001supports and resources and financial assistance available. So, they're working toward I think this answers your question, but they're working toward things like a certain amount of teacher training and some targeted training. They're focused on skills in administration like program management and HR. They're focused on some targeted activities and standards around family engagement and um teacher child interactions. So focused on kind of that social emotional development of teachers supporting young children. So I just wanted to close by mentioning that our services and supports like I said are me are available to um all licensed early childhood education programs with most of them available to all child care programs. Um, of course, as funding and resources change and evolve, you know, sometimes our different programs, initiatives can be targeted to different classrooms, um, communities or types of
002care. But really, our goal and all that we're doing is try to strengthen and offer resources and supports to all of the types of care that I mentioned under the early childhood education umbrella. So, I'm happy to take other questions or talk more about our services. member Higgins. >> Thank you. You mentioned a significant need for the obviously for the for for the child care. The question is one if we had the space and we had it. Are we going to have people to actually move in to provide that staffing is an issue? Um and then the other one is location. um where you know how is there a spread out or do you have any idea within the city within Anchorage where the biggest need is at and uh are we going to staff
003it even if we had the space how is that going to play out? >> Thank you for your question. Those are those are the right questions to be asking. I would I'll ask answer your second question first in terms of location. Um we know that there's a huge demand in all zip codes in the Anchorage Bowl. So I think um already the schools are well placed um you know uh to accommodate uh where families and children are in need of education services and support. So I would really look to you all to help determine the right space. I mean, our community is small enough that and the demand is large enough right now that we know parents are traveling longer um than even maybe they would like um to access the care that they need.
004Um but of course um most families will look for care close to home or close to work and that varies depending on family you know need and makeup. The second question that you have is around the workforce. Um that is a fair concern. We have a huge shortage of the early childhood workforce right now. Um, part of the supply problem that we have is even of the existing childare programs that are open, they're not all serving their full capacity that they even have space for because they can't recruit enough teachers. So, they can't open all of their classrooms. So the recruitment and retention um as I know you all are familiar with even of u K- through2 teachers is a huge issue in early childhood early childhood teachers are making an average of um just
005under $18 an hour in Anchorage and they do not most do not receive comprehensive benefits. So, it's a competitive market when we it's a high-skilled, high labor and um it's a hard job um caring for babies and infants and toddlers and it's it's one to recognize as a profession and um the pay and benefits often is impactful for for that recruitment and retention. So, that is a concern. I think the the workforce and how we can support more entering and staying in the workforce is um is something to consider. So when we first started looking into whether this was even possible, one of the thoughts was if they could get out of really expensive leases and go into our schools where their overhead costs were lower that they might be able to pay a little
006bit more just like we try to do with student nutrition, bus drivers, all of those others that that we finally were able to overcome um all the vacancies we had because we we finally were um competitive in the market and so you know I have had four child care providers already reach out to me personally so I know there's interest um they want to ask a lot of questions and frankly a little over two years ago when I met Stephanie the first time we knew that we didn't have anybody on staff that really understood child care and so I talked to Bill Pop at the time um went to the MUN and talked to their child care um department and both of them said you really need to talk to thread. They're the people who
007actually understand the business um how to get people trained and licensed and certified and um things ASD couldn't do and frankly we're not running the child care site if they open up in our school. It's a separate entity um and they have their own business operations. So when we put out the ITB and start evaluating and they start having questions especially the entrepreneur folks um you know I I think between really threat is going to be our biggest partner to answer those questions about how do you go from I've got an idea to a business and she's got the expertise the people who can help them actually figure this out. Um whereas ASD, we're really going to be landlords for that space. Um but they need someone smart like Stephanie and her team to work
008through how do I build my business model? How do I get training? How do I um do all those things? And that's really what Thread does for the for this community. >> Do any of these function as a nonprofit versus they do? >> Yes, there's all different types of private child care. Um so uh private, there's also nonprofit, there's faith-based, there's um maybe a philosophy based program like a monastery program or other type of um you know philosophy based program as well. >> Any other questions? Do we have any questions from folks online? Seeing none, thank you very much for your presentation. And to clarify, I did say we didn't have anyone on staff. We actually have someone in IT who knows a lot about the child care business. Um but but really Stephanie has
009been is is really our font of knowledge. So now we're going to get to the second brief of this fiscal year for right sizing and I'll turn it over to Dr. Bryant for opening comments. >> Thank you. Uh so we'll go ahead and uh complete a deeper dive into where we're at since the initial announcement of our proposal um including theater patterns and uh various uh demographic spreads of students. So uh Mr. Anderson take it from here. >> So this slide is uh um not unfamiliar to you. We are looking at as one of the main tenants this year. Uh we looked through a lot of our schools and we tried to find spaces and places within our schools that we could better utilize. Um and in in the in that regard some of them
010are offices and storage areas for CIT and migrant and others can we get out of leases but really this year we wanted to focus on let's try to do something with child care and I think you'll see later in this brief actually at the very end of the brief um that we have found some schools that are are located all around the Anchorage Bowl um in order to recognize that we are a childcare desert. Um, and of course we'll talk again about boundary adjustments and then we'll talk about the two school consolidations that we briefed two weeks ago. So I showed this slide um a couple weeks ago and and it kind of talked through quite a few of them on we really don't account for the space properly if we use the state formula
