001I was about the man behind that's misogynistic that change >> misogyny >> misogynist kind of good to avoid people. >> Yeah, we're good. There you go. Good evening everybody. I want to thank you for joining us here tonight. We will have a short open session and then dive right into our work session. I'd like to call this meeting to order first with the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. So board, I have a motion to approve the agenda for Thursday, January 8th, 2026 as presented. >> Second. >> Director Pruskar, seconded by Vice President Grder. All those in favor say I. >> Any opposed say no. >>
002Eyes have it. Uh board have a motion to approve the purchase of negotiations facilitation services from Miss Peggy Cochran as presented. >> So moved. Second. Motion by director Pushkar, seconded by Vice President Grder. Any conversation. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any oppose say no. Motion passes. Uh board have a motion to adjourn the special open session. >> So move. >> Second. >> Director Pushkar with a motion and a second. Vice President Grder. All those in favor say I. >> Any post say no. Motion passes and that concludes our special open session. Uh up next we will begin our work session focused on the 2627 staffing plan of Miss Simpkins. >> Thank you board. I am excited to present to you today the 2026 2027 staffing plan. Uh lots of information
003here. So we'll work through uh the plan and then I'll be happy to answer any questions that you might have at the end of the presentation today. Um, please know that there will be some time for you to reflect and think on the staffing plan and then we will bring back uh the staffing plan for your approval at our January 15th board meeting. So any other questions that may come up, we'll have that opportunity to answer those for you as you reflect after this evening. As we created this plan, we kept a strong focus on our strategic plan as this work touches many pillars. You might be thinking, why aren't the pillars in order on this screen? It's because they are listed in the order in which they impacted our staffing plan. Pillar three is
004the most influential driver of this plan followed by pillar one to meet academic outcomes followed by pillar two workforce planning. So let's discuss how pillar three is impacting our plan. We are unsure of the effect of current legislation will have on our revenue in the coming years and our budget timeline and our process does not align well with the staffing timeline. budget information becomes more clear in late spring and into June. However, to hire the most qualified candidates, we must start posting and hiring in March, if not sooner. We also know that over 80% of our budget is salary and benefits. And the staffing plan has a big impact on pillar 3 goals. If and when budget cut budget cuts become necessary, staffing is really where the biggest impact can be made. That is why
005we're presenting the staffing plan in two parts. For the 2627 school year, in part one of the plan, we are requesting status quo staffing with positions placed on hold until we have a clearer financial picture. We will reallocate and hold positions already approved to meet the needs of the district. Part two of the plan, should the budget allow it, will release the positions we have placed on hold and would include any additional positions if necessary. Those positions would be presented in June along with the budget for a new school year. When we think about pillar one, teaching and learning, we know the strongest impact on student achievement is a highly qualified, well-trained educator in the classroom. As a people intense business, we need strong, highquality teachers and instructors and strong support staff to meet the
006needs of our students. Our strategic plan focuses on implementing an instructional framework and providing targeted instruction to meet academic goals. Our goal would be to support teachers with strong coaching to continue to hone their skills in the area of instruction and to provide strong support for our teachers in the area of social emotional learning and behavior support. Finally, pillar three comes into play. We conducted a systematic approach to this annual plan, getting stakeholder input and using this strategic plan to guide our work. Over the last 5 years, we have tried to keep levels of staffing fairly consistent. We need to be mindful of resource allocation, but also to ensure that staff feel confident that they're working in a stable work environment. Adding and then later reducing staffing, this roller coaster of staffing that we've had
007in previous years, causes staff concerned that their positions may not be long-term. They may seek positions in other districts for stability. Pillar two of the strategic plan has a strong focus on staff retention. We know the workload of our staff and time to complete their work is important. Reducing the case loads of our special education teachers and reducing general education class sizes provides teachers with more time to focus on their work. But these things have financial implications. Finally, related to pillar two and three, we must be able to recruit and retain staff while considering the impact on the budget. We have one pot of resources to pay people more or pay more people. We will participate in salary negotiations with FHEA, FHEA ESC's, FISPA, and Teamsters this year. It will be critical to be able
008to offer competitive salaries to all staff. And while we are in strong position related to our typical seven benchmark districts, those in St. Charles County, Rockwood, Parkway, and Patendville. It's important to remember that we compete for the same talent with all of St. Char St. Louis County, especially Special School District. When we add them to the list, you see we fall a little bit lower in the scale. And these are the 25 26 teacher starting salaries. We know as each of these districts start their negotiation process with their staff, we'll see those numbers change for the 2627 school year. So next, I'd just like to share with you the comprehensive process that we followed to develop this plan and this presentation for you this evening. Dr. Suzanne Leak, our director of human resources, and I
009start this process in late September. We meet with each school and each central office leader to learn about their needs when it comes to the valuable resource of people. In September and October, our capacity team reviews enrollment projections and provides that data to us. And I want to just take a moment to pause here and remind you that there is a perception out there that we should be able to reduce teaching positions based on that reduced enrollment. Some would say that we should see a reduction of four teachers if we lose a hundred students in our enrollment. But our staffing doesn't necessarily work that way. While enrollment for students may drop 100 students, they come from several buildings in several different grade levels across the district. We don't typically see a reduction of 25 students
