001e e e you ready yeah all right okay good evening everybody thank you for your patience thank you for being here on this cold and windy day windy evening uh so we'll call the special meeting of the Board of Trustees of the B unan School District to order at uh 6:03 p.m. uh we have all five trustees um in person here uh first uh item is the the adoption of the agenda if there any questions if not I'll ENT in a motion I move to adopt the agenda second moved and seconded all those in favor say I I I the agenda is adopted as presented the next item is under review and discussion School consolidation and closure study session Dr FES thank you good evening this evening uh assistant superintendent of Business Services Kevin Franklin
002will open our presentation and and assist the board in their discussion on the matter of school consolidation right all right good evening so I have a few slides here that are part of a request for more information from the last study session that we had so I'm here to present those particular slides um and answer any questions that you might have about some of this information so the first is just um a slide about the options that uh we had brought forward at the last study session options a b and c um with I believe the focus being on option b um at that time but still have the three options available um depending on what the board's direction is okay the next item that was requested was the schematics for a tk8 campus and
003so what we had talked about was that there are really two realistic um schematics uh for a tk8 campus the first one being this particular school pedmont middle school and what we were looking at was option C within the three different options and a lot of that was based on cost and the timeline to be able to implement those changes to reconfigure the School site so with this particular option for um pedmont Middle School to make pedmont a K8 what we're looking at doing is pretty much kind of dividing the school into two sides um with the bottom side on this particular map being the elementary side and so you can see reconfiguring the classrooms there in the front to uh the TK classrooms and Kinder class classrooms putting a playground out in front of
004those classrooms for the kindergarten students so um playground appropriate for ages five years and under to accommodate those students and then out further on the black top behind the mini gym is the other playground for the older Elementary School students then what we have is pretty much everything else along the the administration building remaining the same with the choir and then this NPR um being the same and then leaving the band room um where it's currently located in the library and also in this particular instance leaving the fif space where it is and then um creating the the upper 67 and eighth grade um classrooms on that end of the campus the other thing that we would do that I failed to mention was down in the TK section is that we would reconfigure the
005restrooms in that area to be appropriate for uh the TK and Kinder students so in in installing smaller um toilets and and um making that restroom suitable for those students so we would do that reconfiguration so all of that cost is about $2.4 million we would also look at what options we have to make drop off a little bit easier out here in the front so right now there's currently a a short fence along that curve for the drop off we would look at removing that fence then we would also look at any other reconfiguration we could do to help make it uh easier for parents and families to drop off students especially the younger students that are TK and Kinder age over there by those classrooms any questions about this particular uh layout for
006pedmont before I move on from the board feel free to ask interrupt Mr Franklin uh quickly for the for the drop off glad that you mentioned for the conf reconfiguration for the younger students so I would imagine there would be a staggered um belt schedule uh because if if if we do uh end up with the tk8 configuration so yeah that would depend as we're developing um you know what what that looks like um I know that I'm familiar with some tk8 campuses that are larger in size than what we would be creating and they all have one standard start time of of 8:30 so we'd have to take some of those things into consideration you might have some families that have an older student and a younger student and so maybe a stagger drop
007off might not be conducive to to their situation so we'd have to really kind of take a look at how we wanted to do that as far as the bell schedule goes okay okay then the next option to look at at roughly the same cost was sierant middle school and reconfiguring that school into a tk8 campus as well and again the same concept of kind of creating that divide between the the younger grades and the older Middle School grades so creating at the bottom half of that map um you know the Kinder and TK area there at the bottom having that TK playground out in front of those classrooms and then going around on the side the first through uh fifth grades and then leaving the other half of the campus for the older students
008and not doing any changes to the current art room the current band rooms or the science rooms all of those um would still remain the same and then you would have um the seventh and eighth grade like I said on the on the middle of the building and then eighth grade also occupying some of the Portables and there I don't know that we would need to do any reconfiguration for drop off although there is an option to be able to do that to reconfigure the small parking lot in the front to have an entrance and to have a drop off section there as well but that would be a little bit more than the the 2.3 million that's shown um as the cost for the reconfiguration and then another playground for the older elementary students
009out there by the third and fourth grade [Music] classrooms any questions about this particular layout do those good schematics require change to the existing boundaries to the middle schools so yes it would because depending on how you want to configure um you know what elementary schools are going to be feeding into those so for instance if p was chosen and if it was Toyon and and um Summerdale merging into this particular campus then we would need to reconfigure the Middle School boundaries for Vincy Park and Noble which feed um you know about 50% of their students to uh to Pont for both schools and then CRM also depending on what schools were being um Consolidated into that particular campus then we would have to look at capacity and to see um how that would work
010out so in other words if um Pon was selected to become a TK through 8 school their boundaries would shrink and same for siot if they were selected to be a TK through 8 their boundaries will shrink as well yes [Music] okay just one additional note on that with the tk8 at sier aont you would have a more large scale boundary change for the Middle School attendance then you would with pedmont simply because the elementaries that feed into sier Mon are larger in size than the elementary schools that feed into pedmont any additional questions before we move to the next slides all right so I'll quickly go through these next ones because these are just some of the items um that kind of came up during the board study session discussion last time and so
011there's just additional more in-depth information that I'll go through relatively quickly but please feel free to ask questions as we go through if you have any um first was about the boundaries um as you just mentioned and what those currently are um and where they they all the students are currently located so the next couple of slides are the current boundaries and then some school density Maps as far as where our students reside within those boundaries as they currently are so it's the elementary these are the Middle School boundaries so you can see how some of Noble's attendance area um splits between sierant and that peach middle section um some of Noble's boundaries go there and then they're in that fluorescent green those students go to uh pedmont and then same with Vincy Park some
012of Vincy Park's area is green going to Pont and some of Vincy Park's area is yellow going to morill so those are the adjustments that would need to be made um in the situation that um that was just being mentioned and then as far as density Maps it's a little bit hard to see on this particular screen it's actually pretty clear on the on the displays but um you can see that there's darker um red color areas where it's a higher density of our students residing and so you can see some of the really dark red areas are some of the areas where you see some of the apartment complexes that have uh many students living in them and then some of the lighter shaded areas are where we don't have very many students uh
013residing and then this next particular slide um shows in these dots exactly where we have students and higher densities of students so again that's something that you know when you see it on the on the computer screen and you can zoom in you can kind of see where our students are currently residing right now the this is a a graph of the or a table of the distances between school sites so you know how close one school is to another and for each particular School you know what the next closest school is those are highlighted in yellow so you can see the next closest school for instance to uh Noble the closest schools are Ruskin Summerdale and Toyon so that's how that particular table works okay next was school capacity and utilization and again just
014a reminder that all of these slides have been presented before they're presented to the committee and we've we've shared them a few times they're available on our website as well um these are the school capacity calculations so just how many um uh students uh can be served at a particular School site based on the current number of classrooms and if we add additional Portables how many can uh the School site sustain and how many students can they serve so that's the current capacity calculations here's the utilization rates for 23 24 so this is the the utilization rates that we were utilizing last year when we started this process so you can go down and you can see that for each of our school sites and then because we're looking at implementing this in 2526 we
015did another utilization rate based on projected enrollment at that time for each School site so that's why we use 2526 rather than this current fiscal year because we're going to Implement next year there are also some questions about the Mandarin dual immersion program at Cherrywood so this is some of the information that was requested out of that conversation so the program started in the fall of 2018 starting with two Kinder and one first grade classroom and then two classrooms were added each school years each school year to build the program and now we're currently having we have students in sixth grade and seventh grade at CR middle school as well so it goes beyond Cherrywood now and then as you can see on that next line in 2526 you will have our first group of
016eighth graders uh finishing that first cohort through camont middle school so the total enrollment as it currently sits with the Cherrywood dual immersion program there's a total enrollment of the school site of 533 we have uh 277 of those students in the Mandarin dual imersion program 256 six that are not currently in the program so a little bit more than 50% of the students are in the Mandarin dual emersion program at Cherrywood and then you can see how those numbers play out between how many Resident Cherrywood students are in the program versus non-resident students and out of District students so you know a majority of the amount of students come from either outside of the school district or from other School site attendance boundaries uh do we know which School uh sends most Mandarin students
017from our district to Cherrywood Vincy park I think it's in the 54 or so um but yeah Vincy park has the most uh students in that program the next set of information that was requested was about title one so just a quick overview of Title One eligibility and what it could be used for um Title One schools are eligible for Title One funds when they're above 40% % um when above 40% of their students are considered low income so when you go below 40% then you can apply for a waiver if you meet any of the following criteria which is greater than or equal to 25% of the students being low income greater than 30% um being English Learners um or if you've been identified for comprehensive or targeted support so all of our schools
018currently receive funding through a title one waiver meaning none of our schools qualify anymore as being above 40% so all of them are below 40% now where that hadn't been the case in Prior years and then expenditures um all must be supplemental in nature and directly related to increasing the academic achievement of economically disadvantaged students so everything must be above and [Music] beyond this is a list of our schools that qualify for Title One status and the percentage of free and reduced um free and reduced price meals which is How We Gather the low-income um and socioeconomic status of our students so that's the in the middle column is the number of eligible students and then what that translates into as a percentage and then the corresponding Revenue associated with those students for each of
019the school sites and then another term that we use often is the unduplicated pupil count so we also get supplemental dollars from the state for our unduplicated pupil count students very similar to Title One in nature um and it's for we get additional funds for any student who falls into one of these three categories um students eligible for free and reduced price meals English Learners Foster youth or homeless and so basically what that means is that if a student falls into multiple of those categories they only count that student once you don't get additional dollars if they meet multiple um categories and then this is the unduplicated people count by um type at each School site so which one of our students are Foster youth or homeless um which ones are free and reduced and
020which students are English Learners so this is just um a chart showing how many of those students are at each of our school sites as they currently are this year any questions about any of these slides thank you for the presentation um there any questions from the board uh we may ask at this time before we move to public comments we could spend some time um discussing the findings of the data uh and then uh move on to public comments and come back uh to discuss the U next steps the Bo's prerogative I also just want to quickly share with the trustees we do have others here in the audience that can also support answering any questions you may have we have Brianna Garcia here who's our facilitator for our school consolidation advisory committee we
021also have Tom Williams our demographer um our uh chairperson is still here Mr Carol for the committee as well as Harold Freeman our um legal councel who's been assisting us through this process and of course cabinet that can answer any question questions you may have so on the U just from the uh the data from [Music] Cherrywood wrong slide oh there you go so the nonmi enrollment is uh all all 256 sherrywood resident students or do we have transfers overflows and things like no we do have some students who are overflowed into the in into the school site um I think there's about 10 that are in the K5 program and I think there's another 8 to 10 or so in TK that come from other areas in the district okay I I just have
022a quick question about um how our students and families get around to the different schools are you do you have information about um how many students will be who walk to school who will be impacted if we do a TK to a like to pedmont and to sierant like the incoming schools do you have those kind of rough numers yeah I'd have to go back and look at the previous presentation from that time frame but we did have um we did have the safe routes to school that was part of the study that uh Dan Norris did um and we did present that information so we do have that data um I just don't remember it off the top of my head but I can get that you know um I know combo class sizes
023changes every year but is there any particular site that historically always has had an issue with always having combo classes because I think that's one of the issues that I would like to address is to avoid the need for combo classes yeah so from my experience the past few years it's typically your smaller School Toyon Summerdale um there's a handful at um Cherrywood this year Lan view has some um Brook tree I think has one or two but typically it's the smaller schools we've we've seen them every year at at Toyon and Summerdale since I've been here okay so our two smallest Road schools are are Toyon Summerdale and what's the third one now Lane View Lane view okay Noble's another one that's probably roughly the same say go ahead sorry yeah I have one
024question just regarding the you know the uh I guess adjusting or you know upgrading the facilities the middle school facilities to accept um you know to make them T TK to 8 so the cost is roughly 2 half million that's what we're trying to save by uh you know by consolidating schools why can't we use those funds just to pay for you know for the cost instead of consolidating schools yeah so that's a good question so the the dollars that we would use to upgrade this facility or CR for a tk8 would come out of our bond and developer fees which are specific to using to improve our facilities and can be used only for our facilities and not for um just general purpose salaries and we have the the bond funds available for for
025that type I know because it wasn't initially you know part of our our planning for yeah so there are bond funds so you know if we do close uh three schools we will um have some savings from not needing to do all of the projects scheduled to occur at those School sites some of them we would still of course um still follow through on such as like fire alarm systems things like that because our facilities are still going to be are going to be around and we'll need to keep them safe um but there'd be other projects that we would maybe um not be moving forward with that we would could then reallocate those funds to upgrade these sites okay and then there's also some dollars available that that were already committed um for instance
026upgrading science labs things like that that were already scheduled to be done at each of the middle schools okay and it seems like pretty extensive work that could be done before the beginning of next year yes So the plan would be um once the board makes the decision on whether or not to move forward with the tk8 at either of the school sites we we've already had an architect look at um the layout for each School site what we would do is we'd start with purchasing the playground equipment so we can move forward with that and we would start doing a lot of that work um and then we would try to schedule out the restroom work to be done during one of the breaks if possible before the summer okay um what are your
027thoughts on um when it comes to converting uh the middle schools either seront or Pont middle into TK through R uh the safety and traffic issues I know SI is located further inside the residential areas there's a lot of uh residential parking for parents and Guardians to walk their students or their children to school a little bit more safer but as far as Pont middle it's on a larger thoroughfare just right out here um could that become problematic or how would we address that um I'm not sure is there do parents drop off their kids right off here in peont road yeah there's some that do park down the street and and the students walk I've seen parents walk with students as well um it's pretty good traffic flow moving through the the circle here
028and and out in the morning um you'd also then have probably staggered in times to you know so typically TK and Kinder get out earlier than the rest of the students um but again the School site after creating a tk8 would be roughly the same size that the school sites currently are maybe slightly bigger if it's pedmont versus zont but again pedmont a just a few years ago was over 800 students and so if we're creating a tk8 that has between 700 and 750 students you know there's actually less students coming to school um and then typically you know if we're looking at Summerdale and Toyon those students are already families that come here um for drop off currently but again too we have to remember that with the reconfiguration there's going to be more
029staff so then there will be staff that could help you know out in the front with helping children get out of cars and help with the flow of traffic so um it there's a chance that or there's more staff so it helps make things smoother during drop off and pickup times thank you so even just even is you good please sorry um yeah that's actually one of my concerns as well as traffic um you know for this site I have a middle schooler here you know I have a an elementary student at Summerdale and those you know younger students need the parent to bring them to the school to wait for them after school my middle school or you know I wait for them on peniten Creek Road because the traff so bad um so
030uh I think you know with the just having the main road here one of main roads and know the Bas area is is a little bit problematic in terms of traffic flow and stuff like that but we also have theot lot right which Right Now isn't available to drop off or pick up it's just for would that be something that perhaps we could look at um um I probably wouldn't recommend it just because of the fact that we are going to be reconfiguring and rebuilding our warehouse facility and it will be rebuilt up in the front here but even before that there are still big trucks that do come in to to drop off for deliveries and we can't always you know plan exactly when they're they're coming into theot yard and so if we're
031allowing that to be used for um for pickup during the day and we have deliveries that need to be made it could become problematic but we would definitely look into traffic that'd be part of one of the next steps moving forward is to to look at what the impact of the decision would be as far as traffic and the two and a half million doesn't include any like say you know parking lot upgrades or changes or anything like that um it would it most likely would be able to include some of those if you're going to completely redo the parking lot then no we would need to add some funds but there's definitely um some some dollars in there for some reconfiguration of the parking lot to help with the traffic so of course this
032was this was redesigned like five years ago into the current um layout with Middle School in mind but we could we would definitely take a look to see if there's a more efficient way to make it um more conducive to a tk8 and then just to go back to trusty HG had asked about the safe routes to schools and those numbers it's on page 176 in your binder you'll have a configuration there for every school that gives an estimate of the Walkers and what those um patterns are around each facility which is what the committee looked at during their August 8th meeting it's under the appendix a and in appendix a page 176 is where it begins and as Mr Franklin mentioned um the next follow-up step once we do have schools identified from the
033board would be a more intensive traffic study for those locations so basically no matter what we decide we'll make it work uh in a good way yeah kind of pivoting to another topic too I also wanted to touch on um Staffing for mental health as well so for a TK to8 model has do we have an idea if we would maintain the model that we currently have with our psychologists and social workers we share them among the elementary schools and what would happen with the TK to8 model would we maintain one for the entire school or I'd kind of defer that to ed services and and what their thoughts are I know psych just we allocate based on a a student ratio so that would probably stay the same yeah the one thing I would
034uh advocate for is if you're moving to tk8 you have two elementary schools our school social workers support two elementary schools so I would advocate for an elementary social worker and then a middle school social worker then you have that additional um academic counselor and then the school psychologists who would serve probably just the whole school and they wouldn't um uh share sites where most of our school psychologists currently share sites so I think that would be my recommendation so I'm actually glad you brought that up uh because I think one of the most important factors um of this process the closure and potential consolidation is that uh we want to provide more resources we're not we shouldn't be thinking of it as closing a school and taking away from our community but we should
035be discussing it as if we're adding more resources by consolidating it so that way our students have more available resources that are more readily available to them at one site absolutely and if we go back to our original objective um for this school consolidation process as much of a financial challenge that we have it is about making sure we're better utilizing our resources and maximizing services for our students um I know there's no actions taken tonight but uh maybe uh we could set some parameters is there any potential School sites uh that you guys feel are off limits or you absolutely cannot support closing so that way when we do take action next week we kind of focus our conversations on the schools that at least the five of us can't support consolidating or closing
