001Good afternoon everyone. will call this schoolboard work session to order at 4:01 p.m. We are here in the ASD education center. Um present in the boardroom are board members lessons Don Lee Jacobs Wilson and Hollowman. Um online we'll announce other members as they arrive. We have two topics on our agenda for tonight. Um I'll hand it off to Dr. Brian for our first item of discussion which is B1 right sizing. >> Thank you Mr. President. Uh so to recap for the general public at the conclusion of last year's right sizing initiative the district was asked by the board to recommend at least one more school for right sizing. So this week we released our right sizing proposal to the public and um we'll now begin receiving community input before a board decision is made on
002November 18th to recap some of the highle data points for how we got here. Um ASD has lost over 7,000 students and this proposal identifies two schools, Lake Otis and Fire Lake Elementary School, which happen to each be at around 50% capacity. And I do recognize that school consolidations are deeply emotional for everyone involved. And we do not take this step lightly. But as we brace for another $70 million structural deficit, there's no way to fully shield our classrooms from experiencing a negative impact. and our lowcapacity schools are especially vulnerable for losing teachers, for having to share services with other buildings and consolidating programs. So, consolidating our lowcapacity buildings is one of the few levers that we actually have to consolidate our resources and strengthen our neighborhood schools. Um, but this proposal is also more
003than about consolidations. This proposal also includes a plan to add commercial childcare services in vacant classrooms throughout the district as well as some boundary changes to provide relief in some of our secondary schools. So with that said, I'll hand it off to our team to walk us through the proposal and answer board questions. >> Thank you, Dr. Bryant. Um, so I wanted to go through real quick the right sizing areas of focus. Uh we have spoken publicly now a couple times about leasing available space to child care operators. It is certainly a need within the community. It's a need within uh the employees with the municipality, our employees. Um there's a child care desert in nearly every area of Anchorage. So, we're actively looking at schools and trying to identify um places where we could
004have a group of rooms uh with their own entrance because you don't want it mixed with the the school um all day long. And we're pretty close. Probably another week we will have those locked in and we'll be able to brief that in the next um the next board meeting. We we worked with Fairview for quite a while um and and have been working with KCI Kids Square International and uh we're currently doing a design for some slight modifications and the rest of it was just a perfect setup. Um one being in an area with high economic need uh where a lot of people would qualify fairly close to the actual location. Uh but as all the board members know, we have a lot of people in the district and it's really especially the hourly
005wage earners that already qualify for state child care assistance already would qualify if there were enough Head Start programs um in the city. So I think this is a a big positive win and I think it's time to transition away from just looking at a focus on school closures. Um, we started moving towards right sizing last year and looking at available spaces for leases and other things and now we're just making that next generational move toward not just looking at ASD needs, but how do we help uh this community that has supported us on bond after bond after bond um over the many decades that that we've existed. The second piece is the boundary adjustments where we're really going to focus this year. Um and and Sven will brief those on trying to take some
006pressure off of uh ROM and he'll go through that and talk through the logic um and how it makes sense as a as a natural boundary adjustment in almost every almost every way. Um, we didn't mention the other boundary adjustments, but obviously if the board votes to close one of the two schools, um, then there would be boundary adjustments for those as well, and we would follow that up in the springtime. For SC school consolidations, uh, we looked at there really hasn't been a lot changed in terms of how would you develop a rubric. Um it it really we've got quite a few lowcapacity schools which you'll see in this brief and almost every one of them was a lowcapacity school last year as well. And as we get to each of those schools individually
007um we'll talk in more details. The board did direct on top of coming back and providing additional school closures that we prioritize Rico and Highland Tech. Um with only two school closures, it's much like last year. There is competing needs and few resources. Uh but we are recommending Lake Otis uh for Rook Shoula. They require 28 classrooms. It has 29 classrooms. Um square footage, it's actually pretty close to what Abbott Loop has. Where it differs is those funky spaces in the ends of the hallways that really weren't designed to be classrooms. Um, ANCCCS used them for the most part for storage. They have put curtains over some places and turned them into classrooms. I certainly encourage you to go visit that school. I think they've done a great job of taking what they had and
008turned it into something that was best for children. Um, but looking long-term, um, and again, the board did direct that it's prioritized. We're looking for more permanent home for them. At um Fire Lake, the only good repurpose that that we could see in that general area was Eagle Academy. And um you know, we did think about do you even open it up for nothing but child care, but it would be so large for for something like that um that it just didn't really seem very practical. So, as we look at school building capacity, we've briefed this a couple times. Um, I just wanted to make sure that when people see the capacity percentages on a follow-on slide that they understand what that actually represents. So, the state of Alaska for decades has said if you're
009an elementary student, you get 114 square feet. And that probably works if everybody is general ed, if everybody is just like each other, um, and doesn't need additional assistance or any other program. Apparently that worked 30 years ago. Um it has not been updated since then. If you look at ASD, what Capital Plans has been doing over the years is modifying it by looking at PTR within the classrooms. Um and you can see all of these other pieces and and they tried to make it closer to what the school's needs really are. But when we look at and I put some of the numbers on a on a follow- on slide and I'll talk about it. When you look at the diverse needs of many of our schools and our students, you'll see that multiple
010life skills classrooms require additional resource classrooms. And each of those classrooms is a very small number of people, SBBS programs, um SLC programs. All of those come with additional um MSDRs if it's SBBS, the multiensory deprivation rooms um and other spaces that are never going to fit into 114 square ft per child per school. And they're never going to fit into 165 ft um per child at a secondary school. And so I did recognize that last year halfway through um as I started as as we started getting all the classroom level detailed down that we had to go a little bit further and this year we've really tried to look at we narrowed down the 65% and below for for capacity and then we started going on those schools first room by room and whether
