001ASB governance committee to order at 11:01 on April 23rd. Um in the room we have committee members myself and Higgins, member Wilson is not here, doesn't appear to be on the line. If we can go around the room and have people state who they are. >> Sure. Uh Kirsten Johnson and the deputy chief of school CFO Gerson deputy superintendent >> Kelly lessons board member >> Marty Lane chief human resource officer >> bailback sticker bill. >> Okay thank you. Um that's everyone in the room and >> we will move first to Oh, >> there's some people online. >> Oh, there are. Okay. And anybody online? >> Yes. So, uh myself, America Sullivan, executive assistant. We have uh also uh President Jacobs online. Um Mr. Jim Anderson, who's the COO, and Cheryl Amburst, uh Mike Fleenstein, and
002Miss Katie Grant. >> Thank you very much. Yeah, we can't actually see who's online, so if anyone does raise a hand, please uh let us know. >> Yes. And also, um Miss Wil uh member Wilson will be joining. She is um working on signing in now. If you'd let us know when she is online, that would be good. >> Absolutely. Thanks. >> Okay. Um, section B, number one, policy review for board policies 51, 13, 16, 17, 18, 21, 23, 24, 25, 25.1, and 25.2. Anyone have anything they wish to bring up in regards to any of those specific policies? This is just the automatic review. >> Yeah. um comes along. >> Also, member member Wilson is online. >> Okay. We've been joined by member Wilson and we have another guest in the room. If you'll
003state your name, please. >> Holly Zumbro, director of activities and student services. >> Thank you. [clears throat] Um, not hearing anyone proposing review of >> Can you click on the school attendance boundaries >> 516? And I I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to look at them at the time, but I worked on memory. [clears throat and cough] Yeah. My so >> my memory was that prior to when I joined the board in February of that board adjusted this policy and included language that reads and if you're able to make that bigger um bound beginning with a boundary review in 2022 the superintendent shall review school boundaries uh every 10 years. Sorry, it's moving. Um, as well as when deemed necessary. So, I don't recall that a boundary like a full comprehensive boundary review ever
004took place in 2022. It was one of those things that was on my sort of radar as oh this is going to happen, but it did not to my memory happen as many other things happened. We exchanged superintendent. We had no blessing when you joined and we there was some you know we've had rights setting but not a com. So I I'm not comfortable passing this forward today and would maybe ask that it be held for further review. Um and we specifically deal with the section about 2022 and [clears throat] and sort of a comprehensive boundary review plan for the future. Well, this is not really up for consideration. It's just that >> as part of our review, we bring up a chunk of the policies to be looked at every time, >> right? But
005when we review them, we're essentially approving them and won't look at them again for another three years. So, >> we're just ignoring they go to they go to the board meeting though on their consent agenda, I believe. >> Not if they're No, they don't. What >> if they're if they're if they're left as they are, they just we get a new line saying reviewed >> in April of 2026. >> I'm saying we wouldn't have to wait to bring it up. Someone can bring up a proposed change at any [clears throat] >> So, >> I guess my >> have a proposed >> I have not I've had other issues to deal with um in advance of this meeting. I'm not actually on the committee. Do you have a time frame of when you might want to
006bring it back up to this committee because we can move that to ask that it be part of the agenda? >> Well, I would say that, you know, at next month's governance committee meeting, whoever is governance committee chair and that because we were having a board reorganization meeting, [clears throat] it's something that we should engage with and maybe that would be and or bring it up at the board retreat if it's substantial enough. >> So, we can we can ask America to put it on the next agenda. >> Yes, I will do so. weekend. >> Not a problem. Yep. >> Yes, absolutely. >> Because some of us won't be here and uh we'll have no memory of this evening taking place. >> So, uh yeah, she'll add it to the agenda and it can be
007looked at again. >> Any other >> Mr. Anderson, did you have anything to add to that? >> Jim, >> I'm sorry. Say that again. Jim, >> I did have my raised hand or my hand raised. Um, we we can discuss next month, but once we knew that we were in a multi-year right sizing consolidation path, it we we were unable to do a complete district-wide look, not knowing what schools may or may not close because every time there's a closure, there's automatically a realignment of the boundaries associated with all of those closures and consolidations. And so this uh board policy was never written to include the potential that we were also going to be looking at closing schools every year, which really confused whether you would adjust a boundary for a school and then close
008it the next year. And and so it really became it's it's problematic, but I'll be happy to discuss next month. >> Great. I just wanted to flag it for everyone shared action. And now you can see where looking at all the boundaries and the proximity of schools and whatnot isn't a bad step in terms of organizing uh right sizing decisions and whatnot. So yeah, anyway, it will be on the agenda and uh we will we will move forward. Um, next up we have resolutions from the student advisory board and there I think we just have one for parent activity pass and [clears throat] if anyone has any wants to speak to this or has [clears throat] >> as far as the parent activity pass. We do have a Holly here um that I believe talk
