001e e e all right good afternoon uh we will call the meeting of the ASD School Board Finance Comm to order today is Thursday March 27th at 12:15 p.m. we'll go through introductions starting with myself our chair Carl Jacobs to my right ex assistant gu and chief academic officer Ellie Sawyer project support specialist Savannah stus development director Andy R Chief Financial Officer we have Mr Anderson we have President hman and member lesons that's Welcome All We've called ourselves to order we'll start with B1 discussion discretionary grants update Dr Bryant team is this your item yes um yes so Savannah and ell you're going to sit and present our forecast for discuss AG kind of how we got for and just some information around there provide time finally we're doing all right um I am just
002request okay um well good afternoon everybody again my name is Savannah stanes and I'm the development director for Anchorage School District um this is just our quarterly discretionary grants report just to keep get updated on the work that we're doing and the things that um we are hopeful will come into the district soon um our agenda is a quick FY 2 interim report of where we are at what we have done um and where we are going also be talking a little bit about what in progress work we have and some upcoming things that we are working on in the next quar um just this is just a quick overview of what our department is responsible for um as well as the things that we are trying to do as far as supporting the district
003in effectively managing and pursuing discretionary grants um I'm not going to walk through all of this but this is just for your reference um I wanted to start with the discretionary grants Financial overview um just to show kind of where we started um when I came on as the competitive grants manager in 2022 um through now um I'm using 2022 as the reference point just because we have changed I'm sorry I Kell's letting me know that we can't see the your screen up for some reason it says I am sharing there I can see it on mine you can okay I'm so sorry go ahead okay you yeah I'll let her know to open the screen thanks okay um so I my problem my reference point I'm sorry remember lessons what was that that was
004my error thank you I apologize thanks um and I'm using 2022 as my reference point just because that's the year that we started tracking data in our win rate um so for fy22 and 23 we were not able to calculate the win rate just because the um the data was not set up in a way that we could look at both ending um submitted awarded and not awarded um but in 2024 we had a 56% win rate and in 2025 we were doing pretty good at 86% win rate um but I do want to note that we still have a lot of outstanding applications that may be with you as we get as we hear back from more and more of our applications um does anyone have any questions or anything before I move on
005to the next slide just just the indirect um I'm used to that with other nonprofits and all indirect covers a lot of things bring benefits you name it what's covered under the indirect and is that adequate to be able to uh to uh to pay for the indirect we actually in do you have any idea on that sorry yeah I can take this this is the amount that we when we get a grant you know we have our indirect cost rates about 5% this year and it pulls over into our general fund to offset our general fund cost for um it's really mostly accounting HR viracy it doesn't d f benefits for employees or things like that or does it um no it's just calculated on it's a it's the state rate that's based on
006our administrative costs and those administrative functions divided into our total spend of our general fund creating this indirect cost rate and that's the allowable amount we can charge grants to manage them so that takes my time spam's time accounting's time but it's not necessarily an indirect rate for as you'd consider it as a a benefit BR and and then the issue will be with the federal funding issues what percentage is this public Federal might be relate it with Federal funding because we know what's going on in the National level what's trying to go at the national level we don't know if they're going to trash money on it just eliminate the what they're going to do right but how what percentage are we involved with one you put I can definitely get that to you
007we have it I just don't have it in this presentation um mostly because I we don't know what that's going to look like whenever they do finalize all of that so um I'm just looking at it what it is today yeah no absolutely and I can get that to you um but most of it's Federal right most of it is Federal or federal casare um before we move on to the next slide I just wanted to flag that you know even if 86% drops down 20 points I mean I a quick Google search says that 30% is generally considered to be a pretty solid win rate and we're more than double that so thank you to the work you guys are doing well thank you I appreciate that um it's not us alone we have
008great project directors and program leaders that know what they're doing and are doing good work which makes it easy to be successful um so some significant submissions that we've had um so far is our promised neighborhoods um our digital Equity Grant um Department of Transportation Federal Communications commissions and the AC fund um through the Municipality of Anchorage um our our big one that we're looking at is our digital Equity Grant which is the $12 million Grant um we're still waiting on some information before um that's officially launched um but it is going to be a significant award that that afd will see a lot of benefits from everything else we're still waiting on the funding status um as U member Higgins had just previously mentioned with everything that's happening at Federal level we're seeing a