011for capacity. And that's going to be a multi-month process to try to reshape how we look at square footage. And and really just one good example is if you go back to 2010, we had about 500 plus intensive needs students. Now we may have lost 6,000 students since then, but now we're up to,00 which is 180% growth. So that classroom of 114 uh square feet per person that the state uses doesn't account for the diversity of the needs of our classes where some of them really do for good reason only have three or four students in them and not a classroom of 25. Um so we will keep working that process. I would like to point um some attention down to Lake Otis though. Um we don't know that how many children we're going to
012get from the relief evacuation effort. Uh we got a little over 130 I think by tomorrow. 140 now. So we have about 140 enrolled um by tomorrow morning. That number will keep moving up um over the next couple weeks and maybe even over the next month or so. uh the bulk of the elementary are going to be going to College Gate, although depending on where they live and family members and and parental choice, which is always real, um they may not all go to College Gate. There'll be some spattered around and to Alaskan Native Cultural Charter School. Uh but if there ends up being a really large amount, um Lake Otis really is in a great position to be a backup school. And I just wanted to put that out now because we don't know
013what's going to happen in two weeks. Any more than three weeks ago, we didn't know a typhoon was going to hit and we were going to spend the next um 8 days, 9 days straight um trying to help out these families and children from the villages. So, as we go through this and uh the evacuation continues, slows down or stops, it could be some go back to the village. Uh we'll keep tracking it. Obviously, I just didn't want it to be a surprise in 2 weeks if all of a sudden we have a large influx that's actually moving into Lake Otis. And that would of course change the facts behind um whether that would be the best school uh to close and consolidate. >> So, can we stay on that slide for a second, Jim?
014Um, one thing I do want to point out to this slide with the capacities is um, three of the schools that we're going to talk about of receiving some of the students are in the top five of lowest capacity schools. And sometimes we don't talk about what those receiving schools capacities are, but we will be talking about Ocean View, Alamlow, and Eagle River um, here in this brief today. So, looking at the first, and we went over this the last time, so I'll kind of go through quickly. um Fire Lake Elementary School and we're looking at less than five students going to Chooak Elementary School, 41 going to Fire Lake or Birchwood Elementary School and 143 going to Eagle River Elementary School. When you look at those adjusted um capacities, uh Birchwood's capacity goes from
01564% this year to 72% next year. Chugek Elementaryaries, it goes down because there's so many so few kids going and we have the the loss of students over time. Eagle River Elementary School goes from 57% up to 84%. So those capacities, especially with Birchwood and Eagle River, go up substantially. So I'll walk you through the next three slides. Um I showed a little bit last two weeks ago but these are all the schools in the Eagle River area and I wanted to just walk one explain this slide for the people who are watching this either recorded or live um but to make sure the board members understand. So when you see Alpenlow students at the top, um you can see that 245 from within the Alpenlow zone choose to go to school at Alpenlue Alpenlow
016Elementary. All of those other students um choose different schools. They're in the Alpenlow zone, but there three of them are going to Aurora, and you can go all the way down and see that 20 are going to Ravenwood. Um, this is pretty typical of Eagle River that about a third of all of the students in any one school zone and and it goes up to 45% for um a couple of the schools, they choose to go to a different school and not just in the Eagle River area, but all across town. And then as you move down, you can see it's the same thing for Fire Lake. Um 160 of the almost 250 kids in the Fire Lake zone are going to Fire Lake. Um and and of course students from other zones are also
017going to Fire Lake. And and to just give you an idea on this slide, um those are all of the schools to include. Um Whoops. Let me go back to Eagle Academy so you can see where the Eagle Academy gets their students. this. I did not put a list that shows um everywhere they get them from. I really just stuck with the Eagle River area u because that's the school zones that we're talking about. They obviously like every um charter school gets students from all over the district. Um but if you look at the far right at the bottom column, this whole column shows uh lives in on the left and that's the number of students that live in that school zone. And then it goes how many attends in that zone. How many transfer
018out? And you can see that Eagle River is really roughly overall a little bit more than a third choose to go out of a school, go to a school outside of their zone. And when we get to the Lake Otis area, you'll see it's even bigger. It's it's larger numbers in that area are choosing to go to other schools. and and it really makes sense because there's more charter schools in the Anchorage area proper um near Lake Otis. There's a lot of schools that are close to Lake Otis to include um the UPIC immersion at College Gate and every other all of those options that are available within miles of Lake Otis. You'll see the numbers are actually a little bit higher. >> Uh we're going to get there. >> We're going to get >>
019it's quite a few down, but we're almost there. So looking at the maps of Lake Otis Elementary School and where the students would go, um we have a real small number going to Airport Heights, not not too many going to College Gate. Um a number going to I think 25 going to Rogers Park and then kind of the tutor Cassoon area down below. We break up into a small into bigger more detailed in the next slide. um kind of looking at this slide was looking at how what are the different pockets of kids. But really the following slide is the one that shows us that um we're looking at 27 37 students going to Tutor Elementary School and 125 going to Cassoon Elementary School. This is th this map is different than the first time
020we briefed this as we needed to figure out um as we were figuring out special education populations and program programmatic needs and stuff. Um this has changed since the last time we briefed it. Looking at the overall percentages of capacity, Cassoon Elementary will go from 74% to 95%. Rogers Park goes from 66 to 65 because that number does not um of extra students does not um exceed the number of students that we're anticipating to be uh um leaving. And then Tutor Elementary School goes from 82 to 92%. Then looking at the zone exempts. >> So here's all the zone exemptions near Lake Otis. Um this college gate um is is going to be one of the schools where uh between that and ANCCS that we focus on uh those UPIC students um who who choose
