001All right, we're good to go. Um, so I mean I think we just had a forum reaction. So yeah, call this meeting to order on May 29th, 2005 at 10:01 a.m. board members present from member Higgins, President Dickens, and myself all um and a number of senior staff. Um that takes care of item A, item B, discussion policy review. So sorry, uh do you mind if we go around and say Sure. Please start my if you will say your name. Jar superintendent. Andrew CO Dave Whiting senior director of person warehouse chief of HR chief academic offic and online we have uh Mr. Anderson and just to note it is 11:00 not 10. Anyone could make a mistake like that. Thank you. Noted it is took after 11 a.m. Um first item up is a policy
002review in 400. You give folks a moment to take a look at that, but obviously we're not going to read the whole thing here. Anybody have anything of particular note? Seeing no hands, hearing no one. Speaking up, um I would move to item two, board policy 6145, sportsmanship. This was proposed by member Donley and I put my name to it as well. Um, any discussion? Yes. Usually we go through each of the policy reviews. Um, not sure if you wanted to do that today or not. um one of the sections or we could the the reason we we put them up is we don't have an expectation that folks have had a chance to read them before the meeting to be safe everyone comes on the same page but you're welcome to read um we
003can we can step back and take a moment kind of look at each one real quickly or as quickly as that kind of thing can be Will employees required to report if they've got outside employment? So that's in there within union contracts and other things or not or that our age policies is within our HR policies and we require folks to fill out a contemporaneous employment form each year if they have outside employment. and disclose that and just there's no conflict part of the ethics training each year they go through. So you have approval process already in place that would take into account this. Yeah. Would that include people working during the summer outside of the contract period? They don't typically disclose. There's four questions at the top of the form. you know, um, if
004they answer yes to any of them, then they have to submit the form and one of the questions is, is any portion of your outside employment during this your contract year or during the school day? So, they answer no to that and no to all the other questions, then they would have to. Okay. Thank you. Go to the next. Yeah. 4141 negotiated agreement. Seems pretty straightforward. Oh, I'm sorry. Pat, did you have a question? Um, I'm just getting to looking right next to 17. This is the only union contracts. So what this is any other provisions other than union? I wouldn't think so. Okay. Has been employee orientations. Next is 4144 42 44 43 44 complaints. Good too. 51 guys. If no one has anything about Sorry. I know we have other policies and procedures
005dealing with them. You know, no retaliation type issues, but we don't have any tracking system and reports to the board, you know, what types of issues, all that. And that's probably the one thing I'd really love to see something done so that there would be some sort of of just general report giving an idea of what the issues are and how many can I've got exciting news on that front. I met with IT yesterday and they've built out a complaints dashboard that consolidates all the different forms of formal complaint processes that have online. Uh it'll be an external facing uh page that we can direct people to. Um and it kind of for each one walks them through a web form where they can fill out basic information and somebody from that area will respond
006to them. All of that will be done through Jira um our project management ticketing system. And so we will have the ability to classify things by type of complaint um by specific complaint category um and then be able to buy regular reports from the board. That was one of the things that we took as a suggestion coming out of the complaints on last year and our intent is to train up folks here over the summer internally on those processes and then by August one have that implemented and then be able to do you know regular reports to so that where will the feeder data come from? So will that include stop it grievances. I mean, every method of tracking. Right now, we have uh sort of a catchall, which is all of the complaints that
007come in um usually by phone or email um about uh you know, school-based complaints or department based complaints. Uh we have a student grievance process. We have a title N process, we have the deal process, we have the assistant complaints process, we have the uh library materials and curriculum uh process. So all of those will be represented on that page and they'll also be able to defer agency outside agencies if folks want to look beyond if they're not happy with the remedy you know their complaint and so those will all have been captured. We didn't include at this point stop it there um but we haven't yet sort of cascaded this out to get more eyes on the process and that's something else that came up in another conversation I had today. So it's possible
008we have I well I I don't I don't think we nor probably should we see the specific reports that are coming through through VI or stop it but I imagine that some of those things might be derain to the same kind of data that you're wanting to track from other sources and so I would appreciate it if it's reasonable um and then I don't know what the reporting dashboard is going to look like in terms of measurable is there going to be substantiated complaints versus nonsubstantiated complaints or will there be any outcome data on the dashboard as well or will it just be here's what's been received? Um it will certainly have what's been received those categories and then there is a way to process those tickets through and resolve them. um we may not
