001Yes. Thank you. Regular board meeting calling to order at 5:04 p.m. >> At this time, uh, we're going to have the flag salute. >> Please rise. 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. >> Um, just a one brief announcement. Um we will be recording tonight's board meeting and we will be reporting other items pertinent to its meeting and agenda. Um item number four, uh Miss Editor, is there a public to address the board of non-aggenda items? Are there any uh public commenters? >> Yes, President Aos, we have one, Lisa Fehey from BRSFA. Okay. All right. Good evening board members. As you guys know, I'm Lisa Fehey and I'm our current BRSFA
002president. And normally I come to speak and I do glows and grows with you guys. So every day I get to walk into my classroom, be creative, and watch students flourish. Witness those aha moments when something finally clicks. A student discovers new strengths, find new interests, and begins to believe in themselves. These moments are truly powerful. And as much as our students impress me, our educators impress me just as much in our district. I see teachers dedicated their time to planning engaging lessons. I see them sharing resources with one another instead of reinventing the wheel. I see a collaboration across grade levels and specialists to make sure students are supported. I see staff stepping in to cover for one another, checking in with struggling students, and consistently reflecting on how to improve their practice. This
003work is thoughtful, um, intentional, and student centered. Because of all this, I want to highlight some of the positive that is happening across our district. Currently, our music program is one. Um, over the last few years, we've added new music teachers where all of our elementary students are now getting music and we've seen the effect now through fourth and fifth grade instrumental. More students are doing that, and it's carrying over into middle school, which is the goal that they continue this progress through high school. So the investments clearly made an impact. Our counselor is another really bright spot that we have. Every single site has their own counselor. They work with small groups. They teach lessons and they provide critical support for mo for our most valuable or vulnerable students. Their work strengthens not just
004individual students but entire communities at our school. At the middle school level, they've helped tr transition kids into Carlmont by meeting with Carlmont counselors, setting up student goals, and their class schedules to make sure that our students are not just successful with us, but as they leave us. I also want to recognize our support staff. Our custodians are nutrition clerks. They are truly the backbones of our schools. Their presence also often goes unnoticed, but when their absence, it's felt immediately. They keep our campuses safe, clean, and running smoothly. so that teaching and learning can happen every day. Finally, I want to acknowledge the progress um and share a request. We appreciate that teacher feedback is being heard more at the district level. With the upcoming grade level release days, input was gathered on how we'd
005like those days structured and some of that feedback is being incorporated to make that time more meaningful and valuable for us teachers. This is our positive step. At the same time, the announcement of the release days can come as a quite a surprise to many teachers and communication and scheduling could use some improvement. We ask that teacher voice continue to be included early in the planning process, not only how these days are structured, but when they are picked and scheduled and what the focus will be. We're excited that science of reading is on the agenda for most grades. We're also um we would also like to welcome opportunities later in the year to discuss our new math curriculum at grade level. Most importantly, we hope these days include protected time to plan and implement what's
006being presented, not just add more to-dos to our ready full plates. There's a lot of great happening in our district. Our students are thriving because of the dedication of the adults and staff around them. I'm proud to be a part of this community, and I hope we can continue to build on all these strengths. Thank you. >> And that's all the public comment. >> Great. Thank you, Miss Ellinger. Um the next item is agenda number five, approval of the agenda and the consent consent agenda. Do you want to say >> uh yes, there's been no changes to the consent and uh consent agenda and agenda. I recommend approval on that. >> Great. Thank you. Um do I have a motion uh to approve the agenda and consent agenda? >> I move to approve the agenda
007and consent agenda. Do we have a second motion for >> second? >> Is there any any any discussion on either? Okay. So with the first motion and second motion, the agenda and consent agenda is approved. Passed. We need to vote. >> Okay. Do I do I have uh the eyes? All in. You're not there yet. >> It has. All those in favor? >> I. >> There we go. All right. All those in that disagree. Nay. God, this is okay. Five to zero. It passes. It'll get better. All right. Uh, now we can move on to the board of trustees report. Would anybody like to um speak first? >> Sure. Um, I think I just want to acknowledge that these last few weeks have been really, really hard for me as we look at the decision
008that we have before us tonight. Um, I just really wanted to say thank you to everyone for your partnership throughout this process, for the conversations, the emails, the Starbucks coffees, and all the time that you've taken to share your perspectives. Um, hearing directly from our from our families and our staff has really helped me to better understand not only what you all value and need in the middle school experience for your children, but also brought a new lens, a new perspective. especially around research data, a lot of things that I was not aware of. So, I truly appreciate the openness and thoughtfulness that you've brought to the dialogue and thank you very much. And also, happy Valentine's Day and happy Lunar New Year. Go year the horse go. [laughter] >> Um, thank you, Trusty Tang.
009Um, yeah, I I feel um pretty similar. Um the last couple of weeks have definitely been um I would say very eye openening. It's definitely gotten me um looking into things that I I hadn't looked into prior to this. So um I think that was really beneficial for me to be able to um really dig in and and get into um some data and research and reading articles and things like that. So, um I also wanted to just share um I know this was in January, but I did um go to um Central's Readathon um camp out um which was a really fun event. Um and was the first time I I let my kindergartener kind of like hang out with his friends by himself um which was really cool to see um just a
010group of kindergarteners being really excited about reading. Um and some of the teachers um acted out some books which was also um just really fun. So that's it. Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> Um keep mine short and probably share more later. Uh it has been a busy couple of weeks in a in a in a way that I think needed to be. And uh so yeah, met with a lot of a lot of great conversations, heard some really enlightening thoughts, been educated deeper than I expected. Uh and also uh want to call out just great things have been still happening in our district at all the sites, all of them. Um so I just want to respect that and appreciate that people are still doing some great work while our focus has been kind
011of uh um highlighted here. Um, happy Lunar New Year, happy Valentine's Day, happy Black History Month. Uh, that was something else I was going to say, but it'll come up later. That's it. In the interest of time, I seed my time. >> Okay. Um, so back in January 26th, um, Trusty Bruno, I, the staff with Superintendent Nuara and, uh, Sam Piper um, staff as well, we went up to a study tour hosted by an organization called Scaling Student Success. Um and this was roughly near Sacramento. Um and it was it was kind of participate in some thinking with other smaller schools. Um Winters was one of them, Esparo, Mount Empire came up from San Diego area and then Compass Charter. And it was a really good uh in addition to going on some tours of
012of high school or the middle school and seeing some of what they've done in some of their classrooms, it was just a really great way to um get together with some really small smaller districts and some that were uh I think ours was actually the largest, wasn't it? [laughter] So anyway, it was a really good back and forth. Um and it was a it was a day session where we really got to kind of go in depth and talk through some of the challenges that are facing um smaller schools. Um so really appreciated uh Scaling Student Success for being the host, Winters for being the the host district and it was a really kind of a enjoyable um kind of professional development experience. So, want to thank everybody and especially the the Sandpiper staff who
013attended. So, with that in mind, we'll move on to the superintendence report. >> All right. Good evening, trustees. Uh I'll echo everything you've said. Uh I'll piggyback a little bit on what David said about our uh study tour. Um the reason we uh participated in that study tour is our connection with SCA scaling student success but more specifically in the work of our graduate profile uh or our profile of a learner in district. The idea of uh thinking innovating and advocating as some cornerstone work that we encourage for all of our students. So uh some like-minded districts doing that work. Uh definitely opportunities to learn and share from one another. Uh for me uh the best part of the trip was connecting with my colleagues uh our principles, our teachers, our board members in different
014ways uh than we normally connect. So uh really great opportunity. Uh look forward uh to participating in more of those in the future. Uh second thing I'll just mention is is again the idea that it takes a village. Uh I want to express my gratitude to school force. Uh their support through reading power coming to came coming to a close. Uh over half of our students actively participated in the readathon generating over $28,000 that goes to support our our programs and our people. Uh and together we read 2 million 94 94,447 minutes. That's a lot of days uh collectively and this was on the last check-in. So, I'm sure those totals are even higher, but gratitude to school force uh and our community for their continued support of uh our schools. Great. With that, uh
015it's my pleasure to focus uh our school spotlight this month is on Fox with Fox Elementary School. Talia Well, welcome. >> Thank you. Um, good evening everyone. As always, I'm excited to share what we've been working on this school year and kind of give you a highlevel view of all the amazing things that are going on at Fox. So this year we've really been focused on improving our MTSS systems as well as looking at ways to expand our tiers of support. And we're doing that by really focusing in on three big things. thinking about how we can have academic achievement for all of our students. Making sure that we're providing a strong social emotional foundation and also making sure that the whole staff is really diving into our data and making sure that our systems,
016our instruction and everything we're doing is really based in the data so that we're meeting students needs as best as possible. it doesn't want to click. Oh, there we go. Sorry. Um, and so along with that goal, we set specific measurable goals at the site level tied to the larger goal of improving our MTSS um, system as well as expanding our tiers of support. So on the academic side, we have a very lofty goal of getting 100% of kids reading at grade level, but I think you have to be at 100%. I don't think we can say we're going to go for like 95 cuz who are the 5% we're leaving behind? Like that's not okay. So our goal truly is 100%. And I think we all have to have the attitude every day of
017trying to get 100% of kids at grade level. And I think if that's everyone's attitude, we're truly going to be raising as many kids as possible. And so that's one of the things we've really been working on. And I'll explain a little bit more about how we've been going about that. And the other one is looking specifically at kindergarten and thinking how can we get 100% of the kids who leave kindergarten knowing all of their letters and knowing all of their letter sounds. And then along with that also looking at the SEAL side really thinking about how can we reduce classroom disruptions also in service of the academic goal so that we can increase student engagement increase stu student learning increase student achievement and so here is a look at where we've come from and
018so I started at Fox in 2022 and so I think we have a really strong foundation based on my time there. So you can see across the past couple years, the entire student population, we've had a 5% growth in reading achievement. And then one of the subgroups we're also looking closely at is our Latino population. I know as a district I'm part of, one of the groups that's ensuring we're not overidentifying that population. So that is a student group that as a whole at our school site, we're closely monitoring their data to ensure that they're growing. as you can see at luckily a greater trend than the general population. We still have a ways to go but making sure that our identification rate isn't greater than the general population either. And then I'm really proud
019of all the work we've done for students with IEPs. You can see they've had almost a 30% growth in terms of reading achievement over the past three years. So I feel like we're on a really great trajectory to start off this school year. And so in looking at improving the MTSS process, we were looking at systems and then later I'll talk about what we did instructionwise. And so the first thing we did is we started with step one, which was how is our referral process working. So, in the past, we did have a form that teachers filled out, but sometimes teachers would stop me. They might stop an interventionist in the hallway, let us know there's a student they were concerned about, and sometimes it was a more casual conversation. And so, we really wanted
020to put a solid system in place. And so, create we created a Google form that teachers would fill out if they had a concern. And so on that Google form are also a list of suggested interventions that were introduced to staff at a staff meeting. So prior to even meeting with the preliminary SST team, they can already go to the form, click on a list of a bunch of interventions to try out if a student is struggling with behavior or a bunch of interventions to try if a student is struggling in reading. And so they can already be trying some things prior to the meeting. One of the questions on the form also says, "Have you contacted the students parents?" Because sometimes we get into the meeting and parent contact hadn't always happened. And I
021think that's a really critical point before we're already thinking like what might be the next step. So we made sure that that was put on the form as well. And so that form then gets essentially sent to through Google forms to this tracker. And so every single week we spend the first or I guess I spend the first hour of Thursday morning with my lovely intervention team and we look at the tracker to see if anyone has submitted any referrals and we also spend that time going through the case load of all the students with IEPs at our site to see how they're doing. discussing any other students of concern. And so the entire intervention team, whether it's a student on their case load or not, is all aware of students of concern at the
022site level. And then if there was a preliminary SST form filled out by a teacher, we'll go ahead and schedule the meeting and discuss if potentially maybe the school psych might need to do an observation before that meeting happens. she'll make sure she gets into the classroom or will take any preliminary steps that need to happen before that meeting is scheduled. We also created a new agenda for the actual preliminary SST meetings cuz one thing we realized that was happening is people would come into the meetings and they would start sharing information and then the team would start asking questions and then we would get a little bit sidetracked. And so now you can see that steps one through four are all teacher talking. So it kind of mimics I like watching medical dramas. So
023it kind of mimics like if you watch a medical show when like the medical students present the case. It's kind of like that. So the teacher comes in presents all the information about the student which has already been uploaded into the preliminary tracker. So the team's already looked at it a little bit and has some background, but we listen to the teacher present essentially for most of the meeting. And then at the end is when the team is asking questions or providing input, but really making sure that we're taking the time to really understand the student as best as possible before we're like jumping in to what the next step might be. And then we also have along with that just a whole schoolwide SST tracker as well where we're tracking through who's preliminary, who's
024in SST1, SST2, and so forth. And so the whole team can follow along with this. This I think is also incredibly helpful at the beginning of the year. If you get a new student, you can go into the tracker to see what are the notes from last year. It also um just helps from year after year communication because I know when I started um at Fox I had none of the SSTs from anything that happened prior to me. It just was like I don't know where they were. So this is now a living document that like will exist so that notes at least are carried on and even when kids go into middle school we can like send on the information. So in addition to looking at our process which was a big part of
025what we put in place towards the beginning of the year, we also looked at another critical component which is the instruction since obviously that's what's going to impact students the most. And so we started looking at tier one instruction and we really thought about how can we provide first best instruction. And so one thing we needed to do is make a shift in our ELA instruction and really dive in and learn more about the science of reading. And so our whole school did a book study. Our TK read strive for five, which is all about five back and forth conversations. And then our kinder through fifth grade read shifting the balance which has different components of um kind of the shift to the science of reading and kind of how to make that shift and
026how to implement it. And it gives a little bit of theory as well. And so we really focused on understanding the role of background knowledge, vocabulary and how important fluency is in supporting students um reading comprehension. We also did additional just professional development on the science of reading and then teachers would present to all the other grades about what that looks like in their grade level because what science of reading implementation looks like in kindergarten is very different than what it looks like in fifth grade. And I think it's really important for teachers regardless of their grade level to be aware of what that looks like. We also were diving into our data quite a bit. So the district offers the screener which all the kids took whether it was MClass for primary or fastbridge
027for the upper grades. And then in addition to that at our site we also took some additional diagnostic measures. So once students took the district screener kids who were flagged with that took additional screeners at the site level. So, if a kid was flagged on the district screener with like a fluency um struggle and fluency, then the teacher would give them the Dibble's fluency measure to better target it. So, I kind of equate it to like the district screener is kind of like saying you have a back problem, but I got to figure out exactly what your back problem is. And so, that's where the diagnostic measure comes in. And so once we had the diagnostic measure, it helped the teachers to know better where to start with their interventions for fluency and phonics because
028they knew more specifically where to target their instruction. And then teachers were doing a really good job of progress monitoring to determine is the intervention that I'm providing working for the student or do I need to adjust. We also did a lot of learning around how to best provide differentiated small groups. And so these two books by Walpole and McKenna were really instrumental in helping us shift how we are organizing our small groups and making sure that they're really easy for the teachers to implement, but that they were highly effective for the students as well. And so it had teachers thinking, is this a phonics need, a fluency need, or a vocab and comprehension need? And once they knew that for the student, it became really easy for them to implement a small group. And
029then in each teacher schedule, they added in what we call literacy achievement time. And so three times a week for 30 minutes, they're pulling small groups based on their data for all kids. So it's not just the lowest kids because it's really important that the high kids are growing as well. So all kids are getting a small group during literacy achievement time to make sure that we're making gains across the board. And then if I flip over to thinking about our goal, um our counselor was really wonderful in providing targeted tier one lessons and then we had a lot of special theme weeks throughout the year. So we had start with hello week. We have unity day. We had the great kindness challenge, be unique week and a lot of special activities for national school
030counselor week. And so at the tier 2 level, we also looked at how can we expand supports at the tier 2 level because the classroom teacher was doing a lot of work at the tier one level, but we also are really lucky to have some additional supports that could work at the tier 2 level. And so we did a crossgrade level collaborative model to support with reading. And so I'm really lucky to have four TK teachers. And so each of those four TK teachers buddied up with either a first or second grade teacher and is pulling small groups to support kids in those classes as well. And then we also expanded the support from our reading specialist. So, our reading specialist is going in in the morning to work with the kindergarten students to really
031help us achieve that goal of having the kindergarteners leave kindergarten knowing all of their letters and all of their sounds because previously intervention was done by the teacher. So, the teacher is still doing after school intervention, but in addition to that, the reading specialist is also providing intervention in the morning. I'm really lucky that my resource teacher has a little bit of extra time in her schedule. And so when she has those 10 minutes of time in her schedule, she's able to go around and work with first and second grade students to help strengthen their number sense using this program called Plus One. It takes about 3 to five minutes. It's one-on-one with a student and it's really focused on strengthening number sense. So she supports between four and eight students across a week with
032that. And then we also have one small group for each grade level for third, fourth, and fifth grade that receives tier 2 math intervention as well using a curriculum called math UC, which is just a lot of repetition, a lot of helping students visualize the math. And so we're really looking at how to fill in the gaps and support students with math so that they can do better in class as well. And so if we think of how is this working, what is the student impact for our SEAL goal, you can see from the fall to the winter, we had a wonderful decrease in classroom disruptions for FastBridge. This is our fall to winter slippage. And so you can see across the past three years that's been going down, which is wonderful. So this year
033we only had one point average slippage. Our hope is that we get to the other side and have none and then we're just like going up, which for the most part they are. So we're getting there. And this is our primary grade. So you can see that um some of the students who were in the beginning of the year below have either moved to at or above and then the students reading above grade level we've increased that by 5% as well. So what it shows me is that the phonics program that we're using, the small groupoup support, the literacy achievement time, I think all of that has been really effective in supporting students and then we get to hear a little bit from kids as well. They might need Jerome. This is where I might
034need you. >> Like I like the extra reading because there's games and it makes me a better reader. I don't know. >> I like small group math support because it helps me better understand math. It also helps me figure out stuff that I'm tripped up on. And I think all the teachers um are really patient and very supportive. That's it. There's your fox. >> Okay. Hey, that's it. New questions. >> So, first off, thank you so much. Science of reading is a passion of mine and I am so happy to see that you guys are really focusing in on making sure that we get our readers up to grade level. Um, I really like everything that you're doing. You're not just doing the phonics in the classroom, but you're really building in that professional development
035for our teachers to be able to push these children to the place where they need to be in order to be successful students as they move forward. Without reading, you really can't do much. And it's very telling in the disruption data that now that they can kind of follow along what's going on, that disruption level is dropping. Um, my question for you was, what was your biggest challenge in getting your staff on board with this? There's a lot of, you know, two sides to this topic. And how did you combat it or how did you overcome it? >> My staff is really great. Um, I feel like they went around the scheduling. Yes. Like they went along with me. I think I've built enough cred with them. They did it and they went along and
036there wasn't a lot of grumbling, but I think at first there was a little bit of shock when I introduced the idea of the literacy achievement time, but we made it work. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> I have one more question. Yeah. Um, you had mentioned that you would pull and I'm not sure I fully understood, but you said that you had four TK TK classrooms and that you would pull students from first. >> Yeah. So, I have four TK classrooms, right? And then I have two first grade rooms and two second grade rooms. So, essentially like TK room one works with a first grade teacher. TK room 2 works with the other first grade teacher. TK room. I can do you names, right? Like Linda Wilkerson is like hooked up with Teresa Thompson, right? >>
037Um Sarah Muscalina works with Carol Raisner. Um Ivonne Olsen Mendy works with Rachel Mora and like Brandon Whiteitman works with Jen Duffy. So they're like they're they're buddied up I guess for lack of a better word with these other teachers. And so they pull a set of students who were lower performing at this beginning of the year and pull them out for 30 minutes of instruction. >> Oh, so the the teachers would then go >> the TK teacher would then go and support >> into their classroom and provide them with I'm really lucky that two of my TK teachers happen to be former reading specialists. So it's like >> Got it. That >> works for me. >> Yeah. So that helps. And so any of those children in first and second grade that might be
038a little bit behind, they can get that extra support. >> Get that as well. >> That that is wonderful. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Well, this is why I like to go first because Shellyley stole my question. Um, but thank you for that explanation. I I appreciate that. I was going to ask about the the TK um and first and second. So, no questions from me. Just want to express like I think what you guys are doing is great. you can see it in your data. I think um those numbers are really impressive and um and I do love the fox. >> Thank [laughter] you. >> Thank you. >> Hi. >> Hey. >> Uh great job. Of course. Um I think I have some relatively simple questions. You just said a lot of things
039that are interesting to me. Um what's slippage? >> What is slippage? >> What is it? Oh, so like a decline. >> And why would you have >> why >> when you say you're looking at it, you have you've had less of it. Why does it happen? >> Why do we have Well, less is good, right? That means that like I started reading at a level 400, but then in the winter I'm at level 399. So, I've technically gone down in my reading level. So, that's bad, right? I want to keep growing. So, the less slippage the better I am. Maybe I'm Is going down in my reading level inevitable? >> No. So if I slip one point, that's better than slipping three points. >> You say like it makes sense to you. I Okay, thank
040you. [laughter] Why would I Why would I go up? Okay. >> You want to go up, you don't want to slip. So the more you slip, the worse off you are. >> Trusty Bruno, >> it's I'm good. Thank you. >> Yeah. Stop it. >> I'm good. Uh the fact that your TK teachers are are are active. Um I always wonder like what do they do with the rest of the time? So again, the gift of having them be reading specialists. I mean that positively, but anyway, it was really cool to hear that what they're doing is is working across great. So I just want to highlight that. Um, you mentioned doing additional screeners and I feel like sometimes and maybe this ties the question of sometimes um, consistency or compliance can be hard like is
041it hard for your teachers to do additional screeners while teaching and supporting or does it is it pretty easy when you when you mention additional screeners. So you have teachers doing whatever the screener is and then doing more to support students. Is that sustainable? Like are they good with that? Yeah, because they only have to do it one time. So, it's like they do the like fast bridge assessment, right? >> And then from that they give the additional one which isn't it doesn't take that long, but that just like gives them a starting point to then start their small groups and then they're like good to go. >> Gotcha. And that's not a change for this year. That's just the way it's done. >> Well, that was something new this year and now it's the
042way it'll be done. >> There we go. Okay. Yeah. [laughter] Um what else do I have? Uh in one of the slides where you uh slide 25 where you showed your midyear assessment results um the 8% that is well below held. Is that what you expected? >> Which one? >> This one. >> Yeah. I would have liked it to be better, but it's good. It's great. I mean, I wish we had more growth always. >> Yeah. Okay. [laughter] >> It's our first time using that assessment, so I don't really know, >> right? Like this is the first year we're doing MClass, so >> like I don't have anything to like I've asked other schools what their scores are, but like I don't have a I don't know is that typical, is that not typical? like
043Idol. >> Yeah. My my the reason I ask is not again I hope you all can hear. There's nothing negative about your program. I think it's awesome. >> Um but with a goal of 100% at grade level and the work you're putting into it and >> wanting to serve all like I heard all the things and then I see a number that says the ones that we you know reassessed here and and maybe it's the slippage that it's new students and that 8%. But I was wondering if you I'm assuming the answer is yes, but you're serving all of your students to the best of your ability and the way that that measures to be the 8% staying the same is perhaps just how >> yeah I mean I wish I think it's great that
044growth was made. I wish at least one of the well below had moved but then I also I didn't dive in enough to know >> one of the well below could have moved and someone else could have fallen. >> I don't know. I didn't disagregate to that level. >> Gotcha. Um, you said something early on that I don't think maybe has that much to do to Fox, but you mentioned overidentifying Latino populations. Yes. What does that mean? >> That means that like overidentifying Latino population for special education. >> Meaning that the population of students who are Latino are >> as it implies like more of them are overidentified for special education versus other populations. Like if you look at their percentage in relation to other populations, are we overidentifying them? >> But the word Okay,
045I think you said it there. The word overidentifying is being like identifying them as special needs. Is that what you're talking about? Is that the the link I'm missing? Okay. >> Is there anything Robbie you want to add to that? Okay. [laughter] >> Thanks again. I I part of my questions are for me and part of it is because you know for the last few months people are listening and and >> that also happens to be the only um like subgroup I can actually disagregate. Every other population at my school is too small to be statistically s like that I can look at. So the only population I a and that population is small like right now it's 19 kids. Yeah. >> So it's tricky but it's the only one I can actually look at.