021to register for those schools. Airport Heights the same kind of thing. Um and then for there there's not a school on this list and really Cassoon kind of surprised me at um within the Cassoon area just how many go out of bounds uh or out of their school zone. Um but it's really this slide that uh this area within town parental choice is is far bigger than Eagle River because it has really Eagle River's got if you want to look at um you know special programs or something unique. You've got the Spanish immersion, you've got uh uh Birwood and you've got Eagle Academy, but in this area they really are going out of their zone um at rather large numbers. They're also taking kids in from all of the other zones around them. Um, which
022is why they have the enrollment that they do. >> So now these next slides, Jason Hazny, our director of special education, will go over kind of the special education ramifications of of each of these uh closure recommendations. >> Right. Thanks, Ven. Good evening, Dr. Bryant. Members of the board, um, again, my name is Jason Hassy. I'm the director of special education instruction. These are just a few highlevel uh factors to share just just to kind of set the stage here. We uh we have some legal obligations under IDA to place children as close as possible to their to their home. So that's a legal obligation. Uh we do have our goal is to minimize transitions as much as possible especially for students with disabilities. Um, we do aim to provide access to typical peers from
023a child's neighborhood by identifying regional placement locations that feed to the same middle and high school. So, that's a really important thing to align with the the feeder middle school. And then, of course, by remaining in the middle school and high school feeder zone, zones are more condensed and transportation times are decreased. So, just a few highle points to share. Next slide. Uh just a a quick overview of a of a couple of our programs. We do have a structure learning program here in the district and this is designed for students that uh really do need a high level of structure and predictability, routine, lots of visual supports, these specialized services and supports that are beyond what we would typically do in most in all elementary schools. These are special programs that are considered regional
024placements. We do have a life skills uh program as well. Uh I see the next one is SBBS. SBBS is our school-based behavior supports program. These are regional programs for students that demonstrate significant and challenging behaviors. So we do focus on uh behavior plans and functions of behavior and interventions that that do support students that have these emotional, behavioral and and social needs. uh a a couple here of of our proposals or a Lake Otis students who are identified as resource uh they would be going with their um with their their other schools uh that they're going to be following our gened students uh based on their their address of course. So that's just they're going to be following gened students based on their address. At Lake Otis, we do have a life skills program.
025Currently, we have four classrooms over at Lake Otis. We have four teachers and 11 pair of professionals. About 39 students currently receive our life skill services and supports at Lake Otis. For next year, we're we're projecting 30 30 to 35 students. This is about again four classrooms. So, our plan is to expand Airport Heights uh from two programs, two classrooms to three. And then we plan to open a new life skills program at Russian Jack Elementary with three classrooms. And so these schools were selected for several reasons. One, uh to keep students in the same middle and high school feeder zone that I mentioned earlier as their gened peers and space is available at these schools. for Cassoon SBBS. Uh in order to have enough classrooms at Cassoon to accommodate the approximate 125 students uh
026we're anticipating from Lake Otis Elementary, we are proposing that the uh school-based behavior supports or SBBS program be relocated to Ocean View Elementary School. Uh Ocean View is selected for several reasons. again to keep students in the same middle and high school feeder zones as their gened peers. And there is space at Ocean View and currently we do not have any special programs at Ocean View and I believe they're at about 46% capacity at Ocean View. >> Jason, could I make one other point about um Ocean View as well? Um, I think it's important for the board to uh be informed that uh in the Cassoon SBBS program, a majority of those students live in South Anchorage. Um, and while Cassoon is our furthest south um program for SBBS, um there are there are schools
027like Ocean View that are closer that have the room. And so really, if you look at moving SBBS closer to that South Anchorage um neighborhood area, um students have a a shorter bus ride and um parents can readily access to that school more readily. So to be involved with their school's um programming and and child's education. So I just wanted to make that note as well. >> Thank you, Kristen. So uh we'll go to the next slide. So for the proposed Fire Lake closure, again, our our resource students would they would follow the same residential boundaries as GenEd students. We do have a structure learning program currently at Fire Lake and that is we have three classrooms, three teachers, and seven pair of professionals in that program. Uh there are currently 22 students who receive
028services in the SLC program at Fire Lake. So for next year there's projected 17 to 22 students and this is again three classrooms. Our our proposal our plan is to relocate the SLC program from Fire Lake to Birwood ABC. And then for Birwood ABC, they currently host a life skills program, three classrooms, about 16 students, and we would be relocating this to Elpenlow Elementary School. And uh some of the reasons for this is to align the life skills and structural learning programs with their middle school feeder zones, which kind of goes back to the alignment that I mentioned earlier. So students in the new Birchwood SLC program will be able to transition with their gened peers to Mirror Lake structure learning as Mir Lake Middle School is the only middle school in Eagle River Chooiak
029area to host an SLC program. And then for the new Elpenlow life skills program, we will a be able to transition with their gened peers to greening life skills which is our regional life skills program in the in that um Eagle River Chooiak area. So it it aligns uh much better. So, I thought we could talk about the anticipated community feedback. We know that we spent um weeks and weeks, months getting community feedback last year. Um we we know that no matter which school you pick, to the people that work there, go there, um live there, it's always going to be the wrong school. it it has been the last three times we have talked about closing and consolidating schools. Um but there's also going to be a lot of public comment and of course
030we had the community conversations. Um so I think I briefed a couple weeks ago about the new housing um in the Eagle River area. There is new housing being built. I talked through that over the next several years there'll probably be 138 houses um if the construction continues um in and around the Fire Lake building. Most families have reduced down to one child per family. And so even if you had more than that 70 80 kids at 0 through 12, it still probably wouldn't significantly change the enrollment at one school. there there is that development of four um apartment buildings uh just on the other side of the highway. One of them has been built with 19 units. Those are two and threebedroom apartments. There certainly is potential that we we will get students from
