's kind of the state level view and I'm sure it's the same same challenge that we all deal with as well. So uh that's kind of the view from my part. I probably left out a lot of things that you may have questions about and I'm really happy to take questions >> would like to know um how act 73 will reduce property taxes that seem to be a reason to do it third place. Um, but we keep hearing about district changes and class sizes.
011So, we're just shifting students around from one district to another. It's the same kids. So, where are the savings going to? So, uh, I would I would not look at this as a way to reduce the cost of education, but as a way to bend the cost curve going forward. Uh, and where will the savings come from? Well, you know, we hope there are hope for efficiencies from having larger districts. uh we were to just take the I want to emphasize the hypothetical scenario of looking at the uh looking at Addison County and sort of the three main districts that are holding within Addison County Northwest County that's central. You know, I think one could make the argument that we probably have, you know, two too many central offices and one too many high schools
012just based on the enrollment. Um so savings there is you know sort of making those efficiencies statewide and being able to lower those dollars that are going into administration will go into education the um you know at the basis of all of this is is moving from the way we fund education today to a foundation fund. And so really um school districts will get what they're going to get. uh and in some cases that that's going to be either less or um monthly statements what they're given today and unfortunately I mean I will be upfront about this because Addison Central Addison Northwestern are some of the highest equal spenders school districts it's going to hit harder here in terms of trying to meet the ability of But your foundation point is compared to what you're
013expect. Now the side of the other side of that is that probably end up in a reduction in property taxes across the same area tax and right now the three issues are are high because property tax are based on per. Uh so how do you pretend? And so in other areas of the state that are really spending a lot less per people basis, they're going to see their spending go up and also their property taxes grow. Uh what we're trying to we're trying to create here is a system in which most verers will come out and the same or better off part of subjection reform. So right now we have a a property tax center where you've got only two classifications of property. You have um homesteads which is permanent house on two acres and
014then everything else which could be farmland, a factory, an apartment building um anything more worth second homeless and vacation homes. We this is this is another part of what has to be done for put this into place to make it successful. is um implementing new property tax classifications. Uh so that you know frankly um probably increasing the property tax burden on second homeowners uh over the property taxers as a way of offset and increases areas for property taxes. um and you know keeping with a sort of an income based income sensitivity mechanism but having a higher rate on second homes um would sort of uh improve the amount of money available for those property tax base under a different system. But the idea here is to have most of the voters come out of this
015better off and >> graphic and I'm curious if the timeline that you know I've been reading is that still on track? >> Yes. Uh but that's because we haven't met and you know looked at the next steps um since early June. >> Right. When we returned to the legislative session in January, we started getting a lot of reports from the AB talking about how they're doing. That includes even hiring enough people to help districts move through this transition. So, you know, I would say the uh the scenario laid out in the bill basically um five years to get up and running and then um kind of with that a fiveyear implementation of the various tax changes, virtual spending changes uh is uh going to be you know hard to do but not impossible and I
016think folks were optimistic that the kind of fiveyear phase or five getting everything will happen. There's a lot of things that could happen. You know, cost is moving on the horizon. you know what the federal government comes in said yeah we're taking away all the funding and the state all of a sudden has to figure out how to back up $300 million it's got a lot of education some that we put on everything sol that's we needed to lay out our intention lay out game plan that's what we did um understanding of course We don't control the future. >> Yeah. Mike P from Vents. So you said that the goal of this is for the majority of the mantras to come out saying we're better than they are right now. So, let's say we go
017through all this and we we make all these changes and we get to a point where the vast majority of Vermonters are coming out the same and yet we're going to close a high school and we're going to close two central offices for the majority of Vermonters to be the same. At what point does somebody say it's really not worth it? So, let's stop because that's a really vague goal that's going to impact a lot of districts like ours. >> Uh, yes. So, uh, you know, the first of all, nowhere to say anything about closing or such law, but potentially such a law create larger districts. I guess the question is is you know uh while you know when we looked at for example at 46 people complaining that it didn't save any money but
018really what we saw was the savings that were made were reinvested in other parts of the education system just we saw the 60 uh the um you know it's not this is not meant to deal with big savings but it is meant to get a control of cost and probably more importantly rightsize our state education system at large to reflect the fact that when I graduated high school there were probably 120,000 pupils in Vermont and today there's probably 85,000 or less and dropping and you know so this is you know I think how we are reckoning with that major major demographic changed um when you know up until now we've sort of been dibdling around the edges uh some places have adapted well and made difficult decisions going to your district closing Madison and really
019looking at how you're going to recruit your kids uh not everybody has while at the same time we have districts that are also continually voting down brunches and really um reuniting and balance in terms of what opportunities are available to students. Part of building scale is to build um opportunities for students because there's so much that we can't do at many of our schools because there just isn't enough students to justify class sizes, justify the school activity, justify the additional services that that uh kids need. So I mean all we can do is if we continue on the path that we're sort of go what's going to happen continue large numbers property taxes um schools continuing to struggle uh with uh declining enrollment um a divided populace uh you know is often unwilling to make
020the hard decision to close a school when a school really for educational purposes is not no longer able to offer the same opportunities that it should be able to uh you know so we're really hoping that we end up in that in that area and can meet those goals those are the goals >> but does anybody have the opportunity to say stop assistant >> I mean the you know when I talk about how what setting speed did what intends to do. I mean the fact is is that any future legislature based on the will of the voters, the will of the populace can change. >> I'm I'm Christina Mlin. Um, so so much of this conversation is about afforded their living and I'm just wondering if you could speak to all the work that you
021and the various things are doing in task force. How are they prioritizing the education of every student in Vermont? And and is there conversation about the needs of students today in college? Uh so I mean this is really about many different affordability certainly being one of them but it's also about um how you know from the time of act 60 forward uh and refreshing your your funding formula every 20 25 years it's pretty normal but we you know actively how we funed traditionally across the state but since then I see a gradual growth over 20 plus years a castle of opportunity for students based on how much a given school district can afford to spend. Uh you know I will give I will give them my way. We've got kids in Charlottesville very high school.