046>> Yeah. Gotcha. Uh, I had one more. Uh, do you have a recommended medical drama? >> Oh, well, I just started The Pit. >> It's pretty good, but you have to then subscribe to HBO. >> Do you have another one where I don't have to subscribe to No, I'm joking. I'm joking. Don't answer that. Um, >> the living document that you created and you mentioned the potential to to pass along to middle school. I just want to clarify that that's not a thing that happens now, but you're hoping that this something like a bridge that will be built with this. Is that cool? Thank you. >> Thank you. Um very very great work. Um I was just looking at slide four if we're able to go back to that. Um your where we came from
047slide. Um and uh thank you for tracking um reading achievement growth. Thank you for making with along with your staff with making um such marketked progress um in just a few years. So um I was on slide four. Sorry, it looks like four on mine. The next one. There we go. Thank you. Thank you. Um, so yeah, so thank you. Thank you for for doing that. Thank you for working with your staff on that. Um, again, like, uh, Trusty Bruno said, some some questions I'm, you know, asking for for anybody who might be listening. Um, you mentioned your intervention team. What are the what are the job titles of the people on your intervention team? So it is my resource teacher, my reading specialist, my speech language pathologist, my counselor, my school psychologist, and our
048behaviorist. >> Great. Thank you. Thanks. And um also uh wanted to echo uh Trusty Tang on um thanking you and your staff for working on the science of reading. Um that's really great. Um and um I know of course that your primary focus is your students at your school. Um I was wondering if you've had a chance to share with your other principal colleagues how uh how it's been going with the science of reading. >> Yeah. Yeah. And we did I know with Chinpe we also did at grade level meetings we presented a little bit on about science of reading as well. >> Great. Thank you. >> So, I just wanted to to chime in. Um, this is excellent data and it's certainly um a snapshot, but it's trending in the right direction and everybody
049should be very proud. My question is just we hear a lot about being at at tier one and and and kind of building up that foundation. My question is is since you've now kind of implemented tier 2, um what what is like how was that a a kind of a big like ask from the staff to kind of shift tier one, tier 2? Did you kind of just add in tier 2 at a certain point when you thought the school was ready? Can you just kind of talk about that evolution when you were able to incorporate tier 2 in >> the tier 2 at my site is really possible because of staffing >> because I have the TK's. It's possible because my resource specialist does have a little bit of extra time and her case
050load isn't 100% full right now. She's able to do it. So if her case load changes, I wouldn't be able to do it. So, it really has to do with what I can do with who I have because luckily all of this is working and my reading specialist isn't full for the time she's with me. She's also able to expand to kindergarten. If her if she was full with other kids, then maybe we'd have to look at doing things a little bit differently. But it it has to do the tier 2 a lot has to do with staffing. in terms of like eventually when Fox is ready and like you said it sounds like a lot is around staffing and flexibility but the tier three can you give an example of what a tier three
051intensive support might look like and how that might differentiate from tier 2. >> Sure. So tier three is for students who qualify for an IEP. >> And so they might either go to the learning center to get support or sometimes there's push-in support provided in their classroom or it could also be a student who might have an IEP for speech services. There's also students who have IEP for behavior services. So, it just depends what their qualification is for support, but usually they're provided an IEP if they need some sort of support in a smaller setting. And then there's also other placement options as well outside of like we have our special day classes as well that have students who are receiving tier three instruction as well. The last question I have is do you feel
052like there's a lack therefore going on in addition to like the regular school day and responsibilities of teachers? Do you feel are you extending any of these um supports into the the after school like you know the or is it really being contained in in the school day? >> Yeah, staffing wise I can only go until the end of the contract. >> Okay. [laughter] I mean and you're finding that Okay. >> Yeah. You're doing it. You're juggling it all. Okay. I just wanted to say a comment. You're un You're really um not giving yourself enough credit. I think the most impressive thing is in addition to all this MTSS is getting these foxes to speak. Um you know, I I don't know. Getting foxes to speak in general. It's never heard of that before. So
053amazing. >> Very well. >> Love the AI image. >> Little Dr. Dittle there. Good job. If if I could just add really quick my thanks uh to you Talia and to your staff. Um I think one of the things that I see working really well is the systems that are being set up right the idea uh from data that comes up that's presented to staff that's worked through with staff um that's supported by administration um through all those es and flows whether it's scheduling whether it's extra support whether it's whatever it is when we come together uh we're able to do a lot more so um thank you for doing that thank you to the staff for um tackling that and adding that and and um seeing the results and I think when we see
054positive results that fuels us even more too. So uh kudos to everyone. Thank you. >> Yeah, I have a wonderful staff. I'm very lucky. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. So, I pose this question to you, Superintendent Guire, because the next agenda item is middle school alignment decision and deliberation. However, we also said to the public that we were going to start at 6:15. So, do we want to honor that so that people can get here who have been thinking about? >> Uh, so AB, absolutely, we want to honor that. We said we would uh begin agenda item number nine no earlier than 6:15. Um I think it's fair if the board would like to move forward with uh some of our reports subsequent 10 11 12 and so on. Great. >> Uh that might make
055sense to begin so that we preserve extra time as needed. >> Perfect. Um do we think we might be able to to talk about number 10 then in that time frame? >> Yes. >> Okay. Great. Um so we will come back to number nine at 6:15 as as mentioned. So agenda number 10 is the LCAP midyear report and director Hugh Assistant Superintendent Hugh would you like to >> Yes. Sorry I was just I was clicking and Jerome was getting it set for me. All right. Good evening. This is um just our feel very loud. This is our annual midyear update for you. It is a requirement from the state of California that we give a public report on LCAP progress before February 28th of every single school year. This is going to feel a little
056bit like lather, rinse, repeat from last year. It is pretty much just giving you the financials. Um, just as a quick reminder, LCAP timeline is such that we do formal approval every year in June. During the July through December time frame, our principles work with their school site councils to finalize their their Sips, which is their single plan for student achievement. Those are where they document all of their individual programs and funds at the site level. In February, we give you a midyear update on how we are spending our LCAP dollars. And then in the January to May time frame, our principles work with their school site teams and their communities to really think about what they're going to be doing with their site dollars moving forward for next year. So they spend the first
057half of the year reviewing this year's expenditures and the second half of the year planning for next year's expenditures. We did make a little bit of a shift in last year's LCAP in not changing the dollar amounts allocated to the school sites, but changing the funding source. If you'll remember, we brought all of the LCAP action items and expenditures under district um I guess I I don't know district monitoring. Um we've we've taken them over into the the task that we do to make it simpler for the school sites rather than coming to them in December and January and saying you each have about 20 action items all assigned to different LCAP and LCF dollars. How have you spent them? Why have you not spent them all yet? where are you? We've pulled them all
058under district so that I can give you a a quicker summary, b we can ensure 100% of expenditures, and c most importantly, our principles are freed that time to really work on programmatic decisions at their site level. Back in June, we had um $1.5 millionish projected for our LCF supplemental dollars, which we have budgeted into the LCAP. the number did come in a little higher, which almost always happens after the state makes their adjustments. What we have spent thus far in our uh year is $790,000 already expended and an additional $88800,000 encumbered. Those of you doing quick mental math will say, "Wait, Ching Pay, that's higher than the 1.522." That's correct because our allocation ended up being a little bit higher. And this is as of February 6th. This is what I pulled out of
059our financial system. These are the services that we had planned for 2526 that continue on. We have um I'm not going to read to you all of those bullet points. They're pretty straightforward. Essentially, we are pulling all reading specialists, all school counselors. Um excess teacher is not a is not a politically correct way of speaking about teachers because nobody's excess. Everybody is of of absolute need. But this is purely on a financial financial note in terms of having teachers that are um above our absolute 100% efficiency. We don't staff at 100% efficiency for a number of reasons, but we are able to utilize some of our LCF dollars to pay for that gap. Um we are funding ELOP programs for our students. We have spent quite a bit on professional development this year and then
060we are as you remember last year um Redwood Shores is under differentiated assistance for um chronic absenteeism. So there are some action items that we had planned for that have all been initiated and or completed. Most of them are partway through because as you can see the financial allocation this year has been primarily on salaries. We are into February. We've paid through February. We pay folks all the way through June. So, um, other pieces of the LCAP midyear update are our metrics. So, for each of our goals, we have some some measurable metrics that we provide for you every year. We have 205 teachers this year with full credentials. We have a number of intern credentials. Um, we have all of our curriculum is Common Core aligned. We are in the midst of adopting new
061math curriculum, but we do still have current adoptions in the classrooms. Um, our state, our local benchmarks look good. Speaking to Trusty Bruno's question a little bit, typically what we see is the expectation for proficiency on a absolute level increases as the year goes on. What we have seen years of data is that we'll start with for example 86% of our population has met or exceeded the expectations at the beginning of the school year. This year globally 85% of our students in the winter are meeting or exceeding the expectations. There is a slight decline. That doesn't mean that they're totally static though because the expectation has grown. So some of our kids, most of our kids are continuing to grow at the expected pace and we will have a percentage that are not and those
062are the kids that we're really needing to dive into and disagreate and figure out what's going on. Why is their growth rate slowing? Okay. Um so you'll see that that's happening. We have great data in terms of cast data. That's all listed for you. Our local screeners pertaining to reading are also listed in for you. And then one point I want to point out to you is 59.3% of our English learners were rated as making progress in the 25 the 2025 um CASP this uh school dashboard and that was an increase from 10% from 2024. We've had lots of conversations around that. There was a data glitch in the comparison of 23 to 24. And I had predicted to you that in 24 to 25 we would come back to normal. And that's that's basically
063where we're at. Goals two and three have to do with culture and climate and engagement. Um there's really no mid-year data to share because a lot of the metrics we put in have to do with endofear performance. Suspension data is incomplete at this point. The youth truth survey window is currently open. Those are the metrics that we have put forth to monitor progress throughout the year. We do have some Swiss data which is our PBIS office discipline referral rates. Last year, if you'll remember, we only had four schools that were collecting data. The other three were in the midst of revamping their systems. This year, we do have data from all seven sites. Um, and so you can see while the goal is always to have 85% plus of your students performing in the green
064tier one universal support level and between five and 10 in tier 2 and 0 to five in tier three. We have our students schoolwide at the lowest 90% of our kiddos are in the tier one, meaning they've gotten zero to one referrals, which is just kind of free teaching. Um, behaviorally speaking, our our students are doing really well. And then you'll see Sabers's data looks really similar too. What questions do you have? >> Thank you. Thank you very much. Um and um great great data and I definitely want us to uh talk about it. Um I did want to just ask a process question. Um, uh, President CS and Superintendent Duara, if people are arriving and they're interested in making public comments, should they see Ms. Ellinger in the lobby at this point? >> Yes,
065Miss Ellinger's in the lobby greeting guests. >> Okay, thank you. And then, um, would we like to announce that again at like 6:10? Um, just in case again people are arriving or, um, just so that we have everybody who wants to make public comment. um has done that uh has has signed up to do it before we start. >> Uh yes, uh she'll be joining us again uh closer to 6:15, but we'll make sure um I think President C also wanted to take a five minute break. Uh we'll make sure that we're we're doing that. >> Great. Thank you. >> Did you have a question for >> Thank you. Thank you. um on um on slide uh six sorry I know it's very specific um but for the Swiss data um the referral rates are
066in the green >> but what is what are the what are the percentages mean the percentage means the percentage of students at that school site have who have between zero and one referrals as of this point in the year right we don't track every single thing that happens these are the minors and sometimes majors but this is a compilation of all referrals. Sometimes it's the teacher is just putting tracking data after the fact. It doesn't mean either that if I have a referral as a student that I've necessarily gone to the office to talk to the principal. It might just mean something happened at recess, my teacher had to talk to me about it afterwards and sometime during the day. They track that because we ask them to track so that we can see patterns
067so that we can see is this something that's happening in a particular gender in a particular grade on a particular day. The disagregation that we can come pull out of Swiss is really useful. So in a district like ours that per those percentages are pretty standard to what we've seen, but they're also representative of the fact that our kids are really well behaved. We know we have outliers. We know we have kids with behavioral needs. But on the whole, you can see we range from 90 to 99.6% of our kids at the individual schools receiving zero to one referral over the course of this first half of the year. >> Great. Thank you. I have a really small question. Um, on one of the pages you had around teacher credentials, we have one teacher working
068on STSP. What is that? >> Yeah. Uh, I I had asked Annie and I had forgotten what it is. It is. >> Thank you. Um, and for anyone at home that didn't hear, it's a short-term staff >> Permits. >> Yeah. As they work on their credential. Okay. Thank you. >> Anybody else? You good? Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Thanks. >> Time for one more item. >> Yep. Let's do it. Okay. Uh, which one should we go? >> Let's go right. >> Okay. So, we're going to go to this is up for action. This is an action item. Uh the award of lease leaseback services and approval to enter into pre-construction service agreement with RHDEN for the district-wide HVAC project. Um and for some to present by Reese Matsumoto, CBO. >> Good evening, trustees. Um
069as you know, we passed Measure P in the fall of 2024. Uh and we would like to get our summer projects off to a quick start of which one of them is our district-wide HVAC projects. Uh that's HVAC happening at Rston, SIP, Nesbet, Redwood Shores, and Sandpiper. And we'll also address um Central and Fox also at a later date. Uh probably not in this summer, but in subsequent summers. Uh ultimately, we put an RFP out for a lease lease back partner. Um this is will be the firm that ultimately installs all of the HVAC systems. Uh, and this is not specifically for the HVAC systems themselves. This is really just for a partner to help us get all the work done in the summer. Um, ultimately put an RFP out. Uh, we went through a
070competitive bidding or uh, competitive process where we also brought them in for interviews. Um, through all that us in conjunction with our architects, uh, drawing Terron's architects and, uh, Telq Construction Management decided to, uh, that the best choice for this would be Rodan Construction Services. Um ultimately what you have in front of you today is just the sample lease leaseback template uh that we had approved in I believe December uh of this past year. Uh ultimately this action item here today is to approve moving forward with RHDAN for their pre-construction services. Uh that specifically is them being able to walk all the sites uh with our construction team. Um being able to review more of the architectural designs um in depth. Uh ultimately when we have an actual contract that we'll work through with Rodan,
071we'll bring that to the board during the next board meeting. >> Great. Thank you. Are there any questions for GBMS? >> Okay. So, I just want to clarify. You say you're saying that we are not going to this this particular action item is only addressing who is going to be helping us through this process and the actual HVAC system how it works all those pieces are going to be decided at a later date. Is that right? >> Our architects have the designs for all of the HVAC specific systems that are are planned to go in, but they're still finalizing some of those designs. That's what part of this also entails. We need the people who will be installing it to also applying on some of the designs to help make sure that everything makes sense
072and that we can get this project done in the summer. If you have specific questions about, you know, some of the filters or some of the specific systems that are going in, uh, please email me and, you know, I can have our our architect uh, potentially email you back or maybe even come out for um, additional detail in the future. >> I would love to be there for some of the conversations around type, airflow, all of that stuff. So, >> absolutely. Please. Thank you. >> So this item again is an action item. Do I have re a motion pardon? >> I move to award the lease lease back services and approval to enter into a preconstruction services agreement with RHDAN for the district-wide HVAC project. >> Do I hear a second? Second. >> Great. Um,
073all those in favor, please say I. >> I. Great. Uh, so the approval passes five to zero. Okay. We can we'll move on to the assembly vote. Item number 12 is the delegate assembly vote. This is a discussion item as well as action item. Um, and Superintendent Duoire, would you give us some context? >> Sure. So, there are uh six uh Sonteo County uh region 5 California School Board delegate assembly seats. Uh basically, our representatives to CSBA. Uh currently, there are three members whose term expires March 31st, 2026. The delegates serve two-year terms beginning April 1st to March 31st, 28. Uh there are three seats up for vote. The board has one shared ballot. There are two candidates. So uh the board can uh choose to uh vote for um both candidates, affirm uh the
074vote uh and write in a vote or vote for two or vote for one. Uh it's the board's discretion. uh their uh uh bios were attached to the supporting documents. >> Before we vote, is there anybody uh is there board do want to propose a third a third candidate for any writing? Trusty Northrup. Great. we'll just put >> um I would I would be willing to um be a write in candidate, but I I would also like to ask my fellow trustees if any of them would be interested in in being a delegate. >> Rocks, paper, scissors. Trusty Bruno, you okay? Trusty Northrup, that would be you'd be a great addition. We would love to add you to the candidate slate. >> Thank you. >> So wi with that um do I hear a motion
075um on the the three delegate slate as proposed? >> I move to approve the 2026 delegate assembly vote with the three candidates. >> Great. Uh do I hear a second? >> Second. >> All in favor? Um, >> so I'll clarify real quick. Chelsea Bonini, Terry Chavez will have an affirmative vote. Our write in candidate uh will be Trustee Northrup. Thank you. Yeah. >> Um, I'm not sure how CSBA processes write in candidates, but we'll we'll let you know. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Um yeah. >> So at this point it's 609. We'll take a uh five minute break and be back here at 6:15. Thank you. >> Please see Miss Ellinger if you haven't if you'd like to make a public comment in the intro. >> Yes. Uh just one last thing. Uh we have
076a Spanish interpreter uh Teresa and she will be in the back for those who need uh language support. Thank you. Happy birthday. Appreciate it. How many? board meeting. Wi-Fi out. All right. Yeah. paper last week. Why not? [laughter] Happy that was difficult. >> [laughter] >> 650. I can appreciate uh am I am I gonna have to click? >> Okay. Anyways, >> give it Good question. We're totally have to give the cards. Miss Ellinger is right there. >> Thank you. No problem. >> Okay. >> Like to welcome everybody. Trustees, if you could take your seats. >> Trustees, take your seats. [laughter] [clears throat] All right. I'd like to welcome everybody to the agenda number nine. Welcome to the middle school alignment uh decision that's up for vote uh at this meeting. Before we we start, we
077certainly would like to open it up uh to public comment, but um make some noise. So, Superintendent Dire, so I will go a little bit more into the rest of the process after the public comment, but the first part of it is going to be uh Superintendent Duire to give a a a brief um overview and presentation. Um, and then we will go into public comments. So, please see Miss Ellinger if you haven't already and you would like to make a public comment. I would say while we'll wait, I will go over the public comment part at that point. Superintendent Dire, if you'd like to uh Great. Uh, good evening trustees. Let's bring the presentation up there. Perfect. Uh, I want to start tonight with a couple of acknowledgements. Uh this is a very hard
078decision. Uh it's not an easy decision and our decision tonight has implications for our community. Regardless of the decision uh that we make, there's tradeoffs in every decision uh that's before us tonight. I want to thank the board. Uh this is probably one of the most difficult decisions before uh before the board since co. Uh I recognize it's been a challenge. I appreciate your um dedication to engaging with our community uh reading um all of the input uh that's been shared with you um and um really um taking this decision uh um with the amount of gravity that it is. Uh I want to start also thank our community for being engaged uh for engaging in respectful dialogue back and forth uh for sharing your opinions um while recognizing our challenges. Um and you know
079I think better together right we all work together at the end of the day sharing the love uh regardless of uh what that decision is. Uh I'm going to share a little bit about the overview and process, a little bit more of the data points that we're looking at. Uh share my um thoughts um and ultimately what has guided our team's recommendation. Uh a little bit of overview. Uh in the past few months, we've engaged in an analysis of uh past present um enrollment trends. Uh we've looked at projections. That report was provided back in September. We engaged in a demographic study to learn more about the future of our district, birth rates, how kids are moving through our our system. We've uh taken a look at how our decision impacts our financial outlook. And
080we've done interim presentations uh to better understand the decision uh that comes with tradeoffs. Um I want to take a moment really to pause there. Um, ultimately our decision comes down to trade-offs and priorities. Um, while we've said that finances are not a driving factor, there's definitely a financial cost to our decision. Uh, with limited funds, we make choices continually. Um, and continuing to fund under underrolled programs takes resources that could be used in other ways. uh we will and we can uh close the achievement or close the uh deficit funding gap uh full stop. Uh that said uh regardless of the decision we will need to make and monitor spending. We'll need to make strategic choices to draw down our $4.8 million structural deficit. Uh and that comes with trade-offs. uh we will definitely
081look to maintain and our core programs. Um however uh unexpected changes um result in unexpected things. We want to make sure that our uh programs and our core programs uh remain at the heart of what we support. I want to just take a moment to recognize uh the outreach that we've been doing. Um uh uh we've had special board meetings January 8th, January 21, January 29th. Uh we've received thus far roughly about 100 individuals that have made public comment. I think trustees have received approximately at least when we developed the presentation about 225 emails uh sharing their thoughts. Uh and I will summarize uh that feedback uh here shortly. Just a review of our timeline, where we've been, where we're going. I want to take a moment uh uh to talk and frame our work.
082Um thus far, we framed our work in conversation around closing one of our small schools based on historical data as well as perception data uh that has been demonstrated in a number of different ways over a number of different years. Um, I'd like to take a moment to to provide another frame and another context uh for our thinking um in what I think is is really the simplest form. Uh we have excess capacity in our sixth through 8th grade program. We have more seats allocated than we have students. Our question is what do we do there? Uh from a staffing standpoint, generally speaking, we make adjustments um based on uh how students are are are moving through our system. We adjust, we move. Uh with our small school programs, we're not able to make those
083staffing adjustments like we would at Rston or at the elementary. Their staffing level is set through their design. Ultimately, again, uh this is about tradeoffs. We can do a lot but we can't do everything. I want to talk a moment about the status quo option and under the context of the question which we started with. Should we close one of our two small middle schools that status quo we hear that right? We close it or we don't. Status quo. But when we think about it from an enrollment perspective um and number of seats to be filled um realistically we need to fill those open seats. Uh that's a financially prudent thing to do. Um by selecting the status quo option we are providing direction to work to fill all those spots. And I think it's
084important to balance that we've heard clearly there's a strong desire for ROST not to diminish the work that is happening at Nesbbit or Sandpiper. Um and limiting those seats is not preferred by most. Uh this is a desire that has been shared in the context of granting choice. Uh for clarity I want to note choice. Uh we have never guaranteed a choice program. We've done a good job in honoring most famil family's preferences um but not all families. I really want to emphasize that um that we do our best to support family choice within the context of the programs that we operate. Uh but there's uh no guarantee. Um there's been a lot of conversation around how we can make our small schools even more attractive. Uh the reality is we've tried that in many
085different levels uh to build and support to respond to community needs. Uh the reality again is we can't do everything. Um our staff is already working extremely hard at something different. Uh we've worked uh to try things before and after school. Um we've added programs past the base program and those results have been similar. uh selecting option two or option three uh uh is what our team believes is the right direction based on what we know. Um when we think about um our small school programs um we have to think about can we uh look to promote one program better and optimize one program. Yes, I think that's a possibility. Should we do that for two when our data shows otherwise? No, I don't believe that's the right direction and would argue that it's not
086financially responsible to do so. Uh it creates uh maintaining both uh has the potential to create uncertainty in our community and when families crave consistency uh that's a hard thing to grapple with. Finally, number four. Um, honestly, from my perspective, that's been the furthest reach. Uh, we certainly have heard some comment um, uh, about, uh, uh, number four. Uh, but not a whole lot. Let me see. Advance the slide. So, so with that, um, I do have to share that my recommendation when I look at that, it's recommended that the board of trustees direct the transition from two TK TK8 programs to one resulting in the closure of one uh 68 program at either Nesbbit or Sam Piper while continuing to remain the site as a TK or K5 uh beginning with the 26 27
087school year. Uh the recommendation reflects a comprehensive multimonth analysis of enrollment trends, demographic projections, middle school selection data, capacity utilization, community input, all of this taken together for that recommendation. Uh furthermore, I' I'd like to be very clear um that this is not a recommendation on the quality of our programs. Uh it's not a reflection on the the hard work of our staff, our students, or our families. Um I am amazingly proud of all of our programs and the hard work that happens um in our schools. Next couple slides, I just want to take a moment to share uh the data that we continue to look at. Um enrollment and demographic uh trends. Our enrollment continues to decline across all grade levels uh growing over time. Uh capacity and utilization another criteria our small schools
088are under capacity and underutilized roughly at the 70 to 79% capacity. Approximately 30% of our students attending fifth grade at either Sandpiper or Nesbbit metriculate into the sixth grade. Um there um maximizing enrollment uh could mean adding an additional 36 to 70 to uh students to the sixth grade. Sustainability considerations. Um rston remains an attractive slashpreferred choice, not the only choice. Um again and I say this uh uh with tremendous pride for both of our small schools, Nesbbit and Sunpiper. They are uh wonderful programs. Uh year-over-year we have families requesting to transfer to Rston. Uh yearover-year and example here um we have a priority of families selecting Rston as the middle school um survey each spring. In 25 the family rank choice data uh for placement uh was there 391 um opted for Rston as
089their first choice. And then finally the community input um while not balanced uh it falls into one of what I would say three areas. Uh one is preserving Nesbbit. The second is preserving Sandpiper. Uh we've heard primarily those views in our our uh community in-person engagement. Uh while those two groups differ in the specific canvi campus uh they wish to preserve the underlying values are largely the same community relationships safety and access. Uh we've had a third group um of push uh that is advocating for ma maintaining choice. Again I will say again that our district has never had a 100% choice system. We do our best to honor choice and family preference. Uh but it has never been a guarantee. Um with the idea that the third group emphasizing maintaining multiple options for families
090um uh and that uh that if we operate fuller fuller systems at uh Nesbbit and Sanpiper it will reduce um availability at Rston. So with that, uh the board has um a a heavy decision to weigh tonight. Um it's a complicated one with multiple factors. Uh typically our our decision making is a recommendation uh with a yay or nay vote. Uh tonight that is different. tonight. That comes with deliberation, uh, weighing down those options, narrowing down those options, and finally coming up with a decision. It's one that I encourage trustees to not only um, of course have a motion and a vote on, but also to engage in consensus building and um, discussion to get there. And finally with that, I'll turn it back over to uh President CS uh for public comment. >> Great.