011it should be used for that purpose or is there a better use for it and there are schools with very low capacity that would have I'm just giving an example so you understand the process we went through. Um if you had art and health and they each have two weeks and then they're gone for two weeks and then the other the other uh teacher steps in and and does their piece. Um schools with lots of capacity, they'll give a art teacher their own room and a health teacher their own room. Some schools would give a teacher two rooms if it had a sliding divider. One room for the classroom and other storage and they didn't do it out of anything other than because they could. The space was there and if there is a vacuum
012it will be filled. And that's kind of what happened. And as we started going through it, um, we realized not just that, we found classrooms that we could find a better use for for repurposing, but that's really where the the lights just started slamming and coming on. Um, knowing that this room is there's there's three SBS kids in this room, but they have a thousand square feet, but they still need another room for when there's a challenge. And so we will be developing over the next several months a new way of looking at um capacity and and when Larry Morris gets up here, he's he's been on the committee at the state level, he knows how um the appearance of over capacity impacts us with winning and scoring on major maintenance grants. And um he
013can answer it better than me. He's explained it to me 10 times, but he's at a PhD level on this. And I'm like, probably probably not. Um, but but I do understand that the math doesn't work when the state thinks that we have all this capacity and and you'll see as you see our our sped numbers and the percentage of sped growing and growing and growing um and intensive needs that that really did change the dynamic for how we should have been looking at capacity in schools. And frankly, that is one of the primary reasons it's going to take us months to do this, that we we really didn't want to put a bunch of schools on the list only to later um decide that that we closed the wrong school because of a special
014program or some other need. So, the other thing that that we are looking at when we say repurposing rooms, we still have a number of leases within the district, not counting the ED center. Um, you've still got almost $2 and a half million dollars in leases. Uh, last year when we recommended Highland Academy for New Naka Valley, we, you know, we really were ambivalent. Stream's a great school. There's for the first time and since they formed, they're feeding hot lunches at 200 kids per day. Um, it was a great school for stream. The business model though was acts lease was running out at the end of June and if we didn't put them in a location and Naka at that point was the only one really available um that we were going to have to
015do renovations and sign a lease to move the ACT program either way. Um so ACT is is in a multi-year lease right now. It's going to take some time, but at some point, um, you know, we're we're certainly going to keep looking at everything with a lease and try to see if there's space in our buildings. And if we can get the state to change the way they calculate it and it's not just the enrollment or the ADM by the Oasis count for that school code, but includes all of the other components of the district that might very well be in there to include things like Volunteers of America, which serves an all day fulltime need for several of our schools. Um, but we are going to keep looking at everything on this lease line
016as well. So, here's our enrollment decline just since um really September 30 of of 2015. We we have closed some schools. I did add that we closed in FY21 a veil and crossroads, but then I I did the math on a couple things to show that even though we have 7,000 less students, we have 124 more prek. And when you look at the amazing folks down the hall that have been evaluating and testing young young children, there's already been 28 or 29, and the number could be higher. This is a couple days old, um that are going to need sped prek in January. So, a lot of these smaller classes, they're only continuing to grow. You look at the 182% growth in intensive needs. It went from a little over 550 to over a thousand
017in that that time frame. and intensive needs naturally is going to mean they're not in a classroom with 30 other kids. Um so just for talking points for the board as you're talking to legislators and and and certainly on some some sides in Juno um they just look at the capacity that goes by the square footage and I think it's important for all of us to be able to maybe articulate better um the direction Anchorage is has been heading for over a decade. So this is the initial list of schools with a capacity of less than 65%. And we really did start going through these um and it certainly developed even more as we started doing a classroom by classroom level analysis and we did put notes next to it and and yes we did
018select Fire Lake for the the second time in a row and and I I understand it is personal to every one of those families. it is personal to every one of the staff um and the students at that school. Uh but it really did just like last year make the most sense. And you know, we just threw a lot of money into Homestead for SBBS classrooms. It also has some of the funkier corner shaped weird angled rooms within the school and it works for SBBS because they needed more space for such a small number of students and they've really been able to make that work in that school. But when you look at the programs and all the other things they needed like MSDR and and other sensory stuff that the capacity is really pretty
019full. There's three or four classrooms um that you could potentially uh repurpose, but they're in weird places within the building. And you can read the rest of these on your own. I don't think um you need me to read. Um but we really did look at these schools very closely. There are schools and we acknowledge that there are schools that have classrooms available that we are looking at and it could be child care. It could be um other programs within the district that need space. It could be a lot of things and we just don't know right now. We haven't locked that in. Um but in the next two weeks that will become much more clear and and quite honestly we won't have all the answers next week at all the places where there's available
020space and we will continue this process. um it it'll just start being a a normal routine that we evaluate spaces and buildings and do we have a need that could fit there to get out of a lease. And I think that's um a positive direction to go and a better use of our facilities. So this is the Fire Lake um elementary school consolidation. There's been a lot of emails to the board today. There will be more. Um there will be testimony as it was last year. Uh we we are planning on less than five students um going to Chugak Elementary, 41 being reszoned for Birchwood and 143 being reszoned for Eagle River Elementary. Um you know, Eagle River is is not unique, but I did make a slide to kind of give everyone an example
021of what happens within our district. parent choice is real and strong and you will see in almost every school um upwards of a dozen plus different zones that parents bring their kids to a different school and it could be that's where they work or they work nearby or they know the principal, they know the teachers. There's a lot of reasons why someone would reszone, but if you look at the Eagle River area, these are the numbers that we're looking at. Um, and it would be 41 reszone for Birchwood. It would be, and you can see the capacity on the bottom. If you look at the new capacity number, um, you know, obviously some of these folks will not go to the school that they've been reszoned for. Um, they they will choose a different school.