010from one grade level in one building in order to reduce one teacher. So, we just need to keep that in mind as we look at the drops and the increases of enrollment and how that impacts staffing. We've met with each principal and director to discuss building needs not only as it relates to the quantity but also the quality of staff to meet their academic outcomes. Then in November and December, we begin to create the plan with the information gathered. We start posting and start the staffing process and hiring process for our administrator openings. And I will share with you that that has become more difficult as we have moved through the years. In the past, we've had 50 or 60 applicants for each of our administrator pools. Um the last process that we just completed,
011we had 14 applicants for a building principal position. This month, we are presenting the plan to you in work session and we'll make any revisions as necessary before we seek your approval at our regular January meeting later this month. And finally, in February, that final appra final approved plan will be processed by our buildings. Students will begin to make their course selections at secondary. Teachers will share their preferences at elementary. and our HR department will work through all the district level implications that that brings. In early March, we'll begin to post our certified positions and really start the process of really recruiting and hiring all of the certified staff positions for next school year. Throughout the summer months, we'll continue to hire certified staff and then also really focus on supporting our support staff. Then
012the work begins all over again in the next year. Before we get into the details of our plan, I also just wanted to share information related to what that contingency staffing is that you saw in the memo, what it is, and how it's used. Each year, we request a small amount of contingency staffing in the plan. And these are additional positions approved by the board that we place on hold and only use if necessary that year. For example, if enrollment in a certain building or grade level is higher than what our enrollment projections expected staff that contingency staffing allows us to act very quickly without coming back to you to approve the position. Um those small amounts of staffing make me master schedules work at the secondary level or we might also purchase a teacher's
013plan time to make a schedule work utilizing that contingency staffing. If we use it during the current school year and it's necessary for that position to continue continue into the next school year, we'll show it to you in the plan as an added position for that new year. It doesn't just carry over year after year. So those same contingency positions are the same ones we use each year to make things work. We examine the use and the request of contingencies very very closely as it comes from our buildings to be sure we're utilizing those positions well. So, let's talk a little bit about the building staffing. As we shared, as I shared, we meet with each building principal and director to talk about how staffing can improve their academic outcomes, reduce the workload of our
014teachers and staff, and improve working conditions to recruit and and retain highly qualified educators. Overall, we heard from secondary principles that instructional coaches would support their goals. Additional staffing would alleviate tight schedules and special education was an area that needed support. Elementary principles shared that class sizes were at good levels, but special education was an area that needed support. And while we might be able to address some of the requests by reallocating staffing, we cannot address all of the concerns overall to meet our goals. By the end of this presentation, you will see that we have some tough decisions to make before presenting part two of the plan to you in the spring. So, we'll talk first about uh certified K12 big ideas and staffing. Our currently approved positions will be moved in response to
015projected enrollment. Classroom positions will be moved between grade levels and buildings as we plan for next year. And in the spring, as more student data becomes available, we'll shift other supports that may be special education, ESOL, gifted, and reading staffing is necessary to meet the needs of our students. As we started to make these changes, we paused on reallocating those 7.76 positions you see um just to be sure that we could meet our academic goals of the strategic plan to ensure that we were first meeting our financial goals. Once we know the outcome of the ballot measure related to Senate Bill 3 and the impact on the budget, we will feel more comfortable moving forward. If Senate Bill 3 passes and revenue is reduced, we will not reallocate the 7.76 positions and we'll continue to
016hold them, realizing a savings to our salary budget. If Senate Bill 3 fails and our revenue stays fairly flat, we'll have an opportunity to reallocate the positions to meet the needs of our teaching and learning pillar one or the goals of workforce planning pillar two to align with pillar one of the strategic plan. If we are able to reallocate those positions, we will consider several requests and options that came our way as we worked through this plan. I'm going to share some of those things uh with you. Now, we could reallocate the hold positions to create eight instructional coach positions, one for each secondary school. This would provide equity as our elementary buildings have had this instructional support for the last few years as literacy coach co coaches were transitioned to instructional coaches. As we
017support the academic progress of our students, strong targeted tier one instruction will be crucial and these positions would focus on providing support and coaching for our teachers. In addition, years ago, we would only consider hiring a fully certified teacher. We would often say that we valued the traditional student teaching experience to prepare new educators and would strongly consider those candidates above others. And we just don't have that luxury anymore. Each year we are hiring new teachers who have not completed a traditional teacher preparation program and applicants are coming to us with maybe provisional or temporary certificates as they still are working towards that certification. These teachers need additional support and mentoring with tier one instruction for their first few years in their teaching profession. And these instructional coaches could support that work if we're able