009lot of delays in any movement um with the submissions that we've had so far um I did want to highlight kind of what the the strategy that we use is to develop our our grants to determine what an effective Grant um strategy is based on the need that we have have in ASD or that's presented to us um this is also the strategy that we use when we're training um outside staff members um community members as well as school districts that have um reached out to us to ask for assistance in their Grant development process um and this is just to help um kind of understand based on the need is it a short-term long-term need um and are grants a reasonable um option to meet that need or would it further kind of expand
010the scope of our services beyond what we're able to sustain um I know that it's not super clear on this slide but it is a handout that I provided when we were here the last time um and I can also provide a direct link to it as well if you're interested um just touching again on what our discretionary Grant strategy is so under the Elementary secondary mental health student support special programs and capital sections of ASD these are the projects that we're really focusing on finding funding for this year um one because they are continuously um we have staff continuously reaching out to us stating that these are high need items and also we have developed several uh proposals already for these opportunities so it does make it easier for us to expand um the
011number of applications that we can pursue for those opportunities um again this is a handout it's also available in PDF and all of the previously developed applications are directly linked in there anybody to see what our approach is all um this is our grant calendar so far um what we're looking at um submitting what we've already submitted and what we have taken off of our our calendar um the education Innovation Grant and the stop School violence grants were two grants that we were really excited about pursuing this year but they have been fooled from the opportunity list at the federal level uh but we are still working actively working on these other commissions as well um this is just a list of our resources um everything that we share in our presentations both in quarterly
012funding and our trainings um our community trainings as well is always posted on our website both internally and externally and is always available to community members as well if they are interested in grants in partnership with ASB or to support their organizations as well um we try to make sure that everything that we we have developed internally can be available to our partners and community members well and here is our contact information in case you have questions or would like to reach out that is my present thank you for the presentation um we'll jump to questions before we move on to our next agenda item I just had one and I met may be one of the more common questions you get but I happen to have received an email about a grant opportunity that
013may be in some one of the same veins about school safety that I think it's called um related to a specific organization Omni alert secure schools grant program and I don't know if that happens to be on your radar at all I can it came to the board directly and so I can send it but um seemed like it maybe offers three years of um programming at no cost which is kind of I think the model that we adopted with um stop it I think that might be come to an end relatively soon for 5 years if that's not something on your Radars and opportunity to evaluate I'm happy to send this on yeah that would be wonderful okay are there other questions for the team member Higgins anything from a board standpoint for support
014when you need I appreciate what you're doing and I know that there was probably a lot more things that could be done with more Staffing with more time and more resources and all that but is that is that something from the board perspective that it's beneficial as an issue I know it's goes to the superintendent but I'm not trying to run open yet gu I am what the hell I didn't asked to be a driver by the way with fun issue um but uh is there anything there that we're missing or big opportunities out there potentially in the future to make up for the FED um we're working on some things right now that we're we're trying to shift some of our focus with all of the kind of turbulence that's happening at the federal
015level but at this point there's we're just internally making having those discussions and trying to figure out how we can forward the most effectively if things change at the federal level significantly enough that we would need to shift our focus with grants okay thank you okay member Higgins are there any other questions or comments online before we move to our next agenda item I see him okay member Wilson did join us at r with P22 welcome we'll go on thank you again folks um we'll move on to our next discussion item B2 which is pre Dr Briant te well yes yeah I believe member lessons requested an update for this just how our preas going and then uh the financial impacts of moving from a05 ADM count for the prek to a 1.0 um so
016I can go ahead and do the 0.5 to 1.0 it's about $2.4 million what we receive now be another 2.4 million if we got the full uh one Qui um is is this something that's being just this a data point that the committee wanted to discuss or is this being driven by legislative action or curiosity um I probably turn over to member Leon to see get her take on it want okay yeah if I can uh if you can bear with my voice here for a little bit um thank you for for putting this on the agenda really this came out of my awareness of a wonderful presentation that um our director pre gave to um Juno gave down in Juno to the Senate education committee I believe uh a few weeks back and I