091Thank you, Superintendent Dora. As we transition to public comment, obviously as said before, this is a sensitive topic. Um so please focus comments on issues, experience, and outcomes rather than individuals. Our goal is to continue to hear a range of perspectives while honoring time and collective voice. Um in the in the previous sessions um we've been pretty uh lenient as we should have for the three minutes per person since we wanted to get everybody's and we didn't want to cut anybody off. We will continue to keep three minutes but please keep your comments. We will at the end of three minutes give you a gentle reminder that your time is up so that we can fit everybody in but also then still have time to deliberate. Um, please see Miss Ellinger if you have a
092comment. Uh, with that, Miss Ellinger, can you list by maybe by threes? I think that's been successful. Um, to list the first three people. Okay. >> Okay. So, we have approximately 35 speakers tonight. So, if I could have Reiko Medina, Greg Hamlin, and Cindy Shay come up. >> Hello. Um, members of the board and superintendent deagara, thank you for your efforts to bring the community together tonight. I'm here as a parent of a third grader at Redwood Shores Elementary and an eighth grader at Sandpiper as we navigate lower enrollment at our middle schools, at our smaller middle schools. I'm here to advocate for keeping all three schools open with the following three priorities in mind: choice, community, and due diligence. First, choice. If we believe in choice and I know it's not guaranteed um but
093we need to protect it equitably and choice for some should not come at the expense of others. So I think we should prioritize choice for everyone again by keeping all three schools open. Choice for families who want to send their children to Nesbbit but also choice for the 200 to 250 families at San Piper and Nesbet. Second, community. [clears throat and cough] Over the past few weeks, these meetings have shown how much we care about our schools, and this is something that we should definitely be proud of. But this process has also divided us. We keep hearing close a school or eliminate choice, a false binary, and I know that there's other options that are presented as well, but it is pulling our community apart. This doesn't have to be the option. We can increase
094enrollment at our smaller schools, which brings me to my third point, which is due diligence. I know that um Superintendent Dara talked a little bit about um some of the work that has been done to increase enrollment at our smaller schools, but I'd love to understand, you know, have we have we dove into what's really driving the decrease in our smaller schools? And specifically, what have we done to increase enrollment at these schools? Have we sufficiently done our due diligence? Throughout this process, our community has invested hundreds, if not thousands of hours in support of these schools. Now the now's the time to come together further. There's still work to be done. Please don't make a decision that will impact hundreds of families without giving a chance to our schools. We have amazing teachers, fantastic
095program, and families who have shown that they're willing to come out in support of these schools. Let's build on this momentum, do the due diligence, unite the community, and offer choice for all students. >> [clears throat] >> So in in closing, my ask is just to to preserve all three middle schools and offer choice for all students. Thank you. Members of the board, thank you for your engagement in finding the best solution across all of Belmont and Redwood Shores. Superintendent Duara, thank you for your continued efforts to deliver against the goals set by the board. It can't be easy balancing all the feedback from so many passionate and well-informed constituents. We're blessed as a community that we currently have three strong middle school options to choose from. And I'm speaking tonight to ask that we
096keep it that way as an advocate for true choice. I listened with admiration as the parents, students, and alumni of Sandpiper Middle School spoke eloquently a few weeks ago on behalf of keeping Sandpiper open and with growing concern the following week as it appeared that the board's response to the outpouring of support for keeping both Sandpiper and Nesbbit open was effectively if we save both schools, we will let geography within the district dictate where kids go to school and eliminate choice. This has led to the unfortunate and predictable outcome of a community pitted against itself. I sat in the Rston gym two weeks ago and listened as members of Redwood Shores actively advocated to close their neighborhood school so their kids could retain the option to go to Rston. I listened to other members of
097Redwood Shores advocate for closing Nesbbit. I listened to Nesbbit families advocate for closing Sandpiper. I listened to nervous families from Central who had just found out 60 minutes before the meeting that instead of getting to choose their middle school, their kids would attend a school based on proximity. And so they asked you to close either of the other two schools so they could retain their own choice. We are fortunate to know families from the end of Redwood Shores all the way up to the top of Rston. And I found myself anxious as parent after parent who we've raised our kids with went up to speak, not sure if they were going to advocate for an outcome that would limit our family's ability to send our kids where we think is best for them. And I'm
098sure they felt the same, listening to other parents they know, respect, and rely on as friends and neighbors advocate for their own family's interests. with the very real potential of limiting the options for other families. The cumulative effect of your decisions and actions over the past couple months has been to pit the community against itself. We're tearing each other down. The choices you have featured as well as those you have downplayed have driven each of us to realize that in order for our family to retain our choice, other families have to give up theirs. Help us change this. The California School Board Association, of which BRSSD is a member, states that boards fulfill their roles by providing community leadership as advocates for children, working with the superintendent to make decisions that will best serve all
099students in the community. The district website itself states that BRSSD learners one act on behalf of our communities, two are brave in our approach to problems, and three embrace challenges with enthusiasm. Specifically, we unite diverse perspectives and think beyond boundaries to prepare our students for the future. We elected you to represent the entirety of our community and serve the best interests of all families. The past couple months feel like we're collectively being railroaded into accepting a false choice as a response to a manufactured crisis designed to support the predetermined outcome of closing a school. This closure has been framed as a way to preserve choice. Let's be honest, closing one out of three schools in the district and leaving the community with two choices instead of three is not actually preserving choice. You're in fact
100reducing it by 33%. Sandpiper and Nesbbit may not offer the same comprehensive experience as Rston, but that doesn't mean they don't each offer their own unique value. Sandpiper and Nesbbit satisfy three separate distinct needs. They each offer unique learning opportunities, design thinking and international balorate specifically neighborhood locations. If you don't want to commute 40 to 60 minutes up to Rston and small school environments, the only direct substitute between Sandpiper and Nesbbit is a small school environment. And yet you treat them as completely interchangeable options. You ignore the impact to the community of losing either of these unique learning opportunities and the loss of a neighborhood school to boot. You fixated on minimizing a single metric, unmet capacity, at the expense of all other success measures. Your own material shows 78 open seats across a total
101district middle school capacity of almost 1,400. That's a 5.5% gap. We're allowing pursuit of perfection for this one metric to blind us to the good of what we currently have. >> Greg, can you 30 seconds? Closing either sandpaper or NESBIT will result in three to four times the number of students as there is unmet capacity to be forced to attend a school that is not of their choosing. Closing either of these wonderful schools is not a vote for choice. I believe you're asking the wrong questions. Instead of evaluating each school individually on how efficient each one is on its own, you should be asking how effective the three of them are together as a collective whole in serving the needs of the entire community. I implore you not to take the convenient and expedient route
102of just closing one of the schools or mandating that geography trump family choice. Be the leaders you were elected to be for the good of all families in this community. Please keep all three middle schools open and allow each and every family the opportunity to send their kids to the school of their choice. Thank you. >> Hello Trustee Superintendent. My name is Cindy Sha and I'm the parent of a fifth grader at Sanp Piper. I thought it would be helpful to give you some history about San Piper. Our school, the middle school started in 2017 with the first incoming class of sixth graders only. Then the following year, we enrolled sixth and seventh graders. And in 2019 through 2020, we had the first full class of sixth through 8th graders. Unfortunately, during 2020, pandemic happened
103and kids had to take their class online. Our first graduating class of 2020 did not have the ability to graduate uh have graduation in person. It wasn't until 2021 where students came fully back to school. In reality, San Piper Middle School was has been fully in operation since 2022 until now. It doesn't hasn't given us a lot of time to help develop and grow the class in a smooth transition uh smooth way. With the recent awareness of enrollment being an issue for smaller school and learning about learning about the district's current involvement with the middle schools, there are we have at least 16 parents who volunteer to start a task force with subcommittees to help boost enrollment, enhance learning and overall experience with at San Piper Middle School. Part of it will be a having
104liaison with Nesbbit and Rston Middle School to collaborate better in synergy. In the parent task force, we have two marketing specialist, a researcher, writer, litigator, finance professional, tax advisor, specialist, and organizational change management, and a scientist. One of us minored in education and work with low-income families. and the other parents serve currently serves as a Carlong Academic Foundation. Collectively, our children will be attending SAP Fiber Middle School for the next seven years from 2026 to 2033. We are eager to start leading and collaborative uh to collaborate with the district to boost enrollment. We are confident San Piper can be the highly sought-after middle school of our district and we look forward to S Piper Middle School students to make our district proud. Thank you. >> The next three. >> Yep. So we have Leila Ahassen,
105Joshua Bloom, Manakashi Trapathy, and Manique Bloom. Good evening. We just heard Fox School talk about the science of reading, a researchbased approach to reading. We should also use research when deciding about closing a school. Research shows that closing schools does not save money and does not improve enrollment. How have we decided that our small middle schools are underenrolled or underutilized? Anyways, the Advancement Project explains that quote underenrollment is a construct created by businessminded consultants who define enrollment relative to other schools, notions of efficacy, and other ideas of what schools should look like. The utilization approach is incompatible with the needs of community schools or special education programs. Let's think about fiscal responsibility. The community has voted repeatedly to fund our schools, including the building of our small middle schools. And in 2022, we voted for
106Measure C parcel tax, a goal of which is, according to the BRSSD website, to quote, prevent deep cuts in elementary and middle schools. Is it ethically, financially, or legally responsible to close a school that people voted for? And then to possibly rent out the building and use the funds for a different project or program. I would like to see a transparent and robust cost and savings analysis and what the money will be used for. According to the National Education Policy Center, there is plenty of research showing that school consolidations and closing schools do not lead to the savings that are expected. They encourage us to quote closely question claims about presumed benefits of consolidation. What reason is there to expect substantial improvements given that current research suggests that savings for taxpayers, fiscal efficiencies, and curricular
107improvements are unlikely. Consider other measures to improve fiscal efficiency or educational services. Examples include cooperative purchasing agreements and combined financial services. I ask that this district conduct and share due diligence into cost-savings alternatives. For example, absenteeism costs the district at least $345,000 a year. If we get absenteeism to our prepandemic rate, we could save at least $172,000. This is all on the BRSSD website. These amounts are in the same range as our likely overestimated savings from closing a school. I, as a voter and a donor, want to see my votes and my financial investments being valued. I, as a parent, want to see my school district making researchbased decisions in the best interest of all of our children. Based on research and recommendations from various sources, including the board of education and attorney general, I
108want to see the board recommmit to keeping all of the middle schools open and making them thrive. Thank you. >> Hello. I get the sense the board is going to hear a lot of thoughts today. So, I actually want to turn around and use this last opportunity for public comment to speak to the parents in the room and on the live feed, especially ones turning in tuning in for the first time. These last few months have been stressful for everyone in this room. And I want to start by thanking all of the parents, especially the children, some of whom are here tonight, who spoke up and advocated for all three middle schools, in person, online, and even doortodoor. Thank you also to the board members who chose to engage actively in thinking through solutions with
109the constituents they represent. Over the last six weeks, I tried to come to this process with a point of view, but also an open mind. My first goal was to ascertain the facts and understand the data. And I want to share a few important facts that we have learned as a community over the last six weeks. Number one, after the first public board meeting on this topic, we learned that the school district is not in a financial crisis and closing either Sandpiper or Nesbbit is not required to close our budget gap. The district's estimated savings from closing a school are less than 1% of its total expenditures. Number two, after three public listening sessions, it is indisputable at this point that each school, Rston, Nesbbit, Sandpiper, have devoted followings and serve important and distinct community
110needs. In addition, we reached out to Dr. Linda Darling Hammond, the president of the California State Board of Education and a Stanford professor who is kind enough to take the time to meet with us and share her perspectives. She is the states and possibly the nation's leading expert on public school policy. Her 50 years of research and experience point to three additional key pieces of information that are highly relevant for district parents. First, on average, academic outcomes and social emotional development start to deteriorate at school sizes that grow beyond 500 students, let alone the 1,200 envisioned in the district office's proposal for Rston. Two, TK8 schools on average outperform standalone middle schools on the same metrics, which again speaks against the district office's proposal. Three, as we just heard, estimated savings from closing a school
111in California specifically are usually less than anticipated by district offices and do not account for transition costs, potential litigation exposure, and exits from the district. Dr. Dr. Hammond presents a clear choice in her recent article, how declining enrollments can become an opportunity for school transformation. In light of enrollment pressure, the temptation for US public school districts is to go back to what she calls the factory model of schools popularized in the 1920s. This is often defined by a search for efficiency in per pupil spending and utilization of facilities. Following the factory model, schools are consolidated into large populations where multiple sections of a class can be taught. If this sounds familiar, it's because this is essentially the talk track we have heard over the last two months. The alternative model is to embrace smaller schools,
112block scheduling, innovative curriculums that prepare students for the 21st century. We're incredibly lucky as a district to have already invested in the facilities, accreditation, and faculty training to build a solid foundation for these high performing models. To the last thought to the elementary school parents in Belmont Road, I have a simple message for what should happen after the board votes for option one tonight. Listen to your instincts, your friends, and even your children when it comes to the middle school selection survey, but also to your teachers who know your children well and experts in the field who have devoted their lives to building up public schools, not just tearing them down. Educate yourselves on innovative design thinking and international balora programs available in the district and the benefits of smaller schools. Once you do, I
113believe that many of you will do what passionate supporters of our schools have done. Choose Nesbbit. Choose Sandpiper. Watch your children thrive. Thank you. I was worried I was going to need this tool. Uh I want to st start by thanking the trustees over the past few weeks. You have been extremely generous with your time and shown that you are actively engaged in finding solutions. No one is served by a board that simply rubber stamps any of the district officers recommendations and it's clear that you take your role overseeing the school district seriously. Our conversations with fellow parents, experts, teachers, neighbors, and of course our students point to some overall themes. We need all three schools. Sandpiper and Nesbbit were built less than 10 years ago because having a single large middle school for the
114entire district was unworkable. Cramming more students into a single school meant less teacher engagement, more disciplinary problems, increased competitions for things like athletic teams and academic sections and for extracurriculars. Commute times and traffic and parking were nightmares. That lived experience strongly supports why we should not go backwards. Two, Sunpiper and Nesbbit are both hidden gems. They allow close engagement with teachers, individualized attention, and deep dives into subject areas. As TK8 ate school, siblings can stay together longer, and this is a huge logistical benefit for parents. A quick bike uh bike or walk to school means students have more time for study and for play. Nesbbit is accredited for the IB program. Sam Piper's design thinking approach is modeled after the Nova School and the faculty are trained by working with Noeva, DTEK, and Stanford. The
115Carmont administration has observed no difference in preparation for high school among the three schools and the students at both the smaller schools are a really tight-knit cohort that really acts as one family. Three, there is broad support in our communities for keeping the neighborhood schools. In Redwood Shores, over 400 people signed a petition in support of San Pipon Middle. Residents were in fact shocked to hear that the 25 million facility that they were asked to pay for is now being considered for closure. They see the TK8 schools as bolstering property values and encouraging families to move to the neighborhood because siblings can stay together longer. These community members are voters and taxpayers and we will need them for approving future bond measures and parcel taxes. This point in time is as Josh said an opportunity.
116We are not interested in forcing enrollment from one school to another. There is broad consensus that we can get the results we need by doing a lot more to market these wonderful schools. Particularly parents have not been part of this effort before and as of now as my colleague mentioned uh parents have volunteered to start off a task force to work on boosting outreach and enrollment and they already have a list of initiatives that are budget neutral. These are efficiencies that can be created by Nesbbit and Sandpiper working together and by all three schools working together as one district so they all benefit from each other. All we need is a firm public commitment from the board, oversight and accountability to make sure the district is actually supporting these schools, and of course, time. Our
117schools are not factories that need to be shut down if they're not running at full capacity. Our children are not interchangeable widgets. We have an opportunity here to make our district a magnet for the Bay Area by having a variety of three great schools that allow every kind of student to thrive. Let's seize that opportunity. Thank you. >> Okay. I don't have a paper and my kid is not in the system anymore. He is uh out of school but he was in the first batch for San Piper and for that I'm super grateful. Uh he is in second year college now in Georgia Tech. um his foundation was set in Sandpiper. Whether it was robotics, whether it was design thinking, whether it was mu, whether it was theater, it just opened up his mind, gave
118him that foundation to go in and actually thrive at DTEK. And um he was a captain for u a top four robotics team. He got that foundation, that love from Sandpiper. So I feel very emotional when I'm here and I hear that that school is getting closed. So you would be taking an opportunity away from kids that can thrive and do as well as my kid did. So that's my three minutes for all you parents. It's an awesome school. Okay, next up we have Travis Ripbred, Andrew Who, Sherry U, and Mr. and or Mrs. Lee. >> Good. Yeah. Reese, can I start? Uh, board of trustees, superintendent, everybody else who's here. Uh my name is Travis Whitebred. I'm an eighth grade teacher at Nesbbit. I've also been here as the bargaining chair for the BRSFA
119teachers union. Um I've been at Nesbbit for many years. I've been a part of these board meetings. I've watched on Zoom. I've been at some of them in person. Um and there's a couple things that I really am struggling with throughout this whole process. I certainly do not envy the decision that you all are making this entire process. I'm sure it's been much more exhausting for you than it has been for me. Um but I think the transparency is one of those things that really is sticking with me. Like I said, I do not envy this, but I hope that whatever decision is made, there's lots of clear next steps. Um, I feel that this process, like you probably do as well, has been quite truncated, very, very emotionally charged. And I feel that whatever
120decision is made, I'm hoping there can be security for teachers like myself, for families, for students, for the community as far as what will be happening next. If there's not a closure, if there is a closure, understanding about what will this look like in the future. I also hope that marketing can be improved for these smaller schools. Superintendent Duara mentioned that yes, there has been marketing for it, but I feel like we've seen how a lot of people are ill informed about what is happening at these schools. I hope that whatever decision is made, a timeline can be clear to support families be able to know how things are going to play out in the future. My second main concern is fixing reoccurring issues that keep on popping up for me within this process. Um,
121I feel that there is a habit of missing the mark a little bit about what these smaller schools are doing. I think about the district alignment recommendation that also Mr. Dara mentioned and I'm incredibly frustrated to see that IB and design thinking were not mentioned anywhere in that document or in his recommendation. These are the foundations of what is happening at our school and these were not mentioned at all in the district's recommendation. as a teacher at NESB. I can speak more to that, but there are three years of Spanish. There is a comprehensive community service project. There's art and design. There's a global framework that we have as part of the IB. We have electives. We have all these things that have been talked about, but it's frustrating that these are the foundations of
122what we have and those are not being mentioned in a lot of these conversations. It's just that it's a small school. I want to make sure that families are able to understand what is being done at these different schools. I've heard a lot of families talk about how they have chosen Rston simply because that's what their student wants to be able to do. But I would love it if the students as well as the families could better understand what is happening at Sandpiper and at NESBIT. Shelley, I appreciate you greatly for coming and visiting Nesbbit the other day to better understand what we have. And I wish that other people, other board members, other families, other community members had more of the opportunity to understand what is really happening in Nesbbit at a deeper level.
123I understand this is a difficult decision to be made. I wish you the best of luck with it. I just hope that whatever next steps there are that we are able to learn from this process that there's clear transparency, security, and that perhaps future marketing can be done to help families understand what is happening at these two schools. 4 seconds to spare I just think so like speak. So, my name is Andrew H. I'm a fifth grader at Central Elementary School. I'm here to share my thoughts about the proposal to assign students that would have gone to Rston to the two smaller middle schools so that the smaller schools can have higher enrollment and stay open. As I in first choice middle school is rston, I'm so excited about going there and I'm concerned that
124the proposal could take that choice away for many students. I want to go to Rston because one, there are more elective options to explore interest. For example, if you like board and card games, you could take strategy, which is unique to Rston. You could also take culinary arts if you want to cook. Also, there are more core educational classes to challenge us at the right level. If you want advanced math, there are many options for accelerated learning like as math, algebra, and geometry which they do not have at the other schools. There are also more options for extracurricular activities including a wide variety of clubs and many school competitions like the science fair, spelling be or business fair. Also, there is a wide variety of sports, including varsity sports. It makes me sad that I
125might be forced to miss out on these opportunities. My brother is currently in eighth grade at Rston, and he has had a really great time there. He's he's telling me all about it, and that really makes me want to go there, too. So, I would like to ask that the school board to preserve the ability for students to choose rston as their middle school and not be assigned to the smaller schools. >> Good evening. My name is Sherry. I'm Andrew's mom who just spoke. Uh, I also have a middle schooler at Rston. I first want to thank you all for being here and for your service and I want to thank everyone here for engaging in this discussion. I think this choice of middle school is a big one. You heard from Andrew. He is
126extremely worried and anxious that he will not be able to go to the school of his choice. He is so worried he shared this concern at his latest pediatrician appointment. Public speaking is not his favorite activity and he volunteered to come here tonight. So it is causing a lot of stress and anxiety for him and his friends. They were looking forward to going to middle school together at Boston. I think the issue is really that every student is different. Every student, every family knows what's right for them. They express that when they enter their preference in the middle school survey. And we see this in the enrollment numbers. The survey numbers show overwhelmingly a preference for Rston. The number of students who later transfer or asked to transfer to Rston also supports that. So, it's
127clear from the data that Rston is the environment that the majority of students in our district think is is right for them for many reasons. And you heard Andrew's reasons. Forcing a student who would thrive in a school like Rston to attend a different site directly contradicts the data. The impact may seem small and insignificant for up to 72 students, but at this age, a very important developmental age, it's not. We're effectively taking away the ability for these students to be in the environment that they believe they will thrive in. I understand the district is facing declining enrollment, budget pressures, but forcing students into programs that is not right for them, is a fix that alienates families and does not make sense. If the goal is to sustain the smaller schools, it should be done
128through voluntary enrollment or other options, not by capping enrollment at Rston. In conclusion, 51 seconds left. I urge the board, please do not artificially constrain and cap the number of students who can enroll at Rston. It is our excellent comprehensive middle school that the majority of our families want. Let's look for solutions that reflect the survey results rather than a system that assigns students to programs they that may not meet their unique academic and social needs. Thank you for your time and for your service to work. Um before we call the next three, if you could speak into the microphone so that the speakers at home can hear better. Thank you. >> Specifically, can you speak into the front of the microphone rather than the side? It's got weird things going on. The next speaker
129will have her tw the person twisted. >> Okay, I think the lease decided not to speak. So, we'll have Toyen and Joseph, Iman, Adella, and Adar. >> Toyen, I think that just got a little bit twisted. If you can maybe just bend it. There you go. Perfect. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I like talk so loud. It's very funny to even need this. Hi, good evening. My name is Toyianne. It's my husband. He's my uh moral support. I am a black mom with a first grader and a preschooler in our district. I know everyone says, "Why are you in it? You have a first grader." But I just feel very um and I'm a proud Central Elementary School mom. Um I know there's a lot of anxiety in the air regarding school closures and
130alignment. These are incredibly difficult decisions and I appreciate the weight the board is carrying. I want to first be transparent and say that I want my children to go to Rston Middle School based on the community and the offerings there. Uh regardless of which option the district eventually chooses, I'm concerned that we do not yet have the information necessary to understand the impact on equity and academic access. And just this is a little bit off script, but people say equity a lot. As you know, in our district, we have less than 1% black students. We actually round down to zero. As you know, even just a few years ago, there were not even any black students at Carlmont. My husband knows this, but I was so concerned to even be in this district and move
131here because of how few black students that there are. So, this is just very personal to us. I just want more information on how our students of color will be supported. As you all know, Rston has spent years building a vital community through a robust black and Latino students club. There's even a whisper network of black parents who really advocate for their students to go to Rston for this club specifically. And in a district where we are just oftent times otherwise losing access to these affinity spaces I feel like are essential for their sense of belonging and leadership development. And I have not seen an analysis of how these resources will be detected or how you'll maintain these types of supportive environments if our students are forced to move to a residency based model. I
132also think that the advanced science and STEM access is something important to discuss and we're missing data on the future of advanced academics. While all schools may offer a core curriculum, we know that Roston Middle School has advanced honors and math and science sections. These pathways are critical for students of color given the known disparities in STEM. Before we move to residency based model, I would love a transparent look at how these offerings will remain accessible to every student, especially students of color, regardless of their zip code. The ability to choose a school that best fits a student's academic and social needs is a matter of equity. Please do not vote for a plan that limits access to the best of what our district offers based on a map. Let's keep Brawl students community and
133its academic excellence accessible for all of our children. Thank you. >> Dear BRSSD board of directors, my name is Adela and I am a fifth grader at Central Elementary School. Thank you for letting me express my opinion on this middle school dilemma. First, I am grateful for the wonderful teachers who inspire me every day. Like many others across the school district, my teachers have been teaching us the foundation of an education that I choose to continue at Rston. To me, the programs and classes at Rston are building blocks. Blocks that will help build a stronger, more confident me. Besides being able to improve my math skills, Rston seems to offer many exciting opportunities. My friends and neighbors who attend Rston shared their experiences, making me become more excited and intrigued at what was to come.
134For example, the elective wheel program. This program allows students like me to sample different classes and topics before having to decide what to focus on. Another example is the where we belong or web program which is meant for assisting the sixth graders in transitioning to a new school and curriculum. Programs like this show that the teachers at Rston care about people's emotions and struggles and try to help. These programs and others are only made possible by the resources of a big school. I think a solution to this dilemma would be to send fifth graders from Nesbbit and Sam Piper to their own middle schools since they are more familiar with their teachers. I don't think it is fair to send students from schools like Central to an unfamiliar and forced middle school that they didn't
135choose to go to. Thank you for listening to my opinions and I hope that you will listen to our voices and consider what is best for all students. I truly appreciate your commitment to our education and thank you for caring about our futures. Well, that's a tough act to follow. Um, so I'm here I have a fourth grader at Central Elementary and a seventh grader at Rston. And the reason that I wanted to speak today was I feel like there are some terms that we've been using that maybe different members of the community have different meanings associated with them. So first I want to discuss the status quo. Um generally status quo refers to the current way of doing things. And I understand that from a district perspective the middle school alignment and assignment process
136would remain the same. So what happens you know the families rank their choices the district applies an algorithm and students are assigned and receive their placements. So in that sense the process would not be changing. However if the underlying algorithm is adjusted in a way that reduces seats at rston and shifts students towards the smaller programs the outcomes for the families may change significantly. So from a parents perspective that doesn't feel like maintaining the status quo. If a student who would receive a different assignment under the revised system than they would under the current one, then the experience for the families has changed, even if the mechanics of the process have not. Um, the second term I want to address is choice. Um, so for many parents who are advocating for choice, particularly those of
137us at Central, what we're truly advocating for is maintaining seats at Rston. It's not that we don't know the smaller programs. We really want the large program for our students. The reason that we're framing it as choice is because it feels really cruel to advocate for closing a smaller school. And so we are kind of sidest stepping that by saying we want choice because we don't want to be cruel and close programs that are very beloved by their communities. Um at the heart of this conversation, we started talking about enrollment and declining enrollment. And it's just the reality of the BRSSD moving forward is not going to have the students to fill all of the seats at all three middle school programs and keep them full. And there's also not the demand to fill the
138seats at the smaller schools. So if you don't have the enrollment and you don't have the demand, the thing that makes the most sense, especially from a fiscal standpoint, would be to close one of the smaller schools. Thank you. so to speak directly. Okay. Okay. Wonderful. Good evening, member of the board. Can you hear me? Okay. My name is Iman Iscanary and I'm a very grateful parent of two children in BRSSD age 11 and 8. I want to begin by sincerely thank you for the time, the energy, and the care that you have been devoted to our district. Uh I know these decisions are not easy and I truly appreciate your commitment to our children. This is my first time involved with this student with school to this level. Our family choice uh chose a
139BRSSD because it feels like a community that sees children as individuals. The middle school choice-based system reflect that value. Giving families the opportunity to rank their preferences has allowed the students to find the environment when where they feel comfortable, supported and they can grow. Whether is Rston, San Piper or Nasbet, that sense of fit matters deeply, especially during the vulnerable transition to middle school. I still remember my dark days of middle school with all the hormonal changes and everything. I understand enrollment challenges require thoughtful solutions. At the same time, limiting or removing family choice through geographic assignment would feel like a significant loss for many families, including mine. It would change something that has built trust and stability in this district for years. uh before making a decision with longl lasting impact, I respectfully uh
140ask you to for more transparency to have more transparent a broader community u um outreach and conversations. Families want to be understand, want to understand, to participate and they want to feel heard. Uh my hope is that we can preserve the choicebased system while working together on sustainable solutions because at the heart of this conversation are our children's and the trust we place in the district to support them. Thank you for the time and listening to all of us. Thank you. Okay, next up, if we could have Valerie Gal, Aloysa Rodriguez, and Abby, Alana, and Elen. Hello. Good evening. Uh, my name is Valerie Gao and I've been the math grade the sorry I have been the eighth grade math algebra and science teacher at Sandpiper since 2019. I wanted to set the record straight
141about a couple of misinformation I heard today. I teach algebra 1 and there are accelerated honors options for math for all middle school levels at Sanpiper. We also actually happen to have culinary arts and strategy games as an elective. My point being, um, families and fifth graders clearly have no idea what our programs offer. And I think I know why. Um, I want to share an important concern. Um, outreach for our middle school programs has not been equal. Rston has student ambassadors presenting annually to elementary schools across the district. Sanpiper has not had the same opportunity and I'm not sure about Nesbbit. Um but both of them should have that opportunity. Student ambassadors make a huge difference when it comes to marketing and I know that because um as an eighth grade teacher I coordinate
142Carlmonts and DTEK presenters so that our students receive equal information about their high school options. They have student ambassadors that come and speak to our eighth graders. And DTEK, which is a smaller design thinking school, actually has a lottery in order to maintain fairness in their enrollment because so many people choose them. We model our school after DTEK. They have interessions. We have interessions. They have like block schedule. We have block schedule. We also model after Nova, too. It's a complicated thing, but yes, Sandpiper is really trying to do all that. Um, and so I really just want our middle schools to have that same equity, but they haven't. So, this decision has long-term and potentially permanent consequences. As elected officials, I respectfully ask for you to heir on the side of caution. maintain the
143status quo, maintain all three schools be open, maintain choice, because I think that if we actually have equitable outreach, you might be surprised at how many people will choose our smaller schools. Thank you. >> Anybody else? Hello, we are Elen, Abby, and Alana, fifth grade students at Central Elementary that would like to make a point as to why assigning us to schools without our choice is unfair and why we want to continue to have a say in what school we go to for middle school. >> The point of the school board is to make the best decisions on behalf of the school district, schools, and of course, students and staff members. We understand that some individuals like the idea of having a close by school, but as central students, we find it unfair that we
144could potentially be assigned schools that are not our first choice. It would most likely prevent the best education experience possible due to an environment that does not fit all students individually. Plus, all the individuals who advocate for assigned schools instead of shutting down Nesbbit Middle School or San Piper Middle School might want to make school systems more convenient for themselves. And they may be saying this without realizing how this could impact other schools. Students like us at Central might have had siblings or relatives who have gone to a certain school, making their families more familiar with the school and its operation system. The program has been working well for many years and has helped many kids get the proper education they need. Lots of kids will do well in a larger school while others do
145well in a small environment that provides a more tightbound community. Choosing our schools that we prefer uh prefer help us learn in a better environment for us. Being assigned to a middle school can not only affect learning but also day-to-day life. We have a petition that 94% of fifth graders at our school sign. This petition shows the urge we have to choose a learning environment that works best for us. >> Thank you for your time. We hope our message makes an impact and helps you make a decision. >> Hi, my name is Eloa. I'm part of Central Community. I was part of Redden Shores elementary community 10 years ago when the decision of opening two other middle schools were made. At the time the compromise was choice. I'm in here to tell you to embrace
146that compromise choice. You made that compromise 10 years ago to another community that's not even in here. Where is the choice? you know that you would embrace their choice to send their kids to to rston. Now my kids part of central and I'm still um affected by the lack of choice. So what I'm asking is just don't remove the choice. We still want to have the choice. Thank you. Okay. Next up, we have Christopher Trinit and Tina Sheen. Hello. Uh, thank you to the superintendent and the board for deliberating on this decision. I have multiple children at Central in uh, a fourth grader, a second grader, and a kinder on the way. Uh my simple statement is right now my kids are very excited to go to Ralston. They will be devastated if they're separated
147from the friends they have known for years through whatever formula is chosen to slot them somewhere. Uh they will start off with a negative impression immediately which is not a great way to start middle school if they are just separated from everything and all their friends that they have known for the several years. I do believe that this is a challenging decision and is probably a direct result of declining enrollment and the resulting decline in funding and I can only say that sometimes we need to make hard decisions otherwise the decisions become harder in the future. I don't believe forcing students to attend schools where their parents are not particularly interested in attending and this is inclusive of all three schools because if you force students to attend, whether it's Central students forced to attend
148somewhere else or the Sandpiper and Redwood Shores students being forced to attend somewhere else will ultimately result in more children leaving the district rather than kind of the existing enrollment picture. There does not appear to be a decision that will make all students or parents happy. uh other than probably the perfect status quo where we continue to have short enrollment. Um my position personally is to try to maintain the ability for my students to go to Rston because that keeps them where they know the community where we know the community where we have been multiple times and uh that is what I have to say. Thank you. Hi. Uh, my name is Hui Chen. I am a parent to a third grader at Central Elementary. Um, I just wanted to be here today because I
149wanted to make sure that people advocated for everybody, like the entire community. Um, I just found out about this uh middle school alignment issue uh in January when it kind of blew up. And then I did my research and I was watching all the old videos on YouTube and I realized that you know kids on both sides Nesbbit sip they really love this school and they make great student ambassadors. Um I started off not knowing anything about those schools. Rawson would have been the natural choice because you know it's a big comprehensive school but I can see that they produce uh excellent kids as well at you know St. Piper and Nesbbit very eloquent kids. Uh so really what I've also found out recently is that these programs have been they're very young. You know
150they've just invested a lot of effort into building their schools up and now we're not really giving them a chance to defend themselves. We have an enrollment problem. It's been going on for a while but this is not the year that we have to suddenly pull the rug out of anybody's like you know from anybody. They they could get another chance. I mean you see that parents are willing to work to promote their schools and and teachers are willing to do more work. They have identified solutions. I don't know if those solutions have already been considered uh in previous years. I have heard that you know there were some outreach. I don't know what they were. Um, so I'm just here to um basically put a vote for, you know, support the smaller schools, keep
151all three schools because we want a choice and we want to give the smaller schools a fair chance to really um, you know, do their best. I think this could be the start of like a multi-year conversation. It doesn't have to shut down like next month or after tonight. Uh, because now that the community is aware and involved, people are stepping up to do something about it. and we should give it a year, give it a go so that we can see what happens when more people come together to solve problems. Thank you. Uh good evening members of the board and superintendent. My name is Tina Shing. I am a parent in this school district with a children at was a kid at Ross Middle School and another one at Central Elementary School. I'm here
152to speak from the heart about why preserving school choice is important for our families and to ask you to prioritize these choices over force distributions based on geography. I want to begin to truly thanking you. I recognize um well I thought we probably have financial pressure in the long run the school district will face be facing. So I sincerely appreciate the hard work that you're doing to find optimal solution for all of us and we know our common goal is to provide the best possible outcome for every student in the community. As we look at the recent enrollment shift, the data is clear. BRSSD family deeply value diverse cultures and robust learning environment more than they value attending the school closest to their home. Therefore, I urge the board to continue investing in our students
153and teachers by supporting and strengthening these already wellestablished preferred programs rather than moving kids around to be the fillers for under enrolled schools just to make the spreadsheet look balanced. We all know that middle school is a critical window for social emotional development. When we provide students with diverse learning environment, they can find a supportive community of like-minded peers where they truly belong. By allowing our kids to explore and navigate through a broad spectrum of curriculum and elective choices, we're fostering them their developing passions and their independence, which they desperately need when they eventually go to Carmon. If we can keep all the school open as it is right now, go for it. I know everybody have their takes. But it looks like probably not because we do not want to be forced to be
154the filler to go to under enroll schools. So it's hard. But please make the difficult but necessary decision. consolidate and preserve the high quality schools that all BRCS student have the path have the path to succeed. Let's keep our community engaged by prioritizing student choices and investing in the programs that are already working. Thank you so much. Okay, next up we have Toto Ristoff, Yuna Kim, Antha, and Kathleen Cedloof. Hello, my name is Yuna and I think everyone should be able to choose their own middle school. Since third grade, I thought I was going to Rston since I play flute right now. I thought I could do band at Rston. But that all changed when my mom told me that I might be going to a different roll school that I was assigned to. I
155don't think anyone should be assigned to a middle school. If I get put into a different middle school just by where I'm living, I think I'll be very disappointed and mad because I thought you always had the freedom to choose your middle school that best supports you. If I am forced to go somewhere else that might not might do well in that middle school instead of making kids go somewhere where they don't want to. I think that you should also consider why people don't go there. Maybe it's because they don't want to. In that case, you should not force them to go there. You should let them have a choice where to go. Some people fit better where the middle school is big. So it' be like a bridge from elementary school to a high
156school. If I get put into a middle school that is even smaller than my elementary school, then I think I'll be very overwhelmed when I go to high school. This is why I think you should be able to choose your middle school that best fits for you. Thank you. Good. Hello. Good morning board me good evening board members and good evening everybody here. I'm Anita and I'm a fifth grader at Central Elementary School. I'm just here to say thank you for the opportunity to speak here in school. We are taught that if we follow the rules and work hard, good things will happen. We were told that when we got to fifth grade, we would get to choose our own middle school path. Now, it is already February and we're almost done with elementary school.
