001Good afternoon everyone. We'll call the Tuesday, September 16th, 2025 work session of the ASD school board to order. Present in the boardroom are members Bellamy, Lessons, Higgins, Hollowman, and member Donley is with us as well. and then myself, our chair, member Jacobs, and member Wilson is joining us online. Um, our first item now that we've called ourselves to order and engaged a roll call is item B1, board request for information. Um, member lessons, you had a request for information dated 92 regarding um student wellness exams. Did you want to explain your RFI? Pardon me, I'm still joining the meeting. I did see that when I looked at um the agenda ahead of time, I believe that the question was captured by the administration during our conversation uh at the work session two weeks ago. So,
002I did not submit it. It was a question that I must have that I believe I raised in in the course of our conversation. Okay. Is this an item you still would like data on >> before I ask for >> I think that the intent of when I asked that question I guess I guess yes the intent when I asked this was uh to be able to better advocate um with our municipal partners for the importance of uh their investment um in our school-based health centers. if other board members feel that the information would be uh of use. >> Okay, great. Is there a a second member who wishes to ask staff to engage in this work? And I guess before I ask for a second, um Dr. Bryant, do you have any perspective on
003the amount of resources this may take? >> I was told it'll take at least a couple of weeks to put together. So, if the board does move forward with this, I would prioritize this medium-term unless there's some sort of urgent reason. >> If I I don't want to capture two weeks of staff time. That seems like an inordinate amount of time to dedicate to a question that was of interest but not importance. >> That's fair. Okay. Um we can prioritize um other things for now and then come back to this. I agree the data is helpful as we advocate um for the municipal budget to make room for this priority. Um with that said, that takes care of board requests for information. We'll move on to discussion C1 right sizing timeline. Dr. Bryant. >> Thank
004you, Mr. President. So, we'll bring up our team member to go through the right sizing work session. Um, but I want to remind the public that last winter we did go through a right sizing process and at the end of that process, the board requested that we come back and resume right sizing for an additional year. So, today we'll go through the why we're doing this and the timelines. Um, but I I want to reiterate two important points. Um, one, we understand that this is a deeply emotional topic and when we have to make these difficult decisions, it's to support our student progress and when we make these decisions, they must be rooted in compassion and empathy. So, for example, when we closed Abbott Loop, that was a very difficult decision. Um, but we made
005a concerted effort to be very student centered in that transition. And today, we're going to share some data points that show you um, what the district has been tracking at a high level. Just so you know that we engage in these transitions with care and we would intend to do so in any future right sizing. And in addition to that, I'm also capturing the qualitative data points. I've shared with the public my own visits to some of the impacted communities and I am seeing some benefits to the community. And then the last thing that I want to share is that right sizing is more than just closing a build a building. It could be a communitywide transformation that can include things like early child care opportunities for staff or adding more spaces in some of
006our highest demand programs. So, I want us to keep the full context in mind before we start engaging in this very emotional topic at a very detailed level. So, with that information in mind, Mr. Anderson, walk us through the brief. >> Thank you, Dr. Bryant. Um, good evening, school board. We we I think this is the third time we have uh this particular board has gone through uh right sizing or school closure discussions. Um we're currently about four weeks into the school year. Enrollment is still fluctuating. It's it's changed about 100 since last week. Um so we are now um getting a pretty good idea of where the enrollment is going to f finish at the end of September and we are uh as a staff quickly trying to piece together um and do the
007analysis so we can provide something shortly. So why are we still looking at right sizing? We know that the enrollment trend um hasn't changed. We still have less students this year than we had last year. It's actually pretty close to what we um projected plus plus more. So, the decline is is still uh is still going to happen. We still have less babies being born in Anchorage. Anchorage has less people. Um but I think the the rate at which it's dropping is starting to level out quite a bit. So hopefully um with new uh oil fields and other mineral developments that are being discussed um this won't be a permanent drop but we'll see. We know of course that we are always are competing for limited resources um because we have so many priorities in
008the district and we know that our goal at the end of the day part of right sizing um the real goal is to focus on children and student outcomes and that's that's really why we do this. Um and we'll talk about Abbott Loop in a bit and it's really those other district priorities that um Dr. Bryant talked about. We have put charter schools in buildings where now they can use what they were spending on leases to improve their ability um to provide resources for students. And one of the districts or one of the uh school board's directives um on December 17th this past year was to continue looking at ways to um help the charter schools when facilities become available. So, here's a summary of where we are right now. Um, we've already talked about
009the first one. Um, this school board has closed three schools and there were two prior. Um, we're still seeing low utilized schools. Uh, but I'll talk about in a little bit. I'm going to hang out a little bit on capacity and talk about how we're going to change the way we look at schools this year and probably after this. Um, finally, these are the schoolboard directives. It really was to provide I think the the actual words were no less than one school um for closure to prioritize Wonder Park and why in the CIP which you guys will see um this next month and of course to continue looking for spaces for our charter schools and this is a good visual of the schools that we've closed and when we closed them. Um, all within the
010past 10 years, we've closed five schools and and as you can see the downward trend, it's still happening. I do have an asterisk next to the number. I pulled this data from the enrollment on 8th September. Every year statewide deed recognizes 30 September as the official enrollment date. Um, so I wanted to make sure that was clear because later on in the semester, um, people will see a different number that we use for total enrollment and that number will not change from 30 September through the end of the school year. Um, just to avoid confusion as people look at different versions of briefings. So let's talk a little bit about Abbott Loop. Um, when Abbott Loop closed that spring, uh, I think Sven was here and and a lot of the instructional folks took a
011deep dive on how do you prepare children to switch from schools because um, typically historically many children um, you see a drop in performance when they move from one school to another and there's groups of students where that doesn't happen. Um, but we did know that that's a general trend. So they put a lot of effort into making sure friend groups stayed together um that groups of kids on the buses um went to classes where they they got to see each other frequently throughout the day and then they started doing all the other things about embracing the students and their families prior to Abbott Loop even closing and then of course a warm welcome at the beginning of the school. Uh Chris Opitz and his team um took the original spring data before that school
