Wonder Park Elementary Community Town Hall

001foreign [Music] foreign [Music] Hall I want to give a really great thanks to our star producer Grace Elliott over there by the door put the show together we'll stop a K2 Jimmy ways the Browns [Music] for Fort James playing how about for Alan Wicks on the drum [Music] and Mr Steve Nelson on the key is playing for you Justin Smith and we got doc Washington stick around folks and we're playing all night [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] well good evening wonderful Wonder Park All-Star families I'm really glad to see you I want to invite you to coin and come on and have a seat you can move up closer I did eat dinner so I'm not hangry or anything you can move closer to the

002front if you like I think want to thank you for coming to our town hall we're here to hear the proposal that the district's providing to the school board for our future and to give you a chance to ask questions and make comments so and I want to thank Dr stock for being here and School Board member members that have come and we also have senior um Administration from the Ed Center here to present so if you want to come on in and have a seat please come come on in and move to the front and I'll turn it over now to Deputy superintendent stock thank you so welcome everyone I'm Mark stock Deputy superintendent and as we segue into the program one of the things I want to do is to answer a question

003that came up some of you I recognize have been coming to multiple town halls and some of you I know have been watching online and so you've been following it but there was a question asked in our town hall meeting last night that I just wanted to take a second to address one of the questions was has ASD looked at all schools or just elementaries are you looking at everything and the answer is yes we have we've reviewed all the schools we've collected all of the enrollment data we have building condition grades for every facility and building nasd where you've got enrollment projections we have where are the locations of all the students are located and we've looked at all of those factors where we settled was as far as the round one of looking

004at closures is that there are more combinations and more of the small smaller schools that can be combined that are in close proximity to each other that can be Consolidated in addition one of the other factors is whether or not sixth graders do move to the middle school on a transition period over the next couple years and if they do that also affects our abilities to to look at the utilization rates of the middle schools and also others so yes we have looked at all this is what we call round one of closers and as you're going to hear in a minute we have 18 schools that are less than 65 percent or less capacity for utilization and so we're just proposing six is a recommendation that will roll forward but we have looked at

005all of our K-12 schools so with that I would like to introduce Shannon Bingham and Shannon is a folks uh one of the folks who's done a lot of work in school closures and school buildings around the country thank you Dr Stock well good evening everyone um so I'd like to put kind of a front end on our our town hall meeting and talk a little bit about the structure of what uh you'll be seeing tonight we um have a sign up list in the back and after we give a brief uh 15-minute 20-minute presentation everyone will have an opportunity to speak for three minutes and we have a microphone up here this is just the same structure as our board meetings and so everyone will be able to speak the sign up list is

006in the back so if you would like to get your name on that please do so and um um Mr fim is in the back here and he will be our time keeper he will announce when you have 30 seconds left and then call time and we would respectfully ask you to wrap up so that other people can speak um this is the last of six town halls that the district has scheduled addressing the topic of school closure School consolidation we have conducted an efficiency study in the district and looked at the majority of our schools and have identified the need to address efficiency in the district a big part of the reason for that is our financial circumstances we're looking at a 68 million dollar budget shortfall that is really what initiated this examination

007but it's not the only reason we are looking at school efficiency we know we have a large number of schools around the district that are two-thirds full and we have staff that are spread thin and part of what we're trying to address through this process is a way to become more efficient with both the people and the buildings that we have and that has resulted in the identification of a variety of a variety of strategies to try to solve that so before we launch into that I'd like to ask a Jim Anderson to talk a little bit about our financial circumstances and then I'll return and address the national kind of perspective on what's happening with school efficiency and school closure I'm Jim Anderson I'm the CFO I've been in Anchorage School District for about

008seven years so the chart behind me on my left you're right depicts State education funding and and local as part of the formula since fiscal year 17. so on the far left and all the way across the bottom you will see some dark blue bars that that go up and almost all of them except for the very last one say five thousand nine hundred and thirty dollars that's the base student allocation when we determine funding from the state and local community it all starts with the number of students we have in the month of October times five thousand nine hundred and thirty dollars and then it goes through all the rest of the steps in the formula that amount hasn't changed since the first day of school in August of 2016 and every year we've

009been building budgets since then we have started with five thousand nine hundred and thirty dollars per student as the formula if you look above those dark blue bars you will see some gray light blue and on the right some gold that go on top those represent uh fund balance or the district's emergency savings that we've used several times it represents State one-time funding which usually comes three or four months after we pass our budget and then on the far right you'll see the gold colored bars that represent Federal relief dollars that we've had for the last few years on the very top you'll see a red line that goes from left to right and that is annual inflation since fiscal year 17 and it's projected out through FY 24 at two percent um underneath that

010you'll see gaps where the red line was above every other line even the Stacked bars and on those years we closed two schools we Consolidated programs we reduced staff across the district we did adjust people to teach a ratio mostly at high school and a little bit at middle school but for the past seven years we have started every budget season with what else can we cut without breaking the classrooms and and so this past legislative session we started in December I showed pretty much this chart and briefed it to the Anchorage caucus and when they went into session I briefed this chart to the House and Senate committees I breached it to joint committees um and and told everyone in Juneau if you can't fix the BSA this year we are going to have

011a fiscal cliff in fiscal year 24 and we are going to be short well more than 60 million dollars um and and they understood but but for the sixth year in a row they didn't prioritize fixing education funding for the last few years as we had the federal relief dollars from the top of the state on down they were pretty vocal about wait till we run out of federal relief dollars and then we'll work on school funding and now we're there um so as as this session goes in we will continue working with the legislators I know the community at this point is talking to legislators and telling them that education funding is a priority um because Anchorage has always always always given 100 of the max contribution that they're Allowed by law in the

012state for Education this town does support education and continues to support it 100 percent where we have a shortfall is that the state is prioritizing not having education be funded as if it's August of 2016. so that's kind of where we stand so in July I briefed the school board talked about the projected deficit if you look on the far actually we'll skip that chart I'm good with this um so if you look at this chart uh can you go back to the circles sure if you look at this chart you'll see three rings in a circle the auto ring is about nine percent of the district's total costs all of those are outside the schools everything from District admin things that are not pushed down into the schools that's nine percent of all our

013budget if you look in the blue box blue circle that's everything that's in a school or goes to a school and supports a school but isn't a direct core classroom that's about 30 percent of all of asd's budget and the center circle is all those things from software curriculum contracts everything else that allow classrooms to operate gimlet and special ed classrooms and that is 61 percent of asd's budget so we have started on the outer ring working in and that's why we brought up school closures early as we knew that we could not surprise the public in February with school closures and a budget that we had to give people the maximum amount of time not just to talk to us and the school board members of which I I think possibly all of them

014are here tonight but also to legislators because they're going into Juno to start their session in the middle of January and and honestly if they understand that the priority of the community is education funding this session um you know we'll certainly be more hopeful and optimistic but that's kind of where we're standing right now and we will continue through the month of December but everything we put on the board's platter of possible options frankly stinks all of them all of them are bad options from sixth grade band and Orchestra to ignite to immersion to swimming hockey gymnastics everything that that we've put in front of the board and told them this is what this costs are really are are very painful options for somebody who that's the one thing that makes their day that's the

015one reason why that teacher after 20 years is still excited to be a teacher and and we get that and we get that tonight there's going to be a lot of people talking and this is personal it's it's deeply personal to families to children to staff we understand that that this school is a community this school has its own culture the school is is human beings it's not it's not just stuff so um you know we we do want your your um input at the end of this I just hope you understand that that the board has some incredibly difficult choices all of them stink um and and that's kind of where we sit this year thanks thank you Jim so as you can see here we have uh a couple of national situations we

016have a declining birth rate and declining enrollment in this district and that's also happening throughout the western United States I work for a variety of other districts elsewhere I've worked in Alaska for almost 12 years I have been watching enrollment and family sizes decline very markedly during the last eight years and during the pandemic the average Western U.S School District lost about three percent of its enrollment a lot of districts have lost more and very few of those children have returned now this year we had a good year from an enrollment standpoint but a lot of what is in our enrollment numbers are kids that have returned from being off out of in-person learning due to covid and every District around the West that I've worked with has had a bump as children have come