009be able we we're still sort of exploring that process what labels we want to put on things um for closing out for recording purposes. So um happy to take input on what the board would like to see. I my my one last so I I think you're going to get natural questions as someone who prepares this kind of data for another board as to what happened to all this stuff and what's going on with the spike in these types of complaints. So I I don't know what I don't know how to answer for ASD. Um but I can tell you that there will probably be questions as to what happened with these why is there a spike? what's being done to mitigate the kind of the higher level concern. So anyway, I'm I'm not interested
010in directing the work. I trust you guys to do it. I'm fascinated. I'm looking forward to it honestly. But yeah, driven end of that and I appreciate where you come from on that system standards. We don't want to go into the area where whatever action you might be taking with employees below executive we shouldn't be involved with because the municipal charter doesn't allow that. that we have to comply with system standards. No government guidelines is real clear unless it's an executive which these policy making and public advocacy position. The board should not be involved politically and decisions one below that. But but you got to balance that with the need to know that concerns are being addressed that we've had properly reported and getting numbers on how many there are to to protect whistleblowers and
011to ensure that the whistleblowers get information back parents in some cases get information have seen that myself uh we can so that's that type of issue the process issue is what Yeah, I think as a board member when you see things come through on email, you always wonder what happened, but obviously can't know the specifics, but the summary give us some idea how things may be. Any other comments or questions? to the next section. Sound guidance for example, please I don't assume that we really don't have much of an issue with school district when I think of the positions on which ones to solve. They should be pretty well straightforward, but you got your professional categories and supervisory and so it's pretty I don't think you've got probably anything other than that. I can think
012of one example or maybe two might be an issue, but overall I can't picture it being that big a deal. It has a limitation on how far back we go for pay issues. I know we got a letter or email recently in reports that about there was a salary error and it goes back two years and all that kind of stuff. Is that a a union contract issue or Yes. Well, some of the union contracts I believe have that limitation in there. I think Aea does, but some of the other ones don't. So, it's kind of a mixed bag on um that, but wage an hour go back as far as it's correct to allows. I think usually it's through date of discovery, but oftent times we'll go back at least to the beginning of
013the school year and make that correction. Usually we don't go further back than that because then you're having to issue multiple twos. People are having to tax adjustments considerations there. Any other questions? Move. Health and welfare benefits. The eligibility for benefits doesn't matter what contract you got. They solve assist and recognition. Have we ever made a monetary award to an employee? It's a nice idea to have floating around out here. Yeah. Um moving to reimbursement uniform allowance. also about true exception this policy somebody's painting something you don't know just feel like you guys are kind of being left out being responsible doesn't mean um seeing no hands no comments that would conclude the policy review and bring us to item board policy 6145.21 sportsmanship. This was proposed by member Donnelly. Um I added my name
014to it as well. Um any discussion? We'll start off with statement from one of the sponsors talking about the rale we're doing. Um yeah. There's a little bit of a statement on the motion. Uh, currently the rules of some sports do not limit unsports and light taunting offensive language and or screaming by players. Game officials will not take action against such behavior without a specific policy. Um, but I think actually it's more aimed at guidance to coaches and administrators. cuz some things cross the line even if they don't break a rule sport. I I have to say having been to a student concert at East which is the incident that precipitated creating this proposed policy and having been at their graduation. It seems like it's a little bit of an East High thing. Dr. Brian
015got to sit in on all the graduations, but they scream a lot and and not just the sort of yelling, screaming like you hear at the sports event, but like that's sort of like curdling like someone is selling my leg off kind of a scream. Um, I'll say the I was at a concert, student concert a month or six weeks ago where people running the performance stopped a couple of times to talk about appropriate ways to show your appreciation. It was simply that when certain students would walk out on stage, there would be these blood screams from multiple people in the audience. Um, I also deeply appreciate how much direct control administration has on students that things like that can't easily be eliminated, but it does seem like it's it's coming out of a particular
016school. What I was told, I didn't actually witness the basketball game, but that literally on defense players were screaming in faces of the offense. um not not just trash talk, not just you know like making some noises, but but just these loud continuous screams that seem out of balance of sportsmanship. President Jacobs, I appreciate I guess I this is the first time I can remember that we're drafting a a policy to account for targeted at one particular building. And I'm not saying that we don't want sportsmanship at every campus. It just feels like we're I hope we're correcting an issue and taking a sledgehammer to a a nail. Um because that's what our policies have the impact of whether we like it or not. So I guess my question is what building level solutions have