022And it's the same for Chugak Elementary and and Naturally Eagle River. But when I started pulling the numbers of the of the uh boundary zone exempt that got approved this year, um and and I think most of the board members know last year we had this this huge chart and it showed every school in the district and what zone those students came from. Uh we have finished that chart. It's being printed and you all will have copies of that in two weeks or if you come by when they come in, we can send an email out um or we can send you the digits for it. But it's really hard to read if it's not like a two foot by three foot long piece of paper. But you can see that in every instance of
023these four schools in Eagle River that certainly a large percentage of the students in that school are from with that within that boundary. And there's lots of good reasons. One of them every single school is a great school but parents choose to go somewhere else. And every these other numbers you see like on Fire Lake, uh, one of them goes to Aurora on base. I don't know if it's an employee, but it's someone who can get on base. Um, it could be a military person. But as you look through this, you'll see that there's not a single zone where everybody goes to the school they're supposed to go to. And this is this includes the other Eagle River schools, but trying to fit all of them on one chart became problematic. So, I just wanted
024to paint that picture for the schools that we're talking about tonight and that there's a lot of parent choice happening. Um, and you can see [Music] I can't see it on my chart because it's covered up with the Chooak students. 23 of them already go to Birwood and they're in the Chooak Elementary. Um, you can see that for for all of them. So parents parents will um always be concerned when when a school closes or potentially closes, but we've got a lot of great schools in Eagle River. And as I showed on this chart, we still have capacity even after uh Fire Lake is closed. if I should say if um and that'll be in and we'll all find out in in November, but we'll talk to the communities again. Um I think all of
025you remember last year, you know, we we had the community conversations meetings and we got a lot of information about schools about things that changed um between last year or or what the information we had available. And I I hope everyone appreciates that we have not been going to principles for seven weeks and every day saying, "What do you think about your school closing and what are the problems?" We've been trying to do an analysis from um a 3,000 foot level because you don't want principles consumed. You want them consumed with starting school and focusing on students and student outcomes, not every school in the district wondering um how many more charts they can fill out for us. Um, it's just probably the most traumatic thing you could do to a district to even think
026that should happen in the first week of school. So, we will learn some things we don't know and and we're well aware of that and that's why we welcome the community conversations. In Lake Otis, you can see that um we've really got four schools that that uh the students would be designated toward. Well, five counting um Airport Heights. And then here's the slide that shows the numbers. Really a very small number at Collegegate and Airport Heights with the vast majority of them really split between Cassoon and Tutor Elementary um with a few others. And again, just like in Eagle River, if the board closes the school, we have not we have not maxed out the schools in this area. Um, there will be growth sometime in Anchorage's future. It will eventually happen. We're not going
027to get to zero. Um, and we still have space to be able to make that happen. >> Now, shifting to the boundary changes around Romig Middle School. Romik Middle School once we move sixth grade in has become very, very full. Has four relocatables. um currently has uh 1117 students at Romig and we started looking at all of the boundaries that uh around Romeig and we found a couple that kind of make sense now because there's been some changes or or we are kind of finding things that probably were overlooked. The first one is there's a neighborhood just west of the highway south of Tutor that um normally they're Rogers Park students that those kids go to Rome West. Their neighborhood Rogers Park students all the other neighborhood Rogers Park students go to Wendler and then
028East High School. So this is a move of a small number of students. Um if for for ROM it's only 22 students moving to Wendler. Um for West it would be uh 48 students moving to Betty Davis D S An High School. Um then the second uh boundary change would be over in the Taku Elementary zone. Um currently Taku goes to two different schools. The southern part of Taku goes to Hansu and Service. The northern part of Taku goes to Rome West. Now that 76th runs under the highway there and a throughway to the other side of the highway, the actual bus um timing for those northern group of students that would go to Romeig now would actually be 10 minutes less getting over to Hanu. So our proposal is that all of Taku Elementary
029School students would then go to Hanso and service instead of being split in half with the Hansshoe move. That is 73 students currently go to Romig that would go to Hanso and that is 72 72 students that currently go to West that would be going to service. Now, one of the things that we we do when we have these kind of boundaries is we do look at and people will say, "Well, are my kids grandfathered in?" And with the what we've done in the past and what we would consider now um to be what we'll be doing is with the middle school students, we would say that they would go to the new middle school. For the high school students that already have maybe even a letter or an A or something on their jackets,
030they can get an automatic uh lottery zone exemption to stay at West. We're still working on the ability to be able to bus those kids for the three years. We haven't gotten that figured out yet because it is a lot larger um part of it of the city than we had in the recent past when we've changed boundaries. So that that is the um the boundaries and on the chart on these charts this middle school chart it shows that ROM um with these would go down to 959 students next year. Um so moving about 95 kids over to the other two schools which would be some nice relief for that school. And then for the high school, um, West would be looking at go losing about 70, um, with the with the change in enrollments
031and stuff, they'd be about about 70 uh, students less than they are now. >> So, oops. So the next steps for us obviously are to continue analysis to look for anything we don't know yet or look for any changes that might um impact the recommendation and brief the board. And we have a lot of details to work out for programs and other things in schools um across the district. And in in the next two weeks, there will be another brief and we'll have much more updated information. And then that will be followed by um a meeting with a joint advisory committee at the ed center. We did that last year and honestly that that was one of the best meetings I've attended. Um Tony set that up. We all went and talked to a room
032full of people that that really gave us great feedback that we could incorporate this year um as to how we look at schools. We'll follow that with on October 28th there will be two meetings, one at Wendler, one at Hansshoe, and those will be talking about the boundary adjustments to uh the families that are impacted by those potential boundary changes. And then we will have the community conversation meeting set up much like what all the board members saw last year, the first one at East um on the 29th. Then Chooiak, we we are not having one on on Halloween. Um but we will have one that next morning or that afternoon um on November 1st at the ed center. And then after that um we'll collect all the information we can from the surveys that
033we can put out at those meetings. And um then the first board meeting in November would be non-action for the board memo. So, you know, the more we can discuss this, the more the district uh administration kind of knows where the board is leaning um as we develop this and and and fluff it all out into something more refined. So, um certainly look forward to those conversations at future work sessions and at the uh the other meetings that we attend. And if you have any other questions, we we do have information. Um I don't know if we have all of it. Anything you send in email, we can get compiled and try to make sure that we're bouncing it not just back to the board members, but adding it to the FAQ page because if
034you're asking, there's probably someone else who's curious as well. >> Thank you, Dr. Bryant. Mr. Anderson, Mr. Gustoson, we'll go to board member lessons. >> Thank you. I have two clarifying questions. Um the first one is about the use of the term capacity. You you talked about the difference between ASD and ASD and I just wanted to clarify. So for example on slide six with the chart of the the capacities those are ASD's calculations or deeds calculations. >> Whenever I put those are those are the ASD calculations but they're not the buy room um diagram. when I put for for some of them I put exactly how many classrooms we have confirmed are available for repurposing and on some of them I put several or something like that and we're just finalizing those details. So
035ultimately by middle of November, we need to be in a space where we're down to it's these classrooms. It's 113 through 118 or or whatever. And we just have a little bit of more work to do because we first before we can finalize, we have to look at any special ed program moves and everything else because we we don't want to double count or negative count any spaces that are available. So, we just need another week or so and when we come back, we'll know by school where we say this is a school that we think has another purpose for some of its space. Um, we'll know exactly how many classrooms we're looking at. >> Um, thank you. And if I may follow up, uh, the second clarifying question was about the movement of high