022they got to vary with different experiences, very different um opportunities available to them. So part of what we're trying to do here is uh create a state that has equitable opportunity for all students uh and hopefully more students uh by frankly creating the scale needed that you know that exists in many areas that therefore they didn't really offer more um because of that scale. We don't have anything that we can't offer. We have mainly schools that are continuing to graduating 20 or fewer students in their graduating classes. They just don't have the number of students to justify course offering here in special at Valley. So, you know, we've got affordability goal, we got an increased opportunity goal by scale, and we've got just bend the cost curve on this as well. And and really just
023sort of from right sizing on the fact that we've lost 40 over 40 years. It's it's not fun and it's you know but we're we're facing a lot of demographic realities education and relation with it in healthcare housing >> questions John for J. Uh so thank you for being here. uh you were a school board member, you're now a legislator involved in all this stuff. Uh what advice would you give yourself uh looking back in time around this piece of legislation? It just seems massive and I feel like um if we're passive around it, it's just something that's going to be done to this district. And I wonder if there are any opportunities for us to uh have some sort of positive influence for our students. >> Oh, that's a that's a great question. um
024you know the sort of concern that this is going to be done to us is not taken lightly because that I mean this really is going to be much more of a state imposed um system than act 46 coming together voluntarily with financial incentives uh you folks about 85% further which was highly adorable and I guess I I would say what we're seeing in other parts of the state now talking to one another at a much more robust level and say we think we are a good loop to pull together uh as a larger state as a government like you consider you know Northwest um and really hypocrisy uh uh for you all. I was very bad about this. The school board member be your your school board association newsletters. Uh they're going to be
025a very important resource going forward. Um uh be involved with them and sort of be on them for help. But I think just staying aware of how things are are progressing frankly by races next year is going to be important. and um you know to the extent possible for really any school board in this area back again. So, how can we the same question for communities and families who feel like they're losing their voice because of this statemandated system in law and this top down approach and so there will be larger districts um we schoolboard members less of a vote on the budget. So, how can we how are communities how are citizens supposed to feel invested in this system and stay involved and feel like they have a voice? >> So, um I would
026say we as legislators are really open to any suggestions that people have about how we maintain human voice. We had a a really great presentation from uh business earlier and they they uh they almost a micro version of what's coming where they know how much money how much how big their budget is and then they allocate based on students to each of the the schools in the school district and sort of leave it up to use what they call equity based budgeting which is probably a philosophy is going to be a good one. And they basically say each principal, figure out how you can bring the community in to decide how you're going to spend this in a way that it is the tenant that they've got ways to meet the needs of ser students.
027Um and so they really have robust um uh school advisory boards and that may be the route that we have. One of the questions is do you sort of mandate that in a law or do you let each district design how community voice will be brought into the decision making on their own? Um you know I think at 46 or something you know many districts have tried mandatory sort of school advisory committees and trying that is the central was fairly burden that that issue is an important one that we absolutely have to say goal is not to shut and voiced out of the process in an era where things aren department. >> Uh so you mentioned that uh we may have one too many I suppose in this county and you mentioned a couple of
028times about uh the potential that might vote. How how do you recogn reconcile what you're saying or the or maybe the committee is suggesting that there's too many high schools in this county with the fact that both communities voted that down by by huge numbers? You know, how does how will the committee reconcile the fact that people want lower taxes but they don't use their schools and how how do we keep our schools Yes, that uh is uh the biggest challenge that we've been facing that people would like lower taxes but don't want to make the hard decisions to to get there. Uh you know, so when I was saying that we probably have one too many high schools, it's largely based on the fact that um your two districts said that we could actually
029merge into one high school. uh but it was just just based on uh uh fun and sort of what capacity is uh but I really was just using it as a hypothetical um we are one of the challenges is that uh you know the communities truly value and highly value having a school as opposed to possible. Yet uh we continue to see that that is also one of the biggest cost factors that we have yet to study um is the lack of scale because we see so numbers I look at my own high school graduated class of 145 at the same school which is Monty High School graduates about eight uh you know over there U32 has seen a big divine enrollment to take in both small and Montier So we know that opportunities exist
030but I don't think the state is going to be in the business of um dictating those opportunities to arrive there. Um that was more decision for the larger districts. So you know when larger districts if when they are created will like act 46 must be a government change. It will I do not believe that will come with it. Hey, here's the the only schools you can operate and we must this this I think those decisions will continue to be at least saying if we can reach all the goals to that but again I just I won't deny that these are hard it's not these are fun discussions So if this So if the state is going to come in and say you three get together in order to save money, but then leave it up
031to the people in the district to figure out which schools actually survive. Doesn't that mean that we're not guaranteed to save any money? because everybody in Mberry is going to say they want their school to be open and they're going to have more voters than we are, but their schools are going to be, according to the maps the state provides, in worse condition than ours. So, we're going to get stuck with Mberry schools and have to throw a bunch of money into them. So, we're not going to save any money because the state didn't come along and say, "Here's your criteria for action. You stay as it goes." So, how is that going to save us money? Well, so some of this is to be determined, but the money savings is going to come from