017back some districts have had more children come back than others but for the most part the average loss through the pandemic era is about three percent I'm working with one District that lost nine percent so I think Anchorage has done better than the average as far as recovering a lot of our pandemic enrollment loss but we continue to decline all over the West birth rates are down they're down in Colorado they're down in other Western States they're significantly down in Alaska and in the Anchorage municipality we're down about 750 babies per year so that's a lot of effect on the incoming kindergarten what districts around the West are doing is they're looking at level of service because a lot of those buildings have wound up with fewer children in the average school building and staff

018are spread thin 38 percent of every Elementary School faculty or children that are not general education teachers meaning they're not a fifth grade teacher in front of a room of of fifth grade children they're an occupational therapist or they're a speech therapist or they're a special education teacher or something to that effect and a lot of those folks even art music and PE teachers are teaching in multiple buildings over the course of a week so what we're seeing as school sizes have gotten smaller those folks are spread more thinly and it's a challenge to us from a staffing standpoint also when schools get small we tend to have more volatility grade to grade so we may have 25 children in a first grade 37 children in a second grade 40 children in a third grade

019and then back to 25 children in the next grade so as those ripples move through the system we have a hard time Staffing those and a lot of buildings use combination classrooms where the teacher teaches half a classroom full of second graders and half a classroom full of third graders so not counting the district's Montessori schools we have 67 combination classrooms in the district which is a lot um districts around the West have started to try to see if they can have three section per grade level schools or four section classes per grade level so three third grades three fourth grades three fifth grades or four third grades four fourth grades four fifth grades it Smooths out the Staffing model it gets more adults in the building it increases the amount of support Educators that

020are in every building and so that's been a goal from a staffing and a budgetary from a standpoint for a lot of districts that have dealt with declining enrollment and that is something that we are proposing here by identifying pairs of small schools where we could combine two small schools into one larger attendance area or work to try to create larger schools in areas where we have clusters of small buildings so in the case of Wonder Park willowah and tarmigan we have three buildings where we could in fact have two and that's why your school school has been proposed as a combination candidate um as far as our birth rate goes you can see back in 2016 we had about 4 500 babies born with moms who had an address in the Anchorage municipality and

021by 2020 we had 3 763. that curve I'm seeing over and over again whether I'm in the Seattle area or the Portland area or the Denver area or the Grand Junction Colorado area or wherever I'm working I'm seeing this curve over and over again and families are just getting smaller and a lot of those districts in those areas are reacting to that by proposing the closure of some of their smallest elementary schools and looking at their overall operations elementary middle and high school and try to figure out ways to become more efficient you can see that in addition to expecting fewer children coming to us from the preschool age range we're looking at each one of our existing grades being smaller than it was five years ago so those blue bars are our grade size

022five years ago in 2017 we had 3 758 kindergartners and in the fall of 2022 this year we had 3 199. so every one of these bars showing the difference between our grade size K through seven during the last five years have gotten three to five hundred students smaller in every grade so that's why system-wide we have an efficiency challenge where the average Elementary School building in Anchorage is about two-thirds full according to its rated capacity accordingly we have proposed the closure of six schools that are listed there four of those have two specific repurposing ideas and the reason that we are identifying reclassifying schools as either An Early Childhood Center that would serve preschool-aged children aged three or four or offering those to some of our existing charter schools that have facility challenges are

023we want to hang on to these buildings we do not want to surrender these buildings in case there's an energy or a mineral or a military boom that returns to Anchorage and normalizes our population to where it was 15 or 20 years ago we don't want to be blindsided by losing control of these buildings we can put an un a charter school in a neighborhood school and not have a significant operating cost associated with having that building run as a charter school we we don't pay a significant amount of the operating costs for that so that would that is a true savings for us Early Childhood centers cost significantly less to operate than a K-5 school and we already have a regional strategy for our schools that have a lot of preschools tend to serve

024three attendance areas that are clustered together and we're talking about making that strategy broader for nunaka Valley and Northwood where those schools would serve five or six Elementary School attendance areas and be a building that would be full of a lot of three and four-year-old children research is showing that that strategy has been very effective regarding Wonder Park our repurposed proposal would be Alaska Alaska native cultural Charter School that is the current proposal for what might happen in this building we know that there are families in this neighborhood that might take advantage of that opportunity so that might be a way for some of the um families in this neighborhood could continue at this school if they chose to and this school would continue in Service as a neighborhood facility in that regard what are

025we planning to do with the assignment of children from this neighborhood I don't have my map but what we're proposing is that for students that live east of pine and north of this building which is a line at about East Fourth Avenue there are about 98 children in that area that would attend tarmigan so if you're north of fourth or roughly north of this building and east of pine you would be assigned to Ptarmigan if you live south of fourth and still east of pine you would attend willawa so south of this building east of pine you would go to willawa if you live west of pine and north of fourth you would also go to willawa so that would be the assignment about a hundred children would go to Ptarmigan and about a hundred

026children would go to willawa we have about 82 children that are on Zone exemptions in this building and we would work to keep as many of them as a member of the family as possible but we need to see how the two buildings shake out first and how many people elect to stay with their neighborhood and go to the school that we're suggesting and then we would process the Zone exemptions on an ad hoc basis um so that is what we're proposing for the reassignment of these neighborhoods so with that I'd like to go ahead and initiate the public hearing I think Dr Stock would not to make a comment before we do that yeah just just before we begin I just wanted to acknowledge some folks I Dr Brian our superintendent is in the

027back he is here uh board member Kelly lessons I see Kelly here our board president Margot Bellamy I saw her somewhere look over here okay uh Carl Jacobs I see Carl in the back vice president and uh Dave Donnelly is sitting right here and Pat Higgins I think I saw Pat here okay and did I miss Andy and there's Andy Holloman thank you did I miss any I missed we got one more didn't see her yet okay thank you Shannon great thank you Mark so I'll go ahead and start calling upon people again the microphone is right up here um we have a variety of people we think we have everyone in this room if you have a complicated question please feel free to ask it we have Jim Anderson who could answer Financial questions

028Dr Mark stock that can answer academic questions regarding programs we have um oh we have Rob Holland who can answer Transportation questions operational questions if you have any questions about the age and condition of the buildings that we are talking about and then we have Eric viste who is our senior director for education programs who can answer all sorts of questions about that I think tarlisha Wayne is still in the audience who can answer questions about special education programs so we think we have a room full of folks who can answer questions um so with that I'd like to call on Lika McCauley followed by William P on Deck please good evening thank you my name is Lika McCauley and I'm the principal at Willow Elementary School I'm a 20-year employee of the district and

029I have seen budget crisis as before I've been displaced myself twice personally and it's always a really difficult situation for all parties involved and so it's it's very unfortunate our state of public education funding at this time and really my main comment tonight is that we would work together and try to address the root cause of this concern which is um State funding for education in Alaska I've never seen a budget crisis this severe and with this so many of our students are impacted and I'm just encouraging everybody to work with the public officials and do what you can to promote change I do want to say specifically willowah has had a long tradition of welcoming any family that comes through our doors and that Willow will continue to welcome any family that comes through

030our doors and that we get the honor of being able to work with this is definitely a time that's filled with a lot of heartache and so I know that the school board specifically has some really difficult decisions to make and we're wishing you all well during this difficult time too so I don't have any questions just comments and just saying that it's obvious by the showing in this room that the children of this community are our hearts and that's why I say let's not stop here here we can say anything we want to tonight and you know use this public process but we can also engage with our legislators in Juneau and continue to ask for fair and predictable funding for our students they're worth it thank you Lika William P followed by Sarah

031benefit good evening so there's about 281 students in this school you guys say that there's maybe approximately about four thousand dollars allocated to each student per year minimum a thousand because you know the feds give you guys money state gives you guys money and Immunity gives you guys money just at a minimum of four thousand dollars that's one point one million dollars for this school alone for the students school doesn't look like I've seen a million dollars every year for the students every kid should have a laptop or iPad or something in their classroom you guys are driving 80 000 cars right where's that million dollars at if you guys have put it up but according to the educational data of The Institute it says to get nineteen thousand dollars per student that would put

032it at um five million dollars for this school where's that money going I mean it's per the students not for payroll for the the teachers for this school where's that money at I'm just curious and the financial officer guy you knew you were coming into a budget before you took this job you should have had a plan and if you had a plan did you implement it and is your plan working because the problem should have been solved within two years if you knew if you had a strategic plan to go ahead and address this situation correct and um I mean because if you have a business and you hire somebody to come take care of that problem for two years and they still haven't took care of that problem two years or you can