036school students. And I just, um, Mr. Gerson, I wanted to follow up just to clarify. It sounded like you suggested that if a student sort of was, you know, had had a varsity letter that would indicate their the likelihood that they could stay at West. I mean, are we talking about all students or just some students? >> So, no, if >> we want to give any of the students that are in this zone that's going to be changing if they want to stay at West, they would be automatically be able to stay at West. We're still working on the transportation and I misspoke a little bit earlier about middle school. My staff texted me right away. >> Okay. >> Um that we have offered that they could have automatic zone exemptions, but that would not
037have busing for middle school and that's what we've done in the past. >> But all high school students who are currently enrolled at West would have the technical option to maintain their enrollment. Yes. if they're family. So choose so and we will know we will know the bus figure out we'll have that figured out by the next uh work session. >> Okay. >> So we'll brief that for sure by then. >> Thank you. >> Uh member Wilson. >> Just uh for clarification the consolidation numbers are these these are the projected future numbers within each of those schools. I'm looking at like page 11 for example. Legotus elementary school consolidation starts in 2025. It moves. >> So if you look at the adjusted enrollment under each one, so like at Collegegate, the adjusted enrollment for 2026
038is 351. Um that would be what we're projecting for next year. Is that what you're asking? >> But no, I I was looking forward to like 2033. Look at the end. Are we looking at projected enrollment decreasing? >> Yes. you know, currently because of the birth rate decline and it has not gone back up again. Um, but but it's a projection and and this this particular projection is over a very long period of time where a lot of things could happen. Um, I think there is a lot of optimism on an LG pipeline and and other mineral developments that may increase Anchorage's population. um it's really based off how many kids were born yesterday or last year, but so much could change to move this around. And that's why um Sven and I had some
039some maybe loud conversations about making sure as we look at capacity at schools and we get down to classroom level that we need to look at space available if and when they grow or if and when additional funding um comes to the district. And now we get closer to smaller class sizes. So when we look at a school um that has four classrooms or six classrooms or whatever it might be and we look at making it repurposed for another use, we'll be looking at it as do we do it for short-term things like programs that could easily move around the district and it's just office space. If we look at something like a child care lease, then we need to look at all those schools around it. So if there is growth, there's room to
040be able to fit growth into those other schools if you've just taken that capacity away. And and I think we we're pretty in sync for making sure that that we look not just at the school when we look at repurposing a number of classrooms, but look at the area surrounding the school to make sure that there's room for growth. And so there will be some schools that we intentionally leave, classrooms not repurposed because we repurposed another school near them knowing that if there's growth in that area, it's got to expand somewhere. Um, so I don't think we would ever come up with a plan to use every single classroom, especially knowing we've been in a budget constrained environment for so long. At some point, I think all of us are hopeful that that that situation
041will turn around. And when it does, a lower PTR means more classrooms because it means more teachers. And so, we have do have to have that growth. And it's more like playing a harmonica when you're looking at um or an accordion. Obviously, I wasn't a music major. Um, when you're looking at it, it's really looking at those three or four schools around the one school that you just maxed out, knowing that you intentionally left room for those students that are coming or those new teachers that are coming. >> Okay, I'm going to jump in with two quick questions myself. Uh, the first, we we've talked about our alternate method of calculating capacity. Have we thought about including that information on our CIP for example um or when we're discussing capacity figures just starting to normalize
042that figure as one that's more accurate and more informed? >> Well, it it won't be in this year's because it's coming to the board in just a few weeks and we won't even have this plan done. Um but in future CIPs, I suspect like what we showed you on this slide. Um, just like the way Larry Any and Tom last year we changed the CIP where we didn't just show year one this is on the bond after that we showed what is year one that's going to be grant funded or other monies that we used and all the other construction that's not associated with a bond. We will find a format where we can show um you know multiple different views of how to look at something because we're not going to get deed approval
043quickly. We're probably the only district, well, we are the only district I'm aware of that's that's looking at this. But, you know, you look at like Matsu and I pulled deeds reports for Matsu and Fairbanks because they're our next closest um in terms of size and all of us, even though MATSU is is about 40% our size and Fairbanks is 30% our size. When you get past Fairbanks, most of the school districts don't have a significant population of special needs students. The three of us do though. Now, we are more than double um in almost every category and three times Matsu in some categories even though they're about 40% our size. Um but we are pretty close when you look at when I did the percentages of types of students um in the deed report
044or types of needs of the students in the deed report. We all share a similar requirement and and I think that once we get ours done and we can get it into a a more briefable format, we can start working with those other districts and try to build a coalition because we're just never going to be like a four room Bush schoolhouse because our needs, our requirements are so much more diverse. I I think this slide here explaining the differences and how and why we can calculate a better figure is just good along with the the accompanying data would just be good information for the public and the legislature to have and um consider as they evaluate our district. Um thank you. The other question um was regarding capacity figures for elementary schools that were
045listed on the the lowest percentage capacity wise. I think AK Choice was noted as residing in Ocean View and and >> Alpen Globe. When did those when did AK Choice move into those two? >> Last year. >> Uh so last summer. We're in the second >> We're in the second year. >> Understood. Okay. Thank you, Member Bell. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh I I uh really want to focus on the um questions regarding what we ex how we're going to transition kids. We've learned a lot from Abaloop um that transition. Uh, but I also want to know at some point, if not today, what once if we if the board chooses to move Fire Lake and Lake Otis or at least consolidate those schools into other schools, what are we looking at in terms
046of uh PTR uh and um really focus on how we expect the consolidation uh to to really improve and and and strengthen instruction. So, um I know we've talked about it a little bit, but I just I really need to know spec just spec, you know, specifically what is that going to look like? And I think families want to know it, too. >> We can build that into one of our next briefs. That would be great. >> Session. >> That'd be great. >> For sure. >> You know, the one difficult thing on PTR, and I know everyone on the board understands, PTR is directly tied to the amount of revenue we receive. It's not the number of classrooms. >> I absolutely agree. >> And so, you know, the theory behind closing and consolidating schools and
047increasing services is dependent upon its um steady funding. when the funding equation is so off the mark, um it it's difficult to promise something when we may not know until June how much money we're going to have. >> And I Yes, and I absolutely understand that. But I still think we need to give some thought to what those class sizes are going to look like uh given our best >> I you know um member Bellamy one of the things I would say and we'll have it more detailed is the class sizes may not be any different >> at this the new schools but instead of having one level of kindergarten one level you have have colleagues that work together you have ability to do wind groups and have more people for that and the specialists
048love to hear >> and we can utilize specialist FTE in a more efficient manner and those types of things and we can we can try to do our best on that but then that funding piece is always going to be on on top of >> you know if you swing by Baxter you'll see it like on full open display >> they they have more of >> the other needs that kids that kids really need Before I move on, I just want to know for our record that member Bellamy joined us at 4:03 and member Higgins joined us online at 4:11 p.m. We'll go to Member Donley. >> This slide that shows the state formula for occupancy versus the district formula really highlights how primitive the state formula and out of step it is with reality.