036like is there a middle school or are middle schools off the ti T any particular sites that you just absolutely cannot support closing yeah I think the the last meeting U I expressed and I think trusty boak also might have I don't want to speak on her behalf but I did Express um that I'm not inclined to to close uh any of the middle schools as far as possible uh I mean uh again we want to keep that as a last option uh ideally if there's a there's a pathway to creating a tk8 uh in a successful tk8 model uh then we we should look at uh preserving the Middle School uh and preserving all three middle schools uh you know reconfiguring one uh into a tk8 kind of a model that that's where we
037were at at the for middle schools and I can also speak for myself since I wasn't here but I agree with that I really think we should not touch our middle schools for closure there would be a lot of students impacted I also would like to stay Within in the schools that were recommended by the committee I think that you know the process was robustly done by community members and we should maintain that short list that they provided to us and also I would like to voice that I'm really concerned about the impact that uh this will have on our Latino population our um mckin vento students and so I would a on the side of you know trying to make sure that they're supported and that our decision does not ultimately greatly impact them
038the most since school closures are happening across the side it's disproportionately affecting our lowincome homeless Latino students so I just want to voice that as well all right uh any other questions trusty black yeah if I remembered correctly the last time we met here we chose option was it option C or I can't remember what it was anymore where we would reconfigure one one middle school and close two and I think it's uh option option b then I think that's the one right yeah it's option b no Middle School must close I totally I am against that and I think we all agree as members of the board so the with the option b we say we talking about closing two Elementary merging wait sorry two Elementary merging one with a middle school but um
039if I heard you correctly uh I mean you probably might have cited it as an example but you did talk about suale and toon merging into pmon so capacity wise uh does pedmont have capacity to absorb both the schools um as they are meaning without breaking up breaking apart the community uh the S Summerdale community and the toon community community and then bringing both schools as it is so it won't be a closure per say it'll be consolidation of both elementary schools into Middle School is that capacity yes so yeah so the the utilizing the current projected numbers for Summerdale and Toyon for next year combining them into one school here as a as a tk8 would be within the capacity it'd be well under the maximum capacity and it would be somewhere between probably
040740 to 775 students somewhere around that that range just depending on some of the parameters that are put on to uh the creation of the of the tk8 right and for sorry uh just quickly uh to continue on that tk8 model for seront I don't think we we spoke about any one school or two schools I did I I do understand that the the M Majestic Cherrywood and rasing that feed into San a larger school elementary schools um what would be the vision like for for that um I'm just curious how how we structured that yeah so to be able to create that at carmont you'd probably have to reconfigure um you know what that looks like so right now you currently have the Mandarin dual immersion that I mentioned at um at sierant so
041then you'd be looking at I would assume most likely Cherrywood becoming part of that K8 um but then you're really limited because then that's one attendance area then only for um the middle schools or for the Middle School portion of that K8 and so um that wouldn't necessarily work but but they have 520 or 30 or so students and so that's around the amount of elementary students that we would be looking at having for a a within a tk8 so configuring that to be able to be the size and and and everything to not have the disruption to the other two schools as far as where those students go to Middle School you'd have to um have the rusin students um go to a different middle school and you'd have to have the Majestic students
042go to a different middle school as well I got okay and then if you chose Ruskin rusin then you're looking at 300 yeah to 350 depending on the projection in the the years moving forward and then that's not enough so then you'd have to look at then where you're GNA you know pull the remainder of those elementary students from to create that TKA yeah just see minutes I am oh I'm sorry [Music] okay thank you um so if we were to consolidate say you know Toyon and Summerdale here how would that affect the boundaries of the other schools that feed into uh pedmont Middle School right so right now part of nobles students come to uh pedmont the rest go to sierant and then uh with Vincy Park some of them come to pedmont some
043of them go to morill so I think after having conversations with Tom Williams um we would most likely look at um having the Vincy Park students feed into uh Mor and the um Noble students feed into camont but of course we could take a look you know in more detail at those boundaries and see if some of the Vincy Park students if it would be more appropriate for them to attend um camont based on where they live but um there was also a good point brought up to me earlier about um Vincy Park and there being um public transportation bus Transportation through VTA going from the Vincy Park neighborhood directly to Morel so Vincy I mean of the four schools Vincy and Noble are more affluent than you the student populations than say Summerdale and
044Toyon right so and in a way we're segregating the more affen students with the less affluent students because now you know they all me here I mean it just depends some of them like I said already from Vincy Park they they already split between the two schools so um how those numbers you know and what the status is of those students I'm not right I don't know which you know half goes there but right you know just in terms of uh just entire School population as the whole yeah that's okay I um I have a concern at the same time when we have to close Title One schools and if um Summerdale and toon were to come here here that's all Title One schools but at the same time I'm looking at it in another
045way too that um more students that can receive Title One um more than 40% it will be schoolwide so the resources would be would be com in plenty and know for them am I correct on that one yes so if it were Summerdale and Toyon merging in with pedmont trying to get to that title one slide here so you know you're looking at you know the two highest percentage Title One schools merging within the highest or pedmont and Mill are roughly the same um as far as Title One percentage but you're you're correct you'd be merging um essentially three Title One schools together um basically two the two feeder Title One schools that feed into pedmont and so more than likely um because those percentages are so close to 40% for Summerdale and Toyon you
046would have a school that was over 40% um and not needing the waiver uh for Title One um by creating the tk8 here at peont so the the resources would be schoolwide and perhaps hire more resources more mental health people more there more counselors and so forth right for instance when you see you know Summerdale and Toyon combined receiving about $90,000 in Title One money and then on top top of that another $90,000 from pedmont you can do a lot more with those dollars combined than you could with just sommerdale and Toyon so for instance Summerdale and Toyon the way they're currently configured um you wouldn't even really be able to hire a halftime like reading intervention teacher for instance um or some other um type of uh support type teacher intervention teacher um but
047when you combine those three together you would definitely have enough money to provide resources like that at a school yeah I also have to point out too Summerdale and Toyon pedmont is their home school for Middle School right so they're going to have to come here anyway okay yes oh and I also want to note um I would also like to see if we were to combine all our Title One schools like pushing for something that would benefit those students like a steam school for Pon middle school just to give um this community a benefit you know since if we were to do that option as well I would voice Advocate heavily for that as well it's my concern you know neighboring districts have schools with large Title One populations no one is clamoring to
048go to those schools no one is saying You know despite the additional funds additional resources hey I want to send my kid to Title One school or high Title One population so that is my concern uh that you know would happen here is that we would have a giant school with a large larger Title One population than any other school in the district uh I don't see parents saying oh well they have you know they have extra assistance they have an extra counselor I want to send my kid there that's not what parents look at um you know um so that's that's something I'm really concerned about but if we reconfigure this school as a steam some kind of an academy then I think it would be more attractive to the other districts if we
049were to do something like that yeah and that's definitely an option so I mean as part of the Recon configuration we could definitely look at doing something like that and reconfiguring classrooms um as we start to create the the plan for the school we can definitely look into that I think we the board agrees as to not to close any of the Middle School uh I think I'm getting that from everyone here um so perhaps The Next Step would be we need to really think about the other closures the other school sites if that is something that the board agrees on and to rethink all these things I just want a quick clarification from truste so can you uh explain one more time your concern about creating a big huge Title One school is that
050a I mean over the Optics of I know that yeah yeah I know that you know neighboring districts have schools with large Title One populations I went to Title One schools all my life and they're not the schools that people choose to send their kids to despite people you know when parents are looking they look at test scores Etc right um but and they look at you know student uh demographics they don't look at you know they they're getting some extra funds because you know they have poor kids because they have second language Learners that tend to bring down the test scores right so uh they're not usually the schools that people want to send their kids to for whatever reason you know why we know the reasons but it's just yeah having gone to
051Title One schools I can tell you they're not the schools that people even though they may be good schools right and they have you know resources they have great teachers and assistants and all that stuff they're not the ones that parents want to send their kids to right so so just just due to the fact that we label it as a as a title one school just the Optics of that might uh might not look good even though the the yeah well I mean you and students that are you know second language Learners that come from disadvantaged backgrounds also tend to score lower on on tests and so that and that's what parents look at as the test scores right so unless the assistant is assistance is really but I mean in general is it
052really enough to to elevate the test scor to some you know to a school with like say a Mor affluent all English learn you know all English proficient population I don't know okay thank you so I see it a little bit differently um I don't think it should be looked at whether the parents want to send their children to that school or not I think it should be looked at the fact that the children that that are enrolled in those schools are they getting the the support that they needed and if we have the ability to provide that support and additional resources I think that's what's important especially for um families living that neighborhood often times they don't have the resources or ability to drive their children to the schools that they do want to
053send their kids to because it's not Title One or whatever uh oftentimes those families are forced to go to those neighborhood schools um and if they are sending their kids to those schools we should provide those children with the uh the most uh resource and support I think that's how we should be looking at it yeah well and and that's part of the problem so the the families within those boundaries that can that have the means or have the knowledge to send their kids to another school uh within the district or you know they can afford a private school they will do that and so my concern is I mean that happens here at this school right I know kids that choose not to come to pedon because you know it has a bad reputation
054uh quote unquote so they send you know the ones that know that they can do that and they have the transportation they have the time to take their kids to the campus or the means to s in private school they will choose those options instead so it creates more segregation and that's really that's my concern I think that parents if they wish to send their kids to private schools they can I mean that's their choice but at the same time as a former educator myself I am not really too concerned about um whether whether the parents are going to send send their kids to a title one school believe me we can create it we can create a school that is extremely attractive to these parents and one of them in my opinion is turning
055it into a steam Academy of some kind and and that I think is very very attractive as a teacher myself it's it's not so much of a concern because we cannot help when parents want to send their children to private schools yeah yeah I want to Echo that I share the same concern as you trusty Jimenez because I do acknowledge that that you know all three of the schools are Title One schools but I also agree with trusty boak you know I think that if we give the school an added benefit it'll become a even better school and we can give them those resources like having the steam Academy or like a steam school but I would want to know like you know with our board Direction I want to make it explicitly clear that
056we need to give it some sort of like steam Academy steam school and have some sort of special benefit for this school specifically for the title one kids because growing up in the district too like I I know the the reputations that our different schools have but you know they change over time you know so I went to moral midle and like at the time it was like only Morel was like oh the one for sports and whatever but now we have completely different reputation with Morel and you know being a California distinguished School site now you know like there's the school can change over time and I think that that you know having like steam at peont middle can you know change that reputation over time too so and I hear the private school
057argument a lot as well and I want to make sure that you know all of our schools have that added benefit and with this process we have that ability to do so so and I I hear you on the segregation Point as well but what I've learned is that you know we need to give additional resources to these schools and I think that doing a seam programming or something like in addition to would make ke M middle a really incredible school you know so that's what I'm uh thinking as well yeah I agree with with you know both of you um so I don't think that you know just having it be a title in school because it's get gets extra money for you know the extra system that the students need anyway I don't
058think that that is to me it's not a selling point but if there there were something else right to make these schools that aren't so attractive right now right no one's saying oh I want to send my kid instead of sending him to Ruskin I want to send them Summerdale I want to send them to Twan and that's part of the problem right or I instead of sending him sierant you know I want to send them to people how how often do we hear that we never hear that so there has to be something that really makes if we're going to do this right to make it an outstanding School uh besides the title one status actually in spite of the title one status so I agree with uh what everything was said and I've
059shared this with the superintendent fenus I also support uh rebranding if we were to go down this route rebranding the school that we decide to consolidate to make it a steam Academy adding science programs engineering programs you know to make it attractive for our parents and the students that are impacted by this um and one of the the largest points uh for the parents I speak up against the Rusk enclosure was they have a science lab there none of our our elementary schools have a science lab so whatever schools get impacted maybe we could you know incorporate those type of programs into the schools that are are Consolidated so that way our elementary schools do have these these programs that are so important in this Valley you know engineering and math um so again that's
060just how I see it um when we think of the consolidation process it needs to be not what we're taking away from our students but what we're adding to the students that are getting impacted all right good points so um maybe this could be a good time to move to public comments and we can come back uh you know if you continue to gather your thoughts want come back to that uh discussion is that does that sound okay with everybody or are there more questions for um for uh the cabinet or any of our uh guests today you good interesting one are you okay all right all right so let's move to the uh public comments on the agenda items they 12 me e okay all right let's move forward with public comments before uh
061before we go to public comments uh I want to remind everybody I I uh said this is the last meeting also I wanted to uh uh begin once again acknowledging the challenges involved in this process never easy uh to consolidate schools or uh close schools those are scary words uh the worst thing that that a school board can undertake uh we understand that it's a emotional journey and can it can be very difficult to grasp uh just wanted to share with everybody in case you missed it last time that we started this process in 2022 um when we established our budget stabilization committee uh it reflects our commitment to addressing the district's Financial realities thoughtfully and the with the desire to preserve services and support to our students as we spoke just now uh as
062we review the process and uh you know talk about uh you know all the all the information tonight uh I ask everyone to REM remember or share purpose it's to ensure that all current current and future students in the barasa community receive a quality education um let's keep this meeting respectful constructive and focused on the facts uh basa we have a strong reputation for maintaining decorum and I really appreciate that from everybody for being thoughtful and respectful and for setting a positive example for our children some of whom here are here today hopefully some of them are watching us online all right so um before calling up the speakers um I'll read the speaker conduct for those uh all those who wish to address the board during the public com periods speakers are requested to
063state your name and affiliation for the record each speaker today will be given 2 minutes to address the board and 5 minutes per per organization uh we are a little flexible with the timing uh so uh I I'd like to remind the speakers to communicate with respect fairness and courteousness to each other and to all present we ask that you not use the name of any District employee in your comments the board welcomes orderly communication from the public with that we will call first Speaker uh PR from Ruskin [Applause] uh thank you everyone for your time and effort it's a difficult process and it affects our children navigating this path has to be well thought of and I'm encouraged to see that our trustees are taking this seriously I personally would like to say that
064I am in support of the decision of making a school as a speciality school every parent likes something special for their kids so if there is a special program parents are going to be encouraged to role in that given that opportunity we should also keep it in mind some parents may not want to have that uh stem or steam process such parents should be given an option to opt out and anyone else who is interested in should be given an opportunity to join what this means is to keep our enrollments open give parents an option to choose the school that they want their children to go to this would not only encourage the parents to stay within the district and maybe bringing some of the parents who are in private school back to our public
065school system so thank you for giving the opportunity and the best thank you for those comments next speakers uh there are two on the start Victoria Kio and Delila Ramirez [Applause] hi my name is Victoria CIO I'm a former student hi my name is dalala r and I'm a first grader student okay um with recent discussions about potential changes affecting the schools I wanted to share why I felt it was essential to keep them open um I understand your guys' concerns about declining enrollment and reduced funding but I believe we must keep the students best interest at heart instead of taking any easy way out I watched classmates from my elementary school Ruskin go on to Ivy League colleges and top tier uc's beras is a place where students are given opportunities and Pathways to
066success and I know it can continue to be that place if we make thoughtful decisions so going back to the point you guys said earlier I really do like that idea of added benefits because it brings attraction to the schools um I'm very glad I didn't attend a private school because I feel I got way more resources from Barry Esa than I would have got anywhere else um most people want to send their kids to these schools because they feel that the benefits are better than a private school for Less cost for them and that'll allocate more money to you guys and the district so as a political science student I also want to call attention to a recent Bill introduced to eliminate the US Department of Education one of these biggest impacts would shifting
067K through 12 education funding directly to the states through block grants so while this may sound promis promising such funding often falls short of meeting the schools and community's needs so while I urge you to make the right decision about the future of our schools please consider not only short fixes but long-term effects for students uh families and the community as a whole [Applause] [Music] wait so we learned about Johnny apple seed and also we go to the science lab and my favorite thing is about the science lab the water cycle and if they close Ruskin and there's a shiny Park and I will so be so sad thank you thank you both thank you both for those comments next speaker is Jennifer hen [Music] hi my name is Jennifer and I'm a Rus I'm
068a rusin parent Ruskin is ranking as one of the top in the district for academics data from the state indicates that students perform 8% higher in math and 30% higher in Reading tests compared to the district average for students exceeding State benchmarks Ruskin Rings among the top in public and private last year Ruskin number one overall in the Silicon Val Valley Math League beating out private schools like Harker and Challenger in addition programs like the science lab further make it a competitive alternative to nearby private schools these achievements make Ruskin not only an asset to the district but also a critical factor for families deciding between public and private education additionally ruskin's oncampus after school program Sunshine offers extended hours and activities such as Sports arts and language this unique offering supports working parents and
069enhances ruskin's appeal compared to private schools data from the last meeting showed only 60% of students born within the district boundaries enroll in district schools 40% presumed to be attending private schools the student density map that was presented shows that most of the dense areas are where the top performing schools are and it further supports that perhaps families are choosing private within District boundaries are because of their homeschool doesn't perform to their family standards closing Ruskin would push families out of the public system and further decrease enrollment high- performing schools like Ruskin are essential for retaining workingclass families who would prefer not to pay tuition if the district wants to grow and maintain enrollment Ruskin must remain open thank you thank you V Next speaker next speaker is T Yan uh my name is cayen
070I'm a rasing and Si Mountain mom I know many friends and neighbors who send their childrens to private schools but I was still shocked by the number our demographer presented at the November's board meeting more than 60% of students attending straford mil Peters School are from our district that's about 400 students and straford is just one example we have many other private schools nearby but it was uh it was it wasn't always like this only s years ago about 90% of our kids attend in the public school and today the number dropped to about 60% parents chose private school not because they believe those schools are perfect solution for their children's education most of those families are working class and tuation a heavy burden to them as well they chose private school because public schools
