001All right. I'd like to welcome everybody and call to order the 2025 budget committee meeting and start with salute. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for which it stands under indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. We'll go ahead and do everybody can just say their name and that they're here. We'll start with uh Mr. Pet here. Christy Cocky here. Nicholas Haz here. Brad here. Miller here. Valer here. Bower here. Fisher here. Here. David Anderson here. Suzan West here. And include here. Great. I would like to make the motion to approve the agenda as presented. Second. All in favor? I. Thank you so much. Would someone like to make a motion to approve the April 22nd, 2025 meeting minutes? So moved, Madam Chair. Great.
002Second. Great. All in favor? I. Thank you. And now we will turn it over to Dr. West for the budget message. Yes. Thank you so very much. Um, welcome. Uh, this is an important process for our school district. We do this once a year where we engage with our community around the creation of a budget. Tonight, we have a lot to share with you. Um, starting with the budget message. We do have the proposed budget in front of you. If you turn to the green tab, you can follow along with the budget message if you'd like to do so. I'll go ahead and get started. So again, I'm honored to share with you tonight our proposed budget for the 256 school year. This message is meant not only to explain the details of the budget
003itself, but also share the funding values and priorities that shape how we allocate resources and make decisions. At its heart, this budget continues to reflect what we believe to be true, that every child matters, and that every student deserves the opportunity to learn, grow, and graduate prepared for a choice filled life. Like every year, this process asks us to balance hopes with realities, to hold tight to our mission while responding to the financial challenges in front of us. Oregon's ongoing underfunding of K12 education, the rising costs of goods, services, and personnel, and continued enrollment decline all shape the decisions we made. But even in the face of these pressures, our commitment remains steady to protect the programs and investments that most directly support student success. So, what guides this budget? When we sit down and
004plan our budget each year, we start by asking, "What does it take to help every student thrive?" Our answer hasn't changed. It takes great teaching, takes targeted supports, and strong systems. And it takes schools that are safe, inclusive, and welcoming for all. Our budget continues to prioritize what we know works. We are focused on the fundamentals. Literacy, bilingual education, academic rigor, career and college readiness, social emotional well-being and student engagement. These aren't just numbers on a page. They represent real opportunities for students and real commitments from our staff. We also know that the most important investment we make is in our people. Our teachers, support staff, counselors, coaches, and leaders are at the heart of everything we do. Whether they are teaching in classrooms, driving buses, preparing meals, or keeping our schools safe and clean,
005every one of them plays a part in supporting our students. That's why this budget keeps professional learning, staffing, and supportive work environments at the center of our financial plan. So, I want to start by pointing to where we're seeing some progress with the investments we're making at Forest Grove School District. We remain focused on the fundamentals of student learning and well-being because when we get these right, great things happen for kids. Despite the challenges facing public education and our students continue to show growth, achievement, and resilience. These successes are not by accident. They are the result of the daily work of skilled educators, strong systems of support, and the belief that every student has the potential to thrive. Several key academic indicators demonstrate the strength of these efforts. Ninth grade on track 85.9%. This is
006great growth and it's above the state average. Regular attenders 66.2%. This is also an increase for us over the previous year. And our four four-year cohort graduation rate at 82.9% is also above the state average. These outcomes reflect our investment in aligned instruction, data informed decision-making, and student centered supports. Our approach is rooted in the understanding that academic success is deeply connected to relationships, engagement, and a sense of belonging. Whether through classroom instruction, small group interventions, counseling services, or expanding partnerships, our focus is on keeping students connected to their boards. One of the cornerstones of this work is our investment in early literacy, where we know the greatest long-term gains begin. Our $ 1.7 million investment since 2022 in literacy curriculum grounded in the science of reading and aligned with Oregon standards continues to shape
007positive reading outcomes in both English and Spanish. Literacy specialists and ongoing professional learning ensure that this critical work is supported and sustained across our schools. In addition, our dual language program now expanding into middle grades supports biiteracy as both a skill and an asset. With 37% of our students learning in two languages and onethird of our K5 students identified as English learners, we are seeing significant success. Former English learners who exit services before high school are graduating at an 85.8% rate, higher than both the district and statewide averages. Part of our focus is preparing students for a choicefilled future. Life beyond high school is at the core of our mission. A choicefilled life means students graduate not only with a diploma but with the skills, confidence, and real world experiences that open doors to future
008opportunities, whether that's college career or something in between. At Forest Growth High School, we continue to expand access to rigorous academic opportunities. Students have the option to take 23 advanced placement courses and participate in dual credit programs through the lamoth process promise. In the last year alone, 135 students earned 872 college credits, saving families over $180,000 in tuition costs. These early college experiences provide students with both the challenge and the head start that many families are seeking. Our commitment to ninth grade success remains a priority. Thanks to the leadership of our ninth grade success team, we reached an 89.9% on track rate last year, our highest since joining the 9GS network. These gains include a 6% improvement for historically underserved students. The strategies behind the success are grounded in relationships, positive adult connections, intentional outreach
009to families, and studentled projects that promote belonging and inclusion. We also recognize that college is one of many great options for our graduates. That's why our career and technical education pathways say play such an important role in preparing students for their future. With 14 CTE programs, including health services, early childhood education, business management, culinary arts, engineering, and construction, our students gain hands-on experience in industry recognized skills that prepare them for employment and post-secary education. CTE concentrators continue to outperform state graduation rates with a 91.3% ontime graduation. One of the most powerful examples of career connected learning is the Viking House project which is now in its 50th year. We're really excited about them. This program gives students the opportunity to design and build a home from the ground up. Applying the principles of math, science,
010construction, and teamwork to a real world challenge. Viking house stands of a symbol of what's possible in learning is rigorous, relevant, and connected to life in the classroom. For students who need a different pathway, our community alternative learning center continues to provide a supportive, flexible environment where students can work towards their diploma at a pace and approach that fits their individual needs. Calc's blend of in-person and online learning combined with personalized support and counseling ensures all students have a pathway to success. These programs, opportunities, and pathways reflect our district's commitment to prepare students not just for graduation, but for the future they choose. with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to pursue their dreams. You'll see our budget also reflects the bond improvements that we're working on. Just as we invest in teaching and learning, we
011are also committed to ensuring that our learning environments are safe, modern, and built for the future. Thanks to the trust and partnership of our community through the 2022 capital long, we continue to make steady progress on projects that improve facilities across the district. One of the most significant projects is the replacement of Cornelius Elementary School at near after nearly 80 years of service. The original building is being replaced with a new twostory 76,000 square foot facility designed to serve black students. The new school will meet seismic safety standards, provide flexible learning spaces, a family resource center, and pre kindergarten classrooms, reflecting our commitment to both safety and inclusivity. Bond funds of 121 million are also supporting seismic retrofits and security upgrades districtwide. Expanded CTE facilities at Forest Grove High School, enhancing access to hands-on career
012connected learning, healthy and modernized spaces that support student well-being and engagement, and one pre kindergarten classroom at every elementary school. The citizen bond oversight committee continues to meet regularly providing important oversight and ensuring that bond resources are used responsibly and transparent. We are facing a tough year next year. However, while there is much to celebrate, we are also navigating serious financial challenges that shape this budget. These include years of state underfunding of K12 education with Oregon's 11.4 4 billion bianial budget falling short of what's needed to fully fund the quality education model. Rising costs for salaries, health insurance, goods, and services driven by inflation and contractual obligations. Enrollment decline now over 130 students below projections directly reducing revenue under the state's funding formula. Adding to these challenges is uncertainty at the federal level. Several one-time
013federal relief funds that help stabilize school budgets are expiring, and there is growing concern about potential reductions to federal programs like Title One, special education, and school nutrition. While immediate cuts have not been confirmed, this environment of uncertainty calls for cautious and conservative budgeting in the year ahead. As a result, this proposed budget includes a $1.8 million reduction in general fund expenditures. These reductions are necessary after seven years of declining enrollment, increasing costs and deficit spending and are essential to maintaining district reserves through the end of this bienium. A significant portion of our budget, like most school districts, is dedicated to staffing as people are greatest resource and expense. However, the reality of sustained enrollment decline means we can no longer justify the number of full-time equivalent positions currently in place. In a system where
014funding is tied to student count, maintaining the staffing levels that exceed enrollment is not financially sustainable. Therefore, this budget includes reductions to FTE across the district. These staffing adjustments are being made with precare and deliberation. Our goal is to minimize the impact on existing staff wherever possible through attrition retirements and unfilled vacancies. We are committed to managing this reduction responsibly and transparently. Keeping student needs is the amount of every decision. Even with these reductions, our focus remains clear. Protect direct services to students, minimize classroom disruption, and preserve the programs that support student learning and well-being. These are difficult but necessary steps to ensure the long-term health and stability of our district while continuing to invest in the success of our students. At the heart of this planning is a commitment to our students and a
