001Okay, I'd like to call this meeting to order. Mr. Kathy, can you please lead us in the pledge? and now we're going to open it to 2.01, our public comment session. During public comments, any citizen of the Kirkwood School District may make a statement or address the board concerning issues pertaining to Kirkwood School District at our regular board meetings. The board establishes a uniform time limit of three minutes for each speaker. We will not directly respond to a speaker during the meeting, but if a response is required, the appropriate individual will get in touch in the days following the meeting. And first up, we have Maria and Mary Beth. On behalf of the teachers, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you tonight and provide an update on the progress of our school year.
002As we shared at the beginning of this year, we're grateful to serve alongside you in the deeply meaningful work of public education with the shared goal of providing the highest quality learning experience for every student. We know that this requires recruiting and retaining the very best educators. First, we want to express our appreciation for the positive steps taken this year. We've seen firsthand the dedication of of our district's leadership and we're especially grateful for the presence of Dr. Rumpus in our school buildings. Your genuine engagement with students and staff is a meaningful gesture that reflects your commitment to our community. We also celebrate Dr. Rich and the board's work at the start of the school year to increase elementary grade level sections at some schools. This investment has reduced class sizes, a move that benefits
003not only academic learning, but also allows teachers more time to address the crucial social emotional needs of their students. >> We appreciate the willingness and time each month Dr. Rich has dedicated to meet with us in person and address our concerns. This commitment to open dialogue is powerful as it validates teachers as professionals and acknowledges our hard work. We also want to thank the administrators in finance and curriculum and instruction who have partnered with us to proactively address potential issues. This collaborative spirit is helping us pave the way for a better experience for our students and staff. While we have celebrated these successes, we also want to acknowledge that there's more work to be done. The goals we outlined at the beginning of the year remain our priorities and we are committed to working with
004you to address ongoing challenges. Building mutual trust between teachers and administrators is a constant effort. We believe that with open communication and true collaboration, we can continue to strengthen these relationships at every level. We also recognize the consistent implementation of our collective bargaining agreement is a foundation for our partnership. Our goal is to ensure that the agreement is honored in a spirit of true collaboration where the rights and well-being of our teachers are consistently honored and respected. We need to address the long-standing issue of the frozen step in 201617. Realigning the salaries of our colleagues to follow the lead of neighboring districts. We must also ensure that extra pay for extra duty at compensation is transparent, equitable, and reflects the time and talent teachers dedicate across all grade levels. Finally, we want to continue our
005dialogue about strengthening our district systems for due process and communication. We believe that by ensuring fair and consistent interactions, we can show all of our teachers that they are truly valued and respected as professionals. We are committed to working together to overcome these challenges. We are here as partners ready to engage in meaningful dialogue and find solutions that will benefit our entire district. Thank you again for your service, your partnership, and your dedication to our students and staff. We look forward to a continued great year. >> Thank you. Next up, we have Leah Thomas. Hello, my name is Leah Thomas. I teach kindergarten at Kaiser and I'm a member of the K&A executive board. To kick off bargaining season, we'd like to share the acronym of respect. Respect. R stands for recess equals readiness. E
006equity empowers everyone. S support public schools. P pay we've earned. E ensured due process. C class size counts. T time for teaching. I'd like to talk about the first two. First, recess equals readiness. I loved how in his opening message to staff on opening day, Dr. Rimpus cited the importance of play in his first address to staff. K&A couldn't agree more. The incredible learning, connection, and social growth I see in my kindergarteners during unstructured playtime support this belief. Research also supports that recess positively impacts academic achievement, behavior referrals, and student mental health. Secondly, equity empowers everyone. We thank the district for their ongoing support of KTOK Kirkwood teachers of color and equity centered professional development. We encourage everyone to think about equity for students and staff members. Namely, how following the current progressive discipline guidelines
007and due process policies ensure an equitable experience for each of our valued staff members. We thank you for your partnership and collaboration as we enter the bargaining season. Thank you. Next is Amy Leatherberry. >> I think Leah left it on. Solid. Um, good evening. My name is Amy Leatherberry and I am a librarian at Kirkwood High School and a member of the K&A executive board. Um, I'm here to address the middle of our acronyms. So, we had uh R, recess is readiness. E, equity empowers everyone. Um, and after that we have S, signifying support public schools. Um, we're all here tonight on this gloomy Monday evening because we believe in the mission of public education. We believe that education is a human right and that everything we hold most dear in this country, individual dignity,
008freedom, democracy depends entirely on an educated citizenry. We've been reminded lately that rights are not guaranteed. We have to fight for them. A big part of the mission of our organization is to fight for the rights of those in the trenches who know best what Kirkwood students and families need. And that's one reason we're here tonight. We want to pledge our commitment to working together with this board to support the important work of all Kirkwood staff. I love teaching. I find teenagers to be some of the most remarkably honest and creative people on the planet. and I would not trade my days with them for anything, no matter how many times I have to hear that number that comes after 66. But I also believe that work deserves to be compensated commensurate with its value.