049Um, I'm wondering who's our point contact with the trans the task force, the legislative task force, because I would hope that we would be that's the kind of slide we ought to be submitting as evidence for that task force to consider. >> Member Donley, I don't know that there's a a specific uh point of contact that I've been in touch with, but I do know that the task force will be visiting ASD campuses in November in Anchorage. And so this is timely and I'm sure we'll be bringing it up. Thank you for your question. Any followup? >> Just I'd like to I have some suggestions on others. There's we've had some really good graphics like this that I think really tell a story and I just w hope that we're transmitting those as an organization
050to the task force is all I'm hoping. >> Thank you. Member Donnelly. We'll go to member lessons. >> Thank you. This is maybe more of a follow-up to member Bellamy's question about PTR, but I'm and less of a question uh for for you folks, but we've talked about the projected deficit. It's $75 million and then we need another 26 million to lower class sizes to the target class size that the legislature would like to see. That's a pretty substantial um figure for uh for us to produce a balanced budget. So, you know, I I understand that the intent of the right sizing and the consolidation is to improve the level of service that our students are going to receive. Um, but in my mind, I'm really calculating and expecting to see like double-digit PTR increases
051as part of our our budget conversations. Maybe that's wrong, but we've talked I mean I I I don't know how I don't know what a PTR I mean I don't know what sort of a PTR increase we should realistically be expecting to balance a $75 million deficit. >> I know that in FY23 it was we used 50some million of federal onetime funds to prevent a PTR plus 10. That's my context. That's my baseline. >> Thank you member lessons. We'll go to member Bellamy. >> No, I'm done that. I'm sorry. I thought I turned it off. >> Okay. Are there other questions from the board before we move on? Hearing and seeing none, Dr. Bryant and team, thank you very much for the the data and we'll look forward to the community conversations. Our second item
052for discussion is B2 bond CIP. Uh Dr. Bryant. >> Thank you, Mr. President. We'll go ahead and let our team get settled and then uh Mr. Anderson and team will share more about the bond and CIP. Okay, second brief. We are going to focus on bond today. We we finished the CIP brief and it's because we wanted to make sure that we could provide the most information. It it's a pretty long brief. It's a standalone. Um so we'll we'll focus on the bond today. I have Larry Morris with me who knows more about how DED looks at facilities, talks about facilities, um gives grants than anyone in the district. Behind me we have Edie Knap who um runs every construction project in the district, has oversight for them, and can answer really any any details
053that that may come up as required. Um, so before we get into the bond, I wanted to discuss um events with Ursa Major because it may impact the bond. We have not put additional money for Ursa Major on the bond at this time. Um, we don't even need the board to give us a decision tonight. Um, but at a headnot of general agreement would be would be nice. Um, so this is this is what happened. This building was built a long time ago. It has PCBs um sprayed on the outside of the building, the inside of the building, and on the roof. Um and these are in solid form, so they're not dangerous to anybody unless you were to eat it, I guess. They're not dangerous, but in Alaska, PCBs in any form can't be
054buried. There's a lot of states where PCBs in liquid form can't. Um, but what this means is normally when we demo a building, we take all the rubble over to the landfill and it gets buried. Um, but in this case, because it's contaminated with PCBs, the rubble would have to be shipped by barge down to the lower 48, probably Oregon, and then railed across and buried in a landfill down there. Well, naturally, that adds a lot more expense to um the cost of demo that we had initially planned when we submitted the grant. Uh Larry's got a contract going through to get the other three schools on base looked at just so we know for future decision-m if if they were built in a similar manner. So, because we didn't know about the PCBs when
055we did the first grant, um it wasn't in it. And now we can't get the grant to cover the additional 5.4. Um, but recall it was a 80% match. So the federal government is paying 80% of the building and we're paying 20%. Um, but Jbear and the DoD grant um don't plan on covering it. So we actually have two and maybe three options. Um, one is to bond for the additional 5.4 4 or and we will start looking through all of the other um areas where maybe we can we can reduce that number of 5.4 by rep prioritizing other dollars that we already have. Um and and really the other one is closer to major and just write it off. And so these are the pros and cons for closing Ursa Major U versus a
056rebuild. the the one thing we'll probably never see in the state of Alaska as a pro to rebuild it is 80% grant to cover building a school. Um if we were to continue rebuilding uh Ursa Major, we would have a brand new school that would last for decades before it needed anything. and it would give us more flexibility to look at other schools on base if declining population still continues and declining child birth and and other things. But as long as the other ones aren't condemned because they were damaged during the earthquake or something else, um if we were to close another school in the future, it could probably just be given back to the base and they could use it alongside for other purposes just like they're using all the other buildings on base
057that were built in that time frame. Um, so there's definitely some pros. The con, we might need to add it to the bond and and we'll know in a couple weeks when we come back or that number might be significantly smaller because we found other solutions that's that that may lower that cost. So to close it, for those who who recall, we put some money down initially um and we got it from all the major maintenance grant money that or the bond debt reimbursement money that we got a few years ago. Uh we put back about 12 million, 2 million for design and and demo and then there's about 10 million for construction. That 10 million is pretty funible. It could be used for a number of things. It could be used for anything from
058um cutting deficit through using it for other projects. The con though of doing this is now we're going to eat the entire cost at some point of demoing this building anyway. Jar's not going to take it back. The city's not going to take it. No one's going to sign up for now an $8.5 million cost because there's no DoD grant reimbursement for a portion of that. So, you know, we actually have gone round and round on this until we finally looked at it purely from a dollar decision and a strategy decision. And it really is, do we want a building on base that we don't need to worry about for 50 years or at least 30 before it needs a new renovation? Do we want to sign a future administration and board up for really
059in another year or so it's going to be a $10 million cost to demo this and ship it to the lower 48. And as environmental rules change and other states go on the anti, you know, you can't bury stuff in our backyard, um, we don't know how much that cost will go, but at some point it's going to come back and it's going to come back on us. And so it sounds really good to say, "Wow, I could get $10 million tomorrow." Put that towards the deficit and that's really going to help us in January. Yes. But someday someone is going to pick up an even much larger cost and it's all going to be on ASD and and I think it's going to be really difficult to pass a bond in this community for
06010 or 12 million for demo when they don't get anything out of it. Um, so that's my thoughts on it. I certainly am open to discussion because I think I've been very honest that it is um appetizing to look at that $10 million and pull it back and use it now, but that 10 million now is going to create a problem for the district in the future and and it's going to be big. So that's the way I see it. >> Mr. Anderson, I'll I'll jump in and ask if we are confident that the 80% federal match is still something that we can expect. >> It's completely locked in. If we get the demo, it's already been approved. It hasn't been awarded because the demo hasn't occurred. And it's multi-year money that was actually approved,