009about this if we have any questions. The one thing that we would need to do is we need some time to figure out a process by which because there would need to be like what are the parameters around because when we like do gates at events and where where how far into this does it go because like if we do a regional tournament there's ways that the money is dispersed. and we [clears throat] have to figure out, you know, we're not opposed to this. It's just it's going to take some time to figure it out. I believe Paulie, do you you have anything? >> Um [clears throat] the from the the lens of the activity APS, we don't have a digital ticketing mechanism at this point. And so it mentions that the digital ticket we're
010working with finance on being able to use a point of sales system. um digital ticketing is further down the line, there would be questions um in regards to the amount. Um while I appreciate the comparison of a student's $50 and an adult would be $100, the student is set at $50 to encourage student participation at their school at those events. Um we certainly appreciate parents coming but we don't have a mechanism uh where we do with the students to put it on their student ID for it to be a picture ID for that parent to maintain the integrity of the past. >> Um so there and the stipulations of it wouldn't be good for region events and things those kinds of things would be ironed out in the future. Uh this was the first that
011we have seen of this. It didn't come through instructional division before it came to you folks. So, we haven't had a real opportunity to loop back and understand um a little bit better of some of their vision in order to try to implement it for the fall. >> Um yes, appreciate it. I I can see where we may be able to do this only for ASD events. Um and I I don't know the cost of doing, you know, like what ASA does where they give board [clears throat] members an activity pass. >> Yeah. For everything. We actually pay um also for those passes. >> Yeah. >> Out of our activities. [clears throat] >> Okay. >> Um so yeah, we will um move this to the next governance agenda, next governance meeting agenda um in order
012to give administration time to investigate a bit on the details and issues [clears throat] and whatnot. There's no adjustment that >> right and sometimes we [clears throat] look at these things we think of parent and guardians because you've got foster parents you got this you got that I don't I don't know if we need you really have to play with that here but just to from a processing standpoint you usually want to think guardians as equal >> yeah for sure those are the types of things that we need to kind of really like investigate because we we have blended families we have guardianship we have all sorts of different family situations though trying to figure out what yeah like what constitutes the family pass you know so there's a lot there's a lot there to
013unpack um I will say from a community perspective this is something parents would appreciate and have asked for actually >> I I can see situations where parent might be inclined to go to an activity but >> they spent so much so far they may not and so if it turns more people out >> the total without costing a lot of money. >> Yeah. One of the one of the things, you know, all of our like when we pay referees, when we >> pay the extra security for those bigger events like at a football game, that comes from the gate. So, we have to that's one of the things we have to be figuring out is is this going to cause us to have another budget line item that we need to cover, >> right? So,
014how much is a pass? So that's the kind of things we have to kind of figure out >> and it may even be more advantageous from a revenue stream for us to say like can you buy an adult pass like so the equivalent of like a student activities pass like where maybe you buy two adult passes for mom and dad or um you know the auntie can buy a pass and then we're not looking at a revenue loss. So those are the things that we want to investigate a little bit more about it. If I can ask a question for follow information, can you let the board know what you spend on board members activity pass? Um >> I'll check it. >> Um each OSAP [clears throat] pass is a courtesy $50 to Osaf for
015the board members, but OSA actually comps those. >> So for our individual board members, they do not charge. >> Okay. So it's not like I can't find $200 of savings times seven board members. You are correct. I have no savings for you there. My apologies. >> Okay. I'm just I'm looking for dollars. >> About five or six years ago for members. >> Yeah. And then we pay for all the administrator passes. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Any other comments or questions? >> Seeing none, let's refer to a future date future meeting. Um that brings us to item three. Other two SAB. >> I only saw one. >> I I think that your sense is correct. There was one about world languages. >> Oh, yeah. >> I'm sorry. Yeah, it is on the agenda. >> We don't