018to consider that option. Another request or option when we talk about adding staffing if resources are available under the goals of pillar one is to make some changes related to our content leaders. Currently, our content leaders work an additional 15 days above the regular teaching contract with limited release time for our classroom teachers. These additional days allow content leaders to do such things like hosting curriculum boot camps and developing proficiency skills over the summer months when teachers can collaborate with them. Increasing this to 20 days would allow additional time for these leaders to unwrap standards, develop assessments to better align grading with the goals of our strategic plan, and support teachers with responding to the evidence they collect through assessments when our teachers are available outside of their contracted time. In addition to connect with
019the work of the strategic plan, adding a counseling content leader could be considered as an option. This position would provide strategic leadership and administrative oversight for the district's comprehensive K12 counseling program. This role would ensure that our counseling services are data-driven, are consistent for all students, and are aligned with the Missouri state standards to support students academic, career, and social emotional development, which impacts their behavior. Finally, to align with pillar two of the strategic plan, if resources allow and we can reallocate those positions, there are several options to consider to provide the workforce necessary to address student needs as well as time for staff. We could consider allocating the hold positions to create three special education teacher positions, one at each high school, to reduce the case loads in those buildings. We could also consider
020allocating the hold positions to create seven process coordinator positions to support the paperwork and the IEP process at the elementary and middle school levels. We currently have three of these positions supporting five middle schools and we have five positions supporting 10 elementary schools. This ad would allow each building to have dedicated support, giving our special education teachers more time in their day to directly work with students. And finally, we could consider using these positions to add classroom teachers at the middle school and high school level to alleviate tight schedules and reduce class size. This could come in the form of general classroom staffing or as dedicated reading teachers at the high school level. Once our financial picture becomes more clear and we know if we have the opportunity to address any of these issues, we'll
021begin to part uh create that part two of the staffing plan. We will not have the financial resources to address all of these requests and we'll need to make some tough decisions on how we can support our students and our staff. Finally, just a small note, uh we had asked the board for a temporary additional content leader stipen to assist with the transitions on the academic team and the stipen was paid for two years. Um it will no longer be paid as it will be eliminated for the next year. A savings of $10,000 to the salary budget. I just wanted you to know that as we promised we would eliminate that stipen moving forward. We'll move on to early childhood and early childhood special education. Uh the district continues to review early childhood programming and
022ensure that it is a self- sustaining program. No reductions in staffing are being recommended due to this review. However, we have had a position on hold for several years that has been vacant and that position is no longer needed. So it will uh show as a removal from our staffing plan. To meet the increased needs of our early childhood special education students and to be in compliance, we are requesting to add two teaching positions to this program. The salary is reimbursed by the DESIE grant the following year and doesn't impact the budget overall. It will impact it in the current year, but then it is reimbursed by the grant the following year. So let's take a look at class size averages with this plan that we are proposing today with the reallocation of staff and
023within part one of the plan. These are the proposed average class sizes at the elementary level for the 2627 school year. The first column is the grade level. The second is the desi minimum number of students that should be assigned to a section of a particular grade level followed by our average in this plan. the midpoint for reference and the desi maximum for each section of a grade level. At the elementary level, projecting class size is an easier task. When completing staff planning, we aim for class sizes to be below the midpoint of DESI's recommended class size in each grade level. The number presented here is the average of the grade levels among our 10 buildings. So there will be some sections um at our elementary schools that are a little bit higher and some
024that are a little bit lower based on uh compared to what you see here on the chart. This is also where contingency staffing will come and be helpful. Um we'll use that staffing on as on an as needed basis just to respond quickly. If we see a particular section of a grade level uh start to reach that desi maximum number, we can add a position very quickly. To give you some context on how this plan compares to past years, this chart shows the history of past plans and class size averages over the years. The red cells represent years the plan called for higher class sizes than what is being proposed for the 2627 school year. The green cells represent the years that past plans called for lower class sizes. And the yellow cell cells show
025that really overall this year uh the staffing plan is consistent with past year's plans. So if you look just at one of those cells in kindergarten, we might have a section in a building that has 19 or 20 students in each section just depending. So 19 or 20, we can't have a a 0.9 of a student in a section. So you can just kind of uh think of that as 19 or 20 students in a kindergarten section or 22 to 21 just depending on what that number looks like. Secondary level class sizes are definitely more difficult to project this early as buildings utilize the staffing provided to meet student needs based on course enrollment um which is occurring now through early February. But overall our plan includes a studenttoclassroom teacher ratio of 21.66 at middle
026school and 23.38 at high school. We look at the projected enrollment and the overall classroom teacher ratios when creating the plan and we try to stay below that desi minimum and that allows for some flexibility because we know our teachers have a plan time uh that takes them out for 17th of the day. But we also have students like our special education students who aren't part of that regular classroom uh ratio. And we also have students who leave our site for early college or trade certifications. And so going right under that or below that desi minimum gives some flexibilities to our our principles when they're creating those plans and ensuring that our class sizes stay below the dexi maximum. Our building administrators have the autonomy to use that provided staffing based on their student course