061I think, when Tom and I went back three years ago. It had been approved, I don't know, a long time, many years prior. And and what DoD found out was there's communities all across the US that they just wouldn't bond for a military school. Um or you know the lo we all know that the military doesn't pay local taxes unless they buy a house off base. Um so in some communities it was it just wasn't acceptable to them to uh bond. So, um there's been nothing in DoD world on this particular grant um that it it's been targeted. It doesn't have any of the the wrong words in it. It doesn't it's just DoD schools. >> Thank you. Member Donley. >> What's the reason that the uh product the waste needs to be exported from
062the state? >> Well, you can't set it on the ground. What? Well, why? >> There's nowhere to put it. There's nowhere that you can contain it except >> it's not like there's a statute against it. It's just that there's no facility that can handle it safely. >> Not a building of 50,000 square feet. I I can't imagine. >> Okay. So, is that the reason? It's not that there's some statute or regulation that prohibits it. It's >> I just don't think such a building of so a few years back the the uh well it doesn't matter who it was took down a lot of transformers. They ended up all of the old transformers were filled with PCBs because it doesn't contract and expand with heat and cold. And after they took them all down and replaced
063them, they realized that they had a multi-million dollar problem on their hands. Um, and it it took a significant amount of effort to solve that. But there's just just I mean, think about snow dumps in Anchorage. When we had snowageddon and then snow apocalypse or the other way around, we didn't even have room to put the snow, much less an area that's going to hold. I I don't know how many tons a 50,000 square foot building is in rubble, but someone would have to go buy land to put it on. and the dump isn't gonna let it sit on top because now they can't use the dump. >> I'm I'm not trying to debate with you, Jim. I just wanted to know why it was so difficult. If there's no facility that can safely handle
064it, that's a good answer. >> Yeah, there's nothing designed. I mean, what you said is true. I think I think there's no law against setting it on concrete and letting it sit there for 50 years. I just don't in in Fairbanks when they demoed some they sent it down to the lower 48. Um Jar in the past has shipped it to the lower 48. I don't >> I don't know of any the totem lot. I don't know. We gave that back. >> And I'm not Yeah. >> trying to force you to speculate on how to dispose of it. I'm just >> trying to identify what the cause of the problem is. >> Yeah. It really is a state law that did it. It doesn't discriminate between solid PCBs and liquid PCBs. It just says PCBs.
065>> So there is a state statute that says that. Is it is it a statute or a regulation? >> A statute, right? It's a regulation. >> Okay. >> Not a statute. >> And that's a significant point because regulations can be modified by >> easier. Yeah, thank you. There other pieces of feedback for the administration regarding Ursa Major. >> Okay, seeing none, Mr. Anderson. >> Okay. And I'll hand this off to Larry. >> Oh, you've seen this before. Um you got a lot of busy things you know in the board but couple of things I wanted to bring uh for educational facilities our hierarchy is protect the people protect the facility enhance educational delivery and achieve operating cost savings. And looking at this, some of them projects besides uh protecting people, safety and security will also
066take into account other things in there for operating cost savings, some major renovations where we actually hit all of them. But uh this is how we work through developing a hierarchy of what projects are more important. So, real quick, um I think everyone's tracking that we've had a moratorum for 10 years on state bond debt reimbursement. They did not pass legislation bringing it back. They just let the last moratorum um it it timed out. So by law, by state law on one January uh or 1 July 2025, state bond debt reimbursement has come back and it covers either 40% or 50% um depending on the project. The vast majority of everything on the April bond um and it might be everything on the April bond would would be 50%. If you were to put something
067like the Ursa Major portion of it being demoed, that might be 40, but we'll we'll clean that up in the next couple weeks. Um, but but so here's where we are. We had a 6364 million bond last year. We've been trying to keep it around that because every time we went over um those were the bonds that failed. But now that we have 50% reimbursement, then a much bigger bond is certainly possible. It's what's the level of risk the board is comfortable with for the dollar amount. So this year's bond is probably going to hover around 7374 million. It might go up a little bit depending on um Ursa Major and we we'll talk to you about that again next week. But do you really want to go with a double 126 million and say,
068"Well, that's the same amount to the taxpayer as uh as it has been for the last decade, knowing that in the past decade, state bond debt reimbursement has been vetoed a number of times. Um and the the current leader of our state who's who's you know prioritizing where funding should go always has the opportunity to veto and has demonstrated that repeatedly um over the last seven years. So, you know, something that we we do need to talk about is what what is that level? Because at $75 million, you can legitimately go out to the taxpayer and say, "Yes, this is 10 million more than the last bond. It's the cheapest bond to the local community that you've seen since April of 2015 because of the state bond at reimbursement." Assuming again, the second piece to
069remember is the level of risk that you're taking is a short-term risk. In the past, every time they um vetoed bond debt reimbursement because money wasn't available, it ultimately turned around and we got it all back, which is how Inlet View got built. Um it got built because all of those vetos from Governor Walker through Governor Dunlevy. Finally, there's a great year. There's money available because from the time this bond passes, technically the state owes it to us. It's just when are they going to pay it? Um all of you also know that we don't sell the whole bond the next morning. Um it gets sold over five to seven years. So the reality is the the level of risk is not super high. But but there is going to be shock at seeing a
070really large number overnight that they haven't seen in a decade or actually ever. Um, so we know that we're gonna have to have a really good comm's plan, but MJ and his team are amazing. So that's going to happen. And and letting them know that it's 50%, it's back. So this is not the $64 million bond you passed last year. This is equivalent to a $35 million bond. And and all of us, the board, the the administration, we're going to have to make sure we get that word out. But so those are all the facts. And and now as we go to what we've put initially on this um on this slide for year one which would be the bond it is higher than 63 million because I I think we can sell the 56
07150% SBDR. We struggle with coming up with what's the number because we really thought 126 million is not going to it's just I it's risky at at best. And I can't I just can't imagine you guys going to community council and and showing something that's twice the size of what they've ever seen before and say, you know, it's just like last year, though. It's much easier to pick a number that's a little bit smaller, at least the first year, watch it go through after a very aggressive comps campaign, and make sure the community understands you're only paying 50% of this. It's not like any other bond in the municipality is 50%. >> Mr. Anderson, I'm going to interrupt for just a minute to um first note that member lessons has a a question and then
072we'll go we'll go to that first. Member Lessons, the floor is yours. Okay, you can uh defer uh because I'm actually interested in the next slide. Okay. Or or maybe we can just pivot to it. >> Really quick, I'm going to ask for the board's consensus that we're going to extend today's work session until 5:30 because it's noticed on our board docs until um ends at 5. So, any objection to continuing the conversation? Great. Thank you. >> Okay. Okay. So, I guess maybe if I may just I've not I was I pulled up the most recent CIP and there are some changes and perhaps as you talk through it if you could just talk about why some things are here on on this recommendation and maybe other items that were on the CIP uh 420