012closed and they've now looked at it for two years worth of data and they're really has not been any discernable drop in performance. Um there was one interesting note uh really that the vast majority of the students did not go to other schools. They went to the school where now they were rebounded. Uh most of them went to Cassoon. Uh about 10 or 12 went to Trailside and they really did go to the new boundaries school. Um we didn't have a lot of problems at all. I don't remember any complaints coming into the superintendent's office that following year. So, um there was a change on year three or now um on the number of students that are 90% or more um arriving on time for school, but a lot of that could be the school
013start time changes and the buses for elementary being first. So, really can't tie that to an effective closure because so many things have happened in two years since Abbott Loop closed. But we do know how to prepare the staff and the students. And I think we're going to see the same thing for the two schools we closed last year. So here's where I want to talk about capacity to set the stage. If you look on the left, you'll see what the state of Alaska does. And basically they say that every elementary kid is worth 114 square ft. So you take the entire building, whether it's an NPR, a hallway, anything else, and each kid gets 114 square feet. We know that because we have so many different types of special programs and classes that that's
014just not a realistic way to do it. ASD about six or seven years ago started looking at PTR within the schools, dedicated classes mostly for spat related services. um they ended up taking out the space for uh the gym or the NPR, but it really didn't quite get us where we needed to be. And I could see it last year and the senior director saw it as we were rock walking around a school that was still 75% capacity, but there was really only one classroom available for repurposing. And it's because some of those classrooms, maybe SPBS could have eight, but there's only three. And so you have these spaces where a number divided by square foot really just isn't clean. So this year um Kirsten and I have spoke with the senior directors and they'll
015be going through all the floor plans and places like Alpenlow and Ocean View where AK Choice has several classrooms that by the state standard wouldn't count because those are not full-time inschool students every day but we still need those spaces at those schools for AK choice. And then there's some other things like Head Start because Head Start doesn't count in enrollment data yet. If they're filling four classrooms, those four classrooms really are full and not available for any other use. Um so we are going to look at it differently and you will see over the next two to four weeks different views of capacity as we try to get um a better feel for how do you define spaces that are available? um because this is what we've done in the past and we said
016every life skills is eight every uh because that's the max that you could have in a classroom but it's just not really working out that way anymore than class bubbles um around the district. So, I'm pretty excited about looking at the capacity this way because um we've talked about it now probably I think I mentioned it four or five times in public meetings um but as you look at introducing commercial child care, you need to know how many classrooms are going to be available to go out on an invitation to bid. Um and and then of course you don't want to offer up all of them because you need some room to grow if class sizes drop and education funding increases and all those other things that are always possible. So um as we look
017at it though, I did want to um go back to we're still spending about $2 million on leases for classrooms and programs. And as you look for available spaces like the ACT program um and some of these others, it really might make sense for in the future to start looking at some of these other programs once we know that we've got eight classrooms, four classrooms, six classrooms. Um really start looking at providing options that save money um for our other programs in the district. So right sizing has in the past um not on purpose but it but it does turn out that we focus on school closures but this year I really hope that's not the case. I really think as we look at what are the other options in our schools to better utilize
018the space we have that we we start looking at those programs that can move in the commercial child care uh potential. Um, so, so the board is tracking. We have been working with KCI Head Start for the last 6 to 8 months. Um, coming up with a 10-year contract so we can lease a portion of a building. Um, their building is going to be um, torn up and and renovated this June. They were getting kicked out. We're going to move their headquarters to Fairview with about six classrooms that will be available for child care. And part of the contract with them is a guaranteed 17 to 20% depending on how big the classrooms are of ASD employees will be guaranteed regardless of income um a slot in that program. And really anyone who qualifies because
019this is all federal money. If they qualify for um state aid for child care then they they likely qualify for Head Start. there's a ranking system where they're assigned point values um to be able to get in. So, a single mother um economically disadvantaged would score higher than probably our employees unless they fit that mold. We are going to be equal to the scoring um that they give for the Head Start employees. So, we will be the second tier going in. So although we're guaranteed one full classroom, u we very well may have more than that just because of the way it scores out. Clearly it's it's funded by federal money. You don't want to take that community resource away from the community, but we have a lot of people in ASD that do qualify
020and certainly need that. And when you look at our hourly employees, um the bulk of them when they go see Katie Rutled qualify for um state aid. And um Peggy and I worked um last spring and set up a a fair so people could come in and find out how do they apply for state aid for child care so we could start building a list. And the number of people in the district that that likely would be looking at this andor commercial child care in our schools is really high. Um the survey we did had 1,800 people said they would be looking for child care the following year. And of course 1,800 doesn't mean 1,800 kids. It means 1,800 families. So there's certainly um a noticeable lack as as the assembly, the mayor, even at
021state level, everyone recognizes there's not enough child care. So as we look at our schools, we lay out potential schools and you all will see that as we work through this right sizing. Um really we want to look at something very similar to what we're doing with KCI. Um although it's commercial. So I think there's a little more flexibility where maybe we would get um 25% or whatever the number is of the slots. Uh the MUN and their emergency responders are having major problems because there's no child care in Anchorage. Um, so they would probably get another percentage and I've been working with the city manager and then you really do need to open up that all that remaining space to the local community. Um, because they also need it and they need to go
022to work and we want them to go to work. Um, so it wouldn't be an ASD child care program, but we would certainly benefit or our employees would benefit um by doing this. And we'll have more discussions on this, but I I think this is the heart and soul of right sizing this year is looking at it in terms of potential for helping out the community and not just closing every school that that is is low capacity. and and I think we're going to get the buyin from the community. If you pick every area, Eagle River, Chugiaak, South, East, West, Central, um we really have a chance to to do something for the community that that nobody else can do right now. So, I I think when we come out with the ITB after the
023board is approved, the schools that we're going to um tag for this potential, you know, there's going to be some businesses that have a lease they can't get out of. So, this is going to take several years to grow out, I'm sure. Um but, you know, I'm pretty excited about it. I've been excited about it, so is Jarrett, for about two years, and we're finally at the point where we're we're ready to roll it out. So, um, this will certainly be a big part of it, although yes, we will have no less than one school. Um, maybe more as well. Um, and we'll talk about closing and repurposing. >> Mr. Anderson, I'm going to pause for a second and member Donley has a question. >> Thank you, Mr. President. Um, this is really exciting development.