033continue paying them absolutely not and um another quick thing we should be able to see the chief financial officers uh taxes we should be able to see his income because if he's supposed to handle our school's payroll and our financial we should see how he handles his that's only fair um to the public because it's the school district everybody pays into this you know I mean you guys want to close the school if you can't get the kids to school now with the bus situation how are you going to get 1800 more kids in school makes no sense you guys are using Greyhound buses to transport kids to sporting events that's a waste of money this guy right here he sat here and talked about statistics in other states they had nothing to do with

034Anchorage Alaska or wonder Park Elementary that was an absolute waste of time wasting all of our time see what I mean that paid him an hour's worth of commission um fifty thousand dollars a year for kids to have an app on their phone to tell all they got to do is go to the neighbor hey man teacher this kid's bothering me and you're gonna pay 50 000 a year for that really you guys keep smiling man you guys have a great day I'm done thank you William I'd like to call on Sarah benefit followed by Ariel Solis I would like to start off by saying that willawa is a place that warmly welcomes everyone and is so excited to Welcome Friends from Wonder Park what I would like to address is the possible movement of

035special programs that have and continue to be greatly benefit from being at willowa I am the elementary listening and spoken language teacher in the only Regional listening and spoken language program in the district that is housed at willawa along with the preschool listening and spoken language program I am always available for my students in this unique and necessary program and one of the core values is to teach and use self-advocacy skills and I am here today advocating for my students one purpose is to help students or sorry our purpose is to help students to experience hearing loss learn about language willow also has a very strong English language learner population it is one of the highest percentages of Elementary English language learner population sorry percentage of Elementary ell population identified at 50 and is a

036natural fit to support the needs of our students with hearing loss both programs great greatly benefit from one another and have similar goals additionally our Purpose with our students with hearing loss is to create an understanding of their equipment and how to advocate for themselves I have seen firsthand the amazing progress students can make through having consistent professionals and expectations in their lives around the school that help make this happen our students have a sense of confidence and ownership because of the consistency they experience at willawan I am so proud of my students and the growth they have made and continue to use these skills across the whole school additionally having the link the listening and spoken language preschool and the LSL Elementary programs housed in the same building is beneficial in keeping continuity for

037students who attend the elementary program Willow is a natural fit for the LSL programs and if they were to move to different locations it would be a detriment to the students who are served in them Willow has been and continues to be a safe place for our students with hearing loss to feel accepted and to advocate for themselves and where teachers and staff already have an understanding of their hearing loss and how to Foster these skills in our students our students need consistency and exposure to consistent language which will provides their culture is accepted included and celebrated by staff and students it would be a serious detriment to everything they have worked toward if their program is moved thank you for your consideration and as always we say at willawa we are safe we are

038calm and we can handle this thank you Sarah Ariel Solis followed by Jenny floor uh simoun good evening I'm speaking on behalf of Addie Esco our counselor my initial reaction when I looked at the list of schools considered for closure was heartbeat because five of the six schools on the list are Title One schools mine included as a counselor my mind starts to race as I think of the unique challenges faced by the students and families in these School communities they are some of our most vulnerable this is not an equitable Choice Title 1 students need stability familiarity and accessible resources in my 10 years in clinical medical health and School counseling I have told Educators and parents that the single best thing you can do for a child is provide a safe consistent and

039predictable environment those protective factors pay high dividends moving a highly vulnerable group of students into a new environment increases vulnerability our district has an entire department children in transition whose goal is to minimize the changes in school setting when there are disruptions in other areas of the student's life this department exists because we see the value that consistency in a school environment provides we cannot change what occurs in our students lives at home but we do have the ability to offer stability in the school environment and decrease loss of learning this is one factor we can impact we offer stability we offer stability by making a different Choice many students are part of families where students play the role of caretakers for their younger siblings they are responsible for getting themselves up in the morning

040helping their siblings get ready and hopefully getting to school how can we expect students to attendance to improve with busing and further distances to walk if a student misses their bus then they miss school completely and the option of walking is no longer available or Theirs to make these students are form far more likely to be chronically missing school if their neighborhood school is no longer nearby I have heard the statement that there will be staff members that transition with students so that will help we don't know how many staff members will transition with our kids not considering what the familiarity with a specific Place provides students and a family on your place students know where to go where to access help and find comfort in familiar sights sounds and even smells with trauma and

041adverse experiences in student lives we cannot discount the power that familiarity provides additionally without close neighborhood schools we lose the benefit of historical knowledge these places hold many families have attended here for generations and staff even with transitions of Staff have historical knowledge of the families their needs and experiences this knowledge helps minimize the likelihood of students falling through the cracks relationships are an integral part of how and how and if resources are utilized I've heard the statement that students will have access to more recesses they need this this discounts ease and accessibility if people are not connected and comfortable with the system they are less likely to reach out and ask for help how will this help them get those resources I plead with the school board to face these factors and the significant

042needs represented in these neighborhoods communities are not overlooked or taken lightly this is not a simple solution thank you for your time and I hope you consider this statement foreign [Music] sorry I'm not reading there you are welcome hi good uh good evening I'm Jenny floor and that's my kids go to school here in Wonder Park I have three kids and the uh there's two of them we go to school here and my husband and I talk about like they're saying that the school is they're going to close so we're really felt bad and you know I just sharing my experience because this school is always feel at home and I always um I'm always like confident to send my kids to school every day because because I feel still safe and I know we're

043having a hard time about budget our school but you know maybe we can find something something I don't know I don't know about it's not my job to to find a fun but you know maybe we can do donate or ask for a different you know like uh um like uh a lot of businessman people that we can ask for a donation I used to work in gas station and uh Sherborne like the shepherd like they're saying they donate for school and I'm so proud because you know my kids go to school and I feel like oh okay I even know I pay I have a low pay but you know I feel good because my kids have those donations like everything I don't know what what kind of donation might the Chevron give it

044to to the Disco District but I feel I feel sad that uh his school is going to close but you know and I'm having uh we're hoping my husband having a hard time to to to um drop off our kids if either like we're sending to the other other school because you know me and my husband both working so sometimes I I have to I have to um call in that's I mean I I'm not gonna go to work to set my kids so hopefully we can figure out this well thank you thank you Timmy Flor um L Booth or Laura booth sorry I'm not doing well reading um hi my name is Lola Boot and I'm here to represent Destiny and Jason Lee snowing they go to school here this is their home uh

045they've been going to school here since they was Kindergarten you know like my biggest factor is if you close this school how is the kids in this community going to get to school that walk to school you're already having trouble getting them to school now as it is you know like and then my nephew he he's he's a little slow you know like how is he going to get the extra help that he needs that the teachers take have time today to help him if you go to put him in a bigger classroom with more students I mean I just I don't understand it like you all this is your job like you know look look around look around and all these kids this is our future this is our future if we take them

046out of a smaller school where they get the help they need and put them into a bigger school they're not going to get it they're going to get left behind but they're already behind so much because of kovic and then you're all going to go do this it's going to make them even farther behind the ones that's already behind I mean that's that's just all I have to say thank you I'm just here to support our school this is their home thank you so much Elisa spirit is followed by Lisa Nath please Alicia good evening everyone um I really appreciate you guys like you know with all this information from the looks of it it's really good it really looks good like you know the way you guys are presenting it to us but I

047want you to consider the distraction or this organization this would cause the families Title One families these are the kids that's going to be going to another school with that with what we're already dealing with kids with you know behaviors because of what's going on at home and that's another burden to you know to them also I have a question I've been working with the district for quite a while now what I see consistently consistently is the changes in academic curriculum why do we have to need to change the academic curriculums like math reading why do we have to change that it doesn't translate to academic performance Improvement are we changing the academic curriculum because of the testing standards are we how much money is involved in these things there's a lot of wastage in

048those I know that for sure I've been working with teachers and I know how much effort they put in mastering this new curriculum only to change after a few years consistency what happens to our kids when we're not consistent with what we're teaching we keep changing do you really think we're going to have a good academic Improvement that's my question to you guys thank you Alicia neither Dr stock or Eric Could you um answer our curriculum question could one of you um answer Alicia's question that the district does have a rotating schedule over a 10-year period of trying to upgrade curriculums as they changed as the years go by so it does have a cycle of curriculum and we do budget certain pieces of money for to be able to to do that when they

