001registration recommendations but this is the start of laying out all the different potential options that could be used towards solving the budget deficit if you look at this slide we'll start and end a brief with a slide that looks like this every week in the upper right hand corner i'll try to put a recap of prior board discussions comments and where you see over 50 percent were inclined to save 16 million dollars in one-time funding to soften fiscal year 24 deficits that is not um that is not a decision that was made by the board but my understanding of general comments made during the brief um and naturally we wanted to continue discussion on state bond debt reimbursement and major maintenance if you look in the upper right you'll see that if we were to
002spend all of the one-time funding from the state our deficit would be around 100 million dollars if we preserve the 16 million and met or exceeded our fiscal year 23 projected enrollment our starting point was about 68 million deficit so again when you look at this slide these are examples of programs that we're looking at and continuing to do staff analysis and i will hand off to eric fisty good afternoon i'm eric misty the senior director for elementary education and i want to give you guys a bird's eye view of some scope of elementary program models that we have for your consideration i'll start off with some pull-up programs at the elementary level we have several pull-up programs in asd we have everything from special education which is a legally required program that we provide
003to music band and orchestra health art pe so on and so on several different programs here's listed our two two pull-up models that we deliver for students the first program i'm gonna highlight is ignite which affects our second and sixth grade students approximately uh 1800 students access ignite currently and the cost above our per pupil is per student is about 1300 or 1.3 dollars the overall cost of that program to provide for for ignite services is approximately 2.4 million annually largely largely of those costs are captured in personnel costs the ignite model is district-wide some students access ignite through a bus hubbing system to help allow for students who may be at a program that doesn't have a large number of students accessing but we move students to other hubs to provide access to the
004teacher most of the students access it through direct direct pull-out model from an ignite teacher currently the second program i'm going to highlight here is our sixth grade band and orchestra at elementary we have the transition to middle school begins at fifth grade or sixth grade for those schools that go through sixth grade at elementary level we do provide banded orchestra pull-out services um for students and that is to help students when you get into middle school to have a better leveling access so that when you come into seventh grade you're at a stronger foothold for students to access band and orchestra instruction currently approximately about 1800 students also access band and orchestra at the elementary level and that cost is uh 2.5 million dollars not necessarily getting into um the what ifs but you
005know one one potential solution could be um you know for abandoned orchestra if students were to go to a middle school model sixth through eighth grade one one potential option there would be for students to access band and orchestra of sixth grade across all middle schools but if you were if that program as it exists is 2.5 million and lastly what i want to highlight is our elementary immersion program at the elementary level um the additional cost factor that second that second to last column that you're looking at is largely personnel cost again [Music] so what we we have been doing is is adding staffing into our immersion programs to help provide the robust instruction that's there though those costs you will see is equivalent to additional staffing that we provided through unallocated positions to
006help level classrooms in the springtime to bring up the model a couple uh scenarios and schools to highlight there would be scenic park elementary school scenic park you can see we added in five additional positions to be able to provide support there that is a growing program that is a program that will continue to grow as it goes into a secondary level so there's additional cost associated with that as it grows up into the secondary level the other school to highlight is o'malley elementary school o'malley is in the middle of its implementation and building this year we added two classrooms at o'malley to support the growing french immersion program we added third grade this year we're scheduled to add fourth grade next year so that'll be two additional teachers um what you want to keep
007in mind is the immersion model it really takes two to four to one so two teachers what we normally would do with one we would do it two because you have the target language teacher and then you have the english language teacher there so you'll see those costs are reflected in providing that level of service for students in those programs above what our ptr ratios are and what our normal staffing levels are at building level and just to point out you'll see memo023 tonight the sursa reallocation memo for additional staffing that really was driven because we used nearly all of our unallocated positions for those immersion programs and other school within a school programs during staffing last spring and so there was as we're starting to see more students come back to the district we
008did need that additional flexibility all right on the next slide uh that's coming up you'll see um a little bit different look at immersion at the secondary level um oh and just for the record uh my name is kirsten johnson the senior director for secondary education so sorry about that um back to the slide at hand um you're looking at a class size analysis um of our middle school immersion programs and um it's a little bit more difficult to cost immersion at middle school because it's embedded in a student's schedule throughout the day as opposed to being one or two teachers that they have as a whole at the elementary level they have a part of a teacher for one of their classes throughout the day and so the the difference at secondary um for