073and I understand they're dynamic um as emergent needs present themselves. Um, but if you could just help us understand the changes that have been made. >> Well, a couple of things on here that is Clatt Elementary. We have a structural thing and and we put it out and got designed and therefore these are actual structural recommendations for our 80s prototypical buildings. And so this one here, we added that in. Uh Betty Davis East High School Service. Uh we actually have a an electrical service. If you think of electrical services, Chewac Electric would actually own the service all the way until they get to your meter. and a disconnect. However, east their demarcation point is right there at the road and we own a service loop at uh about 1,200 oh no 7,200 volts that's going
074around and it's uh 60 70 years old. And what we're going to be looking at doing is changing it in working with Chugat Electric is bringing the service to the building through our generator, which also needs to be upgraded. Um, and it would be Chooak owning it until it gets into the building at that demarcation point. And then we would feed it, sub feed it from a uh distribution panel to other distribution panels. We would no longer ha own all of that uh extremely high voltage loop that's only about three feet below grade. And when he says 3 feet below grade, there are service ports where when our electricians go in them, if they have standing water, they obviously can't work on it um because it's below grade. Uh this new one would bring everything
075up to where it was clean and dry and and then Chugwatch would pick it up and actually do all the maintenance on that high voltage system. Um in instead of our electricians, there's no risk to students. there's no risk to people, but no one's going to stick their hand underwater um while working on 7200 volts. Um so that system after 60 plus years really does need to be upgraded. Couple other things on here. Tutor Elementary, um they are one of the schools that still needs to have an SVU done. We also found out, speaking of emergent needs, uh we had talked a while back about the uh gang nail trusses, parallel cord wooden ones, the ones that the MUN had put on a a flyer. And we actually had all of our schools checked for
076these. And we have three schools with them. and one of them, four of those classrooms at Tutor have those trusses in it. So, and it also needs a new roof. So, one of our uh CPNC hierarchies is that if we need an SVU or other things, it's best to combine them all into one project. It makes it a whole lot easier to do and per item, it makes it a lot less expensive. So that's why that became got upgraded to an emergent one is its safety its protection of structure both the uh trusses that in a very high snow year we've seen a couple of them fail in the MUN and also protection of structure from we have a leaky roof. So, and in doing this, we very probably will increase uh educational delivery for
077tutor. >> And I I'd like to add that now that we're aware of where and we have been for a year where all the top hung trusses are, we do have a plan to always keep the snow level on those portions of those schools down to a low level so there's no safety risk. But long term, um, if you already have to do the roof, why would you not why would you not fix that? Um, Shinook, we're actually, um, going to demo six classrooms, uh, for that same, uh, construction challenge, uh, because honestly, they don't need the extra six classrooms. But, uh, yeah, we're just trying to throw everything where you're have to take a roof off anyway, do everything you can fix all at once. member lessons >> if I thank you. That's that's
078all helpful. I guess a couple of the other comparisons that I noted is that it looks like the ROM project decreased in price a little bit. It was 29 and now it's down to 27. I mean, have the the plans changed or that's a rounding error? >> No, the price actually went up and this one is made into a phase one >> and in two years after that we have a phase two. Okay. >> So, it's decided we're in the middle of design. In fact, I will be bringing that to you for both the 35% designs as well as updated educational specifications to take a look at. And I want to get through this part and see how much we really need in that next phase, which could be a whole lot less than what
079I have scheduled in there, which is about $9 million. So, between it all, I thought it was better to go ahead and phase part of it. Plus, we've got, as you've heard, we have a school that's pretty darn full, and we're going to be looking at bringing in relocatable classrooms, more, could be six more, so that we can actually break off a part of the building from use because we can't do this in summers. We will have to do this over a school years. So, we will have to close down parts of the school, finish it, reopen it, and take out another section. >> If I may keep going, um, I feel like that's another conversation because I'm familiar with the Roman parking lot and the reos and I cannot actually imagine where six more
080reos will go, but that's another conversation. I appreciate you spelling out that this is now a phase one plus a likely phase two project. >> I guess the only other question I had specific to this slide was that um I still see that the Lake Otis project from the most recent CIP is here. It's also a little bit more expensive and but the the CIP refers to project analysis report and this one refers to condition assessment report. Are those the same thing? >> They're very similar. uh condition assessment actually tells us the actual conditions and also uh educational adequacies of which again they're kidding into 35% and I will be bringing it to you also to approve but as of this moment right now it's still a school and it's still in in queue to
081be done. >> Okay. Okay. And then the other thing is that it looks like Bear Valley is now not on that >> Bear Valley will be moved out because uh Mountain Air Drive, the state MUN is extending it all the way down to meet up with some other roads and it goes right in front of the school. And part of that project will be putting in a new entrance to better do traffic. And it's felt that we would be better off waiting a couple of years until Mountain Air Drive is completed, which they may also be bringing in utilities. >> Okay. >> And we'll see that. And it's still in the six-year CIP. It's just out a couple more years >> to wait for the completion of road construction. Yes. That's really helpful. Um again,
082in thinking about how to talk to community members about where did my place in line go. >> We've talked to Nikki. She's well aware of it. She's a great communicator with the community and she understands why it got pushed and what the new timeline is. >> Member Hullman. um when we're upgrading generators and doing significant electrical work, wondering if we're looking at the natural gas fired generators that um allegedly, I use the term allegedly whenever a vendor says something allegedly could generate electricity on site more cheaply than we buy it with hot water as a as a byproduct. So, we have looked at the u the natural gas generators um and we're going to continue looking at them. I don't know if you're you're aware, but um last December when it got below minus 20
083because Alaska no longer produces enough uh natural gas. I I was actually in meetings with the state's EOC and the city's EOC about are we going to have to do rolling power blackouts across the city? Um they were not overly supportive of looking at us increasing the natural gas requirement at schools because we had those discussions about um you know one schools are are you know they might very well be life support centers for a whole community. Um, do you really take the one commodity that is now scarce in Alaska or at least not available in the the quantities that they wanted and put it on high schools. So, you know, when we look at um future smaller buildings, we are going to look at that. But I I think you're going to see in