071have a disappointed him because they feel that our district don't care about what they care about so if we continue to make poor decision right now the enrollment will for sure decline even further when more kids leave Public School the one who suffer the most are those who have no choice but to stay fewer students means less funding for our schools and those who have to stay are left with fewer resources and opportunities and my last sentence I think all parents care about the quality of their children's education regardless of social economic status thank you for those comments next card I have is Cherrywood [Applause] teachers um we the chairwood teachers I'm a the third grade Mi teacher I'm Miss Wayne I Am A K1 teacher my name is Sylvia Chan okay we would like
072to thank you for our schools district support cherwood is the only School in the district with a positive enrollment change rate we have the second highest enrollment in the school district and the third highest utilization we are one of the top two academically performing School based on state priorities we have the highest transfer in numbers one of the lowest transfer out numbers so talk about attracting more students and parents to um come to our um basa School District I I I do believe that Cherrywood it's like a magnet we we we attract a lot of um positive um learning um students and parents who really want to come to um bayasa school to study okay and um as I found the above that I said one of the most important thing to consider is um
073it has been taking years and years of hard work to establish a work on bilingual teaching model with the one-on-one switch class at every grade level and an integrated bilingual curriculum that requires enhance collaboration between the English and mentoring teachers within and across grade levels the logistical and financial challenges in relocating the entire program and reimplementing it effectively elsewhere include moving or retaining teaching Partners at each grade level cannot be underestimated putting the district in a position of restarting the process with new teachers creating a greater financial burden um so with the district's support with our manag immersion program we were able to win and receive a lot of national um wide recognition um and so we also are very proud of our manager imersion parent advisory Council and our home and School Association who
074um who's had very strong established strong Community with um engaging parents so we wanted to 10 seconds to finish your thought Miss Chan 10 seconds more that's okay that's okay thank you thank you so much thank you for your [Music] support next next speaker will be Lily from rusy it just say I don't have the last name [Applause] sorry hello everyone thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight my name is Lily and I'm a proud parent of two students and Rasin so eight years ago my family moved to this community because of the excellent reputation of Raskin and saramont their reputation was built through years of hard work and dedication through Educators students parents and the entire Community today my children are thriving at Raskin both academically and socially the school has met and
075exceeded our every expectation and we are grateful for that however we are facing the challenge as many families in our district now choose private schools in recent years while some simply believe private school offers a better better education many others still value public schools and would happily choose top performing public schools for great education with free tuition if they are given such opportunity so I urge the district to strengthen to invest and to promote your top schools as magnets and making en rollment more flexible to attract students from both in and outside the district keeping the public education strong on the opposite if a top school like Raskin were closed instead of solving the financial problem in the short term it will cause both shortterm and long-term negative effects to the district on the short
076term we may immediately lose students to private school because many families simply wouldn't risk the quality of Education in face of uncertainties on the long term the insignificance of hard earned academic reputation in the school closure decision-making process will damage the overall reputation of bosd make it harder to attract and retain families harming the enrollment for years to come so in conclusion please fully consider the immense value of Raskin and sount to our school district and to the future of our children and Community thank you very [Music] much next speaker excuse me next speaker Karen kamisa I said your name right the last time I this time sorry it's about as good as I get it thank you and and thank you all for coming out this evening and for giving us as a community
077another opportunity to talk I think it's been really helpful at least for my perspective to see the additional data and um thought process that's going in behind that so I I really appreciate app that um I know we've talked a lot and I've been up here in front of you all before um I really just want to remind you all um that in the past you chose Cherrywood as the source for your Mandarin program and you chose it because of its good location the ease of access to multiple communities to come and drop off children to pick off children for the ability um for it to house many many students um my my children aren't personally in the Mandarin program but we still can see the benefit of that across the community and it's it's
078really built a strong um School environment um for our children to learn in um The Mandarin program and its dual pairing is is kind of an important part of that program and its success um so I would urge you to consider that and uh the success that it brings our district um in as far as drawing in children um bringing positive enrollment to our group so um please consider preserving Cherrywood and Pres in that Mandarin immersion program which is going so strong um it would be a real shame if in all of this disruption um we hurt one of the things that is going so strongly for our district that's all thank you thank you for your comments next speaker is Alex hello uh my name is Alexander jimsky um my daughter goes to Cherrywood
079sorry can you hear me now um so what I wanted to tell you um board is I would urge you to look outside the five schools that were selected I disagree with the fact that the the committee did a good job I'm not it was not at all clear what um criteria was selected in especially ranking these schools that that were given uh I thought the whole point of this was It was supposed to be about money a lot of the schools or at least some of the schools that were not on that list seem to be spending a lot of money per student uh and now I'm now I look at some of your new data as well so let's you know just an example Brook tree has a huge drop in utilization um
080and there was nowhere even on the list and from your own data it showed that uh it's spending quite a bit more money per student than all the ones that are on the list so I would just urge you to take a second look at all the schools and not just pigeon ho yourself and the ones that the committee selected thank you thank you for those comments next uh speaker is [Applause] Sheldon I sorry well hi everyone thank you all for uh the work you're all doing in this difficult time so you know I'm a parent uh who just this past year uh put my kids in Cherrywood School actually so um um I thought I'd talk about two things um um two C's maybe one is community and one is competition on the community
081side um you know as a parent put my kids in Cherrywood for the first time by the way we moved from Stratford so we have some experience in selecting private schools um you know one of the things we wanted to do was just to see what the Public School System had to offer and we met with a lot of people at Cherrywood before putting our kids there um and so far so good so you know I have to say one of the one of the great things about Cherrywood is the community aspect uh they've over the years put a lot of work into developing a very very strong community that extends I think beyond our very local region across uh the district um you know the Homeland school club the teachers um the students we
082found all very good so so that's that's one on the community aspect so um for us that's been a plus coming from a private school and the other thing I'd say is um I was encouraged to hear some more discussion about specialized programs and the reason I mentioned competition is because you know earlier on I heard a lot about demographics and you know I I don't want to say that's not an issue it's definitely an issue everybody needs to have more kids I suppose but on the other hand um you know there is competition so it's not true that uh there that that's the only issue I mean Stratford is building more schools in the area and so um I think as a school district you know the school districts need to understand how how
083do you compete effectively and it seems to me one way to do that is through specialized programs my kids are not in the Mandarin immersion program but I can you can expect that that is a draw um the other would be like some what some of you have been talking about today is a specialized steam program so um you know my view is that keep the programs that are working working look at really how Implement new programs that can also be an attracting to the region okay thank you very much thank you for those [Applause] comments next speaker is Kim [Applause] no hi I only have a few words um I'll be quick just Reflections on the last couple months um we the rusin sount community have put efforts to collaborate with the schools within
084our district and for awareness and in the process you know we reach out to all the schools um to unify our voice and so we aligned efforts um to support our schools for many months now because we all love and we care for our schools deeply and we I don't think any of us can imagine our communities without our schools so um I know others have already brought up the our permanent um science lab our test sco um Ruskin fit program our Math League competition results and our outstanding teachers and staff so I don't want to repeat any of that I just want to tell you that I truly believe Ruskin has the secret sauce that makes our school Irreplaceable my oldest is just a first grader I have two younger younger than her um
085and I still continue to learn about the accomplishments and accolades that Ruskin has achieved over its time I have found Ruskin to be inclusive and diverse and more than that just immensely supportive as a community we all want the best for our kids and we hope that you the board have listened to the numerous great points that all the parents have brought up um the teachers and the community I'm encouraged by the dialogue and discussion so please continue to dig deep and continue to ask those questions before you make your decisions um I'm just hoping for as smoooth a transition for anyone that is affected and so I at the end of the day um if there are ways for you to help us be reassured that our kids best interest is your top priority
086um in your decision-making process I would just appreciate that and your time and your efforts thank you thank you for those comments next speaker is Steve Chang Steve Chang two of you walking [Music] up hi good evening um thank you once again for giving us the opportunity to speak to you um be kind be respectful be responsible be safe these are the phases that our children memorize at Cherrywood elementary school right it takes a lot to heart I wish as adults we could learn a lot from them and continue to learn from them right I want to speak on behalf of Cherrywood because of its super strong Community right um we actually are very inclusive and have students from all walks of life right we have students that are pretty privileged also students who are
087homeless and students qualify for free reduced meals why do I know that well there's data but I know it because I've spent numerous hours volunteering right whether it's at our steam night or shering for field trips Etc um so what you have here is we have a an institution here that's performing really well um it has one of the highest enrollment rates right it continue to grows and actually we have according to the data very good utilization rate but the capacity take more so I think at chood we are welcoming of students into our school right it's taken seven years of really hard work right you know I don't think it's fair to separate or divide or split the data between what's at Cherrywood versus Mi nonmi because well the data for the seven last
088seven years speak for themselves right and um I sincerely or but respectfully disagree with board members who say that they looked at the data from the committee the Consulting committee that's incorrect data right and there's a lot of data to refute the consulting firm on that so in closing I would say hey we've worked together really hard by we I mean the school the staff and the parents the community this is what makes up our community right we have something going really well my kids they tell me it doesn't make any sense to close cheru I agree if you look at the data cheru makes a lot of dollars in sense right that's just from the business angle but again we're here for our children we're here for Education thank you for your time thank
089you for those comments next speaker is Nina Nina from Ras [Applause] seron thank you for the opportunity to speak this uh this evening uh I am a Community member and I live close to Russian and seront so I'm going to be speaking on behalf of these two schools one of the things that I want to reiterate is I spent a lot of time you know I work from home I spend a lot of time walking the neighborhood meeting new neighbors and and I have found that in the last you know since Co hit there are a lot of young couples who have moved into my area so these are people who are planning to have kids they've moved specifically for Ruskin and sierant I mean I know this I've been to the open houses right
090I mean that's the reason why a lot of these couples you know either people with young children or no kids they're moving specifically for these schools so I think the one thing that we need to be really cognizant of is that while we may see a shift in enrollment right now that doesn't mean that people aren't coming that in the next 2 to three years or four years that you're not going to see those students come to these schools um the second thing that I want to reiterate and I think a lot of people have talked about this is that I think the school district has been a little bit behind the eightball when it comes to creating competitive programs I mean when I went to Ruskin and seron I mean the only competition was
091probably St Victor's right and maybe some other random private schools right but you didn't have Stratford you didn't have Challenger you didn't have Mary Hill you didn't have all these other schools and in order to compete effectively the public schools are going to have to create more programs right I mean I think that's what it boils down to I mean it might not have been the case 20 or 30 years ago but that is the case today and that's what families are expecting and I think it behooves us to create those programs because I grew up in a household where we couldn't afford to go to private school and that's the case for a lot of families they want a good quality education for their children but maybe they don't have $225,000 a year to
092send their kids to statford and so we need to really have those academically challenging programs you know whether it's the science lab whether it's other programs that we create so that bsud has that Competitive Edge thank you thank you for those comments next speaker is T [Music] dear members of the BD I'm Jeffrey Chow I'm the father of two daughters that attend Cherrywood uh they are in the immersion program I don't envy your position you guys have an important decision to make that's going to impact all of our community um the budget deficit is a looming issue that takes precedent and I understand that um I feel like I've gone through the five stages of grief at this point um you know and continuing to reflect on what we are facing as a community um
093with the deficit with lower enrollment with stagnant funding um It ultimately brings me back to the decision-making process and the rationale of this decision right um in spite of declining enrollment um Cherrywood is one of the only schools to have increased year-over-year and they have capacity to continue to increase um and if if enrollment numbers are a critical Factor actor then cherry wood is the wrong school to close um I can understand the rationalization behind taking the imersion program moving it somewhere else I've spoken to my kids teachers uh you know they've worked lockstep at that at the infrastructure in Cherrywood and they they've told me that if you move the program you kill the program because they partner with their with the English teacher so if you move them they have to start over
094from square one that's seven years of work that's undone um I'm I'm against closing any school um I understand I'm I'm trying to be realistic about it and I just again I need to harp on the fact that I think closing Cherrywood is the wrong closing Cherrywood is the wrong school and you're killing a Golden Goose you guys talked about making schools and having schools that attract attract members of our community Cherrywood is that school um and one one small anecdote we did a poll a week ago before Thanksgiving or a week before Thanksgiving 100 36 responses 80% in favor of increasing the parcel tax by $60 to save all schools so so there's something for you guys to think about thank you for those comments next speaker is CH Shen Fang Shan Fang [Applause]
095[Music] uh good evening uh my name is Fen Chen and I'm from rasing elementary school and this is my son Alexander Chen he's a little shy but he is uh the third grade scho students in rasing elementary so we are standing here is because we really want to voice the thought from as a parents as a proud parents of rasing Elementary so school is always about learning and I definitely see this from rasing elementary when um 2,000 years ago there is a mother single mother in China he she moved three times for her son to get a better environment to get better education and her son which is mon became one of the most famous politician and educator in Chinese history he is as famous as Kung fui okay so as a parents of the
096modern society we are always worked so hard to be able to provide our children a better education so we moved to the rasing school district right actually uh it's not exact because it's Bas District but it belongs to Wasing and we took our son out from Challenger which is a private school because we think rasing can provide a better education than the private school it's not because we cannot afford it but we think this is a better choice and I joined the PTA in rasing I feel so many people are really like a family raise your hands up my family so please this is really about family and closing it is breaking us up thank you thank you for those comments next speaker is Jeffrey CH Jeffrey CH sorry no I thought he was F
097oh that's Jeff ch no that is same this is [Applause] just uh good evening B members my name is t I'm a parent of three children attending Raskin and Sh today I urge the bo members to consider the long-term impact and sustainability with making decisions about which schools to close so it is unfortunate that our school district is facing financial difficulties and we must make tough decisions however we need to ensure that we do not find ourselves in the same situation again in five years so we must consider the messages or decisions sent to the community and the Future Families according to the data presented by the demographer at the November Bor meeting the future of our school district looks bleak if we do not take the correct actions the kindergarten in Roman ratio has
098dropped from 90% % to 64% in five years and about 60% of ster students come from our district not to mention those two Challenger Val chisan school and M chisan schools so we need to focus on tracking and retaining students in our schools closing top performing schools like Rasin and sount send a message to the community that we do not care about education quality this will result in losing more existing students and attracting fewer new ones uh additionally we will be taking away opportunities from low-income families to access high quality education because they cannot afford private schools so please do not make decisions solely to get by this financial hardship temporarily consider a long-term implications for school districts and Community thank you thank you for the comments next speaker is Eli from Sam Eli [Applause]
099[Music] Eli I am in i a third grader the first time I went to some I was s but I made some friends on the second day I was not s on the third day I made at least five friends soon I got enough friends and I realized that was some of those store so keep some window open for people to can make friends enough friends please do don't forget about the students like me at some of please do not forget our amazing teachers and the principle the the phrases of some adult is stay safe treat others with kindness act responsibly and treat and be respectful thank [Applause] you hi I'm Eli's mom I wanted to thank you guys for reading my letter and I just wanted to say that as Eli's mom I know
100that my family my kids are going to be okay because I'm very involved but I volunteer at the school and I see the parents who cannot be involved because they're working two and three jobs and it shows because they're not here you know all of these parents who are at these schools are not here because they are busy and they don't have the opportunity so I just want to speak for some of the title W moms who are not able to make it to say don't put all the title one schools and one school and then put a Band-Aid on it and call it steam because all you're doing is you're hiding these kids and you're making them into a poster child for something that it's not if you have the resources to help them
101why aren't you doing it right now why are you going to wait till next year these students need help right now which it just bws my mind how that's the thought process when these kids deserve a lot better than what you guys were discussing up there [Applause] thank go ahead I'll give you 30 seconds all right thank you um thank you all for uh listening to us and reading our letters and hearing our voices um I'm also a parent at suel elementary I represent sumerell I've been in the PTA my children have gone to the school schol since I have a Kinder I have a third grader who just ran for student council president um you don't hear that a lot with other schools that have been doing it she was the only third grader
102that ran and actually won against the fourth and fifth graders um we're doing great things at the school we have great teachers and staff um Eli here that just did he's been with the with my girls for at sumerell for the longest time and we've all become a close family and um we might not have a fancy science lab or other things but we do have friendly staff loving teachers caring parents and a great community so please save our school thank you thank you for thank you for your comments next speaker is Susan Susan Lee oh [Applause] thank you my name is Susan Lee and uh my child goes to Ruskin uh went to Ruskin is now at camont I actually really welcome um new specialized programs like the steam Academy at pedmont if that
103could happen even if it's a big Title One school if the steam Academy succeeds I would really consider moving my child from camont to Pont for that Academy what doesn't make sense is to try to elevate peont Middle with the steam Academy Academy but Clos the existing top schools like Ruskin and camon next I want to talk about um converting uh one of the middle schools a K through 8 like I said our my child used to go to a private k through eight school so and we liked it as long I think it's fine as long as the kids the elementary school kids and the middle school kids are kept separate Pont middle has two gyms that makes a lot easier than camont which has a very small gym uh one gym also I
104want to address Traffic Safety we bought a house so my child could walk to camon and shockingly even though it's a residential area it's actually very dangerous because tra I really would like the board to drive to both peont and camont because it's a residential area and there's no crossing guards no traffic uh control no traffic lights parents actually do u-turns all the time parents um cross the crosswalk even though uh kids are crossing the crosswalk I almost got hit by a car because and I'm experienced I had the slam on the hood of the car to get it to stop and it stopped right here so imagine if it was a child who does not have the experience to recognize the car was not going to stop um I actually drove to pedmont because
105I actually thought the the traffic here driving to school would be worse but here there's actually controlled one-way uh traffic flow which camont does not have and so I was actually able to leave school after a fake drop off faster than at camont which uh all the all the drivers have to exit off host stutter and they run into crossing guards at crosswalks and there's no controlled safety there so please consider the traffic issues that way thank you thank you thank you for those [Music] comments next speaker is Asia Asia um M mon hi [Applause] [Music] thank you my name is Asia I have a second grader at Cherrywood Elementary in the Mandarin immersion program the Mi program is a wonderful program and it's the only thing drawing student enrollment in the district closing the