016have a handout though. >> Essentially, the I mean I if you're okay with it, I could explain what it was asking. Um so the other SAB um resolution was asking um for us to change kind of our academic policy around world languages. So when students take um a level one course at middle school and they then continue immediately their freshman year um in a year two world language, they can bring up their credit for year one um world language at the high school level for graduation credit. Um what this resolution essentially is asking is can they have a gap year um and still bring up that credit? Um and um in the past we've said no because of continuity of learning. Um but there are many freshmen that would like to maintain that um you
017know world language experience and bring it up with them even in their sophomore and junior year. So >> question and that could apply to a lot of different types of classes that they take in middle school that might be you know they're taking algebra they're taking this you know we don't carry all that forward do we or do we >> we don't carry everything over for credit we we typically focus on algebra one credit um math credits at at middle school and then world language those are the ones off the off the top of my head. >> So I I I went to Brandon Lock to ask specifically about this particular thing and he looked at the specific statement on it and it doesn't require us to that the students do the freshman year. That's
018just a process that we've been doing. We just probably need to change the process because it does state taking level two in high school, not taking level two in high school at freshman year. So all we really I think that this one we just >> change our >> we can just change our we don't need to change >> we don't have to create a policy for >> so that would include some with our counselors probably. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> So it's doable. We can do this and I'd be okay with doing this. Me too. Honestly, >> without having to go through, >> is there a way that the student advisory board can be sort of given a response? So, yeah, this was reviewed. Here's how we're going to >> adjust in response to your
019resolution, but maybe we're not actually making that policy change, but we're being respons. >> There wouldn't be anything limiting in us passing it to the full board and then passing. That doesn't create a complication. [clears throat] We would have to change some we would have to change some documents to put that into I think is all but >> so from what I understand uh admin is going to be working on some changes then we'll send it back to SAB. So, you know, we we've we've done things also where SAD has come up with a proposal and then I worked with SAD [clears throat] on specific things such as like when Polaris didn't have an activities fund and that they they they didn't have money for buses and stuff. Well, we that was a hole. We
020figured it out. The board didn't have to even take it on, right? >> We made the change. as long as we're making the change, I think we don't need that because it allows it's allowable in the in the current credit by choice form. [clears throat] >> Um, and we could just work with and well, we let's see, we have one more meeting with the current president. So, we would just need to make sure we're working with SAB to and meet with them. >> And they are they're done with their student meetings for the year, >> right? So it would be something that would come up at the beginning of next year. So we need to get the new president >> and we could even I mean even the current SAB leadership like we could like
021yeah >> part of it is I see value in in bringing the resolution all the way as you're making the changes um even [clears throat] when it doesn't have to happen just because they see that going through the process as opposed to disappearing into the administrative haze. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Um, but I mean I think you're right. The important thing is that it actually change. Um, but having us take action on it, I see some value in it as long as it doesn't complicate things. So if it's more complicated, if the board acts on it, >> then my inclination would be to say that the committee supports it and the administration >> supports it work with it. It doesn't require you one of the things when there's a resolution, we as administrators need to
022look at it. you [clears throat] know the first time I saw it was on the um this agenda right I mean >> we also asked that they come to us too so we can work with them >> you know and one of the things is that through that through the governance that it also works that yeah leadership wasn't aware we need to make sure we change some practices we don't have to always go straight to policy you know I mean we're also looking at the other one that's probably going to be a policy thing, you know, eventually. >> Right. Okay. Um if that's the case that there's no objection from committee members, um we'll express our support for it and that the administration is going to work with it and be in touch with the
023student advisory board leaders on it. >> Mr. for chair >> member Wilson. >> I was at the last student advisory board meeting and they did overwhelmingly approve a new resolution and whether the administration has received it in this group and it had to do with e waiver for students [clears throat] who are going through physical therapy for a certain amount of time [clears throat] >> over a semester or a year. I don't recall. Um it was like the proposal was something like 45 hours of physical therapy could lead to a 0.25 credit waiver and so I don't know if that has been circulated at all. So it has stayed within SAB. So >> maybe this is just a heads up >> that it was there were a lot of hands raised um in the SA