032the fact that you will have a foundation with all that. A lot of money you get is the amount of money you get and each school district will have to decide how to spend that money in a way that was opportunity for students. uh just as we had to do with act 46 and we all came together from our SUS and had to change our mindset from those are are kids students or all of our kids. We're going to have to take that one another step further and say Vermont's kids are Vermont's kids and you know the money is the price has to go where it has to go in order to combine two equal opportunities. uh navigating the politics of well you guys didn't take care of your building and we did um is
033going to be hard just as it was going to back 46 um and we're going to have to figure out how that but none of that really seems to matter. I'm just going to say bigger cities can win because they have more voters and beat us. uh the um how we go about electing school boards um will have to be done in a way that um ensures that that uh there's an equitable representation on the school board. But that means buying divine should voting so that you're not disenfranchising people in rural areas. >> Is that part of the plan? >> It is. I guess I just >> Can you speak up? >> Oh, okay. I'll try to speak up. >> It's really close. >> Thank you. Can press that button there. It was on. Now
034it's not working. Sorry, I'll do my best. I guess my question is maybe not answerable, but right now we look to the north and we can see that there are some districts there that spend less people but have more. They have more variety, more options, more of everything. And so I worry that now we are going to have money taken away from us and somehow that's not going to make it more equitable between us and those other schools that already have more than >> uh you bring up a fine point. um areas north of us that have scale uh because they have more pupils in their buildings have the ability to have a lower pupil count. Um it gets it gets detailed and complicated when we talk about how students because you get a base
035amount for each student but then you get on top of that just like we have now taxing capacity under our foundation added you know grant dollars. uh so about so the demographics will play a role in terms of how many students you have in poverty students with disabilities sorry language learners uh and sort of how that shakes out the world we're also playable role so it may not be as disperate as you as you think it could be um but yeah there we're all going to be facing tough choices just as you have faced you know I guess we I do the alternative Um it's you know you all are are every year and I face really higher choices because of the declining enrollment uh and or large tax increases. Uh so yeah, I'm not
036going to sit here and say that the future's bright. That's going to be easy. It's just simply not. Um because we have no this >> um I just wanted to clarify something you just said. The redistricting is going to happen. Think the new school districts are going to be formed. The new rules are going to be put in place. new school boards and then and the pot of money is going to be handed out to each new school district and then basically you're saying you're handing it off to the new school boards and you figure it out yourself. Is that what was going to happen? >> Uh so those that future has not been written in that level of detail but I think uh if you look at how it's written much of the rest
037of the country it works. Yes. that uh you know each district could be given um a specific amount of money based on the foundation formula based on the number of kids. all the profile of each student and then that budget would go to school district to um you know to to parcel it out in a way that you know reflects that that money is meant for you know those students who are receiving the highest wire needs as opposed to church football team. >> All right, I'm going to wrap it up over. I got a couple of clarifying and one question. Two of the things final brought up section three of act 73 creating redistricting task force section four creating new voting boards approved. So it is in there but they cannot do their work until
038they have maps. Masks don't exist yet. And I believe even if even when they do get the up to three masks, it's possible that the legislature going to look at the session and say, "We don't like any of these. We this this is going to work, which I don't know what happens then, but it's not a guarantee that any of those three have to pass. Just they will go there. I think there's going to be a lot stronger that one of them is going to have to be the thing, but it's not necessarily going to happen." My question statement is more thing that concerns me most is if we're trying to curb costs or we're worried about trying to keep our budgets down. And the two big biggest uh parts of any budget are salaries,
039wages, and benefits. And nothing is being discussed about healthcare. Nothing is being discussed about what it costs to have our people in the building. But that's 75% of our budget, right? >> Yeah. So there is a a study going on to see how we factor that in because just like we saw with act 46 or or creating districtwide uh contracts you generally let up. So all of a sudden third district uh district would be more higher wages. How do you how do you navigate that? We need that's part of the future considerations as to go forward but that's got to be really hard. uh on the on the commission that I sat on which is the commission on the future of public education. We just had this debate about um where should should there be
040a statewide interest contract or should there be statewide healthcare and we didn't decide that we did decide to recommend to the legislature is that regardless of whether you keep it local or go to a statewide both should go hand in hand. So in other words, regulation would be if salaries are going to be negotiated locally then be negotiated locally. Um but yes but that is another just you know in the long list of of considerations we have to make before. >> All right. Well I promised you half an hour or we'll take 43 minutes. So thank you very much for your time. all very well and you know I really appreciate uh the opportunity to talk to you as well as all of your input um you know we got a ways to go and
041again I would just say um you know lean on the SBA for bringment updates they're really great resource and shield as well through the school association also great resources forward and uh you know it is cloudy in the future you also listen to me as I just know a little bit more about what's our favorite. >> Thank you so much. >> Give us a little talk about where we are and why we're here. >> Sure. >> Hi everyone. I'm open school elementary school. I'm just going to respond to all Peter's statements with the next hour's perspective. Uh so I'm here to talk a little bit about some of the things that are going on in the work that we're doing. Uh happy to answer a few questions up against um so to just start off