009So the P stands for pay we've earned. Whether it be getting back as neighboring districts have done, the frozen step we lost in 2016, funding national board certification and tuition assistance, timely credit of horizontal movement, or evaluating and updating the EPED system. We want to work together with you this bargaining season to make sure the package we produce honors and respects the hard work of our staff day in and day out. Beyond salary and benefits, it is most often the intangible things that significantly impact a teacher's well-being and performance, like the trust that will be treated fairly should an issue arise at work. That's why the second E in respect stands for ensure due process. We urge the board to ensure that all administrators are trained in due process procedures and progressive discipline and that
010these principles are applied consistently and equitably to all Kirkwood staff. Certainly, the future will not come without its challenges, but our association looks forward to forging new paths with you together as pioneers. Thank you. Jenny Ono is next. Great. Thank you. Um, good evening members of the board. My name is Jenny Ono. I am an idea lab teacher in the district and a member of K&A's executive board. And I'm here to talk about the importance of ensuring that class size and providing teachers with time for teaching remain a priority in Kirkwood. Those are the final two letters in respect. C stands for class size counts. Class size isn't just a number. It's the difference between meaningful instruction and survival mode. When teachers have smaller classes, they can build stronger relationships, give individual feedback, and truly
011meet each student's needs. But when class sizes grow too large, teachers spend more time managing and less time teaching. Students who need that extra help slip through the cracks, and even the most experienced educators struggle to give their best. Smaller classes also improve behavior, reduce burnout, and help retain great teachers. It's not just an investment in teachers. It's an investment in the student success and long-term achievement. The final T stands for time for teaching. Teachers want nothing more than to focus on students planning lessons, giving feedback, and supporting learning. But too often that time is chipped away by meetings, paperwork, testing, and non-instructional duties. When teachers spend more time on bureaucracy than on teaching, everyone loses, especially our students. Time for teaching means time to prepare engaging lessons, to understand where students are struggling, and
012to make learning meaningful. Protecting that time isn't a luxury. It's essential to effective education and teacher retention. Too often, teachers are being micromanaged for minutes they should be provided because we are professionals. I urge the board to make class size a top priority in staffing and budgeting decisions. Every student deserves a teacher who has the time to see them, hear them, and help them grow. I also urge the board to review schedules, expectations, growing curricular demands, and mandates with one guiding question. Does this give teachers more time to teach? Because when teachers have time to teach, students have time to learn. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next is Amy Barker. Uh good evening. I I am really proud to be here uh on behalf of my colleagues but also on behalf of the community. We
013have in the past couple of years with collective bargaining uh had some wonderful conversations and those conversations have made the district a better and better place to work and a better place to learn and I know that going forward that is just going to continue. So I am here to say how excited I am about bargaining season. Thank you. And our final public comment tonight comes from Mark Zimmer. >> Good evening members. My name is Mark Zimmer5 Avenue. I serve as the deputy mayor of the city of Kirkwood and I'm the new city council liaison. Recently you sent a liazison to city council meetings. Uh city council really appreciates that you've taken the time shown interest to establish contact with us and we want to reciprocate and continue to build this relationship with the board
014with the school district. Uh, as you all know, the city of Kirkwood's city council and the Kirkwood school board are separate entities. A lot of people don't realize that. Um, so we're here to ensure that we have a relationship and that we're essentially having dialogue and working together for the city of Kirkwood. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Okay, I need an a motion for 2.02 approval of the agenda to approve the agenda for the October 27th, 2025 meeting as presented. >> So moved. Penguin >> second. >> Okay. >> All those in favor raise your right hand and say I. >> I. >> Those opposed. Motion passes. 3.01 01 consent agenda approval. I need a motion to approve the consent agenda items 3.02 through 3.07 as presented. >> So move Nean second Andrews. All
015those in favor raise your right hand and say I. >> I. Those opposed motion passes. 4.01 01 personnel report. I need a motion to approve the personnel report for October 27th, 2025 as presented. So move seconders. All those in favor raise your right hand and say I. I. Those opposed those recusing themselves. >> Motion passes. 5 01 financial statements. I need a motion to approve the financial statements for September 2025 as presented. Mr. Cook, you're on. >> Good evening. Uh operating revenues in September up about 300,000 from August at 1.8 million, a little bit higher in local revenues. We had our third Prop C payment uh for FY26 uh 644,000, a little bit more than last month. And revenue statewide went up. And so the portion that went out to districts went up along with