024Um, do we have a list like a sideby-side comparison? I know the materials have some of this already of what's different about what we feel is an accurate measure of of capacity and utilization versus the state um measurements. >> Yes. >> And the reason why that's so important is because it drives state capital funding for for schools in Alaska. And if they're not counting things like um Head Start, they should be and it's discriminating against Anchorage taxpayers if they're not. And so I think we if we can articulate that well and put a a motion and work with the assembly to work together to influence the state board of education about the unfairness of that and and restore some sort of fairness in the in the objective data that is analyzed by the state to
025target where educ capital education dollars go. I think that would really be worth our time. I I wasn't heading down that path, but I think it's a great idea. And of course, I agree with you. If you look at this slide at the bottom, the average um elementary capacity, not counting Head Start and AK Choice and all those other things that we have in our schools is already almost 9% lower than what the state does purely by treating everybody as 114 square feet. So, as we flush this out and we have a we can um start talking about it, I think it's a great idea to share that and try to get that regulation changed. >> Mr. Anderson, I'm going to jump in with my own question while we're talking about the opportunities for to
026colllocate child care um inside excess capacity within our schools. Um, is there anything you can share about how our district has partnered with the um the Anchorage uh childcare early education fund and what does that collaboration look like from the the local level? Obviously, there's ties to federal funding and federal collaboration there. And then um I'm hopeful at some point we can see a thread for state funding. Um, once legislators see this model working in our community, I imagine that the the capital requests are going to start coming through pretty pretty quickly. So, can you talk anything about the local funding? >> Yes. So, we have a a senior um staff person that goes to all those discussions and has been working um really with them since she had this job and before her Chelsea
027Morrow. Um, you know, actually the assembly came on strong with KCI and gave them a grant to do the renovations this winter on the building um to reduce their costs even more. And so, you know, once once that idea is embraced um on a broad level within the committee, then naturally we we do the ITB, we find out who's interested based off how many classrooms, what would the renovations be required. I think um something like that because it it supports the community and not just ASD personnel. I I think that's a pipeline um to help us move forward and and getting a lot of this done. I mean, the Thread has partnered with us and and I've met with their um CEO quite a bit. They're going to help the commercial child care um organizations
028that want to stand up, get their folks certified and trained. Um the municipal uh department that approves uh child care sites is uh completely all in on this and walking through the buildings and helping us figure out what needs to be done and helping them get certified and accredited very quickly um to make all of this happen. I mean this is a this is team ball. there's nobody so far that um to include AEDC um that has given any push back and I I think there's a lot of people behind the scenes because we weren't we weren't ready um last year to to roll this out but you know I think this is you know we hope that the businesses show up um but we need to give them the opportunity to show up uh
029I think bright beginnings closed last year in Eagle River and there's really nothing out there and you could say that all around anywhere around town, frankly. Um, so I think this is something we do for the community and and I think it's it's going to be it's going to be very good for us. >> Thank you. I just want to just add one last comment which is I I think the collaboration between um the MUN and our district and then um private industry is pretty remarkable and could set a um an example for how we can address the childcare crisis uh by working together and being a partner and not not the primary driver of solutions. And so I'm grateful for >> Yeah. The city manager is is is hopeful that we can get someone
030sign up for 24-hour child care for emergency services personnel. Um because that's just a huge shortfall. Nobody has it. Um so you know this will benefit ASD in so many ways. Um but it's bigger than ASD. >> Thank you sir. Go ahead. >> So this is my proposed timeline. Um last year I think we spent I don't know 7 8 months um with the right sizing process and it and it really was clunky. It was emotional for the entire community um and and really sidetracked a lot of other initiatives from from even occurring because the staff was consumed with something that just never ended. Um so I'm recommending um obviously you can see on the left we this is the first briefing. We'll pre-brief the school board in the first week in October before the
0317 October board meeting. Um at that meeting we'll announce the closures and repurposing at the same time and and any other things we have now when it comes to childcare buildings. if we're still finalizing details, maybe some more schools we would roll out a couple weeks later once we had more information because we're not stopping on trying to do the best that we can do this year and and hopefully it goes through. We will have community engagement again depending on how many schools um really meet the best criteria so we can take care of students. Um we will have community listening sessions very similar. Um Tony was the the the lead conceptual and in pulling together all of those last year and honestly so much better than the old town hall format where we got
032up with a microphone and and it it just was horrible. And then everyone gets three minutes on on a mic to talk but there's 300 people in the room and we have one hour. So, I I thought that what Tony came up with last year, um she may have some changes again this year, but it was amazing and I I think the board members appreciated it. There was a lot more discussion all around. So, I suspect that will happen. And then on the final board meeting um in November before Thanksgiving um I plan on asking the board to make a decision. So, this is six weeks allin. We start first week in October, six weeks later a decision and then we can separate that decision from um the discussions that will happen the entire month
033of December on budget guidance and where do we stand on that because you know it's it's going to be another difficult ride this year and it'll be nice to let the board have that space and time to to focus on making sure that we know what the board wants prior to us going into budget build. But barring any questions, that is tonight's brief. >> Member Higgins, that member lessons. >> Oh, I I I'd yield first, but that's okay. With the the the square footage that the state comes out with, is there some basis of how many in a classroom or something like that? Because obviously that would make a difference on how many square feet you need uh within a within a school. >> Yeah. They don't care what type of classroom, what type of
034program. It's decades old and it and it never changed. I'm sure it was built initially around what is a standard school going to look like maybe out in the bush. Um or or somewhere like that and they I I can't there's not a lot of detail on it. It's been it's been a long time since that has changed. But I I really like Dave's idea and if we can articulate and paint that visual picture of what what we should be counting for capacity. Maybe we can get the legislators and deed to get on board because we don't look alike. We're not like it's there is no apple to apple between us and um you know knacknack. It's we're just a different animal. >> Well, I I appreciate the different direction here. um it because it