049come around and so I understand the questions about consistency prior to the recent reading program teachers pretty much had to design and do their own things and and so what we've done is tried to provide more consistency by purchasing curriculums for the all the teachers to use so you didn't have to to go and design their own but there is a cost to that it's not a very significant cost in the the overall District's budget but it is it is a cost and we do try to upgrade those as we go and so there's a 10-year cycle and we go through and we we look at those as they come along so as far as other questions about help there was a question raised about whether whether students would get support and help and tutoring

050and things that they may be getting at Wonder Park when they go to the new schools just want to make a point in case anyone wants to they've been asking us questions about the flow of of what we call Title one dollars so the federal government provides title one dollars from a that goes to Alaska Alaska then divides those up to all the districts in Alaska and then Anchorage gets that pot of money and then There Are Rules from the feds about how we distribute that we do have some some variability in how we do that so once we know what schools may or may not be closed and once we know which students are going to which schools we are going to do everything we can to work with those thresholds because the dollars

051do not follow children special ed dollars follow children when a special needs student has an IEP and special needs the dollars that need needs to fund that go with the child wherever that child's program is or wherever they are title one's different the monies go to the school not to Children then the monies are distributed from the from the school to serve the children in that school so we'll do everything we can to make sure any support being given to wonder Park students will follow we'll do that for all the schools that are being looked at we can lower the thresholds to be able to make sure more schools get that money we can adjust the dollar amounts that go to secondary to Elementary so I just wanted to let you know that as far

052as support for students who are economically disadvantaged which is what title one dollars go to we will make sure that those students get service thank you Dr Stock Lisa naff followed by Ladonna Reese good evening my name is Lisa naff and I'm a special education teacher at willowball elementary school I want to start by saying that if the board does decide to merge one to park with Wallowa I know that our staff will welcome both Wonder Park colleagues and students with because this is the heart of willable and nobody knows that better than especially than the special ed staff Willow wall classrooms welcome all students regardless of race religion gender socioeconomic background or disability Willow has four structured learning classrooms with a total of four teachers 12 paraprofessionals and 40 students we have a wonderful

053new occupational therapy room to support our students sensory needs and a magnificent team across School settings that have worked diligently and devotedly to learn how to best meet the needs of our students educational and emotional needs in my case my paraprofessional team and I support the inclusion of our special education population into general education settings along alongside their typically developing peers I oversee 15 kindergarten through fifth grade students with full-time IEPs some of my students are verbal and some of them use assistive technology as special education students not only just access recess lunch and specials alongside their typically developing peers they are also accessing academic curriculum this is the heart of Willow constantly wanting to do better to meet the needs of all students watching our students be successful in a general education setting is

054amazing and I can't imagine sending them back into a structured Learning Classroom when they have made such great gains and growth it would be taking 10 step backwards and a huge disservice to each child and their family so I am here advocating for them I am also here advocating for the special education students that aren't ready to include yet but the model that Willow has so beautifully crafted allows each student with a disability to have access to a supportive general education setting when they are ready the willow well School culture is one where abilities are highlighted and not their disability this culture has been shaped over many years and requires ongoing staff and student support my special education students are a part of the general education education classroom just as much as the next student

055and the structured learning program is just as much as that part of our school family as is kindergarten or the fourth grade students what the board is proposing in their budget cuts is to take away the SLC program and relocate it this seems unfair and almost sporting bordering on illegal would you relocate can relocate kindergarten or third grade what the board is proposing suggests that our special education students don't deserve their school our most vulnerable population within a title one school is targeted to be pulled from their School general education peers and a staff that is understanding and experienced in meeting the needs of this special population students with autism struggle with change in building friendships what this board proposed is proposing entails new bus routes new building layouts to navigate new educational Team new

056therapists new peers and a new school culture that I can only hope will welcome them as warmly as will award does Willow culture of inclusion didn't happen overnight teaching special education is hard you just have to look at the number of jobs job openings to know that these these teaching positions are a challenge to fill what makes working at Walla wall work for us as an educational team is that we as special education teachers and paraprofessionals are part of that fabric just like any supportive family we can reach out to our amazing Administration and our colleagues when the board is proposing also what the board is proposing also will take away my support network that I have built and need and I need we need to best need meet meet the needs of our jobs

057thank you for your attention Thank you Lisa Ladonna Reese followed by Alice Banks good evening I have a script but that was a hard one to follow so thank you for coming and thank you for listening to our concerns my name is Ladonna Reese and I'm a special education teacher expert formerly a department chair and I've been in the special ed field for 35 years and I've supported Willow off for 13 of those years and I know a lot about the heart and the community of and I'm really here to speak for our parents and our staff which when I walked in I started to cry because there were so many parents and staff here I was just kind of overwhelmed by it but first let me tell you guys Wonder Park if you get

058assigned to willowai you've won the lottery You Will Be Loved what she said is true and you will be accepted and it's a wonderful community but board I'm speaking on behalf of like I said the willowa students with disabilities Willow has two Regional programs and you've heard about the listening spoken language program it's the only one in Anchorage School District and that is a pre-k through five for our kids with hearing loss it's the only one in Anchorage and we have two special ed teachers and two Paras the original um they've all been trained and the students and staff already understand hearing loss and what our students with hearing loss may need the other Regional program at Willow is for structured learning we have the biggest in Anchorage School District with 40 plus kids at

059this point four teachers and 12 Paras and a lot of those staff are even here right now and they love our students that's a total of six classrooms that's my understanding that you're Pro posing to displace I understand that the school board not only plans to geographically displace Wonder Park out of necessity but also plans to displace those two pre-ex existing programs at willawa and the title one preschool from their own school what you suggest would be so hard for our students family and staff this is their school too I find myself at a loss of words but I know this is wrong on many many many levels practically I could go on and on about how our students need structures in Wonder Park your school counselor did such amazing job I kind of wanted

060to use her script but they're vulnerable and they need they need us but it will allow you would see our students included in the general education setting with special ed students for academic blocks not just recess not just specials this inclusion has taken us a long time but this is who willowai is you will see non-verbal students sitting with their Talkers in a gen Ed setting with their gen Ed peers at willawa we have about 15 30 seconds SLC students included in the General Ed setting inclusion is the real deal at willowa as you can imagine the work of our special educator is challenging and the turnover rate is high you have even approved signing bonuses to hire more special ed teachers and pairs this year and you've even given a one-time bonus for those

061coming one thing that I know for sure about special education is that a consistent loving School community makes a difference and we have that Wonder park for their students too if you haven't gathered by now I plead with you to reconsider moving 62 students with disabilities from a title one school to bring in a hundred new thank you Thank You Madonna Alice Banks followed by Bert hodeling [Applause] there is one clarification I'd like to make I know a number of speakers more than one I've mentioned the phrase that it's the board's proposal this is not the board's proposal the administration is the one that's proposing a series of recommendations that one this is just one of many and and the board of course has the hard job of trying to sort through all that but

062I just want to point out the board isn't proposing these things at this point they're aware of them we've been briefing a lot of these things since July but just to clarify that it's the administration itself those of us that are hired by them to put these ideas together we've proposed a package of ideas and the board will weigh in on that so those aren't decisional that we've made these are recommendations and I just want to point out the board hasn't proposed these things these are coming from admin thank you I understand this is hard for everybody involved I've had over 30 years of children in ASD I've been working for ASD for seven years at this school and a couple years before that my family chose to move to the Wonder Park area I

063got displaced initially and so that was a blessing though because then I got to come and be a part of this neighborhood Wonder Park is my home and yes it is personal you mess with my kids you mess with me sorry but the thing is there have been so many things that we as a Wonder Park family have worked on and worked on and worked on I've gotten to know a lot of these kids from when they were first here and now they've gone on and I love them I love them and you've guys got to understand what is going to happen when those bonds are broken whether they go to tarmigan or willawa thank you willowa for being here and encouraging us and I'm sure that if that's where God leads us it will

064work that way but my faith is strong that regardless of who's in charge that the best is going to come the thing is we as a willow wall I mean as I'm sorry as a Wonder Park Community have um put a lot into our kids our kids feel at home here I feel at home here this summer we were a couple of staff we were able to start working on a family garden or a summer garden and the fifth graders they were they're fourth graders last year fifth graders this year they were so excited about it they got out there and they dug and they dug and they pulled weeds and they planted potatoes and all kinds of things and this year they were saying oh let's do it next year I really want to