016that. We received our first revenue from the county uh for the year uh came from fines, forfeitures and estates. Uh usually this is unclaimed property or foreclosure and that runs through St. Louis County and distributed through that fund. Interesting uh news in the state revenue line. We received more than 800,000 in September, up about 200,000 from what we received in August. So 150,000 of that increase came from basic formula and our summer school ADA was added to our weight weighted ADA for the first time. So that kind of gives an idea I think to the board and to the admin team of the revenue generated monthly from summer school. It was about $150,000 that uh was added due to that additional ADA. Uh formula was paid out on an SAT of 6,900 in September and
017we're hearing uh consistently that that that SAT is going to at 6,900 well into the spring. Uh there is a lot of doubt among state officials that we're going to hit our target of 7145 SAT. So Bessie is going to wait as long as they can to hit that SAT number so that there's not a withholding and that they they could give us a larger payment in June if the revenue materializes. But I think that the outlook uh revenue wise in the state of Missouri is not uh not optimistic that we're going to get the payment of the SAT this year. So, uh that's something I think to to watch as we go forward to. Classroom trust fund was up just a little bit. Um as you know, that fluctuates greatly with how many folks
018are playing the lottery and going to the casinos. Uh so up just a little bit uh for this month. Uh transportation, this was our last payment based on mileage from FY25 that continues July, August, and September. So, we should get a new uh amount in our next payment. We were up one dollar this month and I'm open to suggestions from the group as to how we should spend that that dollar that uh is additional there. First first money from PAT as well came in this month that uh were underway with those developmental screenings and uh so that that first payment came through in PAT $34,940. No federal revenues. U you know news there is is not optimistic either. Uh there may be some talk about that later, but uh there is enough money for food
019service payments from the federal government to last us through November uh as carryover money, but if that shutdown continues into December, we've been told not to expect to receive revenue in a timely fashion when it comes to uh our payments from the federal government in regards to meals. So, uh, our district should be impacted greatly as our free and reduced lunch, uh, number is low, but our neighbor districts and districts throughout Missouri will be impacted well in nationwide, not just Missouri, uh, could could face impacts as that coordinates with SNAP and uh, a lack of payment to school districts. It's really a difficult time as we head into uh, head into that that season. So, operating expenditures just over 7 million uh, 15.9 year to date. So we're a quarter of the way through our
020fiscal year and at 16% of our budgeted expenses. So we're we're functioning well there as well. U self-funded insurance fund balance. Uh the balance at the end of this month 882,587. Um again a little bit of a deficit run there, but if we compare back to where we were this time last year, last year's balance in September was 706,000. So we're trending in a better direction so far for this year and optimistic that that'll continue to to perform well hopefully. So any questions >> we'll start with Miss Pangorn, Miss Andrews, Miss Shern. Yes. >> Okay. Okay, >> Mr. Kathy. >> Um I appreciate the the month overmonth cash flow on the self-funded that may have been provided in the past. I don't want to say that wasn't, but I appreciate seeing that. What's the timeline
021on when we will know what the SAT comes in at? Again, >> always the last uh month of payment. So, in June is when that's finally finished. Uh they hold out on that as long as they can to make sure the revenue materialized. Often it will increase to the planned amount early in the spring if everything is going well. I would expect this year that that's going to be super late. Sometimes that means you get extra money more than you in June. But, uh, yeah, I think that I think that 6,900 is is probably more likely what will materialize. That'll bring us in probably a little bit under budget from what we had thought. Luckily, we're we're not on the razor's edge there with this the state money, but we never really know exactly what
022it's going to be until we get to June. >> Yeah. Just it just pe I appreciate you mentioning that because it piqu my attention because there was a lot of conversation around I believe Desi recommended the 71 We had a lot of conversation around we should budget around that >> because we were all I don't want to speak for everybody but a little concerned if that was going to come to fruition and what we're hearing is >> we're not optimistic. It doesn't look it doesn't look good for that. And I I think continue uh to just challenge the board and our admin team to pay attention to the the conversations around the new state formula and how that might materialize and something to to watch for and uh but but I I think it's still
023possible 7145 but looks more like 69. >> Thank you, >> Miss He Neman. Thank you for all of this really good um easily understandable information. And I also want to thank you for the community for clarifying that if the money runs out in December, we're still going to be able to feed our kids. >> Oh, absolutely. >> So, um but just to have that clarified, I think is really important. So, thank you. All those in favor of approving the financial statements as presented, raise your right hand and say. >> Okay, I need a motion. >> Second, sh. >> All those in favor, raise your right hand and say I. >> I. >> Motion passes. >> All righty. And next is 5.02 insurance premiums. I need a motion to approve the recommended and current monthly rates