042by saying every single classroom teacher returned uh from last year. All of our unified arts teachers returned. all of our um special educators returned almost all of our store staff and our entire team. I'm pretty pretty happy and proud about that. Um other things that we have going on um we continue to do our antibbias anti-racist work. I think this is our fourth year in a row doing that. So that's a readaloud that each student participates and to talk a little bit about uncovering our our biases and and some of our um other things. really good as a more robust perspective on what's going on in the world you know evolves um our NPSS are here continues to evolve I think in a good way um really work um across all those worlds really understand
043kind of some best practices especially as it relates to communication data tracking information like that um it's it's a good work there like we're doing here what's going on in Parisburg and however be more alive make sure that it's a seamless system. did not be able to open door there. Um earlier um this week last week must right um our community group was agreed to um participate in supporting our weekend power back program which is a full program that we have traditionally use community schools grants to fund since co money that we use initially to fun that has run out so our community groups invested $1,000 of to make sure that we're we're going forward with that with our health teacher. We're involved with food insecurity issues um to to make sure that we're reaching
044out to our local faith communities and other organizations program. So hope to send out the sign form where that used to be participated up to everybody and I think we have around 50 participants last year 50% a lot of considered better states in the building. We are participating in hanging for this year with Harrisburg. So Kathy Levar as you know or maybe don't remember came over here from Harrisburg um and she brought the idea to me and I was like I'm with scheme for that my kids who may or may not know attended Ferrisburg K through six. So I'm really familiar with that. We're joining that. I there was a coming up but like I can't afford blessing uh to do that because that's real expensive. So donated that again. So thank marching in the
045Rland Halloween parade again for like the fourth year in a row. with Ferrisburg. Um so that everybody does with his marching web hours and that's coming in two weekends. Um we do have on serve next Wednesday and probably wanted to remind you that you're involved to come before guest that is clear on Wednesday night because it's outside there chair uh while continuing on the half days that you made a slight grouping tradition um interesting groups a four K3 and a K2 and a three and we're shifting that a little bit just to meet the kids need based on some feedback that we got. Um so there's going to be just different groupings moving forward by a threeear cycle that in those three cyosis that the kids have and fresh also recommending that this year what
046we did last year. So we're hopeful at some point in the future maybe try and do a wild Wednesday where we have some groups Harrisburg here we send some gifts over there but that's really a massational role um we our community group um we've done some work to do some outreach to some other organizations so Jason was the director of our community group attended like our partnership mixer ended up hanging out with Scott games as one does those things Scott brought a grant for us and presented us um the student body on Thursday last check for $2,000 to the community group is going to donate to the community group so that every student can receive a go. So uh kids are pretty excited about that. Um our fourth and fifth graders are doing a lot
047of adventure activities uh in post or not but road course over at the high school starting next week for for a number of weeks. So they do all the high elements over there. have an opportunity to challenge my choice this year with DA. Um the visual arts festival across all buildings is part of that they're doing this year. So, they're pretty excited about that and rather than um just going into the high school, we're going to bring into the community so they can reach out to local businesses uh to make sure that we can just um things are in the works. Um um uh Alyssa Saunders here is presenting later to speak to the Hudson County early childhood panel. So looking forward to seeing her we get out there to talk about uh us kids
048in our care with the mobile house a few weeks ago. We had pretty strong um pretty strong agendas there. gardening initially goes wherever. So that was good. Um but a lot of conferences conferences random people are still in the building. We got some conferences started to speak much more next week. Um yes fun weeks ago we had over 200 people come to the fun which seemed like a lot that day. So if you happen to be here thanks for coming. I'm sorry we didn't say hi. I wasn't crazy. Um so good fun for for us to help and make sure we can get into so we don't have to worry about the weather for um and also our mentoring program continued so far McDonald who's the mentor coordinator here is also a mentor coordinator there
049now just trying to make sure that we provide equitable opportunities I'll say last thing maybe uh is that fourth grader spe remember that idea in their health class that's one they're talking about this year is working to sol this current per reality which is consolidation so they're talking about that and for asking the question I got this quote from um an uh from a kid which is paraphrase keep that in mind no guys if we raise property taxes and people are going to think it's too expensive and just going to move away and then our property tax number is going to go down even more. So really kids talk about these robust issues for classes uh that are real for that and are assigned responsibilities like city barely talking about those perspectives knowledge about for
050them and some cases to them. question for Matt. >> Um, so last year there was a lot in different socials about blocking street here during pickup time. >> We have a new pickup procedure. Have you noticed anything? Is there >> Yes. Uh, we've done a couple of different things. Some of which if you're like a parent or family member, you might know more about them. Others one of which is uh pick control which is not definitely not control. Uh so patrol which is the mechanism to communication about dismissal has saved us a lot of money and streamlined some of a lot of time physical public time jobs uh because it took a lot of time to coordinate some of those things. the closing off the parking lot as it in my opinion increase safety uh
051because it's really allowed us to have the buses come in first account for all those kids who are on the bus and make sure we exactly where those kids are under we have a couple different things that went differently we had like thunder and kids who were parent pickup their supervision was a bit of an issue so we combine those so there's more adults looking at all the children at the same time we talked a little bit in leadership today about what might do with like smell and rain because that an issue at some point just trying to figure out like how to organize that day just because there tends to be about 90 kids that don't ride the buses every day at least. Um and I think from a general standpoint it seems and