015focus on our strategic and integrated plan goals which prioritize the following. Highquality instruction, ensuring all students experience rigorous engaging instruction that closes opportunity and achievement gaps. Behavioral health and wellness, supporting student well-being through trauma-informed strength banks based and culturally responsive systems. Family and community engagement, honoring and amplifying the voices of families and community partners through accessible communication and authentic engagement. Organizational resilience, building safe, healthy, and sustainable systems that support collaborative environments and continuous improvement. Each decision in this budget is aligned to these goals. We continue to invest in targeted instructional supports, maintain ASCA aligned counseling ratios, and reinforce systems that build student attendance and engagement. We believe in the power of public education to teach students the skills they need. Whether a family is still climbing or has achieved economic security, public schools were part
016of virtually every family story. The heart of Forest Grove School District remains strong. Our students continue to show resilience, brilliance, and heart. Our staff continue to show care, creativity, and commitment. And our community continues to show unwavering support for our schools. This budget reflects both the values we hold and the realities we face. I want to thank our board of directors, budget committee members, staff, families, and community for your partnership and trust. Together, we will continue to care deeply, stand strong, and adapt and grow, ensuring that every student graduates ready for their next step in a choice of life. Thank you. Um, so tonight we'll talk a little bit about a quick review of our budget committee roles, guiding principles. Um we'll go into the proposed budget highlights that are included in the budget document
017itself. Uh there will be an opportunity for public comment tonight and then it'll be open discussion, deliberations and comment um within the team. As we go through this, please feel free to ask any questions you have. Um this document in front of you is yours. Write all over it. There's sticky tabs there. Mark, ear mark things. um the slide deck when I'm pulling the information out of the budget document itself, there'll be a little page number at the bottom of it referencing what page it's coming from. So if you want to see more information on that uh topic individually, it'll direct you right to that. Um so we will go ahead and get moving. Just a reminder of where we are in the budget committee process. This is the first budget well the first official
018budget committee meeting. Um tonight it's the delivery of budget message the proposed budget. We will have up to two more meetings after this to discuss and deliberate and provide more information. Um ultimately at the end we want um more uh sorry ultimately at the end we would like Christie I'm sorry I was just opening my postit notes sorry public apologies I'm ready to I'm ready to roll please are you ultimately at the end of this committee and this process um this committee is to recommend a budget to the board for adoption. Um, and so that will be in June for us to be able to officially start expending on the new budget July 1. Reminder of budget committee roles and responsibilities. Um, the budget committee is really to receive the proposed budget. Uh, review it,
019discuss it, ensure it meets and aligns to our district priorities. uh consider additional input and community input through the um public comment process and then ultimately recommend a level of spending appropriations. The just a quick reminder of what is not the budget committee's role. We don't set specific salaries for individuals or contract terms uh set staffing levels or make large structure decisions. Uh that's really the board's responsibility and administration. Um and then altered district goals or policies. Again, those are board and administration. At the end, the budget that you're recommending to um Yes, please. Uh at the end of the day, what we're looking for is a recommendation to the board to set our maximum appropriations for spending for the 2536 fiscal year. and that is by major fund and major function. So general fund
020instruction, general fund support services and so forth. This is an example and this sheet is in the back of the book. Um and it is based on all of the information that is in the packet. Okay. After conversation and discussion and deliberation, there is a couple of options you have as a budget committee. You can approve the budget as it's proposed. You can increase appropriation in an area if you believe we will get more resources. You can decrease appropriation in an area if you in major function uh fund and function if you think we will get less resources or you can move appropriation between major functions. So from support services to instruction or instruction to support services. um by the budget committee, it goes to the board for adoption and then this set sets our
021limits for spending for next year. However, if additional resources do come available or legislation changes, then we do have the um approval to go to the board to ask for an increase in appropriation based on that unknown item. With us being in a legislative year, we have a lot of assumptions in this budget and there's a lot of changes that could potentially happen after this budget is adopted by the board. And so there is a probability that that could happen. Um so we would just go to the board and ask for appropriation increase for a particular um either instruction or support services um based on that change in resources. If there's less resources, we don't necessarily have to go to the board because we're setting that maximum amount. However, we will internally make those adjustments.
022I want to talk a little bit about some of our guiding principles. We we did touch on this in previous conversations that when we were building a budget, we have many competing demands. Those are the arrows that you see on the outside of the circle. Um there are some things that we must do. We have legal requirements we must meet. We have contractual requirements that we must meet. We have guidance from the Department of Education that we are held accountable to. Those factors must be built into our budget process because there are requirements of school districts. In addition to that, we seek feedback. You saw some feedback previously from our students, from our families, from our staff, from our community. We read that and we take it to heart and we ensure that the budget
023that we are building is addressing those top priorities that our community have told us matter to them and also taking into consideration the things that our community has told us that they feel like we could prioritize for reduction. And you're going to see some followup with that in the message here today. These demands are sometimes competing. As we talked about last time, our business is educating kids. We are going to buy curriculum. We are going to invest in the professional learning of staff even though we did hear from some people that curriculum doesn't matter. That that could be one of the things that we could cut. We we still need to educate kids. So that those things sometimes seem to be in conflict in in with each other and we try to balance that through
024this process. Um, in the front of your um, budget book, I have an insert. This is just more data of the next slides that I'm going to go over. I have a couple of charts. One of the questions that came up in the last meeting that we talked about, we did a survey on budget priorities this um, this winter with our community and our staff and we talked about it a little bit last time, but we were able to actually go through the information. This is just kind of a summary of what we heard through that. So I wanted to start with just wrapping back around with that discussion from the last meeting. Overall we had umund 796 respondents of the survey. 538 of those were students. 102 parents and 138 staff members. Uh primarily
025students is um who responded to it. it would be NAMS in a high school. Um, looking at the demographics of the respondents, we have about 79% who identified as English as a primary language and 25% who identified as Spanish as a primary language. We do have some that identified as both. Um, so a little bit about the demographics of the survey results. I mean, before we go further, do you have a sense for how Biden take the survey. Well, we sent the survey out to all high school students and Neil Armstrong students and then Dr. West. Yeah, we sent it through our communication channels through our newsletter. It's on the website. So, it was sent directly to families to staff. Ideally, every family would have been aware of it at any question. Yeah. But that
026was intent is to make every family aware and have every family be invited as well as all staff members. Correct. And all students. Well, not all students. Weed to secondary students. Neil Armstrong at the high school. Correct. So families, community members, students at the high school and middle school who wanted an opportunity to respond had that opportunity through direct mailing or direct emailing. We have also had it posted on our list so people could respond in west. Has this been done in past years or has this been I'll have to pitch that question. The push was much more significant than in historical years. Um in historical years we developed a survey, had a couple of respondents, didn't get a lot of results. This time we really pushed it out a lot more on social on
027all of our communication channels. Um, having 796 respondents for a survey is pretty good compared to what we've seen in the past. Pretty impressive. Um, I have to say I'm scratching my head about the student response rate being as high as it is. Like, did they get credit or something? Yes, it is. But how did you do that? Hey, Eileen, along the same lines, how many staff members does the district have? Um, a roundabout. What did it say? We have about 800 Sophie FTE here. I don't remember the SF. We have 733 FTE built into this current year's budget. So, um, but there could be a lot of partial FTES in there. So total employees. Thank you for the question. So page one in the book, it has 411 licensed teachers, 330 classified staff and
02812 confidential supervisory, 28 administrators. So that's who we have today in our system for number of input. Thank you. All right. So looking at one of the questions we asked, we really only asked two questions. Um the first one was check your top three most important priorities the district should be focusing on. Um, and again, these questions led with a video and kind of an information sheet on why we were asking these questions to try to lead up to the um lead up to them. Overall, looking at these, safety and security was by far the the highest response, followed by counseling, mental health, after school activities, and class size. The sheet you have in front of you breaks those numbers down by whether it's students, parents, or community. and what their responses are. The green
029highlight is the top three in each of those classifications. So, you can kind of see the difference between the groups and how they responded to this question. Um, primarily, uh, community, staff, and parents were pretty consistent. Uh, students is where we had some variables. Uh, their priorities were primarily after school activities and clubs, counseling and mental health, and then safety and security. Um so when we look at the the results by group the next question that we asked was check the three areas you would consider for budget reductions. Um this one identifies district supports administration, professional development and curriculum as the top three. Um and then again on your printout you can see the difference between the groups. um staff, parents and community were pretty well aligned where students was just a little bit different.