106school that's a ma magnet for enrollment while being worried about declining enrollment is only going to make enrollment work our family acely transfers from out of the school district we don't speak Mandarin at home but we still commute from Milpas to join this program um we wanted our son to be in a dual immersion program and we debated attending a Spanish imersion program at our public Milpa school and ultimately chose the Mi program at Cherrywood the prospect of having the program we chose torn apart is very disappointing also Cherrywood is is the most convenient location in the Bara Union School District for us to travel to since it's near the freeway and not buried in a neighborhood um Chinese is my son's favorite subject even though math comes easily to him and English is the
107only language he's grown up with this is due to the phenomenal teacher teachers and strongly involved home and school club with their many enriching activities at Cherrywood the other Chinese Heritage students help him in Chinese and he helps them in their math or English they all learned so much from each other adding English only students from other schools to Cherrywood be would would be helpful so that each level can return to having two equal classes of Mandarin and English classes all of their lessons are very integrated last week he was learning about matter solids liquids and gases and he sang me a song about it in both Mandarin and in English because he learned it in Chinese but it was written on a poster on the wall of his English class you cannot split up
108our school you would need to move all of the students together this is an amazing program and it has been so neat to watch him to go go from zero Mandarin to where he is at in only 2 and a half years please don't close Cherrywood and halt this program's amazing progress thank you for those comments next speaker is it natania Nat [Music] um can you help me is it hit or well let's see all right hello hello board members I'm Natan osul a student here at pedmont middle I'm speaking because this idea of consolidation will not help anyone I believe that the idea of merging with an elementary won't help it would hurt our students staff and teachers that worked hard to get here there will be many challenges through this decision teachers who
109work hard would be affected teachers may need additional training to get the differences between younger and older students and their learning levels this would be a struggle especially for everything to happen so sudden merging would also affect students deeply I don't think it's suitable for older and younger students to be in the same campus the age differences would impact many students Lives Many may be imitated merging this school would not only disrupt our way of learning in campus culture but also result in the loss of community Hub a place of learning and a significant impact on both our staff and students the halls of peont Middle School Echo with the voices of countless students who have walked through them each leaving their Mark and taking a piece of the school with them in their hearts
110let us please keep the laner Spirit Alive and ensure that pedmont Middle School continues to have the spirit we've always had for generations to come this school is more than just a building it's my school home and for many a place where we've built memories that last a lifetime thank you good job thank you so much for those [Applause] comments uh next speaker is Christian uh [Applause] narez hello hello my name is Christian of ours I the a president here at Pont Middle School I'm speaking today because I deeply care about what what our school and the people inside of it the plan to combine the school doesn't sit right with me I know it will you guys think it will help but I don't think it will I think it will hurt our students
111and staff more our district motto is Pathway to the future but how does this align with this how can you say we're building a pathway to the future if we're tearing down the foundation of our community P middle isn't just a school to me it's my second home it's where I have made a long long lifelong friends grown as a person and had the chance to lead and make a difference combining this school wouldn't just affect our education it would tear apart the bonds that we have made over the years what about our teachers they are our they are more than just Educators they are our mentors role models and the ones who Inspire us to aim higher I can't imagine losing the teachers who supported me and many others if this plan moves forward
112many of them will have to leave and start over somewhere else that's not Frid of them for all they have done for us this is about the students this isn't about the students here now it's about the future what will the kids who come after us do will they have a school where they feel safe valued and connected schools like Pont middle are the hearts of our community and taking away that would only be Dev sitting for all of us have you seen the traffic here at pedmont it is very congested and scary the plan to double the traffic here adding small children into the equation is a recipe for disaster the the traffic here at Pont is so bad I even seen a teacher get H dry drop off if this board is really
113concerned about the money then the reconfiguration cost for Pont million for P for Pont middle is 4 to $ million two minutes which is much higher than P middle which is about 2 million and it would take a whole lot less time according to the schematics that the board has published thank you for your comments in two minutes thank you so much for your comments our next speaker is an Chu good evening my name is Conor I'm a fourth grader at trood elementary school I it will be sad if these some of these schools close down and it will be sad for some teachers to lose their teaching job and also it it will and it will be really crowded at schools if we merge them all right um I'm speaking on behalf as a
114parent um the founding member of myc as well as the former HSC president as many of you know also the current School librarian one point I want to touch on that was talked about on data points earlier regarding the homeschool um actually as a parent when we signed the contract to join the program we forgo our home school and see no longer do not return therefore if a student is a part of the program and come to Cherrywood if they decide to no longer be a part of it they actually remain at Cherrywood so in terms of numbers they've kind of have now become a part of Cherrywood even if they're not a part of the program um in terms of enrollment costs we I see that neighboring school districts are opening similar programs to
115mirror this and so to stay competitive I think we need to keep ourselves at our advantage with the seven-year um gain that we have ahead of these other programs and so we don't want to see the loss that we have have made um many have iterated tonight that the Seal program that the model of the teachers use has taken the years to develop and to form these relationships and bonds and so it's not really just a portable let's pick up this program and move it elsewhere so taking consideration how nationally recognized how locally we've been recognized I hope you strongly consider that we can keep the program intact at and keep the pl and keep Cherrywood open thank you thank you for those comments next speaker is Cassandra fam Cassandra fam [Music] [Applause] Cassandra hello
116everybody my name is Cassandra fam and I'm an eighth grader here at pedmont and an ASB Spirit leader I've been a student in the berasa Union School District for eight years and have developed a strong love for our community P Middle School is a place where I constantly see growth love and support because of this school I've met people who have stuck by my side through thick and thin and have made friendships that have lasted me a lifetime because of the school I met teachers who inspire me to persevere and always dream big because of the school I am the person I am here today every day I come and watch connections be built in an environment that's meant to be lasting forever this school has been a part of shaping many lives throughout our
117district and even some of our own faculty members when people look back at their time here I know they'll feel a sense of comfort it's what I'll feel when I reflect on my last three years here the reason why I felt this Comfort was the fact that I've been around people my own age facing the same experiences we were all pre-teens learning about ourselves and how to handle life a kther eight would disrupt this process for many people like me children deserve a school experience where they are comfortable and on the same level with the people they are around this configuration with the campus at pedmont would merge children with different ages groups which would not be appropriate whereas a school like camont has a layout that can create hubs for separate grade levels it
118would create a more beneficial K through 8 plan if this board was were concerned about the money then the cost to reconfigure pedmont would be four through $4 to7 million which is much higher than sier of about $2 million in addition it would take a whole lot less time according to the schematics that you have published merging pedmont would uproot relationships and connections established it would erase history memories growth and Community thank you thank you for those comments uh next speaker is um M MP [Music] M say MP oh there you go [Music] hi good evening uh this is my first time to attend this kind of a meeting so um and I'm actually a little bit of a sad in what the agenda is all about so the agenda is about closure of schools
119so I'm actually thinking why don't we have an option D no closure make it like do we have other alternative atives that we can think of instead of just closure because I only found out about this today that these are the agenda this is the agenda all closures no other Alternatives I live in the area of Raskin and shamont I actually just live across Raskin my children studied at Trin and Sheron and of course eventually they studied at pidmont Hills High School these are all high performing schools and my children are actually now in a better place they're all Engineers because of their foundation and the foundation is Raskin and camont high performing schools and because they are actually close to pidmont Hills High School all of them actually are high performing schools if any
120of those are going to be closed what are we losing we're losing High performing schools that eventually will also raise our high school which is pidmont Hills High School any of these schools if they are closed what are we going to have in the future future of our kids future of my grandkids and that is what I'm here for so I'm hoping that I'm giving you some insights and if anyway we can help in terms of getting that alternative in a business process way re engineering way like in a corporation feel free I will be happy to be part of it to look into Alternatives thank you thank you for those comments next speaker is next speaker is Caroline Guam Caroline [Applause] one good evening everyone this is Caroline a sixth grader from Sierra Middle
121School and a rusin alumni I have lived in this area for since I was born I love this friendly Community which was full of Harmony safety and diversity today I'm going to give a big thanks to roskin and sier for supporting us children to grow into a better person first thanks to rusin for helping us kids for having a vision of being a global citizen this summer in my promotion speech I use six different languages that I learned from my friends at school to greet everyone and now I'm going to do it again Ola kicha s magang umaa an and hello in this way I just want to say every single child matters Every Family Matters and every single race or culture matters and of course Ruskin and Sierra M matter today I also brought
122two things to share with you first this is a national champion shirt from the math League uh there are a total of schools on it and Ruskin is one of them and and I also brought this one which it shows 2024 national championships second place sweep Stakes division 5 I am so proud of us rusin kids not only because of our success in academic achievement but also our fabulous teamwork I am happy that we trusted each other and used effective strategies to overcome different challenges from qualification level District level state level and finally the national championships thank you everybody thank you for your comments good job next speaker is Dan Je [Applause] um good evening everyone this is Demi from Sama Middle School thanks for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts I'm so
123proud of our rasing and the s kids who are willing to learn and welcome all cultures of the community I'm so proud of our parents par s and teachers who are willing to participate in every activity to engage our kids in school we are not Title One schools and got the least funding but we had always been the top performing schools if it is a business it is worth it to keep treating ring and camone as role models and welcome more students who are interested in joining in according to the survey about how parents choose schools for their children if rking or ceremon is closed the data show that our school districts may lose hundreds of children and actually lots of our friends have already thought about private schools that priv uh provide more advanced
124and challenging classes yes private schools are available for certain families but we still need to ADV for low-income families and the families with multiple kids in our rasing and seram Community berasa used to be a great School District I really hope that we can achieve our goals together by value learning and the real good uh education systems thanks thank you for those comments next speaker is sh Brewer shaa good evening I'm guessing I'm one of the last because I wasn't going to speak and I put my card in pretty late so hopefully I'm not between you and going home um I'm shaa Brewer I was actually on the committee um I'm parent of a noble student a peont middle student I grew up here I went to school Noble peont Middle peont High School um
125I also am unique in that I have one kid that did PPP at Noble one kid that did not I had one kid that went to St John viani for Kinder when we couldn't um go to Noble there wasn't room and I also considered going back there when I didn't think we could get back to Noble um after covid so I've I've weighed all the odds something I've learned is that um every school's so special and all these parents here love their school they're so involved we have a very high presence of some schools and as one of our parents said those that are not here there's a reason where we have some schools that we're targeting that are title one that being said I'm so supportive of K to8 here I think it's a
126wonderful idea I'm uncomfortable with consolidating Title One schools in one place for the reasons that have been mentioned but um I'm very nervous wow uh and those would tell you I'm not a quiet voice on this committee I've been this is the most nervous they've probably heard my voice um Summerdale was not on my list I didn't actually I wasn't super excited about that idea even though I've never attended that school my kids don't go there but what I learned is their PBIS program is very strong and the work that's been done at this school in the last year that I've seen my daughter's in eth grade has been a complete turnaround with the PBIS program so I have full confidence in the leadership that's going to help bring a k to8 I also believe
127that when you have a parent community that starts from K to fifth it carries over if that school is still intact for 6 through eight whereas when we move it's harder to stay involved so I just wanted to share that with you um I have other thoughts but I'm out of time thank you thank you for those comments next speaker is Jordan Jordan Nash hello my name is Jordan Ash and my name is Ava white we are student athletes and a part of the music department here at pedmont my family purchased their home years ago because of the highly rated schools but these ratings have significantly dropped since I understand the importance of saving money and reducing schools but you also have to think about the students and parents involved in this if the rating
128drops most parents are going to want to move their children out and into other schools or go private now not all parents can switch up their daily life schedules or afford private because you guys want to change things here at pedmont we barely have enough resources for the students and adding on students will start decreasing them also looking at the map for pedmont it looks very decompacted but compacted with more classes for elementary students when there's clearly way more class periods for middle schoolers while looking at Sierra Mon's layout it looks more like an elementary school layout how will making this change affect the classrooms we use for our clubs music and after school sports here at pedmont how will it affect the special ed classes how will you try to fit all of these
129kids and not think about the ones who need more help it seemed to us that students and as students and parents some of that the board members are only interested in saving money and not saving our child's future education and attitude problems produced from older children we want the best for everyone thank you for those comments next speaker is uh Shu Chang Liu good evening thank you for the opportunity uh I'm a childwood uh parent uh and I want to thank all the U committee and the uh board members U for your effort uh we understand that the district uh is facing some difficulties but we still want to express our concerns um to our parents um Charwood is a very um good school with a group of uh great faculty and a a great
130principal um who they emphasize uh the academic uh the student development and support many academic and enrichment Pro U activities um as a as a parents we feel very confident to have our uh uh have our um kids uh in this school um I know that there are a lot of reasons we don't want to close Charwood and many of them have been uh emphasized by by the previous speakers so here I only want to put one question um to the the board U since we all know the man M immersion program is a very unique uh infrastructure as a whole uh and it uh include 377 students and du due to this report so in our opinion to maintain the structure and moving the whole uh whole program means moving all the almost 400
131students and all the u m immersion teachers together um there for um we and based on the report uh we notice that uh whether or not we keep the cas three model not none of the elementary and middle school have enough space to hold this almost 400 students so we hope um our superintendent and all the board members take this into consideration don't close childhood thank you thank you for those comments next speaker is Eddie uh K Edie cor got good evening fellow board members I'm a a parent who sends their child to a k38 school I have two children who um we live right here we have two homes and when we were deciding it was between Ruskin and Noble but we decided to send our CH child to a k38 dual emerence Spanish
132program and I will tell you I was hesitant about sending a child to k through eight having sent my child through a k through e is it awesome because my older kids did not mature too fast you get little kids looking up to the older kids as role models and then you see the older kids not behaving like middle kids being positive role models to the other kids so that's personally um I think that uh converting one of the middle schools to a k 38 model is actually the way to go ideally I think personally we just live two blocks away pedb Middle School is the ideal location because it's the most the least disruptive you have toyan is only one block away and you got Summerdale three blocks away from a traffic perspective what
133you end up doing here is you have the little kids arrive later because you want to make sure there's space and and and parking um and all those things you can manage now um the important thing here is do not touch any program that's going to give you growth and the reality the only Pro two programs that will give you growth is your manand program if you do not um if you keep the Ming program I encourage the Chariot schools uh parents to be the drivers to get another um cohort because you are the best recruiters there's no other schools around here I've doing the Spanish on there's a lot of competition so if you stay together then help the district by growing it the other one don't touch your high performing schools that is
134what's going to keep you and it's going to keep parents not sending their their kids to to other schools so um do the the best thing you can do but the reality is don't touch where your growth is because people are not having children and third don't touch your high performance because that is what's going to have your parents stay here thank you very much great thank you for those comments our final speaker tonight is T t [Applause] [Music] t my name is t I'm a fourth grade student at Cherrywood I feel very sad about the idea of our school closing and moving to a new one I love my teachers mov to a new school make things difficult harder for me our teachers have been so important in helping us learn and grow it
135would be difficult without them I can only ask you think about the decision closing CH thanks for listening to me thank you job so in one one thing I would like to bring to both notice is like Cher is one of the schools which is able to attract the students not just within Bas school district there are good number of students who are coming and joining cherwood because of program which is quite successful which which has been there from P seven years so and whatever the enrollment future enrollment prediction is probably much higher in cherwood than whatever currently we are predicting because likely some of the students from other uh area who are not staying in basa District also will likely join Cherrywood in the future so I would like to request board to consider
136this while consolidating the schools thank you thank you for those comments and those are all the public comments we have uh the board the board will take a short break 5 minutes e e e if the board is ready we can uh restart our meeting y all right okay so we will Circle back to review and discussion about the uh School consolidation Clos closure study session um so what have we learned um after this what other other questions do we have uh we did talk about extensively about um you know possibly converting pedmont to Kate consolidating ton possibly consolidating uh toon and suale here uh that gives us that gave us two schools um talk about we need one additional School uh and from the list we have Raskin and Cherrywood um and what else
137L as the three other schools that we need to uh discuss uh uh how we structure that thoughts comments from the uh question questions from the board on that first of all do we are we still comfortable with the um with the K8 model for Pont or do we uh do you have a change of heart change of opinion well I want to know what other options are in terms of consolidation uh Middle School whether it be at pedmont uh you know what are elementary schools could be an option or at seront wood schools would be an option right I am I am um in agreement I'm I'm fine really with consolidating tuon and Summerdale the pedmont middle it's the other two that I'm having I have to really think about all the possibilities of
138the other two schools two elementary schools and as a board do we want to limit to the list to the five schools on the list or do we want to consider schools that are that weren't on the committee's recommendation list um let's let's hear it let's hear your thoughts but we don't need to mean we can definitely um see what else makes sense if it does what are your thoughts trusty us oh my thoughts are everything's on the table do you have uh any one particular site in mind that you're uh thinking no but I don't want to uh you know limit to say you know although it makes it more difficult right and it might be more timec consuming to consider everything but I want to make sure we're thorough and considering every option
139all right yeah if we were to expand the list one more time to all the school sites I think we should um maybe pick out different criteria and then look at it that way like look at school capacity again School utilization rates and rerank them as a possibility but you know I'm a little more comfortable with sticking with what we have selected just because I know the committee had a long process on it but if board members are open to looking at the other schools again we can definitely do that but just keeping it to the elementary school sites yeah we would just have to rehash and re rank the schools again if we are going to consolidate Summerdale and toon that is two schools already two Elementary so all we need if we're to
140do three then all we need to do is choose one more if that is the case but I do agree with the um that we everything must be considered but at the same time I am I am actually in agreement with what's already listed there I think um I can select or think about where I should go with a second with a third school if the board is in agreement with that and so let's hear all the opinions um my thoughts on this is um I agree with trustey uh H um I am confident in the committee's work um I know there's disagreement uh but what I can say is that there are some schools as part of the recommendation that I cannot support closing or consolidating I'll go ahead and say that um so