024for medical prescription and stop-loss insurance effective January 1st as presented. >> So moved. Pangorn. >> Second. >> Dr. Rus. >> Thank you. President Motika board. Our employee insurance program will renew on January 1st of 2026. And tonight we're asking for your approval of employee insurance rates for the 2026 calendar year as well as as well as renewal of our stop-loss coverage with Bergkshire. Um as indicated in the memo, monthly rates for dental, vision, and life coverage remain unchanged on the um district contribution side. We are recommending an increase in monthly premiums of 12% for the traditional PO and high deductible medical plans. Um, we recommend that these plans continue to be 100% employer paid for eligible employee coverage. When it comes to insurance plans, there's really two options, excuse me, or two levers. One is
025to have plan design changes which impact um employees in different ways depending what they utilize. The second option is to look at the premium cost overall. And so we are recommending the premium increase again for this year on our side. There is an increase as well on the family coverage side. Um the 2526 budget that was approved by the board in June only included a projected 10% increase for medical premiums in this year's budget. Uh but we are requesting the additional 2% to cover from our budget internally. When we make the salary package recommendations to you in the spring that's based on current staffing at that time and there's always some changes. And so working with Mr. Cook, we do believe that that increase um will be somewhere between 75 and approximately 140,000. We believe
026that we can absorb that from the um package that the board has already approved and so that there should not be a significant increase um to the budget overall. Additionally, we're recommending continuing with Bergkshire this year for our stop-loss coverage. While their premium was the second lowest that you saw in the memo, we will receive a 25% 25% experience refund from them, which when we factor that in, that makes them the lowest net cost option for insurance. So be happy um Mr. Cook or Dr. Rich who are both involved in this recommendation can answer any questions you might have. >> Thank you Dr. Rumpus. Miss Neman. >> Thanks um Dr. Rumpus. Appreciate you walking us through that. Just wanted to ask a few clarifying questions because as the newbie, it was important for me to
027really understand some of the distinctions of what you walked through. So, um the the 12% increase in the plan, that's all going to be covered by the u district and is not going to be taken on by the teachers or the the staff as that is um 100% covered by the district. Is that correct? >> So, to clarify, the contribution we make to fully cover the employees insurance, we will absorb that 12%. There's an increase as well on the side if you're paying for a spouse or for family coverage that the employee pays. that will also have an increase um that the employee represent >> right and that increase is is that 9%. Did I read that right? >> That is correct. I think is what we it's approximate. >> Okay, great. Just wanted to
028clarify that. I think um as the we earlier heard from some of the public comments um you know collective bargaining season and all of that. I do think it's important for us to recognize the um benefit of having the uh insurance covered by the district for the employees and then knowing there's also coverage for the families as well. that's increasing. It's that's something for us to be aware of. So, um also glad to hear that we have gone through and looked at the impact of the budget for that additional 2%. So, appreciate that that call out there. That's all. Thank you, >> Miss Hern Andrews. So, in terms of our, you know, because we're self-funded, um, and I know that that that pool of money had, you know, at times was kind of dwindling. Um,
029do we expect that this increase is going going to help with that? >> So, the reality is that our expenses continue to exceed our revenues year-over-year. When it comes to insurance, there are industry standards out there. You know, we have board policy around our fund balance minimum. The state has, I think they say 3% year considered um >> concern. Um there is no policy or law around a self-insured fund balance. It's just industry recommendation. To be clear, these increases are what we hope will bring in the revenue to match the expenses for the 2026 plan year. to raise it high enough to begin building the fund balance would be even more significant. Um but understanding that we had only budgeted for 10% so 12 is an increase for the district as well as the 9%
030that employees will already absorb if they have family members on it. Um we felt that >> we're okay to make that recommendation this year. >> Okay. So just so I mean I think it's important for everyone to understand that this this increase is not going to be then building that >> we always hope the reality is year to year um claims are different you know everybody has different medical years and so just as Mr. Cook shared we're in a better spot on September 30 this year than we were last year, right? Um so we hope that um but it is one of those areas we're ongoing. You're always looking at um prescription costs, plan costs, or other other proactive measures, wellness measures we can do that might help. But yeah, the this recommendation we believe
031is really just to cover the increase in expenses, not to build the fund balance. >> Okay. Not it is what it is. I'm just glad to know. Okay. Thanks, Miss Penguin. I don't have anything either. Thank you for all of this information. >> And I I know I did the talking. I want to thank Mr. Cook and Dr. Rich and both their teams that put a lot of time and work into this as well. >> Appreciate all that you guys do. Um, all those in favor of approving the insurance premiums, raise your right hand and say, "I." >> I. Motion passes. Now we are moving on to public information 6 point right it but it's public it's not an action sorry I was reading um that's okay thank you 6.01 the enrollment report Dr. Bailey,