027selections. Again, that's occurring now through February. And we monitor their use to ensure that staffing is being used for for uh support of classroom instruction. And we'll also use contingency here as we have a better idea of what the plan looks like. Um, if we need to add a section or we need to help make a a schedule work, alleviate some tight schedules, we'll use some contingency staffing in order to do that. I want to share with you at the middle school level this chart. It shows the history of past plans and class size averages over the years. And you see that our proposed plan for 2627 is consistent with the last five years for middle school uh ratios. And then this is the high school chart uh past plans and class size averages over
028the years. And again this proposed plan for 2627 is consistent with the last five years. As we move to support staff, there are no real significant changes to the level of staffing overall at this time. Um, we'll see a slight reduction of one FTE and the overall number of FTEEs for the district um as we just shift resources to support the district needs. The evaluation of processes, programs, and positions will continue in an effort to support alternative learning in those areas of ESOL special education as we move through uh the spring and gather more student data. U there are a few positions that you'll see here that are are new. three parah positions um that were added in the 2526 with contingency staffing are added to this uh the 2627 staffing plan as new positions
029and there are some ESC positions uh pair professional positions that are being requested. Um those are offset by the fact that at the beginning of the 2526 school year we were able to eliminate seven vacant bus driver positions as we were able to make some efficient changes to our routes. So overall, not a significant change to support staff as we move into 2627. While there are really no changes expected um at the administrator level, I wanted to take a moment to share information regarding our administrator staffing with you as well. These enrollment numbers and the number of positions are for them from the comparative data system from education plus their CDS 2526 report and this chart compares our central office administration team with other districts. However, even this chart does not compare apples to apples.
030The asterisks note districts that are supported by the special school district who provides administrative staff to work with special education students and programming providing an additional layer of administrator support in each building of those school districts. For the 2526 school year, Francis Hal operated with 16 administrators as one deputy and one director position were held vacant. Our proposal includes both positions, but only one will be filled at this time. Our second deputy position will be held until the budget work is finalized. If it is not filled for a second year, our actual ratio for central office staff to students will be one administrator to 964 students. It's important as we think about pillar 2 and the staff retention um goals that we have that we focus on this area of staffing as well. Attracting and
031retaining strong leaders in these roles is important because it drives the work of our strategic plan and it impacts our entire district. We need to be competitive with salary and structure our positions so that the workload is manageable or we will continue to lose strong leaders. Each comprehensive high school is staffed with one principal, one associate, three assistants, and a part-time dean of students. The activities director and the part-time assistant activities director are not included in the chart as the work of these positions have has a very different focus. Each middle school is staffed with one principal and two assistants. Each elementary school is staffed with one principal and two assistants with the exception of Daniel Boone and Fairmont. Due to the size of those schools, there is a little bit of a difference in
032staffing. Fairmont has three assistant principles while Daniel Boom just has one. It's important to note that Cosley also houses our district autism and district SEGA programs requiring these administrators to provide support to staff and students in these programs as needed. Harvest Ridge houses our district emotionally disturbed program and Becky David houses our district deaf and heart of hearing program. These ratios here will continue to be monitored and depending on resources, future plans could include some recommendations for changes or staff reallocation as we watch those ratios. Before we summarize the plan and look at the impact of the salary budget, let's tie all the information you heard tonight back to our strategic plan. In pillar three, allocating resources in a financially sustainable needs-based manner to support the education of all students. We are going to hold
033positions until we know more about our revenue. In pillar one, ensuring all students have the support they need to succeed by providing targeted instruction that addresses academic needs. Our options include allocating the hold positions to provide teachers with mentoring and coaching related to tier one instruction and providing support for our content leaders who are supporting social emotional work as it uh relates to behavior. And in pillar three, execute comprehensive workforce planning to ensure appropriate levels of staffing to meet the needs of all students in the operation of the district. If and when revenue is available, positions can be added with confidence that they are sustainable. Conservatively adding staff would reduce class size and higher pockets at the elementary and at the secondary level, support teacher workload and special education, and allow the district to support
034overall district operations similar to comparison districts. So, let's talk just a little bit about what those totals look like. And so while our desire is to reallocate the positions on hold to meet the academic goals of the strategic plan in pillar 1, should we see a significant reduction in revenue due to legislation, holding these positions now will allow us the flexibility to support the financial goals of pillar 3. If it becomes necessary to hold the 7.76 positions for the school year, this will not require a reduction in force and can be attained through natural attrition. We experience several resignations and retirements each year, and we typically end up hiring approximately 100 new teachers each year. To date, more than 20 teachers have already shared their intention to retire at the end of the school year.