017um specifically it was in support of SB um 93 and I wanted to to use this finance committee opportunity to explore the relationship between um Investments and outcomes that's the sort of the Crux of it and and what I took from reading this presentation um is that when we invest in early childhood education we really do see an improvement in student outcomes and I was hoping that we could partner uh Team Finance with Team prek to dig into that a little bit more so I don't know if this is a good chance how about maybe we can hand it over to um Miss nesset thank you member of the black um can I share my screen oh uh yes we'll have capabilities can just you are you in the oh you're inv all right there
018you are sent while Andy is pulling that up I can hand around some p that I made for the data so as member Lon said that this is something that Senator Tobin asked me to present on um investing in 3K as a 1.0 um instead of A5 ADM um I am going to go to the next screen so most of our funding um comes from um various grants um we have 37 preschools that are general education um of them we are sorry um 10 are out of the general fund which is Andy can correct me um backfilled from the ADM in the sense um we have some um from title one we have alcohol tax previously until December 31st and now it's through the marijuana tax thank you all for your help in securing that
019um which is the Ace fund we receive money from the ACT Grant and Mental Health Trust in order to get these 37 preschool classrooms to operate um and then I have my 54 special education classrooms which are operating under the special education grants um under those me go to the next one um we have a lottery process we have 1,400 applications just for this last year um we have almost 600 students placed um clearly we don't have enough room for the amount of students that are placed um and it's constantly trying to find the money to build on to what we have going on um so if we were able to get the 1.0 is really what the the hope is in this conversation it would be adding the 2.5 million more um we're looking
020at adding that would be 11-ish classrooms 12 maybe more and each classroom serves about 17 students um all of these funding sources um do require some level of risk factor um like my title one you know socioeconomically disadvantaged the marijuana and alcohol tax are looking for those um Aces um act and mental health are all looking for those as well um the reason I bring that up is because when we are putting these kiddos um in our thank you yep that's better um when these kiddos are being applying for our preschool their parents are selecting different things that might be risk factors and that is something that helps them get a placement into our preschools um and it could be any of these cases um they'll get a point value if they're experiencing any of
021these if they've moved more than twice in a year that would be a point um if there's nine people living in one house and they are under a certain income value that's a point um so we're trying to get the the kids in that might not have the exposure to um Early Learning the point of that is to give them a Level Playing Field to their peers right so that when they're getting to preschool or sorry kindergarten they're not already behind I'm sure you've heard of the Perry project or maybe not because you don't live in preschool you do but uh it was a randomized project in the 1960s where they just took um students and gave some students preschool and some not and and tracked them over 40 years to see where they would
022be and those who received preschool overall did better in life less incarcerations earned more were able to buy a house sooner the data that I have here is the print out I handed around it's easier to see on the print out um and I'm going to grab one back for you the um this is the only data that I have been able to pull up since becoming the director and it's really not um an accurate picture because preschool doesn't have a benchmark test like K12 right so this is comparing preschoolers when they become kindergarteners so those that attended ASD preschool to those of um that did not attend ASD preschool we don't know if they attended a Private Preschool if they were in you know Auntie's basement or at home with Mom um we just
023are comparing them to those who did not attend ASD preschool so looking at that um overall you want that um above Benchmark number to be in the positives than it is overall 2.3% above those that did not attend ASD preschool and then that well below of course you want that to be a negative where it becomes like delineated and more interesting is when you look at the title one the Eds and the elll and the students with disabilities it's quite fascinating the um Title One students are 5.9% higher above Benchmark they scored at 10.9 where the kids who did not attend ASD preschool it was at 5.6% were above Benchmark in the fall on mclass so our kids at a preschool were coming more prepared just to take the mclass assessment right um knowing their
024letter names sounds U being able to segment Etc um and then those well below you look at that title one 74.3% were well below Benchmark but those that came out of ASD preschool it was 58.5 so it's pretty telling and you can look at the all the scores throughout um we do heg in preschool and we learn through play I think that struggle um is hard for some people when you think of play all day but it is um developmentally appropriate and we integrate academics one thing um I am excited about is we are piloting a um an assessment tool through our curriculum this spring um to assess early learning for preschool to actually have live preschool data um this kind of just explains a little bit more of what I just went through um