032you're on. >> All right. As you all know, the official enrollment is taken on the last Wednesday of September. And so, we come to the board in October just to present not only the enrollment, but a couple different ways to look at the information and the data that we want to share with the board and with the public. So, just some quick summary. Uh, resident enrollment decreased uh since last year by 89 students. Our non-resident enrollment has decreased every year for the last 10 years. And for those who don't know, that is our students who are participating in the VIC program. Over the last 10 years, however, resident enrollment has increased by 133 students. It does account for approximately 99.6% of total enrollment. And the total enrollment, which is our non-resident and our resident, um
033decreased by 94 students. And then I I add this last bullet point just so that you can see general trends. The hope if your enrollment is going to stay the same is that when you graduate seniors, you take the same number coming in through kindergarten. And you can see it's about a 90 student difference uh between last year's graduating class and this year's uh kindergarten class. This year's kindergarten class, as our teachers very well know, is also our COVID baby class. And so these are the kids who were born uh during that um crazy time in our history there. total population. So this includes all students in the district is down 5612 which is down uh about 96 students from last school year. You can see our trend uh previous years had been trending upwards
034and that trend line is pretty flat now based on previous years all the way back to 2016 2017 to where we're at now. However, um our resident enrollment, which is just those that live in Kirkwood, but does also include our non-resident employee children, is up. You can see that trend is up uh over the last 10 years. It is slightly down from last school year, but overall has shown an increase. This is a couple new slides that I added this year just to differentiate and show some of the trends just overall. So, in terms of Missouri trends, they don't have the current year data and when I pulled this, they didn't have last year. So this just shows up till 2324, but you can see the trend for Missouri enrollment in general uh is down
035from a high of 412,000 in the 2016 2017 school year down to under 400,000 uh in 2324 and is continuing to trend that direction as well. In looking at that same time frame and comparing Kirkwood's resident enrollment, so this is just those residents uh that live here in Kirkwood along with our staff compared to some of our other comparison districts. You can see that while we've shown a 5.2% 2% increase since uh 201516 you can see that other districts have had actually either a small or substantial decrease. Um on the flip side a couple districts especially Lindberg have seen a pretty substantial increase in that time frame as well. Uh but overall we're at or near the top there of our comparison districts when it comes to enrollment and enrollment trends specifically around our resident
036enrollment. Just looking at uh the enrollment breakdown, you can see um that 99.6% are resident. You can see the other resident. Our EL population, IEP population, gifted, and free reduced lunch are all approximately the same as they were in prior years. Um our free reduced lunch number is slightly down, but it's up in in one of our buildings. Uh these numbers in terms of the race ethn ethnicity breakdown are pretty much the same as last year as well. Um, in fact, it's the exact same number of black students as last year as this year, which is kind of unusual. Um, but this that the number is exactly the same. Um, and you can see that the uh we've had a slight decrease in some of our lower incident um student groups as well. For our
037elementary enrollment, you can see that uh going across would be a grade level. So, kindergarten in each of the buildings and then the total compared to last year and our projected and then going vertically would be in each building. Um, and so you can see the kindergarten we're at 352 students. We're one more than we had last year. However, that is slightly below where our projected is. And the projected, if you pull out that giant report that we use for this, is the mid-series projection. First grade 356, which is significantly down from last year, but those students are now in second grade. And you can see the change there. Um, but it's still above projected. You can see second grade uh a little bit down from prior prior year, but above projected. Same Third grade
038approximately the same but above projected. Fourth and fifth grade both higher than projected. So our total 2536 for our elementary enrollment is about 90 students or so higher than our um projected would be for that area as well. You can see also that we do have two buildings that are below 500. That's the first time this has happened in a little while. Um and all of our buildings are at least 50 students or less than 600. So, if you remember a few years ago, we had a couple buildings that were trending up at or above 600. Um, and those numbers have trended back down. Kaiser, in particular, at one point was well over 110% capacity. Um, and that is back down to 534 students. You can see as well, um, that for a couple of
039the grade levels, fourth grade, fifth grade at Kaiser in particular are fairly large. Um, and then fifth grade at Westchester fairly large. So, those will create a bit of a bubble at North Kirkwood Middle as they both exclusively feed North um as they move forward with each of those. Secondary enrollment for Nifer is at 658 students. That's slightly down from prior years. There was a time when we were over 700 at Knifer. For North, we're almost at 700. Um they've got a smaller sixth grade class, but that bubble will change next year and then the following year as those Westchester and Kaiser large groups come on up. High school down below 1700. Um and you can see almost an even breakdown across each grade level at the high school, which is unusual um for everything