030Um showing class size, curriculum and technology. And then um the last two groups on the sheet that you have are up here on the screen, but it's asking the same two questions, but it's just broken out differently instead of broken out by what group response it is, but by the primary language in the household. So we can see if there is a variance in our demographics of our uh community and how they respond as comparison to the students and parents difference. Um, so it's just more information that we were looking at. Uh, there was a couple of fields for, you know, describe why you chose this and it's been really fun reading those. So, um, we've been really going through that. But any questions on the data for the survey response? Okay. Now, to get
031into the proposed budget, um, in your book that you have, some of this you'll be able to follow along. A lot of it, I just took pieces out. So, the blue marker in your book starts with a section that's called budget at a glance. And this is the meat of the budget book. This is the report showing and kind of summarizing the ump behind all of the details behind it. So the budget at a glance is the start with the major budget assumptions. Um built into this budget is the state school fund at 11.4 billion state school fund allocation. Um 49% year 1, 51% year 2. It is based on the co-chairs and the governor's recommended budgets. We will not know what the actual state school fund is um probably until later this month or
032late. So sometime between now and the end of June, but it's time we know what this is. So it is an estimate at this time. Uh investments in the strategic plan um investments in teaching and learning for instruction curriculum development uh expanding dual language into Neil Armstrong focus on early literacy sustaining our mental and social mental social behavioral and health supports investment in family resource center and financial stability and resilience. Many of these things were in Darth West's um message. Uh continuing on uh looking at our grant funds, all of our grant fund, we know there's a lot of uncertainty around federal funding for this upcoming year. We're budgeting current service level uh going into next year. However, we are planning on the 75% 50% or zero with many of our federal grants. So we
033are doing that work behind the scenes not knowing how that impact is going to happen. We are rolling forward in current service level uh allocations for our federal funds. Uh two of the other big grants that we have that are not um federally funded is your high school success and student success act. Student success act is 6.1 million and high school success is well in this budget. Uh for debt service, we do have an investment into our PERS reserve. Our current PERS bond sunsets in 2025. So that rate credit will go away in 2020, sorry, 2027. Um so the next bianium. So we are continuing to increase um our PERS reserves slightly to help offset that increase in PUR rates when that credit sunsets. Um the rest of the funds, all of the funds actually
034impacts um we do have a projected COLA and insurance cap increase into this budget. We are in active negotiations with both union groups. So right now it's just an estimate. It's a proposed uh we still have to bargain those and that could impact this budget. Uh we are maintaining class size averages at our current uh targeted class size average. I have a slide in a little bit about that. And then we have the $1.8 million reductions built into our general fund. [Music] We have a couple of slides. Okay. Um, as far as looking at this budget, um, we have $240 million in resources in this upcoming year, of which 42% is our general fund, and 9% is grants. Then we have our food service, our debt, and our capital projects. Our capital projects is still
035pretty significantly high, and that is because we are still working on all of our construction through the bond. as the bond work continues to um get completed that percentage will start to shrink in the next couple of years. So that is mostly our bond work. looking at our resources in another way. Sorry. Um we have of the $240 million 17% is local, 33% of that is state, 4.5% or $10.8 million is federal funds. Um and then we have some transfers and then our beginning fund balance is 43%. So that's the beginning fund balance rolled forward into the new year. A lot of that is going to be the capital projects fund our resources for our bonds. Um bump up. What's uh transfers? Transfers is going to be um we have our spear debt payment. So
036we use construction excise tax and general fund to pay for that. So we transfer those resources into the debt service account and then pay for that debt in there. Okay. Um so we have our speech debt, our 20 um our Raven Hill property purchase, our turf replacement um fund reserve fund that we transfer into. So those three things. Okay, perfect. That makes sense. Great question. Uh the bump out um here is the same information except for pulling out beginning fund balances. So we can see of those new resources that we have put into this budget where those resources are coming from. So 31% is local, 59% state and only 8% of our new resources are uh federally funded. looking at all of our expenditures districtwide. So this is all expenditures, all funding sources, 34% is
037instruction, 20% is support services, and then that facilities acquisition improvement, that's primarily those bond funds, uh 26% and 15% for debt service. So that's the repayment of all of our um wealth funds primarily and the Vshart and David Hill properties. I mean, when if we weren't doing a major bond upfront construction, what's a nor typical percentage for that facility? Without a bond, it would be pretty low. We don't do much capital facilities improvements. Um, without a bond, um, it would be a couple hundred,000. If, um, if it's just general fund paying for that, it's going to be maybe a $40,000 or replacement of a boiler or you know it's going to be small items that we just can't fund um so many but primarily bought. Yeah. um our goal in the PLA in the past
038and our goal with this current bond is to hold some interest revenue so that if a boiler goes out or an HVAC unit goes out between now and the next bond, we will have resources set aside to be able to support that. Um so that's what we've done in the past is hold a little bit of that interest so that we can accommodate some of those big ticket items. Uh looking at the expenditures just the same expenditures just looking at it a different way by major object instead of by major function. Uh salaries and benefits um salaries and benefits is about $82 million total 43% combined. Services is 12% and your capital outlay uh that's the same your 4,000 function from the the prior one. your bond projects 21% and then debt services your 15%
039again now general fund because that's where we have the most control of our resources um all of our other resources our grants our debt service our capital projects those we get those resources for a particular purpose and that is how we need to use those our general fund is what we have the control on that's what we say electricity for teachers. Um that's how we operate dayto-day. So I wanted to focus primarily on general fund. Next looking at our general fund resources for next year, we'll have $101.9 million built into this budget. 22% is local, 75% is state. When we look at these resources um and the state school fund formula, I have the state school fund formula to the right. It includes your common school fund, your state school fund, your county school fund,
040and local property taxes. That accounts for 96% of our resources next year. 96% of our new resources. That is all enrollment driven. Enrollment goes up, our resources will go up. Enrollment goes down, our resources go down. um regardless of which bucket it is, it's all part of that equalization formula. Looking at because our revenue is so focused on enrollment, um I did want to just share one um I guess the last four or five years, five or six years on enrollment changes. This is pandemic, post pandemic. Um we are budgeting next year 5,400 students in the district. It is declining over the last several years. That is primarily from our incoming kinder class sizes being so small in comparison to our exiting senior classes. Um even with moveins into the community, it's not enough to
041offset the declining birth rates. Um so that is something that we'll have um and be aware of and we are looking at and using our demographic study to help support us for long term. Um as you can see the 11th grade and 10th grade and 9th grade those are all in the high 400s and our incoming kinders are in the low 3000s. So um we do have this ongoing. It's going to take us the next 10 years to build back our enrollment. Interesting. Because in the community there's a pretty wide assumption that um we need more schools. So why aren't you building more schools? I hear that a lot when I go to community. We are still down 5% from pre- pandemic. We lost 5%. We are still down 5% of our enrollment from pre