024meeting but >> we can track that. >> Keep it Yeah. >> Yeah. We we honestly have been working with the advisors in the background to develop a better process so that it's getting routed the right way >> automatically. >> Yeah. >> Um moving to item three board policy 151 class sizes. >> So member I don't know if you want to start or you want me to start. Um, I will be happy to say that I brought this up because um almost a year when House Bill 57 was passed last spring, there was a clause that's right term that said school districts will create a policy about class sizes. And I had a little time over the summer and started noodling on a draft policy. And then I heard through maybe the other board member that
025the AASB was working on a draft policy. So I stopped. I set it aside. I heard in November from a Fairbanks board member that they had just adopted a policy. And I thought, well, that was really quick. But I've never seen an AASB policy, but we were really busy. So again, I didn't return, but um at a community council meeting over the winter, I heard someone say ASD hasn't adopted a policy like they're supposed to. And I thought, oh, we need to return to this. So I created a really big one which um the the overall intent is to sort of connect um our budget cycle with this with the idea of having a certain class size policy and if we cannot you know if we cannot if we cannot afford class sizes at c
026the levels indicated by house bill 57 I want the public to know why we can't afford board class sizes at that level. Um, but I also was reflecting there's so many terms involved in, you know, PTR is not the same as class sizes. So, I was trying to do my best to flesh out what that all might look like. And I recognize that there are components in the draft policy that might be better served in ARS, but for um I guess the purposes of discussion. So that is not the one that I drafted up on the board. Um >> that's the that's the AASB one. >> So okay. So there is there is attached to this item there's an AASB model policy >> and there's a much longer Kelly lessons draft policy. >> Yeah. >>
027Um >> Yeah. And um before the meeting I started I I said I just hadn't had a lot of time to kind of siphon out like what might go into an administrative regulation and what might stay in policy. The one thing I did do was look up the the Fairbanks um class size policy and they've taken there's two paragraphs that are added to the AAS policy. Um, one is particularly around the funding source, funding sources and resources essentially. Um, and um, so I'll just read this paragraph from the Fairbanks policy that I I think that we potentially should consider. Um, implementation of these targets is contingent upon the availability of sufficient funding and resources. The district will make reasonable efforts to meet the class size targets outlined above. However, actual class sizes may vary based
028on budgetary constraints, staffing availability, and facility capacity. Um, so to member lessons intent, I think that paragraph really captures it in broad terms. And then if you look at member lessons um document um I think much of that reporting could be incorporated into an administrative regulation so that we have a regular communication cycle around how class sizes are determined and budgeted. Um so that's just my thoughts initially. >> Right. >> Yeah. uh when I think of policies that I think of they're telling people this is what you may you must do this is what you can't do type of approach and you have some outcome type of approach >> I don't know I look at this is first of all class sizes doesn't match by consumm uh and so that's a concern because that's what
029adequate funding is and I'm kind of interested in that because it's it puts one through uh five or something together as a group besides rather than K through three and and above of so it's a little different than what we've argued and what's adequate for funding. And I I don't know how this will impact the decisions or the actions of the administration that's going to say I'm going to have to because of the policy I have to do something different. I don't see that happening here. It's more of an explanation and a goal uh type thing. Is that is that a pretty accurate thing? because it really is not going to dictate anything. But it may communicate to the public what our goal is. But I would think we would almost want to look at
030fasum since we've been arguing that for so long for K through three is is one to one to 15 above that one to 25 because really childhood issues of educational outcomes. There's so many studies and support K through three gets 90% of the effectiveness of of low classroom sizes. the studies I saw in Philadelphia and what they actually did. So I I would prefer to see something like that and um I just don't you know these are this is not a thy shall and thy shall not kind of issue. This is an explanation of the the goals that the board has established on behalf of the admin you know working with the administration in regards to what we want to achieve. So it's a little different than a typical policy is what I'm saying. Yeah,
031I agree. It is different than a typical policy because I don't think we have a lot of policies that are directly required to exist in state statute. >> Aspirational policy. Aspirational policy. >> Yeah. Um I mean this state statute specifically says you have to establish something called a target average class size and certain things are are cut out of that target average class size. um art, library, music, computer science, vocational tech, and physical education classrooms. Like when you look at the statute, those things are excluded and our pupil teacher ratio doesn't really capture that. >> Um pasen doesn't capture that. So I fully support continuing to hammer home the importance of the picus aen but this is really a recognition of what statute requires and then it tries to say well here's where things are