084Juno this year, there's going to be a lot of discussion about natural gas and how does the state, other than buying it from foreign countries, um how do we solve our natural gas problem because it's it's statewide. So, you know, it's really tough when you're going to meetings talking about rolling blackouts across Anchorage um because of a shortfall, a known shortfall of natural gas and then putting a a building 100% on natural gas. And it it just we we are still looking at it, but I I think the state does need to fix the natural gas problem. And I think we're going to see in Juno um there's going to be a lot of push for that this year. I don't know how that'll impact other priorities. Um but it is true we we have
085a natural gas problem and do we make it worse for the city? And as a followup, and I have to admit, I never asked this question of the people that were pushing this, but I assume our natural gas increase would be some kind of a decrease for chew gatch. Um, and we consume a bunch of natural gas anyway. I I I know net for the building it would increase it. I don't know if it balances out on the other side. But the other thing it did occur to me if they did do rolling blackouts, they won't do that with natural gas, which means we keep our buildings warm. I don't want to sound too selfish that I'm going to prioritize ASD buildings over other folks, but I would. So, I just don't know how that
086balances out overall. >> I I'm honestly not I'm not smart enough to know how I can't answer that, but I can ask around. >> Member Bellamy. Thank you. Um so if we if the board decides to put the um Ursa Major demolition expense on the bond, it would add another 5.4 million to the 73 >> or or less. We have two weeks to come up with possibly a different number. >> Okay. So we just need to hang. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. Couple of things on here like to bring up. Of course, the access control and we'll have talked about that a little more. It's phase two. The last bond had the phase one which got everything started of which the board actually put a little bit of money towards some
087of the design work already prior to that. This is we have 15 schools that had SVUs done but did not get access control. It was done before we had access control. Now this is going to pick those 15 schools up and get >> point of just a point of priv personal privilege. >> People listening in probably don't know what an SVU is. >> Oh secure vestibular. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Um and then uh the access control is the fob systems. Swipe a fob card readers some call and we put those around from the the main entrance and around to up to four other entrances. This way we don't have teachers that need to have exterior keys to the building because that becomes very expensive to replace not just the keys but to re re lock
088re key the whole building because they've lost their keys. So that take care of that. Romig uh this is a big project but then it's a big building. Uh we have a very old roof, we have some structural, we have a lot of finishes and a lot of electrical, some mechanical. So, this is a big project and it's going to make that school better able to handle education. Some of the spaces are not laid out correctly for all of the education that we wish to do. So, we're working on that. I already talked about Clatt and Tutor. The other couple of them on here is we got some planning and design which will actually be looking at doing some upgrades for some generators starting off with some of our high schools. Uh getting some ideas
089how much they are. We've got generators while they don't have a lot of hours on them because we don't lose a lot of power, but not exercising them properly, makes them go bad. You know, it's just like having your your car sitting out in your uh garage, actually outside for years, and never turning it on. So we have some that besides upgrading some very old with low hours, we will also set them up so that they exercise self exercise once a week to get the oils running and and get the engines going for 30 uh minutes a week. next and we talked about the access control and these are the 15 schools. Uh some of them were quite quite a number of years ago that we did the SVUs and it's been a very good
090and a fairly successful uh design to secure the entrances to our schools. Now we're going to be able to make them a little more secure by eliminating the need for actual brass keys. by giving a lot of uh teachers and staff just fobs to get in. And we can also control the times that they're available to be used and we record who's used them when they get in. Uh we also have student nutrition and I wanted to touch on that. We have a a pretty good success story here. uh student nutrition three years ago changed over to traditional service. Think of the tray with the food put it that many of us went through school uh well at least I did uh that long ago that you had a tray and they filled it with
091the food and you kept going. Well, they're back to that three years ago. And if you look on this on the lower corner, even though our ADM has dropped in the last three because it was in the middle of that first year that they did it, we dropped almost 1,500 students. They've actually increased meal service by over a quarter million meals a year during that time. So, I think they're up to about 12 or 13 elementary schools that are now traditional service and they're rolling out more. Every time they they roll it out, um the number of kids who eat increases, the amount of trash decreases, exactly what you would expect if you were going to microwave or put in an oven broccoli next to a chicken patty at the same temperature for the same
092time. The texture maybe isn't as appetizing as you would want wish. Um, so it's making a huge difference. The other thing they've done this year is they went up to 48 C schools including stream. Um, and and what's what's fascinating is we lost a thousand kids, a little bit more um over year-over-year, but last week they went over 75,000 meals more served um year-over-year. So, in the first month of school, already 75,000 kids, more than last year, are getting food. And um they've really they they're now having to produce more even though we have less students. They're producing more and changing the menu and giving more options and traditional service. Um and and really that's that is a big driver behind the facility upgrade. Uh we had the water tank finally fixed up and running
093um behind student nutrition as a good backup for water supply if something goes wrong. Um but that one directorate is is just knocking it out of the park um over the last three years. >> We go to the next page. They have set some pretty high goals. If you look on there, they're projected. I mean, they're looking at getting up to seven over 7 million meals served a year. Uh you have a list here of schools yet to be done. They right now have three of our charter schools are on of which we have two of the cs. Um which I was here for a board meeting about a year ago I think it was when the board said that one of the things they wanted to do was to try and get our charter
094schools to one was to be able to have school provided meals available to them and they are doing that. Uh so what and they're also their participation rate which is students that are available to partake that actually do it's done as a percentage. They've actually been going up by an average of 2% a year. So they're doing very well. And so what they need now and we have in here and we've started design is to upgrade their facility to make it a lot more efficient, better able to handle traditional service and they have been working with CPNC continuously to help upgrade more schools to get into traditional service. and you see a list of ones that are on here, including another charter school we would eventually like to get on available. But, uh, and if
095you look at the schools on here that especially elementaryaries and stuff, you'll find those schools are in our on our six-year CIP. So, eventually as we're renovating, we will start to make more of them available traditional service. And just a a interesting point or factoid, they've already exceeded what they were going to use as a goal for this year's growth. And it's it's just been a great year, great start for them, and we're down to one school without a permanent cafeteria manager right now, which um is just remarkable. But barring any questions, that is the brief. Other questions from the board regarding the presentation? Okay. Hearing and seeing none, we can uh move to adjourn to executive session for the purpose of contracts negotiations and legal updates. Is there a motion? >> Mr. Chair, I
096move to adjourn to executive session for the purpose of contracts negoti um and personnel. >> Second. Seeing no objection, we're adjourned to executive session at 5:26 p.m. Thank you.