042pandemic. That is a state trend and a national trend. It is. So it's not a force growth thing. No, that's that's a state and national trend that that is just happening right now. So people see new subdivisions coming in and they just assume schools are going to be just crowded. Yeah. Young families can't afford those houses. Yeah. Right. Right. In talking with our city colleagues, it's going to be a few years before the permits for the multif family dwellings are realized, before those structures are built. So, we're several years out from seeing any kind of increase in it. Yeah, I think I remember u Dave Parker too talking I I think I asked the same question last year and and he gave the example that you know some of the the newer buildings that were
043by the high school out of all the houses that got built there there was a handful of of families that had student age kids in like really but you know like Valerie said they're expensive one of the examples a few years back we built or we built the community built um those new apartments over there by uh Ace Hardware and it was going to bring in a hundred new elementary kids and I think we end up with five. Yeah. After it was built. So, it's it's the new homes and new apartments and it's just not bringing in the new enrollment um for that. I'm wondering also um the messaging I know the school district has been me messaging that and I I don't know what you all would think but it does feel like it's
044breaking through to general community and state and nation that enrollment is down in public schools. It feels like most people are aware of that sound bite. I'm not sure beyond what we're pushing out as a school district where is the communication happening around some of those pieces that you're mentioning around the community just connecting that decline directly to the budget and then also kind of myth busting the idea that we are going to be having because we did talk we have talked about it for a couple years but it seems like the same theme is still occurring. So just I don't know if that's a communications discussion maybe but outside of schools is that actively being well we had that discussion post pandemic thinking that the enrollment was going to go up after everybody got
045their got solid again and and because of the enrollment and the way that the exiting seniors and then compared to the kindergers um it's still staying fairly fairly low. So, but there needs to be some type of messaging. Well, and I with the one school board meeting when we did put up and I think Dr. West, you specifically started to talk about that enrollment with staffing and then also future and I think there were people even in the room there that that's kind of the first time some connections were made to those points. So maybe as a as a part of a budget message that we can think about how to have our city partners elevate that or I don't know. Anyway, so my comments on that. So So kids are not moving into the
046community. That's why the enrollments are down. But do we have any statistics about kids going to private school? I'm looking that up as you speak. Oh, you are. Yeah. is I've only so I've actually only sold homes to families in those neighborhoods by David Hill. However, I don't know the exact number off the top of my head. At least four of probably six send their kids to either visitation, Forest Hills. They have the economic ability to send their kids to private education. So, I wonder if there is some overlay of I think that's a great question, Nicholas. We were just talking about that with OSPA at the OSB level that districts are able to pull homeschool numbers and some things like that, but there really my understanding is there really wasn't a way right now
047to track kids who aren't in the system and not in a homeschool system connected to a district per se and where they're attending outside of. The only proxy that we have for that here within the district is that we we do track the number of students that we lose or gain by grade level every year. And what is interesting to see is that we do lose a handful of students. I think the most recent data I was looking at is at that transition between fourth and fifth grade. It looks like we lose about 40 students per yearish. And I please jump in if I'm misrepresenting that. But then we also get a lot of those students back at ninth grade. We tend to get somewhere in the neighborhood about 50 or 60 kids back for
048ninth grade. So it balances out what I think we're seeing. What that those data suggest to me is that there are a number of families that are choosing private school. Could be the Waldorf Sto School. It could be visitation that some are choosing that for K8 and then we see the students in grade nine when they come to us. Some are choosing that for a period of time, maybe just those middle school years, but then they come back to us for the high school years. That that's been a trend for years. So, I mean, for as long as I've been here. So, yeah, it's been been a trend. Okay. Okay. Um, looking at the general fund expenditures built into this budget, 92.1 million, 61% is instruction and 38% is support services. Um, and details are
049on page 38. So, you can see on here and follow along if you would like. Um, breaking down the same $92 million but by a major object, 51% as salaries, 007% in the payroll. False. Uh, 17.8% services, 3% supplies, and then the last 1% is most likely that transfer for this spear property purchase. Um, our ending fund balance in the budget, proposed budget in front of you for the general fund maintains an 11.2% ending fund balance. It's slightly less than what we had built into the 25 budget, but right in line with what we've been trending the last few years. And this is really so that we can look at that long-term financial stability. More specifically in looking at our expenditures, general fund FTE in this budget is 17 FTE less than the prior year's
050adopted budget. Most of that is in the classified group. Um, one of the main reductions that we'll talk about in a moment is classified eyes class sizes. Our district target is 23 and a half for K4, 29 for 56, 25.7 for 78 weighted it's 30 to1 and then 23.5 for 912 weighted it's 32 to1. So that's been the target we've been looking at the last couple of years. This year we maintain that target. We're are slightly below at those different buckets. Um this year we did look at um really focus on the K12 and we looked at title versus non-title to make sure that that was the priority in the allocation model. But these are our averages. We will always have bubbles in one place or another depending on that staffing model. As far as
051the budget reductions built into um this budget, as Dr. West talked about, we had $1.8 million worth of reductions. Um and we also adjusted for class size. uh the last this year we had a significant loss of enrollment and we didn't adjust our class size. This upcoming budget maintains our targets slightly below our targets in areas but in order because of that reduction in enrollment we did reduce 8.3 FTE um classroom FTE and that was before we built that budget up and looked at what it was going to take to balance it. So, we have that 8.3 FTE reduction plus we have a $1.8 million F uh reduction um to balance the budget. With that um $1.8 million, we have 54% of that was district level expenditure reductions. 46% of that was classroom or building
052level reductions. Um we and then we also looked at what was sustainable reductions versus one-time or short-term reductions. 71% is sustainable reductions, things that we once we reduce this year, we can maintain the reduction year-over-year. Um and then 29% is one time or short-term reductions that we were able to go without this upcoming year. Maybe we provide that to have into the future. this jar go back through some of the clarity. Okay. Let's see. SP special education speech language pathologist. acronyms have a cheat sheet too on the You are not the only one. The last page is okay. It's the fact that the book is actually an acronym cheat sheet. So if you guys knew it was there, but I was like, but no, I I appreciate the question. Sorry, we use a lot of
053those acronyms. I'm caught up. I mean, could you the reduction in um teaching and learning curriculum and professional development is some of that the nonadoption of the the extension of some of the curriculum that we were going to adopt is some of that included in that? Yeah, it's also a couple of vacancy savings. So, some positions were choosing to not fill that vacant. So, it's a combination of factors. I guess could I ask the followup would be then in the in the next budgeting cycle would would those be pieces that would be brought back at least because we already have plans for the curriculum adoptions that need to happen. So they're not is that removed here but assumed that that will be yeah curriculum is a little tricky. We can only delay it for so
054long. We made the choice. So, that's an example of a one-time savings that we may not be able to sustain. We may have to come back to it next year. Um, we would need department approval at the state level if we were to extend it beyond this one year. And that seems unlikely, but there could be other tradeoffs that we need to make that we could make next year to compensate for that. Well, and I actually I was thinking the opposite. I would be reluctant to have people assume that that then would mean that we could delay. I would want to make sure that we can It's coming. It's coming one way or another whether it's this year or next year. Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, this is the general fund cash flow for