009immersion is that it really comes down to a choice of what electives are going to be offered to students and when you're looking at immersion courses in this class size analysis what you're going to see is the average class size at every school for core classes our english language arts our math our social studies and our science any other elective program is another category that we're looking at and then we're looking at the average class size for immersion and what you'll notice is that there is a lower class size at every school in immersion versus their other coursework um and so the the cost comes in what opportunities we're able to offer kids so if if folks are in our students are in immersion they automatically have a program that's allocated to them in in
010their elective choices through immersion so at mirrors kids are taking a japanese immersion elective as an example if that principal was able to pick a different elective because our ptr is set at 32 students per teacher they would be able to offer another elective that could cap out at 32 students potentially so you're missing about nine seats or students in a classroom and the other the other issue that comes up at secondary is do you offer immersion or do you offer a different type of elective that maybe students would would like to fill and take as an opportunity and so principals are making very tough choices for either offering an elective that all students can take in their school versus a very finite group of students that can take immersion so that's the cost choice
011that principals are making at the secondary level on top of that lower class size so as students are taking that lower class size and immersion those other students that are not in immersion do have to go into a class somewhere else so that the teacher next door may have a much higher class size as a result so if you look at this is the class size analysis of middle school and if you go to the next slide you'll see the high school numbers um next slide please oh oh sorry it's me but it's not changing um so the next slide that you'll see is um high school and what you'll notice is um as students progress through their k through 12 immersion experience there is a there is a drop typically from elementary to middle
012school in the numbers and then there's an even more significant drop from middle to high school and part of that is that in a seven period day at middle school you can you still have elective choices if you're enrolled in immersion at high school you don't have as many choices because you have a sixth period day so while i may need to take my pe credits for graduation i may need to take some other elective choices for college prep or career prep so then immersion becomes more of a an obstacle in their schedule and often students drop that as their choice in high school so you'll see in this class size analysis between all of our high schools an even bigger difference between the class sizes and immersion versus core versus elective courses at the
013high school level so the the difference for immersion on in secondary is really about choices um and an ability to fill classes question about that yes sure so how do we monetize that how do we come up with if we were to do something different in middle school and high school immersion establish some sort of dollar amount to that value sure um i think through the president to member donnelly um to monetize it i think the best option for us as a group would be to look at alternatives and and the cost of the fte associated with immersion now versus other alternatives that we could come up with for immersion because i think there are different service delivery models that we could look at as secondary for example taking a college level course versus an
014immersion course in your high school now this is mark stock deputy superintendent i i'd just like to add to that commentary all of the items that you've heard so far today are things that can be reimagined and provide some level of services in other ways in some cases and piggybacking on what dr johnson just said so like in high school might not be a full immersion class but you can double stack your other classes in that language in the school so it's not immersion but they are getting uh experience in that language so instead of being in a spanish immersion class they might take spanish four or three or whatever be in a class that that has that language present but it's not full immersion but it's still a way of reimagining or providing that
015service same way a few years ago you heard alternatives to ignite ways we might reimagine ignite still serve those children in a way that's at a reduced cost and a different way of doing it wouldn't be the same way we're doing it but it could be different you heard about sixth grade bannon orchestra a different way you could probably do it i'm just pointing out that the things that have been mentioned so far are things that have some potential to carry on in a different way at some levels now it would be hard to do uh something different with elementary immersion i don't want to make it sound like we have an alternative for that we really don't but the others we do thank you is there a um immersion program at bartlett or is
016that just new because of scenic park so to to your question um eventually there would be chinese immersion if the chinese immersion program continues to grow um it's in its first year at begich early um so in two more years after this current school year it would it would come to bartlett okay thank you remember lessons this is thinking a little bit on the fly about what i think i understand so at king tech we generate with king tech in a partnership with the lower yukon kosko klim school district we've generated additional revenue by bringing students from that district and letting them utilize king tech they recognize that an immersion program at the high school level requires prior knowledge of russian or chinese or any of these other languages but in as we think outside