065do it next year so what are we going to say to them sorry thank you Alice uh Bert totaling followed by Megan Paulson please hi my name is Bert hufftelling and I drove all the way in from the Matsu Valley to be here for your very last town hall meeting I'm really confused how you here in Anchorage knowing for nearly a decade that the population has been declining in the the student base that you weren't already pre-planning for this and structuring the school district to address the issue of declining population your student-based allocation or your base student allocation is is what funds the schools to operate and if you have less students you get less money this should have already been pre-planned for long before this day come and this big long sixth string of

066town hall meetings that you've performed here before all of us in the Matsu Valley they've done great steps of removing what many in America today are calling the wok indoctrination agenda from the school system something that the Anchorage school district has not done in fact two years ago when the initiative to take the words critical race Theory and put it into the ordinance that was being passed by the school board at that time just those three little words weren't even allowed to be introduced into the language for the diversity inclusion and Equity that it has now been rebranded as these kind of were more concerned it seems about how much money we stick into our pockets as Educators and as administrators and into the school's budget then we are providing a quality education Alaska is

067ranked the worst in the nation for providing an education the only Scholastic scores that came out just about two weeks ago for the last testing shows that we're nearly triple the cost cost of anywhere else in the nation to operate yet we still perform the worst what happened to the inspirational people out there like the movie Stand and Deliver brought to us all and the teachers that brought a performance and an expectation on our students to achieve greatness I do not see that from our educational organization that we have here before us today I have not seen it in Alaska for a very long time I am born and raised here I was in the school district of Anchorage from all the way through elementary through high school and thankfully I was able to leave

068Anchorage and go to the Matsu Valley where at least they care about the parents out there and their Viewpoint and the education that their children are getting instead of the industration what if any solutions have been brought forward other than closing schools I'm all for the closures of these schools all six of them re-brewed it back into the classroom your budgets right now are outrageous 17 500 on average per student you have a 5 000 less students going to school right now that's nearly 100 million dollar drop there's your 68 million dollars that you're short you knew this was coming for the last decade why didn't you plan ahead thank you thank you Bert um Megan Paulson followed by John Burnett's please Megan Paulson Paulson I'm a preschool teacher at Walla Walla Elementary I'm here

069tonight to advocate for our neighborhood preschool program to stay in its current location when I first heard that Wonder Park would be closing their student and their students would be joining our Walla Walla School family I was ready to welcome them but I soon realized that we don't have the space to do so I learned there would be programs that would need to leave to make room for our new students our structured learning classrooms hard of hearing program and our preschool would need to leave to make this happen this breaks my heart I've been a preschool teacher at Willow Elementary for 13 years some of my first students are in high school now and many of the parents are here in this audience thank you for coming this District's neighborhood preschool program was established 20

070years ago at Northstar and willawa has been in our community for 18 years and has served around 280 families the district's plan for next year I would be to take our program to nanaka Elementary where we would remain a title one preschool but willawa preschool would cease to exist and the school would become a Preschool Academy and would serve students ages three and four my students would not be in a school with their siblings their parents would have to drop them off at two different locations at two different times sorry I'm emotional these are my families many parents are unable to write transportation in this case many students would not attend school this is a burden for families funds would need to be put in place to provide the services for them next year I

071fear that this move would be such a burden that families would just keep their children at home a preschool program is part of a larger School community the way our program is designed we have many opportunities to get to know families like home visits and family engagements this makes a lasting impression on families who will be a part of our school family for the next six years the kindergarten classrooms are right across the hallway we work closely with teachers to prepare our students for transition to kindergarten our students are role models in their kindergarten classroom because they've been through our program students from other grades come to support in our classroom is a benefit for them as well as my students and years past we have had fifth graders come and do activities with them

072my students will miss out on all these things being in a standalone building I hope you will consider keeping Willow preschool in a certain location and um I know that numbers are dwindling but willowaza numbers are not our preschool is always full and we always have a wait list thank you thank you Megan John burnitz followed by Sharon Meacham please hi thank you good evening I was here last in front of you last night I'm going to be trying to be a little bit more articulate tonight I'm not from here I'm from the Inlet View Community and I think I'm here to talk to you all to tell you there's another source of money that could make everything you're dealing with here tonight easier in the view of the school it's a great school I

073love the community I've been there for 30 years but they're proposing a new building the building is going to cost it the the school board and the members are here um they set aside 37 million dollars for a brand new building right so in the view is um one of the most needy schools in the community for renovation um but I think in our budget times when we have these constraints you should not be building a new building I don't think anyone here thinks that you could save I think upwards of 10 to 20 million dollars remodeling the old school as opposed to building a brand new building the design for the new buildings is a two-store building it expands it it's an amazing building but we simply can't afford it so when I'm asking

074people here to do and thank you for this forum is to go to the school board meeting on December 5th all the board members are here they're hearing me now hopefully you'll have their backs and and ask that interview be changed from a new building to our model that way you can use some of that money to do anything you can do here maybe keep the school open maybe keeping some of the schools open and it's it's a very reasonable request it's I think the school board meeting is at the Lucic library is that true is that where it is okay he's on the board you can tell by the big signs it says that um so uh finally it's probably not very hard to find out where to go you can go and show

075up and just um support the renovation as opposed to the new building I'm one of the few people of the Inland View Community here tonight talking about this but at the school board meeting there'll be upwards of like 20 to 30 family members that want a brand new building I understand that I would want a brand new building for my students also but if you look at the whole picture it's not really fair to the other schools and I want to end with that I mean I've sort of said what I wanted to say but I want to end with that it is a real tragedy that you're competing one school against the other and I think probably everyone here agrees with that especially probably these people um I think everyone here would want more

076money so I just wanted to put that on the record um finally again repeating it December 5th school board meeting support a Renovations as opposed to a brand new building thank you thank you John Sharon Meacham followed by Maddie nanson hey Shannon can I clarify real quick um just to clarify for everyone um the the board has not decided to rebuild Inlet View with 37 million dollars it is it is certainly on the table for their decision on the fifth so just just to clarify well that's not clarifying it quite accurately they've set aside they have they've received upwards of 100 million dollars in funding they set aside 37 million dollars on the last meeting to this meeting specifically signed for Inlet View correct during the discussion a couple months ago when they decided to

077set it aside the discussion was um we knew we had a few more students this year so we were going to get a little bit more Revenue we didn't know how much at that point in time we knew that we had a lot of vacancies so but we didn't know how much we were going to be able to do through cost avoidance so they intentionally set it aside to give us time and space to figure out our new Revenue projection and our expenses through the rest of the year and we'll be presenting that to them on the fifth prior to the board meeting so they're more informed before they get to the meeting to to make what what may be what you described which is um possibly part of it goes towards um the general

078fund to help for fiscal year 24 but they have not made a decision I did want to make that clear it's just there's a lot of things on their plate to talk about that's that's one of about 20. but that's why everyone should go in the fifth because that money is still available for schools like this one thank you thank you John [Applause] uh good evening my name is Sharon Meacham and I am also a neighbor at Inlet View and I am a retired Elementary School principal here in Anchorage and I've been through many of these painful budget cuts during my tenure and none of them are fun and there's always pain so uh with that I'd like to reiterate what John just said and that is to encourage you to go over to the

079board meeting on the 5th and express your concerns about Wonder Park and any other potential cuts the money that has been set aside to consider all of the incoming possibilities are there's a potential that the new building for or that their their potential is that there could be money going toward a brand new building for Inlet View which at this moment it doesn't look like we have the money for so with that I'm just asking everyone if they have had serious consideration of a remodel at interview freeing up money and if not why not and I would encourage you to do that so maybe some of that money would mitigate some of these Draconian Cuts thank you thank you Sharon um Maddie nanson followed by Pasa Malia tufo Elia tufa good evening my name is

080Marty nansen and I am a proud Willow parent of not one but two boys one of whom is this little guy right here this is Jeremiah say hi Jeremiah Jeremiah's is in the preschool program he's looking awesome in there he's thriving he's ready for kindergarten he's gonna kick butt I also have another and I have another baby he's eight his name is Noah he's in an SLC program at willawa coincidentally these two programs are some of the programs you plan on removing from Willow I don't know how and why that would even be on the table for a chopping block to remove our most youngest and the most vulnerable ones from our school they belong there to put them in a whole another building that just doesn't make sense I thought we were all about