017we provided first and is this policy really going to change how administration handles these issues in a meaningful way that we aren't already doing? Well, I'm going say the the incident happened out of a particular game, but [Music] is to me this seems like what I would expect of coaches across the district that there would be things that they would tell the players, you don't do that if you're going to be on the floor representing Mr. C. Um, haunting is in the rule books and I think that's which is what was blank up, right? Um, offensive language is in the rule books already. I mean, if there's a swearing or whatever on the pork, on the field or whatever, that the rest would take care of that. The screaming is kind of something I'm pretty
018worried about having in here to tell you the truth. And that is because what's screaming? I mean every basketball camp will have people yelling ball go dead dead I mean dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead they yell those things that's part of defense right and it and then it' be forbidden and they'll be penalized you know whenever we have kids and there was two specific incidents with these ties Jamie Gro basketball came this last year that this kind of came out of the first one there was a student who literally assaulted another student and the board actually helped we took action on that and had that student moved a different program actually not at even that school anymore and then the second one was still on the
019same thing and I I would hope that instead of creating something like this that we would have to you know the refs are statewide refs they're not school refs we we play other teams from other districts we need to have the same rule as those other teams and that's what the refs get trained on and everything. Um, but I would hope that we could deal with these administratively which is what we did in these two specific cases. We even collapsed one of the East High teams this year because of the this so that the head coach could the varsity coach could be more involved with all of it as well. So, um, we actually took personnel action. Yeah, we took personnel action as well. So, I mean we're We take serious any of these things
020that go above and beyond. When I was the principal of West High School, we actually had a student go ballistic in the state hockey hockey game. As you know, in hockey, they all go I mean, we would have both teams in here dealing with discipline after probably everything if on hockey, but we took disciplinary action on that specific student to the point of which never played again. So, I mean, we we u we take these things seriously. I I I would I'm pretty concerned about the word screaming specifically. I mean, we're already dealing with coughing. We're already dealing with obsessed inappropriate language. But the actual screaming piece, I understand that it might be hard to deal with, but in individual situations, I think we we should be dealing with those individually rather than developing a
021process. Right. Yeah. And and if if if we kept this thing in here, I would want to change state or Pennsylvania may be subject to uh being penalized. Something like that because everything's situational. And you made a good case, you know, screaming, give me a break, you know, he's throwing the ball, he's doing this, whatever else is going on. People are screaming all the time. Uh defensive lineman running at a quarterback is going to be if you raise your voice, you get penalized. That's kind of that's what it says in here. and and and everything is subject to, you know, mitigating circumstances under what you're doing it for. So, I I feel a little bit uncomfortable anyway saying it will be penalized anyway. There is a lot of nuance to it. Um, I I think
022what was concerning about the report from the game was that no one took action during the game that it was and and you could make that was not against the rules. And and I I'm trying to think in my mind how I would explain to someone the difference between yelling and screaming. Um, this is a tough one, but you know, like sitting on a J also on a JV game, it's usually the gym manager that's there, right? During varsity games, we have administrators that can do so many games. So sometimes it's gym managers and if there's some an issue comes up, then it's the next day that we deal with it, right, at the school level. So if you know there's always if if we're on a if a camera works and it's on the
023NFHS network and stuff video and we had video one of those instances but yeah I u you know I mean reading between the lines a bit I I heard that there was personnel action that resulted from these incidents. I mean, not not trying to conduct a investigation live during a meeting, but piecing those two things together tells me that administration probably wasn't happy with some element of the response either. Um, which I think is the system working. I feel like we're I feel like this policy doesn't change anything. Um, and I feel like we as a group tend to almost always avoid performative policy changes that may look good on the surface but don't impact anything. I think that we're we're above this. Um, and I I also think that some of the specific language
024is problematic. I I scream to support my kids from the stands. Um, and you guys can discipline me all you want. Um, so I I'm not in support of this as it's drafted. I understand why there was an adverse reaction to what happened there. But targeting a particular program in board policy, this just seems like the wrong tool out of the toolbox for this. But if someone if one of us wanted to go talk to the students at East that's really the engagement that we want to see between our program and the board maybe something like that would be more appropriate than writing a policy that's put in place permanent I appreciate me bringing it forward as tool box. So I'm not a member of the committee um I would support this at this time.