017the box um i see value in preparing students in anchorage and across alaska for a globally connected future is there any way that we can partner with districts across the state and offer i mean i'm not sure what but offer a collaboration is not the right word offer a seat at the immersion table uh that would generate revenue for asd in some space fill those extra nine seats uh dr bryant absolutely those are the types of things that we have to think about so that and for example we have our own uh state correspondent school that could also increase enrollment in other ways so those are the types of revenue in scenarios that we're also thinking about um but of course we also need to look at the cutting expenditures which is the the focus
018of this [Music] not seeing any other questions let's continue okay so i wanted to talk through three scenarios that the administration is looking at right now for school savings on the far left there's the option or or a scenario is to close a building but keep the school intact and move it into a repurposed school that was also closed you would do that because of extremely high capital costs you know recently we had a bond fail for for a new school potentially in a situation you would move x school over to a whole different building and put them somewhere else that's one way to look at cost savings long term not so much for general general operating funds you would save utilities annual maintenance things like that but the whole staff would move another scenario
019that we're looking at is to completely close the school and those students would now go to other schools and if that school needed a significant amount of capital costs um to either replace it or significant major modifications then you would close it and and eliminate that building you can see as you look down from top to bottom on a generic elementary school the annual staff costs are about seven hundred and seventeen thousand dollars um you look at the agenda utilities on average annual maintenance and that's how you get to the cost savings annually if you look at the bottom third what you'll see is a net gain loss to district costs that number keeps going down from your initial savings because of the hold harmless form the hold harmless formula so the first couple years
020you get to retain as if all of those students were still in a small school and that number gets smaller and smaller until ultimately by year five by design you no longer get credit for having closed that school that was passed about three years ago four years ago at the state level and the intent of it was not to permanently pretend there were students in small schools but to allow the district several years to find realignments and cost savings and reductions in order to ultimately be able to absorb that difference and then when you look in the middle on on new revenue expenses obviously if you close close that school you wouldn't have rental fees that maybe you would get normally and there certainly could be new bus routes associated so this is a generic
021school not by name using averages of multiple elementary schools if you look at the third scenario of closing and repurposing a school and then moving a charter school over to it what you really see in the difference is we took out the long-term capital savings as we looked at decisions by the board on aquarium potentially that may continue into the future as far as utilities and annual maintenance the charter school may pick up those costs but you know it would depend on what actually moved in so this is just a hypothetical scenario which really shows the same kind of initially for every single school you did this for you would save over half a million dollars if it was a generic elementary school and then ultimately by year five just because of school size factor
022which is the very first step in the foundation formula ultimately the formula is designed to provide less revenue per student in a larger school [Music] jim oh could you go back to that now all right so given these scenarios how many schools are we talking about here one two three four each one of these is just one wonderful each one of these is just one school and this is hypothetical scenarios and not necessarily what the administration will bring to you in terms of an actual number of recommended closures okay this is what it is one school under three different scenarios these three scenarios so we have contracted with shannon bingham from western demographics some of you may recall him from years ago he tried to help us close some schools reboundry he can do live
023reboundering on the fly with the software he has trying to determine what students what types of student needs would be moving to different schools we don't have that capability in-house so he's going to rejoin our team um for this school closure effort and he also is he has helped 200 districts across the nation close schools his expertise is in school start time studies and changing school start times school closures reboundering rezoning and he'll be joining us within the next week to two weeks as he helps us work through this okay remember higgins and then member holloman thank you um just from a little background standpoint when i got on the board when it came to charter schools the administration's view was pretty much they want to be on their own they can worry about their
024own space and they took a very strong position that way not supportive in my opinion of what charter schools are doing which has always been a serious concern because there's a lot of safety concerns associated with construction of schools that don't meet school standards they're they're like a strip mall in some cases uh and in a big earthquake i don't know what's going to happen one of the things the legislature did was said if you got free space you need to offer it to the charter schools but we also have the ability to say that we want them in our schools if we have free space and we can put them in schools and provide for the safety of those kids that we don't have these options of closing schools could be offset somewhat by