025the really exciting stuff I think to bring this up is when our kids attend ASD preschool they're set up for more success in kindergarten and then they're on that level playing field for the kindergart teacher to be able to not have to backtrack right and then it feeds into that Alaska reads act so that they're not far behind by third grade um again that playing field um I went into how it's an economic investment for our city and our state um it's also a true cost in in Alaska I mean I pay way too much for preschool right now from my 4-year-old um but truth be told I wouldn't qualify if I put my kid in our preschool right now um I pay $1,450 to send my kid to preschool so um my argument was
026that we have really great standards to get the 05 ADM that hold us to be high quality preschool ASD was the first and only one to receive that 0. five in the whole state as a district um they do look to us for a lot of those standards um they sent um the state sent 10 different districts to come walk through our classrooms last month when um the AC conference was here to see our classrooms um because we're doing great things so just having that 1.0 would be able to to open more classrooms and serve more of our community um yeah thank you I wonder do we have any way to project um maybe numerically using our data if we can serve 170 additional kids and if they were all in Title One schools for
027example um I'm sort of trying to do math and talk at the same time do do we have a sense of how many additional students um would be uh would would be out of that well below Benchmark based on our data I mean it seems like that's a meaningful number if we were to cor you know project forward if if we had the 1.0 ADM using what we know about ASD students right now so can I clarify um um so if I were to able to open another 10 classrooms and serve 170 how many more would be above that below Benchmark yeah just just sort of back the envelope guessing I mean it seems as though there would be a meaningful number yeah I mean I I can come up with the m i mean
028okay I I conjecture um Let me let me figure it out and get back to you on that um I think the hardest thing member lessons is that it's a 4our preschool and it's um it's challenging for families to be able to make that work in their lives so I am trying to work with different Community Partners to make it a full day whether it means that um you know we operate 8 to noon and then a community partner either picks up and does noon to 5: or maybe Head Start um operates nearby or within to pick up the rest of the day it's four hours is difficult right like I can't make that work either even if I did qualify there other discussion points member Higgins no some of these things are overlapping right
029I mean you got your English language Learners Title One all that so some of these a lot of them overlap that yep are we looking at tracking him uh in the future how they doing in second third fourth and all that I will yeah after okay I know there was a head start study done number of years ago which you said uh this head kids way ahead of you know coming in fourth grade they were at the same level we we didn't they were held back trying to teach the whole class and they were behind and I'm just that's going to be an interesting thing but it also said long term they were still way ahead you know from High School on for others they still were in a higher percentile and all that plus
030they probably think any any number of all they had more gay parents or something but that that's my that's one concern I saw a study I saw a review of data that show T School academically in third grade they're growing that more more preview than the other schools saw this analysis done it's kind of interesting I I'll s it but I had somebody outside that but I'm just kind of curious I'm glad you're doing the tracking there was also discussion about making it available to expand if say was Private uh access to some of our space it's good for the community good for the kids and all that they pay for space will we do something to pay the cost and to do something like that is that something that the administration is looking at
031or not I I think Jim Anderson made I thought some discussion by expanding it but is that is that a feasible thing or not yeah we are looking at using some ASD space to out a locost to our uh our partners like in the community for prek or Child Care Child yeah um so we are looking into that um trying to develop those plans now but hope we get something come together and get your some shortly on that and I don't know when we got well below bench m if we had people who were well well below Ben who were well below or or now way way above bench I mean it's hard to say because there can be variables on either end of that as well within that but I'm looking forward to that
032tracking to do that that to me that's a real critical issue yeah differentiate structure really ground playing around I I look forward to having many years of it but I also am looking forward to having the the true preschool data instead of comparing preschoolers to kindergarten you know yeah so I'll continue this and having the preschool data I'll just jump into to say that I appreciate the presentation and I when we're looking at academic data and I know that um when we hear comparisons using nap scores the states like Florida and Mississippi um something that that often gets left out of the conversation um for reasons I still yet to be clear on is um the differentiation between those States level of prek investment compared to Alaska Florida has Universal prek and Mississippi has made