031that area. Um but again, if you look at the capacity at Birwood and the other schools, there's still the capacity to absorb it. um there's going to be curricular concerns about anyone going to an ABC school if uh they didn't want to go to an ABC school. And as you saw in the charts around Lake Otis where 50% almost of most zones choose to go somewhere else and in the Eagle River area 30 to 45% that trend will continue and parents will continue to make choices based off what's best for their families and what's best for their children. Um, but it it is true it's a different curriculum. It it's great for some, it's not as great for others. Um, but I don't suspect it's going to marketkedly change the percentage of students moving from
032one zone to another. Um, as we see all over this district. Um, we heard a lot about the moving the SLC program last year and I I know we're going to hear it again. Uh people will will talk about well we could reboundry and close a different school. That's true. You could take any group of schools and say well let's change the boundary around um any one lowcapacity school to bring all the other families in from the other boundaries. But what we're going to see is that movement, that parent choice of 30 to 45% in the Eagle River area and 40 to 55% um in the part near Lake Otis. And parents will continue to choose regardless of where you put the boundaries where they really want their child to go. So thinking that you
033can keep your school safe by changing the boundaries and closing a different school, it may not actually change the number of kids enrolled in your school all that much when you see such a high volume of parents um choosing to go outside of zone. And then the Eagle River Elementary School, I I have sat there many times this year and looked at morning traffic and afternoon traffic. Um that was brought up last year honestly. Um they're doing a great job there. I I think over time parents have figured out um how to get their kids in for uh the the optional program at Eagle River Elementary. And and if you go back to the Fire Lake charts um earlier in the game or earlier in the brief, you'll see that, you know, almost a few
034dozen from the Fire Lake area already going to Eagle River Elementary. now they're going to get a bus if the board chooses to close that school. Um, so you're actually going to reduce the volume of cars from that perspective. Um, so I do expect these to come out again and just wanted to be open. They're they're all valid from the people's from the person's view that says it. Um, they definitely don't want their school to close. I I we talked to their staff. um we've talked to their community for a long time last year and and I suspect all of these will come up yet again. And then if you look at Lake Otis um just as we saw uh with the closure of Lake Hood, I suspect that um some people may not want
035any type of program that's not their program coming to their school. Um that will always happen in Anchorage all across the district. when we closed down Mount Iliamna on base uh because a lot of parents frankly couldn't get on base to see their kids in school. That was one of the the reasons why we closed Mount Iliamna. Um there were areas that that weren't happy that we were standing up new programs and I I think that will continue. Lake Otis is a title one school. uh we're looking at their economically disadvantaged numbers and by the time we have the community listening sessions uh we'll be able to um have a much better analysis as to whether one of the receiving schools um might change to be a C school or change its status in some
036other way. Lake Otis is also an after-school program for 21st century and and of course for those families that use it, it's important, but I will say that that the other schools are not that far away from where Lake Otis is or we would not even have brought that name up. Um, you know, I think 3 years ago, four years ago, whenever we first started talking about uh closing schools, we we talked about how you pick an area where hopefully there's multiple schools in a small radius um or a small diameter where you can easily move kids from one school to the other. I mean, you can look at Aurora and Orion on Jbear where they you can physically see the other school, Ursa Minor, Ursa Major, very close together all over the east side
037of Anchorage. We've got lots of schools very close together. Um, frankly, Lake Otis is near several other schools. That's why we were able to come up with a plan to um reboundry and move those students to other schools. the life skills uh students at Lake Otis, they they would obviously be moving as Jason briefed um and and I suspect the board will hear from that. So, moving to another part of this right sizing this year and that is um relieving some stress over at Rome Middle School and West High School and changing a couple of boundaries. The first one that we did last time, we'll just kind of go over them again, is uh just south of Tutor Road and west of the Seward Highway is a small group of students that are in the
038traditional Rogers Park um elementary zone that go actually to Rome and West whereas everybody else that are in the in the in the neighborhood school goes to Wendler and East. we are proposing to move that group of students over um to the Wendler and east boundary. And then the second one is the the north half of um Taku Elementary's boundaries currently go to Rome and West. Now that 76,000 access underneath the Seward Highway, we're proposing to take that group to Hanso and Service, which is a shorter bus ride. Looking at enrollments for the Henshue, um Henshue will go up from 799 to 831 for next year. Wendler will go up to 644, but Romeig will lose um uh they will go from 117 to 959. So it does support some of the move some of
039the um relieve some of the pressure at Rome. And then for the high schools, the service is slated to only increase by 11 students even after getting 71 because of the traditional loss of students. And Betty Davis East Anchorage High School is actually looking at increasing by about 36 and West will lose about 67 students. So it does relieve some of that some of that stress on those. One thing that we uh we said we'd bring up um this time that we didn't know last time is what would we do with students that currently go to Rome West? After looking at all of the options with busing and everything, we are going to allow for students to stay at Rome, but they will not have transportation. So, they can stay through their eighth grade year
040at Rome, but they would have to transport themselves. And that is also the case for the high school. Whereas when we've done other ones such as Diamond Estates where it was one particular spot and it made sense and easy and it was easy to bus um one group of students, it's not that easy. We will continue to look at that, but at this point um we'll allow a student that started their schooling at West High School to stay there, but right at this point we don't have an option to be able to have busing um bring those students to West High. And also another thing is that any student that moves in high school to another school because of a because of boundary changes gets automatic uh uh athletic uh eligibility at the new school.