157Changing the rules right at the end doesn't feel fair. It feels like a rug is being pulled out from under us. We're old enough to understand that budgets are hard, but we're also old enough to know what we want for an o own education. Please don't solve the budget problem by taking away our choice. Please let us decide where we spend the next 3 years of our lives. Thank you. >> Hello members of the board, parents. My name is Todor. My wife and I are long-term longtime Belmont residents and we have two children in second and fifth grade at Central. First, of course, thank you for your time, service, and really thoughtful engagement on this very difficult decision. I recognize there's no perfect solution and I appreciate the care you're taking to consider the long-term
158future of our district. I believe your decision should be guided by two key principles. Preserving family choice, although not perfect as we heard, and maintaining continuity and predictability with long-standing district policy. Choice means different things to different families. Uh but at its core and no solution of course can uh satisfy every preference but at its core middle school choice means the ability to choose between a large comprehensive school and a smaller standalone school. Each offers district distinct benefits. Comprehensive schools provide broader electives and resources while smaller schools foster closer relationships and a stronger sense of community. Preserving this meaningful distinction allows one for a principled and sustainable path forward which is can be done by choosing one of the options two or three. This path is also the most uh fiscally responsible. For many years,
159families in our school districts have been able to choose Rson Middle School. That policy played a major role in our decision and many famil family's decisions to move to Belmont and invest in this community. We have all honored our part by putting down roots, volunteering, and supporting our schools year after year. Removing the choice now without sufficient time for families to adjust undermines predictability and trust. If a decision must be made now, I respectfully ask that you preserve choice and delay implementation until 2728 school year, giving families adequate time to plan and adjust. Finally, in conclusion, while closing one small middle school would be difficult, no doubt about that, it preserves genuine choice between a smaller and a comprehensive middle school rather than redirecting schools away from Rston simply to maintain enrollment across two smaller
160programs. I respectfully urge the board to preserve the ability for all the students to attend Rston if they choose. Thank you for your time, your service for our community. Thank you. Hello, my name is Kathleen Serloff and I'm a parent of two central students. I also would like to join the chorus of voices that you're hearing tonight encouraging you not to artificially limit enrollment at Rston to fill the smaller programs. Different kids do have different needs and the current system of allowing family input is really is the best option for placing kids where they're going to best succeed. The decision that you're making tonight has the potential to take this choice away from every single family in our district. And I know a lot of the discussion that you've heard today has been about people
161who want to go to Rston. Um but keeping post programs open and forcing enrollment to fill them would actually remove that choice from all families. Uh it's not just the kids who want to go to Rston that will be impacted. It's also really going to hurt the kids who really actually need that smaller environment in order to thrive, but who wouldn't be given that opportunity if choice is taken away. I'd also like to address the idea that the smaller programs are underenrolled due to a lack of marketing or awareness of their offerings. Our family and most of the other ones that I've talked to are very aware of what these smaller programs offer. We realize that they are fantastic programs. They're just not the right fit. And as a family, I have to say that
162we have actually considered Nesbbit as an option. Um my children are dual citizens and they have the opportunity to go to college in the European Union. And so the international balorate program at Nesbet was actually very interesting to us and ultimately as we weighed it we decided that it wasn't the right fit for us because we felt that the program wasn't enough of a trade-off for forgoing the opportunities like the diverse electives and the sports and the correct extracurricular and social things that they would get at rston. Today, when a family chooses a smaller program, they get to make a calculated decision on that trade-off, whether it's a whether it's worth it for them to be in a smaller, more personalized program versus the offerings of a comprehensive middle school. For the pro families who
163have made this choice proactively, the trade-off is worth it. But the fact is that for most families, that's not going to be true. It's that this is a critical decision with far-reaching impacts, and it should be a family choice. It shouldn't be a random assignment based on geography or a blackbox algorithm. And I do realize that today space constraints at rston mean that not every child is guaranteed their first choice. But if you deny that choice as space is available, it really does not serve anybody. As wonderful as these smaller programs are, we just have to admit that there's not enough demand to support multiple of them. Families have voiced their opinions in the most tangible way possible by picking other options. Last year, as we looked at the survey today, only 20 families picked
164each of the smaller programs as their first choice. That tells us that the demand just isn't there. If we combine the existing small programs into a single offering, we still get the choice of having the same options in the community. We have a large comprehensive program for the people that's the right fit and a smaller intimate program for the people that that's the right fit. The only difference is that the smaller program might not be in the the family's preferred location. Families in our district are willing to travel to a school that offers the best fit for them. You saw this again today when we found that 70% of the Sandpiper families chose Rstonster over Sandpiper despite the fact that it is extremely inconvenient. Please do the right thing. Allow family input and don't artificially
165enroll limit enrollment at the most desired location. Thank you. All right, if we could have Esther Chung Rohan and Song and Indu, hello uh board members and superintendent. My name is Esther Chung. I have a Rston 7th grader as well as a central third grader. Uh I wanted to comment on one of the options the board is considering which is keeping uh all three schools open which I view as the least equitable and the least uh fiscally long-term sustainable. Um this option would as I understand it would divert uh more 70 plus kids who would prefer to go to rston instead uh changing the assignment algorithm and assigning them to either Nesbbit or Sandpiper to preserve those two schools. uh essentially in my view that is eliminating choice for those 70 kids plus kids uh
166in favor of retaining choice for those kids who would choose uh the two smaller schools. Um I believe that's particularly uh inequitable because these the design program as well as the international balora program could be preserved at an existing middle school whereas the comprehensive nature uh program of rston cannot be replicated uh fundamentally um due to size. Uh, by way of example, my seventh grader has taken full advantage of the rston comprehensive program by participating in honors band, honors math, cross country, track, science fair, business fair, all of those opportunities that would not be available to my third grade central uh uh daughter if she were diverted to Nesbbit or Sanpiper. Um, in closing, I hope you take this perspective into consideration as you make your decision. Thank you. Okay. Uh there. Okay. Um yeah.
167Okay. Hello. Um my name is Rohan. I'm an 11year-old. I'm a fifth grade student at Central Elementary School. Thank you for letting me speak tonight. Um, I'm here to tell you tonight that I don't feel good about Okay. I don't feel um good about might not being able to go to Rston. I don't think it's all right to send people to schools that they do not want to go to or are not familiar with. A lot of fifth graders want to go to Rston for the sport opportunities that Stand by Brand don't offer. I personally would like to go to Rston because I want to do flag football in the fall. I my brother went to Rston so I know this school and what it offers and I might and knowing that I might not
168be able to experience what my brother did makes me feel sad. I think we should have the choice to choose where we're going to go to for the next three years of our lives. Thank you for your time. >> Uh good evenings members of the board. uh am a parent of a third grader and a kindergarten at Central. Uh so I'm here to speak in support of the central petition. Uh thank you for your time and effort and thoughtful study this district has put into the process. I understand that any decision in this situ situation is difficult and involves many tradeoffs. U maintaining three middle schools creates a real risk that central families may not be able to attend Rston Middle School. Many of us moved to Belmont because of the district's reputations for high
169quality education and ability for students to attend schools that best fit their needs. Uh if three schools are kept open, assign assignment decisions may be driven primary primarily by capacity and seat filling rather than the students and families preference. This is not what central families hope to see and it undermines the trust families place in the district when choosing to live here. So I respectfully suggest that the district consider closing one smaller school while investigate investing a resource to upgrade another into a more comprehensive school. This appro this approach would allow families to have more meaningful choice while also using district resources more effectively. I sincerely hope the district will prioritize and respect students first choice when making alignment decisions. Thank you for your time and consideration. Uh hi, my name is Rohan. Um and
170I thank I would like to thank the board to uh for giving me the opportunity to uh voice my opinion here. Uh so we've been my wife and I we um came to Belmont about 11 years ago, well before we had our first child. uh we now have two one is in uh elementary the other is going to be entering the public school system in the in the next year or two um I wanted to make two points uh here uh the first one being um what choice means right choice is multi-dimensional uh it's not about distance from the school it's not about just the size of the school these are all dimensions that uh factor into the choice right we heard a lot of parents speak earlier um uh one of the one of
171our fellow parents uh eloquently um advocated for considering smaller schools. I wasn't thinking about it that way previously, right? Uh could be about race as another parent uh highlighted as well. It could be about their parents unique uh family work uh situation. They may want their kids uh one in elementary and one in middle to be in the same school for pick up and drop off or whatever constraints they have. Right? So choice is not undimensional and algorithms do not get this right. Uh so I strongly uh recommend that we preserve choice. I think hearing a lot of parents speak here u a lot of these points that I'm making have come up in different context but I did want to specifically focus on what choice means and the district takes that into account that
172it's not uh it's not black and white it's not a very simple decision I as a parent um may have children with different personalities I may want my older kid to go to Rston but I may actually consider very strongly that my younger kid go to a smaller school right So it's not even uni-dimensional when it comes to a family. Right? So that's that's what I wanted to highlight here. The importance of choice. Uh the second uh point I want to make here is about the time uh that the two smaller schools have had to establish themselves. As one parent uh said earlier uh the first graduating um class of Sandpiper uh didn't get to do it in person, right? So in this eight or nine years or so less than a decade that the
173school has been around the first two or three years um partly were impacted by the pandemic and so on so forth in the field of education these these are very tiny amounts of time for a school to establish a brand to get the word out there. So what I would like to also um emphasize here is that it is harder for the small schools to have the same brand recognition awareness as Rston. So I would ask the board to also consider um getting the word out there uh promoting the smaller schools more giving them a little more time to flourish. Um and I come uh from a world of wood tech and marketing and startups and I understand that uh a small less than a decade period is not really long enough for companies or
174any sort of establishment to uh u become a permanent uh kind of uh establish and compete against something that has been there longer. Right? So kind of take all of that into account and I strongly would like to recommend that we preserve the choice uh across all three schools. Good evening board members. I'm a parent of a student at Ralston and my second one is currently in kindergarten. Having a child at Ralston has given me a clear understanding of the depth and breadth of opportunities that a larger middle school can provide. The range of academic pathways, clubs, arts, and athletic offerings create an environment where students are able to explore their interests, discover new passions, and build confidence. These experiences are foundational to a well-rounded education and to preparing our children for high school and
175beyond. I understand the concern about enrollment numbers at smaller schools and the desire to keep those campuses open. However, maintaining enrollment at those schools should not come at the expense of limiting opportunity for other students. Forcing families who prefer a larger school environment to attend a smaller one does not create equity. It shifts the burden onto a subset of families. The middle school choice process exists to provide flexibility and alignment with each child's needs and learning style. removing or significantly limiting that choice would undermine that principle. So I respectfully urge the board to retain the middle school choice process without reducing the number of available spots at rston so that the voices of parents who value the comprehensive educational experience at a larger school is also considered. Thank you for your time and consideration. Okay,
176next up we'll have AJ Singh, Shellene Singh, and Prim Singh. >> Uh, hello, my name is AJ Sing. I'm a fifth grader at Central Elementary School. Thank you for letting me speak tonight. Please do not take away our choice. I already missed an opportunity to go to uh to sorry uh I already missed an opportunity to go to kindergarten in person because of co. Please don't make me miss another opportunity by getting rid of choice. I love sports like soccer and I love music as well. Rston has those but Nesbbit and Sandpiper don't. My sister, dad, and uncle all went to Rston and had a great time. I was so excited to go to Rston, but I might not be able to if we do not preserve choice. Thank you for listening to me, and
177I hope you preserve choice. Thank you for letting me speak today. My name is Shelene Nancing. I'm AJ's mom. Um, and I also have an eighth grader at Rston. I spoke at the board meeting two weeks ago because about an hour before the meeting, we had learned uh that central students may be told to go to one of the smaller schools. And as painful it is to say this, I have so many friends in this room and I love this community and it breaks my heart for teachers as well. But if it helps to preserve choice, I mean, ideally, we could just keep the status quo, especially if budgeting isn't an issue right now. Uh, this decision just feels so rushed. Like I said, I know that emails had been coming out for a while,
178but it didn't really hit, I think, our community until two weeks ago. Um, so although I would like to say let's preserve the status quo, um, if it affects our students ability to decide which school that they go to, um, I would vote to maybe close one of the smaller middle schools. Sadly, we don't have Prem. Okay, so our final three speakers for tonight, Anna Palm Das, Alice Cryan, and Aparna. >> Hello, I'm Anupam Das. Uh I am a father of two kids. My older one is in third grade, Central Elementary, and a 4-year-old who who will enter um kindergarten very soon. So I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight and I want to start by acknowledging the difficult decision in front of you. Declining enrollment at two of our three
179middle schools is not a problem that will resolve itself and I appreciate that the board is taking proactive approach. I am I'm actually not here to tell you what option to choose but I do and I do understand the imperative to think about financial responsibility and I trust the board to weigh those considerations carefully. But I what I do want to emphasize this that if the board moved forwards forward with option two or option three with consolidating two of the schools into one, it's critical that the remaining K8 school adopts the programming and strength that has made Rostston Middle successful. Uh strong electives, comparative uh sports programs and a structure that genuinely prepares students for the for the high school transition. And if we if we consolidate and change nothing about the programming, we are
180simply moving forward with the same problem same same problem of two schools into one, the enrollment will continue to decline because families will just choose to seek seek out schools that offer middle schoolers a real middle school experience. So whichever option this board selects, I ask it comes with commitment uh commitment of not just if fiscally responsible but also to invest in kind of programming that keeps family keeps our families choosing these schools. Consolidating without improvement is just a slower path to the same outcome. Thank you. >> Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the board today. I'm a parent at Central Elementary and I have a fourth grader and a kindergartener who will both be uh entering middle school in the coming years. I'm here to uh request you to retain
181choice, specifically the option for families to choose a middle school and not be assigned to a school geographically. If assignments become strictly geographic, the central community will be split. When you look at the families that are represented today here, you see Nesbbit, Sandpiper, and Central. you see specific neighborhoods. Drawing boundary lines further will not simply just assign schools. It'll divide established communities. As we know, when communities are divided, we have inequities that follow them. For families like mine, choice is not about preference for preference sake. It's about an opportunity. Larger middle schools are able to offer more electives, more robust sports programs, and stronger math pathways. For some students, that means music, art, or leadership programs. For others, it means competitive athletics or access to accelerated math and STEM programs that keep them challenged and
182inspired. These options are not extras. They are the very things that help middle schoolers find belonging and purpose during a formative time. Transportation is another thing. While one school may be a fraction of a mile closer on a walking map, families like mine depend upon established bus routes, after school sports activities, and predictable schedules that all the Charleston provides. My uh my kid when she reaches middle school can walk to her bus stop which is 0.1 mile away but Nesbet or Nesbbit might be just like a m one or 2 miles closer than Rston on the walking map. I find this uh kind of difficult while doing school assignments choice may unintentionally also limit participation and programs that my child might be interested to attend. So, uh, I'm here to say that equity should not
183mean limiting options. True equity is ensuring every family, regardless where we live, have meaningful access to opportunity and the ability to choose the environment that best supports our child. I I'm here to request you to preserve middle school choice so families can remain connected to the communities while also selecting the programs that their child will thrive in. Thank you. Hi, my name is Alice Cryan. I am a student at Central Elementary School. I am a fifth grader. Um, I am not here to support a single middle school. Mostly because I hardly know anything about my options. Personally, I feel like if we marketed these schools like better, we would understand exactly what we're signing up for. Let us say, for example, I really wanted to study art and one of those schools was actually a
184really good option for me. I wouldn't know that and I'd be flung into another school, an arena if you will, that I didn't know was going to happen. I didn't understand anything that was going to, you know, what to expect. And then I only find out, hey, this other school would have been a really great fit for me, and I can't make that choice. So is my request that you not only keep choice but find a way to explain to us why we should be choosing these schools instead of Rston which is a really famous one or one that's just outside the district cuz those are better like shown to us so we know why we should be going to them. Um, and I would, even if you do choose assigned schools, I would still
185like for us to learn about our options because there's almost nothing worse than being flung into a place that you have absolutely no idea what's going to happen next, why you're supposed to be here, and what your tools are for coping, what's going to go wrong. So, thank you for listening to me and >> that concludes our public comment. President CS, >> that was the perfect speaker to end on. Thank you very much. Amazing. So let me just outline a little bit about the next steps both for the board and for the public. So this is now to discuss the board deliberation and decision process. So I think it would be great to take a preliminary poll or idea from each trustee um to kind of see where we are at the beginning stage asking
186each trustee to share their their thinking in an opening statement or remark. Um of course please feel free to pass if you'd like to kind of not do that or say as much as you would like at this stage. Um afterwards um if we feel that a majority supports a specific direction then we will proceed with a a motion to to talk about that and vote u and then we will have uh if somebody it a discussion on that motion. If there is no majority, we will continue discussion and repeat the poll until there is a majority and the board can prepare to take an action. So that going forward, the last time we we we we started with this side and I want to just make sure that we give equal voice. Um I
187know our board is very congenial and we allow ourselves the time to hear each other. That's one of the things I value about this board. Please just continue to keep that in mind as we kind of as Superintendent Duire says come to a consensus about the very the the best path forward for our district. So with that um I wanted to start on this end and give the opportunity uh to to Jackie and April to uh Trusty Bruno Trusty Northrep to kind of start off if you'd like with any opening thoughts statement however you want to take it. Thank you for that. Um, very thoughtful. Um, I don't know that I I thought I had some some I had lots of thoughts coming into this beauty. Um, I have done a lot of tried to
188do a lot of like deep listening. Um, considering soul searching um comments have always helped. So just like as you say that we we've got lots of them. We're hearing them. Um and I still far as if the question is where I stand like I still have some questions like I do want to know what three years from today looks like and I think in a very real way people have talked about time or commitments or what's happening if you know hearing from second or third graders parents who are wondering what does this look like for me? Um there's obviously clear concerns around what the process will look like choice placement what's allowed and um yeah I'm looking forward to this conversation because I think that'll help me lock in when I think about options
189um my current stance on on on option one is I would need to understand what like pure commitment or improvement as far as like where we are now and why we're having this series of conversations is what what does it look like to rebound and again I have some specific questions about what that looks like before I could like genuinely lean into that one I think um and then um yeah I'm excited to hear our conversation relative to others uh I'll say right now just for my own thought and I don't know process is going to later. I don't know that anyone's talking about or considering option four, so I haven't really thought about it at all. Um, yeah. So, that's that's where I am right now. I do Yeah, I'm excited to hear more.