032different in ASC we have um we have accelerator schools that we are doing something different for them we have um immersion monastery open optional programs which can require certain levels of enrollment to sustain their right the immersion programs have to have larger class sizes in K1 to sustain them through the attrition they'll see through grade 12. Um so like like an average class size policy doesn't necessarily work for them. Um the charter schools are allowed to establish their own policies. So that's why I mean I'll be the first to say this still needs work and I'm not not going to push for this to move forward, but perhaps there's a way we could incorporate an acknowledgement of what the PI is on the study has said and what we value um in in another iteration
033of this while also delegating a lot of the substance to ARS. Um one of the things that so so some of the language is copied directly through statute, right? Those those class, you know, for grades K through six, the target average class size for classrooms may not exceed 23. That's just what it says in state statute. And for grades 7 through 12, the target average class size can't exceed 30. That's what state statute says. And we can't afford those things as as it stands. Um, but I also try to incorporate um procedures to communicate the costs associated with reducing class sizes to the target levels. And that's probably a good AR um section. But um anyways, I would love to have an opportunity to work on this further with the administration, other board members who
034are interested. Um whether that's a summer project or maybe we adopt the Fairbanks policy in the meantime. I don't know. Is there anything in here that would change what the administration is doing today? >> I wouldn't think so. It's very aspirational. That's good. I agree with that. >> I would also add in some of those classes that the statute excluded, >> we may actually want to have target class sizes of state would just be different from your general ed classroom. And it occurs [clears throat] to me that I I can imagine the administration shuttering in the past. Once we have aspirational class sizes, a monthly report kind of like the personnel report that notes where we've exceeded that. Hopefully that could be automated. >> Right now, right now it is not automated and it's a
035huge job that takes many many hours to compile. Well, [clears throat] last this last fall, we were trying to work on actual class sizes when we had some legislators asking what our class sizes were. And it's so complex because we have co-eing, we have teacher aids in classes, which >> It's a class of one. We have >> um like German one, two, three all in the same period, but they come up as three different classes of smaller. So our automation piece is not there. We literally like when we put that together, we literally I had to go through a stack of papers and go through and really and actually do it by hand. So, we don't have the actual automation >> right now to do a real class- size analysis. >> Wow. >> Yeah. having
036having been in the classroom when Zangle came out. Um, and we ran into the same thing because the assignments if if you effectively had students at different levels in the same room, Zangle only allowed for one set of assignments and and either had to go through and opt out of all kinds of assignments, create special ones that you then had to opt out all the other. Our solution was to stack classes and we got trouble at the administration because we weren't supposed to have 10 kids in the class. >> 35 kids in the room. >> The pieces that we have right now work for our state. >> Mhm. [clears throat] >> Well, anyway, for that day ever come to pass, I think it would be great awareness for the board. Um because I have from
03715 years ago always tried to think of a way to express class size and it gets complicated so fast through all that and more. Um, the closest I think I ever saw was Mark Foster's chart that every it was an Excel spreadsheet and every cell was a class and it was green, yellow, red, orange depending on whether it was over or under the target for that class and and literally there was one for every school one and it broke it down by grade level and that that gave a really great visual representation. Um, and the thing that hit you right off the shot was, wow, charter schools have a lot of green, neighborhood [clears throat] schools have a lot of red and orange. Um, but that helped. I don't know how complex that was for
038him to generate that, but that was around for a few years. >> He's in Arizona now. >> [laughter] >> I'm sure he's um but something like that that came to the board on a regular basis just to kind of kind of like a check oil light on your dashboard but you know I wouldn't want to stand to spend the time to do that every month but seems like a student information system have that >> so in in this very large draft policy I do there is an aspiration ational element that says the administration would make a publicly available data dashboard enabling stakeholders to sort of access that information. Um, but maybe that is definitely aspirational. Um, >> so what would you like to have? >> Well, I think if I would say that if the