035really is focused on the community. It's focused on kids and all that. But I I think we need to put everything on the plate. There is financial, there is uh issues associated with educational outcomes, different ways of doing it. There are lots of different things. So, whatever we come out with, what I'm hoping for is to have the pros and cons on both because there I like options and I like uh both the acknowledgment that every decision we make has advantages and disadvantages. And I think uh the approach you're looking at right now with the preschool, with the economy, with the neighborhoods, and I hear this from so many parents, uh I think it's going to be wellreceived uh this type of change. I think it's it's on the right direction. Thank you. >> Thank
036you, member Higgins, member lessons. >> Um I wanted to thank you for all of this information and outlining the plan that's going to be brought before us. Um thank you, Member Donley, for for your thoughts as well. Um, one question that I had, and perhaps it's too early to ask it, um, is whether this is likely to impact secondary facilities as well. We've talked a lot about elementary. Um, a couple of our secondary schools are bursting at the seams. Others have a lot more capacity. And so in the big Tetris game that is, you know, the best utilization of our facilities, are we looking at both divisions or primarily at at just one? We're absolutely looking at both. I think when we look at um I did focus on elementary on the floor plans by
037classroom because it's secondary. If you're at 110%, are we really going to go in and do floor plans and make sure we No, we're probably not. We're going to look at boundary adjustments potentially to give some some breathing room um if we can move stuff and of course we'll be looking at schools as well um if if there's a possibility of doing something with a secondary school. >> Okay. Thank you. So we'll sit tight and learn more. >> Thank you member lessons. We'll go to member Bellamy then Hollerman. >> Thank you Mr. Chair and thank you Dr. Bryant. Thank you, Jim, for coming up with a a a re-imagined way to do this thing we call right sizing. I we have been at it now for four this will be the fourth year. Um I
038think this will put us closer to where we want to be. I really do because I I've always believed that repurposing our schools for some community purpose was the way for us to go. Um the capacity the way we count capacity uh does not include the reoss that we we put on some of our campuses. Right. when you see a school that's 110% and we know there's really I mean but no we we don't count the square footage of those otherwise you would just say 100%. So in the new way of looking at it we would say 24 out of 24 classrooms are full. >> Okay >> and it's 100% capacity. Um whether it has reloads or doesn't have reloads. I mean really you can't really get over 100% if if if that means you're
039full. So, we're trying to clean it up to where it actually does make sense. >> Okay. And so, where's the bubble right now in our is the bubble still fourth grade, third, fourth grade? Where is the bubble? The bubble's not in high school or middle school or is it for in in terms of >> stu our students? Do we know where that bubble is? >> I I have it as of 8th September, but it has changed since then. >> And so, I that's why I didn't want to put it here. >> Okay. >> Because that was the third week of school and >> Okay. right? >> Like seven days into prek and kindergarten. >> So I I would rather wait until the next brief and then I have data that's more um it's definitely going
040to be more accurate. >> I can wait. >> Thank you for telling me. Member Holland. >> I was going to say I do appreciate that you're you're looking beyond just a simple formula and how the rooms are being used. I do think it's also worth mentioning because u Anchorage has been lucky for a long time. A lot of people don't realize the expense and effort that we've dedicated to being ready to act as shelters uh in any of a handful of different emergencies, but it it's like I say, fortunately, I don't think we've had to open a school for that reason, but it's a real expense both in preparation supplies and dedicated space to storing stuff and being ready for the next fire, wildfire, volcanic eruption or severe earthquake and all that stuff. the public
041needs to know and I think as board members when we're talking to community councils we need to remind them about that it's rolled into education but it doesn't actually help the classroom at all. Thank you. >> Member Donley >> member Bellamy raised the issue of relocatables and whether how they're counted. When I was first elected to the House of Representatives, I discovered that our students that were in relocatables, of which we had dozens and dozens of them then, weren't counted as unhoused under the state formula for capital priority. And in lobbying with the Department of Education, I got that changed. So, they were counted as unhoused, which made a huge difference in how we stood on the priority list for capital projects. Um, I don't know if anything's changed since I was there, but I'd
042be really interested to see if if it's been manipulated back the way it was before that or not, because that's an example of how administratively they can address interpret the statute. >> So, we would not want them to count the square footage of relocatables because of the major maintenance grants that come out every year for the projects that we've already completed. And now we can compete against all the other districts in the state to try to get those grants. When you have a significant amount of excess space, that counts against you in being able to get those grants. And so I'm hopeful that we can convince others that that the way we're going to start having capacity um looking at capacity in our buildings that that would make us even more competitive if we can
043get them to buy into it. >> And I'll just ask one other question of Mr. Anderson, regarding the um priority, the formula that you are um working through with KCI, is that providing extra points and extra weight for an ASD family and an ASD educator? Are there two tiers or is there one? >> Just just ASD employees. >> Got it. >> Um it's not going to be enough for that one classroom. Um and really it's going to be your hourly employees. like someone making 56,000 a year unless they had 10 kids really probably wouldn't qualify. Um the way a a totem employee or or a cafe manager or custodian or you know so many other lower paid um who are much more likely to qualify for state aid which allows them into the process to
044now get scored and weighted um will fill that classroom very quickly and very easily. um based off the number of people that have shown interest. >> Yeah, I I can't stress enough how much potential that this program has to be a retention measure for some of our hardest to fill positions. And so I'm grateful for it and excited to see where it goes. Um member Higgins, last question, then we'll pivot to our second topic. >> Sure. Um I I um I hope when we look at the impact on middle school because of the capacity issue when we talk about 100% they're using closets and other things for meetings with students and the like it was overwhelming last year. I don't know how is it issue. So looking at options of what can be done to
045help them in some way capacity. I also hope we get to see academically how did those kids do sixth grade academic growth last year for those elementary schools compared to sixth grade in middle school last year. So it would be interesting. I would like to see some sort of comparison because we did it for Abbott Loop. Let's do it for the let's do it for the middle schools too because that could be really informative how we've got that or how we're doing because that made a big difference I believe in that regards. I'm I I think everything needs to be on the table that repurposing the school entirely, doing everything what we can. Um I just don't want to put any limitations on on getting creative and I know that the community like I said