081inclusivity to include our special needs kiddos and these little guys who are having are enjoying their first year at their school they need the kindergarten's first graders second graders third graders they need that role model our special need kiddos they're having a hard time as it is they're dealing with diagnosis that they didn't even ask for in the first place and here you are making it hard for them to move forward they're they're trying to break barriers as it is please don't be like covet and interrupt what we're what we got going on over there right now I feel for the families of Wonder Park you talk about Solutions there is no solution in this you talk about repurposing these these schools that you're closing proposing to close what's wrong with the purpose that they're

082serving now they still you Mr Shannon you talk about declining birth rate declining enrollment what about the kids that are still showing up every day the parents that are still bringing their kids to school every day the teachers who are we all know don't make as much as you guys they're still showing up every day they still matter not everyone wants to make kids I mean look at the problem we're having who wants to make kids right now what about the kids that we have today please reconsider what you're proposing thank you thank you Madi pasta Malia tufa followed by James Rosa small work small wool good evening gentlemen ladies and gents my name is I've been in Wonder Park parent grandparents for over 10 years Wonder park it was the first school my children

083have attended now the two older one have gone on to high school in the Anchorage District now I am a grandparent I have four lovely grandchildren they all attend one park home of the All-Stars when I heard that Wonder Park was on the list as one of the school to be closing it broke my heart the staff the students we are all a family being here for more than 10 years you are a family I live in the community I left the islands to bring my children out here to have a great education I am my parents that I don't play with education the staff here knows that even Middle School Clark Bartlett High School they know I'm a parent there my children they know better why because that is the front line they tell

084them education don't play with it especially with a parent that education is your life I was searching on the internet I got on there and I got the Alaska Public School report card I looked over in Wonder Park and looked at Willow wall williwa is right behind me I am not against it we are all families but what I'm against is that combining School my greatest concern is that classroom sizes students within the class and we just saw the slide we are very thin and teachers we're short of staff combining two schools 30 seconds I'm sorry for them but the thing is that I'm not I'm not with it I want my child to grow up and have the teachers there with them to teach them and I hear that building structures what is it

085that we have the building Structure brand new million dollar instructors maintenance that is your biggest fault maintenance why not just revive the old school time please buildings and there I'ma leave you with this what are we to gain saving all this money trying to get to that 68 million budget and we do not have the staff to equip our children for their future thank you thank you pasa um James and Rosa Smallville I think hi my name is Rosa Smallwood and I am a first grade teacher over at Fairview Elementary and I just have to say one thing I do have to disagree with one of the gentlemen that just came up from Matsu Valley but even being a first grade teacher I just had my third observation and I held very very high expectations

086for all of my I have to do this stuff on my tippy toes can you hear me I I have very high expectations for all of my students in fact that was one of the things that um my principal said is that yes I have high expectations but they're reachable for my students I had very uh she sees very few misbehaviors in my classroom and that's because I teach them the expectations from the beginning uh you know like from the first day of school so there are teachers out there like me still here in the Anchorage School District so um as far as you closing the schools of course I was really distraught to hear that but at the same time working at Fairview Elementary we have kindergarten teachers burdened with 27 almost 30 kindergarteners

087and we don't have enough teachers to help them to minimize those classroom sizes but what I have and this is to my knowledge it is to my knowledge that kindergarten is not a mandatory thing in the state of Alaska and so being a first grade teacher over the last two years I have seen children come to me for first grade for the first time they didn't go to preschool they didn't go to kindergarten they arrive in first grade with no social emotional awareness they have no experience at all and to top that off things that would have been caught in their preschool or maybe even in kindergarten such as speech delays or special you know special abilities that they need they those things are not diagnosed and they are not even recommended until first grade

088which is absolutely ridiculous if you guys would make preschool a priority here in the state of Alaska they can I do have to say this I was also a preschool teacher and I had an in-home preschool for over 10 years so I've worked with these children and I understand that if you teach them from a very young age put them in those social environments they are going to be successful and if you make kindergarten a priority these parents will have to bring their kids to school you guys could raise your enrollment by making kindergarten a priority and you would also make it a less stressful environment for those coming into the first grade so you just have to start when they're young you guys need to make preschool a priority kindergarten a priority and um

089we need some truancy officers I have plenty of students that just don't come to school for no for whatever reason 30 days in a quarter which is absolutely ridiculous we have no truancy office officers we have nothing like that to make sure that these kids are going to school Shannon James go ahead I don't know if you signed up together okay thank you I was just going to address a couple of comments about we've had two speakers mention class sizes and I just wanted to to point out that that the school closures uh are not an impact specifically on class sizes it's the same number of students same number of Staff in different rooms okay or different facilities but if class sizes do rise it will be because as a community as a board as

090an Administration we haven't been able to reduce expenditures or find enough ones sizes the One-Stop areas of Revenue to actually deal with the pupil teacher ratio in the district and the district has had to over time raise a pupil teacher ratios which is a Formula we use to give teachers to each School site and if if class sizes do rise they aren't going to be because of closures it'll be because we haven't been able to get our balanced budget enough through other means that we've had to go to raising class sizes but it won't be related to a school closer and preschool and kindergartens are priorities for us for pre-k we do have to go through a lot of Hoops to braid funds and use monies from different grants and sources but Pre-K is a

091priority for us which feeds into kindergarten as far as preschool also preschool needs to be full-time there's so many parents that would love to have their children go to a preschool for just a half day but as a child care provider of 10 years I can tell you we don't take part-time children so if they can't be there full day we're going to take a full day child over a part day child which means parents would opt to just keep their kids at home so if you do do like a preschool program thing like you wanted to in the schools make it a full-time program because that's what the parents need they can't afford half day they just can't do that thank you Russell uh MJ can you set to three for James please I

092didn't count for James yet okay great thanks I'm waiting for James James hello James hello everyone uh I do have a question just for clarification um so I believe this school um the fifth grade or sixth graders would go to they would normally go to Clark right is that is that the case they would normally go to Clark so when you split them up to from willowah and Ptarmigan well the kids from Ptarmigan be heading towards baggage and then the kids from Willow be heading towards Clark at sixth grade so one thing that we're proposing and and the reason we can't answer that yet one thing we're proposing to the board is to move all six graded Elementary to middle schools and there's a lot of reasons that that Mark could talk about as to

093why we're in the whole District right so it's going to happen over probably two years at least maybe three but when we move all sixth grade to Middle School we're going to reboundary because the current boundaries um still don't quite impact Central at all or Mirror Lake and until we've redrawn the new boundaries which we will do if the board approves sixth grade to middle school then we're going to be able to see where the new boundaries are for Middle School is that is that going to be coming up on the next meeting too about the after the board votes and and then we'll be working on the sixth grade to Middle School boundaries in fact we'll be starting in the next week we did have to get through these Town Halls we've got three

094town halls next week and then we'll be shifting over to start looking at the sixth grade to middle school and then after that in the new year uh it'll be uh school start times okay and James I show everybody going to Clark so willawa Wonder Park uh uh to Clark and uh so I don't think anything would change okay I was just curious if there was that to that change and I do just do I do have one comment I know I probably only have 30 seconds left but um I grew up in this I grew up in this neighborhood and this was actually the school that I I was in back in the 80s and so when I first heard about the budget and that schools were closing and I was hoping to God

095that I wasn't going to see Wonder Park on there but it was on there and it's very it's very heartbreaking to see that that um that we're at this point I understand the school board have some some major uh decisions that they're going to have to make concerning what schools need to be closed and who's going to remain open I know at one point there was a discussion about remodeling the school or even rebuilding the school and I know that's off the table now but I do need to point out that uh the reason one of the the main reason why that this school is closing is because it's all about who you elect and for those people who are not advocating for Education out there in Juneau don't vote for them vote for those

096who are going to be fighting for our schools and I don't even see uh I know I know we had some legislators up here that's been fighting for our schools and um I don't see one of the legislators that should be here that's not fighting for our schools we got legislators over there are fighting for schools but but if they're not going to fight for our schools don't vote for him this is a result of us voting in the wrong people into office thank you thank you James Joel Potter followed by Laura Carpenter please I'm a guest from new Naka Valley the main reason for closing Wonder Park and five other elementary schools is not because it saves the district money in fact the consolidating schools will actually reduce formula funding and eventually cost The