190I've got some specific kind of things I need to hear crystallize in my head, and I'm hoping that the next hour or so does that. >> Okay, great. Tristine North, >> thank you. Um yeah, thank you so much to the community for coming out tonight um and the uh previous nights. Um I guess um some of my some of my initial thoughts um is that I really really appreciated um your comments and your ideas, right? We have a wealth of knowledge and talent in this in this area. We're very lucky to have that and um I do really appreciate you sharing that with us. Um I um I would uh I know some parents have asked us to delay a decision. Um I I I'm in favor of making a decision tonight, but I want
191us to continue the conversation with the community. When we're thinking about what will things look like in a few years, that's where we need the community to help us with that as well. And I think more uh specifics on financials um as time goes on um may be something that we want to consider. I think right now for our finances um it doesn't seem like an emergency. Um, so we may feel like we don't need to uh make a decision. However, I think um we do need to use the best information that we have available um and try our best and we might get it wrong to make a decision for the next uh few years. Um so again I think this is a I think this is a larger conversation um right enrollment uh
192may go up in the future um right now it's not projected to um but I think this is becomes part of the community conversation of what do we want from our schools um and I totally re uh respect everybody's viewpoint points. Um, I was just imagining of like how um how complicated it would be if we let everybody in the district pick their elementary school, right? Like we we don't do that and we haven't really heard um parents saying that of I just because I live in this district, I should get to pick exactly which elementary school. Um, so I totally do not want to uh require people to go to a middle school uh for next year that uh is not um what their preference is. But I really think it is a conversation
193for us to consider about just like with our elementary schools that we as a board can say that all of our elementary schools provide you a wonderful elementary education and that there's no real reason for one parent to want one elementary school over another. that we should be able to say that about the middle schools as well. And until we can say that all of the middle schools do provide what families want and are providing the great education. um then I think geography and even your preference are are leaving out the most vulnerable families among us. Right. uh some of and I'll try to wrap up very quickly and I know I've moved on to another thing but part of part of the information that uh superintendent Duara has shared with us is things like
194you know out of the 440 families 400 families chose this and etc etc. there's a certain number of families who don't return the survey and the district reaches out to them and tries to see what their preference is. Right? But why? Because if your parent is able to, you know, check email during the day at their job and they're able to reply to a survey, why should that mean that they have that student has the access to the best education? whereas another parent who maybe is not on email for their job every day, they don't know. So anyway, I just I think it is a larger conversation and I think geography and even choice are not necessarily uh the most equitable outcomes for all of our students. >> Sure. >> All right. I'd like to
195echo what Trustee Northup was saying about um just the gratitude. Thank you so much for engaging. Thank you for so much for coming out and thank you so much for caring. Um it's been a hard couple of weeks and I've had a lot of conversations with many of you and I've had people ask me, Shelly, what are you going to vote? What is it that you want to know? What do you what what what decision are you going to make? And honestly, I'm not allowed to talk with these people outside of this room here right now about this topic. And I am just really looking forward to being able to hash out this stuff with people who actually have all the information. I speak with one group, they know what they know. I speak with
196another group, they know what they know. But no one really has this giant stack of feedback. They don't have access to Dan to talk. They don't have access to Reese to talk. They don't have access to Ching Pay. We We I mean I look forward to you guys. Look forward to the conversation. Want to save time and let Ann talk. I just got really nervous. >> Um yes. Thank you to all of you for coming out. to everyone who's been to any of the meetings, to anyone who sent feedback in, who reached out directly to schedule meetings. I think it really shows um what a great community we have here that we can all come together and have different opinions but still all be very respectful. So, I thank you all for that. Um, I
197think as far as the decision, the choices that we have here, the options that we have, um, after going through all of the information, kind of digging into more information, I think there are still some questions that I have, um, I think there are some important things that we didn't look at. Um, one of those being um, you know, things are changing and they're changing very rapidly. Um, things are changing as far as like jobs, right? And how people do their jobs and the skills that are needed that are going to be needed in the future for these future jobs. I think that's something that we didn't talk about. Um and I think it's really important as we um you know go see this shift happening we should align our education with what is going
198to be needed in the future so that our future generations can be successful. So I think we should look at that um and then we should look at how our programs align to those needs and and those skills that are going to be desired in the future. Um, as far as like where I am, where I stand, I would like to um I would like to see us go with option one. I would like to go with option one and keep all of the programs open. I would like to >> Thank you. I I would like to also preserve choice. Um, as Trusty Northrup pointed out, uh, we are not in a financial emergency. Um, after learning more about the cost savings, it really won't be realized in until several years down the road. Um,
199and I just don't think that that warrants closing a school. So, that's where I stand. Great. Thank you. Yeah. So, I again I want to thank everyone with this process, my fellow board trustees. I personally um I found it um amazing to be able to meet with you to read your feedback to see the ideas that were presented and it gave me um contemplation and I've spent a lot of hours and and as I as I should right this is an important decision and I'm trying to best represent what um the district um is kind of telling us telling me. Um, so I wanted to kind of frame that because there is I wanted to also acknowledge and again I'm using notes because it sounded eloquent in my head but I know that if I
200I don't have anything written down it won't be. So there is no perfect answer here as we kind of said and it involves trade-offs and so again we appreciate the trust of our community that places in us. At the same time, our role as trustees is to definitely evaluate decisions through a governance lens grounded in objective data, long-term sustainability, equitable access, responsible stewardship. I come from a background um where I find that framing it in that way is very important. So, I'm going to be a little bit more uh kind of straightforward with what I'm thinking, which is I after the deliberation contemplation, I don't think that option one maintaining the status quo is in the best interest of the of the district. Um the reality is unfortunately that this that the landscape around us
201is changing. This has been brought to our attention, has been monitored by the district. I wholeheartedly have challenged the district. I've investigated and I found that through the demographer starting five years ago, district enrollment is declining. We are operating more middle school capacity than our current and projected enrollment. I have no reason to doubt the demographers report. From what I have read, both smaller middle school programs have consistently remained underenrolled since their opening and unfortunately have never reached full capacity despite efforts outreach and awareness public relations to the best of the ability of the district and enrollment utilization has always always ranged from 70% to 79% as the data has shown and that over the years has remained stable rather than temporary. Um we do have clear school choice data. Um each year fifth grade
202families rank their middle school preference and approximately 90% select rston and there is a consistent weight list. Having read feedback I firmly believe families have done with that choice with thoughtful deliberation as to the best fit for their family at the time. and enrollment at the smaller programs have been sustained in large part through assigned placement rather than voluntary family selection raising important questions certainly that we have to discuss about whether we are preserving authentic choice or redistributing students to satisfy open seats. A lot has been talked about with about fiscal standpoint and and I would just say that while projections show that we can close the structural deficit, no one has a crystal ball and while CBO Matsumoto's projections are conservative, as I'm glad he is from a fiscal standpoint, I think it is
203about opportunity cost and about making sure that other the district has the resources it needs when it needs it and the flexibility. So, it's about where can that resources where can that savings be be redistributed. Um, and maintaining multiple underenrolled programs is not the most responsible use of district resources in my opinion, especially as we approach declining enrollment. Ultimately, sustaining two small middle school programs draws from the same limited pool of students and has never resulted yet in reaching the scale unfortunately needed to fully thrive. So, consolidating allows us to preserve a strong small school model alongside a comprehensive one, hopefully maintaining choice while restoring program strength of the one that remains. I will um not proceed further until we have a discussion, but I do not think option one uh is in the best
204interest of the district at this time. Um go ahead. Well, so I think uh going forward now before I get is um to to have a motion out there and then we have a conversation around that that is that sorry I just want to make sure we're following the book. >> I think you can go either way. I think the board is craving discussion. >> Yeah, you want to we can have a discussion >> open discussion before. >> Fine. >> Thank you. Um before I go into discussion things, I just wanted to clarify. Um Mr. Matsumoto, if you can help me clarify, we are a basic aid district. Correct. >> That's correct. >> And as a basic aid district, do we depend on attendance for our funding? >> No, we do not. Um ultimately uh
205as of right now even if our enrollment moves slightly up or slightly down the amount of funding that we get does not change. Um the only reason that would change is if we got a crazy high influx of students that would push us into the other funding model known as local control funding formula which means you're basically funded by the state. >> Okay. And so, so right now, I know a lot of you, I'm so sorry, have done a lot of research on our district website. And I think that piece of information, we just recently switched to basic aid, right? >> We switched originally in 2223, but we've kind of been flipping back and forth with the way that supplemental taxes work. That's the long story short. >> Okay. So, just to put that out
206there, the enrollment does not impact our funding, correct? at the moment as >> I would also like to point out though that because our funding stays relatively still you know a decrease in students as what our demographer is projecting does not necessarily mean a bad thing it means that there is more money for less kits correct so in that case the per pupil funding would increase >> got it thank you um all right so I wanted to talk with you guys. Um, and yes, >> just to make sure I'm understanding it, enrollment, and this is maybe for you, enrollment does impact staffing or does not? >> Uh, yes. So, we staff according to our contract. Um, we have a a student teacher ratio um that we target depending on uh differing grade levels. uh and
207we uh work to to meet those targets. Um and that helps us um balance over time and ensure that uh we're able to continue to offer the extra things that we do offer uh with our with our community partners. Um we are offering counselors at all of our schools. That is not a standard practice. We are offering reading and science teachers at our schools. That is not a standard practice. We are offering PE supports at many of our schools. That is not a standard practice. So my worry is when we're looking at a deficit uh that we are and yes uh we are doing our best to look into the crystal ball plan and see that aligning. Um there are times of volatility. if something changes and we need flexibility, we may not have that
208flexibility. So, um over the next few years, we are looking at ways that we're reducing to make sure that we're meeting those targets. And it's a it's a balance of tradeoffs. Uh there's many things that we um might want to consider adding. We've talked about additional instructional supports. Uh we've talked about additional maintenance staff to help with with grounds. Um those things uh independent of this decision, we've put a hold on. Uh we know that we um we have engaged with in successful negotiations with our teachers and our labor partners. Um, and we've been able to attract and retain high quality staff. Ensuring that we're able to continue to do that over the time while getting our $4.8 million deficit in check is something that we have to balance. So, when we talk about tradeoffs,
209those are the things that we're navigating. It is um this this would be one of those things that add into the larger pot. Can we do it? Sure. Um, can we do everything? No. >> I think I was answering I was asking a simpler question. >> Sorry. >> No. Yeah. I mean, that was thorough. But, uh, we're having this conversation be like if we're talking about in any of our options like one of the concerns is is feeling like we need to add students at a site, >> right? >> Minus all of the extras. Is that because at a certain lower number you couldn't have this a certain amount of teachers? Like would we lose teachers if we're at a 100 students at a site? >> Uh so the small middle school models require a
210minimum number of teachers. >> There we go. >> Yeah, I'll stop. >> So attendance doesn't impact funding, but attendance does impact staffing in the sense we might lose teachers as part of this decision. Maybe. >> Uh no. No. >> Again, I need you to answer that. Yeah. >> Yeah. So, uh, the middle school mo small middle school model requires, uh, seven teachers, a minimum of seven teachers, just the way that it's staffed. >> Yes. Okay. >> And we would stay at seven no matter how small that goes. >> Correct. Correct. That could dwindle to 10 kids per grade, and we'd still need seven teachers. So can I ask this is a follow up and then would you like to go first? No. Okay. So in terms of program sustainability from your experience I'm including CBO
211as well Matsumoto you mentioned that you know it can go down to to 10 but I would imagine that at some level we when we kind of talk about the experience for the teachers you know I think teachers are passionate and they want to obviously affect and and and teach as many students as possible. So at some point, you know, it's it's not you have to determine like, okay, what is what is that number? Now, in the past, you've said the number that you were trying to reach for any of the smaller schools is roughly 50 per grade. Um, so is does 10 make an enjoyable experience um both from a student standpoint, a teacher standpoint, and also uh the staff to kind of make it an enriching program? Because with the way I think
212about it is it's not just fiscal and and to some degree it's it it is program sustainability you know what are you offering but I also think it's about the general holistic experience about what is the student going there and are they just surrounded by five peers or 10 peers or is it is it are we trying to uh make you know a program and and so that that's what I'm throwing out there that I don't feel that you want a program with so few students if you can't build it up >> if I could. Yeah. Uh >> yeah, >> there's a lot of values that go into that. Um you uh as a parent, as an educator, you might value the opportunity to have collaborative experiences with multiple kiddos um in different times interact
213with more adults. Um, conversely, uh, you might value that one-to-one instruction and say, you know, as a parent, if my my kiddo was in a class with just the teacher, that'd be optimal. Um, there's a whole range of opinions and beliefs, I think, around education. We, um, as part of our outreach, we have been saying that there's three great programs and one great fit. Um, I want to pause on that three great programs because I think some of our conversations take away from uh the greatness of each one of those programs. Uh, full stop. Um, I have I would have confidence sending my children to any one of those programs. Right. So, um, we do offer three amazing programs that are high quality that shows our kids are prepared for high school. Uh, and I
214think that's important to to note. Uh, but there's one one fit and um, you know, the fact that more people are choosing um, Rston versus staying at San Piper or Nesbbit. Um, if we honor that fit, it's not necessarily um, a knock or a negative um, on the program. We're looking at individual kids. >> I'm sorry. I just want to challenge Dan the one right fit um response because as we've heard from commenters over the course of our town hall meetings we know that we've heard from families who their number one choice was rston and their child was enrolled in Sam Piper and Sam Piper was the best fit even though had they gone to Rston they would have thought that was the best fit. So I really I don't know that I agree with
215the one right fit because people have gone to their not first choice which then technically they would say was not the right fit and found that it was it was the right fit. So >> fair enough. >> Um thank you guys. Um, I just wanted to ask CB Matsumoto more questions. Thank you. Um, so from what I hear, the main opposition to option one for our community is the lack of being able to choose which school you want to go to. I also hear the reasons for their the large swaying of choosing Rston over the other two is a lack of comparable um academics, sports, electives, band, etc. Right? And I I wonder right we have a task force of parents that is that are very very motivated to try and help us build up
216Sandpiper Nesbbit reputations right because they are young programs overall big picture they're very young they're we say that they're 10 years old they're not really 10 we had a funny pandemic in the middle um so my question for you is is it possible financially to absorb the financial hit if we decide to keep things asis as in like asis people pick where they want to go they get to go where they want to go and we have small low enrollment in sandpaper we have low enrollment at nesfit can we absorb that financial hit for like say two three years while our parents focus on really trying to pull that enrollment in before we start saying, "Hey, you aren't allowed to go to Rustin. Hey, you aren't we got we've got to like rebalance everything." Is
217is that is that possible or will we go into dire financial straits? >> So, to answer your question, I'll give you a short answer and a long answer. The the short answer is yes, we can absorb the hit. The long answer is again there are trade-offs, right? So, you know, ultimately we're planning to close this gap over call it fiveish years, right? Um, the way I would think about it, right, is if you're landing an airplane on a runway, right? You know, potential cost savings widens the runway, less cost savings makes the runway narrower, right? A landing is still possible either way, right? But just one is a little bit more difficult. Ultimately, as Superintendent Duo was alluding to, right? You know, right now when we think about right sizing our budget, right? You know,
218given the constraints we have, right, we we start to trim things that make sense, things that are lowhanging fruit, right? Eventually, we're going to come to a spot where we may have to make tougher decisions, right? And as Superintendent Duara alluded to, right, ultimately those tougher decisions end up being like kind of what are supplemental additional supports to our schools, right? um like superintendent Duo said like maybe it's u as the amount of diversity of some electives or maybe it's as much counseling support as we currently have at all sites right there are true tradeoffs in the long run for any of the these decisions that we make right now right so ultimately I'll say like you know in the short term we can take a look at the amount of money that it might
219cost to preserve for a year or two and say okay in the grand scheme of things that's ultimately not a lot of money but you know it it builds up, right? Because um let's just say there's a dollar that you take away today, right? A dollar today is a dollar next year is a dollar next year is a dollar next year, right? That that continues to add up over time. It's not just, oh, if I get rid of a dollar today, it's equal just $1, right? The sooner you make actions in the long run, it kind of ends up being like a long cascading effect of savings. Does that make sense? Um, thank you. Um, >> a question, Shel, just Sure. kind of >> get get a little more of a dialogue going. So, I
220think um the power of referral and is is huge. So you you were talking about the last meeting about the you know the the the power of of of parents you know putting out the word bringing raising the awareness and outreach. I would love that to happen. Here is my my thought is that is that the parents again you're kind of like you're minimizing the 90% of parents who have made thoughtful decisions. We have received written feedback from Nesbbit families and San Piper Redwood Shores families that have been fully aware and have applauded the middle school programs and have said it's still not the best fit for their families and they have chosen uh to go to Rston. Right. So there's been nine years of data and so I'm wondering what do you feel and
221so back sorry to my other point is that I know lots of people who have been extremely happy I mean I'm happy with the programs so they're happy and their kids are going in the programs but yet it's a personal decision by families families have been making that for for nine years so to get we have been also artificially placing kids luckily the su the district has done it with mostly granting first choice of the current fifth graders and but certainly transfer in students have not been as as lucky or fortunate to get their first choice right thus the 30% weight list so my question is is I don't see unfortunately even with all the amazing ideas that I've heard that this there's going to be sustainability or to to ramp that up that what
222is going to that. You're not ramping it up just like 10. You're ramping it up like 27. What was the stats? Like 20 21 students at Nesbbit and 22 students at San Piper were the first choice of fifth graders. Uh basically 5% 5% of those who responded to the survey. So we need that that that that's that's unsustainable numbers to make a successful program. And I would think also if I from the children's point of view that those who have selected, I'm very happy for them. They're finding their fit, but we don't want to then move students in to to prop that up while we're hoping that the numbers are going to go up. >> But that was what my question was. Do we have to throw people in there to prop that up? Right?
223Is it possible to allow for that choice for a flexible 2, three years, right? to enable us to try and build that up organically. And I do think that there is a lot of validity to parents and children who really truly don't understand our middle school programs. Like I said last time, I am an I am an extremely active parent. I'm an extremely active parent. I live at San Piper. You know, you check those log. I I am there every day. I don't know what goes on at that school. >> Jack, sorry. I don't want to cut you off. Okay. >> No, no, please. I didn't mean to cut you off. >> It's okay. It's okay. >> Jackie, please. >> I think my comment I'm um this is one of the questions I came in
224wondering and I got any clarity on. Are are we talking about in this in this scenario, are we talking about complete choice? >> Yeah. And I and I and I get it right. Open choice in a district where you have declining enrollment is shooting yourself in the foot. Unless unless you have comparable academics, unless you have a plan for fluctuating student preferences, >> I'm not Yeah, this I'm not actually trying to make a point as I ask this question. I want I want to I want to consider it as I think about it. But we're saying even for people who are there like is it possible that a school either one that is at low enrollment in this scenario would actually drop >> no >> four years because to the numbers at whatever wherever written
225there are people there right now >> like our current operation while we are proud of I'm being generous with we're proud of giving most people refresh the fact is there are some now who don't and in a in a scenario where we say let's I I don't I don't say the right word, but let's highlight what it would look like to grow people saying yes, which I love that concept. Like I would like one of my questions like how do we get that? That would be a even by nature of the work we've done for the last few months there actually would be a dip first, right? And we would just >> go below go closer to 100 for a few years and and be okay. >> That was my question, right? Can we do
226that? And the thing is, I think when, and I was not on the board at the time, but I've talked with board members that were on the board at the time. Um, the the idea is that these schools that we have, these small schools become organic parts of our neighborhood >> and that they are good and that people want to go there and people have a lottery to get in, right? These are places people fight for because a small school there's so much research around small schools being good for good for um academics, for long-term health, for mental stability, having a trusted a trusted adult in your life that's not your parent, right? It's that there are real benefits to having a small school, right? And I hesitate to say, "Wow, we're going to go
227and close this school down after just 10 years. We invested millions and millions of our taxpayer dollars into building these schools and to just take them away when they haven't really I don't really feel they've had a chance to reach maturity. You can say hey 10 years is a good amount of time. It's a lot. But honestly, people were saying their fifth grader started this this year's they started in COVID. >> Yeah. >> Right. They started in kindergarten. They had multiple years of not actually being in school. And that's the same for our middle schools. They had multiple years of teaching online. And we have these information nights where they did it online and it's different. I went to Nesbbit. I saw um I saw their students present on their on their their projects and
228their sustainability things. I saw their presentations. I went to Sandpiper. I saw our science labs. I saw people doing really interesting things and it makes you go, "Huh, this is a really excellent option." And it's not really an option that many parents get to see because we don't do those in-person info sessions where the children can show them this is what we do and the children can't talk to other children who say, "Oh, this is what we do. Maybe you might like this as well." And that that's just my question. I >> I don't know that we are. Yeah. >> I I'm not speaking against what you're suggesting, but I have there's whatever mental friction like one of them being if we were to whatever keep going down this path and the with the idea
229that it's like a a three-year project to say like move forward and keep going. I'm I'm and and I'm actually in that boat with a fourth grader. If I wanted that school to continue, but you tell me we're gonna check it out in three years, I would sure leave my sixth grader there. But if I had a fourth grader, I would go to stability, right? Like you might lose people who would want it if what you say is no >> in three years we might close it. >> So in [clears throat] stored there, you know, I >> I think in my world it's not if we decide to go with optin and like I've said, I am really unsure which way to go. I am just trying to really flesh out this option before going
230to the nuclear bomb. Let's shut it down. Right? If we are going to go and explore option one, I would say, hey, you know, we need to and we as a board, we need to be 100% fully committed to supporting option one. If we're going to go option one, it's going to be option one for 10 10 15 years. >> We agree like three years. No. Yeah. Here you go. >> I I I am not on board with option one and we're gonna Oh, we're going to revisit in five years. That's that I don't think that works, right? And so, but I would say the enrollment bit though, that would be something for the community to know about. Like, if we can't get our enrollment up, if we can't get the people in there, then
231that's when we would have to start exploring geographical filling of this place. But which thus the question, can we absorb the financial hit? I think also the question is to your point is and what Jackie was saying is is if if you put a timeline and I'm not you know but I mean I think one needs to be put we there's been a a track record of 10 years right so I'm just playing I'm doing the devil's advocate because my question is is is trusty Bruno is right in that a parent needs stability of knowing what what is forward And regardless of the year, if they're not sure, if there's an uncertainty, they might say, "Oh, they're going to calculate this is what the board, you know, did." And and so they need certainty that
232those middle schools are going to be options for that period of time. >> But that's what I'm saying, they would have those if if like I said, if we go option one, it must be there. There's there I I don't think we can leave this meeting tonight and have ambiguity. I don't think that's fair to the the parents. I don't think it's fair to the kids. I don't feel feel like it's fair to anyone, right? We need to have that option. And if we go option one, the what we would be saying is we are going to have three middle schools in this strict this in this district for the long foreseeable future. Right? That's that's what we would be saying if we Hey, I haven't decided on that yet. Do us. >> But that
233that's what we would need to say, right? We would not be able to >> Sorry. We would not be able to say, "Hey, we're going to take this away in three years." What I am saying though is that if we do decide to go with option one, we need to have a plan for if enrollment doesn't work. If our district advisory committee is not able to pull enough pull enough students together that want to support these schools, we would need to have a plan for maybe some kind of geographical waiting. However, at that point, people will know that this is a thing, right? The there will have been plenty of plenty of forewarning. Oh, enrollment's still not doing good. It's still not doing good. People who want to go to private schools can go apply
234to private schools. If people want to go do um want to go move to Belmont to live in live next door to Wilson, they can go do that. But there is an expectation and an understanding that this is what would happen in x number of years time so that people have sufficient ability to plan. >> Thank you. Um I totally I totally relate to that of um you know all the families wanting um stability and I think um I think that's totally reasonable um and parents have been operating under um what we have been doing um for the last few years. And so it's uh I think it's totally reasonable to whatever we we decide to be like okay we're we're going to be committed to it. Um, I think the way we do that
235we could not literally do tonight. Uh, we would have to change board policy because my understanding of it right now is that our board policy says that we have an algorithm for elementary school and for middle school that there will be a survey sent out and etc etc. And um so I'm I'm totally open to that. Um and I'm totally I totally think we should make a decision tonight. Um but I think just for the long term, we can't uh we can't enshrine that tonight un unless we put it in board policy. And the way we do board policy, we have to like bring it up, have it be on the agenda already, talk about it, and then adopt it the next time. >> Question around board policy if it's maintaining how we populate our
236schools right now or enroll our schools right now, why would that be a change? Um, so I was trying to find it on the website. That's that's uh you know note to note to everyone as um we need to work on our website um but um and that's not a surprise to anybody but um I wasn't able to find it while during the meeting um but I believe that the policy says right now you know there will be a survey given out in fifth grade etc etc we will like try our best to honor people's choices if you enroll in the subsequent enrollment periods etc. However, I my understanding is that that does not specifically say you are not going to fill spots >> somewhere. Yeah. >> Um Director East, would you like to come
237up please? Can you just tell everybody who you are? >> I'm Julie Eastburn, director of human resources. Um, and administrative services. Um, what you're saying is true. I just want to make it clear that there we do not use the algorithm for middle school. >> Yeah. >> Only for TK five. So, just to set the record straight, >> the the um algorithm for the elementary is you're you're guaranteed one of your two closest schools. If you don't receive that, you go on a priority transfer. When we think of only three middle schools uh at geographically strategic places in the district, um you really can't do that proportionately, right? So, u that's that's the dilemma. Uh our board policy does allow us uh to fill spaces. Um we've um quite [clears throat] frankly, we've been working
238to build our middle school programs. Um and uh uh while we've been doing that, we've been exercising flexibility um by uh keeping uh numbers at Rston. Um, and that's really the dilemma is is um making sure that we're staffing accordingly. We're not doing that right now. >> So, sorry. Um, so, and I know this is getting in the weeds. I'll try to I'll try to wrap it up. Um, but also kind of kind of broaden it. Um, right. We we as a board have to approve a budget every year. Right now or this year, this school year, we can't approve the budget for next year. Like we legally cannot. That's we we can't we can't, right? We can't we we will approve the budget in May or June for the following school year. We cannot
239approve the budget for the following school year at this time. So I'm just saying that we as a board the way that we make a lasting change is we have to change the board policy. If we just say uh you know we're giving direction to the superintendent to do something that is only uh valid for as long as this board remains and as soon as there are other people on the board they can change it by just saying we want new direction. So it's like the board policy is us enshrining what we want to do. So to to clarify what you're saying is if we were to go down this path that I am making up in my head that that um we would need to say hey Dan I want to create a board
240policy that says in 2031 or whatever we will or not 2031 it' be two 2028 we would go and re-evaluate our enrollment numbers and decide whether or not we are going to fill put butts and seats based on some algorithm. Is that right? >> So, so board policy se uh sets district direction administrative regulations talk about how the district will go about uh fulfilling that. I think what trustee Northrup is is sharing that u in order to provide clarity for everyone on process, it's best codified in a board policy um that is public uh that extends past this board. Um and another board would u have the right to change that um but codifying it. >> Can I make this really specific? You're in a current practice for middle schools. you do a survey and
241then to do whatever it is you need to do for enrollment you in in the past we've done great by offering first choice but that's not always the case so pivoting to either giving less choice or more choice is I think actually well within our abilities under the policy >> yes I believe it is >> right >> yes >> which and also is what you do every year is you toggle that which >> more or less choice on autopilot. >> And then my other clarifier which I don't think diverges too far is in options two and three you would be doing the same thing maybe. >> Uh so I think >> talked about option one you'd build a school. So my my recommendation and uh a little bit outside of my recommendation, more of the
242practice that I would encourage us to look at is honestly from the perspective of running two underenrolled schools um that anecdotally perhaps are competing for a pot of kiddos that want a small school >> um is hard. So, so my my advocacy, my piece is I think when you narrow it to one school. >> Um, I think the board can make the decision and and provide the direction >> to grow it organically with outreach, with education, with all that stuff that is focused on one program, not two programs. Yes. >> Um, and allow it to grow. >> Um, which is is honestly probably the strongest way. um by growing it the way we're growing it now. I don't know that that's the fairest thing for our programs. >> But even with we're saying one but
243separating one even with one you would still be again per your practice perhaps offering second choice to some of those students who would be attending. >> Yes. perhaps no matter what the choice is, whether it's one, two, or three. >> Uh we haven't I haven't seen the numbers. So, yes, perhaps we've been able to accommodate fifth grade choice um uh thus far. Um and we're severely underenrolled in our our two programs. So, um that ability to do that is is limited. just I think the other point of view is what our community is saying the the larger community as well is saying that if decisions need to be made on enrollment to move more students to those two smaller schools then then effectively we are taking away their first choice if they're current fifth graders.