025Well, I think you aren't because we don't have because I'm but I'm going to agree with that. What we just heard is that the policies are there as enforcement and is and so uh you're pinning a policy that's when you already got the provisions out there, you can take the action but you want doing it isn't going to really accomplish anything. What we need to do is deal with people who have to enforce reps and that sort of stuff. So from my standpoint, I um I I don't support this because it it's unnecess what I've heard is not any kind of yelling. I think you would I mean really being in the audience at the performance is painful. I mean just and I don't even hear that well. Um but it it's something that I
026would hope administrators would work at at every level and and my real desire would be that a coach would have sat the team down and said you can't do this because that's the only place it's really going to happen right action. They're not going to stop because of support policy. Uh but I would hope coaches at any school if they had a student that started to do something like that say it's not how we play. Um and and yelling is different and it is part of the game and it is part of being court feel. Um, but this really is something above and beyond that that just um I just I just don't know that we can say definitively those things didn't happen. We just don't find out about Yeah. And so I would I
027would bet that it did happen. I would be surprised if it didn't. So we can trust the process here. Well, it went on for the whole game. I mean No, I mean subsequent to the game. Yeah. Well, like I say, my hope would be that a coach would stop it as soon as it started. I I will tell you that the East High varsity girl basketball coach is very responsive and did what he needed to do in most situations. Um I won't I won't bother putting those votes since they don't appear to be there. Um so this won't move forward. Um and I'll talk to member Donley about it what thinking is and I think the key thing is there was reaction in both instances and u that that there's a difference but I will
028say that sitting in the performance after it's like wow there there is an issue here and they are trying to deal with it to some degree and then and I totally understand the lack of immediate success with it because they're is too much. Um I'll follow up number three this contact. So we at our last governance committee meeting we attempted to have follow conversation I think leading that charge to have some additional space for questions and there was a I think some staff were on vacation and out of the out of the office take vacation anymore but um and so we desired to have a follow conversation today regarding the most recent audit as well as look forward I think member biggest desire uh to discuss what's coming in the future. So that's what this
029is for. So my suggestion would be to open the portable predictions at this point. Just talking about future audits first if you can you know one of we talked about the issue of curriculum we talked about special a human resources audit would be a good audit with the council of basic schools. They're really not doing audits. They managerial review and not being issued and they didn't do it before. They didn't want to get involved. So I I don't know if they can if they would really do an audit uh in the sense of what the boards would be looking for. We're looking what we think we're going to do and they're looking you want to change what you want. So I don't see that but I think it would be beneficial for them looking at
030curriculum would be really beneficial. because then they come in, they're not looking at the value of what we're doing. They're just bringing out these are things that other people are doing and things and recommendations or changes and I could see some real benefit there. I haven't talked to the administration about that, but we talked about special ed programs out there with different um school boards and I've heard about and talked to them about and there's a lot of different things people are doing to change the way special ed actually reducing some cases the number of kids that are special ed by doing things in school. That was kind of interesting. uh but um some of the superintendent raised that that may be something beneficial to do and I haven't talked to the administration to get
031feedback on it but to me those two would be the high audit type of thing curriculum that was supposed to be reviewed periodically and it hasn't been reviewed comprehensively for ever I don't know when but um I just think it's an opportunity some of the earlier studies we've had I remember when um Dana Bishop first became superendent They had some reviews and found out third grade school boys in old schools were not moving up and they found out this curriculum. So it was kind of interesting that way too and we trying to see if it just school didn't. So um but we made some changes and you know audit maybe to me makes a lot of sense but I'll share that now that the superintendent respond special. Yeah I think there's a potentially a lot
032of value there. I did want to have um Mr. Gustoson chime in though because I know with sped specifically there is a lot of technical assistance and support that happens ongoing. Um so I would defer to spend if an additional sped audit would be helpful. Um I I don't know how often the council of great city schools will go do the same audit but we had a sped audit I think six years ago by the council of great city schools just okay sped. Okay. We still have that result. A lot of the changes that we've done came out of that um audit. Um I was I I could see where it would be good to have another sped audit specifically um because it has been a lot of changes lately. Um and we are, you