039board wanted to be compliant with HB57, >> the easiest and um most direct thing to do would be to adopt essentially the Fairbanks version >> which is not posted but there was a print out of it. I have copies of >> with with the two additional >> and continue to work on this >> with the new board as we move forward um to flesh out some ARS to help with communications and transparency and um help folks understand really what class size is. >> But at least we would be compliant and people wouldn't be able to say we're not compliant. Well, and then we would have time to work on the ARS and and maybe some potential changes, >> right? Yeah. >> But once again, I I will pass Miss Soliv. >> Yes. Um >> we'll
040post the Fairbanks policy. Yes. >> Um Dr. Johnson gave me a copy of the Fairbanks policy and that might be a starting point in order to implement something soon. Um but I I don't want to try to rewrite it today. Uh, but if you would put it on the agenda for the next governance committee. I'm really enjoying doing that [laughter] in case anybody wonders. Um, I mean I think this could just be modified ever so slightly and uh be adopted as kind of a placeholder until the board maybe decide to do something more complex that serves their own purposes. But this would meet the uh the requirements of the bill task thing >> and again it looks like their banks built on the AFB version >> and improved it a bit. So I think I
041think it's a great starting point for us. >> Yeah, I really like the changes that they made. So >> without objection, we will do that and move forward. Um that would bring us to Senate Bill 278 which I asked to be put on the agenda. Um Senator Gortman from the Kenai contacted me. Um he's he's sponsoring this bill which in essence as a property valuation in an organized area goes up the and correct me if I say anything wrong. the minimum required contribution from the local government goes up which means a reduction in state funds and basically with the I think most of the organized areas in the state have been hit with this. Uh but the the net result for Anchorage was with our rise in property values even with the rise in um
042the BSA. We've got less state funding. Uh caution. And what his bill would do is cap a it's not a a hard cap in terms of dollars, but that the local contribution could never exceed 2% of [clears throat] u basic student need. Well, it's 2% of the previous year's uh required local contribution. So, there's two two methods in which they calculate out what's the required local. One of is 2.65 mills, which is the method almost all districts use, method we use, or 45% of basic need. So, this would limit whatever the previous year's uh required local contribution could only escalate by 2%. Um so he's looking for support um in this and in talking with President Jacobs about it. Um Senator Tobin on the education committee is not in support of the bill. Um what
043[clears throat] we've arranged is if this goes forward and goes to our special meeting as a non-action item. uh both Senator Bjortman and Senator Tobin would um join us uh via internet to talk about it plus or minus it would become an action item on the next regularly scheduled meeting in May. Um but the the real goal is to keep there from being a dramatic change in the local contribution from one year to the next and and keep something of a limit on how much that could grow up. >> If if we went back 10 years 15 20 years and we had this how much less would we be getting right now from local government? How would that impact that and we have inflationary years right? I mean, you know, we really do 70 it
044was, you know, 10 plus. It was really unreal. So 2% puts a cap on regardless of inflationary factors after that and we could be way way behind at some point and be losing constantly. The state gives us more, but we limit it to two compared to the rest of the state. You know, I'm just I'm I'm just trying to say what the impact is. would limit the local contribution that displaces state dollars. So it it doesn't limit what comes to the district, but rather it would require the state to maintain their contribution level and limit how much how many of their dollars are displaced by the required contribution. Is that [clears throat] right? >> Yeah. Really just it's just a change in who pays. I mean, right now we're if we had a, you know,
045$11 million increase for next year if that goes down, don't know what exactly that would math out to, would go down considerably and allow us potentially collect more money through that additional local contribution. Um, I guess that's kind of where the districts may receive more money is if there if their local governments would allocate what would normally go to the RLC like a larger increase into that um additional local. But this really is just a shifting of who pays. It's not >> doesn't put more money into our schools overall. >> Mr. Chair, >> the equitable distribution of how much different school districts have this would not impact that >> or would it? >> Um it could depending on what their decisions the local governments are. >> Mr. Chair. >> Yeah, thank you. Um so um