055this current fiscal year. Um this is the format that we typically give. It's two years of historical data, the current year's adopted budget, where we are to date, where we project to be through the end of the year, and the variance. The top section is the resources. The bottom section or lower section is expenditures, and the bottom section talks about the ending fund balance. Um overall this year we are looking at ending with about $4.5 million of additional uh ending fund balance than what we had built into the adopted budget. That's about 5% increase in our ending fund balance which is standard to what we have seen in the past. Um I think a few slides ago the ending fund balance. So you can see here where we budget and then we save and then
056we budget back down and we save. So that trend is really important for us for being able to have a soft landing in the end and to be able to kind of balance out those waves by um budgeting conservatively and saving throughout the year. Um so that 5% is something that we have been doing for a few years now. And just to point out there's a spike that you'll notice if we go back to that graph please. The spike that you see in 2022 2023 we have for a period of time federal resources COVID relief funds that we were able to use to shift some of our expenditures. That's one of the reasons why every district in the state for a short period of time saw increases in their ending fund balance. Those funds are
057gone. So our typical 5% savings is what we expect to go into. So um based on our current cash flow and that 14.2 million that is going to be our beginning fund balance r forward into next year. So that's our starting point. Um it the reason why it is higher is a couple of things. We have more local resources. um interest revenue and our high school gym floor replacement from an insurance reimbursement is in that first line. And then we have state school fund increase of $ 1.5 million. That's current year and prior year reconciliations by OD and increase in forest revenues over and above um what we've built into the budget. Forest revenues is one of the harder ones to project. Um, and then as far as expenditures, we are below our expenditures, $2
058million from salaries and benefits, and that's primarily from vacancy savings through the year. So just a comment, I mean that has probably been over the last what eight years, 10 years, um that that having that that fund balance has kind of smoothed our year-to-year kind of budgeting process out. And it you'll notice that a lot of the other districts that haven't that don't have that fund balance right now are making major cuts. And I think that I think one of the nice things at least for Grove School District is it's kind of leveled us out where we weren't very level in 2008 through 2013. So those were rough times where we didn't have that fund balance to work with. So just a comment. Yeah, for comparison, thank you for that. For comparison, we would need
059about $8 million just to run the district for a month. So if all monies were gone, we would need about $8 million to pay salary, keep the lights on, take out the trash. Having an ending fund balance of $14 million would give us a twomon roughly a twomonth cushion in the event that there was some abrupt halt to funding. So it it's really important for us just like we have saving savings accounts at home, many of us, for those unexpected things. It's important for us as a school district that we have some level of savings so that we can respond to emergencies or respond to the unexpected. So that $1.7 million that we won't have, will it come from this in here or will it come from reallocation of certain monies from area to another
060area to another area? Are you're asking about the federal funds that we may not have? No, there's a 1.9 billion 1.8 million that we're Yes. Yeah. That's built into the budget that So, this projection that you see right here is inclusive of the $1.8 million. Yes. Okay. So, all right. So, this is that forecast with the beginning fund balance rolled forward into next year. So, you can see the 11% ending fund balance at the end. And this budget does have a $9.8 8 million ending fund balance built into it. Um, is that what page is that in this book? This is not in that book. I was like looking and I couldn't find it and I was like, there's that. Okay, this is uh the cash flow and the cash and so it's just it's
061taking the budget and putting it into the cash flow model that you're used to seeing on that regular basis through a year. So, it's not in this budget, but it's taking this information and putting it into that model. Um, okay. So then the next slide, what I like to do is take that budget and roll it forward. This is very very broad, very whatifs. Um, we don't know what's going to happen necessarily six. We don't know what's going to happen with the state uh school fund in the next bianium. So this is a lot of assumptions built into it but it is looking if we continue the trend of today where are we going to be tomorrow and the next year and the next year. Um we have historically um budgeted conservatively saved budgeted conservately
062saved and come down and so that allows us to be able to step down and make smaller incremental changes over time so that we're not constantly in this massive reactionary state. And so the next slide, what this does is just takes that same information and shows like um the orange line is that four-year projection and when we would hit that zero mark for ending fund balance and then the green line above it is if we were to save 5% every year like what we have been doing. So that's more of a realistic trend of what we're looking at. And what this means is that we can make small incremental changes this year. We can make small incremental changes next year. We can make incremental changes the year after. As information becomes available and we know
063more um to look at this and make changes to get to a you know a positive ending fund balance in five years is is not realistic. Um but what this allows us to do is make that dramatic changes back and forth into smaller changes to the system. So when we say save by 5% we're going to not spending 5% of what was allocated right or budgeting resources conservatively and getting more resources by the end of the year. So these are all things that we're looking at as we're developing this budget and building it. Would you go back one side of this? I I do want to point out that even this current budget, if you look at the very bottom line, it includes deficit spending. If we are planning to spend some of our savings
064to continue with as many services as we possibly can as students. Now, if additional funding comes through from the state, we can adjust this, go to the board for our reappropriation. But based on what we currently know, the way we carry this forward, as Eileen said, is we make these small incremental changes, but it is draining our savings, which is why you eventually see on the following slide that that line hits zero. We are spending our savings. So, we're very mindful of the fact that these incremental changes that we're making now, we we have to sustain those year-over-year in order to have a soft planning. We have to be thoughtful and careful in the way we expend our resources. You have an idea of the percentage of districts in the state that would have a
065similar line. In fact, they're top line. should be closer. But are most districts looking at about that same time before we all just say we're there's nothing there. I don't know about most districts. I can say anecdotally I haven't talked to a superintendent that is not reducing. Now some as you've seen in the news, the more dramatic ones are in the news. 20 25% in Reynolds School District. Ashlin just announced they have to go out for a $10 million bond to cover their operated expenses. So the bigger reductions that are catching districts offguard you're hearing about anecdotally everyone's in a cut phase. So the green line as the red line starts digressing from green line looks rather flat and then it starts to decline. What's the flatness for oil? It just depends on um the
066expenditures that are built into this model um in comparison to the revenue coming in. Um this has the governor's recommended budget for this bianium and then it has an assumption for the next bianium. So the revenue is most likely what's driving a lot of that along with the increase in in costs. So we have step costs every year. We have HOLA costs every year. Um and our our resources just are not keeping up with that along with our PERS rates increases. Um the PERS rate uh the PERS rate credit is built sunset is built into this. So our PERS rates are going to increase in the next bianium. Um, plus we're going to have our final debt payment for that. So that's why we're building our res our reserves to help offset some of that.