052feels much safer. There's no people on and wide that race and it seems that more people are working on history getting out of their cars which in my mind it's it's also reversed with the buses. So like the buses are driving. So um see nowhere to stand point. There's a couple things that came up here today about like kindergarten isn't in particular and just making sure that as you know on seaside like please make sure you make a long time for it. >> A couple things I just want to say I really appreciate the collaboration between the school and Harrisburg and that's fantastic. Um, I just was wondering if you were having any kind of push back on the antibbias. >> Great. Love that answer. the antibiot. >> Anything else? >> How's participation in music
053going? Are are you getting more kids getting off of music lessons? uh percent but I think it's still% >> and a concert is everybody. >> Thank you. All right. Got a couple reports for us. Class size and the discussion of central office. >> Okay. Thank you. creates unlims [Music] of pieces that help then inform budget get to it. So the class size report is is one of those. Um, I should probably share this so people on Zoom. All right. So this is uh following our procedures in our policy. Um the policy requirements at the elementary level currently call for us to um combine um K through two and um divide that by the number of sections the number of teachers and then the same 3 through five and then we have a minimum of 15
054students um that we're striving for in K through2 optimal 16 maximum 18 and then in 3 through five and minimum is 18 optimal 20 maximum per class 102 um plus or I should say n per class um so that's kind of the benchmark and then what you see in the graph is the number of students and the number of teachers per grade at each location and then what you see in this bottom is the average class size according to our cost so at Ferrisburg we're following we're falling just below the minimum um in grades K through two 14 students at three through five um Joseph and 16 students at they are right within um the optimal range of 17 and 20 um I was explaining to to the policy committee that it's always tricky um
055when we have we can probably reduce by one teacher if they're served but we don't have often times we don't have the right at the right time. So we don't have kindergarten enrollments necessarily until the 11th hour. Um we have a prediction students are going to enroll based on who's in prek and so forth. Um but it's never until contracts have already come out that we're really able to think that precisely right and then students will students move out exactly. Um so we we sort of uh toggle between um caring number of teachers at Parisburg are carrying one fewer. So we you know that's just sort of a reality. Um we talked about that a little bit at the retreat just in terms of that will be equalized because all like grades were under one
056but it's tricky when they're spread across two locations. When you get to the back side of the page, we look at middle school um at the high school as well. Break that out according to our policy right now is um again minimum optimal max range according to the 84 goal. And then kind of how we fall out at middle school is 18 in the four classes and 14 in the exploratory and elective classes um at the middle school. And then when we look at the high school, you can see um that our four classes, our world language, median, health, art, and music are falling well below the minimum average. Um mainly course is fine. Um and the AP classes are great. Um so that's kind of the data. I think an important point to remember
057um when we think about high school, we didn't reduce any staff at the high school and um we had 36 students in the district. We graduated a class of 73 students and pretty much all the classes that fall come after last year's class have about 60 kids. We won't have another class with more than 70 until 2034. Um, so that's something to get to our enrollment and so that's why these numbers look a bit different than they did last year um at this time. So to make those numbers look better, decrease the number of sections um but then you know scheduling is tricky. then students might not get the exact classes they're looking for and it actually leads to more students sitting in a study hall or something like that during the day if you
058were just waiting for a class that they wanted to take. So um you know the numbers would look better but it wouldn't necessarily be necessary experience in any way. So it's um just something to consider. We know that act 73 changes um class size minimums in the state next year. We don't have the model policy. We don't have the language to follow for that yet. We just know that these numbers don't change a little bit for next year. If if those rules were in effect right now at the high school, we would not be compliance. And there is apparently going to be a waiver process. I don't know what that will entail. um where we might um be able to apply for a wafer be approved for the numbers being what they are, you know,
059based on some criteria that we have yet to see. Um so that's it for class sizeing. I know way about fourth graders and yeah, sorry. real wells could be worse. >> All right. Well, let's move on. We'll talk about the um central office uh seems like our annual discussion um talking about the central office foundation. Um so we talked about this last in December of last year. Um, and the reason we talked about it, and it's the same reason we're talking about it now, that our lease expires in the spring of this year, and we need to notify our our um, Kennedy brothers whether or not we intend to renew our lease by December. So, next month, we need to make a decision about um, what we're doing. So, I compiled um, included the information
060I shared last year and a couple of other things in this year's report. So this is our current state lease our space in the Kenny brothers building. It's 2900 square f feet. It's 11 offices and one conference room. There's a small kitchen space, shared bathrooms in the KB building with other tenants. Our annual rent is $62,240 which is 2% of uh the budget. Um the lease expiration date is May 31st, 2026. and we must certify our intent to renew by December 2nd. Um, so the pros, we talked about relocating to a school. Um, pros of relocating to a school would include long-term cost control. Once the renovation costs for that relocation were paid off, the district owned space may save a small amount of money um, in the total budget. The uh another pro would
061be the proximity and visibility into daily school life at least for one school wherever we are located. Um a high school is really the only place we can fit. Um this would potentially improve connection and collaboration with staff and students. Um and then the public reception. So it may be viewed as a fiscally responsible choice for us to use existing district facilities rather than renting outside space. So those are some of the arrows. didn't mention that we did the cafeteria every FDA, but that's the first thing. They also mentioned that we talk about being a school. Um, some of the cons of relocating to the school. It requires a capital investment before any savings would be realized and that may not be fiscally proven given the pending legislation and redistricting governance changes that we're facing.