040that's there. But again, the total for the secondary school is 332. slightly below where we were last year, but still higher by about 90 students than the projected numbers uh that we had in previous in previous presentations. I'm not going to read each one of these, but each of these slides is just a breakdown of each grade level and then our student groups that would include NR, which are non-resident ELLL, you guys know that population, our students with IEPs, our students who participate in the gifted program, and then free reduced lunch. And then you can see the race ethnicity breakdown. It is um this year each of those graphs is very unchanged from previous years as well. So we've kind of stabilized for the last three years. Those numbers haven't really changed on the percentage
041breakdowns much. Kirkwood High School for Knifer Middle School, we have uh just have one student who participates in the VIC program who is still at Knifer Middle School. You'll see a slide later specifically to the students who are coming through the VIC program and how those numbers have changed over the over time. Um you can see a rough breakdown about even which each of the grade levels and the same chart is similar for north. Two students who are still participating in the VIC program are at North. Uh really no change in ELLL, no change in IEP, slight uptick in gifted percentage um for North Middle. Each of the elementary schools has more grade levels. So there's a little uh dangling Chad as they would have said a long time ago at the bottom for free
042reduced lunch. But you can see the percentage breakdown. Kaiser in particular, if you look at third, fourth, and fifth, that is where the heavy enrollment numbers are at. Um there are no students who participate in the VIC program at Kaiser and so does all resident and or uh staff students that are there. For North Glendale similar there are no uh students through the Vic program. There's a slight change in the e population. We did have uh several students that metriculated up to knifer that are there. Um and then the free reduced lunch number is about the same at North Glendale as it's been in prior years. At Robinson, I do want to point out in particular, the free reduced lunch number is up than it was in previous years. So even though as a district
043we're slightly down, at Robinson we are seeing a slight increase in our free reduced lunch population that's there. There are two students who participate in Vic program who are at Robinson as well. Um but the EL numbers are down slightly at Robinson. At Tilman, most of those are pretty much the same as they were in previous years. um that it's hovering around 450 students total. And at Westchester, you can see there is a large fifth grade class, large second grade class. That second grade class was one of those that was mentioned that was addressed with an additional section uh to lower those class sizes. And the u gifted population at Westchester has always been one on the higher end for our elementary students as well. And then even though we do not include this in
044the total uh enrollment numbers that we present, I do like to show KCC in the breakdown. So if you remember previously two 280 to 300 was the number that we were maxed out at KCC. You can see that the additional classrooms are paying off um with 331 students. Now they always leave some wiggle room for more students to be added. uh because if the board didn't know, students who turn three who have IEPs are more of a guaranteed spot and so they do leave some space open for those students who turn three throughout the school year. Uh so that number is higher than in previous years of 331. The number of students with IEPs is approximately the same around 23%. that percentage is always a little bit higher than the rest of our district because
045there is a a more concentrated population of students with special needs at KCC that might not necessarily end up going to our K12 program. Couple slides on our non-resident Vic enrollment. At one point, uh there were 480 students who participated in the VIC program who came to Kirkwood schools. Currently, the VIC enrollment is 22 and that's going to continue to decrease. I do make a a very concerted effort to say that the VIC program has stopped accepting new students. It's not a Kirkwood decision. That was a decision that the Vic program made a few years ago across every school that they work with. At one point, they still took siblings of current students and two years ago that uh stopped as well. So, there are just no new students whatsoever. Um, there even used to
046be a provision that if there was a student who lived in Kirkwood who moved to our zone in the city, they could come back through the Vic program and stay in Kirkwood. That's not happening now either. Um, and so basically there are no new additional students that are coming through. All the students in the VIC program can however remain until they graduate and transportation is provided by the Vic program. That used to be several buses. That is uh now down to a few cabs. And some of those students share cabs. Um which sometimes makes afternoon pickup a bit of a challenge. Approximately 82% of our students in the Vic program are at middle school or high school. So the large portion will be moving forward. In fact, you can see that we really only have