067Um, so there's there's a lot of different moving pieces into this. And this model includes enrollment objections as well. This model includes maintaining today's enrollment, flat enrollment. It does not include a reduction in enrollment. Would there be a way to show what that would look like? You might not want to look at that. I mean, if we showed reduction enrollment, I would show an offsetting expenditure for yeah, people and FTE associated to that. So, I think I mean they would they would offset some um but this doesn't show a change in FTE. It's today's this budget's FTE moving into next year. This enrollment moving into next year. So if we did have an enrollment loss, we would have to make adjustments for Yeah. So they're coming up with a forecast what tomorrow or early next
068week? State forecast. There should be a new revenue forecast coming out and that should be what they're going to use to set our state's full budget. Wonderful. Yeah. So I mean basically just to summarize real quick that the the assumptions you put in here are you know the 11 sort of whatever the standard you know uh increase the state will generally consider right which would be 12.15. So if the state you know miraculously decides ah well this year we're going to crank it up 10% over what we usually do then it would be be more optimistic but there's so many variables. Yeah. what state school funds going to do, what local revenue is going to do, property taxes, what uh you know enrollment can change, what we negotiate during negotiations for cola and step. I
069mean there's so many things that can change between today and tomorrow. This is really it it's not to take these as this is set in stone. Yeah. It's just to take it as a um what we knowing that things are going to change, knowing that I mean it's a forecast. Yeah. Um, and it's really, you know, looking at what the state school fund generally does, you know, in this bianium and the next one, this is probably fairly liber on our budget, right? Is what what's the state school fund going to do, right? And with this, I think I took the last few bianium percent changes and just applied that. Yeah. So, um, that's all I can do. Yeah, you can plan and project the best four or five years close on one off on like
070Yeah, plus or minus looking at what you're seeing today trying to project for tomorrow. It is it is a bud. It's a projection on what you believe is going to happen next year. Your best shot. Yeah. And and basically the message is, you know, if we keep, you know, doing the good work that we've been doing and saving a historical, you know, 5% trend, we're going to, you know, hopefully stay out of the red for at least a few more years. And, um, yeah, that's the best we can do. Yeah. Something's going to have to change. Yeah. Small incremental changes year over year. Keep looking at this. Keep moving that line out every year. Keep moving it out. Um yeah and hope that advocacy at the state level results in continuing increases in state school
071funding. All right. Um we do have coming up next is public comment and discussion and deliberation for the committee. But I did want to take a couple of minutes and we over the last few weeks since we last met, we've got a lot of questions from our budget committee and I want to make sure that we wrap back around and answer some of those um so that you guys have more information for tonight. So, uh Dr. West and I will take a couple of minutes to answer some of those questions that we've heard come through. Um if we missed some, let us know. Um and then keep moving. One of the questions that came through was, can the budget committee have more regular updates on where we are financially and where we are in the
072general fund uh throughout the year? And so on this slide is just some of the things that we are already currently doing. Um you just maybe not sent to the budget committee directly, but I wanted to make sure everybody was aware of our budget updates that we do do already. Um the cash flow that I shared a few slides ago, we do present to the board or the budget committee November, March and May of every year. Um appropriations is sent to where we stand on our appropriations year-to- date in comance and balance um for the different major funds and functions is sent to the board monthly in the board packet. Uh we do a general fund budget update by budget control code. So that's whose budget responsibility it is. It's a summary report sent to
073the board u monthly. We have our annual financial audit and then we have our board financial oversight committee. Those are all for the general fund. And then we do also have our bond oversight committee that's active quarterly right now and we present an SIA annual report. So, one of the questions I had is, is there additional information that you guys would want to see throughout the year over and above this? I think it would be nice to have something. You mentioned cash flow in November, the school board. Maybe the budget committee get a happier progress report where where we are at the half at the halfway level determining what what kind of how accurate we are or uh what jokers in the deck have and I using the wrong terms there but what what has
074happened that is mixed up and works over at what the major variants are. So the presentation say so much better. So the presentation we give to the school board go ahead and send it to you all so you have access to it. Um that would be that would more that would be fine. We could do that. Anything else? Great. The next one is the budget process. A question came up um about the budget process and presenting the proposed budget earlier in the year. Um a couple of different things with that. Typically, we do it in May because we have the most information we can and we wait as kind of as long as we can to finalize it so we have as much accurate information knowing that it's still going to change. The legislative session
075still has to close, but um we can get closer. Um this is late in the year that we can do it and still meet all of our legal timelines and being able to have an adopted budget. Um and then the other thing is is just staff capacity. We have one financing and so we typically focus most of our time July through December on our financial audit and then starting January we kick off the budget process. So this budget process starts the first of January and we're doing a lot of the prepping in December over Christmas break. So doing that any earlier would just um selfishly from me and my apartment would um yeah to do the actual proposal. We can definitely shift um one of the questions here was looking at priorities discussion with this
076budget committee earlier and starting the priorities conversation earlier in the process. We can definitely do that. Look at shifting just the structure of it. Um but proposing the budget in May um is kind of where we'd like to be. Yeah, it's nec I think this timeline to be blunt is really necessary for operations of the district because there's so many moving parts that start to fall into place right now. For example, we have a good idea of where the co-cherics are going to land with their budget in January. We we don't know. We don't know where they're going to land. So it's hard at in January. All we're doing is throwing darts in the wind. Come March, April, May, it we're getting closer to the target because there have been some indicators from the state
077about what that's going to look like. So there are good reasons to keep the timing for the actual budget development. In terms of engagement with the budget committee, the community, our students, our families, Eileen and I have had some conversations about pushing that forward and doing that a little bit differently so that we have earlier opportunities to build that input into our classes. Um, and then another question that came up was a budget committee member wanting to see the department budget details and we don't look at the I mean we don't necessarily bring the specific details from line items to this budget committee. Those submissions are really to the superintendent and then the recommendations are built into the into the budget document itself. So um just uh well that sort of goes back to what
078is not so much committee role then thank you for reminding us that um the next slide quality of curriculum and instruction. Um I'll let Suzanne Yeah, I'll take this. Um, this one is is a little tricky. I'm going to answer it two ways. So, the quality of curriculum as hex for example is somewhat governed by the state. They go through a vetting process for curriculum and they help us identify curricular materials that meet standards that are applied quality. But there's another aspect to this which is what does that implementation actually look like in the classroom? And there's two ways we can measure the quality of implementation of curriculum and instruction. One is an implementation measure. So for example, a couple years ago, we rolled out a new literacy curriculum at the elementary level. You've heard
079us reference this multiple times. implementation measures look like walking into every single classroom and seeing if teachers are actually using the materials and then if they have the materials open, are they using those materials the way they're intended? So implementation measures are one of the things that we can look at to assess the quality of our instructional program. But the other way that we can assess that are through measurements like this where we see our students showing the level of growth that is expected of them in a given year. What you see here right now is growth by grade level K through six and the percentage of students that are meeting expected growth for the given year. It's not where we want it to be. We would love for these bars to be 100%. But
080it's better than it has been. So we are making progress and that tells us that the work that we are doing is having the intended outcome. We are moving in the right direction. Further to go but at least the we know the initial steps are making the difference that we expect them to. How we get there is through adopting high quality curriculum making sure that they have have skills that they need to teach well. They get coaching and support. sometimes through a teacher on special assignments, sometimes through school leaders coming alongside and offering feedback. We've increased the amount of time that staff have to collaborate with each other. If any of you are familiar with Dr. John Hadtie's research, collective efficacy, which means our collective belief as a teaching team that we can make a
081difference in outcomes for kids. that is the highest effect size in outcomes for students is that teachers believe that they make a difference. So when they can collaborate together um we know that we see student outcomes increase and then we want to decrease variability between classrooms and that goes back to the implementation factor. Are we all using Amplifier? Are we all using it the way it's supposed to be? So all of that combined leads to outcomes like you see right here. Next slide, please. I have a question, please. Sure. I've been reading more about school girls to search because I'm I'm looking for the book. I had I ran through a slide where it shows we're like 14% or 24% for language and student and social science and mathematics. We're about 14 to 24% while
082the state is about 40%. Now we're talking about the curriculum. Is it because of the curriculum? Is it because of what the average is so low like that on these couple two different things on the curriculum? Seems like such a simple question and the answer is so complex. Um there are a number of variables that impact state assessments. One of those variables is that families can opt their students out of the assessment process. So that score that you're seeing doesn't actually include a measure of all of our students. Another variable is that we are educating our elementary students, 37% of them in two languages. We know through decades of research that it takes on average 5 to seven years for a student learning English to acquire English proficiency. But we're assessing them in grade three
083knowing that they have not yet mastered academic English. That affects the outcome on the assessment. The assessments are a single point in time. So you have questions that you need to answer like did the child eat that morning? Did they have an argument with their brother on the way out the door? Did their dad not come home last night? Are they just cranky that day? I mean, there could be any number of things that could input the outcome on a test. We also have a state system to be very candid where not a lot of people buy into the measure. We don't think there's a lot of value in that state assessment. If you read um to any degree what people think of the Oregon state assessment system, it's generally pretty low in terms of
084what does that assessment actually tell us about instruction. So there isn't the buy in that we might invest otherwise if we believe that that was a good measure to inform instruction. Any one of those factors in and of themselves could drive assessment scores down collectively and there are others that I haven't even me mentioned. Um they do impact outcomes on assessments. So I'm not in any way trying to make excuses for why our scores are where they are. We we want to include those, but they may not also be the very best measure of what our students are actually learning in our schools. That's why we do these local assessments and why we measure growth. We want to know that our young people are actually needing at minimum one year's growth each year in math.