244You know, I think the district has done a good job of minimizing. I guess the question is is as a board, do we say, "Oh, you can have like four kids at that program and then everybody can go to Rston who wants to and we're not going to minimize and there will be no weight list. We'll just get rid of the weight list." I think if that was an option, they the district and I'm confident would have would have probably chosen that method, right? so that everyone ends up being happy um with their with their choice. I I so I guess it kind of can you elaborate a little bit more on your decision-making process? It depends on yeartoyear and the number of students. But when you're balancing enrollment decisions, can you kind of take
245us through the inner sanctum of what you're kind of some of the um thought process that you're going through to kind of create like why didn't you stop at 10 students and allow more to go to Rston for example? you know, >> uh, so we we ha we look at program sustainability. Um, and that is is a driver. Um, when you look at enrollments of of 20 kiddos opting in for a program, uh, split between two teachers, that's 10 and 10. Um, our numbers actually were higher at the start of the year and dropped off. Uh, people come and enroll. uh they get placed um sometimes they make other choices in the interim um that's the case across the board. So our numbers were higher in the beginning. Uh we were able to fill um
246up uh I mean you look at the current numbers of sixth grade 44 at NESB 36 at at Sandpiper. Uh that's up from the 20 kiddos that that selected the program. Um we maintain lists of of kids uh wishing to transfer as well. Thank you. I don't know if that provided clarity for anyone. the the the I would say the guiding principle over the last six years I've been superintendent here was to grow our programs uh the best that we're able to and make sure that we are um building uh enrollment. Uh 10 years ago when those programs were developed uh the district was bursting at the seams at middle school. uh a that's no longer the case and it's not projected to be that the case. Um we've um worked to build programs uh
247that uh have IB as a backbone, have design thinking as a backbone. Uh that is uh to be honest something we brought to the district as an effort to boost um enrollment. uh we've uh tried to address the music concerns uh the language concerns um I won't say concerns uh preferences um and uh it's been a challenge it it has been a challenge to pack everything into um our small school programs um it's hard it's not a binary necessarily one or the other right there are different programs. Um the international baloria, the design thinking is a different program. So um uh helping people recognize that choice has been something that we've been uh striving to improve upon uh but it's remained flat. I just wanted to make a comment about um the attempts to boost
248enrollment and I think it is it it was um a good idea right to bring in these special programs but I do think that we can't just look at the four years or I mean IB only got certified last year they have not had any time >> right abre but also with sandpiper uh if you were the one who brought design thinking in and they didn't come back from COVID until 2021. We're talking about 2022 to 2026, 2025. Really, it's February. That's really not enough time. It's just it's not enough time for these programs to really get sustained the way that they need to be. And I think that we're doing our community a disservice if we say like, h, well, we tried for a couple years, didn't work out, now we're going to close
249it. I just I just don't think that's right. I, you know, I will say I have um folks that don't necessarily support the way I've enrolled or we've our enrollment policy of choice. There's many that feel we should be uh directing neighborhood kiddos to our neighborhood schools. Um and um I do feel strongly about choice uh for families. Um I want um our kids and our families to love whatever program they're a part of. Um and um the balance that we've struck or we've tried to strike um has been hard. >> So can I ask? So you you mentioned that the district's recommendation that it's going to be it would be hard to put resources and support into two programs. Uh can you go in a little bit more about why it would be easier
250or why what the rationale is to put the support and the resources and the guy into making a successful smaller program rather than two if they're kind of in the same roughly the same spot. Obviously I think there's distinct enrollment. >> Yeah. Yeah. No. >> Is it but so I guess is it a staff issue? Is it trying to not pour kind of money or what? Like where where is the obstacles for doing a two-pronged approach? >> I'm not totally understanding your twopronged approach. >> So you're saying we can't do you always say we can't do everything for everybody. So, and you're saying that that in the district's recommendation, option one is not possible because of under enrollment and therefore to put the resources behind um one of the of the middle schools, the smaller
251middle schools. So, I'm wondering why you you the option is not to then continue and try to support >> so both. So for clarity, option one is viable so long as we enroll students to to gain the benefit and strengthen the program. Right? So um if we shift enrollment that is the recommendation under under option one, right? Just for just for clarity, are you therefore saying option one is impossible with complete choice or whatever we're calling it? >> Uh so if you if board tonight were to say we want to give all families their number one choice, you would be effectively closing both middle school programs because there would not be enough students in them. >> Gotcha. >> In my my opinion. Yeah. Um, so I wanna I want to uh go back to something
252else and um anyway um I I'm very I'm very interested um in the parents who have volunteered that they could uh create a committee and join a committee and uh work on the marketing. Um I I've recently kind of realized I guess um that I feel like uh this is a this is the enrollment challenge um is a challenge that I feel like we have not engaged the community with until recently. But we engage the community for other things, right? We ask parents to donate to school force. We ask parents to help us run ballot measure campaigns, right? We ask parents to be on the PTA and be the PTA president and all these things that some of my fellow board members and I have done. And we do all that. And of course, the
253district leadership and the principles and all of the staff of the district are the key to our success. But we don't expect the district staff to run the carnival or run other things like that, which I I don't mean to make it sound uh uh not serious, but anyway, my point is is I think we need to reach out to the families for help with marketing. Um, just to comment on that, Trusty Northrup, we do have feedback from families and they've provided a number of ways that they're willing to help us with those um those additional marketing efforts. So, part of the the thing and I'm again all for volunteerism. I I you know I think it there's power in that but I feel if you don't if you volunteers I've had volunteers when I've
254in in my different positions in my career and well intended right it's more of a short-term nature not a sustainable uh progress issue and sometimes when you're unfort in my corporate context if you're not getting paid then they can bow out right and again it's not everyone it's not their job it's right that's for why saying like I don't know how you on a volunteer model basis how that would work and build be able to be sustainable certainly word of mouth that is not but at the end of the day the district leadership is is is looking at the enrollment numbers they're monitoring it. So, I'm not saying that there's not value in the committees, but at some point you have to have a designated stewardship over it. And I would think that would need
255to come from district leadership. >> And I get that like I mean I volunteer with lots of people and volunteering it's always the same people volunteering, right? I I I I get that. Um, but then I also look at something like School Force where it's all parent run. Well, I guess you're right. We do have artists. She is that constant that think about that. >> If I could, and again, it's just a a single data point, but I'm going to I am going to call it out. Um, last spring after we did the enrollment survey, uh, enrollment form, we sent out another survey to families. Um, of course, not everybody responded. There was 4, uh, 50, I think, uh, kiddos that it was sent to, 274 responded. 105 said they strongly agreed that they had
256adequate information about middle schools. 121 said they agreed. 16 were neutral, three disagreed, and 29 strongly disagreed. Definitely some work to do. Um, but uh I also um the vast majority did report feeling like they had adequate information. Again, it's only people that uh took the survey. Um I don't I don't know about the others. >> Could I make a comment about that? Um I think that you know while that data point is good um I do feel like if if your stu if your child is going to an elementary school and at that elementary school all they hear about is rston then when the choice comes up where do you want to go they're just going to say rston because that's what they've heard. So if we're not equally promoting all of the schools
257while they say I looked at everything I don't think that they did look I mean okay let me say that differently. They could have looked at everything. However, if the only thing being presented is one option, I just find that is, you know, >> and and to be clear, Rston's a very good option. I I don't want anyone to say, hey, you know, we're only showing Rston and it's a terrible school and we we want I mean, Rston's a very good option. But yeah, I agree. I don't I don't think you have people who say yes, I had enough information, but what does that question really tell you? It says that person thinks that they had enough information from talking with my good friend Ann whose kid went to Rston and everybody else is going
258to Rston. Not necessarily that I actually know what the other programs involved and I've actually thought about it a great deal. And and and you may say, "Yes, I know." And I know I know there are a lot of parents who do really look into oh what does an IB program actually mean? What does design thinking really mean? What does Rston actually provide? There are a lot of parents who go through this process and think about it and talk through it very deeply with their children. But I think there's also a portion of the population that doesn't. And Rston is the very very publicized great school. It's been here for many many many years. my dad, my uncle, my everybody, they all went to Rston. I want to go to Rston. And that's fair, but
259our middle school, our other two small middle schools haven't actually had that opportunity to build that reputation with the community. We have parents with their first child going through who say, "Oh, my second, third, fourth, fifth, well, maybe not fifth child, but my my multiple children, they all want to go to San Piper. all want to go to Nesbbit because but the thing is they they don't have the opportunity to express that because it's only been there for in all honesty like two to three three four years right like I mean yes I'm not going to quibble about I'm just going to I'll leave it at that um one thing to add on I think it's evident just by the comments that we've heard tonight that there's not clear understanding of the programs because we've
260heard that this school doesn't offer this this this, but it actually it does. So, I'm so sorry. I'm going to add one more thing to that. [laughter] Um, and we have all of these parents that want Rston for their sports or they want Rston for band. Can we not create in instead of saying, "Hey, we want to take down a school." I really don't like the idea of closing a school just because of this. Can we not collaboratively think of ways to make it work better? I mean at rston you have say a basketball team. That basketball team can have I don't know how many people go on a basketball team. I want to say 10 people. Okay, random number 10 people. And you have 30 kids who went to Rston to play basketball because
261they wanted to go play basketball. 20 of them get cut. They're at Rston now. they don't get to play basketball. Can we not make it so that hey, you know, kids at NEZ, kids at Sandpiper can all go try out at RE and have like a district team Shel >> and I don't I don't know. I don't know. Not saying that that's not an I'm saying like let's rein it I want to kind of rein it back in to the choices because we don't know what are you therefore are you proposing number four or >> for this particular one I'm present I I'm asking about number one option >> but no what I'm saying is you just introduced a whole another maybe framework that we don't know what that entails >> I'm saying that there
262are ways to address the issue issues of the community that the people who want to only go to rston and they just shut out Saman Piper or Nesbbit as an option. There are ways to address those concerns >> that there I'm just saying that there are ways to potentially address those concerns that may allow them to think more openly about where they may want to go. >> That's all. I just >> um Dan, I think this a question for you and I'm not actually going too far away in again I'm still thinking about I'm gonna say all three but I know maybe there's four but in in let's say option one with this conversation of [sighs] engaging referrals and parents and considering uh addressing the desires for math music electives sports. What does that look
263like next year or the next year if our vote tonight? Is that is it like are are you going to not are you going to I guess do we have to place students through some form of choice adjustments or geography at those sites until those things manifest? So I think we've been trying to make those things manifest for many years, >> right? >> And they haven't. >> Yeah. >> So to um think that they might manifest uh and and and partially I'm channeling Chinpe because I may not be the one that's best describing the things that we've tried to target. um >> you know whether that be program, whether it's looking at music differently, whether it's looking at language differently, those are the things we hear from our community that matter the most. >> Those
264are the things we're we've tried to target. >> Yes. >> Um maybe they weren't communicated, maybe they for whatever reason, >> um we haven't seen that change. My question is giving ourselves time to to try to fix those things. Communicating more, involving parent ambassadors and skilled people and and trying to address music and adding sports and working on math offerings. All those words being things that we say that's what we're aiming for for 2627. Are we going to pull people from geographic locations to build those schools or would we stay at 133 and 120 next year? >> I don't know how we stay at 133 120 quite honestly. Um we we have a responsibility to look at our resources. >> Yeah. >> Um and it's not the fiscally responsible thing to do. It's also not
265fair to our schools to continually offer and move students who are newly enrolled to fill the program. >> It brings uh kids who have been with us the long hall. We know we understand their background. We understand their needs. We know them well. and we support them. Kids who come to us new, it takes us time to do that and to do the type of program that's happening at San Piper and Nesbbit, that simply isn't a fair ask, right? Um, yeah. Yeah, I think you answer me. Again, we're we're having a strong conversation about increasing either program or enrollment, but again, per our vote tonight for next school year and perhaps the next, we are impacting either impacting choice or to the word you just used, but perhaps >> well, >> underserving our small schools.
266Is that >> But I mean, Jackie, I mean, >> I'm not trying to make a point. I'm paraphrasing. That's a question to what you just said. >> I'm just >> You can answer. I just I I I don't want to read what I that that question was not me trying to trap you or make a point. >> Uh I I think if the question is uh you know if the board uh votes status quo, are we going to uh fill to capacity >> um every program? Uh no, that's not what I want to do because I don't think it's right for for our programs and our kids. But we do need to increase capacity. >> Cool. I just need to hear that. >> And go ahead. I just want to say like that's if we
267say that we want to go with option one as it stands on the board, right? Can we say, you know, this isn't a business? I mean, we want to be fiscally responsible, but at the end of the day, our job is to do what is best for our kids. And yes, I still I still haven't decided yet, guys. Come on. >> [laughter] >> I mean, we are our kids not worth the investment >> for 2 3 years before we start saying we're going to start filling it filling the things the way they should be. And I and I get it. We want to be fiscally responsible, >> but it's also over two years, we'll say two years, 2% of a budget. 1% you said it was 1% of the budget that we would save right
268by filling the classes and I wonder is it not is it not worthwhile to explore that and my question for you Dan is if we go and we do this thing where we land the plane on a very very very very small runway what are the impacts to to the kids on your side? Like I mean you you were saying we might have to cut this, do that. What are the actual things that we would need to lose? Like what are the what are the trade-offs? I know there are trade-offs, but where are where would we think about that? >> I see Ree Reese reachings. >> Um >> and then I I'll follow Reese. >> Let me try and answer there's a lot of questions here. >> Yeah. >> Um so no, it's okay. Let
269me try and answer these kind of as best as I can. Um, you know, again, like I I I think you're kind of asking us to kind of apply on something that we don't necessarily know at this point, right? You know, I think when push comes to shove, we'll have to evaluate it against all the supplemental additional things that we give students, right? So, you know, if you're asking me to try and just throw out some ideas in here and obviously, you know, I can't these aren't like 100% vetted, right? But like it could mean less counseling capacity at each of our schools. That could mean that more one counselor has to oversee double the amount of case load that they already see, right? It could mean that maybe, you know, PE services are shared
270between multiple sites even more so than they currently are potentially, right? Like these are just some of like the supplemental things that we additionally provide to students that may be affected in the case that you know, you know, there are additional cost constraints and we we have to you know, rightsize our budget for that, right? Um, there was another thing that I wanted to touch upon, but now it's blanking me, so I'll turn it over to Superintendent Dwire for a little bit. >> Uh, and and the one thing I want to touch on, um, is is important when you say, "Aren't our kids worth it?" Our kids are absolutely worth the money, right? We're not taking money away and diverting it somewhere else. Um, I'm advocating that we utilize those funds to serve our kids
271big picture districtwide in the best ways that we can. And and we do owe our community and our district a look at it as a whole. Um, and that goes to what CBO Matsumoto was to um be in a position in the future where we have to make a difficult decision. Hopefully, we're not there. Hopefully, we're never there. But um we we we know we know what the deficit is, right? So um we we will work with uh whatever the board decision um is uh to the best of our abilities. Our team has quite frankly our team feels like we've evaluated um every best case scenario. I've personally went home after a board meeting and hearing comment and I'd be like, "Nope, we need to do um X, Y, and Z. We need to just
272maximize enrollment. Look, neighborhood kids." And then I look at it and I look at the data and the data doesn't tell me that, right? So, um it is not a halfaphazard recommendation. It is one that we have um deeply considered and recognize the implications of every um aspect. >> Sorry, Trusty Deng if I may for one second. You know, um I also wanted to respond to the thought of okay, you know, adding additional things, right? You know, I think we've talked a lot about what would happen, you know, in the case of either closure or not closure, but we haven't talked about what happens if we add cost, which I worry that some of this conversation is spiraling into. Um, I think in the case that we add cost, you know, it'll put even more
273of a constraint for us to cut somewhere else, right? Again, series of trade-offs, right? Um, and I also want to make one thing very clear, right? You know, I think there's a lot of talk about specifically, you know, equality versus equity in some of these pieces from a purely financing, you know, purely funding standpoint, right? Right now, the funding is not necessarily equal between all of the middle schools when you just look at it purely from a teacher standpoint, right? In the schools that do not necessarily have as much enrollment, those kids are getting funded by the district at a higher rate, right? Because ultimately they are getting more of like a onetoone experience, right? So, you know, I also just want to point that out because ultimately when we talk about, you know, making
274our kids worth it, I also want to make sure that we focus ourselves around making all of our kids worth it, right? And not potentially just a few. Thank you. >> Could I add a suggestion while we're talking about finances? Um, and of course I don't know how it all works, but I did go to CSBA and at CSBA they had a bunch of sessions and they have a bunch of other school districts that give examples of how they overcome challenges and things that they do to, you know, make great programs. And one of the things that I saw over and over from other school districts is to go out and talk to corporations in the area to get funding for their school programs. And I'm wondering, I'm sure we already do some of that,
275but maybe could we revisit some of those contracts that we have with companies in our area to say, listen, we have this issue right now with enrollment, and we could really use whatever the number is, so we can do this for our kids. and maybe we get the money that way. >> Um if I may just quickly apply on that um you know I think generally there uh well one we receive some corporate funding already that you know people have matching funds through school force etc. And just a quick shout out for all of you who have donated to school force. Thank you very much. Um, you know, the second part of it that I'd like to just point out is, you know, funding through corporations can be a little bit fickle, right? And as
276we think about doing something that makes sense for the long run, I think it is difficult for our district to try and anchor ourselves on funding that may or may not be there. you know ultimately um I again I think just to reiterate you know there are corporate donors out there I don't know to the extent of success that we may have with them um you know I I know you also mentioned the changing landscape of you know companies out there given what's happening um fortunately or fortunately you know some companies are also falling on tough times which may make them less uh less is willing to donate as well. >> Yeah. I think I'm not thinking of it as a long-term um thing. I think it maybe as like a buffer, right? So, if
277we're looking at a fiveyear period where we want to try to um naturally boost enrollment, but we're worried that like oo if we do that, we might like have to take away from this program or that program. Maybe we can get some additional funding for like X period so that we're able to to try that and then, you know, I don't know. It's just an idea. >> Yeah. I and I I completely understand that. You know, I I think it's one of those things where that ask is simple at a high level, but probably more difficult once you get into the granular level. >> So, I'd like to take a >> I think we Yeah, I think we need to to to take a vote on option one. I think we need to make a
278motion or at least go through the poll and see where we are. Um, you know, I think option two or three stem for option one. Go ahead, Justin. >> I don't know if we're if we're coming to any conclusions. >> Yeah. Um, I think I think if we're voting [clears throat] on option one, we need to be clear on what option one includes. And I think that we owe it to the community to not change our practice of enrollment right now. I think we need to have a conversation with the community about the future um and possibly changing our enrollment practice in the future. But I think it is not fair to families who do have fifth graders right now to say that it's going to change. >> But don't completely agree. We can't disrupt
279the thing. That's my point, I guess, of of looking at option one because while these these programs are amazing. I go home, I'll get to your to your point. I go home and my sister-in-law who my niece is in high school and they're like, "You have an IB program like amazing. My I it's it's by selection. It's highly selective in my niece's, you know, high school design thinking, right? We see the success of DTEK. There's absolutely the teachers are so passionate to create the IB program the way they did and put in all the hours of professional development and and and vice versa, right? To get this program up and running, but and I don't think we should change it, but by not changing it, and I'm just I'm just throwing this out as a
280last kind of comment to kind of think about. I think we need to definitely be clear, but we also need to be clear that option one, if the board chooses to go that way, it will change. I mean, we there there needs to be a certain amount of people in those seats and there will be just like this year a certain amount of ones that have not chosen. So, it's not going status quo has not really maybe been the answer for all families either. We just have to be recognizing that part of it. And I think like to your point, we have to just be clear what those tradeoffs are if we're when we go to think about it. I don't know. Okay. So to but I agree with you like we it's going to
281be underenrolled until something occurs if it it does incur. But I mean, so what we're saying is that we're going to vote on if when when we do the vote for option one. Option one equals all three programs remain open and we have ranked choice that is done in the way that it has been done for however long like last year or the year before. >> I don't know if that's actually a certainty, >> but that's what I'm asking because I'm not going to vote if it's going to be some like weird thing that like is decided later. So, we need to decide what it is right now so that we know what it's going to be. >> So, I guess that's a question for Superintendent Guard. Is that what discretion uh you know, can
282the board get finite with actually saying numbers and things like that? I mean, then we're getting into what see then we're getting into what correct >> what the board is not supposed to get into. board provides strategic oversight and lets the district leadership our trust in district leadership to work through the the h the why and the how. So I will just say even if we maintain the status quo and kept numbers where they are our I think our numbers drop very slightly next year. Uh so if I had to look at the crystal ball and project the same number of trends um I would anticipate it to look roughly this year like this year uh with the exception of this conversation. I think the board uh this conversation casts doubt on the future of
283both programs. Um and I worry about what that implication has um on future enrollment. Again, I don't have a crystal ball. Um I can only make those best best decisions, but uh yeah. >> Um thank you for that. I just wanted to u make a comment about um if we did follow the district's recommendation and we close one of the small schools, I do feel like maybe a couple years down the road, we will also be closing the other small school and then we'll be back to where we were at the point of opening the small schools with everyone at Rston. So, >> hence not the recommendation to close two at this time. >> Can >> Oh, no. I'm not saying that your recommendation is to close two. I'm saying you're if we close one
284with your recommendation, then people are going to enroll in Rston and they're not going to enroll in the small small program because they know that the district closes small programs and then we're going to be here again in a few years to close Nesbbit or SAM, whichever one, you know, whatever. Can I ask a process question if if because I I agree with a lot of what was just said. Um if we're voting in option one and by a lot I mean many of you. So if if what I want to do as a [clears throat] board member is is allow you to make a decision while I offer direction. I don't think what I heard is like the the the full scope of option one. So, if I was thinking about it, if we're
285saying if I'm agreeing to not tell you how to fill it, I would like to know how you plan to before I vote on option one. That make sense? No. Yeah. I mean, no pressure actually. Like I I want to hear what your strategy would be without directing your strategy and then offer direction based on what your strategy would be. >> Uh in terms of numbers, it would have to be probably something similar. I don't think our our cap would necessarily change at Rston. uh we would do the survey like we we did in the past. We would uh enroll kiddos who um opted in and then any new family that arrived afterwards uh would be uh slated for Nesbbit or Sandpiper. That's what we did this year. Um we have about 10 kids last
286night I if I'm It's hard because the numbers are day by day. We have about 10 kids fewer uh next year. So um you know if if the trend stays identical I would expect a pretty much identical um situation. So in in previous presentations >> like slides have mentioned a number of 168. Am I voting on option one with the future that you will put make sure 168 students would be at both sites? >> I would I would take the direction of the board if that's uh that would be my recommendation is that we need to optimize enrollment at both of our our middle schools. Um but I also recognize that that is a big lift um for our community. Um I yeah I I I recognize that big lift. Um so I would I
287would take board direction on that >> and that that direction would come tonight or or at another meeting. >> Uh preferably tonight. We're we're we're hitting enroll like so I think it'd be unfair to ask me to vote on option one [laughter] without me without us completing what that direction sounds like. Right. >> Uh so so preferably in in again I'm not going to bring it to a a finances and program like >> uh from a fiscal standpoint from a an educational standpoint I would argue >> um from a um consistency and and ability to maintain >> those numbers need to be higher, right? I don't I personally don't believe that 18 students in a middle school classroom uh meets the educational expectations and criteria that we desire for a middle schooler, right? >> That's
288not to say that, you know, small classes aren't aren't good, >> but I think when we look at that whole educational experience >> Yeah. Um I'm not sure that that happens that is met in that small a number. >> Yeah, I don't think I'm I'm I'm not looking to actually go towards values. Um I think you were right earlier of like let's like separating that >> um because I I could disagree. I'm not doesn't matter actually. >> Uh as I think about the option, I want to respect what we're talking about in the process. Is it your desire that we give you an option and then direction afterwards? Right. When you say tonight, like that the order we're talking about. >> Yes. >> Are we going to talk about options two or three or we
289going to vote on one? That's a question for you now. >> At the at the end of the day, um, sorry, >> go ahead. >> Sorry. Can I just at the end of the day whatever the decision the board makes we need to make sure that we're supporting the effective governance of that decision and um sometimes that's hard to do as well um in certain circumstances. Can I just add one thing? Like you said, we need to support the decision that we make and if we do vote on option one, we need to support the heck out of it. Like every single one of us, we need to be on board with this. The second thing is if we decide to go with option one and we say, "Hey, we are going to maintain choice
290and we are going to allow our fifth graders to go to the school of their choice for the foreseeable 1 to two years. We need to know and expect that there is going to be a giant dip in enrollment. I mean, it just things are going to it's it's it's not going to be, oh, we have our task force and they're going to be building it all up and everyone's going to all just suddenly enroll in Sandpiper and noted. I I feel like there's a level of change that needs to happen in the community to help them understand and and I and I I really do think that the enrollment issue I I just want the board to understand if we decide to go with option one, we will still be struggling with this enrollment
291issue for two to three years. And that's that's where I kind of sit and I struggle because we ha we will no matter what we do there will be this period of time where we won't be able to put butts and seats if we want to respect that parent choice. And I I do feel like that parent choice is really important right that or that parent >> but you're taking I'm just saying by by by by allocating one parent choice some parent is not going to be happy with our decision today. Oh, no, no, no. I resign I'm actually myself to [laughter] that. I agree. >> So, I am not confident despite district's efforts and despite we're not going to come up I agree with you. We can't come up with a plan now. I
292am not I cannot in good conscience leave this table this board and and pick an option when it's so loosey goosey as if like is ABC. It has to be option one if but only if we can ensure that A b C D and E and in the interim families are going to not get their choice that you know at these these numbers or even if we mandate uh you know give direction to the leadership saying keep keep the numbers you had this year that even might be a stretch even even for that numbers to be kept in a declining enrollment it's not that I'm not our you know our community has come up with an amazing ideas. I've sat there and I've gone also like Superintendent Dora away from these meetings and gone what
293if right but the reality is is is is you are constrained by numbers. So to your point of having it all, you can't have all all the athletics, you can't have the music, you can't So you so I'm just saying like as as as Trusty Bruno was saying, >> things would have to be in place for for option one to thrive and be a thriving option for the district. I'm not sure that that can be that we can confidently put that into place despite our best intentions. I'm just throwing it out there. I think it's it's it's not an assured thing. >> Thank you. Um, so I think um I think the uh the district's recommendation um of just looking at where it is on the agenda uh right is it says it's recommended that
294the board of trustees direct the transition from two TKK8 programs into one TK8 program resulting in the closure of the 6th to 8th grade program um while maintaining the site as a TK to K5 elementary. So, um I think we could So, I I think it's fine either we vote on um on the option one and then talk about some other things. Um I think we could also vote whether to follow the district's recommendation to begin with. And that maybe that gets too complicated. Sorry. All right. Let me go to a different one. So, if we're not if we're not f if we're considering not following the district's recommendation, then I'm prepared to make a motion that has a small amount of requirements in it, but that is part of the motion that we then
295vote on. For example, uh this is what I'm proposing is that I propose I'm not necessarily making a motion yet. I propose that we keep all three middle schools open, that we follow the enrollment timeline that is listed on our district website currently and follow all uh customary practices of the last few years. and that we establish a district advisory committee to help us uh uh work on increasing enrollment in the future. >> Okay. But April, let me just again I'm I'm pushing back because I want to have clarity for myself and I think we need it for our community and those listening in from what you just said. A parent out there, what is their decision going to be when they get that choice thing? I don't think there's anything that's saying to them
296that they're confidently going to say that either one of these smaller programs are going to be in play next year. I'm saying like if you there's no if the decision there's no confidence in the decision that by saying we're doing status quo that next year the board is going to say no status quo. You know what I'm saying? Like there's if as as Trusty Bruno was saying like if you have a student in the pipeline thinking about middle school programs, you want to have confidence that those middle school programs are going to be around for you to select. So I I guess that guard rails would have to be really defined. You know, I don't know. I'm I'm struggling with how to how to conceptualize this. >> Um, what about if we added one more
297piece to Trusty Northrup's proposal, which would be to commit to five years of this number option one? Well, we don't have unlimited time. um if we could commit and then and then families can feel secure that for the next five years all the schools will remain open while we have the task force working on and boosting enrollment and then we'll revisit the issue. However, I do think that when the revisiting comes about, we need to communicate much earlier with the community. we should probably during that whole five-year period be communicating with the community so that everyone feels like it's very transparent and that you know they're part of what's happening. >> So I think I I would not be able to get behind that. I feel like if we are going to go option one
298it is all in option one. It's that's what we're going to say as a board. We support these schools and we are going to do it so that our community has certainty, our staff has certainty, our students have certainty so that there is that piece. I think if we are going to put requirements on it, I would say it would be around the enrollment piece. If we're going to honor that choice for this year, let us honor that choice. But then put in, hey, next year or or two years from now after the district advisory committee has had their chance to be able to go and mobilize the or not mobilize but really educate other parents and have our schools able to have their open houses, have those info sessions where they can go and
299talk to students. At that point, you know, we've had that opportunity for people to be able to first choose whatever whatever whatever and those and and the parents will have will know this is coming. Enrollment processes are going to change. >> But why are you saying only two years for the parents? Like why can't we give them five years? I don't understand. >> Oh. Oh, sure. Sure. It could be five years. I I'm saying the the the revisiting of option one. I don't want to revisit option one. I don't want to revisit it either, but I'm saying like we need to tell families that you have at least five years to work on enrollment boosting. Like you can't give them two years to work on enrollment because it's like teeny tiny like a pencil. >>
300But I don't I think I think I'm confused because you're saying you want to keep it open forever, but you only want to give people two years to fill seats. I It doesn't make sense. >> Okay. Okay. >> To me. >> Yeah. >> Um >> like I think we want the same thing, >> right? >> Yeah. I trust you, Bruno. Let's maybe >> Oh, >> that's just my face. Yeah. Um, >> that's your um >> thinking face. >> I do have a question. I And maybe maybe you said at the start, April, in this in this venture we're considering. I'm I'm And I'm not sure if you know the answer, Dan, but I'm curious how your cabinet functions in this in this thing we're talking about. Are you still filling to whatever capacity you decide
301or is everyone getting their first choice in this five-year model? >> Oh, >> in this thing we're talking about Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, in in what I'm saying is like I'm just adding to to Trusty Northrup's >> So, then what's your answer >> piece? >> We She said we we continue with how we've been doing it. So, how we've been doing it for the last couple of years, right? Sorry. Go ahead, Trusty Northrup. I I my my my opinion is that we owe it to the community to follow the customary middle school enrollment process for this year and that we establish a district advisory committee and that we could make changes for the following for the following year for enrollment of how we place students at the different schools. but that it would be
302part of the district advisory committee's work, including also trying to increase uh people choosing Nesbbit and San Piper Middle Schools. >> Yeah, I think that um I I would propose a longer timeline for the for the enrollment change. I I think that like we if we're going to make any kind of a change like that, I think that's a drastic change um that we need to have give families more runway than like one year. >> I I I would support that. My mic's off. >> Sorry. Sorry. I would support that. I think um I think that would be reasonable and then I would um welcome our community's input and uh participation on the committee and deciding things like for example and that they the committee could make a recommendation to the board of that you
303will keep this this policy for the next amount of time but then after that amount of time then it then it may change or something like that. I'm going to be contrary for a little bit though is um I think again we have to put it in board policy for it to have a longer uh uh longer uh yeah longer impact. Um, I think uh I want to we we as a board can only commit long-term resources in certain areas like for the bond measures, things like that. So that's what I'm saying is I don't think we as a board can tell the future board which may not have any of us on it that future board in 2033 you must maintain these middle schools. I don't think that's fair to the future community members.