097District in Lost Revenue instead the reason is because the district is trying to meet the demands of politicians who are unwilling to adjust the BSA until the district right sizes their infrastructure by closing schools speaking of politicians in Juneau here's what Mr Anderson said at a joint work session with the school board and the municipality quote there have been people every year saying when are you going to start right-sizing which can be defined a lot of different ways but in their minds you still have a lot of schools under capacity and they don't feel comfortable giving us more money until they think we've made all the steps we can do to be as efficient as we can there are a lot of people in Juneau that expect us to try and maximize our efficiency consolidating

098in order to meet political demands is the wrong way to approach school closures it causes the district to choose political expediency over sustainable cost savings and to pursue unprincipled and non-transparent processes for solving the budget shortfall if political expediency was the primary wasn't the primary objective would the closure of six elementary schools with temporary cost Savings of only 4 million be the only concrete recommendation on the table at this point to fill a 60 to 68 million dollar budget Gap would the district be planning to move a charter into this building that has 30 fewer students this year than Wonder Park Elementary does would the district be moving forward for a vote in less than two weeks to allocate over 37 million for the total rebuild of one of the smallest schools in the district

099serving one of the most affluent and politically connected neighborhoods in Anchorage the district has accepted the terms of a particular political vantage point that reductively translate efficiency into increased capacity rates but is it efficient if far fewer students can walk to school and many more will have to be bust is it efficient if it is harder for teachers to connect with parents because they don't come by to drop off their kids at the door is it efficient if we see an increase in classroom Behavior discipline problems and crime in the new 400 to 500 student elementary schools is it efficient to require parents to drive or for the district to bus 500 preschoolers to two centralized locations instead of providing preschool within walking distance throughout the city is it efficient does it promote student learning

100to uproot about 1200 Elementary age kids many of whom have suffered the worst of pandemic schooling and who represent a sizable portion of asd's economically disadvantaged time please as Mr Anderson said right size can mean a lot of things to different people the problem is that right now people who don't represent this legislative district and don't live in Northeast Anchorage and don't know what its residents care about are dictating the terms of efficiency and quality and that's wrong thank you Joe if I could have a copy of your letter it'll make it easier for us to transcribe at the end if you could give me a copy of your letter that would be helpful Laura Carpenter followed by Elaine gray please hello thank you for listening and for being here tonight as I said I'm

101Laura Carpenter I'm a parent a spouse and a voter and I live down the street and before I address the Wonder Park Town closure I just have to say Matsu School District was mentioned and personally as a queer person and a genderqueer person I just want to say that there are a lot of things happening in the Matsu District that I find very scary and so I'm personally very glad that our Anchorage School District is not transphobic and creating very dangerous policy so um my daughter graduated from Wonder Park in May she attended this school from kindergarten through the fifth grade she now attends Clark and has classmates that she met in kindergarten actually one of the parents from nathalie's mom was here earlier speaking she walked to school and could walk to her friend's

102houses we walked back here at night and on the weekends for literary literacy night and science night and neighborhood cleanup this school has been an important part of our life and our neighborhood and I would hate to see it close I hope this meeting galvanizes us to vote for Representatives that stand up for children fund education and make Financial plans that support our schools in a manner that helps our students have the best chance of success I feel like our later leaders have failed us and our children are paying the price I wish you luck in finding the best solutions to support our students and Community thank you thank you Laura Elaine gray followed by famafu kamoto I can help you pronounce that last name thank you I'm Elaine Gray and I'm a mother and

103a grandmother and I live just down the street and I'm here to Advocate not just for my two grandchildren who attend Wonder Park but for the almost 300 other students who attend here at Wonder park for the staff and teachers who show up every day and for the rest of the working class families in this neighborhood and I know who you are I see you who have been here for years I am not convinced I know that we are at a crisis point but my question is how has the situation been allowed to deteriorate to the point where we are right now because right now we are facing an edge of the cliff crisis where we are talking about closing schools where our Littles attend I am not convinced that we do not have enough

104money I am not there are two causes when we do not have enough money to do the things that we need to do and it very well may be true that we have problems with allocations but we should also look at how that money is being spent now and how that money has been spent in the last three years and six years in nine and ten and why if this is not your proposal why these problems have been allowed to get to this point where we are talking about school closures so if you are on the side of these parents and this working class Community then I would propose to you that we not just talk about these Solutions because we are not going to be able to solve these problems that have been festering

105for three or more years in three minutes or three meetings I would propose that we really get to working and there are people here who are paid I'm sitting here I'm a mom and a grandma and I hear doctor this and doctor that and consultant here and there that would suggest to me that you are paid very well to do the job that we are now providing all this input regarding but I make no judgments I just point out a fact this is what we need to do we need to stop talking we really do we need to stop talking in a general fashion and work in a smaller representative stakeholder group so that we can be represented and be sure that our voices are heard did you say done I said time please that

106our voices are heard thank you thank you Elaine could you introduce the next person or I'll try um please she laughs okay hopefully not because I mispronounced a name Deborah Henson followed by Tammy Hansen hi there my name is Deborah Hanson I'm a 40-year resident of Anchorage and we made it through the 80s which oil prices plummeted my my husband's coach soccer in the Inlet View field and we had to Sid the grass the weeds so that the kids could even play I mean it was bad back then we can get through this so I have some questions I was here I was at your meeting last night and I guess I didn't ask the questions properly so one is there a comprehensive plan to get to the 69 million dollar cut two I listened

107to the assembly meeting in the ASD that the other man mentioned that board joint board meeting and I came to the same conclusion that you're proposing cutting these schools to get an increase of the BSA it seems political to me that's my impression just from listening to the comments there uh my next question is are you going to ask the community for Quest for suggestions when the city had problems in the 80s they actually went out and asked the community what what would you cut what would you do and are you ever going to publish the numbers with some details so we can figure out what's going on I mean I couldn't even find out how much we're paying our consultant from Western uh demographics to to do this work next question is ASD board

108set aside the 37 million it was brought up earlier to build a new school for Inlet View is that money restricted in any way next question could the money be used to keep the schools open next question I heard you I listened to you last night to tell the Abbott Lew parents that you don't know what the impact's going to be when they move their kids to a non non-title one school today you say that everything will be fine is that really true my husband works at a title one school they do a lot of support for the kids and the kids would not do as well if they didn't have that support and our kids are our future I mean everybody talks about that but it really is true uh will you be losing

109any federal money by closing these Title One schools what is your dollar goal for the admin a reduction and then I have a suggestion for the Wonder Park parents here the reason ASD is planning to spend over 37 million dollars to build a new Inlet View School rather than saving the money and just remodeling it it's because if they did anything different a hunt between 100 and 300 parents from Inlet View would show up here and MOB the place along with their kids um get involved you know like the other guy said vote for the right people talk to your assembly person your superintendent's back there all these people work for you we pay their we pay their salaries through our taxes I mean we can do something it's our city there's our schools so

110anyway that would be my my cheery thing so talk to people do something about it it's really our community I've lived here a long time and fought a bunch of people to make things better we all can do that it's important thanks thank you Deborah Jim would you like to answer some of those sure I I'm fairly positive I won't remember every question but but let me let me uh one I can I can answer a couple of them and I know you have emailed the board multiple times so um feel free to email us again and we can answer the rest so yes do we have a pathway we we do have a pathway and we have talked about it and at the last board meeting when we talked to the board I told

111him that we had a lot of vacancies this year we needed to wait for the second payroll run which was um October into the beginning of November and start looking at the cost savings for I mean it sounds bad right but we did have a lot of vacancies so our expenses are a little bit low so we re-looked that we're relooking the um a lot of other costs to include when we put hiring freezes hiring delays we got the Oasis count from the state and we're looking at finalizing our projected revenue and so on December 5th as I briefed at the last I'm thinking two or three meetings to the board we're going to brief what is called the proforma we brief it every year and and it will show our new projected Revenue new

112projected expenses because we have some more students it's not a huge large number but it is it is more there is going to be some Revenue so we'll show the adjusted and then as I told the board we'll look at all the things we put on the plate and then there's three things left one is the 37 million dollars which is very flexible by Design when the legislature passed it and yes it could be used for operational shortfalls the second is fund balance for all those cost savings that we've had this year whether they were intentional or not when it came to having over 400 vacancies in September there's still cost savings um so you you have the the fund balance for that which only again it's one-time funds right it doesn't fix your long-term