062Um, it's a permanent loss of instructional space once we move into once we convert those classrooms into office space. It's you don't generally go back from that. It limits your ability um and future flexibility. It would be disruptive, but I think it's not great. Our lease expires in May. We can probably postpone that a couple of months and then try to move in the summer. Summer is when things are really busy in the business office. They're closing out one fiscal year. We're opening up another. The auditors are in. There's a lot going on. it would be a terrible time for them to have to, you know, um, make sure their their access is, you know, available to them. So, that's the struggle. But, you know, these are all just pieces for you to consider. Visitor
063safety concerns because it's kind of a big one. Um, you know, there's law, there's visitor access control laws on the books. Um, and this would increase the daily presence of non school staff and visitors. that would require some u strict implementation in order to also align with the law or policy. Um it adds pressure into the facility. It adds a demand on adult bathrooms common shared common areas. Um for example, it may require closing. Um a basement bathroom, two students to accommodate visitor needs. We would want visitors into our offices with students the bathrooms. um most folks could potentially not have even had a background check. So, it's just something that really obviously EMC in terms of risk. So, we have to be thinking about that. Um traffic and parking impacts on any given day
064there's about 12 to 15 um parking spaces available at the high school and there are um 11. So, um that would put a strain on parking and arrival and expensive logistics. So the proposed changes under consideration um this is the change we talked about last year. The awing with the high school displace the cat lab the wait room the clinician's offices and the kitchen which is used for teaching purposes. We might be able to still share that space with the students that use it. It's not a day. Um that's a total square footage of about 2100. So it lines with you nicely. We won't have that. Now, when we look into this um in November 24, the the onetime cost to retrofit was a range of $420 to $525,000. Um we can pay that using
065a 10-year municipal note. So, you don't have to fulfill the approval that way. Um and in that particular configuration, there is a separate entrance into the A-wing. So we wouldn't have to consider the visitor the visitor risk other than the bathroom change I mentioned. So uh options and benefits of this um I already mentioned in the municipal outlook wouldn't impact current budget conversation challenges are parking the relocation of um current programs operating in that space labs not sure what will we do with that clinician office we could locate potentially within the school um we'll wait for them to move to the wrestling room and then there would be no alternative for the wrestling room the kitchen area as I mentioned we might be able to share that or relocate it elsewhere Another challenge. Um, it
066seems like we're talking about this as a minor inconvenience, but it's it's pretty disruptive to have to follow the school emergency drill schedule when you're when you're working in an office setting or you're meeting on Zoom with people or, you know, have people office meeting with you in person. Um, we would have to really plan around various drills and so forth, which can be a challenge. A second proposed change um is to use a combination of space available in the high school. Um the harbor suites which are which are the clinician's office in the aing you would use those. Um and the clinicians could move up to a newly constructed space at the library and then the other half of the central office would use the school counselor's um office and those folks would go
067to the offices that are available in the on deck program and there's another office hallway um across the hall from the on deck program. So we would displace those folks and tangle with the counseling office. The onetime cost to graduate with um the library space and um purchase new office partitions for use in other spots will be about 150 to $200,000 and we did get from so the other one we had got an estimate from that last year but then this year we got the estimate for this particular so same same um considerations um challenges some of them are the same for me um able to split our office into two separate offices um which is a challenge um with designated bathroom area for the additional adults in the building. So that you know again
068we have visitors that come into the office. They don't just visit the business office and they don't just visit you know the director's office. Um they come for different reasons. So um it's not that we can section ourselves often just get visitors would be downstairs you know visitors um for all kinds of reasons. So that will be a challenge. The group asked about home offices or hybrid work. I think this is a really important thing for for us to convey. Um our work is highly collaborative and it's very service right that we're running. We're not a business. Um we're supporting over 800 students and 200 staff members daily and most roles for physical presence to meet the needs of the schools. We have five directors in the office. We provide ondemand support and coordination across
069the roles. It requires our immediate availability and inperson collaboration particularly when there's a safety matter. Uh admin assistance there are two um they maintain the daily office operations and provide direct service to staff and visitors. They need to be present or that uh workload falls on other people which is disruptive their assistance that is their role. Um we have an HR benefits coordinator. on um that person meets with employees face to face. Um for on boarding the competitive support so that in person position as well and payroll there are two position and they work closely with Stephanie throughout the day. There's a lot of um just real collaboration that's happening. Um and there's also a lot of um secure files um that both the HR and the business office and Lor's position use daily. Um
070then we have one data manager and that role would be performing on occasions that she she does sometimes. Um but she also works locally. She she lives locally so she's in our office in five minutes if um we need her for something. So that benefits her as well. Um so given the nature of the work a work from home policy would improve the efficiency for us. It would reduce costs and it definitely does not responsiveness um that our students depend on. Um so our fourth option is no change. Um that is the current lease amount which is 240. Um the lease extension um is 17% increase the current year through 2029. So that's everybody's question this week. >> Um, how many non employee visitors do you get per day and are they? >> It really