085And I can spend some time with you oneon-one if you really want to dig into it. It's it's it's a really complex question, very complicated. But in my mind, it's just like is it public education with the private education would be would give me different statistics comparing to the whole state? Well, private education doesn't have to take the state test. So, it's hard to assess that. Um I I do think one thing that I didn't mention before which is worth considering is that if you look at those state assessment results, you can predict which students will do well on the assessment. Students in districts with a higher socioeconomic status do much better on those assessments than students with a lower socioeconomic status. You could say the same thing about some underserved student groups divided up
086by race. And I mentioned language earlier. So there are some factors that are predictable in the assessment that I think we should ask questions about that cause me to question the validity of the assessment and how useful it is in telling us whether or not students are growing year-over-year. That said, we do want improvements and we're working really hard to do that. Okay. What was the last name of the the getting the job that you referenced from Dr. John Haden? Dr. John. Okay, next slide, please. Um, there were also questions about student absenc. Again, this answer is probably not going to be very satisfying because it's a complex complexity. In terms of what contributes, we have a list there of all the things that we know. I we have attendance teams that meet at each
087of our schools. They generally meet once a week. To answer this question, I went into our documents where attendance teams are tracking the reasons why young people are not coming to school. These are some of the reasons that were most common, but there were a lot more. As I said before, the reasons why students don't come to school are highly individualized. On the right hand side, these are some of the things that we are doing to address chronic absenteeism. As I mentioned, we have attendance teams at each of our schools. They meet about once a week. We have home visits. We actually have an attendance liaison that will go into students homes, talk to parents, invite students back into our environment, try to remove barriers. We are building out our multi-tered systems of support so
088that we're able to identify students earlier and again try to remove those barriers to attendance. Positive adult connections. We've talked about that last time. It makes a huge difference when kids have relationships. We are maintaining our counseling ratios. This ASCA recommendation, it's very rare to find these ratios in school districts in the state. The fact that Forest Grove leads this ratio, this recommended ratio, I think is a benefit to our students. They have access to counseling in a way that students don't. We have mental health professionals and then when students feel connected to school, they come to see it. And so we have a lot of focus on that that these attendance teams are working on. And there were many many many more reasons um and actions that the attendance teams were taking to try
089to address absenteeism. Again, the answer may not be very satisfying because we're not able to say this is the reason that kids are not coming to school. The answer really is these are the reasons why kids are not coming to school and for a particular student what is the reason and how do we look at that student? Yes, I would add you mentioned one of the contributions to chronic absenteeism student health. I would give its own dot to student health center that we have at Forest World School. Yeah. As to improve regular attendance that if the kid has chronic health problems that the school district has something in place to address that in a nonthreatening environment. So I guess I'm just pushing for a specific diet for Yeah. Junior Garcia Health Center is incredible and
090provides great service to students. Um and we have some students with health needs that are chronic. Yeah. And that often present prevents them from coming to school. Next one. So there was a question about administrative positions in the district and administrative support. Um so I wanted to bring we look at administrative positions in a couple of different ways. We have administrative positions and support at the building level and then we also have the district level. Um at the building level, our primary allocations um we have an administrator for each building. We have vice principal for our larger buildings and our our secondary deans. Um we have an uh lead secretary for every building, assistant secretary for those elementaryaries that are larger and then our secondaries um have additional counseling and support like uh or additional
091secretarial support for their buildings counseling, athletics, registar, receptionists and a bookkeeper. So this is kind of our current staffing model for administrative support and administrative positions at the buildings. And then which elementary school has the Dina students that 250 to that would be tall but that 600 they're showing one for the 250 to 600 and one for 600. All four of our large elementaryaries have de so they don't have a vice principal they have a principal and a student at Harvey Clark. Correct. Joseph Gail Cornelius and Bush. Um and then on page eight in your book is the district office organizational chart. And so this shows our staffing model for the district um outside of buildings. Any questions on the admin positions and the structure of the district? The next one is our um school
092lunch program and an interest in wanting to bring more local produce into our school meals in our in our district. Um and so I just wanted to show a couple of things that we are doing already. And um first and foremost, our meals are federally regulated. So we have to meet minimum requirements for any student meal. In addition to that, we have to have pretty strict insurance requirements and requirements around the processing and where the food comes from um for the safety of our soup. Um but that being said, we do have a couple of partnerships right now. We have a couple of grants, Oregon farm to school grant and the USDA DoD fresh fruit and vegetable program that we have. Both of these are bringing in local spend. Um whether it's a local uh
093food manufacturer in our area or it's local produce. So this year alone we've brought in $8,000 worth of apples, pears, oranges, and strawberries from within our region, locally grown. Um, and then the last one is just something that we've been focusing on this year is really looking at our meal program improvements and understanding what student needs are um, and what student interests are. So, there's been a couple of focus groups at Neil Armstrong and the high school in just understanding what students would want to see on the menu line. Um, how can we have more culturally diverse meals on um, the rotating menus? And so we've been able to really work with students on that and introduce uh several new items onto our menus, whether it's elementary or mil or high this next year or
094this current year already. And we have done a few pilot taste tests and implemented a couple of those items already into our reoccurring menus. Um and we're looking to really just expand more through that. Um it's slow, but we're getting there. Um, but we really want them to be student driven games. Sure. One of the other questions that was asked is how do we partner with local businesses and our high schools specifically? Um, this is just a snapshot. Our high school partners with more than 30 local businesses. Those local businesses do a few things with our high school students. Sometimes they come in and co-e a class. Sometimes they offer mentoring or internships. Sometimes they're just offering support for kids as their lady. A good example of that, I mentioned the Viking House before. When
095I've been out to the Viking House, there's always those in the construction trade working right alongside our students and offering guidance and very quick correction if they do something wrong. So those are the kinds of partnerships that our CTE teachers cultivate in our community. They're very valuable to us. They're valuable to our students. Many of our students that experience these partnerships go on to work in the industries in which they've had those direct connections with our community partners. So it's something that we continue to foster. A lot of these individuals, I've talked to a few of them. They do this work quietly because it's important to them. They come along students because it's they it matters to them that they give back and that they mentor the next generation of electricians and the next generation
096of engineers. They don't necessarily advertise this work that they're doing, but it is happening in our school spaces and they're really valuable partners for us. Questions you have about that? With that being said, this is the end of what Dr. West and I have for you tonight. Um I think the next couple of things on the agenda is for Val um to take off with. Um we've presented the budget, the best budget that we know that we put in front of you. Um now it's we're here as an advisory team. Okay. Thanks Dr. West and Eileen very much. Appreciate your time spent on this. I don't think we have any public comment, but I'll just clarify. We do not. So, at this time, does the budget committee have any um questions, comments, or requests to
097Eileen or Dr. West? There anything they want to discuss amongst ourselves at this time? Okay. So, I I have a question. So I think one of the slides had a um teaching and learning cuts at about 9.3% I think of the department of the department and I noticed on the um on the survey that professional development kind of ranked fairly high in one of those areas to consider cuts. So I guess my question would be how much and for later but how much of the 9.3% and drill down to the to professional learning no professional develop well yeah yeah professional learning I'm going to take a stab at this but I may also film a friend sitting in the back of the room there I think specific to professional learning the answer is zero these
098reductions are coming from a postponed curriculum adoption. That's one piece of it. As I mentioned before, we have a couple of vacancies that we've decided we're not going to fill. Those are savings in this effort budget as well. Um and then there I'll ask our director back here to step in. I love the other reduction. Yeah, I mean we try to protect professional learning as much as we can. Um but there you know in the adoption packages in general we're trying to streamline professional learning right we have limited time and limited resources so you know the idea of going teacher out we we're going to reduce that for okay you're talking about correct okay ongoing ongoing curriculum training as well so for example the literacy training the math adoption that have happened um where it
099it's It's expensive to do professional learning. Okay. I guess maybe for next time a question I might have is in terms of professional learning. Can could we have that broken out so that we see what percentages for adoption, what percentage is for other things and what those other things are? That that's what I'm interested. Yeah. I' I'd like to talk just for a minute. We talked about this last time about the survey and the the connection um to the budget and I think I personally did not take this survey and I remember last meeting saying wait there was a video and I actually went back to watch the video myself. I don't know how many on the budget committee saw you know with took the survey or had access to the video. I know we