025having charter schools move into them and move away from schools that are just structurally not the safe like our school districts i remember one story with china where they had an earthquake and basically the next generation was wiped out by schools i don't forget that one but there we build our schools like we do hospitals and everything else to survive and the charter schools are not in those types of locations and those are our kids as well so my question is what can we do to offset the closures here by looking insane the closures ought to be in places that aren't safe and if we put charter schools in these schools with the idea of protecting those kids which is our primary responsibility nothing's more important than the safety of the kids what are the
026options there has the school district looked at what they could that could be that could be a change rather than closing schools that are well built for safety and looking instead at maximizing those schools for safety of kids through the president to member higgins that's exactly what we are doing um if you look at the second scenario that was closing a school that potentially either is not safe or requires a significant well it is safer we wouldn't have people in the school but it would require a significant amount of capital maintenance when you look at that third that is specifically closing a school and repurposing it for either district opportunities um consolidation of district requirements or charter schools and we absolutely would look at moving charter schools and we know we have a charter school
027that's not homeless right now but but it is on the second floor of a high school schools like that would certainly be looked at when we come up with repurposing but we are not at the point in the staffing process to even identify the schools by name so we certainly are not at the point where um we have homes for charter schools yet but it will certainly be looked at follow up that doesn't work the amount of money that charter schools are spending on you know these inexpensive places i'll call them that because they're relative to the quality of the education school system they're poor how much are spending there those are being contributed back in school depicts how much will that offset things in regards to not closing but utilizing that space in a
028better way i know we got quite a few kids in charter schools and i had a problem with one school that was built because it simply didn't meet it and first earthquake and we had problems um so i just i just really want to see you know i really want to maximize that i had a discussion last week in juneau with someone that talks about they're trying to put together some type of committee dealing with these type of space issues i really don't want the state that heavily engaged but the idea is reasonable in my opinion thank you member uh higgins remember holloman thank you in the close one school scenario does that the changes in cost and revenue does that include the fact that the destination school may be elevated in size or is
029that just looking i see a nod yes from um and i also apologize i didn't quite follow on the first scenario um closing a building and moving one school is simply moving the students into an another existing school and just closing school thank you okay member donnelly thank you when mr bingham was here last time um he mentioned to the board he testified that a lot of the school districts he'd been working with on reorganization and closing down schools we're also instituting more k-8 schools in those districts and it occurs to me that that should be an option on the table to utilize some elementary schools that have are not close to their capacity to possibly turn into k-8 schools and if it was structured right we could shut down a middle school through the
030president remember donnelly we we will look at that um as you know the the middle schools are so much larger than any one elementary school um that that's certainly a challenge in fact as you heard earlier in the brief we are currently also looking at making all middle schools 6 8 and all elementary schools k-5 there's a number of scenarios in the lower 48. one of those is k-12 but there's also districts who've gone 6-8 at all middle schools so um i i think the number of options is endless as to how we could look at it i can tell you what we expect to do is to be able to finish analysis very quickly to be able to name initial potential school closures so the board and the community have time to talk about
031it receive input for the community to provide feedback hopefully with the board voting and approving on that list in november so we know as we get into starting to build the budget that that we start getting some commitments as we get toward december so we we have a good idea of what's in the what what should we include when we build the budget in january and and um the areas that are still up for discussion so when will we at what point will we survey the community on or get input from the community so what you will see is the first survey going out this week um because we're going to have multiple surveys between now and the beginning of december this first survey will be a prioritized ranking of eight to ten areas everything
032from school supports through facilities closures and activities breaking out those major subgroups in order to start getting the community to think about not the specifics of one individual program but in general where do they prioritize all these different choices that either the board makes or they make and then they'll get more detailed as the months go along all right thank you see no other questions why don't you continue so one of the first solutions that's been mentioned is moving all sixth grade elementary students to middle school currently we have three middle schools with sixth grade and in certain areas of town and then all of our other sixth graders in other areas of town attend their elementary school neighborhood school so if if we pursue this option we would look at boundary changes what the