041So that is an area that we uh would not want to uh uh lose for those students. Now we are doing going out and I don't think we have we don't do we oh yes we do. Okay that's it for that part. So we'll get to the next part. >> Okay. So Whoops. So, we identified a number of schools all around the Anchorage Bowl to include the Eagle River area that are um very well suited to be able to hold a commercial child care operation with some renovations. um depending on the ages and and we wouldn't know right now depending on the ages what they have it would be different bathroom configurations um different changing table requirements as we submit if if the board approves this plan to move forward as we submit an ITB
042and we find out what operators are interested in doing and what ages and what hours um then we'll have to look at each school independently and and determine um what changes would have to be done, but all of these have a door where you could make it its own private entrance to that operation. You could put a wall up somewhere to segregate it. Um if you do that, it would even by the current deed rules take that square footage off of our uh the list and it wouldn't count against us for getting major maintenance grants. It it could be that this list changes over time. I I have had four childcare operators already try to Yes. >> Member Don, >> I didn't understand that that we would ball it off so that it was separate
043from the school, but it wouldn't affect the deed calculation for maintenance. >> Oh, no. It would it would it would reduce that square footage. It could be a door, right? It's it's a wall by deed like something that segregates >> that space but it could be a door like we're putting it up. >> It would reduce the eligibility for >> it would help us on the major maintenance plans. >> You said the inverse. >> It's not enough though. We've got to go that extra step and get those the special ed classrooms and all the other things that we use schools for to also count um I think for us long term. So, we'll continue down that capacity road, but we won't be able to get there in two weeks, obviously. Um, but this is what
044would go out in the ITB for these five schools. We'd put the square footage in. We'd put the parameters of what we expect them to come back with. Um, as we start evaluating bids and looking at things like that, we're obviously going to reach out to experts like Stephanie to help us understand the the business lingo, um, what exactly they're asking for. We have already spoken more than well quite a few times to the municipality and the child care um director office there is willing to help us as well. And this is going to be a very methodical very um very intentional um to get the the the buildings modified just like we're doing at Fair View. Fair View we went through step by step very methodical. Um it's the design is almost done. The
045renovations will be done by probably sometime between March and April. And in May or June, uh they'll be moving their operation into Fairview Elementary School. They'll have their own separate entrance. They've got doorways that um segregate that square footage and I I think working with KCI uh has has really helped us figure out how to do this bigger with more schools. So, a year ago almost in December 17th, the board directed us to uh come back with more school closures. The board directed us to look at boundaries. Um, and I think this brief gives a good overview one of of the directive we were given and where we're headed, I hope, with childcare operations in our schools. And I see a hand up. >> Yeah. Uh, President Jacobs has a question. >> Thank you, Mr.