100did all have access. it was on the all all the places that you saw, but I'm an example of someone that didn't give feedback. Obviously, I can on the board. I think what this survey says to me is there's we talked about this. There's a lot of maybe the way we come back to people who took the survey with. We see what's here, but let me tell you why curriculum is actually one of our high quality instruction is one of our strategic plan goals. And I don't know, I I'm really interested in completely maybe not doing this survey next year and getting getting feedback from people almost in the way we do it here. like I'm kind of even loving the explanation of what's happening with the food meals and how that you know the
101detail of what is going on at the district level I think is very helpful to people. So, I'm I'm just curious about a format where even something like this can be presented like this is why we're doing it this way and what do you think because essentially that's what we're doing. But I think some people that maybe take this survey and then publicly when we say it like the majority curriculum is the least important. Dr. West talked about this. Well, that means we need to explain to people why curriculum is one of probably the most important areas of focus when we're talking about how we deliver instruction. But it's your example that you gave in this meeting of um going into the classroom and observing how it's being implemented and then also observing how it's
102being, you know, received to be able to hear that. I think just somehow broadening our communication with the community about why the budget is already the way it is. I I would think some people there's quite a few people that mentioned class size and we mentioned I had shown Pete when you said John Hattie I actually had that written down on this sheet because we talked in the boardroom about how the gradient the greatest variance in outcomes is between classrooms right now. Um class size is number 186 on a list of things where Dr. West mentioned the the things that actually make a difference for kids. So, how can we start that conversation of communicating with the community? I understand why people, especially a parent or a student, would grasp class size because it's hard
103to know what else you feel like might change, you know, and but when we can start to have the broader discussion about why instruction quality instruction is important and why we are going to budget to support those items, I don't I don't know. I'm going to round it out there, but I This isn't a This is a lot of students, which is awesome. And I love I love the idea of next year like trying to get as many students as possible and keeping that completely separate as a learning tool to be able to go in front of students and say, "Hey, we hey kids, here's what we saw." I would love to do that to go to NAS and talk to student groups and say, "Here's the data you turned in and let me tell
104you where that this is reflected or why it's not." And I think we need to do the same thing for the community. This is why we're going to spend the money here, but this is also why we're not focusing on a few of these things you mentioned. Um, I don't know if there's thoughts on how broadly that survey did go out and maybe people take I do hear people say, well, we take the survey and some people expect that if they take a survey, then you're going to do what the number one answer was. You know, we've all experienced that ourselves. So, I just think clarity in how we're going to use the information, why we want the information, and also highlighting some things that we we maybe need to do a better job. I
105mean, we not you all, but we as community members just talking with our community about some of these responses. Chris, you're talking about next year's budget. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. We'll make a note of that for our process next year. expects the video that a company for survey still available to go through and they wait for the party. Yeah. Uh we can push the link out to the budget committee looking at our communications director for that. Well, the results of the survey related relate to the community at all a letter or something to what the survey said. uh to recap the survey results with the community with the community with the community. Yeah. I I wonder if that would be uh appropriate to include with the with the approved budget. So when we push out
106to the community, here's what the approved budget is, here's what we've heard, here's how we were able to incorporate your feedback, and here's some reasons why we you may not see your feedback reflected. And we can point to a slide like the one we showed with the bikini demands of the things that we are deeply required to do. Does anybody have any other questions or comments they want brought back for the next meeting that they don't want to discuss now? So, can I ask a question? My question I have will be okay and there's so yeah there's this is a lot to digest a lot to digest. Um so I don't expect you guys to have a ton of questions tonight or to really like go into it. This is definitely a lot. Um so
107as you guys have time, we are meeting next Thursday night is the next meeting um to discuss and answer any further questions. Um what we just ask is that questions are sent to us in advance so that we can prepare and have information ready so we can have really good meaningful conversations next Thursday. Um so and the other thing is is if you would like to meet with either Dr. West or I in the meantime to go into some of this nitty-gritty stuff or the details where you have more ump that you want behind something. We are happy to meet with you guys. Um but we just request that the questions are in advance so that we have time to prepare our respects and so we can keep moving the process forward. Um so please
108feel free to reach out to either one of us. We're here and they and they don't mean like 3 o'clock on Thursday. 4:30 on Friday. It mean Tuesday by noon. They would like to have a question. It's It's in right here. So, I'm going to say it out loud for everybody to hear. So, please have your question. Yeah, it's right here. I can't say. Oh, that makes sense. So, along that lines, um one sorry there. So, we meet next Thursday. Um, we do have an optional meeting the following Thursday if we need it. Um, it depends on the year, depends on what's going on, depends on the budget committee on what your guys's needs are, if we use that one or not. So, uh, we have that helped and reserved and there are like no
109stupid questions. This book, it's not I mean once like it took me probably the first two years to figure out how to like accurately use it. was very confusing to me just because some things are my fun and then I don't know it's just it was a lot. So there are no stupid questions. So feel free to ask one of them any of those. I don't have I don't have a stupid question but it's a question in my mind for the past four years we sat down here with the bud what are the major differences between this and the last four years the things that you've seen up there today. Um the other thing is is as you're going through specifically the general fund budget um if you are going through the general fund all
110of the general fund function pages have descriptions on the side saying um because we've already kind of done a review of what change percentage change like we've already kind of walked through that. So, anything that we pointed out that has a flag in like why did FTE change or what happened, it's listed on this page. So, if there's something not on here that you have more questions about or something that's on here that you do have questions about, feel free to ask us. What page is it? Um, well, it's throughout the whole general section. I just pulled open page starts on 49. Yeah. And this was so we tried to and then at the front of every fund we tried to explain what that what that was the purpose the like the debt funds it
111talks about the debt funds the schedules u what's included in that. So we're um with the redesign of the budget book a few years ago we're trying to give more information because if you just look at the accounts and fund and function doesn't give you a lot to go from. So the narrative we're helping is uh a good resource for you and we are happy to answer any questions. I told you the contest based stuff is the stuff at the front that budget assumptions that that blue tab in your book. That's the that's the mentalization on the flip side of the buttons. That's really helpful. Thank you. Appreciate that. Okay, Mark, did you have anything else? I'm just kidding. Um, if there is no further business. Oh, Mr. Drax. Yeah, sorry about that. Um, this
112may be getting into what the budget committee should not do. And if it is, you feel free to tell me to go to I will anyway. Yeah. Um even in light of the current administration, there are boatloads of grants available in Washington DC and we all know that they're out there. and figures in the millions and billions of dollars. what is to prevent us and I don't want to put more work on Eileen's back or your back or anybody in central administration back except maybe John O'Neal I um of going out and hiring somebody in Washington DC a lobbying firm to sit there for maybe a conglomerate of school districts forestro Hillsboro, Beaverton, Gaston Bank, so on and so forth to have them sit and watch and write grant proposals. Uh we cities do that
113all the time and I know other school districts do it and I know the state does. But what is to prevent us from squirreling away some of this some of these funds and get a bang for the buck? We spend $2 and get $10 back. Um that's a good deal. I don't know, maybe it's something we can mull on over the upcoming year. Maybe it's too late for this year. to think about something like that as another avenue to get more money into the school district because that red line and that green line that's going down, it's it's not going to go away by wishing. No, it's a good suggestion. And I don't know what the history is in this district of seeking federal grants outside of the formula grants. That is something that we
114can investigate. Um I'm aware of some of those grants that are out there. So we'll look into that. That's a really good idea. In a former life when I was here in the school district and part of the vention team we had they would sit us down and say these are grants that are available right now. all you need to do is write them. And you know, we didn't have the time because we were not only on prevention day, but we're also in the classroom. So, that sort of went by the board. But I know that stuff hasn't changed significantly. And if we had somebody whose job it was in DC or in Salem, yeah, look at that. We do have access to a grant writer at the Northwest Regional ESD. That may be the
115place to start investigating your suggestion. I'll shut up. Great idea. [Laughter] But I was also reminded by somebody when Valerie said there's no such thing as a stupid question. And I asked a question in high school. My chemistry teacher said, "Same thing. There's no such thing as a stupid question." But if there were, that would be wonderful. Correct. [Laughter] I I feel like I asked a stupid question when I was like, "Do you have anything else you want to add?" Okay. just Okay. So, anything else? No. Okay. There being no further business, the meeting is adjourned at 7:49 p.m. We will see you all next week at 6 on the good beat. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you.