304>> Well said. So, >> I I worry about the enrollment piece as Dan says, you know, I I I agree with Dan that family choice component is really important. Um, at the same time, we need do need those butts and seats and I think we will have a district, if we were to go this path, we would have a district advisory committee. But I think we should be this year for sure maintain that choice. But I do think as April is saying letting the community know now, next year it may not be like that, that you may not necessarily get your first choice. We don't get our first choice of classrooms. We don't get our first choice of elementary schools. We don't get our first choice in a lot of things. And while it's unfair
305now, because it was kind of last minute for that to be sprung upon the community, I I do believe that that's very unfair. I do think that next year it is fair game. They have been notified. If they want to go to a private school, they have time to apply to private school. If they want to do whatever they want to do, they have that opportunity. and and I don't think it's fiscally responsible. And and and while I don't think that, you know, I I I don't think that dollars are the only thing we think about when we think about the education of our children, I do think that it's important that we stay fiscally responsible and financially healthy. And while one year might be okay to hey, you know, we'll we'll do one more
306year of possibly low enrollment, next year, I do think we need to get up. >> So, okay. So, first of all, I think you're putting the community in limbo for another year. But, but yeah, you're putting the community in limbo because you're saying one year we're giving more of a of a we're kicking the can down the road to say in one year we're going to be exactly whoever the board is is back at this table. No. Then does you are >> no said option one. We are committed to keeping these schools. >> No, but then you're saying in one year fair fair game. You're saying >> fair game enrollment. That's what's driving this decision. Why? >> But right now, right now, the big the big thing is that the parents and the community, they
307didn't know. >> No, >> you No, I What do you mean they didn't know? They've been knowing for 10 years. >> So, I the other thing I I just want to see is what is going to drive measurable trend improvement? Because while I think um so I'm all for example the the amazing efforts that's that certainly that and I think Sam Piper did but may correct me if I'm wrong I know Nesbbit did outreach shadow day all these things to improve the IB program I think spot on I think that was the right thing to do there's been discussion by our community that maybe one school was favored over another in terms of outreach and and that I think is a miss it was a miss but whatever the decision- making was that you it
308needs more time like so I'm in agreement that it needs more time to kind of fluctuate but then I think that's saying that first of all that the last 10 years have been like like there's been trusted professionals trying to make enroll it work with the enrollment now we're seeing a decline in enrollment that's been verified by the demographer five years ago and reconfirmed by our report so I'm just just not trying understand like where where if we don't in the short term we're not we've got to get those numbers trending in the right direction right >> which is where our district advisory committee would come in right and I and I know you don't necessarily believe in the power of our parents ability to drive that enrollment but I think I really do think
309there has been a gap in terms of marketing and it's not and I'm not saying that oh it's our schools we shouldn't be we should be marketing marketing them, right? But when I say marketing, I'm saying there's a very large der of information about our middle schools and not for I mean just just physically like I said going to going to Nesbbit was really eye opening for me. It was really great. I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed talking to the students. I met Sam Ppiper every day. Sorry, Gloria. Yeah, it Sam Piper is also really really great. Right. And I feel like if parents were able to go and see that, see what I saw, it would drive measurable difference. And even though next year we might say, "Hey, fair game enrollment. You may
310or may not be at the your school of first choice. One, they've been informed. Two, we know all three schools are excellent. Three, we are um we are the the district advisory committee is still going to be working and ideally in an ideal world, fingers crossed, those parents would be able to drive that first choice over time. So what's the metric that you need to you keep saying one year I'm just want to >> what's the what's the metric that what's the metric that you are looking to see that's that kind of helps you say that this is going to or anybody I'm not you sh what's the metric that we that we are looking to see to say just like you know principal you know she said there's some metrics of that of the
311data that she showed so what metric are we looking to see >> so I am not a lawyer I am a teacher and a board member. Um I think uh I think my my understanding is is a a layman's understanding of you know not uh committing future boards which are not us. Um, I I would think it would be a acceptable uh use of the district's small resources to consult a lawyer of what is the time frame that we can commit ourselves to. I'm I'm open to that for um for to to address to address the question of saying that we don't want things to just we don't want it to be the uncertainty for parents. I'm I'm willing to say if if we consult an attorney and they tell us that we can make
312a commitment for like two or three years that that would be something I would be interested in >> around enrollment or around option one >> around option one I think but yes I think I think we should I think we should say to the public that yes we're we're uh We are considering enrollment for every year going forward from this year. >> But your concern is that our dedication to option one may not be the same as a future board's dedication to option one and then we might throw the community back into limbo if we leave it open. Is that the concern? >> Yes. But my my initial thought was that was just what we had to deal with unless we put it into board policy somehow which is then harder but not impossible to
313change. >> I sorry I'm I don't know where I think um because part of what my interpretation for what so trusty north I agree with you on the board policy. I think in terms of, you know, we I think we can't just be, you know, lax and das about. But I also heard what you're saying and it's and I'm not sure if you're advocating now for not voting >> because because you're saying how are we going to consult a lawyer if we >> No, I I do want us to vote today, but I'm thinking we can consult a lawyer later. >> Can I can I just add to that? Uh so so so boards have ultimate decision-making authority. Uh they can uh set policy and they can change policy. So I would say certainly this
314board uh could set a policy and adopt a policy and have a standpoint. Um when the board transitions that would be a new board that could revisit if they they and and that's cyclical. Uh the other thing I'll just add is um this process isn't easy clearly, right? Uh and there was elements of our community that said you're dividing us and yes there there is there is truth to that um when we're struggling to find the just right fit. um my experience is and I think this desk district would um there's folks in this room that would probably recollect that boundary changes are hugely divisive for communities. And when we talk about deciding um how we reconfigure boundaries to meet school programs, it's another probably lengthier process than we've been through. Um I think you've
315heard from folks in this room tonight that are already against any likely boundary change we might come up with. Not an easy process. I believe it or not, I've actually tried to have that percolate in my brain. How could we do it? It's not easy. Sorry, Trusty Burrow. >> It helps in one of my other questions that I wasn't sure if we get there. Uh in options two and three, are we also talking about boundary changes? Like if we close a hole? >> No. So uh something that I'll mention is uh and I I'm not I I cannot be the expert on this because I I wasn't here when it happened 10 years ago when when we launched uh the small schools. I I believe that was a choice school that we wanted people to
316opt into those schools. Right? So you know evolution hindsight is always 2020. Um >> I'm only looking forward >> that's not happening. I'm only looking forward if I if if we closed Nesbbit and we're saying enrollment is the issue. Do Redwood Shores families have to go to Sandpiper? Uh that is not uh I'll I'll I'll go back to my running optimally sized schools is important like full stop, right? >> If we if we went to one school, uh would I artificially enroll it to the max and and create an unstable one school? No. I want that one school to develop. Uh I want to invest in that one school. I want to do whatever we can do outside of what we've already done to grow it and let it grow naturally. >> So when we
317we talk about like maximizing systems like I can let go of the number 168 in my head. Yes. >> Yeah. >> Like the the the optimization of me says no. But but I think we have that flexibility in in one location to do that. I don't think too. >> Right. >> So, I I I think with my recommendation, the piece that's not there is we're going to slow grow that up. >> There we go. >> We're going to let people >> There we go. All right. >> Realize the potential and opt in. >> So, in those options, the commitment is to do perhaps actually some of the work we're talking about for option one in that single site, correct? to slow grow back over the next however many number >> in no in no scenario
318is doing the same kind of outreach that we've always done. >> Yeah. >> Um okay, we're going to we're going to always do our best uh to do more. I reached out to my principles. I said, "What can we do?" Like >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So I I guess again first time as board president but I'm wondering if if option two and three is a discussion point or is that mute if if the board ends up going a certain direction on option one that might mean that option two and three vote or discussion is a kind of a mute point. So I'm not quite sure how to uh go forward if somebody I mean make a summation I think we need to kind of go in one direction now what >> so
319we have four options on the table. Yeah, >> I propose we remove option four just so it's not there. And then it would be an option one versus option two, three. And if we go with option two, three, then it's an option two or an option three. That's my thinking of flow logically. >> Say that again one more time. >> So So >> work on four then. >> Right. We'll we'll talk about if we want option four or not. >> Yeah. >> And if option four does not survive. >> Um we'd go option one or option two three. >> So essentially we'd be voting on option one. >> We close it. We >> go with either the district recommendation or we don't. >> Yeah. >> Fine. Okay. >> And then after that if it's option
320two be two or three. >> Let's get rid of one option. >> Okay. Maybe. Okay. So, um, who would like is there a motion out there for, uh, >> I move that we remove option four from our considerations? >> Okay. Is there a second motion? >> Second. >> Any discussion needed? Okay. Those in favor [laughter] those in favor of removing option four from consideration. I >> I >> Okay, that passes 5-0. We will adjurnn. No. Okay, let's go forward. I mean, I I think we've kind of gone back and forth. I don't know. Go ahead. Yeah. >> I I move that we uh reject the district's recommendation to close either of the uh Sandpiper or Nesbet Middle Schools. >> Second. >> Hold on a sec. So just to just just to be clear, you are
321recom going against this recommendation and therefore by default it would be option one. >> Is that am I I just want to make sure. >> Yeah. Thank thank you for mentioning that. I was trying to follow the uh the narrowing down of the options. I was thinking we would still have a vote on option one. That my motion again this is too technical. Sorry, but I was I was hoping my motion my motion was going to be separate from a motion about option one. >> I don't think it can be. If you're motioning that you're going against the recommendation uh of going down to one program, then by default you're you're recommending option. >> Okay. Uh then I would like to uh withdraw my motion, please. >> Motion withdrawn. Look, I I while this is
322challenging, I I guess the thing when I go at the end of the day and I'm facilitating, right, as somebody I I think I go back to all the amazing discussions of the students and future I mean students in Carmmont and have graduated and current students and I'm so proud of them because no matter who we heard from amazing kids and so eloquent I'm like oh my god I wish I was this eloquent in as fourth grade like where do they come up but the the the person who was going to like West Point that we heard at Nesbbit you know and going through the community college route or whatever the route is it just affirms to me that I know it seems weighty and I'm not debating that it's not painful I'm not we're
323all trying to make the best decision possible and we're all good people trying to make the best decision. At the end of the day, I look at those kids and I say they turned out amazing and they went through different variations. They went through the IB program. They went through Nesbbit preIB program. They went through Sam Piper Middle School. They went through Rston at all different sizes. And honestly, it all prepared them well. For every letter that we got that said large rston will prepare you for large calm, we've also had lots of examples of these amazing middle schools that said our f our person has found themsself and has blossomed at Carmont or another feeder school at Nesbbit. Two years ago, the eighth grade graduation, they had 16 distinct schools that the eighth grade
324class was going to. I was amazed by that because that just shows me that they had such confidence in themselves that it wasn't just one school that they were taught to expand their horizon and think through what direction that they can go and the sky was the limit. So I really feel I know it's pressured and I'm not I'm not I'm not saying anything about the vote but I feel like a heaviness which is probably why we've been continuing and it it's worth merit discussion but we can't think through all the permutations and I just think that we go back to the students and they're amazing people and they're amazing and they're going to turn out amazing and kids are reliant and resilient and parents will make the choice that's best still best for their
325family. we can just try to minimize the disruption as best as we can and that's what we're trying to do and I'm not trying to stifle that discussion and thought but at the end of the day that's what drives me and makes me feel like you know I'm still upholding what I was elected to do as a board of trustee and that's the health and vitality of the district and that's that's where I my direction and my compass has been. So, I just we got to take a little bit of weight off of us. You know, we're not supposed to have all the answers. We're we're we we've I don't know. We've flushed it out. So, I think we just need to to to vote. But I think we really need to be clear on
326what we're voting for because otherwise it might not come out with what we're envisioning in our heads. Thank you. So with that in mind, um does anybody have a recommendation out there for the >> sorry uh second attempt? Uh I move that we keep all three middle schools open, which includes Rston Middle, San Piper Middle, and Nesbbit Middle. that we follow our customary enrollment procedures as outlined on our website for 2627 and establish a district advisory committee including parents and the committee will uh be on middle school marketing and enrollment. Second, >> you can offer an amendment if you wanted to add a timeline to it. You could offer an amendment to it. >> Uh, do we need to vote on that one for like how does that work? Do I just add an >>
327uh I would like to amend it so that the enrollment >> So are you looking for staffing for that marketing position? Are you looking for staff? Are we going to hire a staff member for that? >> No, I it would be a district advisory committee that includes parents. Um other membership would be to be determined. I think that's uh just just like again like we you know have asked the parents to volunteer for things. Um I I'm comfortable with saying that it's volunteer and that it uh it would have um you know I would hope that uh each of the middle schools would uh would have a staff member who would want to be on the committee. Um but it would be volunteer and um I would also you know hope but I can't commit
328myself or my fellow board members that board members could up to two could join the committee. Um we can't do more than two because then it's like we're having a board meeting every time we uh get together. Um yeah so I I think I think what we can do today is establish the committee and then we can work out the details >> coming back to the board with the recommendations >> for subsequent years. Oh I thought the committee was boosting enrollment. Is the committee going to give us the um recommendation of how we should do the ranked choice enrollment in later years? Or are they focused on giving information to incoming families to make the best choice on middle school enrollment? I ideally my thought was that it would be middle school marketing and enrollment
329because I think as our enrollment overall as a district continues to decline then I think in the future uh then we may not have enough students for the programs even if uh we have um amazing marketing in five years we may not have enough students. So I would I would say that the committee could uh could explore enrollment but the committee could also say we don't recommend a change to enrollment procedures. >> Would we have to follow said committee's enrollment policies? No, they would they would make a recommendation and then it would go to whoever that board was at that time to accept the recommendation or reject it. And uh sorry if I can do a point of order just for a moment. Um I think there are a lot of details and they're very
330very important. I think right now what we can do is I I think it's still on the table that I made a motion and uh Trusty Deng seconded it. Um so it can be amended. It can be offered amendments. There can be further discussion like we're doing. Um but I don't think we have to have every question answered. I would like to amend the trusty Northrup. >> Wait, let me just make sure that we have a a second for discussion. A second motion on >> I second trusty Northrup's motion. Yes. >> Okay. Go ahead. I would like to add an amendment to that motion to state that enrollment maintaining current enrollment policies as in terms of being able to choose as we like. um that that that freedom of choice is limited to the coming
331year and after that the district is able to enroll as necessary to fill those schools. >> Can you elaborate? So, you're proposing a a c a cap this coming year and then >> Yeah. >> So, sorry. Um, so what I'm saying is that this coming year, our fifth graders would go through enrollment as they usually do. We may end up with a very small program as we usually do because our district advisory committee will not have had a chance to ramp up. However, it would then give parents and the community an opportunity to say, "Hey, you know, this is what is going to happen. I can prepare myself and I can make plans around knowing this is going to happen, right? Around enrollment. We're going to start enrolling a little bit less uh liberally after
332this coming year. >> Enrolling a little bit less liberally. You mean not keeping it low? >> Yes. It would be it would be enrolling option one so that it is viable so that we have full classes or full full grade levels >> as as I understand. Uh if I >> Yeah, please because I'm a lost >> if I may. Uh I I think uh Trustee Northrup's um motion three schools uh follow enrollment timeline maintain our current status establish the committee. the amendment that trustee uh Tang is adding. We'll do that for one year and then subsequent years we start filling um and boosting enrollment through um through a process. >> Can I ask a question about your amendment? Um, so like what if with the advisory committee we have what are we at now? 168.
333Let's say with the advisor advisory committee in 2627 we have what's full enrollment? What what's the number of full enrollment? We have we have 168. That's full. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. at one. Oh, okay. Sorry, it's it's getting late. Um, my point is like at what at what point are we gonna like let's say the advisory committee brings in 75% full capacity with people who want their first choice to be that then are you saying then we are still going to force enrollment to get it to 100%. Like where's the line there? Dan, what's viable? What is viable? I mean, I know it doesn't have to be 100%, right? But I in my brain, it's kind of like, oh, you know, 90%. As long as we're like at a good >> I' I'd like
334to see it in the mid50s at least. >> Mid-50s. Student count. >> No, mid50. >> Oh, per grade. >> Yeah. No, it's >> for student a student at each grade level. >> So yeah, >> 20 27 roughly 20 20ish have selected, you know, both, you know, pretty, you know, Nesbbit or San Piper last year. So you know, and then we added to that, >> right? >> So that's where we are now. >> Yes. >> Can I can I try answering the question? >> Yeah. >> I think you said mid-50s, but that's actually the maximum, right? Yeah, like mid-50s times 30 is 158. >> 58 is my number my my brain number. Yes, >> I swear I'm on your side. >> 50s. 50 would be great. 50ish >> 56 * 3 is 168. >> Yeah, >>
335I just I checked the calculator. >> Great. >> Right. So to answer the question, when you say when you say what you would what you'd like to see it at, that's the maximum and you're asking perhaps for what would be below that. Sorry, I'm not saying we need to be at the like >> we we we don't have maximums across the board at all schools, right? There's targets we shoot for and then there's >> we we like 90 95%. >> Can I propose that for the sake of this conversation, we just think 150 for the sake of this conversation? Like you're you can do your practice, but for the sake of this conversation, let's just consider that. Does that answer your question? your your question was >> well I'm asking you that in your in
336your amendment are you saying that if we get to >> 48 then you're going to do two seats you're going to force two people is that is that the plan >> I think I think we should push it to where it becomes financially viable >> but that's not the driving >> Yeah because I I sorry >> let me ask you is if if it's in the 20s now and after a year it's exactly static static right I you know we do the same efforts or maybe even add a few outreach awareness I'm just saying like then to to your point if it gets 30ish then to make it viable are we then saying to the district leadership they're going to they can raise it to 50. Therefore, 20 kids are not uh are going to
337be assigned there that wouldn't normally be. >> Yeah, that's what I would be saying. >> Okay. >> I mean, we're doing that now. >> We're doing we're doing that now. We're we're putting people who I don't not everyone gets their first choice. I don't I clearly what we're doing now in the district leadership, correct me if I'm wrong, but the district leadership is doing a as as minimal amount of students as possible to try to make the program viable until we can or until it can organically happen with whatever ecurrent efforts are going on. And they're doing it by limiting it to transfers in and and not current fifth graders. Most of the current fifth graders, not all, got their choice. Therefore, that's going against a little bit. Therefore, we're we're the that's the the
338fear of the other parts of our community that we are then going to at some point if we're not seeing the normal like prompt in if if if people are not normally choosing on their own uh even the with awareness then we now still have two underenrolled programs >> and we are actually then going to go and and and and make them happen because the board has decided to make it happen. We the district went through a rigorous six-year approach to to do this. I'm not debating that, you know, there maybe shouldn't have been this outreach to the community earlier, but that doesn't mean that the district hasn't had a committee looking at it. They've had their staff looking at it. So, they've been looking at it. I trust in that. I've we we have
339to trust in that, right? So, they've been looking at it and they've said to us, there's a reason I asked in the very beginning, why now? Why why is this the tipping point? Well, because it's not changing around. I'm just saying like, so there's going to be some pain points because there's some tradeoffs. That's what we're saying to the community that it might even get more mandated going forward if we don't make a decision now to to go down to one school. Superintendent Dire just said that next year that if we that we can funnel the resources down and try to make one school survive and thrive. >> What's help? >> I'm sorry. What did I say? >> Make. >> I'm sorry. Not make. Support. Help. But point is is they're saying that with the
340the finite resources and the channeling of energy and staff time and and committees, not saying we can't even do a committee. I think that's maybe a wise prudent choice, but I'm not sure from what again we're we're the board. We we're we're debating this, but I'm my my standpoint is I'm having confidence in in our staff leadership that has finally said to us, we're at the point where a decision needs to be made. We're very sorry, but we can only put this effort into trying to make one program sustainable. I believe that. That's just my viewpoint. It obviously that's and so that's that's my viewpoint. That's what I'm holding on. Clearly, there's other opinions and we're all entitled to ours, but I'm not sure we're again I think we have to vote because I don't
341think I don't know. Um I'm not trying to convince. I'm just trying to put it out there that that's the frame of reference that I have. >> Can I can I try Can I try paraphrasing your amendment? >> Yeah. >> Because I don't know if I understand anymore. >> I want to make sure I understand what I'm hearing. Your amendment is that for the first year, uh, the district uses its regular practice. Is that right? And then you're proposing that for the second year, depending on the results of that first year and the work of the advisory board. No, >> I'm going to say not dependent on the ad and not dependent on the results of this coming year. I I we already know this coming year is going to be low. >> Yeah. >>
342Right. That that is just the way it's going to be. >> Yeah. >> We need time for our district advisory committee to start moving things up. And no, it's not going to ramp up right away. Our district advisory committee is not going to get >> 50 kids in butts or butts and seats, right? 50 butts and seats. That's that's not going to happen. That's right. >> Because it's going to take time to build that reputation. It's going to take time to build all of that. At the same time, we have a fiscal responsibility to our schools to be able to say that they are fiscally responsible and that we have enough students in seats. And what I am saying is that right now I don't think it's fair to our community to say we're going
343to make sure you fill all our seats. What I want to be able to do is say, hey, you know, this year >> kind of crazy got thrown at you. Sorry. Next year, you know what's coming at you. Make your decisions as you will. >> Got it. I I wasn't trying to actually disagree with you. I just wanted to parcel it. So I I'll try it again because I realize I I misdirected. First year is our current practice and second year would be an adjustment perhaps as deemed necessary to make it viable. We don't have to say full capacity. We only have to say a number. >> Is that what you're asking maybe? >> Yes. Right. >> To make it viable. Yes, that's what Right. So, uh, procedurally, I believe, uh, there's been a motion.