046chair. Um, could the team explain what level of capital investment is required to modify these buildings into collocation spaces and where do we picture getting those funding stacks from for future buildings? >> Sure. Well, it depends on the building. Um, if you go to Chugiak High School, you'll see that they've already got water pipes in the area very near all of these classrooms. Depending on the ages, they may or may not need a bathroom in that room. If they do, we would have to put it in. Um, if you look at what we're doing at Fair View, uh, work through AC to get a grant, um, which covers a good chunk of the construction. And I I think because we have such a friendly um local government and and that committee specifically, once we figure
047out the costs for these, we're certainly going to look at that as a possible source because we're we're not just doing this for Anchorage School District employees only. We're doing this for the whole community. And I think it's going to be embraced if we can get operators to uh to take the chance and form a business and and try to operate in our schools. >> Was there a followup? >> I'm good for now. Thank you. >> U member Watson's had a question and then member Higgins. >> Yeah, thank you. Uh President Jacobs mostly asked my question, but I will follow up. um when would we see um essentially an overview of those capital costs? I I presume after the the ITBs go out, but but maybe you guys can help us understand the timeline a
048little bit more. Actually, it would be after we receive the bids from the prospective operators and we look at what they're look looking for in the age groups that they want to uh primarily operate around and then we will look at the facilities and be able to determine it. That's probably six plus months out. Um the other option of course is you know not doing anything. Doing nothing is always an option. Member Higgins. >> Thank you. Um, you made a interesting point a few minutes ago about 30 something kids in four classrooms because of special needs. How does all that factor into the utilization? You've got so much square footage. You're using the state's formula, but you've got you've got part of that that's not really readily available to be used at a larger classroom
049amount unless you move it out. So when we look at utilization, the rates and and what that really represents, that's a concern coming from the public right off the bat. I can tell you that's coming in all over the place that that all numbers are simply not accurate or not reasonable because you're not factoring out the spaces that are not being able to be fully utilized and uh you know in the sense of so many kids in a classroom. So are you are you looking at that? Are you factoring that in? to decide how much space how much is utilized or not. >> I I I'm in complete agreement with you. I think the last two briefings I gave focused on changing the way we look at capacity, focused on taking credit for a classroom
050that by design can only have three to four kids in it and getting the state to change their rules on what defines capacity. I think I I think that was really my main focus on on the first brief. It's going to probably take us easily the rest of the school year and then it's going to be trying to get the state to change its regulations on how they account. There's going to be, you know, we have a a gentleman on our staff who's on the committee at the state. He knows this better than I mean, there's only a few other people in the whole state that understand it better. Um and and I think we have to go after and say that we're not like the Anchorage School District of 50,000 kids and 570 intensive
051needs. We're the Anchorage School District that looks like 42,000 kids and 1100 intensive needs. And try to get the state to realize that all children at elementary level are not 114 square feet. They're all different. And I think it's going to take months for us to finish all of the schools program by program, which will keep changing, right? So, you look at uh special ed preK, we we've already got a full class or two classes just in testing in the in the first month and a half of school that we're going to have to stand up classrooms in January that we never would have stood up in 2010. So the needs are going to keep changing and so schools need to be defined by each individual program within the school and the and the limitations
052um of each program on on what that what that means for capacity. But we can't there's no chance we'll get all of the work done and approved by deed and change the regulation in two weeks. I mean that's that's not going to happen. I'm looking at this saying, "Okay, now the state has it has its formula to say how much space you can have and you know the like." I understand, but how does that compel us on how we decide whether a school stays open or not or what we do? I I don't see where we're compelled on that. And I think when we're looking at decisions, I remember the the proposal with Bear Valley, it's it's low, it's all and it's being utilized all over the place. We've got other schools out there and
053that's what I'm hearing the public feedback. You asked about that. I'm hearing it. Okay, it's it's loud and one of them is you don't factor in the utilization rate uh in a way that's reasonable and yet you want to target a school that's neighborhood and when they're title one schools the parents around there are going to be much more participating in that school than they will if if it's removed. So you're going to impact what what they want to hear is the pros and cons and they're not hearing the cons as much. The cons are that these parents are not going to be as engaged with the kids. the outcome will not be as good if the kids if the parents are not involved. If we don't get that type of involvement and par and
054and title one is more in a category of uh transportation is more of a challenge. >> Well, we did go through every elementary room um room by room and look for uh space that was being used in the best possible way. So you could go to an elementary school that's 50% capacity and they would put something in five or six different rooms that in a normal elementary school you wouldn't have. And and I'll go back to Lake Hood. When we walked through Lake Hood, there was one room that had several basketballs and some other gym equipment and a desk for a PE teacher because they had the space. They truly were um our lowest capacity school. And all around that school, you saw rooms where they put something because they could, not because any other
055elementary school would have something in there. Um, and and I go back to what I said up front. You're right. Any school we pick is the wrong school to somebody. And the con is if you go to that school and you love that school and you work at that school and you live near that school that any other school is a better choice. But the board directed us on December 17th to come back with more school closures. >> I will say that I voted for that because I wanted that recommendation of a school to come to us early, not late. So that we would end up reviewing and deciding on it in an early thing. Not because I'm committed to closing a school, but because we didn't want to go in with the last minute
056again like we did last year so late that we wanted to do it early. That was a recommendation. And I think it I don't remember who it was from. I thought about it and I didn't want to wait. So they wanted a school clo a school closure. They didn't say you have to have more but just a school closure. Come in come in early so that we can review it. Not that we were committed that we wanted to know what school we're going to close. We're going to decide that based on it. We're the voice of the public and I can tell you the voice of the public is loud on both of these schools. And and I'm visiting I visit the schools. I visit the ones that they're going to be going to uh
057because I really want to understand and walk through it and I'm telling you the utilization is an issue and that is something that's I just don't see it's calculated and then parental involvement with these schools gets impacted when you don't have the particularly for title one and that's probably a big issue. I do want to remind the board we don't have any items on our u executive session agenda. So we will run into that time um because we still have another presentation in the work session. President Jacobs, your hand was up. >> Uh I just wanted to make sure we extended our work session formally to hear the other agenda topic. Thank you. >> Without objection, we'll extend it. Other questions from the board? Seeing no hands, um, >> we did have one more slide.