046has been very vocal. They don't want to exclude we saw Bear Valley was the greatest example I think of how that school is being fully utilized plus and but it's not all classrooms and I think that's the that's the best example we've got of how good a school can be. I was out at um Alaskan Native Cultural Charter School and they within the community said they've dedicated four schools for the preschool, four classrooms for the preschool because that's what the community wanted. I really applaud that. Uh so if we can see that throughout the all the schools that would make a big difference because I I know people dropping out of schools doing other things because they just can't randle the schedule without the additional help and so you're not working even. Uh, and I
047know people like that and and it affects the schools and it affects everybody. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Anderson and Dr. Bryant and team for the presentation. We'll pivot to our second topic. Then I'll also ask the board for um consensus that we extend our work session an extra 15 minutes to accommodate time for the accelerator rollout topic. >> Okay. Thank you, Mr. President. I'm excited about this topic. It's long overdue. This has been years in the making. Um, and we'll be sure to make sure this is just one of several conversations that will need to happen. But the the point is is that I want the community to hear from me that we see the data when we look at the AK Star data and we see how many opportunities there
048exist in the Anchorage School District to go from good to world-class urban education. We're going to get there, but I think one of the ways to do it is to invest in programs like the accelerator. This is a step in the right direction because as we know dollars are limited and they're getting more limited with every additional update that we get. And for that reason, we need to prove what's possible when we put the right resources in our highest need schools. So if this project goes as successfully as I think that it can, we'll have a blueprint for how to scale the best practices beyond a small number of schools that we'll be focusing on for the accelerator into the district at large. We need to figure out what will it take to move the
049needle for students that need the most support. That's the spirit of the accelerator project. I'll hand it off to the team. >> All right. Well, thank you Dr. Bryant for that intro. We we are here as a team. We've been working together for the past little over a year um on the accelerator. We're excited. This is one of the things that I've probably had the most fun as an educator working on over the past year and a half. Uh it's most I think it's going to be a really good way for us to look at how we can support our most needy kids and those schools that need a little more support. So we are going to be sharing the mic here this afternoon and uh Marty will start us off. >> Good afternoon everyone.
050Uh if you're not familiar with Doug Fischer, he is an educational researcher and uh thought leader. He's been up here a lot of times uh for principal conferences and RTI conferences. as a lot of our principles have um really enjoyed his presentations and and one of his things that he brings up often is that every student deserves a great teacher by design. Uh not by chance, not by happen stance, not by luck of the draw, but an intentional organization that puts the right educators with the right students given their unique needs. And you know, for years at the school level, this has really been work that principles have leaned into, right? when they think about developing their master schedules and which teachers to have teaching which grade levels at elementary given the unique collection of
051students in that room and at secondary making sure that our you know our most experienced educators aren't just teaching our honors and AP classes but they're working with those fresh freshman um you know general ed classes to make sure that that's a smooth transition. So for years our principles have really been invested in this work. What we haven't always been as intentional about is doing this work at the systems level, right? Making sure that we have a distribution of our staff across our schools so that every student has equal access to great teachers. So, next slide. Um, two years ago, we were invited into a conversation with a cohort of eight other large urban school districts, and we were super excited about the conversation because it was really going to focus on this system's work.
052Um, two years ago when we tried to put together the team, we realized we people were already committed that year. We had a lot going on. We were doing the, you know, sixth grade to middle transition. We were um wrestling with, you know, start times. There was just a lot of things that sort of kept us from getting the right folks to the table. So, we said um but last year we were able to join this group of other districts in Austin, Texas with the right people at the table. And in in many ways it was to our advantage because um several of these districts had started the work the year before. So we got to sort of learn from some of the trailbreaking that they did and then we also were able to sit
053down with the other districts that were sort of joining this conversation at the same time. And if you go to the next slide, this was the problem of practice that really framed that conversation with our team and with those other districts. How do we ensure that the highest need students in our district have at least equal access to effective teachers? And when you get down to it, how do you measure that if that's something that you want to lean into as an organization? And so part of the work that we were doing is looking at our own data and looking at the way that other districts were looking at their data to figure out how could we measure that so we could do some things intentionally and see if we could move the needle in
054those areas. Each district saw this as a persistent challenge. When we talked with principles last week at general leadership about this, they all shook their head. They know this has been a challenge in our district. The root causes though are really um deserve some attention and they're unique to each district. And so what we've spent the last year doing is really trying to figure out why is it that sometimes we have less experienced teachers or more teachers with alternative searchs or um uh higher absenteeism at some of our schools where we have students with the highest needs concentrated in one place. And as we uncover those root causes, we still have some work to do in this area. What are the strategies that we might do systemwide to try to address that and and move
055the needle on those things? And then in that third box, again, sort of reconnecting with that network of other districts to share the things that we've learned and also um hear the things that they've uncovered through this process. So from there, I'm going to turn over to Dr. Johnson. She's going to talk a little bit about the research that backs stops this effort. >> So thanks Marty. Um, I'd like to just start with um a quote from Zarretta Hammond who is a leading educational resource researcher around um really diverse populations and what um moves academic achievement with those populations. Um and this quote really frames the work of the accelerator and and what we're trying to get at. So um and speaks to the systems approach that Marty referenced. So I'll just read it really
056quickly aloud. We return re we return. Oh my gosh. So, we routinely put the less experienced teachers with the neediest students. No other profession does this. A challenging medical case gets the attention of top specialists and skilled surgeons. It would be considered malpractice to put someone unskilled or new to the profession on a complicated medical case. Yet in education, we subject our neediest dependent learners to inadequate discussion instruction given their needs or we allow them to lose valuable instruction time because of questionable discipline practices. So, it it's a reflection of her body of research that she's really um dedicated her career to, but it also speaks to kind of some of the issues that we see present here in ASD around how we staff our buildings um with the highest needs um in terms of