141I've sat up here for 16 years and never once across my mind that would consider closing two of the schools that ended up being on the list and uh those are Ruskin and Lane view so those are the two schools that I just absolutely cannot support closing um sitting up here for 16 years and this the first time I public said it because I know it's controversial but toyan has always been the school that was up for discussion um the other two schools that were Runner ups were cherry wood in sommerdale and that's just based on my experience of U being a board member uh so if we were to discuss any three schools it would be between those three schools toon Summerdale and Cherrywood and for me uh closing a middle school is also
142off the list as well along with Ruskin and Lan view those are the schools that would not support closing yeah I just want to highlight too that with Lane view my particular concern with that school is that we have the autism program there and I'm really concerned about moving our students with disabilities around and so that's why I'm you know I wouldn't necessarily support closing that school specifically as well yeah with the other schools on the list I really want to take a look at the resident schools or the resident um students going to those schools and the projected capacity as well like that's kind of what I've been taking a look at as well for um the next school to take a look at for consolidation and closure I just want to ask you
143know of Staff um so you know uh obviously you know School consolidation School closure uh the community feels obviously you know they feel that it's a loss for them is there anything redeeming about um you know potentially losing your school site um that there might be something that the community can kind of stand behind or say okay well I I can see why I would benefit from that I don't know if there's something you know perhaps like that but if there is I'd sure like to hear it I think going back to some of the discussions um some of you had earlier it's you know it's looking at improved Services how we can how can we make our students learning experiences stronger than they currently are uh we know every single School in varesa has
144a wonderful Community a wonderful School culture uh we've seen you know great engagement with our parents um we know that we have that can't be here at every study session or board meeting but they've called they've emailed you know we've we've heard voices uh throughout the community but also in your engagement um on sites at different events you've seen the the wonderful spirit that each school has um having said that we also know um part of the budget stabilization committee when they reviewed all of our um efforts in trying to mitigate our structural deficit you know School consolidation was always considered as the last resort and it as a result of the pandemic as a result of changes in state funding uh we are now at that place in time and also in you know
145the challenge that we provided to the committee before they even looked at any data points was to understand that yes we have some FIS we have fiscal pressures that we need to address but to also know that lower enrolled schools are already dealing with impacts of that such as combination classrooms um that continue to increase each year we know that we've never been able to make that promise of no combination classrooms but to know that a child might need to have uh be in a combination classroom not just one academic year but two possibly three we know that's not the best situation for for the students also over the years uh we've received increased request for expanded elective opportunities at our middle schools and as our middle schools have declined in enrollment uh being able
146to provide the additional Staffing for those electives has also become a challenge so um so not only do we want to pay attention to being able to remain fiscally solvent at the same time we want to see where are those opportunities embedded where we can provide increased Services uh to our students no matter what school um they're at that remains open and I think um for the board that is your discretion to give direction to staff to ensure that that happens uh not only you know with our existing resources I know there's been a lot of focused discussion on our Title One funds but remember the driver of School Services across all of our sites is our lcap right every year we work through our lcap talking about um what you know intervention supports we
147want for students but also enrichment opportunities um student supervision you know after school care all of those items that are really important um to make sure our students and families have what they need those are opportunities where uh those Services um and interests get expressed and uh you know and ultimately the board gives us Direction on on you know those action items that are really important and critical for you in terms of making sure our students have a well-rounded uh learning experience and so that certainly this is a a very critical time to stay focused on that as well thank you um so uh for me you know Toyon is it's an important school because it's at the uh southernmost part of the district although moving at to pedmont you know it's not a huge
148um you know shift for parents um that you know walk to the school or the drive it's not much more of a commute Sumer I mean my kids you know three kids I have one there now uh it's near near to my heart um the school but I also have a student here um and to me you know a way of preserving the schools you know preserving Summerdale preserving toon because we would be able to bring them here entirely is that correct with all the students coming here and pretty much all the staff the teaching staff we would be able to bring all of the Toyon and Summerdale students here if that were the decision how about the staff with the staffs be able to stay together for you know for the most part for
149the most part yeah what what the contract has is that the teachers uh have first priority to follow wherever the students go so in this case if one SCH one school came to a middle school all the students that know those teachers would have the ability to move to that school right and you know being part of the summerill family I know those teachers are very close you know some of them are newer some of them have been there a few years U you know they've mentored those teachers one thing I learned and this is you know problem at toy on and Summerdale that I learned at the conference that you know we had a a workshop on School consolidation is they have one teacher per grade level and that doesn't allow for collaboration between
150teachers of the same grade level which is U something that I think is you know it's instrumental to to providing a good education so that would be a benefit um so therefore I wouldn't be you know oppos to the idea of combining those two schools and bringing them here because in a sense it would be you know in a way you lose some of the the school identity you lose you know the mascot you lose the um the name of the school and even then right we can find ways to maybe uh work around that somehow but uh but you know you preserve the students and to me keeping the students together um you know U I grew up my parents were Runners and as a runner you move around and I moved around schools
151a lot and that was detrimental so to me it's a priority to make sure you know when I was raising my kids that they went to the same school from kindergarten or from TK all the way to fifth grade and Beyond and to have the same classmates just because that shift and you know changing schools and uh making new friends and things like that is it's disruptive to the students so to me that's a priority and that would in a way help us uh you know be able to do that and from TK all the way through eight they would have the same classmates I which I think would be great um yeah I'm I'm a little troubled by you know we're going to then lose some of the students because I think also combining
152students of different backgrounds of different um you know social classes U of different ethnicities together in a way we would lose some of that because then no would be and beny park would be uh they would go to different U Middle Schools uh so that to me is is detrimental um but I think uh maybe the benefits would be uh you know be greater than the loss created there um I'm wonder if we could explore the option I know at the East Side Union School District I believe it's um uh Evergreen there's like a a um a certain geographic area over the East Side were they the option of attending either ever evergreen or Silver Creek I'm wondering if that's a possibility for us for example the Toyon students if they choose if their families
153choose to have their children remain at a K through five they could potentially send them to Noble if they choose to to attend this if we let's say we go forward with this newly uh TK 38 program they could have the option either going to Noble or or um pedmont TK through 8 and same with Summerdale they could potentially have the option to go to Cherrywood or t or Pont TK through 8 so uh just a similar uh um you know format that eite has up in the Foothills so that way we could address the problems or the issues of some parents having you know reservations send to send their students to a TK through 8 school I would be supportive of that as well I think the schools that are um selected for consolidation
154or closure the parents should be able to pick which school they would like to go to or at least that first year that they're affected just just to give them that choice but you know like limit it to like okay you can go here or here not like everywhere you know so that I would be excuse me supportive of that as well I think giving the parents a choice certainly um it happened when I was principal at Silver Creek High School and um we had a boundary change and the parents were given a choice to go which way they would go either it's Silver Creek High School or Evergreen they were given that choice uh but with that said I do support the the TK through a program at this site I believe that uh
155when we uh close schools again I just want to reiterate what I said uh we shouldn't look at it as we're taking away from the community when we close and consolidate we're adding back to the community so when we consolidate programs to this community at this site we're giving it to more students instead of splitting it up amongst three different sites so um that's why I support the TK through 8 model at this site yeah and saying that um I agree with you um I think that we should make sure that if we do a need create a a TK through 8 school here that it's it's an exceptional school and that we do everything in our power to ensure that we're providing students not only the tools they need but uh beyond that uh
156programs that perhaps you know other sites do have you know rusin does have the science lab that's great Noble has the PPP um Cherrywood has you know the the dual immersion there are other programs in other uh schools uh in the district and we should provide you know steam plus maybe some other uh things that would not only be beneficial for the students living within the attendance area of a TK 38 school but that would attract students from you know other other schools so then a rusin parent could say hey you know what I want my kid to go there or you sieron parent could say you know I want my kid to go there or even students from other uh school districts or a possibility of a dual immersion Spanish K8 I would not
157mind the exploration of that or you know either uh Spanish or Vietnamese I know we talked about that you know a few years ago having a Vietnamese dual immersion uh anything you know in addition that we provide our students I think well for any of our schools right but if we're going to have a a school of that magnitude kind of a unique School in the district uh that's that creates a lot of opportuni yeah sure I think the opportunities are endless on this one if we were to go this because I think we can create something that's really fantastic for this school for our own kids for our kids and for kid for other kids who might want to join us here I think we can create something that's extremely wonderful I agree that
158you know it's a it's it's an opportunity to explore something new I mean we have um been status quo for for a bit I mean we made we did make some boundary changes we did uh Institute the U man immersion program uh but PR of pretty much has been traditional uh program offering so this structure might give us you know um the impetus to think about something uh to create something unique uh you know create those um opportunities for our students uh that may otherwise not have that had that opportunity um outside of private schools right so uh so the hope is my My Hope and prayer is that you know we are able to Recon we able to create the configuration and create those opportunities uh for our students uh so are are we
159so where we at so we we're saying um ideal scenario is to is to consolidate Toyon and and suale uh into into a tk8 at pedmont with the option of uh uh of giving those families that do not want to participate in ATK to be able to uh go to a choice school is that is that where we we landed with this scenario I'd still like to consider you know the the other other options are there other options uh we've discussed this one discussed it thoroughly and it sounds a good idea but I just want to make sure that there are you no other better options uh so if we were to consolidate into seront what would that look like or maybe perhaps are there options for other schools uh to consolidate into pedmont middle
160instead of Summerdale and toy sumd and to right yeah I guess to if we were to entertain um sierant to be the middle school for the K through 8 um is there any thought or discussion about which schools we would want in seront and like how many how how much can seront take like how many students can they take cuz I know that we can keep the communities together with Summerdale Summerdale and Toyon but I'm not sure about like treywood resin or even Majestic Way if we were to put them in si what would that kind of look like I don't know if anyone has from from a logistical point of view the closest school to to S is Ruskin right uh so from walkability or or that that point of view U and from
161what I heard uh from a capacity uh point of view there will be a lot more changes uh with with sieron because uh the fer schools correct me if I'm wrong the Fredo schools into to all three schools are pretty large uh so we there will be a there'll be a configuration change if you want to speak to that again Dr Fus Mr Franklin yeah so currently the the schools are a little bit larger because you have Cherrywood you have Ruskin and you have Majestic Way now rusin and Majestic Way are are projected to decline but right now the way they currently are you'd have to I mean you you'd have to decide to go off the list and so you would probably or you'd have to move the Mandarin immersion program from crer to
162somewhere else because if you chose to consolidate most of rusin or all of Ruskin and most of a majestic way then there would not be room for the Mandarin immersion program at the middle school they would those students would have to go to a different midd middle school now if you chose to keep Cherrywood um and their 500 plus students and move them into camont as a K8 then again like I mentioned then that would be the only um students that would be going to camont so they you be talking about um a lot of change for those middle school students that come from Majestic Way and rusin to then have to go to a different Middle School and so and even if we were to say U consolidate one of those schools in seront
163it wouldn't save Toyon or Summerdale there's no guarantee of that right that they would be left intact because then we'd still have to decide to close I mean we have to close or you know consolidate three schools total three elementary schools so um to say that you know new and that would preserve you know the school that my kids go to it's not realistic I agree with that and yes so that that's a that's a valid point and you know regardless we are going to have a touch um we one or two of those schools and if if we do have to touch one of those two two schools then why not create something new right that's where that's where that's my thought process is um initially I was thinking may maybe turn on due
164to the vicinity uh Noble might be able to absorb all of turn because there's not too many kids uh but then again we run the run the risk of uh maybe losing the the T1 dolls it doesn't look like we will but uh with the change in enrollment in demographics we might uh but but again so if we are able to pull those resources into into one uh one part and create something unique for our district would be my preference to to go that way but you're right regardless of what we do there one of these two two schools uh will will get affected or both both also I just want to say about Title One you know we have a new presidential uh Administration coming in next year I don't know we don't know
165what's going to happen Title One federal dollars so I don't know if those will even be around and uh let's hope that you know not too many changes that affect schools public schools in their would way happen but you let's just say that it's not looking very good yeah I doubt it I I mean all those rhetoric uh and all those things uh there enough I I personally believe that there are enough uh representatives in the middle that do do the actual work in Congress the rest of them one one is on CNN one is on Fox uh they're all just doing interviews the people in the middle that are moderates that know understand America well are the ones that that are doing the work and I'm sure that uh we will we will be
166okay well and I'll go back and just remind the board again in terms of funding source your main funding sources are within your LC cap it's LC cap yeah I just want to clarify if it were to go with um seront not to close it but to reconfigure it one school would fit into it and and and Kevin you mentioned um Cherrywood would fit into the school but only one school would fit at camon am I right on that one yes cuz then the numbers would be about the same as what we'd be doing here in the toy on Summerdale scenario of putting around 550 Elementary School students into the school and then having a school size of about 750 or so so you would achieve that by moving Cherrywood into camont but there'd be
167room for a few you know for a handful of other students but not an entire school and then Raskin then will be left as is correct however is what we decide they would however they would not be going to CRM mon for middle school they would be redirected to one of the other two middle school that's right that these they won't be going there for their middle school they'd be correct it would just be Cherrywood students that would then promote into camont then we'd still have to close two other choose to close two other schools so just for clarity too for SI middle if we were to to do this option so it would just be Cherrywood but no other feeder schools would go into sierant is that am I understanding that correctly yes I
168mean it it maybe a a few other students but I wouldn't recommend it there would not be capacity to take a whole other school but you could reconfigure boundaries however you wanted to to achieve the size of the school that you like reconfiguring um moral middle school is out of the question it does not have the room am I right on that one it was that one was eliminated by the committee um as a result of space but also because of the cost and time frame the school would not be able to be reconfigured in less than a year and the cost was was also significant I understand the cost was closer to 7 million because of all the reconfiguring of classrooms that would need to be done and is it the same case if
169we were to do put Ruskin into seront then the Cherrywood students wouldn't go to camont at all if Ruskin went into camont ruskin's projected to be in the low 300S for elementary um in the upcoming years so you would need to move students from another school to be able to have uh a large enough tk8 school to be successful however again all of Cherrywood wouldn't fit and um even including all of Majestic Way even though Majestic Way is projected to um reduce down it would still be be um it would be too many students at first maybe in four or five years they would fit um but currently you'd have you know 650 almost 700 Elementary only kids and then the associated six through eight we' be above capacity that is the um number of
170students if we were to do that with seron that would come from Majestic Way and Rasin it would be too many students going into it correct and also for clarity one more time um I Heard a couple of public comments about the price of the schematics is the cost for both camont and pedmont about the same that 2 million number is that still correct yes so 2.35 was estimate for sieron 2.4 is the estimate for pedmont those are fairly conservative estimates I believe some of the um public were referencing other schematics for pedmont there was a option A an option b and then an option C option A and B were at a higher price point as well as a longer time frame option C however was very similar in price and time frame as
171the sieron option so if if we were to try to do sierant we would do Majestic Way and Ruskin but then wouldn't the Cherrywood manderin immersion program be affected like would they still be able to go to sier that's you're correct it would be impacted you have currently three and a half feeder schools that go into sieron you've got all of Majestic Way all of ruscin all of Cherrywood as well as half of noble then um moving Cherrywood over here wouldn't be beneficial because would it would the whole school first of all would the whole school no I guess not since they have 500 plus students so it would have to be the English only students where would the Mandarin immersion students then go right so if you it it'd be the same issue with
172if you move Cherrywood here so then all of the students that lived in locally here for Summerdale Toyon Vincy Park Noble they'd all have to go to a different Middle School just like in the sierant um scenario and Cherrywood feeds into sier Mon correct all the students from Cherry feed feed into camont yes so then they would change that would change their Middle School boundaries yeah I mean given that discussion you know I am more supportive of having Summerdale and Toyon come to pedmont just because you know we can keep the communities together and then we can invest in pedmont Middle School you know breaking up the feeder schools for Sion I think is a little too much I think it might just be e like it might be more beneficial to keep the communities
173together at Summerdale and Toyon rather than breaking up the different communities feeding into sierant I do have a point that hasn't been discussed yet but at some point I do believe that uh there should be a uh a study done on Noble's boundaries uh I believe there's an issue of uh inequity um Noble's boundary stretches across the entire district and it consists of homes all up in the foot hills it just uh bothers me that there's you're driving some homes you have to drive past three elementary schools just ATT 10 Noble uh I believe that with declining roing Lane view some of the Noble's homes needs to be moved to Lane view some of the homes in Noble currently Noble needs to be moved to Majestic Way and some of it needs to be moved
174to Ruskin so that way Noble could absorb potentially some toy on students would that be part of this uh restructuring or would that happen later on that is depending on the direction the board goes so if the board decides you don't want to do a tk8 then you can look at boundary Recon reconfiguration with option C of closing three Elementary sites because the other piece that you need to keep in mind is trying to balance all the schools that remain open as as much as we can and um so when you start looking at the different boundaries and where they'll be realigned you're impacting those numbers so your uh staff's recommendation would be then to uh work in steps so do this uh consolidation first and then possibly later on look at uh look at
175our boundaries and see if we can you know Al term to create kind of a more as we continue to monitor them and of course we have Tom that comes out each year uh to let us know what is being um you know anticipated and projected out we've already which is why I say just in terms of I know the Board needs to determine the direction you want to give because what we've heard so far is you want to have the least impact possible to our families during this existing round of review right that's correct I have a question regarding the um the enrollment over at at Noble the PPP program does the PPP program accept students outside of our district they do but very few so it so students are accepted if they wish
176to enter the PPP program over at at Noble remember there's only one uh class per grade level K1 two three and then that's it so only four classrooms is there a limit to the enrollment of the PPP program 24 students only 24 students and over the last couple years we're barely able to get 24 how about Noble consolidating into pedan how would that look I have to admit I thought about that yeah I have to chime in I you know I was kind of surprised that Noble also wasn't on the list because I know they have you know one school or one classroom is you know resident students and then another classroom is the PPP so that's why I was I was also thinking of that as well but then you know there are other