046appreciate the initial conversation today. Um, I think member Higgins raises some good questions and and my recommendation for the committee [snorts] is to um review this resolution, I think for the full board really is to review the resolution, the draft language and be informed um about the bill ahead of the presentation that will be in front of us um on Monday during a work session scheduled before our special meeting. So, at 4:00, both um Senator Bjorkman as well as Senator Tobin will have representation and be able to present the the bill as well as other things to consider. And then at that point, the language of the resolution could be considered with all that information as well as the opportunity to answer questions or ask questions and have them answered by policy experts. Um, Senator
047Tobin specifically indicated that she has a a policy expert who um performed much of the uh the calculations for um what would change um and she's planning on making that person available uh to the board to consider and have all the information we would need to make an informed decision on if we want to consider uh publicly supporting this bill. And so, um, I am all for a discussion and am going into the conversation myself open-minded. The only thing I would urge the committee to do today is to u to not uh formally endorse a resolution before having um had a chance to hear all the information. And so, please know regardless as to what the governance committee does today, that conversation is happening on Monday. um the committee supporting a resolution won't affectuate any
048additional uh agenda item action because it's already happening. Um if the board directs on Monday after hearing the presentation from senators Bjorkman uh and Tobin and then I I believe we're also going to um invite municipality stakeholders if um if they're so inclined. um you know there will be a place for the board to direct the superintendent um and or myself to draft something in support or we could certainly approve the resolution. Um there's a number of different options that would be available to us that we could um facilitate during the action agenda uh portion of Monday's special meeting. So we have all that scheduled already. the governance committee actually doesn't need to take any action today and I would encourage members to just stay neutral until they have all the information because I happen
049to have known just a tiny bit more based on the conversation I had with member Hollowman and I'm interested to learn more before weighing in either way. Thanks. >> And with that what I'll say is I'll I'll withdraw the motion. Um in essence it's on the agenda for the meeting and we're going to get more information. So that that accomplishes what I would want governance to do and ask Mr. at the to fact check me on this as well. If this had been in place um and our required local contribution had been low, I believe the assembly could have funded us to the maximum allowed under the equity formula this year, but they couldn't because of the tax cap. And that's why it had to go to a vote and be [clears throat] approved by
050voters is then a a substantial chunk of money was taken up by the required local contribution. There wasn't room under the tax cap to fully fund ASD as they traditionally have done. And so if we had a large increase again, [clears throat] we'd be faced with that. They they would not be able to fund us to the amount they would have. I think that vote would have passed the assembly. Obviously, it almost passed the general public. Not quite. Um, it just puts a buffer into the system so that we couldn't have a rapid rise and [clears throat] we can adjust locally. I I also have a soft spot in my local entities that tax themselves and support a lot of local services. If I was in Deljunction, I can't imagine I would want them to
051because it just wouldn't mean a bunch of money for stuff to get free from the state. It's great, but I think there need to be some guard rails on it for the organized areas to where we don't taking off cost shipping like this and and we can't even adjust for it ourselves. >> Yeah, and that's correct. I mean, the local contribution cap, the city tax cap doesn't really care whether it's required or additional local. It's just the total amount we can collect. So to the extent that the state will pay more on the required local and the city would pay less and it would have freed up more money to put into that additional local and the levy wouldn't have happened. [clears throat] >> You have these same the equity formula and the tax cap
052and the required local contribution which all have nothing to do with each other but they keep bumping into each other in the middle of the night and causing problems. [clears throat] >> Yeah. But I will get some to Mr. Higgins request. I I'd plan on doing that anyway to get like kind of a if we went back 10 or 15 years to model that out to say here's what it would have been had this been in place >> um for the cost savings. Haven't had a chance to do that. I'll try to get that tomorrow and get it informed so you guys have it for Monday. >> Any other comments or questions? >> Yes, sir. >> Habitat humanity [clears throat] >> they they're over on normal life. that you donate stuff like I've donated a
053lot of stuff there and you can you can and I've helped with with uh building houses. my person at the church had worked for Habitat Humanity and he was uh he worked for uh Sean Fernell as a representative and is uh the H and uh there's and I thought about a long time ago I've got in in agriculture and and uh I thought about we actually need to have you need to have it humanity out in the valley. Okay. People bring bring wood, farm equipment. They can bring farm equipment there. And uh uh and the other thing I wanted to mention is Ken Pilliter. Okay. Ken Piloter and I think you've been at you. I think I was at a thing in Ken Piller position. Ken Piller is one he should be a guard Brook.