057student achievement. And so if you go to the next slide, um if we get deeper into the huge body of research around what actually impacts student achievement, um we we find some really um very wellressearched practices that we can start um looking towards in terms of guiding our work. So what we know very largely in like a 20,000 foot level is that great teachers and principles matter for students and student achievement. Um, and when you dive deeper into that work, um, and you look at how that's, um, kind of placed in a student's life around student achievement and you look at that piraphph in the middle, roughly 60% of a school's impact on student achievement r lies in two very important positions, the principal and the teacher. And those are the number one and the
058number two biggest impacts on a student's achievement. And so therefore, when we look at um a system of staffing buildings so that we really get at that student achievement, it really makes sense to invest in those two positions in particular. And um and so if you look you look in those areas more in a more detailed way um and you you look at students achievement with um what we would couch as an ineffective teacher versus an effective teacher. The student with the effective teacher is going to make 52% more achievement gains in a year than a student with an ineffective teacher. And so there's there's something systemically that we can work on there. As additionally, when you look at the principal role, we we know very well based on our own practice, but also in
059research that um effective principles attract effective teachers to their building. They also retain them and they create that consistency that students need to achieve. And so then if you zoom out to HR practices, we also know that we can systemically increase student achievement by um improving our HR practices and strategies. Um, and then really looking from it in a dollars and cents kind of way, we know that we spend roughly about 85% of our budget on people, right, in our system. And so it really um emphasizes the need for us to get really strategic around this work so that we can get detailed about how we're moving student achievement in those uh schools and areas that really need um attention. So from there, I'll turn it back over to Sven. >> All right. So what
060is the work that we are getting into? Well, you all are guiding us in that work through your core values, your goals and your guard rails. Looking at our core values. Um under potential, every student deserves the opportunity to achieve at his or her potential. Every student, doesn't matter where they're at, high expectations. The district will foster a culture of high expectations. That's what we're looking for is having high expectations in every single one of our classrooms. our board goals on early reading proficiency, math proficiency, and college career and life readiness. These all fit right in there for every single student. And looking at the board guard rail of not operating without a qualified workforce, we want a qualified workforce. We want effective teachers in every single one of our classrooms, especially with those students
061who need the most support. So, this is the work we're doing. um this is how it fits within what our uh district goals and guard rails and uh and core values are. And now I believe I'm turning this back over to Marty. I'll take it back. Um so I talked about that problem of practice that started this conversation with our team and with those other districts. And as we met uh regularly over the last year, as we looked at the data, as we kind of approached this problem from a lot of different angles, we knew we need to sort of like focus our energy in some form of theory of action. What is it that we believe is true and that will help us um operationalize this in the district? And so here's our theory
062of action. If we enhance the value proposition for highly effective teachers and principles to work at our schools with the highest needs, then we will stabilize those school environments in ways that improve student outcomes. We know that when our schools are stable environments, they serve as sanctuaries and refues for students who may not have that same stability in their in their home life. and that that creates the context for them to achieve as learners. But we know when we look at our human capital data that some of our schools have a higher turnover rate than others. They see like I said before more of those new to profession teachers who bring less experience. They have um more teachers who are hired on alternatives who haven't been through a traditional teacher preparation program. So they bring
063less knowledge into the classroom of the craft of teaching. Um, some of those buildings have lower staff morale when we look at our climate and connectedness data. Um, so how do we change that pattern? Not to rob from Peter to pay Paul, but how do we create a value proposition for our highly effective teachers and principles to want to come and stay and work at those schools, help stabilize those environments over time so that the students who have um needs at those schools have the greatest chance of having really effective instruction and being able to move student outcomes in that way. I'm going to turn over to Tony now and she's gonna Oh yeah. So I talked about this with principal. Thanks for the for the reminder. So I like that visual on the left
064because I think it tells the story of our theory of action right on that balance. I think you can picture quickly if we take that stability ball off the balance what happens to the scale. Right? Student outcomes drop. If we put that ball back on the scale it creates some equilibrium. if we can increase that stability over time, maybe we have a chance of raising those student outcomes even higher. And so that's that's our theory of action. >> All right, good evening everyone. So I'm going to talk you through the process and the actual work that we've been doing over the last year and a half. So overall, the process is really a structured approach that we're using to drive improvement and equal access. So we started as you've heard of really defining um our
065systems unique purpose and why so why it's important for students to have access to effective educators and also leadership. We spent a lot of time mining and analyzing our data which we're going to talk to you about shortly. And we really started pulling and looking at data in a different way. So we're very used to looking at student achievement data and we started looking at a lot of human capital data which we're going to get into and it's really been a cross collaborative effort between academics and IT and HR to really get this information in front of us where we can start to align and uncover the root causes and practices that really align um with the patterns of our data. So at this point we think we're somewhere between two and three. So at
066the district level, we think we have identified some of the root causes that our data is showing. But we know that at the school level, this could be very different than our perspective. And we really want to start to drill down and get some of those voices at the building level to ensure that we are providing and really designing when we get to step four, uh, creative responses, actions, and strategies to make sure that we're addressing those needs, whatever those might be. If we don't imagine that it's going to be a blanket set of resources for all schools, we think that we'll learn different things through the process where we can then refine which is monitoring and adjusting the process to continue making this continuous improvement that we'll hope to see in our student outcomes.