035A more stable 5-year financial projection is essential to supporting pillar 2 goals around staff recruitment and retention, particularly as they relate to long-term workforce planning. Across all levels of the organization, staff consistently share that they need additional resources to perform their work effectively. And these resources have included more time, additional personnel, or enhanced professional learning. When employees have the tools and the capacity to do their job well and experience a sense of accomplishment, balance, and focus, retention naturally increases. Um, if we are able to allocate the hold positions, there will be some very tough POS decisions to make. You see on the previous chart that those positions would save us about $727,000. And this chart shows you the cost of each of the options that I shared with you. Overall, we need strong, high-quality instructors
036and caring support staff to meet the needs of all students. However, we can only add these positions if resources are available in a sustainable way. What's not listed here on the screen is there are some small requests as well as in the support staff area that we're still working to vet through if we would bring those recommendations to you in the in part two of the plan. But I wanted to give you an idea of the cost of what these options that we'll tr we will vet and focus on if we're able to reallocate those positions where we might be able in a status quo staffing plan to meet some of the needs that have been requested of us. And with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have. Um I
037>> members >> I was turning this on. >> Yes, please. >> Um I was wondering about the progress that has been made in equalizing minutes between schools and specials. >> Uh we have a committee that's beginning to look at that. Dr. Garland has started to formulate a group that's going to be looking at that together. >> So would that be too late for next year? Uh at this point I'm not sure. Um they're beginning their first meeting coming up in February. Uh we have three meetings uh kind of two weeks apart each. Um we should probably know more um by middle of February where we're at with that process. >> Okay. Because I mean there's three schools that have been left behind and I' I've talked to some of the specials teachers and they say
038they just have pick and choose what they teach cuz they can't teach their full curriculum cuz some of them have half the minutes that seven other schools have. So I'm really concerned about it. >> When you refer to specials, you're referring to music, >> music, and PE. >> Music, art, and PE. And I think um from a previous conversation uh I remember hearing the affirmation of the value of all three of those and some schools are adding a fourth elective around computer as well. So some schools that have computer as an elective that added elective impacts the other three electives. Um and so that's how we start. That's the baseline but you're still trying to navigate. It's it's degraded over I'd say the last 10 years where teachers have been removed from certain schools. You
039know, to go from two full-time teachers of specials to one, you know, first one, then one and a half and then one, I mean, two, one and a half and one, you know, you're going to have less minutes and that's I mean, you can't teach the curriculum if you have students for half the time. >> Yeah. And that group will be looking at that. And also included with that uh the number of minutes or meeting with our content leaders for those special area programs. The number of minutes required uh to meet the curricular design that we have within our curriculum for each of those special areas. >> Yeah. I mean it just it looks bad that seven schools have all these minutes and then three some of them have half. That's not a good look.
040I don't think >> that and that will be part of what uh our group is looking at is how do we um >> get consistency between buildings and with special >> Yes. Yes. Consistency >> because they all follow a curriculum. >> Thank you. Other questions? >> I just have a question too. I guess this I know we talked about this kind of pending. There's a lot of legislative impacts possibly lingering out there. So looking at making a decision next week for this staffing plan and then those contingent positions is that basically what's hanging out in the balance then? >> Yes. So, what we're asking you to do is to approve the positions we already currently have that we're already utilizing so that we can start the bulk of the staffing work. >> Yeah. >> Um,
041but as we worked through that plan, um, we were able to move the staff along with the student enrollment. So, you saw a shift from elementary to middle and into high school. And so, we kind of worked through that. And when we did that, we got down to these 6.67 six, seven teaching positions that we could have reallocated today or we could say maybe we should just pause along with the deputy position and just hold those positions for now because if that revenue is drastically reduced and we do have to make staffing cuts, we know that those positions are where we can start. So, we wanted to be financially smart and hold those positions. So, when you approve part one of the staffing plan, if you approve part one of the staffing plan uh later
042this month, that will just be all of the positions we currently have with a few of them on hold. The contingency positions are really in there as an additional six positions that we'll use much later into the fall and spring when we when we're working on um enrollment, making sure that class sizes are are going okay. But if you approve that plan, then we really get to start shifting staff and moving staff and posting vacant positions and knowing that we can we can start hiring when our our pool of candidates is strong. And then as we continue to work through the budgeting process with Dr. St. John and her team, um if we know that we have those resources, then we can come back to you in June and say, "Okay, we're we feel comfortable
043that we can reallocate these 6.67 positions." and you saw the vast things that we have options to do. Um or if you know there was significantly more revenue um then we can start talking about what other new or additional positions might we request from the board to meet the goals of the strategic plan and we won't bring that to you until June. So, if you look back to last year, I think we brought about um there was like maybe 10 positions that we brought to you on the support staff side of things late in June um that we moved through just making sure that we knew what the budget would allow us to do before we got to the school year. So, we're just following that same process so that we can be financially responsible.