054And the other thing about Ken Pellet here, he has a really good lead guitarist and he teaches thing. Vinnie teaches uh uh uh drums. Adam works here, works for the municipality. I mean, works for the school district. And I think I think it's Polaris and he's a a a music teacher there. He plays the uh violin on uh he plays bass and uh uh uh via field, [clears throat] you know, sometimes I for words, >> but anyway, he's got a good bass player and he uh and Adam is I mean, I've seen Adam play at the uh the Pope Festival and he's good [clears throat] >> and uh and and then that's what I like to say and he's and they're playing at the Silver Clarks in the valley Saturday. You can catch them and
055they're good and there's other there's other uh bands I go to in there and I see them too. >> Yeah. I've always wished that uh our construction citity and quite frankly we could find a way they could do some of our capital projects but I'm told there's all kinds of liability. [clears throat] >> Yeah. >> But you know I've volunteered for bank habitat humanity and I I'm telling you you learn a lot you build a house. I've been in I've been in I build I helped in was my my junior year senior year I helped build build the first first house >> in highell high school and I've helped with Canada habitat I have uh my dad worked for Husky manufacturing you know I can go on and on and on but I'm going to
056quit >> okay [clears throat] no it would be an awesome thing to get that any other comments, questions >> about what about this or about anything? >> Governor. >> Yeah. Um, what mine is, you know, I I' I've like to work on a policy. I' I've been here with five superintendent and it's true for everyone. So, I don't want to anything I say now doesn't apply. Just But, but we have, you go out, you talk to principles and staff, everybody has a different view about how to raise the funds. You got to go to the union coming from a principal. If you got a concern with something I got, they have to do it. I mean, if they got a safety concern in the union about it, it doesn't matter. Um, change schools. Uh, uh,
057you have to go change of command. You got to go directly to the school board. Got to change that one. Uh, got to go to the superintendent only. That's where you go. But it's all over the place. And, and um, and getting that information out. I know you can always go to the enlistment but if we have I mean if if I know there's HR policies you got HR contracts and everything else but if something in policy applies to everybody regardless to human contact but if we went in there with some sort of policy in regards to reporting concerns handling it and and followup that really is pretty comprehensive I've done those a lot because of my prior positions something like that in a policy could be distributed to employees and stop all the discussion
058or the issues or the concerns about how it's handled and it it it would last over time. Like I said, I go back, you know, almost 20 years on this thing and it's always been an issue. So rather than try to address it through some other thing, we didn't get the audit do that. we looked at at different levels, but I I'd like to look at putting the policy together that talks about the rights of employees, obligations of ASD, reporting it so that there's concerns are handled a choice that you have a list type thing you can maintain it, you can ensure that it's properly handled and um um you know, maybe a summary report, nothing details from the from HR to the board, but something out there that would would do something like that.
059I just think it's important uh this is a major safety issue. I'm telling you. Um if we have a fire with a gas leak, if we have people out, we have some safety issue reported not handled right, it's our responsibility. And at some point here, I realize with five different superintendent uh and we know there's a problem, it's not the superintendent, it's the board. If we know there's an issue, we've got an obligation to do something. and to make sure that people are safe. So, I'm going to propose that, you know, I'm gonna go work on that and come back with a proposal, but I thought I share that Marty I'll share it with you and we kind of go through it, too. But I just want something out there that clearly states regardless of
060you with the unions or non-unions or anything else because then it applies to everybody. Uh, and it won't be a collective bargain, it won't be a policy or anything else to do it that way. I think that would be beneficial for the kids, for the parents, for the staff, um, and for the administration because you don't want somebody to have a serious issue to not track it. Um, but, uh, there were a lot of reoccurring issues in regards to how we handle concerns and a lot of confusion in the way you bring a concern. Like I said, when I got one that's from a high up, they said, "Well, you have to bring it to a union." You got a concern. that's and and others that have said well what would it happen if you
061based this by principle and we don't support him um said maybe the system works u but it's along those lines so I just wanted to share whatation what I'm looking at proposing and why and like I said it doesn't reflect this administration just the history of ASD and that I don't want somebody to do it because we didn't take proper step to do I want to make sure that we write in there that if you have an agency investigation, we're going to participate fully. That didn't happen in past. Uh there was refusal. Uh once again, not on the ship. Um but I just want something like that update. >> Any other comments? Anything for the good of the order? Seeing hearing nothing, I will adjourn this meeting at 11:55. Thank you very much. This