071depends. Um, it depends a lot during hiring season. You were um at certain times of the year, a lot during open enrollment. Um lots of deliveries come to our office. I mean we have deliveries um that are coming in every day mostly do that visitors. I mean employees come in on lunch sessions a lot of background checks a lot of background checks on boarding. I think like I I look at propos change number two and obviously the price tag is a little more appealing but I think there's like some serious concerns as far as like the way that the school flow of that one especially with the school counselors moving to on deck because on deck if you guys haven't been in there is basically one large room and there's two offices attached to that
072but currently if you go into the guidance office there's uh and Vincent works out front there's two two counselor's offices the conference room and another office that can be used for different things and I think another room is too. But I think that would be a really big concern as to not moving into just two offices plus a room and then on deck not having another place to go. So I think that even though the price side looks good on that one, that would be a big problem to deal with. >> Y what would be the what would you want to do? What would make your um office team were efficiently staying across town or be on campus? I I mean I say this with all sincerity. It's such a small amount of money. I
073don't know why we would talk about this open at 63,000. I think we have a really great solution where we are right now. Um it works really well. We we're right in between all of the schools. I think that there's a perception that we say that because we like our brick walls or our fancy windows and I don't know how I get around that being a perception it's not true if there was an easy solution for us to move into a school that wasn't impactful that would be our first choice at least really impactful um considerations you know um and I don't know why we would do it given when we're not sure what's happening for that 73 and and everyone knows it just doesn't feel like the right time to do this. If this
074all gets put to bed during the legislative session, we know that for the long foreseeable future, you know, we're stuck with each other as as Northwest, then I think we we would, you know, possibly look at that a way that keeps us all together and keeps us with the separate and trans um that probably the next best option. So >> yeah, I wanted to know and this is going to be like it's not here. It's just a report. So when do we get to vote? I think a month from now would be great because we have only two meetings. I I just want to put it on for next week just for no reason. We just have already built the agenda that wasn't on there. So I thought the first meeting in November um is
075we only have two and then it's December. So Yeah, I guess the original reason that I raised my hand was because to say something that you just said, which is that you know 73 it seems silly to be investing in a lot of change in our buildings at this point. Yeah, >> I was just going to say I concur. I just I appreciate this conversation sort of but it's it's getting old like it's only 2% of our we have so many big other things that we have to be contemplating and perhaps we become this the high school of choice and then we would be we would have room for more students. So it just doesn't seem like the fruit to change the setup. Um, I understand that it's 2% of the budget, but when we
076had budgets shot down, we were trimming a4 million dollars between votes. That's this is them 25% by that time. So, we can say it's 2%. But that difference didn't make a difference when we were talking about cuts. So, >> well, except there would be no savings until we pay off the investment that we have made in front. So, it's not >> right. But at some point, we're going to get Well, if if as you say, we're stuck together. We're going to have another budget season where they're going to say we want cuts and we're going to look at another4 million dollars and this is again going to be well, it's going to be more than 25% of that because it goes up by 10% a year. I don't think that we need to be making
077any changes now because we don't know what the future holds. But when we keep coming back to it and keep saying, well, it's only 2%. Yeah, but we did have to cut$4 million to get to our budget and there this is not I don't think it's discussed as the only thing that we do. it, you know, it's a menu of things that would be in the discussion to show you to petting. All right, we'll bring it back around and have final discussion and a wheat for a while or therefore change. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? So move second. A second. All in favor? >> I oppose. All right. They've got PSBA and then free service. So, those of us who are at the regional meeting, you learned that I had
078to resign from the BSBA board because as of last Tuesday, I'm working for the BSBA. the director of policy services and legislative affairs. So everything modern policy everything. So you will hear a lot more than most words about what's going on. >> Um so that does mean we do have for you guys. So any of you are involved it is an interesting board will talk to you about what it is let me know conversations in LinkedIn and very well it was already got one >> how many times a year >> they meet once a month they only eat in Kier work a few times a year including retreat most everything is on Zoom 3 meetings you slept 5 to 8 really fast they pack a lot of stuff in the first one that's nice there
079are 22 people on the board so it's really large but it's effective there's 11 regions two people for each region there is debate especially when it comes to small school or public private schools get into saying it's a big deal with other districts not ours but places where private schools the only thing for 60 miles so they want to save it but it's also any reach up in here so when the AOE they finally put out the the um rubrics for the governance that's part of the AQS um and then in their infinite wisdom they want to have results in weeks. So it's the same timeline. I will push out to you a Google form that I created 14 questions. So it's just each standard and then the four potential levels of beginning to advanced
080way to read through it would start at the beginning read through like you're like yeah check all those boxes then go to the next line read it. And when you finally like, yeah, we're not trying to do that, then that's that's where we're going to say that's where we are. We will then look at the results next week and then she eventually superintendents are the ones that have pushed the information off as they already have pipeline fil. So we'll do that. Um, if when you get the form you have any questions, just email me or call me and I'll walk through it or find out that I something for let me know really fast. Uh then another survey that went very very fast was the uh redistricting group put out with a survey to board