033some pretty groundbreaking Investments considering their overall State um economic options and so um thank you for highlighting the importance and I know that this board will be excited to support this piece of legislation as is there additional PowerPoint data to go over or does this wrap up the conversation with this point that's it okay remember last anything further you want to accomplish with this agenda item I I just sincerely appreciate um the opportunity to place this on the agenda and um maybe the only other thing I would raise is my my interest in the board uh perhaps generating a letter of support for S sp93 and I'd be happy to sort of take the lead on that um and run it through a bit of a process but I think that the proof is in
034the pudding and um would be glad to support SP sp93 I don't see that is is um would anyone object to member lessons drafting a letter and then having that available for us to sign um at our next board meeting on the 8th I think may have go Communications to but absolutely yeah this just seems such a slam dunk I don't know we need to add it to a committee agenda before we get the letter in yeah okay remember lesons if you want to take that idea and run with it I I imagine you'll have seven signatures or at least maybe six with a digital signature for president Hollman okay terrific I will work on that in the next few days great thank youe thank you all right our last item on the finance committee
035agenda for today is legislative update B3 this Mr R with Dr Bryant team um sure so uh the biggest moving part we have is HP 69 making its rounds passed out of the house it included about $1,000 BSA increase no inflation proofing uh limitations on the amount of fund B Charter Schools carry forward I believe it was a $450 per student incentive for proficiency and then some language on um essentially being able to opt into schools you're not in the boundary for I guess for La of a better phrase on it um so that's really where they're at as you mentioned on their operating bill in the house side they added $1,000 into as an amendment into the operating budget to be able to pay for hb6 69 were to pass or have the money
036for onetime funding um that's I think the biggest moving pieces we're watching right now uh member lessons asked me to throw together a couple of uh documents to show how many teachers will be added back to each school if we were to go back to the f56 PTR levels um and I've done that so we can pull those up and look at those up that's all right um starting with secondary and really how it's laid out I've got the at the top the what our current classroom teachers are and for secondaries this is going to be all the teachers in the school for elementary I just limited to those classroom not including the Specialists so classroom teachers plus the hold back equals the total allocation that a school has in the building right now of
037J or general funded teachers the next column is how many are currently budgeted based on that plus4 PTR increase and then if we were to reinstate that PT R um to schools for to go back to fy2 the current level and then another one to return the fy16 level um you'll see the biggest change by and large is in it will be in secondary schools with uh predominantly in Middle Schools uh the reason for that is in secondary schools we made the most movement in those ptrs over the years as we've tried to hold Elementary a little bit harmless on that so they don't have quite the same level as adjustment um the middle schools in particular a few years ago when we made the Middle School model really to standard to be able to
038pay for that as far as stting those teachers we ended up increasing the PTR um and adding the planning component essentially or the the the Middle School model so it didn't really when we up that PTR but add of the planning it didn't really result in additional teachers of cost uh but it did show it was reflective of increasing that PTR so when we return to the 16 level and retain the Middle School model that's why they have quite a bit bigger ad than any other U Division if that makes sense um so overall between all secondary schools about up um I think it was 80 something when I added up for all the 16 PTR but it would add about 154 or sorry but this is just by school I guess you see going
039across here how many additional teachers you'd have by uh by virtue of adding those PTR back member lessons I see have a question um yes so first of all thank you for putting this together I think this is critical and um I would love uh for this to go to all of our legislators or at least the entire Anchorage delegation I wanted to confirm that number one all of these changes account for our enrollment predictions right we know that enrollment has gone down so I guess can you just confirm here that this accounts for the enrollment projections for next year that's correct it doesn't have any additional staff added back because of enrollment we'll still have those enrollment related declines great and then the second question I had my my understanding at the high school
040level and we haven't really talked about that yet is that additional Staffing often means additional electives um improve improved CTE access that sort of thing and of course smaller class sizes and core classes can you I mean from an instructional standpoint um does the same hold true for middle school or is it more of a reduction in core class sizes like what happens when we have more teachers it's the same um as high school maybe not at the is great of an extent just because of the numbers of kids that are in the schools and the total number of uh teachers that you have but it does affect electives also CTE World Language Fine Arts um when you add back in more did that answer your question it it does thank you right and then