033know, our compliance piece, you know, you go in cycles of pieces and we're kind of at a higher level right now of the compliance questions. Um, so that that probably would be good curriculum. You know, it'd be great to do a curriculum review, but we got to have money to be able to adjust it because it isn't going to come for free afterwards. And right now, we don't have any money in our budget for just to keep up with what we're doing. So, that would be an interesting one as well is just are we going to do something with it afterwards? Reason why I like curriculum, there's a couple things. one we're doing some book some automated some you know you're going to get a lot of all a little bit over the place but
034the some of the curriculum things that I've attended with conferences has shown that it's very inexpensive compared to what we normally would expect for curriculum changes with the US Academy of Science and some other stuff I saw out there so it' be interesting seeing what they come in and what they would do the fact that we would not have the funds to implement it right now just doesn't mean we wouldn't be able to do increment al changes as we you know as we can at least come out with a plan saying this is what the what we're not be able to accomplish because the legislature might be a status issue but I think there's some benefit to having at least something what we shoot for do it so I like the curriculum a lot the
035best because it's a overall review and coming in with the top schools out there with saying this is what we're doing differently and they have the money to do and to give us an idea of what we might be able to accomplish and I don't think this is an issue where there's a the findings are going to be an issue or concern that what they come up with because it's all you know a high level type of review so it's not like the curriculum and purchasing or continuing the resources or finance or something this is a high level and I think the council of basic school responsible with that level. They're not comfortable below that at this point from what I can tell. And so I like to put them concern I'm not very concerned
036with doing some sort of audit of that nature. Um would it be the purpose of that committee that group that you had spoken of to figure out um what specifics about the curriculum we should review? Well, I I see that is something coming in. But I see when they come in do a curriculum review, they're looking at what we're doing and what other places are doing and how they're what they're getting results with and how they're doing things, right? And so I see this is just a this is kind of like from our perspective, these are these are directions that people are going and we think these are things we're going to be looking at. So I can see that being a a relatively straightforward type of approach. I know California has done the some
037different than others, but I think they would still come in and give us a good curriculum. They'll be looking at things like we'll all be great coordinated or this, you know, whatever else they're going to do and you know instructors, you name it. I don't know where all they look at, but I like the idea of people in Georgia that coming in from districts that are getting results and coming in telling us what they're doing differently. That's really the goal of it from my standpoint. nothing more than that. I just had one quick follow. I guess my um question about process would be um probably would take ownership of defining the scope of the review. Would that be done in committee work or would you like the administration to combine it and bring it forward?
038I I I guess I would see administration playing key role along with I mean we I would want I would hope the the governor's committee would come in with something but the administration comes in and say these are the scopes of what we're looking at and you because you have an idea as well but um I don't mind participating coming out with something from my perspective but I think the administration is going to be okay yeah we see what these options are you can be dealing with ripping bodies that they've done otherwise and find out what they've stolen it's been and how they've done it. I'd like to hear what that says too. But they can because they do curriculum audits all the time and they should be giving us some sort of scope of
039what they would see with the curriculum audit and I'm sure they probably won't mind doing that at all. So could could we frame the conversation a bit? So are we talking about we talk about the what administrative audits we've done this year? Do we have any left to go? I want to say that the uh aotments drug school a lotment audit was considered an administrative audit or was that part of the the finance? That's internal audit. Yeah. So we pay for the internal audible great city schools a separate thing we engage with. Okay. So is there did we I know that we passed an audit plan out of finance. Is this this what we're talking about right now as well as the audit that was just done from the council is separate relate it's two
040separate plans if you will and expenses right okay because I just want I want to make sure we're framing right so then aside from what we've adopted in the finance committee what audits have we done that the board's been a part of is it just the the recent council on the credit card usage or was that community driven That was internal. There's there's a really nice summary list. I think it's actually housed on the MUN's website somewhere of a number of the audits of the bulk of the audits that have happened. Maybe it's on the as ASD somewhere. There's a link on our uh page to the and it links to the actual city page that has all the internal. Okay. So, we have the link to the the city's list. the so I guess