058I wanted to make sure we get this on the record of our different community convenings next week. >> Okay. Now, please continue. >> On Monday the 27th, there's a joint advisory committee. So, the MEAC, the SEAK, and the Knack committees will all be coming together um on on Monday. On Tuesday, we're going to have boundary meetings at both Wendler and Hansu. um at the same time. And uh then on Wednesday, we're at East High School for a community convening regarding the right sizing and the closures. And Thursday, we will be at Chugiak High School. Um and then then Saturday, next Saturday on November 1st, we're going to be here. All the other meetings are at 6:00. The November 1st one is at noon, the one that's here on Saturday. So, I wanted to make sure
059everybody saw that we have 6:30. Thought they were at six. >> It's 6 to 8, I believe. >> 6. Okay. Can I >> member Jacobs? >> Oh, okay. Sorry. Uh, member Higgins. Yeah, I'm just going to request that um if we can get America's to send out a list of all those meetings so I can put it on my calendar. I didn't scribble it down. I'm going to screw it up. I admit that. Uh but I would like it on my calendar added. Thank you. >> Okay. >> Thank you very much. We will move to a presentation from ASB via Zoom. Uh Miss Gas Green, if you're gras if you're online. >> I am. Thank you. Um thanks for making space for ASB on the agenda tonight. Mostly our intent of this is to connect
060with school boards to make sure they understand the grant partnerships that we have working with each district. So, uh, we've been just reaching out to different school boards and I hope that you'll find it useful. I have a couple slides here that I'm going to share. Um, I also sent the link to Mr. Jacobs. Um, actually it is not letting me share my screen. Uh would I be able to put the link in the chat and someone would be able to share it on that side? That work? >> I'm hearing yes. >> Excellent. Um okay. Well, is there there isn't a chat? Huh? Because we're in I'm in presenter mode. Who should I get that to? >> Okay. Uh just when we think we have the link. >> Yeah, I think you have the link.
061Thank you for doing that. I'll get started while that's working in um getting that going. Appreciate whoever is helping on the technical side there. Uh my name is Lori Grass Green. I'm the director of our conditions for learning team at AASB. Uh currently we have two grants right now with the Anchorage School District. One is the Alaska Family Engagement Center grant and the other one is called Alaska Strong and that was recently just funded again. It will have a new name. I think it's called Thrive now, but it's the the same the same work there. So um I think in the Anchorage School District the program is called ATA Chikong. And so I wanted to tell a little bit about the Alaska Family Engagement Center. It's a QR code that takes you to the website
062with the resources for family engagement and for educators and to sign up for spotlights around family engagement events. So, in listening to your previous conversation, I already hear the passion in folks voices that you already understand the connection between family involvement and the outcomes for students. And so, the purpose of this goal here, you can keep you can move the next slide. Um, unless Yeah. Uh, thank you. just about really building true partnerships between families and schools to drive student success. And sometimes we talk about that really generally, but what we've been trying to do with the Alaska Family Engagement Center is kind of to dip into different areas of family engagement and community engagement. So maybe linking that to learning in particular areas. Maybe it's around literacy, maybe it's around post-secary. Um, so we'll
063talk a little bit more about that partnership. So, and we could Thank you. There are a lot of different districts there in that purple box that are partnering with the US. Um, and we have obviously we're trying to reach families and students and we have a family advisory board and some of our statewide family advisory board members are um from Anchorage. So, I just wanted to make sure you knew that. keep rolling. So, um, with APEC, we have a lot of different offerings. We, um, have done some family partnership foundation trainings, some community dialogue or cafe trainings. Um, I know that we've tailored some different conversations around postsecary and we're working on and family. And I think that Anchorage over time has reached out on a few of the different trainings. Um Karen Halpin who
064used to work in your school district who works for AASB has helped with a few and Emily Ferry. And then we also have um in addition to training and tailored supports like that we also have some mini grants and so I'll talk a little bit more about that in a few minutes here. So, um, I'm not going to talk too much about this, but like I said, we have a few Anchorage, five Anchorage family members that are on the family advisory board. We have a lot from Western Alaska and Northern Alaska and a couple from Southeast. Um, and we have one Anchorage School District staff member that participates in the family advisory board. and that family advisory board really guides us around some of our statewide needs, some of the gaps that we're seeing sometimes
065if there's resources that are needed. Um, so it's a you have an in if there are like resources that you're wanting around family partnership. So, keep rolling. And I know some of you were able to participate in the tribal consultation and education day that we hosted as a part of our spring boardsmanship academy. Um, and we had tribal partners that attended. Hopefully, for those of you that attended, you received this book. It's the basically the harvest of what came out of that conversation of what folks were saying were some of the next steps and big chunks to do that tribal consultation work and as part of the Alaska Family Engagement Center ASB can support um some of that tribal consultation work if that is of interest. So and there'll be a little bit more about
066that at annual conference. So um for those of you that will be there around that. So, we also offer many grants. It can go be up to 20,000 for a school to apply if they have a specific idea of how they want to work on family engagement. So far in Anchorage, the only one that's um written a mini grant or a proposed one is ANCCS. And so um I just wanted to get that out there. If you know of schools that are doing family engagement work and they could use some extra funds, it's a pretty simple process to access a small pot of funds there for that. So, um, a lot of schools um, in your district have accessed our family reading night toolkits. Um, I have a list of those so I could let
067you know which schools there are, but I think there's at least six schools that have accessed they get the full kit instructional um all the books um sometimes some other plushies or other things that go with that. And then um we follow up and we do some coaching or brainstorming and just learning about how those toolkits were working. And we had some different topics in the kit, but we did try to keep them Alaska themed. And we had some that were focused on SEAL and online safety. The new batch that's coming out um have a little bit more about thinking about the future and literacy for a little bit older students as that was requested by the teachers we worked with. So yeah, we have a series too that we're offering um for families directly.