067So, as I talked about, we did a lot of data mining and essentially we got all this data together and Marty came up with this really great analogy of we have three data buckets and we kind of went with that and it's worked. So, we have our first data bucket which is human capital data, our second which is student demographic data which is basically by the building level and then our student achievement and growth data. So, what data points did we actually look at? So some of these were mentioned already. When we looked at human capital, we looked at things like what is the average staff absenteeism or years of experience by teacher in a building? What is the number of alternative certifications that exist in the building? What is the voluntary transfer in and
068out rate annually? And then we also looked at climate data. When it comes to student demographics, we did this again by building. So, we looked at the percentages of the student populations, specifically English language learners, our special education students, our child and transition students, and then economically disadvantaged. And I'm going to turn this over to Chris, who's going to talk us through the last data point and then how we brought all of this together. Thank you, Tony. So, in addition to the human capital and the demographics, of course, we also looked at um student outcomes uh in academics. And so we looked at both achievement and growth. Um, and that's of course important because you can have a a group of students that are growing at a high rate but may not be achieving where
069you want. And so we wanted to capture a well-rounded picture there. And so then we had this these three sets of data. Um, the human capital, the demographics, and the academics. And so these metrics are measured in very different ways. Some of them might be for example three teachers. Another one might be at the 50th percentile. And so, um, my team was tasked with how do you figure this out, uh, to make sense of it in a coherent sort of well-rounded perspective. And so, we did some research on this and we came up, uh, with this methodology called a zcore. It sounds complicated, but it really isn't. And essentially for any data set, you can find the mean or the average and then calculate a standard deviation from that. So, uh, a plus number being
070above and a negative number being below that. So it so it allows us to uh calculate what we call a zcore um across all of the metrics so that we can have a consistent way of looking at this data. And so um it really supports a balanced uh evaluation of school needs. And so in the next one is just a visual example of this giant spreadsheet. I love this. Um this this spreadsheet is really just it captures all of the um for each and every point. Um, one of the things that I think is really really important um to keep in mind for everybody working with this kind of data is this does not determine whether a school is good or bad. What it is determining is does this school demonstrate a higher uh need
071for uh excuse me a need for a higher level of support. It's really important nomenclature because all of our schools have tremendous assets as well as challenges. And so this just allows us to take all of that different data and look at it in a well-rounded comprehensive way um so that we can make um some decisions on which schools are demonstrating a need for higher levels of support. And one of the things that we noticed is um as we added this data uh it was really interesting um as we added different buckets to the human capital um what we were finding is a level of consistency. In other words, it didn't change all that much even when we added the achievement and the growth. And so it really added a level of sort of reliability
072and validity to the data uh as we looked at it. >> So we could go back to that last slide. Go ahead, Chris. >> Yeah. So so just to just to talk about uh really quickly, you'll notice that the schools are not on that data set. Again, this is not about comparing schools. It's really just uh uh we wanted to demonstrate the methodology behind that. Um because again, it's not about good and bad schools. It's about which schools um have higher higher levels of support needed. >> And I'd also um add in addition to that is that like we know which schools and this isn't something that we're going to like put out there. These are our schools that we're working with with the accelerator because we are going to be working and supporting schools.
073This year we're going to probably take a smaller group of of schools to look at what we can do with those specific schools. Um and then hopefully we'll be able to see find a way in which we can look at and help all the schools. Now one of the things that we're hoping for is that as on this particular slide on this data set here um we actually have a way to see kind of what will be our priority schools. We're going to go out and we're going to see um what what do the schools need? What we're going to go talk to the principles. We're going to go talk to the the teachers in the school. We're going to go talk to the staff in the school and we're going to find out what
074are their ideas on finding ways to again get that value proposition up at those schools. Um we can go to the next slide if you want. Um so what do we do from here? Um we're going to be finalizing that co cohort of schools that we're going to be working with. um we're going to be conducting those listening sessions um through the month of October um kind of aligning what they think and what we think because like I said this group of people up here came up with stuff and of course the principles and the teachers might have something different. So we'll be asking what are some what do you appreciate appreciate about working at these specific schools? what are some challenges and how can we increase that uh value proposition to get people to
075come here and stay here with the retention piece. Then we're going to start looking at and designing those systems of support and resources that could be coordinate that could be for that specific school. So one school might need one thing, another school might need something else. It might cost money, it might not cost money. Um during the budget cycle, you guys, the board did allow for us with the recruitment retention. We're going to um earmark some of that money if we need it for these specific um issues as we go through the budget process and into next school year. Um um once we um get these things into place, we're going to start measuring and seeing how they actually work with these schools, with the students. Um where do we see the outcomes coming? um
076how h how do we see him do we see more retention in our staff going to those schools setting that stability up like Marty talked about? Um and then and then hopefully as we work with these schools they start moving down on that list a little bit and then we start adding different schools onto it so that we can help more and more schools throughout the years. But we're going to start small so we can go big, start slower so we can go faster and farther. Now, we we we've been working on this for a year, and I a few of you I've told, "Hey, there's something cool coming." This is the thing that we're going to be um working on. The the other thing one thing that wasn't mentioned I do want to mention
077is that when we talk to the other school districts one thing that they mentioned many times is they would they would have the human capital piece come about come about and they would have a list and the student outcome piece would have a list of schools and the demographics would have a list of schools and sometimes those don't match and the districts were having trouble getting the information out and actually supporting these schools in a very dedicated strategic way. Well, that big huge spreadsheet takes our human capital, our student demographics, and our outcome data and puts it into one area, one place for us. Like Chris said that as we added different pieces, um the results didn't change too much. It might be the schools kind of alternated in amongst themselves up and down a
078little bit, but not much. and that when we started there was maybe 10 columns because we kept looking and looking and analyzing and making sure we are actually looking at the things that can make a difference in these schools. So, we have a plan here. We're we're excited that we were able to get it in front of you. We've gotten it in front of our principles this last week. Um and we're excited about this project. Like I said, this is one of the coolest things that I've got to be a part of. So, Thank you. >> Oh. Oh, and I do want to say we have more than just those of us up here speaking. Um Peggy, Amanda, and Tisha were also on this team that has been working diligently. It's just there's only so
079many seats up here we can do for talking. >> Thank you team for the presentation and the um exciting work that's being done. Um member lessons and member Higgins. >> Thanks. I want to say I think this is one of the most exciting things that I've had the privilege of hearing the administration articulate in the four plus years I've been on the board. It's something that I've perceived as deeply needed and what I you know there have been so many uh conversations about how do you incentivize you know highquality teachers. We've heard the governor propose, you know, a $5,000 bonus for for students uh for teachers in urban areas. That doesn't get to the nuance that I think is required to make a student growth manifest most profoundly in the places of greatest need. And
080so if if we can move the needle um you know in this titrated way um I think that's really significant and I I guess I wanted to just sort of reflect as my thinking as uh you walked us through um the presentation and when I saw the accelerator theory of action and heard um Marty talk about uh you know enhancing the value proposition I sort of crossed that out and said incentivize and you know as in compensate pay and and I think by the end of the presentation what I'm understanding is that actually you're talking about that and and other intangibles. It's not just adding dollars to somebody's paycheck. It is likely going to involve other kinds of work conditions. the work environment that will inspire great teachers to to transform those those learning environments.