041where I was going with that and why I'm asking is I feel like we want to my suggestion would be to have a plan in the same way that we're that we agree on the start of the year as to what we want to accomplish versus uh not that I I think the curriculum audit is great to be there I also frankly interested in the special um education audit or I think if we I'm especially interested in the special education audit if we determine and agree that special education can include highly gifted u or advanced learners as well. I think it's high time that we analyze what we're doing there and identify your reasoning and use that um insight to justify increased advocacy for the legislature because that will be one I think successful um
042data point and avenue to advocate is to really highlight the fact that um our our gifted learners are suffering uh from the lack of legislative action and the passage of um HB57 didn't change that. Um, and so I I for one would rather have special education if it can include highly gifted than uh the curriculum on it. I think they're both great and I think they both can be part of a plan. That I guess is kind of what I would prefer is us to develop a plan for the next 12 months that includes maybe those two things or something else. U so I guess I'm curious for member Hagen's perspective on that as well as administration's perspective if we can develop a plan. I I think two audits to you is is reasonable and
043so I think Rick and Special head make the two make the best sense to do both and the timing of that either one but that both of those are reasonable to go ahead and include right now they're probably going to benefit you know kids the most. So then if if we're agreeing what I think I'm hearing is we agree for the 2526 school year, we want to accomplish two administrative audits um through the council through some other means that are special education and I guess my question to member Hickin to administration does anyone object to what I think I understand is um special education used to include highly gifted and maybe it got pulled apart at some place Right. Um I don't I I want to duct tape those two things back together at least
044as a district if you so highly gifted. We have like three designations right have highly gifted but you also have gifted if we are only looking at highly gifted. Sure. Um, can we do one? I think you have to do just bed and gifted services. Highly gifted is in gifted services. Yeah. As someone who doesn't do the work every day, that's I think that that would be a better um and I would I would hope that the council would go for go for that. I have to talk to them and just make sure because it might be different people, but they would bring those two different types of pieces. Um the I just have to talk to them. I think the scope of the audit we hit there saying this is what we want and
045I agree we including that. So we can talk about one spect we want to include this and see what they see what process they do. So I don't I think it makes sense because we're trying to deal with that with that big issue. I just nothing happens for free. We've passed our budget. We passed a budget revision. We're waiting for what the governor will do. It seems as though I were a spitball figure. You know, I might guess that each audit is multiple tens of thousands of dollars. And so we would have to determine where the funding for that comes from. And so I would maybe maybe this is a good time to get information uh but wait to see may come circle back to this after the um sort of end of June and
046uh perhaps there will be additional space in our budget to incorporate the additional costs that this audit would uh require. But I I would be reluctant to commit to 100 or $200,000 or whatever before we know whether that money is coming. Check. I think we did budget some money for um these type of audits. Okay, members, I completely agree. That's where I think where I was headed is I don't know that my my my proposed path forward I guess I think I'm mapping out is mirroring the finance committee process where in the fall we one of the first things the finance committee does I think is pass an audit plan and I think governor's doing the same thing and at that point wrap up with the budget question and I think if if at your
047finance committee table you can make space for how we fund the administrative audit plan um I think that's a great place to have that conversation so we can revisit June recognizing or in August recognizing that now we're tenatively agreeing to that first draft of that administrative audit plan having those two things on it of special education gifted highly gifted etc whatever the council can can administration can cook up and the other um other item being curriculum and I I'm I'm great with that path forward of the rest of the group we'll say that if you search for audit on the AS site it take you to the OM department page that list a lot of the what I would call operational audits over the some of them are more than 10 years old but that
048it is something the governance committee should do a couple of times a year and deciding at the beginning of the year so we can map it out. Um and also I think to the question the superintendent raised that uh the board should be more involved in creating the scope of it at the beginning than they have been the past couple of years just to make sure that the specific questions board members may have get addressed in the um but I can also understand the timeliness of saying let's don't plan to spend anybody this week. Let's give it a few weeks to see what happens. I was mistaken on the spread audit was 10 years ago, not six weeks. Yeah. And those links board docks just so everyone's aware. And also would like to note that
049member Wilson joined us around 11:30. Thank you. We do have 100,000 budgeted for these operational type audits. The one for purchasing I believe was 50,000. So you could potentially do two of the way budgeted now. Depending on the scope, sometimes those special audits bring up more people and take longer. So, it might be a little more I I will just make a note that every time we complete an audit, sometimes the findings do have fiscal notes attached to them. So, I just don't want to create a snowball effect. Um because there probably are some things that Andy Rabbit would like to implement, but there would be cost. Any other comments? you know is is part of when we have those recaps you the debriefs from the audits if there's any fall part I mean what