068So if you all want to circulate it um and you think some of your families would be interested, the topic we have two um twice a month the same topic and then we have different topics every month. So they're the first and third Wednesdays and any families in the state are welcome to join virtually. So, we just wanted to say that families, you know, we've had a really good response both from families and staff that have participated in the family literacy nights. And so, 98% of your staff, this is for Anchorage specifically, who participated in the training reported their increased capacity to work with families to meet the academic and developmental needs of their children. So, we feel like that was a pretty good response from the schools that participated. and statewide it was pretty
069similar. We had pretty high responses there. Um, also as a part of the family engagement center, you all already participate in the school climate and connectedness survey and I know that you're already using your data in different ways. Um, and we use them for any of these grants that we're working on. that's a part of our reporting tools, but we also try to create some snapshots and so um that your district team and other schools if they're interested could have a snapshot just of some of the highlights of the family partnership pieces. And you know, you can see here um that this is a comparison just between families, staff, and students and their perceptions about the schools being welcoming places um for families and how the school involves parents. And um so we can use
070these as tools sometimes just to say, well, what what is your strength here and what are some areas you still want to grow with your family partnership work? So, um, you know, honestly, for some statewide, believe it or not, I know you all are making some really hard decisions right now, um, and in the past year, but this school involves families in making important decisions. That is above like the state average there. So, I'd say good job on that, but it is the one that usually can be the lowest at at different points. But, it seems like you all have been doing some really good outreach. So, So, I just wanted to see if there are any questions around the family engagement center grant. Um, there's lots of ways that we are partnering and still
071can partner, but before we move into Atar Chikung, I wanted to just see if there are any questions about the opportunity with the Alaska Family Engagement Center grant. >> Any questions from the board? Let's see. No hands on wine. No one in the room. >> Great. >> Don't think we've got a question. Thank you. >> All right. I can work with that. So, um I wanted to highlight this other partnership. This partnership we've had for over 5 years. um we applied for it as Alaska strong and um it's really a way to engage families but also has a cultural activities component and sort of a connection and conversation component and through that uh over 100 Anchorage families were served and um the current cycle is ending December 31st but we just received a new 5-year
072grant partnership so We're working on that memorandum of agreement uh between the Anchorage School District and ASB. Um and we hear so many positive comments like sometimes recruiting for can be hard and because it's a multi-session. It's not a one-off thing. It's it's like a cohort where you know you have multiple sessions with families together and folks get to know each other. But one thing we know is that most the folks that participate have really said, "Can we continue to do this? It has been really important for me um to connect with other families and even connect within my own family." And there's a quote down there that just says, "A big takeaway for me was to be brave and try new things as a family and to involve other families, especially parents we're in
073the same cohort with. And it's important to take time as a family to connect and keep growing as parents. We learned traditional values and became aware of our own values that are important to pass on to our kids. So, we've had really good reviews and this is something that we fund a staff position or two in this case um to carry out this and we work closely with the staff to create the curriculum to support families and to look at what the there's some light case management wraparound around that piece too. So, that's that slide. So, um yeah, these are just this is the a example of a um the calendar and usually there's an activity where they're making something together, but there's also conversations around topics and sometimes it includes topics around SEAL or
074topics around like family goals or learning, but it's all happening within the context of um you know working on busy hands together. So, okay. So, um that might actually is that the last slide there? So, I just we just wanted to share and give an opportunity to either to ask questions or to say, "Hey, you know, as you're supporting family engagement work, we really hope that, you know, you'll think about this or if there there's something that would be important to the Anchorage School District around your um family engagement partnership that we have. Any questions from the board? I see none at this time. >> Great. The only other thing we wanted to say is that, you know, our hearts go out to all the families that have been displaced from Western Alaska and we
075see that Anchorage is doing such a good job trying to welcome the families if there are ways that we know that there's families that you know and students that aren't going to have any basic school supplies or, you know, other things. So, we just hope that folks will be in touch and if there's something that we can do in partnership with the grants to support families around that, we we want to make sure that we're able to do that. So, >> that's all I have for you. >> Okay. Thank you very much for your presentation and yeah, we're uh working our way forward on connecting with all those families, figuring out exactly where they're going to be and how long they're going to be with us. So, it's going to be an interesting beginning of
076winter. >> Thank you. >> Well, if there is a wish list, please keep us in mind to think about how we might be able to help. So, okay. Definitely will. Thank you very much for your presentation. >> Right. >> Okay. Uh with that, we do not have an agenda for the executive session. So I would entertain a motion for us to adjourn the work session. >> Move we adjourn. Uh second >> moved by member Donley, seconded by member Higgins. We are adjourned until 6 PM.