044>> Okay. and SB3 being or whatever it's going to be called >> um whatever it's going to be called um will be April if it hits the ballot >> correct >> presuming that it's going to hit the ballot right so that's one major one >> piece >> and then we've got what joint resolution 56 78 also that are kind of lingering out there too so lots of big things that could really >> make for a big wave to deal with come spring right >> tough timing Okay, >> couple uh questions for me. Uh one, uh you mentioned that uh that you are reducing seven bus drivers uh from the list of employees for the next year uh due to efficient uh routes. In other words, just being able to be more efficient allows us to
045need seven less bus drivers. >> Let me be clear. It happened at the very start of the 2526 school year. So last year we asked you for 152 bus drivers and you approved 152 school bus drivers. As we started the routing and got into the 2526 school year, we did not need seven of those. So we have only been working with 145 positions. And that's really ultimately what we need to run an efficient operation. I just sharing with you in this plan that those seven positions have been vacant. they haven't been used this year and we don't want to show those as FTEEs moving forward. We know that 145 is the right number. >> What was the savings of not having those seven positions? >> Random, I mean just >> Oh, I'd have to do
046the math, but they are they the a starting bus driver is around $22 an hour and they work anywhere from six to seven hours a day and they work during that school year. So, I could do that math for you and Stephen and get back to you. >> Yeah. Um >> I just want to >> but that but those positions weren't filled this year along with many others. You know that we started the school year with 28 vacancies and so that was a savings to the I guess that's the positive. Those were uh pos that salary savings to the budget while we worked to fill those positions as well. >> I just want to call that out as uh people watch from online uh paying attention to how we take care of taxpayer dollars. Just
047another example of the admin um recognizing an opportunity to be more efficient and the savings to both the taxpayers and be able to use that money elsewhere uh for that topic. Um the second part you mentioned on here that the deputy position is going to be unfilled uh pri at first right u I want to make sure that was clear that's reference to the deputy superintendent position u for those of you who may not speak um >> thank you >> you know board board language >> and uh in that case for us that's the the second level you have a superintendent then you have deputy superintendent level and for those who are looking at this wondering uh if senate bill 3 passes is and we experience the damage that we expect it to damage our
048our budget. It's not going to be a damage that is in the schools but not in the admin. The admin that already has the highest ratio of students to admin um is intentionally planning to not recruit somebody for this position this year. um because to recruit somebody for that position when we don't know what the budget's going to be would be a false or um not a very fair way of recruiting folks. So I wanted to call that out that it's the exact people who are here who are also willing to um go without if they must. And so I want to call that out. >> Yeah, Mr. Blair, as you pointed out, that would um you know, looking at that in two different ways. One, we would hate to potentially promote someone to a
049position that the following year we're having to reduce. Uh and additionally, it would be unfair to potentially bring an outside candidate in for a new job when we know the possibility exists that that position may have to be cut shortly thereafter. We just don't think that would be uh wise nor fair to someone who is uprooting a you know uh current uh position in a district that they might be in. You are correct that when you review uh those ratios across St. St. Charles County and St. Louis County benchmarks uh we are far behind the other ones. And uh you know that is something that we we think about heavily uh because to Miss Simpkins point uh all of that work and all that workload on people uh certainly has an impact on their decisions
050that they make from a year-to-year uh basis and decision. However, we always we always think that it's important that if we are forced at some point to have to make some reductions uh at the certified side or even the uh support side, we also have to look internally at at our administrators and are there places where um you know we would have to make an additional cut and try to find some balance across the board. >> You mentioned 80% of our budget relates to staffing. If we experience a $4 million reduction due to Senate Bill three uh potentially passing, is there any way to cut $4 million for a budget without damaging or affecting teachers or staff? >> It's very difficult. Um, we've had these experiences in my history here in Francis Hal before and
051you know there when 80% of your budget is people salary and benefits and 20% is electricity and utilities and resources, it's there's only so many cuts that you can make on that 20% of the budget. And so $4 million would likely impact staffing in some way. Um, you know, I think to tell you how many positions that is or what that would look like would not be fair. Um, as you know, in our in our history, that's gathering all of our leaders together and all of our, you know, getting input from all of our stakeholders and pulling up in a room and trying to decide where can we make those cuts. Um, and that might be some resources or some, you know, a technology software that maybe we can do without, but you know, to