041we have a same schedule which is going to be probably harder to read for the elementaries um but the bottom line on there there is you know it add back to 88 for get the current levels and then it's only another 44 to get down to the FY 16 44 ft to get to 16 levels and then also have which I don't have the subtotal out in here so this 714 is not going to be quite right but adding back in this is the immersion Staffing so if we to add back in those because that was part of the amendment to um reinstate that additional Emer support for the schools that host that uh so not you know it wouldn't trigger on every school going down to the fy16 level and a lot of that's
042just do the rounding um but it would be I'm sure a welcome addition to those schools and these are linked in board docs fory Ed and I'll actually get you an updated copy that has this subtotal that's missing here and yeah thank you and then because Lake hood and excuse me um nunaka Valley are closing I mean I can see that um there you know lak Hood doesn't exist for FY 26 so I assume that we would see like a big shift in um the turnig again right because it's absorbing the lakehood students as well correct and you know just kind of by virtue of not including those enrollment changes that didn't really show up here as an addition to turnig again necessarily um but what you see is not quite the same you know
043they have a one currently they have a one FTE increase so they would have because of kind of the net of the enrollment change plus the PTR increase um so they get a one FTE increase so far and then they' get a few more to shore up their program great thanks any other data Mr rud your that concludes and I'll just add a comment so we do plan to share this with legislators or at least the Anchorage delegation at minimum but I just want to underscore especially the legislators because I know the school board knows this is that it's not only a matter of money it's a matter of timing so my call to action for the legislature is May 15th is really the date um that that will be facing layoffs potentially in other
044circumstances so in other words we could receive this money in July but that doesn't mean that ASD will be able to sta all these positions because by then many of the teacher applicants will have found and committed to other districts so it really is a timing thing it is on our radar but really the call to action is the timing urgency thank you Dr Briant member Higgins I understood that the state made changes on the mandatory time you had to give notice or do something it used to be a lot worse than what it is now but is May the deadline when we have to give notice uh for well Lo layoff so therefore we got the federal issues involved layoff notice a two months notice so I guess that if we don't know in
045may we gotun July be ours has always been driven by what is Alaska state statute it's May 15th is the statutory deadline for laying off 10e teachers and it's the last student day for non- 10e teachers okay member L thanks I just wanted I appreciated the remark by Dr Bryant that ASD is going to share this with our Anchorage delegation do do you have a sense of like when or you know is this a letter that's forthcoming like later this week I don't know if you have a plan mapped out if you could just share and maybe that's a communication item thank you member lesons that's a great question so of course uh Monday is our tentative date to start notifying staff around the displacement process which is a process that happens annually although this
046year is especially consequential because of the number of Staff being impacted so we do have a fairly robust Communications plan in place our first priority is to communicate to our staff because we really need to make sure they hear our compassion and empathy for what this means it's a very disruptive process with that said um what we're trying to do is ensure that our teachers are set up for success in the event that they will need to be moved into a budgeted position versus a position that will need to be eliminated du due to the budget reduction so all of that to say um on Friday the board will receive a preview of what will be communicated to school-based staff as well as talking points an FAQ for what this means and what you can
047uh feel comfortable sharing with community members if you would like um in addition I'd like um to speak directly with the Anchorage delegation and we have a meeting scheduled for Monday morning where I'd like them to know exactly the you know the logistical impacts of this and again to underscore that call to action for we need this as soon as possible because if we delay this too long this could be a multiple month if not multi-year situation we're trying to bring back these staff um if we were to even have the money right so this is very complicated but yes so to put it bluntly or to succinctly rather on Monday they'll receive a couple of documents as well as the a time with myself and Senior staff to talk through the logistical and timing
048ramications for them great speaking perfectly I think that's speaking personally I think that's um super helpful I appreciate knowing that M listens thank you Dr bran any additional discussion on this agenda item hearing seeing none the finance committee has upcoming meetings on 4:24 and 529 there's nothing else done before this committee we will consider ourselves adjourned at 1258 thank you