033bus requirements are we would do a full evaluation of what that cost would be and we would also look at the benefits of moving students to middle school as well for in the sixth grade we already discussed one here today as a potential for abandoned orchestra if students were moved to sixth grade rather than having been in orchestra once a week they could potentially have it every day as an elective there are some academic scenarios that improve such as students with advanced math needs um in the sixth grade have more ready access to that advanced math instruction at the middle school level those are just some examples of of the positives of moving sixth grade up to middle school and it also creates continuity in our community amongst sixth graders and the experience that they're
034receiving so those are all things that we would look at we would also cost out um in terms of services that students need at that level and what that would look like in our staffing model when we're looking at solutions to our budget okay and then the ignite transformation so essentially eliminating the the pull out model would be one option um to be considered but next steps is looking at what that looks like for from the instructional changes that have to happen as well as the fte requirements we talked a little bit at the elementary level about the immersion there's need to continue to investigate and look at options in terms of how to transform immersion at the elementary school [Music] secondary sorry thanks eric um so looking at immersion at the secondary lens too
035we would look at some different types of solutions uh we we kind of dove into that a little bit when we were talking about the class size analysis at secondary there are options to look at in terms of do we want to offer as an example a k-8 immersion program with students achieving their language needs in a different manner at the high school level that could be one potential solution do we want to look at a k-10 program where students could then access our alaska middle college school for advanced language at the upper grades those are all things that we would like to cost out and look at the the benefits versus um you know costs for that particular program um while still meeting our student needs um in immersion in particular um one of
036the things that i think our community values immensely about the immersion program are on the cultural aspects at the secondary level in terms of travel and being immersed in in different languages and countries and cultures those are things that we could still do in a different manner and the seal of bi-literacy achievement that many of our graduates obtain before graduation those are things that we can also do to maintain those opportunities for kids but looking at the instruction delivery a little bit differently at the secondary level so those are all things that we'd like to cost and explore as a potential solution moving forward and then finally at facilities um we will still be uh working with shannon bingham of course um he'll help us identify some things that we haven't been able to see
037as we look at schools for potential closure or repurpose he'll assist us certainly with boundary changes required and then we're going to start dr mike dr michael lakes has already set the stage so he can also start looking at validating student needs going from a closing school to a gaining school to make sure that we have appropriate supports at those gaining schools to assist them so if you look at the budget timeline we're we're clearly in september this week or at least one survey um we're refining the list of schools and we're also continuing to do deep dives on programs and costs that can be avoided um toward the end of this month we'll brief board members hopefully one on one or one on two so we can talk to you before the first of
038october about potential schools that would be named as well as principles for gaining losing schools and of course apa leadership as we move into october that's really why the community discussions have been planned for so long as we know that it impacts people personally from either a closing school or a gaining school many of us have some experience about the emotion involved with certainly after the earthquake with greening and eagle river elementary and we have many lessons learned on how to help communities help them understand why we're making the recommendations we are what we're going to do to remain focused on students because that's what a parent's biggest concern is is not a bsa number or a dollar amount for the district but what are we doing for their students and and as we go
039through those town halls i think the board will have an opportunity to hear their concerns um hopefully by the end of that month you'll start seeing that that we're able to provide information that that helps people um become more welcoming of that over other choices that are also very very difficult um but i suspect that those discussions will continue either in person um and or zoom in some remote way all the way through this semester as we work through this and then again sometime in the november time frame we probably will ask the board to go ahead and and vote just to give us an idea of are you okay with this so we can move forward because we have an awful lot of areas to look at and it's the same staff members have
040a question remember donnelly so we're looking at a minimum of 60 million dollar deficit and even assuming we could successfully close five schools and the signing i think kind of in extraordinary generalists generous amount of savings to middle school immersion and high school immersion reductions it only holds up to about 15 million dollars that's only 25 percent of our gap through the president to member donnelly um i think i've been pretty clear that we couldn't bring out absolutely everything in the first month because the staff is working on developing costing models for a lot of things um if you look at i think it was the second slide there are a lot of things on this slide from top to bottom that we're going to be reviewing and bringing to the board to include a
041review of esser two and three fiscal year twenty 23 that maybe can be avoided we're going to look at one-to-one costs and software district-wide we're going to look at everything from insurance coverage limits to student nutrition debt practices and everyone everyone can read as we move down we are we are going to look actively at sports and activities um we have a lot of things to still staff out and start bringing to the board and as we initially bring them to the board we won't have every answer for every question they're going to be developed over the next several months but we have to keep adding things to the plate refining our staffing getting the metrics doing the analysis and making sure that the board and community realizes that by december when the board is