052get to $4 million, I'm sure that we will see some sort of staffing in that list if if that is the case. Um, and of course, we'll try to do that through attrition as much as possible when if once we know what those positions are and once we're working through that staffing plan that year, uh, we'll try to do that through attrition so we don't impact people. Um but it'll just depend on the number of positions that that will call for. >> Okay. Um and obviously there's a theme on on my questions, but one of the themes uh on pillar two, we've been focusing on the strategic plan. We worked hard on this like this was multiple years to develop this plan. Um it's on our website. This is what we're identifying our energy and
053our time and and focus on. And one of our pillars is people and workforce. And that includes workforce planning, staff recruitment, and staff retention. St. Louis County would not be impacted by Senate Bill 3 the way it all it would shake out if Senate Bill 3 would fall would uh if it were to be passed. U which means that the impact on St. Charles County schools and teachers will be for would be experienced, but St. Louis County would not. Um, is it fair to say that Senate Bill 3 passing would impact our ability to recruit and retain um, staff who have the ability to cross the river and go to districts who have not had their funding cut um, as significantly as a St. Louis as a St. Charles County uh, district would experience? I
054think I would answer that question by saying if our revenue if we don't have the same level of revenue or an increase in revenue, it's very difficult to provide staff with increases. Um, we've had several years in our history where we've had uh staff freezes and you do see teachers leave the district for other positions and other school districts when we have a salary freeze because they don't feel like they have stability for their positions. And so, um, if Senate 3 bill, if if the if the legislation were to pass and our revenue was reduced and we were making those decisions, I would imagine that some staffing would be um impacted as well as our ability to continue to offer competitive salary and benefits. And that could be a decision that someone would make if
055if a neighboring district is offering a higher salary or can provide them with a salary that's equal to their years of experience. um it may be a reason that someone would look elsewhere. I think also just that stability of knowing that I have a position and I I can feel comfortable that my contract is going to be continued year after year after year. Um also retains those new employees that we've hired maybe that don't have tenure yet. Um you know if they start to see staffing reductions coming they get nervous. We've seen that in our history too when we have struggled with revenue. >> Thank you. >> Can you explain why St. those counties and affected because people might not >> Oh, sure. For those of you watching online, um certain counties are affected by
056Senate Bill 3. Certain counties are not. And you guys can dig into why that's the case, but St. Louis County is not impacted by Senate Bill >> 3 to um Yeah. So, that Senate Bill 3 is not going to be on the St. Louis County ballot. It's going to be on the St. Louis uh St. Charles County ballot, which is why it would impact all of the school districts in St. Charles County as well as ambulance districts, fire districts, library, the uh the board for disability um as well. And um but St. Louis County does not get impacted by it, which means it's a huge advantage if you don't have your revenue stream um cut out from underneath you um and live in St. Louis County versus if you're in St. Charles County and you
057just had that happen. So, appreciate that. Um thank you for that. Uh any questions about the staffing plan? >> I have one. >> I keep asking that. Oh, I'm sorry. Do you mind? >> Well, let's let's go. Let's go. Director Pushkar then. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Um earlier, uh Lisa or Miss Hipken, you brought up this a good topic that just because we lose 100 students in in attendance doesn't mean that we can cut four teachers. Along that same vein, do we know or can you get us before the next meeting the numbers of the classrooms since we used averages the numbers that are between midpoint and maximum for DESIE? Meaning that how many classrooms do we have that are over the midpoint? >> Yes, I can get that to you that I do have
058that in the plan and I can tell you the number of of buildings that will be >> we have to use averages for community. There's there are a few that will be slight right at the midpoint or just above the midpoint in the plan at the higher levels of elementary. Um so I can get that exact number to you. >> Are you saying we don't have anybody over the maximum for Desi? >> We do not have anyone near the maximum or over the maximum for Desi. No, we we we try to hit that midpoint. Um for instance, I do have um maybe a fifth grade at 27 um looking into next year. So, I'll I'll get that number to you exactly if there if I have any that are at the midpoint or right above
059the midpoint, but no one is near uh no one's near that maximum. >> Okay, great. Thank you. It's good that >> Owens. >> Okay. Um I know Dr. St. John looked into this, but I don't understand how if the stadium deal fell through, right, this they're they're not redoing the stadium now, right? because the team's going to Kansas. >> Um I I I think the Well, yes. I think the team has announced that they are going to Kansas. I I don't know. I think it's the governor's intention, the governor of Missouri, to continue to try to work through that. Um >> so the thing to me is if that's out of the picture, how is Senate Bill 3 even in effect anymore? That I mean, how are we even discussing it? because this was all