081chairs about two weeks ago and they wanted the results last Friday. So Jill and I sat down we read through we tried to answer the best we could so we could make that timeline. But in the agenda is a physical of how we answer those questions. If you look over it and you think I would have worded differently is something um I wish you would explain this other thing again let me know or we can discuss it right now and then we can supplement to redistricting new information >> I think the link is just to the question >> I'll send out what we and then you can just see try to just general mostly Are you already talking to other districts? What are you thinking about? What do you think being in your bigger district
082beneficial? How it be detrimental? Have you been having these conversations with communities? If so, what are you doing? We did not plan on doing that. Um, they sent it out to about 150 board chairs. They got 67 returned. Approximately 80% of boards have had some sort of discussion amongst themselves. They don't have formal decision or what they want to do. Some of them are starting to talk to their communities. Just a general and I think that CDC is going to bring Peter back in the next month or so. He will have a presentation just for general public and then possibly then be in December, early January once the redistric paper is put out maps. So when when I was trying to get people to come in there was miscommunication I thought there was ask to
083come here he's like I won't talk with anybody as often as you want complicated to be as comfortable with the uncertainty as possible. So, >> I just updated the link. So, the right one is now >> put that over and if you have anything you think should be added, you're welcome to contact the redistricting group is on your own. They are all about the public information they care. They have a couple of hundred entries that they've gotten so far. Some of just sending them their loss or their concerns. Sheila just shared an important latest newsletter to a survey for the public and school board members and I don't know if everybody saw it or not but it's worth checking for answer those questions >> and that's the graduation so >> lot so that over um
084and then finally we have our own self assessment that we've been doing for years so we will try and get that up and So, you know, just grab a glass of wine, sit down. We're trying to do a bunch of surveys all at once and and be done. But do you try and get the the AOE one done before next week so that we can see what the results are like we all think that is true reflection of where we are. The idea behind this is not punitive. It's supposed to tell boards, this is where we are and this is where we think we can grow, this is where we think we can help our students better, etc., etc. At a open house with AOE, there were about 60 people, 35 people out talking about
085what their concerns are. Most of it was just giving AOE grievance for why did you wait so long? Why are you doing so hard? and hoping that this would be helpful rather than questions of discussions. All right, public comment before speaking please state the chair please. I don't need a microphone. [Music] I first wanted to thank member on the board because we got some insight as to how the building actually impacted self building. So um I think that was very valuable event. Um uh since I'm the only person of the public I'm going to tell you right here I don't want to cut. There you go. I'm here. I'm a member of the public I don't want to cut. So please don't um the cost for people I have a major concern whether that's uh
086scaled more scale and it should cost more money in some areas to teach kids than in other areas because can't spread the money around that's okay u I I the idea of every kid being as okay whatever this is about when that hit you have to figure it out it it I don't understand it I don't understand it last there was an event that took place u in our community last last week ago um I'm going to speak from my perspective the parent whose student came back and um was gutted um and that happened was that there was a family that it was unclear if there's be a major change in their life. Um, and they had kids and it's in the it's in the sober rules here, but you know, obviously there's the potential
087impact on those children. There's also who to have on all the other children. You see that I'm I think we missed an opportunity not to talk about whether it's right or wrong about what your is what your isn't, but whether we really believe in the be kind, you belong signs outside the high school. Because for those kids and the kids that know them, this was a traumatic event. As the first parents has come to our building and it's I just didn't hear anything and um I didn't know about it till my kid told me about it. Um and it was kind of a oh, how do I respond to this? And I just think when we talk about once again you belong and we talk about students coming to our buildings and us not checking
088whether documentation for any of that stuff. um we had something that could have traumatically that did affect our brain and it's just not I don't I'm disappointed that there wasn't at least an acknowledgement to that happen because it did happen and there are some kids who actually care about other kids and they saw and they can imagine those kids were going through no bubble of their own regardless of what your idea just talked about how it impacted 14 to 17 year old kids and I just didn't I didn't hear anything and that's as a parent as a discipline and you >> am I But I just I just want to put it out there that um of the choices for where we locate central office and say that our respect and um working from home
089is a bad option. So that was a lot of village personally don't like anything. Um but that being said we can take an example. But two examples of mine from one different district larger district when we moved an employee who was working from home revenue that that revenue was done because they were based and I don't that was still um and the other thing I just look at the example of the agency that they go to office they are going back. But ever since they went into free mode and remained in their boat, they so difficult. They're so disconnected from each other and they don't know what each other is doing. used to be legal one coming to me and ask questions and now it's there and it gives you a sense of how challenging
090that just motion to >> a second. Thanks, bro.