177considerations that was taking a look at so I also want to protect what the committee recommended to us but we could take a look at Noble if you if that's what your interests are I'm open to taking a look because yeah if I am not a huge fan of like having seeing one classroom have a lot of things and then one classroom not have a lot of things also from the cost perspective um would with consolidating Noble as an option how much of an impact would it be as compared to uh s toon and maybe one other school U should is Al should also be uh considered was also one of the criterias to in the I have a question regarding the um the decision by the committee why um if they if they considered
178the the inequity in quity of the PPP program at at um Noble your your chairperson's left but we do have some committee members that are present they did look at all special programs that existed across the sites that was part of the Criterion um I forget which early meeting it was but that that was discussed by the group they didn't go deep into to instructional models but they did identify every um program that was existing uh not only specialize programming but special education programs as well per site and as mentioned that was you know one Criterion of several others that they visited thank you what's the Noble's enrollment Noble's enrollments around 350 so they could consolidate into pedmont but it would just be that one school no there would be capacity to look at Noble
179and Toyon and potentially Noble and Summerdale just depending um schools in their entirety or uh just SE sections of yes because you have to remember to Noble is comprised of a quite a few students from outside of the noble attendance boundary so the noble resident students if we're talking about moving them or if we're talking about the whole PPP program um just depends can we take a look at um Noble's projected enrollment one more time we're able to pull that out too thank you so the the this is a little bit older but these projections were from a number of months ago but 2526 enrollment for Noble was projected to be around 373 for next year but again that's with the PPP program that's with the PPP program yes I see okay if we were
180to consolidate Noble then what would happen to the PPP program would it continue or would we have to dissolve it or move it Anis right yeah personally I don't have anything against the ppv program I think it's a good program especially if we have U you know capacity and it seems like they're not a capacity right there are other parents that that could take it take advantage of uh of that program and it's another program that the District offers so um I'm not I'm not opposed to it so where are we right now um are we wanting to pursue uh looking at Noble boundary changes and PPP program and consolidation of possibly consolidation of noble or do we stick with some on K with pedmont um I'm not sure where we landed on but yeah
181can three schools be consolidate I been reconfigured here that would include Noble toon and Summerdale would that would there be enough room for everybody I'm not sure that there would be enough I don't believe there'd be enough space for all three you're also uh targeting just one geographical area and in addition to that remember that Noble students do not all feed to mon Middle School half of them currently go to sier mon school because of the boundary geography that they have that trustee NN was mentioning that they go across from one side of baresa to the other and one other thing that I think was asked a little bit earlier was the the cost savings and the cost savings with Noble is they were the lowest amount of savings compared to all of the other
182school sites yes the boundary makes it really diff difficult for that school so um I think that's something that maybe we do have to as trusty said that we have to look at but maybe you know that's a problem for another day yeah I mean if you want to pull up the School boundary site the School boundaries as well in the slideshow so the public can see um what we're talking about with um Noble they have a split population and so they go into the Foothills and so it would be difficult and I think it would add to that inequity honestly if we were trying to make this as Equitable as possible having students commute from all the way to the north down here so that that's also my concern you know Nobles that blue
183U the turquoise yeah in case anybody was wondering how that goes you know all along the Foothills from one basically one end southern end of the district all the way to the Northern end I don't think there are too many homes or students enrolled in those homes right but is there the this scatter diagram yeah yeah there you go so I don't think there's that many impacted students but I do believe that needs to be uh corrected though so that way uh the students that live in certain areas they go to morale the other students go to carmont and then the bottom goes to Pont middle but what I do support is um is the again after the discussion I still support the T8 model here at Pont but uh expanding Nobles boundaries to include
184uh some Toyon students if not all Toyon students into Toyon and uh focus on the Summerdale students into middle as the primary uh school for TK through 8 if we were to consolidate Toyon and Summerdale uh there would still be room at Noble right because our boundary likely wouldn't change so any students from either Summerdale or Toyon who wanted to go to Noble they could probably get the get the transfer the in intradistrict transfer yeah I mean Noble definitely has space for them um it's just depending on what we're comfortable allowing and and the size of the school that you know we're looking at having for a um you know a successful K8 program here at pedmont if that's the choice and again my uh you know my recommendation to parents is and you know
185transfer your student to school you perceive as better uh my goal is as a trustee is to make sure that all schools offer uh students a good education and something that you know will make the this the school a quality school for everybody I'm not you know to transfer because you know the school is going to be better than another one I agree I agree with that sentiment and and you know that some of the rhetoric you know is a little sometimes it's a little disappointing I understand the the emotions behind uh keeping your your school but not not wanting to identify yourself or your family or your student with a different school that is perceived of as a lesser value it doesn't sit well with me so so I agree agree with you uh
186on that the as as trustees our objective should be all schools 13 school campuses uh all 13 schools um should be successful should be considered top performing schools uh regardless of of you know what whom we serve uh and we we definitely need to be mindful of uh some of those um those communities that that serve underprivileged kids and autistic kids and you know it's they don't have voice here today at the podium so we need to be their voice uh we need to advocate for them uh for sure no I appreciate that uh that sentiment from go ahead TR yeah I just want also just want to Echo that too and I think that's you know after all of our discussion you know I would be more supportive of um Summerdale and Toyon going
187into pedma and really giving them an amazing school to look forward to joining and so I think that's kind of where I'm louing at that's where I'm landing just to Echo that sentiment of making sure that all of our schools are incredible schools and making sure that we equ equitably do this by providing additional resources at um pedmont middle and giving that to our Title One students are you okay with um with that landing at um K8 consolida we still have more decisions to make that would be the end of for sure but one step at a time yeah yes uh I think you know again you know for the reasons I said you know these keeping these students together and if we're able to do that and it doesn't seem like in any other
188scenario we can do that um I am okay with that yeah okay I support that as well okay but I also support the fact that trusty nen mentioned about the the noble um the boundary change just to make sure and I'm in agreement with that as well so it's interesting because the um the boundary map does show the the vast vast spread of noble and like Trustin Newan mentioned there are three elementary schools on the way to here so if we if you divide that Community to all the three elementary schools it looks like noble will be left with nothing it'll be you know everybody will be want one to Lan view some to Majestic some to uh Raskin and there'll be no students left in no which that's why I had brought the fact
189that maybe um potentially um I mean I agree with the the Summerdale and toon consolidation to PE up but maybe we should also discuss Toyon consolidating with Noble because technically I mean they're just a few blocks away from each other very low impact it's it's impactful but it's it's not as impactful as some other consolidations right I I did I did mention that some time ago that the the only I I didn't have that also as an option in my mind but the only challenge I felt is you know the risk of Los losing that title one status those additional support dollars for the students for reading intervention and things like that it may not it may not be an impact maybe uh there are enough there'll be enough students from Toyon joining the current
190students in Noble to still uh for still be able to be eligible for that waer for for title one dollars but uh that that's the only only Point uh where where I felt was a stumbling block uh which is why having that pool of uh resources for tile one in one place uh g i I felt G gave us little bit more flexibility uh as to how which programs we can uh we can introduce and and things like that uh but yeah definitely that was one of the considerations trusty human is yeah something to say no I was just wondering that if we were to allow say some you know change the boundaries maybe uh increase or adjust Noble boundaries to allow some Toyon students or some Summerdale students to go there you know be
191their home school would that then allow other students to come here from uh the the you know so have the try to keep more of the students that feed into pedmont middle from the noble boundary area and from Vincy Park do you understand what I'm saying would it allow for you know just because I think again the diversity is important and allowing those students to come here for Middle School is still uh you know beneficial so would that allow for that if we were to say you know adjust no's boundaries so they can absorb some of the students from the yeah but then we're not keeping the students together so it's kind of a no one situation and the students from Toyon would be split up um I think that I think frankly I think
192that Vol having them go you know if they want voluntarily that might U that might be enough but as far as capacity is concerned so P Pon middle as a middle school uh even with the K8 model do we will we have still have some room for viny and no we still have when they join so they will join the sixth Noble ninc kids will continue to join at the sixth grade level um that would be a boundary uh Readjustment correct Kevin they could have or an option right so I mean you'd be talking about then Vincy Park students then joining the K8 for six through eight I mean there would there would be some space but it's really trying to figure out how many then are choosing to go to Noble to know how
193many you know you know we have to really establish how many seats we want to H you know what's the capacity of the school I we know what the Max Capacity is but what's the capacity of the school that we want to operate and what's that number and then then you'd be looking at figuring out how many you know Vincy Park students or how many noble students you want to allow in um seems a bit complicated for True what we're trying to achieve at at the moment um but again I mean to to trusty him as his point we we run the risk of creating a silo right because if we if we just have those those set of kids only uh you know targeted then it doesn't seem fair and I appreciate that that
194point which is why I thought um if if we have a structure where we can continue of getting those kids starting at a sixth grade uh level and I think to remember too that you know even though we're making these decisions right now for 25 26 we're projecting a decline so that'll still continue to happen so we'll still have the opportunity uh you know and while it you know may be a little bit cumbersome to reevaluate boundaries again in the future um after this decision has been made and after we see then where everybody begins to go that's that's I think it's you know the good point is something that obviously if we do this right and create this school here K uh TK to8 that is something that we have to study yearly and
195make sure that we are uh you know providing the Optimum Services to the students and if there are changes we can make you know year out uh so after next year um that you know that we make those changes and and we look to always improve which we do anyway right but uh you know especially focusing on that if we're going to have such a a a big school with a big population here and Al some of the benefits right so right now schools split uh they split social workers uh what do middle schools split with you know do they have their own uh um counselor do they have their uh they have their own counselors right now middle schools or do they split yeah so each uh middle school has their own academic counselor
196another thing I just want to bring up when we're talking about just resources if you the um two elementary schools here you also have a music teacher that could start teaching the kids in second third grade you have a choir teacher you have an art program you can really tap into those folks for the potential to make this more than just steam let's focus on Arts let's focus on other aspects that we could bring to the table because steam isn't the Magic Bullet because we already have a really good science program that we've adopted over the last couple years so let's really focus on just additional resources to bring to the table and especially going back to the reading interventionist if you have some, you could potentially hire two people to help support with tital
197one funds and we have many folks within our district that would be excellent read interventionists just by two cents this particular school has an excellent music uh program so you know you can add it on to the steam and make a Music Academy or something create something that's so attractive to these kids so they split social workers in among elementary schools right now right they do split time so would would they have their own devoted social worker at the school well in earlier Dr mcccu provided the board you know his recommendation would be to have two here to have one that could focus on the needs of you know the mental health supports for elementary and then another that would support specific needs of our middle schoolers so instead of having a halftime social worker
198they would have two so the elementary kids would have a full-time social worker okay so it sounds like uh if Toyon were to be closed they would gain more benefit if they were to go to Pont Middle's TK through 8 opposed to Nobles okay so with that said again I just go back to what I said earlier here in this evening uh whatever schools decide to be closed uh the savings should be uh uh given to the students that are impacted so however Toyon if toyan is a school that's selected to be closed it should benefit them so if they gain more benefit from going to a TK through 8 where there's more programs and there's more consolidation of programs and that's what I would support okay we can put up pin on that and
199um and talk about another school either from the list or uh if you have a different School in your mind that is not on the list of the committee uh recommendation um I'd like to hear that so now we're looking at a school just straight School closure so what would be the the case uh you know if I mean obviously we have to decide to close a third school what would happen to those that school students since they wouldn't you know like Summerdale and Toyon they would come here the students would come here the staffs would come here that's not what we're talking about with a third school it would be a different scenario what would happen to those students if we're to close a a third school so with the the other three locations
200um they would have to be split because they're they larger in size or their geographical context would require that so when I say that I'm talking about like Lane view for example if you take a look at the geographical area that they currently um Encompass you'll have to uh to try to get each child to their nearest next location you would you would do a multi-split there the same thing with um Cherrywood you see they're in the orange there at the bottom and then uh with Rin similarly so there's no way around that the student populations would have to be split into how many parts that that would that depend on the school whether it's into two different schools or three different schools so with with L so let's take one at a time sorry
201losing it so if you take Lan view for example uh from the list L we does have our autistic kids SDC program there so how does a split over there look I mean if we if you decide to re redraw that boundary and send some kids to The Majestic next to it right on that side um will the SDC kids will they be moved me will they also be split will the will those uh those teachers that collaborate uh for that program be moved how does that correct so with Lane view you have the autism Focus class which is three classrooms three and so Dr McCurry can add but we'd want to keep those three classrooms together and we'd have to select the site of where they'd be relocated and then you have the other
202students as well and looking at the boundary map you know I I don't know how many additional locations where they would go would it be between Northwood as well as Brook tree yeah I think I think you'd be looking at Northwood and Brook tree or Majestic Way and Northwood or all three Majestic Way Northwood and brick tree but but that that um um those classrooms or those students will will move together is is that is that the Hope which students are you referring to autistic those three classrooms we would keep together move them to one other location but then you have the other students that we'd have to relocate across multiple sites as well see we would we wouldn't break up the autism program so from from my perspective I mean I know the L
203has worked really hard to get some of those kids back into the classrooms after Co especially uh those autistic kids and and I'm sure all of you know more about autism the Spectrum and things like that and any small change in the environment and the in the way they they uh they arrive at School the way the classroom looks looks like the way the teacher uh is teaching might put them off again so you know that might they might withdraw uh and not go to school again right and that that might lead to learning loss uh it's my one of the risk scenarios that keep going in my mind that you know we don't want um those kids with with those challenges to be put in that position so from from my perspective the if
204we can avoid uh splitting l view it'll be it'll be great uh but it doesn't look like we can move all the all of the students into uh one School uh as such yes so I just wanted to add on to that I agree with you um truste sh Bon um uh as mentioned earlier Lan view is one of the schools that I I would not support closing uh mostly because of the autistic and special EG program there and also secondly hasn't been mentioned yet but a school Birchwood did close in that neighborhood back in the early 90s and uh or late ' 80s and I don't want that to be forgotten uh if we were to close lane view that would leave U nothing yeah nothing in that neighborhood essentially uh and also I
205just want to remind the board that there was boundary changes recently about two three years ago maybe longer where the C cadi neighborhood was impacted uh from Northwood they were moved from Northwood to Lan view uh I want this to be as least impactful as possible so that's why I bring up um those changes that uh we made in the past along with the Autistic Program yeah I also want to Echo those sentiments um my main concern is the distance between Lane view Majestic Way Brook tree and Northwood that side of town you know as truste wi said has already close to school and so I'm really worried about that and also you can see on the map that 680 runs directly in between where Lane could Lane view could feed into Northwood and Brook
206tree and even Majestic Way is closer to the middle of the district and so I think that would be really inconvenient for our lane view families and I'm highly concerned about um our artistic program there as well can some of the students from Lan view which could they could they be accommodated over at Ruskin rather than going across properly and all that and all those other the next nearest school for Lane view is Majestic Way um we have the slide that shows the mile distance yeah from site to site which lets you know um if you look up at that map it's in your presentation there and it'll share with you the next nearest locations for that particular school yeah and then I just also want to point out that you know Brook tree and
207Northwood are closer but you still have to cross over 680 so you have to cross over through the freeway there's no EAS way here okay so um doesn't look like we have support for uh breaking up Lane view right now do you have anything any thing to add on that or any questions no I mean just like Toyon you know it's it's not my favorite to close because of the location on one uh kind of you know end of the district Lane view is on the other end of the district so that to me is it's a deal breaker all right so uh from the list then if we if we eliminate Lane view we have we left with Raskin and Cherrywood or any other school that the board might uh uh want to consider
208that was not recommended by the committee U and I'd like to hear your thoughts on uh Cherrywood Ruskin or any other school uh why was Majestic Way not selected by the committee to be on the list the committee didn't discuss Majestic very much from my recollection The Majestic just was not really in the top um of any of the criteria as far as um you know when they did the compilation and scoring and so the committee was not entertaining Majestic as an option how does the operational cost of majestic compared with u Cherrywood or Raskin I know Cherrywood has has a high operating cost we already spoke about that but how does it compare with with the two do you have the if you have the numbers off um Majestic is less savings than um
209both rusin and uh Cherrywood so while they Gathering a thought so um so let let's see uh what we have for Cherrywood uh we we have the Mi program there and according to the criteria that that program can be uh can be relocated uh easily so one of the things that that was uh that that stood out to me in the in the in the um in one of the tables it's buried in my uh uh folder is the uh um is a Seal Seal program I don't know it's a certification or program how how you want to classify right so all of our all the teachers uh at at um sherrywood are seal certified is certified the right term train SE seal train okay all the teachers of Cherrywood are seal trained but not
210all teachers at Raskin uh are seal trained uh so in in the in the discussions of moving uh potential moving Mi to Rasin uh we might have that as a stumbling block U according to my my uh analysis over there and uh that's that's one concern I have with the uh with the m program I do trust our uh cabinet and our teacher teaching staff and our administrators to be to make it successful anywhere it is I know it's it's very challenging um they they've worked the community is work work really hard to build up the program to the to the extent that it has uh become successful uh you know it's a it's a good program for our school district so their concerns are valid about um you know disrupting that momentum uh but
211again we at the end of the day we have to be uh pragmatic and we have to make sure that we we putting the best foot forward for the benefit of all of our students uh but so that those are my thoughts about the Mi program the only only glaring thing in there is is a seal uh part of the equation I don't know whether you have any um any thoughts on that um on the Seal training uh how what's the timeline uh for all all teaching staff uh at a at a different location to achieve that seal uh training um the Seal training started many years ago um six of our elementary schools are currently trained through seal um the majority of the Seal program goes TK through third grade Cherrywood is the only
212school well not only but fourth and fifth grade are trained um a handful of our teachers at toy honor train in fourth and fifth and I think one teacher at Lane View's taught in fifth grade and seal trained usually takes two years to be sealed trained completely um goes through six units of plan planning and so there's a lot of sub out days for teachers there's a lot of that they call unit development days as well and so they're creating these units of study and they're usually collaboration with um their kindergarten teachers throughout the district so they're not creating units that are outside of what has already been created so they would have to recreate some of those units and update them to the standards so you know I think what we started was kindergarten