060attached to the stadium bill. >> This is all about the stadium that they're doing this to us. >> The best answer I could provide is the legislature passed it and even though the Chiefs have uh elected to leave, the the law was still enacted by uh the House and Senate. >> I just think that should be null and void. So, I mean, can we get any legal opinion on this? I >> I think people I think people are I think people are looking at >> any other version, but the best thing for us to do is to plan as if it's a possibility and for everybody else to buckle up. >> But we could I mean I don't mean other people, I mean us look into it and I just I don't understand how it
061could even be a thing >> that's falling apart. >> I did check with St. Charles County Election Authority, Kurt Bar, and he did confirm that it will be on the ballot unless a court makes a decision otherwise. So, it is on track to be on the ballot. >> But is it in court that this deal fell through? So, is it going to be valid anymore? Is that what's the courts are looking at? the courts are still looking at to see if it is unconstitutional in its entirety. But it would be my understanding potentially if if the stadium deal was just not enacted. They didn't they chose not to take those tax breaks or whatever they were looking at there has really nothing to do with this other component. >> But this is how it all
062came about. >> Correct. But >> that board is down but the royals are still >> still possibly use it too. >> Yeah. Uh other questions? >> My last question would be uh if Senate Bill 3 doesn't get passed and we're able to fund those full-time uh employee positions, you had like five or six different options. Um in that scenario, how do those options get decided? Like do we get to be involved in saying um you know secondary instructional coaches versus high school special education teachers? like what does that look like for for this body if we're able to offer that after all? >> I think that would be um administration working with stakeholders and our district leaders determining what the biggest priority would be and which of those positions might make the biggest impact for
063us moving forward. Um we would have that conversation and make that decision and then bring that recommendation to you. My intention of sharing with you kind of all of the requests that come as you can see that it's not that people are just asking for willy-nilly positions. They have very targeted reasons for asking for these positions and how it specifically relates to goals in the strategic plan but unfortunately we just don't have the resources to do all of them. And so um we'll make those tough decisions before we bring a recommendation to you. So part two of the plan would be it's exciting that we get to reallocate these 6.67 teaching positions and maybe we're able to do one or two of these plans or maybe you know and these are average salaries. Um they're
064approximate dollar amounts. They're average salaries using the average teacher starting salary from the last few years. And so of course you can hire teachers much higher in the salary schedule than at that average or a little bit lower. And so we'll just kind of work through some of that and and bring the best recommendation that we feel like would really push the district forward to meet the strategic goals um in that part two of the staffing plan that comes to you in in June. >> Thank you. Any more questions? Any other >> I just noticed that Director Harmon is still wearing his jacket. Ready to go. >> He's ready to go. Uh all right. So finally this evening um Mr. Mr. Delaney, uh, our superintendent, um, has some comments to close out our time together.
065Mr. Delaney, >> board, thank you for allowing me to share just a few updates tonight. As you are aware, we received an influx of uh, formal book challenges recently under board policy regulation 6341. I believe after uh, review of those uh, there are a total of 37 books at different levels requested for formal review by uh, one district patron. This number of formal requests creates challenges for us to form 37 individual committees to review books. It'll be my intention to bring a recommendation at next week's regularly scheduled board meeting that keeps in spirit with the current policy and regulation that allows for initial review of the books outside of a formal committee due to the large number of requests at one time. I will plan to provide uh for the board's review a motion next
066week for your review and possibly approval at that time that gives us a little bit different of direction but still honors the spirit of that policy and regulation. Additionally, uh I want to make uh the board aware that at next week's meeting we will be bringing the tuition rates for early childhood and vacation station. At that meeting, we will be sharing with the board and our community the continued plan for full day preschool as well. Board th those are my only updates today. We appreciate uh individuals listening in today and appreciate the board's uh review of our staffing plan. Thank you. >> Great. I just want to end by saying a thank you to Lisa Simkins, our chief human resource officer for your presentation. Uh thank you to Glenn Hancock, our chief academic officer, and
067our uh deputy superintendent of operations, Dr. Amy St. and John for being here as well as um our uh FHA president who's in attendance and Dr. Will Vanderpool as well and Jane Hler and Scott Gallow. So, thank you all for being part of this gathering. Uh we do not need a motion to conclude and so with that I tell you all good night. >> Thank you. Thank you.