113projected but then the final thing is people who teach a ratio so there there's always a path to get to zero because there always has to be a path because the state statute demands that we pass is there a balanced budget the city's Charter demands that we pass it in February one-time funds if the legislature does that this year are very likely to occur later past February generally it's in May June time frame um but I I'm sure I answered like one tenth of your questions I apologize thank you Jim Tammy Hansen followed by Janelle handwin good evening my name is Tammy Hansen I am not a public speaker so I apologize right now in case I start to cry um I started here at Wonder Park in 1973 when my sisters and I started

114right here when we had a family home built in this neighborhood in the Wonder Park subdivision um while streets were named after judges and attorneys not many people know that we didn't just grow up here we had the Builder of our bill of our house that lived one block away kitty corner from my house was the cabinet maker that put in 90 of the cabinets in all of the houses around us my family and I moved back home to my childhood home to raise my children in the early 90s right there is the third generation to work at Wonder Park and we have a fourth generation who is my grandson who goes and attends second grade here my mother volunteered here she worked here I worked here I had a daycare here for 10 years

115um this is my home I've been here for 22 years as the administrative assistant I've seen the Ebbs and flows of all of the enrollments last year in kindergarten we had 27 28. that's what our first grade is now this year it's a low it's 14 and 16. but how well does that make it for those five-year-olds who haven't been in school at all we are a walking school where families rely and depend on that isn't that what community school is all about some have no Transportation single parents reside at the shelter in our boundaries or another shelter or work two jobs if you think that the busing service is going to improve attendance it probably will for a few but the ones that miss that bus that are waking themselves up and their siblings

116they miss it they miss it chances are they're going to call and try and get one of us to drive them because we've done that in pairs as well as go pick up kids we also lose the valuable conferencing time that we have with parents since we are walking School it's about Connections we have to make connections with our kids and our parents and our families and our staff members I was astounded at the calculation that used to compute the capacity of schools did not include a place for our resource and special education to teach these students need the least restrictive environment for them to learn and yet they weren't even on the capacity I've like Rewritten this so many times um I don't know if on the table that possibly one of those Charter

117Schools could come in and provide you know live with us here we have ample campus we have a garden center we have ample space for everybody to come and anybody and CCS I don't know why that was even going to be put here because they're building their own on Apu campus I have many more but I will do the board refunded by the state will schools be safe and can can we still combine them and have a chance thank you Tammy I'd like to call on Janelle uh hantuan followed by Paso Alo hi I'm Janelle Hartman and I have spoken before you guys before because my school is also on the list of closures five out of six the schools in the list and wonder Park the reason I'm here today is because I actually

118went into education because of Wonder Park this is the very first school I ever volunteered at I had 12 girls in my 21st century after school program here at Wonder Park that really inspired me to be a teacher and now I'm a teacher in ESD and I'm going to do a teacher thing right now and I know that this has been a really long night and I know there's a lot of distractions and a lot of nerves have been hit in the room but we are here to speak on behalf of our students and to give the attention to the community and to give the attention to those of us that are up here it's important and it's it's important as teachers when we come into the room we want our kiddos to be paying

119attention and learning what we're learning um so I do appreciate your attention and your time this evening with us um my comment is very concise this evening um you all brought up the census data and there was also information from 2016 which I also think is important back in um Wonder Park was the most diverse school in the United States Mountain View is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the United States this school is important this school has a large community of different and diverse cultures that should be celebrated so my question that I'm posing or my comment that I'm posting this evening and it it may or may not have been intentional to have five out of six schools on this list as title schools however this does show a message and it

120does send a message to our community as well as our kiddos who go to these title schools that they don't matter as much as other students who are not attending schools on these lists and they do matter and these communities matter and the folks that showed up here this evening mattered so thank you for your time and attention I appreciate it thank you thank you Janelle Paso Alo followed by Jayden Avey please it's possible here okay Jaden Avey I also a public speaking so bear with me so I was uh in an inlet I'm an alumni graduate of the Inlet View elementary school and was in the fourth fist split there growing up and I just want to say splits can work so uh there may actually be an opportunity for split classes considering there's

121greater variability in student performance and variability and student needs since the pandemic I think that there's just a natural opportunity where that could be a benefit I also want to say thank you for working hard these last years to maintain services without any increase in the base student allocation adjusting for inflation which is very real inflation is real um I also want to say closing six schools seems to address less than 10 percent of this fiscal shortfall so other than not building a new Inlet View which seems unconscionable considering all the school closure business and inequitable I shudder to think what would need to happen to address the remaining deficit I also hope that those working with the Alaska legislature advocating support for the anchor School District encourages that body to consider the economic impact

122of the brain drain that inconsistent funding and budget cuts to education may have as schools are planned to be shut down as this one and specials in Richmond at the remaining schools are threatened that's the 30 percent you are showing um I recognize that you don't control your funding um and the gal who asked all the questions moments ago last definitely asked mine but if facilities are 15 of your budget and addressing this uh this proposal to shut down six schools will address that in some way I just wonder about what else would happen with uh to address the remaining 50 million shortfall like how many teachers does that represent versus how many schools does it represent like six three million dollars is closing six schools how many teachers is that so so I think

123I can talk that so there's three things after the board has made decisions on everything we've already offered school closures is is one of those ignite if sixth grade goes to middle school then over the course of a couple years will reduce the cost of sixth grade band in Orchestra the school closures is as much about um having um under capacity facilities as as it is money but but a couple weeks ago or maybe a month ago I started talking to the board when we get into December we'll look at all the stuff that we've put out it really is three things one of those is the one-time money from the state that may or may not as as discussed tonight be used for all or a portion of Inlet View or or not the

124fund balance which I talked about a few minutes ago we're finalizing our updated Revenue our updated expenses we have saved a lot of money because we had so many vacancies we weren't happy about the vacancies but it did save money and we're also looking at all of our other projected costs so on this and then the final thing after we looked at State one time District one-time money the final thing you look at is people to teach a ratio if we were to um look at a PTR of five and this is hypothetical this is not a recommendation this is not in any way leaning toward I would even want to build that chart but if you were to do a people to teach a ratio of five from kindergarten to 12th grade it's about

12530 million dollars or about 280 plus teachers um that that's the enormity if we didn't have if we didn't use our our emergency savings and if we don't look at the state one-time funding um I I mean I can't imagine that it the the fptr is used that it wouldn't be far less than five I just don't know what that final answer is going to be I mean there's a lot of tough calls and you know honestly for for every kid out there if music is their thing and they're never going to play football or hockey then music is the one thing that motivates them to come to school and to stay in school and to finish school if it's hockey or swimming or ignite or everything else we put on the plate we're well

126aware that those things really do mean the world not just to the staff that gets up I mean I I we've talked to the staff these really are all important but they all need to be looked at by the board they'll all make decisions and then we go to the final three District funds from our savings account State one time and PTR and those really are the last things we have because we have to pass a budget in February and it's extremely unlikely that the legislature could have funding bills in the first two or three weeks of a session thank you Jim Jaden did you have any concluding remarks or did this one what would have to happen for I mean what would have to happen for that to happen like I know 48 49

127of us thought we voted for the right person but it didn't pass over 50 in this neighborhood so like what would have to happen I don't think I can answer that I've been to Juno every year for seven six seven years now I I can tell you one thing and that's every legislator I've talked to this year either those who who know that they're going to be legislators or those who believe that I have never seen support this strong from a group of legislators that I talked to that they're they're going to try to to do something this session I have never seen it this solid this strong since I've been here thank you for answering my questions thank you Jayden Jayden was our final speaker so I'd like to thank everybody for your participation

128if you spoke from a written statement it would make it easier for us to transcribe if I could take a picture of it so if you could bring it up to me I'd love to make um make a certain person in Jim's office a little bit happier by having her have something to work from all of your comments will be forwarded to the board we will also summarize them so that it will be easy to see major topics this is the final of our six meeting cycle I'd like to thank the communications staff I'd like to thank the I.T staff the security staff for all of their work in this process and thank you for being involved this decision will be made on December 15th is that correct Jim 19th so stay tuned to the

129district website for further information thanks everybody Happy Thanksgiving