213first grade and then we rolled in second and third grade the following year um all of our TK teachers are already trained so the TK teacher at resin is already trained um for seal um once again there's transfer opportunities to to potentially you know move into that school as well for teachers that are already steel trained too that's good to know okay all right can you remind us one more time what is the benefit of having seal teachers like what is Seal can you for just of the Public's reference sure so for um seal it's a uh it's language based right so I think the one father talked about matter and they sing the songs and it's all very inclusive of language and vocabulary and so one of the trademarks of the manand and immersion
214program is the maner and teachers are seal trained so their seal units are aligned completely with the English language or the English classes so when the students rotate between the two classes they are hearing and seeing the same thing in Mandarin as they are with their English only counterparts so is the main concern then reg um of moving the mandin program to um Raskin so the main concern then is the fact that some of these teachers at Ruskin are not sealed train is that the that was my no that was my concern that was my that's the thing that stood out to me but I mean is that the main concern here that they are not that not all of the of the teachers there at Rasin in the lower grades or in the upper
215grades whatever that they're not SE trained is that it is that the main concern of not of the reason why we're not we cannot move the Mandarin program there because they're not sealed train so the better question would be uh what would be the impact of moving uh am I program from a from a school that has all seal train teachers to maybe not uh to to a school that maybe does not have all seal TR I understand your concern but my thinking is the fact that these are teachers they can easily be trained as a teacher like myself they can easily it may take some time as Dr mcrai mentioned but it's not impossible for them to know and to understand what seal is all about that's my concern as an educator I I
216do not disagree with that so my my question is um my concern is the the timeline so like like I said uh the community has worked hard to build up the program to this level uh my concern again it may not not be a real concern not be a valid concern I I defer to The Experts that we don't lose the momentum of the program I'm sorry but I totally disagree with that I think all teachers are are excellent teachers and and besides that if we were to move the Mandarin program there they will be there for a long long time and so therefore they can we can train them or the or seal they can be trained as still teachers I mean so it takes two years Dr mcra in order for them to
217really absorbed everything that they need to understand but I think these are mature and very smart educ well educated teachers that they can handle something like this thank you thank you for that feedback I just want to add my two cents as well I'm honestly really split on these two schools because you know I understand like how much it took to build the man and immersion program but I can also see you know the cost that it is to you know have that school open you know with Majestic Way like the facility the buildings themselves like I can see the cost savings there I can see how hard it is to upgrade a school that has a lot of concrete in it and like looking at the permanent capacity at Ruskin you know like they
218have that capacity to add even more students to the Mandarin emergent program and so that's where I'm like unsure you know so I I would love to hear everyone else's opinions on it but I'm still on the fence about you know both you know I'm not sure but I can see the facts on both sides so I'm still like unsure so as for me um again the the not want to close any schools but if I were to entertain having to close schools the three schools would be Toyon Summerdale and Cherrywood with the possible um consolidation and creation of the TK 38 model at pedmont but with that said I believe that when seven years ago when the Mandarin emerging program was first uh implemented um uh it was implemented in order to uh save
219Cherrywood because Cherrywood has such a high uh declining en rollment and we also tried to implement the Spanish and Vietnamese emersion program which unfortunately did not take off at the time there was not enough interest at the time and then covid happened and then um one thing led to another we uh we stopped trying uh that's for another convers ation though but I think that it should be worthwhile to to consider the fact that um that the Mandarin emerging program is successful and um and it did what it was set out to do at Cherrywood which was to preserve it so I think that's important to um to be mindful of that's the whole point that was put out there is to just preserve that school and prevent it from being closed and we tried
220to do the same thing with with other school with the other two languages but unfortunately it didn't happen but had it happened we drawn enough interest probably would have prevented toy on and Summerdale from closing too but um that that's one of the purposes of uh the mandering Emer program being placed at Cherry was to uh preserve that site and and I do have us um I'm a little split too because again those were three schools if any schools were to be closed in my opinion it would have been Toyon summerdown and Cherrywood but that's where I stand yeah and I also want to acknowledge that the resident number of students in that neighborhood is falling and so you know I want to also recognize that that's why I'm also unsure so is there an
221alternative to Cherrywood that anyone would want to consider I mean if you match other schools against the criteria that was uh that is selected and and you know evaluate um everything including cost including programming and and everything um I feel that the committee landed at the right set of schools is is my uh is my thought um again it's a recommendation but if there's anything else any other school that jump out um that would make sense from uh from a cost perspective as well uh being that being one of the criteria um items then you know we can we can definitely have a discussion on that so all of Cherrywood will not fit into Raskin and all of Raskin will not fit into Cherrywood either correct correct and um so if so in in the
222in the scenario where uh we touch uh cherwood so the the idea would be to uh separate out the Mand immersion program and move it to a different site and then um move the English only Learners where English only students were well Kevin can you share how many classrooms are available at rkin so the board can get a sense of capacity so the projected number of um classrooms available at rusin for next year would be I just want to make sure I get this right it would be 14 so there' be 14 classrooms available at rusin next year and that would that would accommodate all of the all of our Mandarin imersion students correct there's 12 Manor and emerging classrooms at um Cherrywood now how does that one-on-one switching model looks um how how will
223that look like at at a different side uh than chry would can we we still can we are we still able to continue that that one on one to one switching that I there would be enough classrooms based on the current enrollment but again again moving forward declining enrollment it just depends on on the number of um the English only students at Ruskin because remember ruskin's enrollment is projected to significantly continue to decline well in that case then we should look at definitely redrawing the noble boundary to capture some of those students and bring them to Raskin right so that would make make sense and also um know that we have uh currently anou in place for the Mandarin instructional model at Cherrywood because of the impact that they've experienced recently with the declining numbers
224uh of the English only students to be able to continue supporting one to one I have a quick question as well so um with the enroll or the resident students in Cherrywood and rkin which one is projected lower like can we see the projections for both um resident students for Cherrywood and rusin so yeah we have that Kim that's in Tom's report on page 19 if you're able to pull up Tom's full report yeah because I've been hearing a lot of concerns about that onetoone model but you know like realistically like if we're looking at the number of students with each school like would we have enough students to keep that model if we keep it in Majestic Way or rkin you know that's the question I'm trying to answer EAS to see on the
225power show it's it's in both so whichever it's page 19 on the I I have the the report up on my phone or on my iPad and I'm trying to I'm pulling up their current number of classrooms right now no it' be Tom's PowerPoint I don't know if you have that one downloaded so be page 19 for this particular report and then currently there's 12 Mandarin classes classes at Cherrywood and there would be 12 classes at rusin which is more about page seven because we're looking at resident students right for next year pinix 1B I was looking at the chart at the end you see on the right column for 2025 there's only 244 resident tk5 kids projected for Cherrywood next year columns direct to the right of the rightmost vertical B Bar shows Cherrywood
226at 244 next year in tk5 Resident students that doesn't include in in District kids in the regular program it does not include the mandering program int District kids in the mandering program these are simply the uh residents this is where your kids home address is okay that's for Cherrywood so excluding the ones that are all the in distri kids go to Cherrywood whether for reg or Mandarin there are 244 kids cheed their next year that compares to 251 this year okay so I recognize that Cherrywood has a steep decline but uh what I would like to do is I would like to preserve Cherrywood I recognize that the hard work they've done to uh build up that program but what I would like the district to do is uh now that Co is kind of
227settling down I would like the district to try again to bring back the Spanish and the Vietnamese emerging program perhaps make Cherrywood a language site I know our our our neighbors to the north and to the South both have Spanish emersion programs and our neighbors to the south in alrock also have a Vine emersion Program so I don't see any reason why us as a district where both both our northern and southern neighbors have a Spanish Immersion program we can't have one and our neighbors to the South there's a lower Vietnamese population than beresta and we can't have one I think the interest is out there I just think that um uh we just need to um uh uh try to Market it better and I I think think we can do it but uh
228with the declining enrollment in Cherrywood I think that could be a good thing uh in creating a potential language site at Cherrywood for Mandarin Spanish and Vietnamese with the declining enrollment there and preserve that site the one thing to keep in mind and I'll ask um Kevin to share the total capacity of the school because that 244 does not include your 12 Mandarin classrooms to then add an additional language program there at the site you may not have room for a full sequence uh of TK through or Kinder through fifth grade uh potentially then could we move the some students in the Cherrywood population and expand Ruskin and have them attend Ruskin and maybe just focus solely on having a Cherrywood a language site yeah I mean I think if you do that and you
229move the all of the non- maner immersion students that you see within those figures are the English only partners that we're talking about with the switch so then you know you'd be talking about having you know if you had two different languages there then I I suppose you'd be talking about the two different languages doing the switch and then so that's the way I would Envision that having to be done then the you know if you had a say Vietnamese program along with the Mandarin then they'd switch for English with with the Mandarin teachers and English with the Vietnamese teachers is how I would in that scenario that would work versus having the resident students that are not in the program be the English only switch so I I don't know how successful that model
230would be but that's what that model would look like if we were to move the Cherrywood resident students um to uh Ruskin and then again with those numbers there 244 resident students and there's currently 44 resident students attending the Mandarin emersion program leaving approximately 200 students resident students English only some of which attend other schools so Cher wood out of the question are we going to look at rusin I think Cherrywood is still in play I don't see I don't think it's I don't think we eliminated Cherrywood as such interesting new exess reservations but uh so talking about rusin next um what what what would be the site that could absorb um those where is the 36 61 going to 339 um uh kids in uh next year is there a site that can absorb
231all the all those students or uh like how we discussed before rusin will need to be split up into multiple uh sites correct Ruskin would have to be split amongst um a couple of other sites just depending on which I mean some of them could go a Majestic Way um as we mentioned Cherrywood has um limited capacity um you know so you'd be looking at splitting about 12 classes or 12 to 13 classes from rusin so um Majestic Way has room there's also Noble right so with with either of these schools there's there's no uh way no winning there's no way to keep the community whole is is what what I'm hearing and that's a really unfortunate situation there and I don't know if anything has changed since the last time we met uh vold
232thinking but is there is there a scope of um doing this doing one uh consolidation event now do we did we find any money anywhere to keep the other schools the floor unfortunately it's going the opposite direction that you'll see at the presentation next week um some good news yeah I I wish it would make my life a lot easier all right what are the um truste the other I just want to know is there weight in favor of one or the other in terms of you know uh just the objective measures uh then you know personally I I mean facilities wise you know obviously rcin facilities are nicer um you know just in terms of the school layout what it looks like Etc right um over Cherry Woods you know which is a nice
233school I mean all our sites are nice but comparing the two with Ruskin you know to me that's uh that gives it a little bit of you know advantage AG um over but are there any other things that you know will you know on balance scales give one way more way to uh just a second trusty hog I just wanted to address that so so from from uh specific to answering your question the the the only only thing uh I don't know I don't know whether it's a positive or whatever you want to call it is is having that um Mandarin immersion having the ability to move the entire Mandarin immersion bubble to a new new location uh from that perspective CH Cherrywood looks uh kind of little bit positive you know it's it's not
234not there I mean I don't want to create any uh controversies here by saying it's it's a positive thing but what I'm trying to say is uh from the options that we have from The Limited challenging options that we have the only attractive things thing is we we're able to accommodate that entire mandate immersion uh program in in a new site um you know if Ruskin is a target site for that U maybe that that's that's some gives us some hope trusty how things go no just to add to that too you know one of my the things that I was looking at too was also the capacity between the two schools right like with rkin there is more capacity there which I think could be beneficial for that program they can bring in more
235English students they could attain that onetoone model that they always talk about and you know I find Value in that as well and so that's why I was looking at like moving the man and emerging program to Ruskin just because of that potential for growth because they have you know larger facilities like newer facilities as well yeah and then again on the flip side we do impact the English only students uh whom I would assume uh again just like Ras would be move to multiple sites and do we have any sites in mind um that could accommodate some or all of the students for the Cherrywood uh English only students I think that there would be choice between um splitting between either Lane view or Majestic Way for the students on that end um there's
236also you know since we're looking at not having Summerdale as an option for those other students than um you know you're looking at Brook tree or Vincy park I think so important to mention is if we do move the mandering emerging program to Ruskin the remaining Cherrywood students they were once Title One School correct that they will be potentially become a title one school again yes so the numbers if you removed the Ander and immersion program from Cherrywood yes they would be about 39% free and reduced so they would be a title one school so um you know pretty much those three schools that I mentioned aside from Majestic Way you know you'd be Lan view brck tree or Vincy Park those three schools are all Title One schools so the non or non- manering
237students um they would benefit from Title One benefits if um cherry wood were to be closed correct they Title One school yeah what are your thoughts trustan on that I mean you uh are you are you thinking there's a benefit to that but just going back to um the TK through rate I mean I just I think there's huge upside potential to that and there's an opportunity for us to reinvent toon Pont midle and um Summerdale so that's the hug the biggest draw for me all right so so where we at with the with Char and Raskin are we still focusing on those two schools we we don't have we not talking about any other schools at this at this point correct we'll still because we eliminated Lane view I think yeah I'm post closing
238Lane view um yeah did we Majestic Way I mean I know it's not as SCH on the list but right make sure to discuss we did discuss it but we did discuss it I think uh they didn't meet the criteria and from a cost benefit point of view also it doesn't have that much of an impact on the bottom line uh as well that needs to be one of the things we also need to consider uh whether it's popular opinion or not it's it's one of the things we we need to have uh in mind so it's brusin or Cherrywood it looks like uh those are the two schools that we are um so yeah I mean reluctantly I would be uh willing to if we can move that that Mandarin program you know in
239the same model into Raskin um and figure out you know what's the what's the best way of achieving that without losing the momentum that that the community has built has worked uh really really really hard uh into getting that to that point where uh they have uh they have won multiple Awards and you know accolades uh and I've been to into at some of those meetings uh uh with those um with ncls ncls national Chinese ncls and the uh feedback that that I heard from uh the visitors and the guests and and the conversations I had it was great to hear so my I don't have any any doubts about my our students the students are amazing I have no uh questions about the staff capacity staff ability teachers uh ability and uh administrators abilities
240uh my only concern is is that we don't want to lose that momentum uh when we then we disrupt that it is it is going to be disruptive uh regardless of what we do so uh so we how do we preserve that momentum how do we make sure that um if we do decide to move the mandin immersion program to Ruskin how do we continue to uh push forward to make sure that um uh you know we we are getting the best value and we also need to project that we value that the program because it's you know it's something that we have built and you know then the community is taken charge of that and we need to make sure that um we value that program as well so um but yeah I mean
241um Back Against The Wall I would think uh you know that would probably my be my choice to uh move sh with immersion program to to Ruskin and um and find out what uh what what best we can do for the remaining students um that are not in the M verion program thoughts critiques I mean is there a way that we can guarantee that we push for that onetoone model if we move the Mander and immersion program to rusin is there a way that we could try and ensure that remember that the oneto one is also dependent on you know the number of students so that's what varies year toe and we've you know we've worked collaboratively with our teachers on supporting that we've offer um incentives for those that are participating in that uh
242onetoone switch so that's something we've talked about and added through the years as well so that would all continue I don't think there could be a guarantee for that because I think when the Mandarin program was uh implemented um there were staff that wanted to participate in the manor Merion program there were staff that didn't and the ones that didn't left Cherrywood correct so if correct overtime so if if Cherrywood the mandering emerging program at Cherrywood were be to be moved to rusin I think um it would go it would start all over with what happened at Cherrywood in the past seven years and I think that would be too much and I don't think all the Ruskin teachers um they uh they're willing to be a part of that yeah and I'm I'm with
243you on that I'm I'm right there with you so it'll be a uphill task uh if we do decide to go that that route it'll we have t to to get that um uh get that uh program you know uh settled and and you know have the same value that it has it has right now I completely agree with that and I spoke about that at the last meeting also uh you know what those concerns all right so we need some direction we need uh I don't think we are not we're not making a conclusion today we're not making taking any votes um but um we we need at least some sort of consensus on what everybody's thinking and U it looks like on this side of the neighborhood we are we we are comfortable
244with the uh with the K tk8 uh model at pmon consolidating um toon and suale uh over here is that is that okay is is that correct is that is everybody on board with that um that's the proposal I would support I think gives the most benefit to the impacted students okay perfect without taking away too much from uh uh the sites and uh on the other side uh um it's between sherrywood and Ruskin what are your thoughts so uh again back against the wall we don't we don't have much of a much of a Le much of a choice uh to do uh to do anything uh you know I'd love to preserve Cherrywood the way it is um but things are what they are right now so it's just just unfortunate situation um
245so from my perspective like I said uh we would carefully move the Mand program retain its value um make sure that they have all the support that they need uh and move it to to Ruskin and then uh ensure that the EO kids uh you know either get a choice of school or or you know are uh well taken care of where wherever they land uh while while you're all thinking about all these conversation one of the things we never spoke about is our ptas and our home on school club uh you know and I know there'll be a drastic change in in culture we'll have if we close uh if we don't have somebody and to on those pts we need to dissolve those will need to be absorbed in uh uh into into
246the pedmont PTSA uh so that's that's another big change for the for the parent community that uh uh we need to make sure that the council the PDA council is uh you know we collaborate with them to make sure that they they provide all the support that we need that they need uh if we do move Cherrywood uh any part of Cherrywood any other school Cherrywood doesn't have a PTA they have a home school club structured very differently from a PTA have been on both both um both sides uh so I I know the differences so that they the parents will need a lot of support um in U getting uh used to working with the PTA PTSA type of a model it's a different type of a um Ty of model so just wanted
247to put that out there because that's that's a critical piece um of the equation as well but entertain your thoughts or um you know if you have any any um any other ideas than what what I presented what what I spoke about let me know so again I spoke about moving the mag immersion program only to to uh Ruskin and then um the EO kids to to other schools that that's where I'm at right now so what is your proposal because if you suggest closing Cherrywood then what's the other sites that you propos to close um so we are at suale toon we consolidating Su sum and toon to pedmont to build a K8 pk8 and moving the maning Merion program as well moving the maning Merion program to Raskin on the other side um
248and impacting shedwood so we're impacting four schools then is what you're proposing we're impacting Cherrywood Pont middle uh summer down yeah yeah the the trade off is the preservation of the three middle schools so yeah we're you know technically impacting Pont but it remains open so as a regular Middle School not TK 38 no it's a three tk3 so the choices were um you know to basically you know close down uh or consolidate three elementary schools and preserve the middle schools which we're doing yeah we're impacting it but we're preserving it you mean the boundary changes for the middle schools what was that so you're is me suggest that Cherrywood is the third Elementary School to be closed right yeah because we have uh Summerdale and Toyon are basically closing they're consolidating because we can