081And so, um, you know, part of me says, well, the word value proposition is kind of like lofty, but I think it's also more complex than my sort of simplistic chicken scratch, you know, incentivize interpretation that I sort of was first taking. So, I just wanted to share my thinking process as I was listening to you. It's not much of a question. >> Yeah, I appreciate that um that feedback though in terms of just how this landed and you you probably noticed that we are careful here not to start naming things that we think might be part of that strategy list. Um but it it was fun to watch when we presented this to the four principal groups at GL um last week and have them immediately start emailing Kirsten and different folks. Well, we've
082got some ideas. you know, this this I think especially when we get down to those listening sessions, we've already started to build out a list, but I think that list is going to grow. And then the important thing that Sven highlighted was we're probably going to have to customize which of those strategies fit with each school environment based on their unique needs. And so, um, yeah, it is nuanced and and careful work and and, um, we're pretty excited, um, to get that into that part of the process because that's that's the good stuff. We also failed to mention that we did a we did a very, um, distinct decision and that we are focusing on elementary schools at this time. Um we're we're figuring that we want to see if because of the K3 reading
083and math and really that early literacy that's where we're focusing at this point. We have shared this with high school and middle school principles also and they understand that as well. Um they actually have ideas for us too. So that's a pretty cool thing as well. Um um we have multiple hands up and seven minutes left. So if board members keep their questions succinct, we'll be able to hear from more of you. Member Holland. Um this is kind of a follow up on member lessons, but 10 and 11 years ago, the then HR director called me as a president because they were having trouble staffing Mount Eye. Um which is a a difficult difficult place to staff and to work. um with the idea of bonuses to attract enough people in there and and there
084are reasons why as a union president didn't want to see differentials in pay between buildings and between assignments and whatnot and and what we worked on instead was the idea of um putting in conditions that would lead to success. uh guaranteed maximum case load. Um the ability to transfer if the assignment wound up not working well for the for the individual teacher um uh uh commitment to teaching aids and other things like that that basically set someone up for success. And and what we found was if if it looked like it could be successful, there were people in this district that wanted to go there and make that their their profession. Um, and and I think that spirit still exists in all through the profession. I think it's something we've all seen as educators and
085admire about the people we work with. Um, but it also touches on the same thing when you were talking about wanting to have a qualified, excellent teacher in front of everybody. It takes money. And to me right now and when I look at the change from when I entered the profession in the mid '90s where there was a long line of people to be selected from um and I'm not sure we did the best job 30 years ago picking the best people but but there were a lot of choices and if someone didn't work out um there was at least the opportunity to to move them out of the system and bring someone in and might be more successful. But I it does resonate with me what you were saying about our newest teachers, least
086experienced teachers being put in the most difficult situations. Uh I understand how it happens and I'm not quite sure how you break that up and still keep uh people that have some seniority happy and and located within the district. uh but also at the core of it, we need to be we need to have a pool of people we can choose from and show some people the door uh the door out as we open the door in for other people. The other thing that struck me also some years after I've been teaching was realizing that in most industries, especially if you have people working with you long term, people that are with you for 20, 25, 30 years, people have bad years, chronic illness, tragedy within their family, divorces, other other sick parents, other things
087happen that cause them to not have the same level of performance at the job that they that they're accustomed to and capable too. And I think one of the difficulties in education is we don't have a half-speed position. We we don't have a place where we're going to say, "Hey, you know, you can take the third shift and work with a few less people or or lighten the load in some way that that other industries can manage for a time and then when somebody's ready to come back at full power, they're back in at full power." Unfortunately for a lot of educators, it simply means the the pressure is there, the the full load is there along with all the other struggles. I don't know a good way to deal with that. Um as well
088and I mean a lot of this is just structural difficult to solve without money and money is a huge issue right now. But I I do think there's good insights in there that can help us. Thank you. >> Okay. Um we don't have additional time for questions before we need to adjourn for the purposes of executive session. So my ask is that board members send me questions. Um and then we will coordinate with the superintendent and get something in board connect this week. Um with that said, is there a motion to adjourn to executive session for the purpose of legal updates, negotiations, and contracts? So moved. >> Made by Holland and seconded by Bellamy. Seeing no objection, we are adjourned to executive session. Thank you everyone. >> Yeah, I was next. We had three minutes.
089What I was going to say, I guess