042giving final guidance for us to go in to build the budget in january that hopefully by that time we will have more than 68 million dollars worth of possible options but the truth is that many of those options are going to be difficult to make but we have to make them we've got to get by state statute a balanced budget but this is the month of september we're not in december yet there's going to be more things that come out and many of those people are not going to be comfortable with but but that's the sliding scale and i want you know frankly to close every brief with a sliding scale and this is the updated one if you were to eliminate hypothetically sixth grade ban in orchestra ignite elementary i didn't include any of
043the secondary then now all of a sudden you're bringing down your deficit hypothetically to about 60 million so over the course of several months you will see the sliding scale continue to get closer and closer to the green and and it's i think most of the board understands at some point there are some other options that don't involve people which is the use of fund balance or other things that you can do to get to that final zero but between now and the end of november um we need to bring you more and more products until we have a path to zero and then whatever that path to zero is i suspect the very last thing we'd look at would after fund balance would be ptr but that's the plan yes so thank you yes
044i'd just like to point out you know a fair question is so when the academic services team is looking at potential recommendations to bring the cabinet and folks before we would ever put something in front of the board now what a fair question would be what are the kinds of things uh things that we consider before we would bring it to cabinet for another debate and the things that we would look at would be number one the the impact that it has on students the scale and the scope so some programs are highly valuable for limited numbers of students some things are somewhat valuable for 40 000 students and so one of the things we have to debate is what is the potential impact on the students themselves scale and scope two different concepts there
045you have to think about another one is the amount of savings it generates sometimes some of the things on here as doctor as uh mr donnelly pointed out don't really generate the full amount of savings you need to get to the deficit number that we need so there we have to look at the size of the savings when you do that program now third one would be what are the things that can be done a different way or reimagined so there might be some things we can provide some service to that's not as good or as robust as what we've been doing but we can do it a different way so we should do that so those are the things that we're looking at and i know that the team that i work with we
046have a list of 22 different programming needs that we're looking at and we'll go through starting tomorrow morning some some rating systems where we debate those programs based on those three things so those are the kinds of things that we have to consider before we would ever put something in front of cabinet to debate and then eventually to the board probably something worth considering is that it is possible the state won't find or come up with a permanent inflation proof funding formula in next legislative session so even if it's two and a half million or three million it's two and a half million every year for the next several years or three or whatever that number is we still have or a plan for federal relief money next year but just not enough so that
047means the year after there is no federal relief money left so i don't think that what we're going to be discussing this year some of those things that were unpalatable and not supported will be brought up again if the state doesn't find an inflation proof education funding mechanism okay questions uh remember higgins i guess i just want to go back to the issue i know we've got timing frames here but the goal is to improve academic outcomes too i mean i know this the deck is stacked against us but the quicker we get to the point of deciding how we can spend money towards academic improvement without just stretching on status quo is what's critical i am not interested in seeing all of this year loss to where we can end up saving money and
048carrying it forward in two years i'm interested in what we can do now in the way of financial changes to improve those academic outcomes that are just awful right now for kids that are in our school system we've got to improve that one way or the other whatever it takes and i guess i don't want i want to make sure the goal the number one goal is kids always in the school district safety there but academics is critical and so maintaining status quo or being able to reduce the impact in two years is not a concern to me i am more concerned about whatever changes we have to do financially whatever it takes to be able to devote money and resources to improving academic outcomes thank you member higgins through the president to uh member
049higgins that's a great point uh and you know we're in a place where we have to walk and chew gum at the same time so we will be looking at the budget because at the end of the day we'll have to pass a balance one early spring but you're right we can't um waffle on improving academic outcomes for our students that are in classrooms today um so do know that we are looking at our academic strategy everything from leadership development to what's happening in the classrooms to all the inputs to academic output we're not going to wait until we know what the budget is so just know that we're we're doing both uh that's why it's going to be a very busy year for all of us but we know the work is very important