047about five elementary students that will continue to progress through. So in nine years, we will no longer have any VIC students in the Kirkwood School District. You can see the trend just for the last 10 or so years coming down. We're at one point almost 200 students down to 22. And again, that is not a Kirkwood decision. That was a decision that was made for us and those numbers have continued to decrease each year. We do also a few years ago have added this slide to show the number of non-resident employees children that we have. I will tell you that the total number is not much different than it has been for the last several years. We've been anywhere between 160 and 170 for at least the last four or so years. Um you can
048see the breakdown of the schools that are chosen at the elementary level. Kaiser tends to be a particularly popular one for high school teachers because it's right across the parking lot uh for them along with Westchester. Um but otherwise a fairly even breakdown across the board. Just for your awareness as well, if a student is an employee um child and they go to Tilman, for example, we typically have them metriculate up to North Kirkwood Middle. So, they do follow their peers, but because there's no real split, we have had a few um staff members that have come to me and asked, can we go to Knifer instead of North? And we haven't said no to that just based on numbers. Um but typically, we follow the same um patterns as the students that are in
049their classes. They move up. Here's kind of a a more complicated breakdown. Uh resident enrollment. So this is just our residents who are Kirkwood. So this removes the students through the Vic program. And this removes the non-resident employee children to just show you who lives within our boundaries. And you can see that our numbers are down in some of the buildings when compared to last school year. We do two different comparisons. is the midseries which is um statistically kind of the middle average number and then the fiveyear just for those that don't know is um the last five years of our data is taken and averaged out and that's what that number is as well. So, there are slight differences between the mid-series projection and the five-year average, but you can see overall that um
050the actual enrollment of 53.95 for this year is only 14 students less than the mid-series projection, 15 students less than the uh five-year average. And so, doing the math, that was a.3% difference, which is pretty accurate. So when we look at birth rate and we look at the ways that we've done our enrollment projections throughout uh the last several years, the number coming into this school year is pretty close to what we actually landed with. Um when it comes to enrollment, we do also include transfer data for the public and board's awareness. Um several of these would be outside of people's choice. So instate public, outofstate public, out of state private and out of country would require you to move out of the district. Um we did have a larger number than in the past
051with instate public. So there just must have been a lot of movement. We also had a number coming in. So you can see the difference for instate public. Out of state public people have moved and you can see that uh we had five less coming in as we had going out. instate private is a number we pay particularly close to because that typically is somebody who has chosen to remain in the Kirkwood school district boundaries but has chosen to no longer attend the Kirkwood school district. Um and so you can see 88 students transferred out and I'll show you a breakdown upon by which grade levels they transferred out. We did have 58 students who were in and instate private transfer in uh for a net of minus 30 there. We did have several out
052of state private students come in, nine for a gain of seven. Uh homeschool is always interesting to see who's going to go out and who's coming back in. We actually had a larger number come back in uh for home school, so a plus eight. And then out of country can be a little misleading because a couple of those were um foreign exchange students that really didn't have a choice. They had to go back. Um and then a few of them just decided they wanted to move somewhere else. So, uh, so you can see that in terms of transfer out, we had 194 students, uh, transfer out. And this goes back to basically this is calculated on were you with the Kirkwood school district in the 2425 school district and you did not return in the
0532526 school district. So, it was pulled from literally the first day of of summer break till basically the day that I pulled the report, which is typically September 30th. So anybody that had transferred during that point is captured uh here with us for a difference of minus 17. And this slide shows kind of the the grade that they finished when they left and then the grade they had just finished when they came in. So this doesn't exactly line up with some others because if somebody finished kindergarten last year, they're technically a first grader with us, but you can see the transfer out, transfer in um through the time through no surprise. You can see that the most action happens on those transition years. So at fifth grade for middle school, you can see several transfer
054out. We did have a few transfer in. Eighth grade, either transferring out to go to a private high school or coming from private to transfer in to go to Kirkwood High School is when that happens. You do see those numbers kind of trickle down, especially for junior year there where we had one transfer out um and two transfer in. One of the things that we'll add this school year that we haven't done before um is that some of the feedback we got on the family exit survey was that it felt like it was um far away when they received the survey from when they actually transferred out. So at the end of this first semester, we'll send another survey just to capture all these folks just to make sure their thoughts and their their ideas