050I think administration did really well when we talked through our last the findings from our last audit was what we wanted to remedy going forward and how we want to improve if there's fiscal notes that are attached that we know saying here's what we think cost in terms of hours or dollars I that's good for us we should always be thinking about that anytime time you can remind us that everything will be cost money is a good idea. We never say move on to one that's a purchasing because we talked about that and uh talked about having a committee with purchasing for the thing and I haven't talked to the individuals that were participating in the purchasing audit from council racy schools but I want to do that I have had contact with municipality of
051an even we have allow purchasing retired purchasing directors still a couple of them and as well as a couple of others in there and the state has not proposed anything but we've got back and forth a little bit so that we can put together obviously I want well obviously you're going to be that the other committee and then there will be maybe somebody else in ASB but you I'll leave that to you CFO but um try to do something with that I what we haven't done is listen to the audit committee members if the individual that did the audit asked follow-up questions like we normally have done and that's something I would like to do with making contact with them saying what else is there what about these issues we had that original presentation that
052meeting with the auditors when they were here told them what we wanted they didn't say anything then they did the audit and say we didn't look at it or we didn't include it because it's you know we went only one high level I don't know what they did or what they didn't did because we never had a chance to talk to the auditors and follow up questions at all. But I would really like to do that if that was possible. But one way or the other, one of those particular auditors having them part of the committees that they made recommendations, some of which were really interesting like having a a a contractor fair, right? Uh to get more contractors meeting uh was really interesting because that's very cost effective. the the peacy whether that's possible
053or not I like to hear both sides right they talk about what we can do and what we can't but maybe somebody else in ASD participating in that who know has a great experience with saying timeouts uh maybe we'll get in that committee but I think we're they've given us a report saying you can save money we need to be able to respond to that and this committee does a lot of things so I'm I've talked with Bob Jones with the mayor's office she's given me the names of others that I've been in contact with and so sometime in the next few weeks I'll have that and we'll sit down and and just talk about what the process could be and how we do it. That would be my goal on accomplishing this. I know
054that we have upcoming meeting with the assembly um a week and Friday I guess and I know one of the things I mentioned last time that was is there ever a time where we can work together some because we've never done that before. The municipality didn't want to do it. We didn't want to do it, but we never had necessarily a friendly assembly and a friendly mayor and friendly school board all at the same time. I don't know if there's any benefits or anything else there. But um I like the idea of talking to those auditors and finding out what they've done. So if I can get contact information, I can talk to them and say who have time for Zoom meetings. They don't need to obviously but we don't even contact Zoom meeting with
055them and go from there. So the scope I'll talk with Andy about two ins. Okay. Uh I was just to to member Higgins comment about creating a space for the assembly. something I've been working through I think at our upcoming board retreat um for the first time or at least going to invite sitting over the legislature um to come to connect with us regarding u legislative update versus having just our lobbyist present. I also would like to see instead of I think some of the challenge I keep hearing when we talk about creating a separate meeting for audit work or something else is no one wants to make a new meeting to talk about just something else because then we might come up with something to talk about uh or have pressure to to come
056up with full agenda and everyone's at max capacity but I think we can use our retreat strategically to have a you know an hour or two blocked out in this area and so it's it's another thing that's on my list not per June necessarily, but for our next retreat later this year, early next year, whenever it is, um to consider inviting the assembly chair, vice chair to come talk with us about anything else once hearing none. any new business. The only thing that came to mind um and I were having a discussion right at the beginning of the meeting about [Music] the I guess the points behind u the future search for for schools to close about what the sure how but uh what the guiding lights are so to speak in terms of trying
057to pick out which schools we consider for consolidation um next and I don't have anything prepared to be introduced I'll jump into it though if you want to the question is we we the board made a motion Paul you were involved and Kelly in regards to giving us a recommendation in September for school closure and then we reconsider that we got a thousand to happen. Uh so uh we've got the school closure issue coming up. Um and in doing so uh the question is there was also an issue about oh well we've done something with they did you know we're going to consider them. I I don't see the board taking any action saying we want you to select a school big enough for school. Uh we're not trying to create an opening for school