344There's been an amended motion. There's been a motion, a second, amendment. The amendment needs a second and then it can be voted upon or the amendment fails and it reverts back to the original motion. If I >> So, when we vote, if we vote, we vote on the amended version. >> Her amendment needs a second. So if nobody seconds it, it essentially dies. >> Okay. Is there a second for the amended motion? >> Okay. The amendment is that Y revert back. >> So we revert back to the original motion which was Oh, sorry. I I move that we keep all three BRSSD middle schools open, follow our customary enrollment procedures as outlined on our website for 2627, and establish a district advisory committee, which includes parents and uh staff members on middle school marketing and
345enrollment. >> Second. Okay. Uh, do we need to second for discussion >> before? Yep. Second for discussion. >> Open for discussion. >> Does this motion include direction on the enrollment practice or is it just up to district cabinet? I have no idea >> that it they would have the district would have to follow uh the process which has been the customary practice which is currently outlined on the district website which says um middle school choice form will be sent via email to families of current BRSSD fifth graders. Fifth grade students enrolled in BRSSD as of February 20th, 2026 are considered current. Then the Mi uh middle school choice form is due. And then it says current students for whom the middle school choice form is not completed or who are enrolled in the current school
346year after February 20th will receive a middle school assignment based on space availability. Will your customary practice in this motion involve boosting enrollment? >> It hasn't at this uh point in time we've uh established a number that um that the majority of folks are going to get their first choice. I we would probably use the same number we used this year. Um I I see Ching Pay, assistant superintendent who Please feel free to >> Yes. >> But the recruitment practices at fifth grade have not gone out yet because of all of this that's going on. But the practices consistently include marketing and our I mean our our staff do an info session. They share information and and there there are plans. They just haven't gone out because we've been waiting to. >> So >> in
347that respect, >> uh so yes, I will just say the dates uh need need to be updated slightly because we're adjusting them based on uh this conversation and planned outreach that I've been working with principles on. So, um, yes, that is accurate except for a couple of dates. I just since you quoted the dates, I want to want to be transparent about that. Uh, and and we'll be sending outreach to our families um based on our decision tomorrow >> to fifth grade families. We're currently having these series of conversations month by month because population is is lowering or enrollment is dropping and the current numbers are at 130ish and 120ish in this motion that we're talking about right now and your current practice [snorts] what are you aiming >> our current practice would have them
348continuing at the lower enrolled rates um and uh we would be uh enrolling anybody who comes in likely I don't know what the the rate is but um assuming it's consistent anybody who enrolls a uh a during the first enrollment window and on uh would be assigned likely to Nesbbit and Sanpiper. Um we uh I think pretty much did a good job with all of our fifth graders getting their choice. There might be a handful that don't. I don't I like the numbers are close. Uh I I totally hear uh the middle school marketing and enrollment. Uh I fully acknowledge that there's areas that we can do better. Um, you know, Chingpe kind of alluded to we we we have a committee light. I wouldn't call it a committee, but it's it I'm channeling it's
349not Shane Pay, Julie and I that are working in silos outside of Ryan and Gloria. We are working together in scheduling opportunities and looking at programs in doing outreach. So, um, for for whatever that's worth, how does this motion impact our commitment to raise enrollment? It directs us to establish a committee that does additional outreach in some way that is different than we currently do it. And um as it sounds like there's a desire to have more um onampus access for parents which presents its own challenges. It sounds like there's more um desire to have in-person open houses, which um from my perspective, an open house is for the parents of the students that are in the class. Um it's an added piece. Um but certainly uh we'll be adding those those pieces per per
350direction. >> Does this motion compromise the preservation of choice? uh as it currently stands uh it's it's everything status quo is is what I'm hearing from from you. Um do I think it supports the growth of our middle schools? No. Okay. Again, maybe we don't need to be that specific, but the advisory committee would come back, April, in your idea, at a certain point with recommendations for marketing and enrollment. Is that >> Yes. Um so for example we have our uh bond oversight committee and we have our parcel tax oversight committee and they uh report to us once a year. I would I would recommend more than once a year, but I think those are uh details that can be worked out. And then yes, the uh the marketing committee I think uh would would
351you know we would want them to get started as soon as possible with the marketing part of course and then the uh the enrollment discussion that could be more for next school year. So it would be one committee to help uh help advise on all of the middle schools. That is my thought because I think um part of I I think part of the challenge with the marketing has been that things have been happening uh individually and um you know just anecdotally of what we've heard and you know again I know the staff has been doing a really wonderful job um but just like I think we need that centralizedness. So that for example, I'm just just as a crazy not a crazy but just a very specific example. If Sand Piper Middle is going
352to have a like middle school openhouse night on whatever day, I want that announcement to come out and it also say that Nesbbit is going to have an open house on a different day and that we don't put them on the same day. So, I think that could that I mean, um I think we could defer to I think Trusty Tang was saying that Rston should have an in-person openhouse. I think we can acknowledge that we don't need to boost enrollment at RST. Um but if the committee wants to have an open house ad then then that could be something the committee discusses >> and then are they um then making a recommendation at some point or is it just like or so then it's up to the board at a certain point future board
353or whatever current board to then say after getting this advice whether it's for one year period or two years and we just monitor keep monitoring it and then the idea is then to to say okay like it's still kind of the trend is not upwardly growing despite the best ideas coming from this committee and staff leadership of course is kind of that's where we're going right like that's the idea >> yeah I think I think my main idea is one is um getting the parents involved and right including including them and then um secondly is that it is complex and we can't decide all the details >> tonight >> um and that we want further discussion and so I think all these other things um we can ask the committee to work on those we
354can at future board meetings we can provide more direction for the committee uh we can then say to the committee, you know, we'd like we'd like you to present at our June board meeting. Does that work for you? Things like that. But like right today, I think we just need to establish the committee as part of the motion of keeping all three middle schools open, follow our customary enrollment procedures as outlined on our website for 2627, and establish a district advisory committee uh on middle school marketing and enrollment. So I guess I I'm I I like what you prop proposed. I'm just trying to get my head around it. So at some point advisory committees advise on options on what to do with awareness and everything. Who is it then the future board to say
355we've heard enough recommendations over the years like what's going to bring it back to the table to then finally say based on x amount of years we feel now some future time period right the future that that we will we have tried option one and it's it's it's not viable despite best efforts. We need to close a middle school. Like is that that's where so they're they're advising they're recommending the district. We would advise the district. We would say to the district strategically implement go tactical implement and then at a certain future point ultimately the board would then feel like there was a certain amount of time had passed for us to then have this decision which we're the options which we're faced with now. Like who brings like that? I'm just like is that
356where it has to go? Right. What do you mean? >> Why does it have to go to closure? Like I I feel >> not saying it has to go to close, but I'm saying at one point if there's declining enrollment and we're still at the numbers we are now despite the advisory committee's recommendations, which hopefully we've implemented to some tactical success. But if not, if everything is static despite best efforts, we have not been able to um raise the the numbers to make the program sustainable and we are now spending 800k uh where it could be better for counselors. I'm just saying at some point we then I would think unless we're going to just sustain these small programs to you know infinity some board is going to say we have a tough decision to
357make despite our best efforts we have not raised uh the numbers to where we feel they want to be. Trusty Bruno said 50 is the number hopefully maybe aspirationally it gets to be even bigger. I mean, I would think that would be the hope and when you're creating a program, it doesn't stay smallness, but maybe it does. So, I'm just wondering like I'm not adverse. I'm not trying to I'm just trying to think it through and see are we at some future point coming around to the table and is that what we're kind of saying that we feel like the community has valuable input or this advisory committee has valuable input in thinking that options haven't been really flushed out and therefore we're willing to give it time to then exhaust those opportunities despite you
358know whatever has been done up to now and therefore that at some point though there might have to be a decision made because as declining enrollment those it might go down actually not go up. I'm just is that kind of where where it's where we need to go. >> Thank you Trusty B. >> Um um I I think I think we can we can um give some more specifics right now. Okay. Uh but I also think we can leave matters to the committee. Um and just for like trans you know complete transparency um right three of our three of the board members we got elected in 2022. Y >> right. So we would have to decide if we were running for reelection in the fall. So, all uh anyway, >> and two of the board
359members are in the same district. So, unfortunately, Trusty Bruno and I I've I've sent him I've sent him house listings, you know, to very nice districts outside of our own. >> Yeah, we're gonna >> Thank you, Trist. >> I know you're absolutely right that might not be the makeup, might not be the same. >> Exactly. So December 9th of this year, there will be at least one new member on this board, possibly two, possibly three. And then uh that is considered a new a new board that then would then work with the superintendent and the district advisory committee and the staff and they can then decide the priorities. And then that that board is then theoretically consistent for 2 years until the next election happens. um in which case Trusty Tang and Trusty Deng may
360decide to run for reelection or may not. >> Okay. I just wanted to be clear of what you're proposing and Okay. I I feel like I think that I think yours has merit if you feel that that that the committee can bring some some interesting ideas and that the staff can implement those ideas to uh to show the growth. I think if you're of that belief then I think you have a sound idea. I'm not saying you don't. I'm just you have to be of that belief that that that's going to go in trend in the right direction keeping trying to make it work for two programs, right? Okay. So, we have that mo. So, >> can I ask a clarifying question? >> Yeah. >> You specifically call out enrollment staying the same for the
3612627 school year. What happens after the 2627 school year? I think um that that I I I I think that legally and and ethically uh as a board we can uh vote on the budget for next year and we can um uh say what we want to happen in this following school year. And we can also um uh adopt new board policies or change board policies potentially, but I don't think we can tell the next board what they're going to do in 2728. I I think I think if we attempted to tell them what they would need to do in 2728, those future people who may be some of us would be like, "No, we're we got elected. we can we can decide what we want to do. >> So theoretically 27 27 28 it
362could be that we are we have gone to a different model of filling our seats. >> It could be but I think again it's it's a complex issue and I want to involve our parents and um and rely on their expertise. um in in marketing. Um I really appreciate the efforts that the district has done. Um but again, it's right. You're not generally thinking that in addition to running my school and making sure that students are are learning that I've also got to market my school, right? That is like an additional thing that parents can help with. Mine's low, but Lauren. >> Yeah, that's a sign. >> Lights are out. Who turned me on? >> Okay. So So So again, Trusty Northrup has a has a motion on the table. Do you feel clear about
363that that motion as it's specked out enough? >> Yeah. Okay, I'll I'll go ahead and repeat it just to be sure. Uh the motion Sorry, D. Would you like me to? >> Yes, please. Uh so the motion is to maintain three schools uh follow our current enrollment timeline with some small changes in dates. Uh to establish a district advisory committee with the goal of um marketing and enrollment establishing it as a volunteer organization um and uh uh that's it. Okay. And did we get a second on that or do we want to seced again? >> Second. >> Great. Okay. So, before we vote, any further discussion on this? Okay. All right. Can we uh I think we need a roll call on this. I'm not sure where. So, since this might not be anonymous, please
364let us do a roll call. This >> All of our mics are dying. We only paid up to 10:00. >> Put some money. Insert money in the meter. >> Okay, we'll do a roll call. >> Yes, please. >> Trusty Bruno. >> Nay. >> Trusty Northrup. >> I. Trusty Tang. >> Nay. >> Trusty Deng. >> I >> President C. >> Nay. >> We have three nay votes. >> Two I votes. Motion doesn't pass. >> Right. Motion doesn't pass. So does that mean therefore we are then talking about option two and three or just on that amendment that was okay >> I think just that motion failed. >> So so anybody doesn't we don't have to stick with option one people can then present an option two or three uh motion if they so choose. I mean,
365so I don't know what the rules are. Um, I'm just going to go for the sake of I'm going to make I'm going to I'm going to make a motion. Um, >> can I Yeah. >> Okay. So, I make a motion uh for option I can't see with my glasses. >> Just just state what? >> Yeah. Okay. I'll make a motion um that we go with keeping um Nesbbit open as the smaller middle school program and unfortunately closing down San Piper. Do I Is there a second for again? This is a second for discussion. >> I would like to discuss this motion. If that doesn't have to go on the table, like can we just talk about it? >> No. Then you say a second for discussion. Oh, >> the second means we vote on
366it. Discuss it. >> I see. No, >> it it can go both way. Boards do it. We've done it both ways. >> Why don't we have a discussion on it? Fine. Let's have a discussion. >> Let's have a discussion since we're talking about option two. >> Did you want to lead off with your thoughts? >> Sure. Um, what does So, I was trying to get this earlier. the enrollment issues at both sites are not necessarily attached to each other. Would you agree with that statement? >> Uh yes. >> So what does option or this motion what is what does improving that situation look like? Like again as a as a separate scenario this school that we've called both schools we've used different words but unsustainable not viable whatever version we're talking about. Yeah. >> What
367does commitment to improving that look like at this site? >> Uh, I think it's all of what we've been talking about in this advisory committee um about working on marketing, about making sure we're getting out the message, about um trying to do things differently. Um I um also think that the ability to market one school and capitalize on kind of the small school kind of need um perhaps is is going to result in more um uh opting in. Um but certainly we would be building it from that perspective. both programs from a programmatic standpoint and a support and things we can do to support them are pretty much maxed out, right? So, uh we we would work on on uh getting the word out, building those opportunities. Uh I would not I would and if
368it goes to enrollment, I would not artificially uh and inflate the number. I would follow our our current procedure, our current practice uh and focus on one program. >> So, let me Yeah, go ahead. No, go ahead. Um I think uh I think if we were to um in order to fairly discuss options two and three I would ask the district leadership which they can't provide right now um for a detailed cost savings projection for the next five years. >> Uh so we can certainly do that. I can anecdotally tell you that we've already started looking at enrollment. We can uh essentially uh move the current enrollment at one of our small schools, absorb it into rston with very little to no staffing changes at Rston. That equates to a 7ft FTE um savings. We've
369been incredibly conservative with that number. Um and we um again we haven't been driving it from a funding perspective. Funding has been central question and honestly that's not where it started uh from our work from cabinet's work from our work with schools. Uh CBO Matsumoto please please add light there as well. >> Sure. I'll obviously it's a very nuanced answer, right? I will do the best that I can, right? You know, I think >> regardless, you know, the you're looking for a cost savings by year. Is that correct? I mean, >> kind of like we're projecting the enrollment out five years. What do we project the cost savings to be? and um uh with with stipulating, which I'm pretty sure is has uh been stipulated before, is that if we were to consolidate small middle
370schools, that would not mean that teachers in the closed school automatically did not have a job. they we would have to follow uh bargaining unit procedures and our our goal would be to just not uh hire for positions as people retired and left. >> That's that is correct. >> Yeah. >> And I so with that in mind obviously I cannot predict the rate at which that happens right so let me just give an illustrative example and I'll try and make the math as simple as possible. The average teacher in our district costs approximately $150,000, right? So let's just say in the first year, you know, it's minus one for example, minus two and then minus three. And let's just say it over three years, right? The first year you save $150,000, right? The second year
371you save $300,000 and the first the third year you save $450,000. Now when you add all of that up, right, that's what is that? 450. That's 950 or that's $900,000, correct? Um ultimately that $900,000 right can be used for a multiple a multitude of things. One, it can be used to offset the, you know, the desired quote unquote small cut, right? Tightening of our belt that we have to do in order to close our our fiscal gap. two, you know, if we feel like we're in a good place, potentially that can go towards our people as well, you know, and honoring their service, you know, for in the fiscal way, you know, I'll just be super honest, right? Um, ultimately that cost savings just continues rolling down the line. Correct. Unless you use it for
372something. Um again ultimately you know I think from the fiscal standpoint right and I've made this very clear in multiple of our our interim and unodudited actuals California board the California reserve requirement is 3%. Right? Our board policy is 6%. Right? The goal here of our district is to hopefully land the plane at around 17%. which is what School Services of California suggests from a cash flow perspective for basic aid districts because we do not get money on a monthly basis. We only get money in the summer and in the winter essentially, right? That 17% helps us to meet all of our fiscal obligations now into the future. Right? So again, as Superintendent Duar and I talked about earlier, it all comes down to trade-offs, right? It's, you know, if we would like to do
373more in one area, you know, for example, if we would like to honor our staff more, then we can do that, but it may come at the cost of something else, right? And at the end of the day, $900,000 is not nothing. You know, $150,000 per year adds up very quickly. Does that help? >> It it does. Um, uh, thank you. I appreciate that. Um, I'm uh Thank you. Um, I want us to make a decision tonight. It's late, of course, but it's it's well worth our time, of course. Um, but I feel like we cannot make a decision on closing one of the middle schools if we don't have that financial information out there to the public in in the slides in the memo. I like I and I do appreciate Superintendent Duo's memo
374that he prepared and um and the slides. Um but I think for me to feel comfortable and it won't really be comfortable for me to uh to to feel like we did our job listening to the community, we need to give the community more information. And it it can be a chart that's like in year one we would save 150,000, year two we would save 300,000 but that I believe that this is the this is the first time we've been explicit about that. I don't think we can then make a decision right now. >> Um thank you for bringing this up Trusty Northrup. Um, just for clarification, so if we closed a school, we would have seven full-time employees that are under contract. Correct? If we're saying in year one, we're going to save money
375that we only save the money if someone retires in year one. Is that correct? But like could it be any teacher that retired or would it need to be a teacher that held the same credentials as that teacher? So like there's a potential that we wouldn't get any cost savings for five years, right? If nobody retires, >> we we we have retirement. I'm looking at Julie. We already have four retirements. >> Are they for that credentialed teacher? I mean, I'm just saying we're we're only going to get the savings if the teacher with the same credential retires. So, I think saying that in year 1, year two, year three, Okay. So then it doesn't need to be a teacher in the same credential. It >> does. It you have to be credential to teach the
376specific area. But so you're saying that the the the seven full-time teachers have a credential for TK8. Is that what you're saying? So any teacher in TK8 that retired >> that is uh a majority did you leave There's a lot of >> um all of that is correct. If you want hard numbers, I can I can I can't speak to specific positions, but I can guarantee at least a cost savings of three teachers from year one, if not more, the minimum of three. Um due to retirements and shifts, retirements, resignations, and other shifts. um minimum of three teachers in year one the 15th this month. Sorry, >> the debt the bonus that >> uh we do have an incentive. It's an early retirement bonus because we uh if we know you're retiring, we can get
377out there and recruit early. Um we're just getting to that point. Uh I think at the end of this week or next week. >> Uh the 15th. You said >> the 15th. Um, so that's that's part of it. So that's why Julie knows we have four retirements. Um, historically we do have >> folks that leave us at the end of the school year and plan their transitions accordingly. >> If I might also just add add a component It seemed so certainly thank you very much director the the the fiscal um the fiscal component would would be this the same. I just like to go a little further to why again I think both programs are outstanding. The reason that I think it to go to option two versus option three is is based on a
378few things. One is the projected demogatic demographic growth, concentration of student need and distinctiveness of academic programming. We've seen from the demographers report that the growth is going to grow in the central of our district in the you know the El Camino kind of corridor. So if we're having our comprehensive school up at Rston and unfortunately the recommendation is to close one of the smaller middle schools, it makes sense to have one the other one where the growth is in the central part of the district where the demographer projects future enrollment growth that could be able to potentially sustain it. In addition, there it is the our most diverse community. It's a title one school. it serves a higher proportion of English language learners of as we've realized students requiring acadeal academic support uh does
379exist that furthermore I I would say that we while we definitely I acknowledge the value of the small middle school model right that smaller environment that still would that still would happen those students who that is their best fit parents would still be able to select between a comprehensive middle school and the other smaller for middle school. I think Nesbbit has an advantage uh in the IB middle years program. One, it's the only one in the county and I think that's to be commended. I think also as we've heard that one of the elective choices is language. Certainly, uh world language begins in sixth grade as a mandatory core class, not as an elective as it has in Rston. So that would be something that San Piper students uh I think would appreciate. You know
380the design focused learning that is in both programs is embedded in the IB program. Um and also having an oversight uh of a globally recognized program by the umbrella of an international balorate organization that does authorize and regularly reviews as part of their mandate to review their school sites that have that are implementing their program. I think that's going to help with transition. So going down this path, I think for those reasons, it would make sense between option two and three to to go with the Nesbbit option so that it there's a little it helps with that transition and it also services our vulnerable community. That's where that's where I was thinking with this, right? When I think about that list of vulnerable communities for either one of them, what does it look like for
381the district to take care of that community if Nesbbit closes? to take care of when you say take care of that community if Nesbbit closes. Uh I I I think Trustee CS made uh some solid points about the the quality of of the program. Again, not diminishing uh sandpipers. uh population I think um uh so I'll I'll uh rather than judge I will quote what we heard um at our s at our Nesbbit about access about relying um uh ability to get to and from school. Um uh we heard from the Sandpiper or the Nesbbit community that that was um a challenge at times. Um certainly transportation um uh currently goes up the hill in the morning and it goes down the hill uh in the afternoon. So transportation uh is a little bit more
382feasible for the Sandpiper folks to get to Nesbbit or Rston. I think that adds to it. Uh Nesbbit is um our our uh most uh diverse um uh campus. Um so certainly has um additional need when it comes to that. uh we don't have a we rely on public transportation to transport our students uh to and from school. Uh um we would as I've said we'd work with SAM trans to to do the best uh that we're able. Um that there currently is no transportation uh I don't believe from Nesbbit out to Sandpiper as a school route. 7 a.m. bus from short. >> Yeah. I'm >> Sandpiper go up. >> Sandpiper goes up, right? Oh, sorry. Yes. All of our schools can meet the needs of all of our kids. I'm I'm gonna look to
383my colleagues to to uh Jen Pay uh DBL Matsumoto. Do you >> really? >> Yeah. >> Without speaking about individual needs of all >> Yeah. I I will say when it comes to support services, maybe that's um kind of your question. We move support services to support kids wherever they're attending. So, uh that is something we do each and every year and we'll continue to do that. So, should we go ahead and should we go ahead and see if there's a second for the motion? So, again, I I'll rephrase the the motion is is that uh Nesbbit remains open and Sam Piper is closed. Is Consolidate. Sorry. Yes, absolutely. Consolidate. It's not a closure. Thank you. Consolidation. Is Is there a second for that motion? Okay. Any further discussion before a vote? Yeah. >> Thank
384you. Um, I would like to offer an alternate motion um to also be considered um which is um uh I'll just say it out loud. Uh I move that we keep all three middle schools open, follow our customary enrollment procedures as outlined on our website for the next two school years 26 27 and 2728. And that we establish a district advisory committee on middle school marketing and enrollment. address. Friendly Does that supersede that? Because that's a different motion, right? You're going back to option one, right? >> I I think >> I'm just trying to understand. >> Yes. I think what we can then do is we can say I want us to vote on Trusty North's motion or I want to vote on I don't think >> um yeah I think I I think that
385procedurally we can only have one motion like in action at a time. So I think we need to vote on the first motion and then make another motion. >> So okay. So we we'll get to that if it's So the motion on the table has been seconded for for the rema Nesbbit to remain open. Um so now we can we do a roll call on that motion. Well, wait. Sorry. Do we want to amend also by the district advisory committee or is that convoluting it or All right. Well, let's just keep I mean, do we want to I mean, is there a motion to to add that district advisory committee or just do a straight motion? Well, the motion was just to to NEZ remain open sandpaper to be closed, but then I don't know.
386I thought we had talked about the district advisory committee, but I'm not trying to Okay, then we just put Let's just put it out as is and then we vote on it. Okay, >> I'll bring it down to Jackie. >> No. What? Yeah. >> Okay. So, sorry. So, we're reading the motions again, I guess. So, read the motion in. Okay. So, the motion is uh option number two um Nesbbit remains open as the K through 8 school and um Sam Piper is closed. >> Sure. Fine. >> Uh I Yes. Nay nay. >> I has that motion been seconded yet? I'm I uh I apologize that I introduced another motion when we hadn't voted on the first one. Uh, I'm interested in hearing if Trusty Bruno has an alternate motion. >> I don't I had a
387question and perhaps an amendment. So, we This is This is a good thing like the time adding time to it is okay. Yes, I would amend three years. It's like I I would want the most secure and stable version of it of this this now new motion where we're saying two years. What we would be committing the district to or not committing but recommending that the district do is for three years maintain a situation where we are fiscally not viable. Is that correct? It's not even not viable. It's just we're physically not not as responsible as we would want to be. Is is I I just want to clarify. Is that right? I would like a version of this motion that shows the fullest commitment of this district behind our schools. and 2 years feels
388like not stable or insecure for families, staff, and students. So, I am in support of the fullest commitment. Yeah. So, I'm amending to three and then fully acknowledging because we don't have to say it more that there will be a new board probably at that point and they'll make their selections. So, um, I'll maybe may I take your amendment and add it into my motion? >> If you just if you just say two years and I'm a fifth grader, why would I choose to go to sixth grade? >> Right. Okay. Dr. Saints >> because we're not saying that in three years or in two years we're going to go and decide to take away the schools, right? We're not going to consolidate. I mean, the commitment is we we intend to stand behind the school,
389right? I I'm so where my my conundrum is is I don't want the district to be in a position where we are not filling the school and I believe that our district advisory committee can fill those seats but I believe I also believe that they need a good amount of time and perhaps not enough time for the district and and they might need more time than the district can give them with our runway of whatever dollars we need. And so what I really want to see and not really want, but I what I would prefer to see is that we go with option five and say, "Hey, we're going to we're going to say we want these schools." give our families that one year of okay or one or two years I I'll give you
390two years right of current situation with not having necessarily enough students that allow the district advisory committee to build up that enrollment. So let's just go. So we have a motion for three years. >> We So we have a motion. So originally motion for three years status quo motion for three years advisory committee that was >> it's just working on something different. All right. Three year three-ear period. >> Yeah, I think I think for clarity I' I'd be happy to say my motion again. I move that we keep all three middle schools open follow our customary enrollment procedures as outlined our website for the following three school years 26 27 27 28 and 2829 and we establish a district advisory committee on middle school marketing and enrollment. Can I get a second? Second >> open
391for discussion. >> Um, excuse me. Uh, if I may make one point, if I may ask one clarification. So, the committee would not make extra costs to discharge any. Correct. >> Correct. Correct. It would be a volunteer committee. >> Okay. Thank you for that [clears throat] clarification. >> I'll just squeeze it in. >> I know. >> Okay. So, we had one like Okay. So, we had a motion. We had a second motion for discussion. So, now we do a roll call vote >> or just if there's further discussion. >> Sorry. Further discussion. Further discussion. Okay. Okay. So now we have a roll call vote. [clears throat] >> Trusty. >> What's the what is the twoear part of this? No. Okay. Uh, >> I'm sorry. Say it one more time. >> No worries. No worries. Um,
392I move that we keep all three middle schools open, follow our customary enrollment procedures as outlined on our website for the following three school years, 26 27, 2728, and 2829. And we establish a district advisory committee on middle school marketing and enrollment. second. >> Same question I had before. You have you operate in how you see fit and present to this mission. That's artificially reason. uh by the virtue of the motion the uh board has uh determined that we move forward as we have >> so no we don't artificially >> I How it should be. >> Hi. No, you can >> passion passes. >> We want to thank everybody, thank the board for the deliberation, and I want to thank everybody for remaining. Um, >> have a very nice evening. >> Uh, we're not done.
393>> We're not done. We're still >> Item number 13 policy. Uh trustes CSBA policy update uh for immigration and enforcement is from first read. Um it is some change in legislation that requires districts to adopt certain policies by March 1st. Uh it is an amendment to our other board policy five4 and with this recommendation we will be deleting 5145.3 the replacing it with four with 1445 motion recommend Okay. Do I have an option? >> I move that we approve CSVA board policy uh response to immigration enforcement. >> Okay. So with that this action is okay. Okay. So, all all in favor of >> I pass. >> Um, could we close the doors? And of course, it's still an open meeting, but could we close [clears throat] the door just so we can hear ourselves? >>
394Okay, now we're on future board agenda. It is CSBA. >> So, we have Item 14 is CSBA uh board policy January 2026 first read uh before the board tonight is a list of board policies with recommended uh changes. These changes are based on CSBA recommendations. Uh these policies are out for first screening tonight. uh we'll be asking uh for any feedback and approval uh at our next meeting. >> Great. So this is a discussion item. >> Okay. So now we go on to future board meeting agenda items March 12th and April 16th. Is there anything um so is there anything that anybody wants to propose adding on? >> No one's listening. I would like to do this. >> I I propose that uh for the March meeting um we ask uh the district for uh
395if there's a change to the timeline for sixth grade enrollment. And also that we ask uh uh for an update uh from the district which can include parents of uh the middle school marketing and enrollment committee. >> Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Okay. >> So >> advisory that we get an update from the advisory committee. >> So the board is asking me to have the update the advisory committee in place by next month. That's pretty short. >> Um, so I I'm trying to um, so I think again, right, for uh, taking care of this coming school year, right? We need to parents need to know is there are there any changes to the timeline right now for because superintendent mentioned that that there could be possible dates changed on the timeline. So maybe maybe let me separate
396my questions. >> Yeah. Are are you needing to discuss changing the timeline at all for 2627? >> Can I ask a question about that question? or >> okay it looked like you were going to answer so I >> if the board would like additional information I'm happy to provide >> uh I think one thing that I I'm just curious about it's is like so now we're going to create a committee so like are we creating the committee or who's who's gonna >> so I think one of our u um one of our uh powers that we have as an elected school board is that we can create committees. Uh we can uh leave it to the district to um to handle the uh specifics, but I think you know our our idea can be uh
397that maybe we would like an update from the district in March on maybe it's how are they going to form the committee something something like that how are they going to form the committee as in they're going to send out for example that they're going to send out emails that they're the uh the principles at each of the three middle schools are going to specifically ask their school site councils if anybody wants to join things like that. >> Uh I'll just go ahead and address the timeline. Uh March 3rd, we have a uh middle school joint information planned. March 2nd, uh, sorry, March, I got to adjust the decision. Uh, Monday, March 2nd, there's going to be a middle school information night. All three schools presenting. Uh, Tuesday, March 3rd, there's going to be an
398information night. I believe uh March that would be I'll just hold on. Sorry. uh the week of March 1st, we have uh presentations by uh the middle school team. So, all three middle schools followed by individual presentations of uh by Sam Hyper and Nesbet. um week of the next three weeks we're doing uh parent chores March 9th at NZBIT, March 11th and 12th at San Hyber. Uh we are trying to work in school visits to to meet with with our students. I don't know whether that's fully possible. Uh but we're testing that for possibly February 25th, 26. It's short runway especially with conferences. Uh we're planning a shadow day on March 13th and March 20th at NEZVID and March 16th and March 19th at Sam Vapor. The middle school choice form will be sent out
399on March 27th. It will be due on Friday, April 3rd. Spring break is April 6th through the 10th and we will send out uh placement information shortly after that likely. So uh the website will be updated uh with that information. Uh any delay to that um has us delaying our time frame. Uh this will go out to membersh direction. >> Okay. Uh we have a convened close session. Do any other work for >> Do you have a convenience? >> It's I I'm fine dispensing with close uh tonight uh the board. >> I think we would like you. >> Okay. So, A motion to close it. No m to >> 11:29. >> Thank you for your service. >> Good job everybody. community. >> I am not