055are fresher on their mind. But we want to give the whole first semester because some there still may be some movement back and forth. But we'll do kind of two surveys. So one in the middle of the year and then one again at the end of the year just to capture anybody who who transfers as well. The uh chart you can see here is that we have seen a gradual decrease since a high of uh 135 in 2020 2021. I have no idea what was happening during that time. Uh it may have required masks. So you can see that there were several transfers out. That number has kind of settled back into precoid numbers for us. However, if you think that our total enrollment is slightly down, this number being slightly down is not surprising
056as well, but it is one of our lower numbers. And then total transfers out uh are definitely less than they were in prior years. Some of the transfers out in the 171 1819 school year were u the Riverview Gardens um and Normandy transfers that were required at at uh changes in time. But you can see again 2020 2021 there was a lot going on. uh at that time and transfer out numbers were at a at a high peak uh but we settled in that 200ish range u between the last four or five years or so and I'm happy to take any questions. >> Miss Pangorn Miss Andrews, >> thanks for being responsive with regards to the survey. M. >> Yes. I have a question. You may not know the answer tonight, but that's okay. I
057was just curious as to um how the non-resident um employee children are contributing to the diversity of the district. >> I get that. >> And I just asked that because it shows the importance of recruiting and retaining diverse staff and then just, you know, looking and knowing the landscape of Kirkwood is changing. um the increase in cost of living and the decrease in affordable housing. I'm just wondering how we fare with that. >> Yeah, we can get that for you. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Kathy. Is that Miss Neman? Good. Thank you. >> Back to you, Miss Penguin. >> This is great. And I do want to emphasize the number here for the total transfers out both to instate private and total transfers. The lowest numbers on the chart going back to 1718. So that's
058really good to see. >> Yes. >> Um All right. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Rumpus. Dr. Rumpus, sorry. Do you have anything to add? >> I will only add to that. Um a conversation we've had with Dr. Bailey around this report and the family exit survey as well as with Dr. Rich around the employee exit survey is um are there ways that we could get some of that data through qualitative interviews. Um you know Dr. M brought um stay interviews to the district a few years ago. We've just had conversations around depending on who does that interview, how comfortable might a staff member be in sharing the feedback or families. So there's always a cost involved, but it's something we're looking at is just outside of the um quantitative survey. Is there another
059way that we might get feedback from families about why they're leaving the district and then to do the same for employees? >> Thank you. Next up, future events. Tomorrow night on October 28th, we have a community racial allyship meeting right here 6 to 7:30. Um, in case you didn't know, especially elementary school teachers and parents, October 31st is Halloween on Friday and it's not supposed to rain. Um, next Tuesday is election day. There's no school for students. It's a staff development day. November 10th is our next parent speaker series on suicide or anxiety and I encourage everyone to go to those. November 11th is Veterans Day. November 19th is our third for this quarter Kirkwood Schools community conversation. It's at Pioneer Bakery from 8 to 9:30. 8:30 to 10, something like that. Um, yes, good
060good donuts there. November 24th and 25th is Turkey Day spirit week. 26th 28th is Thanksgiving recess. No school for students. November 26th is the chili cookoff. Get your tickets. They go fast. And lastly, 7.02 is notice of board candidate filing. Hard to believe it's that time again. Um, candidate filing for the April 7th, 2026 election to the Kirkwood School District Board of Education opens at 800 a.m. on Tuesday, December 9th, 2025, and continues until 5:00 p.m. on December 30th, 2025. Candidates must file in person at the St. Louis County Board of Elections, 7:25 Northwest Plaza Drive in St. Anne. You no longer have to get up at 3:00 am to try to be first on the ballot. It doesn't matter when you go. Um, no filing will take place at the district administrative office. They
061may file between 8 and 4:30 Monday through Friday and filing ends at 5:00 p. p.m. on the last day of candidate filing only. The board of election office will be closed on December 25th. May also close due to inclement weather. For the first day of filing, a random lottery drawing will be conducted to determine ballot placements. Candidates who file after the first day will be listed in order of filing. The terms of current board of education members Ben Cathy, Jennifer Pangborn, and Nicole Shern will expire in April 2026. When filing, the applicant will complete a written declaration of candidacy. To be eligible, candidates must be a US citizen, at least 24 years old, a taxpayer of the district, have resided in the district and the state of Missouri for a minimum of one year immediately
062preceding the election, not delinquent in the payment of any state income taxes, personal property taxes, municipal taxes, or real estate property taxes on the place of res residence. have never pled guilty or been convicted of a felony, are not registered or required to be registered as a sex offender, and have filed all required campaign disclosure reports for any previous elections. Interested candidates may pick up an information packet from Kirkwood's administrative office at 1099 Milwaukee Street or contact the superintendent's office. And that's it. We are adjourned.