249move them in their entirety to uh to pedmont we can't do that with Cherrywood or with Ruskin or with any other school on that side uh so they the students there would have to split yeah I think I think that was option b the one that we're entertaining so creating the TK to a consolidating two elementary schools and then closing an additional Elementary or I guess we're doing is that what is suggesting that we close two elementary schools purging one of them so so so option b I think this there's a slight change in option b because now we'll be merging two elementary schools with One Medal school and closing one Elementary School is that correct yes that's correct so would the cost savings be still approximately 2.5 to 2.8 good question based on the
250schools that you're talking about it' be closer to the 2.5 than the 2.8 the two we would save 2.5 by doing Cherrywood Summerdale and Toyon is that what you're saying yes so if we were to close rusin instead of Cherrywood would the students then be split up among more schools than the Cherrywood students would be because all the Mandarin Merion students which is roughly half the school of Cherrywood would go into one School uh and then the others would be divided among one or two is that right two so three schools total how about Ruskin how many schools would have to uh accept their students so three it' be three okay but it' probably more like a third a school or something like that okay so with mandin immersion we have students from multiple schools
251coming to to Cherrywood we have students from Maximum from VY Toyon brooktree Majestic uh Ruskin um they're they're all coming to to yeah so so in a way there's fewer students impacted by consolidating Cherrywood um because they're already not in their home school y only half are actually uh so like 250 roughly or are with would you know from the home that's their home school so if Cherrywood were to be closed where would the English only students be going again it would be we'd have to look at the numbers it'd be between potentially either Lane view or Majestic and then either Brook tree or Vincy park and if you want we could you know Vincy park has a lot of space they they all have capacity um you know at least six seven eight you
252know just depending on which school six seven to eight classrooms or more so while they couldn't take the entire English only students they could you know they could be split between two schools it's just the distance that you want some of those students to travel to get to the school so that's a potential issue for me because I I prioritize neighborhood families before specialized programs I believe if you live in a certain Community you should be entitled to be going to the school in your Comm in your neighborhood so for a Cherrywood family because they're English only if they're not allowed to go to Ruskin and they have to skip rusin to go to Majestic Way that's an issue and for them to cross a freeway to go to Vincy park or Brook tree that's
253also an issue I believe that as a Cherrywood family in that neighborhood you have priority if Cherrywood were to be closed you should be going to Ruskin or another neighboring School you shouldn't A specialized program I I support the manor eming program but in this this case they shouldn't Trump another family that lives in that neighborhood right is there another option for the Mandarin immersion program the only other school that has space for Mandarin immersion is Summerdale and we're looking at closing some correct it's because of the the size of the program now the other thing to keep in mind Kevin you mentioned earlier the capacity was 14 classrooms Ruskin that's correct there's 12 that's needed for the Mandarin um is that 14 existing classroom space that's existing classroom space not inclusive of if we
254add any Portables to that location so if there was interest in trying to bring a greater number of Cherrywood students over that could be a possibility to and Kevin just said That's not including perhaps bringing additional classroom space over right that that that wouldn't that wouldn't equate to moving all the 200 200 and something we won't be able to do that that there'll be like 10 10 plus classrooms right then um just for those students we won't be able to do that um in toal to at Cherrywood there are 26 classrooms according to the Chart here 26 yeah that's the that's the whole classroom number yeah so again with the sorry you still saying something Mr Franklin no okay so uh see for for the English only students at Cherrywood um if we do decide
255to do this uh do the split uh again can we give them the option of uh one of the four schools um we would have to work through that with Tom as we look at the demography okay there would be a geography issue but in terms of stricly numbers I actually think all the regular kids at Cherrywood could go to Lan view but for some of those kids be a long ways to go can you repeat that uh Tom you said the students that would be going to Lane view would be which students the Cherrywood attendance area GG within the Cherrywood attendance area the number of kids attending Cherrywood in regular education and my num is about tk5 there are there are 200 regag kids in that attendance area but 35 or six of them
256go to other schools such as Noble's parent participation there's really only 164 currently tk5 kids in cherrywoods attendance area in regular at that school so when I look at next year's forecast numbers there'll be space for that L the only thing I'll warn you with that is some of those kids are going to go a long ways to L numerically you can fit them all in L so that that's what I want to um underscore it's a long distance away it's unfair to those families we're unnecessarily um I don't know what the word is but uh not recomending that impacting them yeah so that's why if if we were to close Cherrywood they have to go the neighbor the neighborhood families need to go to the next closest neighborhood school which is rusin and they
257can't be pushed away because the specialized programs going to Ruskin which is the same con idea was arguing with Noble you know there's families living close to milus and they're driving past three schools just to go to you know another school which I think doesn't make sense to me geographically I wouldn't say that distance however is any longer than some kids currently go for Noble some kids currently go for all right so according to the and I can go to the slide the School site distances Brook tree is actually 1.2 miles from um Cherrywood and Ruskin is 1.4 um which is and then for Cherrywood to Lane view is 2.2 miles now whether Brook tree could could absorb all of those students um I'd have to relook at that we do have um special ed
258programs at uh brooktree and that would involve a freeway Crossing correct but if we're just looking at strictly distance that's these are the distances just for the sake of conversation and potentiality I know that you know we've been talking about these five School sites if what happens if we were to and I'm sorry to rehash this with this is just an idea since we seem like we're kind of stuck in a wall what if we push Noble and Toyon into pedmont and then Cherry would push into sodale and Ruskin just like from a geographical sense I was just looking at it say that one one more time what if we were to push Noble and Toyon into pedmont because Noble and Toyon geographically are closest to pedmont middle and then we would push Cherrywood students
259into Ruskin and Summerdale is that something the board would kind of look into or yeah I mean Summerdale definitely has capacity because Summerdale has you know over a dozen or about a dozen classrooms available so that that could work any downsides to that they be able take they wouldn't be able to take the whole school um necessarily um they they potentially could but then you run into the same issue that we talk about with the distance for for uh Lane view it'd be the same thing for Summerdale um and then um I think it was brought up earlier too if we're just talking about you know um a geographic split and going to the next nearest school if you look at Majestic Way if you're going off of the list which Noble would be also
260um Majestic Way is um you know when you look at Majestic ways distance from from the other closest schools that have capacity or looking at rescue in Lan view also no kids go to right so yeah and then looking at middle schools Noble splits too between where they where the students attend middle school so they would then only go here from some students from Noble they'd go here from K to 5 or TK to 5 and then they'd go somewhere else for for Middle School yeah I mean right now for Noble the students go to um camont and pedmont for Middle School right what 5050 roughly um depends on the year I suppose so they would not stay here from K to a but how much interaction is between the Middle School and grades and
261the Elementary grades in a k to8 school or TK to8 school if it was it say that again how much interaction or overlap is there between you know the programs of say you know from TK to 5 to um the middle school grades it's more it's more about the shared instructional resources right that they would have I mean that's what makes a K8 attractive right they would have a Continuum of learning experiences whatever that focused area is so the noble parents could potentially request has to stay here if they like it and then suel could take the Mandarin immersion program and then the English students from Cherrywood could go to Ruskin yes that would fit so trusty house suggestion um would would not be optimal is that is that what what I'm hearing is that
262would not be an optimal U plan or or will not be much of a difference is is that uh what's the conclusion on that that'd be for the board to decide I mean I'm trying trying to see from the from a data point of view what yeah I me it would work um I think logistically it would work the other follow-up question would be the cost Savings in that change of schools yeah so the cost savings would drop Noble well actually let me double check Noble's savings Noble yeah Noble is the lowest cost savings so if you're looking at Noble Cherrywood and Summerdale then we get farther away from making from making the 2.5 million Noble wasn't considered in that range because um they weren't on the list it was only the schools that were
263on that list that comprised that range how much of a difference do you have any idea yeah Noble is barely over $700,000 in savings and the most of the rest of the schools exception of Summerdale are $ 800,000 in above so 880,000 or so less yes ,000 less yes that's not even one staff position 80,000 um a teacher salary without benefits a beginning teacher with no benefits a teacher is roughly what like 150 with benefits but again then we're 880,000 shorter of shorter so that's more we'd have to cut yes and then just as the reminder that you know the distance the School site distances were one of the criteria that the the committee considered amongst the 19 I I agree with Trustin when though that uh you know that the resident students that live
264in that neighborhood should get priority in terms of uh you know going the close of school yeah do we know how many Mander and emersion students where their resident school would be Vincy park right oh I was just asking where the res the Mand the Mandarin emerence students would what is their primary residency school and that's Vincy park right Vincy park has the most the second most is Cherrywood um and then I'd have to look and then it's pretty yeah it's pretty split amongst everywhere else I think North would have the lowest amount of students are we able to move the Mandarin emerging program to Majestic Way no not without doing a boundary change for Majestic Way the only sites that have 12 classrooms available are Summerdale and rusin can we consider doing a potential
265battery change Majestic Way too because that's another um school where I think has awkward boundaries there's a school just north of uh the creek I'm not sure what Creek those that is but essentially those schools are closer to Lane view than Majestic Way yeah I mean Lane view has capacity to take on a number of students so if that's something the board wants to entertain that could be possible to do a boundary change with Majestic Way to then have enough capacity for the Mand erion program those schools on the south side of cople I mean they're passing they have to go down to peont Road or or what is that hostad or no that's not the morel just to get to and then make a turn onto Hoster just to get them a chest way
266when they could just enter the neighboring residential streets of Lan View and I think of that way we could maintain the manor immersion program within the sierant family if we can maintain the manary mer program within the San family if we move it to Raskin too yeah but then that would unfairly impact the Cherrywood residential homes regardless of that if even if we moved to Majestic Way We Still impact the Cherrywood EO English only resident students correct it doesn't matter if the Mandarin emerging program is in sieron boundaries because the people come from all over the district anyway yeah that's fine I'm game from from a logistical point of view space point a few we yeah but Middle School Manor Middle School students are at Sion right yeah yeah but the ones even if they
267go to Summerdale for you know uh the Elementary grades they could go to Sierra mon for the middle school grades and since most of them a lot of them are from out of the district or you know from other schools uh with from every school within the district uh it's not like we have to keep the schools close together so it's not like a home school you know where you go to the elementary school in the middle school that's close by it doesn't matter where in the district they go um because they'll go they'll go anyway they'll obviously they they'll travel to go to that program right so it's it's not important well what I'm suggesting as potential um uh way of doing this is change Majestic ways boundaries move it to Lane view because
268Lane view is experiencing a decline enrollment High rate of decline enrollment and putting the manor immersion program at Majestic Way so if that happens too then the Middle School boundary would be adjusted then for maril and those students currently attending Majestic in that whatever attendance area of majestic is the north Majestic W north of the creek would go to um Morel correct cuz there's L homes just south of coply that goes to mades way when they just need to cross crop to go to Lane View wasn't coply cutting um the boundary for Lane view I thought that's what I saw in the map is there are there are there schools on the other side of cople that are going to Majestic you're saying I thought coply is in [Music] the cop is B between Majestic
269and l view right s boundary between s Vista and oh I see yep but trust so so your your your logic for moving Majestic I mean the Mand imersion to Majestic Way um you feel would be less impactful for the Cherrywood uh resident students is that is that where we coming at yeah and then the if if you're suggesting that we close Cherrywood then the English only language English only students will be going to Ruskin oh I see for for capacity purposes correct because if that's the case I think it's um more Equitable for the neighborhood families to attend their neighboring school as opposed to a specialized program to Trump those families that's a good point there that's a good point actually so then Majestic uh ways furthest from viny right because so most number
270of students we're going to verify if there's capacity at Majestic Way sure by moving over so there viny students will have a long commute to come to Majestic for for Mi right I mean Ruskin would not be that much worse either I mean it'll probably be comparable but is there a scenario that the board things that would keep Cherrywood uh intact without without disturbing is there is there a different scenario that I know it's late I know pretty much everybody's famished but uh is there anything that uh comes to mind that would keep sherrywood intact Ruskin intact is there any other um any other scenario you have any any two two more schools maybe that you're looking at I know I'm creating more creating more controversies here but I'm just trying to see uh what
271other options are there um spe no I have another spreadsheet that's not part of that that shows how many classrooms are in use and so it looks like I think for and I'd have to double check because these numbers were from last spring and so this year um numbers have changed um slightly I think there's five classrooms current at Majestic Way there's room I believe to add two to three Portables and then I believe they would be based on declining enrollment would have two additional so I think that there is about approximately 10 or so um classrooms so it'd be close to being able to fit in the current configuration all of the manor and immersion program but we'd have to double check the capacity figures for or the current utilization for Majestic Way right
272and so I'd have to double check with the with trusty Newan suggestion of redrawing that that boundary right and right sure we redraw if we redraw the boundary depending on how many students are within that area that he mentioned um we'd have to see how many students currently live in that area to determine then how you know how those numbers adjust because right now the utilization rate shows that there's excess capacity at Majestic Way of 188 for 2526 which we know that there's 277 students in the manner and immersion program as it currently is so it we would need to have at least four more classrooms I don't know that we can add four more Portables there um you know or if there's going to be a couple of other classrooms um based on um
273revised enrollment uh projections if you make that boundary change the only way that works for next year is if you don't grandfather any of those kids right y just force [Music] them so then we're displacing Majestic Way families for wouldn't support that I'd rather phase it out that's too much of an impact there are the numbers don't work how many classrooms are available at Majestic Way did you say that's what I have to double I'd have to go to the school to double check so the classroom figures they weren't on theist I so I didn't go and and double check those as far as a school for capacity and so the the rate the utilization rates we have are from last spring and so we've adjusted and the school has moved around teachers so we'd
274have to go a double check but I I think that there's at least five um five or six vacant classrooms there based on the last time I was there um because one thing that did change as well which impacts these numbers is um I believe is at the last board meeting there was a um a board item um to purchase the two County Portables that are currently on the property for a dollar the county has been out of those portables for a number of years now but they weren't ours so we weren't able to include them in the capacity and so that's why that number changed also so that's why I think there's at least five or six because we weren't counting those before and those do exist on that campus maybe since it's getting
275late we should consider the following options you know the maybe we should at next week's board meeting we should go over Majestics ways capacity and also taking a deeper look at Cherrywood and Ruskin and seeing you know which one like we just look at the facts for both School sites but then what I'm hearing from the board is also we reached a consensus on consens consensus on Summerdale and Toyon and pedmont so now our decision is just on that final school and then maybe we can rehash that relook at all the numbers um next Wednesday that sounds like a plan to me the rest of the board is okay with that um if you want to continue their discussion that's okay also um so I did get a anonymous tip right now that there are
276six with the county Portables there'd be two more based on declining enrollment that I figured so that's eight and I believe there 's room for three Portables so that's 11 so we're still just shy of and it wouldn't allowed for growth beyond that so that's that's although Majestic will keep declining so so there's really not enough just short all right so um so we it looks like at this point in time we do have somewh of consensus on on the I wouldn't put anything on that oh no Okay so until we we decide all three uh I say you know we're going to do this and then not that it's got to be all on anything tonight I can guarantee that so with with some tration let say we have some sort of a right
277agreement on the uh tk8 model uh building a tk8 model at pedmont consolidating um Summerdale and toy I don't know because Cherrywood would fit into Summerdale and you know their mandar immersion that would logically make sense if we bring pmon over here Noble over here so that's why I'm not really set on that right so so the so the discussion for um for for Cherrywood for for the man immersion Still Still Remains so that's still still an option that that we need to gather some more um thought and U information on and it might very well come to the point where we we say that we keep suale and then move mersion there uh to and then move the rest to Rask um so the only thing that we're sure of is that we want
278to do a tk8 here right yeah that that's that seems to be the one thing that we be kind of all are okay with um so what action items do we have for the uh for the cabinet if you can summarize so let me just get clarity here for what staff needs to bring back in terms of scenarios so we have tk8 model for pedmont Middle School the first scenario that the board discussed was looking at Toyon and Summerdale and merging those two here um looking at what I had was options for choice for those families as well um now also staying with pedmont Middle School the others the second scenario was noble and toyan okay and then do we still want to work through what we just discussed with Majestic Way and and what
279is what is the request what What scenario would you like to see I thought we figured out that we didn't have enough space there just wanted to confirm so with the second scenario we we spare suale which would mean that uh potential uh potentially we can move Mand immersion to suale okay and then uh the the um resident students of Cherrywood to um to rusken did I get the right okay okay or we consolidate rusin is that still on the table it is but capacity wise I think we have we have an issue don't we consolid to consolidate Rasin Raskin cannot I mean from what I understand and I'll let Dr FES elaborate uh there are too many students so Rustin will need to be broken up he cannot go as a whole to right
280can I ask put at Summerdale you then do that with the Middle School level Summerdale was go is pedmont just going to become a k of the noble and toy areas which really is enough kids to or does I'm just trying to figure out how the numbers work here it works make program cross middle scho down yeah it does right now I mean the the students that are that are in Mand programs at seron are not resident students anyway correct so what does it matter if they they all come to suale and then go to Sion right so I think we might want to revisit U Majestics way status um in my makes sense for us to consider the closure uh preserving Cherrywood closing Majestic Way and splitting it between Lane View and rusin you
281good yeah I would like to I don't know about that decision but if you want to entertain that I want to see all the rehash what Majestic Way like the cost savings would look like the facility so I would yeah well you know Noble is also not on the on the list of the Committees so if that's up consideration I don't see why Majestic Way shouldn't also we should have you know pretty thorough discussion on that yep yeah if we were to poll another school that wasn't on the committee's list I would like us to have like a really thorough discussion just because you know we went through the committee process and we trust entrusted them with this and so I want to make sure we really land on the right decision there if we
282pull a school that wasn't on the list so apart from the rest of the rest of the criteria the cost uh you know as a reminder you know we we need to uh be mindful of the you know the cost savings also at the bottom of all this uh whether we like it or not the uh cost savings is an issue so we need to maximize those campuses that will yield as the maximum uh savings to be able to uh be fiscally solvent uh so let's not let's not lose focus on that piece of the equation also I know that I understand all the different options it's great to have those options but at the end of the day uh you know fiscal solvency is also key uh to this to this equation and we
283need to get to that to that point so trust I was going to say if staff has a best option recommendation uh that I'm open to that as well they're looking at us for directions I don't think I don't think and we're looking at them it's an impa so do we do we have Dr F all the notes that you have all right so so we will uh we're not making any uh taking any votes today we will continue this uh discussion at the next at our regular board meeting on the 18th so at this time I'll enter a motion to adjourn the special meeting please second moved in second and all in favor say I I meeting adjourned at 10:43 p.m. thank you all for your patience thank you for being here we appreciate
284it [Applause]