058that we wouldn't know otherwise closed for the benefit of putting a charter school into. We want to benefit when we got an opening with it. But I don't think we're saying pick a school that can have and displace all the neighborhood schools. You pick one that's large enough for that purpose. And I think that's a concern that I have maybe interpreted from administration what the board's doing. But I hope that isn't the case. I know that Morgo spoke on that issue as well at one point said we don't want to close schools for the purposes of a toy school. We want to take advantage of closing school and see how we can help charter schools. So I just if there's confusion on this I hope we get that clarified. Um we talked about we wanted
059a school but how many options we want. I know how much pressure there is when we select schools uh and how many how disruptive it is to everything else. If we have a school that seems to be a logical choice and more members talking to administration or less around one particular school that might be beneficial um uh within it um and in line with that I have shared with with community councils one board has voted this in September we have a recommendation on a school closure uh but I never got to the point I haven't seen anything we're talking about multiple school closures that we need to go to that level Um, and there's additional information out there with some of these school closures, that's an issue. Um, because some of the information we had
060last time is proving to be uh different at this point. Uh, you know, the all the subdivisions out there in Eagle River isn't going forward. That's coming from the community council out there, the chair of that. That's interesting. So that means that the growth out there that we were trying to take into account isn't happening and that's the most undoized rule. So that's an example of one that's out there. But from my standpoint, I saw that as one recommendation. I could care and obviously out more and if avoid talking individually come out with a recommendation. Let's keep the pressure down on the on their on the anxiety. so many parents and teachers and everything else by including lots of extra schools or selecting a school besides that would kill us. Uh I think everybody that
061would be a serious you know I would go through the ceiling but selecting my neighborhood school because it's more school just to displace them for that purpose that would not be the system we're trying to do anyway. So that's my concern is that looking ahead we don't stir up the pot bigger than what we have to and if we've got a logical selection we can move forward with it. I'd like to see that proposed. I think the board from my understanding and probably you might have that for you said if we have both school closures we want to give school a priority when using the school and I think that's reasonable the issue but if it's not a schoolable fit we're not going to select a larger school than a small one simply to displace
062more kids that may not be as unutilized simply so they put another school into think that would be Yeah, thank you. I I don't disagree with anything said, but I also I don't think anyone saying any of those things. The boards were pretty clear that we asked administration to continue the conversation because the board chose to exempt Eagle River and South Anchorage from the right sizing process as well as Midtown. We know the data is clear that we have excess capacity in those areas. uh we know that there's at least in the short term savings and then potential opportunities to assist programs who need a space um that's functional uh when when the areas of interest align and so um I'm not everything is is very clear as to what the board has directed administration
063to do and I think we have a process for bringing a recommendation forward so I don't have any questions on that u if administration wants additional guidance from the as to know anything about the right sizing process, we're here, but I I think we've provided more direction than an administration probably wants or needs. So, I'm content to play the the backseat role on the recommendations. And I think we're going to talk about the budget moving forward for FY27, you know, starting in a little bit. But if I'm reflecting accurately on a recent slide that was shared, right, our deficit for FY27 is millionish is um you could probably close every single elementary school in the in the district for FY27 and have no schools and still not close that data set, right? Yeah. We still
064like, you know, 15 or 20 million to close. Yeah. So the scale is um the scale is I don't have the words for the scale but we know that the funding you know the fund balance isn't there and um we have seen what happens when we close the budget with a PTR plus 4 um so I just you know I think you need to keep the backdrop of our fiscality in as we as we figure out what's next. Any other comments? Under the topic of new business by my a and for our next meeting on June 3rd, we have an action item for ASD 15A 5123 promotion acceleration retention. uh I place this on our agenda be completely transparent and make sure that the public had a chance to provide testimony if they so choose.
065It's my intention to ask that we make a mutual ask for a motion to postpone this indefinitely as we received a couple emails noting um a concern with the change in language that u largely won't if if at all impact district operations. Um this was an update from ASB and so the fact that it it became problematic was not sent and we have other meaningful things to take care of and so postpone and not take action on that. If there's any objection or please feel free to think on that and be prepared to debate because I don't anticipate us passing it unless there was serious reasons for us to consider that any other com. If not, I'll quote this in the journal.