050thank you remember halloween um i do want to say i really appreciate the work that staff has done on this and it's thank you um you know this isn't very specific but it's a little more specific than what we knew a few weeks ago and as it gets more specific it's more depressing um and i i see a conflict where i understand what member higgins is saying these programs really matter to certain kids and and that is the source of the achievement some of the achievement that we have as we start to put names on programs and price tags and everything it's it's going to be very difficult knowing some of the kids that have gone through ignite and knowing some of the kids in immersion programs it has created a level of engagement that
051spurs academic success and it's not always just from kids that would have been successful anyway in a normal classroom that [Music] which is the thing that always hangs me up about sports and some of our club activities is there our kids on those teams that would be drop outs without those programs and so unfortunately when we cut those programs we cut basic success for some kids and and it's really hard to measure i you know i know you go through and have to put dollars and cents on it and that's a a really truly tough thing to do it looks like a remarkably depressing year um thank you for making it kind of clear from the outset but but every every one of these is a program that means the world to some kids yeah
052and we're gonna be forced to take that away as we go into it i think we need to remember that but also try to explain to the public what it really does mean i mean we're getting hit pretty hard um one about the overall success which you know it is always narrowly focused on the proficient not proficient rarely seems to illuminate the remarkably proficient um and the kids that wouldn't be on the borderline between proficient and not proficient they'd be way down there except we did manage to get them to the point where they're at least on the bubble all of that is happening um and at the same time the public is being fed the idea that we're spending most of our day talking about sexual orientation issues and critical race theory which from
053my experience in the classroom almost never comes up it's i think 98 of our time is spent on other things so somehow we do need to convey to the community that some of these programs are at risk we know what happened when we looked at reorganizing ignite i can only imagine what immersion families will start to do once once this circulates among them that we're possibly looking at eliminating a program that is remarkable on a national level and the opportunities that it's created admittedly for a relatively small percentage of our kids but it has created a remarkable opportunity so it does i really do appreciate your work i i know it's incredibly difficult um and of course the decisions as we go forward are going to be as well but it will i think be
054a pivot point where we do have to ask the community these are the things we're doing are you willing to pay for them i know there's a strong chunk of the population that absolutely will will say tax me to make this happen i've seen it happen in public meetings it's not everybody to be sure and probably not a representative cross section but um as a community we're it won't just be us making that decision we need to make sure that we've got the community on board whichever way we go whether we make these rather severe cuts or whether or not we raise the price tag of education in order to keep some things that are doing really well thank you very much welcome member jacobs you have a question yeah thank you madam president um
055while i was listening in online um i i heard something that made my ears perk up and that there's going to be demand debate among staff before it's moved to the cabinet and finally presented to the board um probably won't come as a surprise to these some of you but i'm very interested in um i came away with the thought of thinking i wish i could listen in i wish it could be a fly on the wall so i can get as much information as possible um as we're tasked with making some really hard decisions and i understand why that isn't feasible um well you don't want seven board members sitting in those conversations um but to the extent as we're brief going forward um encapsulating that um discussion that that got us to this
056point so that we have an informed decision that we can make and seeing all sides of of the debate um as we move forward i think it's gonna be really important so um that's my fervent desire and i hope we can have those facts going forward thank you any others so we are at time i i do want to thank uh all the staff for the work you know when i look at this list as a mom and a grandmother i depend on in love immersion the middle school concept i i just love what this district provides to parents the choices and for our kids and it is depressing that we have to really look at how we can meet a hundred million dollar deficit i mean i'm hoping it's less than that but whatever
057amount it is we've got to we've got to do a balanced budget so i look forward to the survey i look forward to um having the conversations uh as we build the 23-24 budget so thank you guys and with that oh yes you have one final comment let me talk about the pupil teacher ratio in my my twins high school right now every class but one has either 35 or 36 kids in it yeah with that oh remember lessons um [Music] i appreciate understanding the path that we see ahead of us it's not going to be pleasant i guess this is more of a comment beyond this room i hope that as members of the public see this on the news or read about it or talk amongst their friends and peer groups that they
058consider engaging their legislators or the candidates for legislative office to say why a language immersion program matters to them or why their school matters to them because this as we've said before is coming after six seven years of a structural deficit and it didn't happen overnight and now we are tasked with dealing with it and with that i'll take a um we need to move into executive session i need a motion to move into executive session for the purpose of legal and contracts and negotiations so move on second all right we are moving into executive session thank you staff you guys