FGSD Budget and School Board Meeting (2/25/2025)

001e e e I think we [Music] I he he's coming he's coming but are we needed they have to go around they can't the February 25th 2025 Forest Girl School District budget committee meeting is called to order at 5:31 p.m. if we could all rise for the FL Su which is I [Music] all right welcome everybody um we are going to do introductions tonight and we'll start I think we'll just start up at the table of director ien CL Director of Finance Suzanne West superintendent student representative chrisy kcki board chair David Anderson new appointed to the budget Comm Mark Ard board member Melinda fer budget committee budget committee K Grand skate board member Jordan Miller new appointee of budget committee Val Ingram board member okay and we're waiting to see if pet TRX is going

002to be here Brad is excused tonight and and we're missing Peter Bower he's on his way who is on his way Perfect all right do I have a motion to approve tonight's agenda as presented so moved second all in favor and as outlined in the agenda a focus for today is to receive nominations for the position of budget committee chair we will be opening the floor for each member to present their nominations including a brief explanation of why you believe the nominee is qualified for this role please proceed now with any nominations don't be shy okay I'll nominate myself to be the budget commun chair why because I know how to run a meeting very well I'm I'm wondering in the past we've never had board members in that I I know but I feel

003like you were the you were the chair not that many years ago I have been right one of is is the budget you oh okay all right I just feel like sometimes the committee members might not want to do it because of the the you know the laws of the public meeting law and just not knowing and such so I don't mind doing it um just meeting typically it's one in one we need a vice chair as well and often times that's a budget Committee Member who is the vice chair or the other way around well second that okay great thanks all right we it's been moved and seconded um are there any other oh are going to vote on this any discussion someone else really wants to do it please feel free mind all

004right I think uh seeing none I will go ahead and do a roll call Vote or can I do a all in favor all right I mean we have a feeling okay um all in favor say I I any opposed all right motion passes and B with joy I'm going to bring this over to you so now I need to get to work the nominations for vice chair okay great well thanks everybody for voting me as your budget committee chair honored uh would anybody like to nominate themselves or anybody else for vice chair I promise I'll try to come to most of the meetings so you won't have to do really much any bers well I could be Vice chair how many meetings do we have at April well I think we want to have

005one in one I guess I you know what I'm not here in April so somebody else I would nominate Jordan Miller for vice chair how do you feel about that Jordan I think it would be a great learning experience happy to do anybody else okay so Kate seconded oh I'm the I'm the chair now we'll go ahead and do a vote all in favor of Jordan for vice chair of the budget committee I great all opposed hearing none we will go ahead and move on thanks Jordan appreciate you helping out with that okay at this time we're going to turn it over to who is going to tell us all about budget 101 welcome it's exciting stuff tonight is really just to go over the budget process budget committee roles responsibilities the calendar give some

006historical data and information on how we budget and how we expend our funds um and then just kind of start the building blocks for the budget process so peek off the year the this is one of two preliminary budget meetings the next preliminary meeting is April ail 22nd and then on May 8th we'll have our first official meeting and so May 8th is when the delivery of the budget message will be um the budget message and the proposed budget will be received um and then we'll have two optional meetings um May 15th and May 22nd for the discussion the deliberation and ultimately the approval of the budget from this committee the goal would be to be finalized by that May 22nd so that we have time to do our Board hearing and all of our

007requirements before June 30th so that is our Target um and then the stuff in Gray is just July 1 is the first of the new year when this budget cycle starts and we have to certify the taxes by July 7th with the county in order for us to do our uh tax collections do the meeting time start at 5:30 so yes thanks um so to start in on budget committee 101 just kind of an overview of Oregon budget law our budget committee is requirement of Oregon law and it helps establish the standards the practices for building the budget process um it the budget document itself and the approval of the budget is an Avenue of um a way to control public spend so so it sets the max appropriation levels that we can expend for

008the course of the year it is a way to outline our programs or physical policies it provides the justification for the imposition of uh property taxes and a requirement of it is to encourage Community involvement and the community involvement is being a part of this budget committee process and we have to um have public hearing allow public comment at at least one or more these meetings so um just a little bit about that as far as the meeting requirements all of our budget meetings are subject to public meetings law and so we have to report them we're all on the lovely owl tonight and we do have to have six members voting yes to pass the budget and we have to have at least six members here in order to conduct business so um it

009is really important that we have everybody here engaged um and active the next is the budget committee May request additional information ask questions we really do encourage you guys to look at what is proposed uh the information the process and really dissect um what is given to you guys uh the budget itself does not become a public document until it is released on May 8th so we will probably not we'll give guidance we'll talk about things we're hearing about things we're listening to and trying to build into the budget document but the actual assumptions built into the document will be released on that date um public comment and then the we do have to approve the document in order to uh assess taxes the next slide is about budgeting and government so your responsibilities as

010a budget committee and here we have three different levels we have the budget committee as a whole that is all 10 of you 11 of you the equal members board and appointees um the budget committee's responsibility is really to receive the budget review the budget listen and consider the budget dissect it deliberate ask questions and then approve the board is who sets goals and policies and then Administration is really responsible for drafting the budget preparing the budget the best based on the best information we have at that time and then once May 8th happens we are really an Advisory Group to you as a budget committee so we can advise and support you through the final process a quick reminder of what is not the budget committee's role the budget committee itself does not set

011salaries or benefit levels doesn't Place specific staff or discuss individual employees doesn't add or delete major programs or develop policies these are all items of the board or Administration um the next this is sorry um what is a budget the budget when it's prepared it is financial plan based on a point in time it is the best information we have and it is subject to change it may and it will most likely change um salaries come in different we are in open negotiations the state school fund is going to get the legislative session will get finalized most likely after budget process so there are changes that will happen but it is a financial plan it gives us the guard rails going into this next physical year um and then we will have probably a adjustments

012that we have to make afterwards um ultimately at the end of the day what we're looking at this is a page from the budget book itself so um it's kind of small but we're looking at setting maximum appropriation level by Major fund and function so when we talk fund we're looking at the general fund our grant funds our nutrition services or capital projects so major funding source major funding level and then within each one of those buckets is the major function so instruction versus Support Services versus Capital Improvements so we're looking at setting the maximum appropriation by this breakout at the end of the day uh looking at our accounting structure this is information that you'll see throughout the budget book when it is delivered to rise and the major funds are to the left

013the major functions are in the middle and then major objects are on to the right and so our appropriation level is set by the first two groups but in the budget document you will see a lot of the third group so we break everything out by Major fund function and object once you have had time to discuss deliberate you've received the budget proposal there's really four options at the end of the day we can as a budget committee approve the budget as it's proposed we can increase the appropriation amount if we think we're going to get more funds uh an example of that is if we build in a certain State School fund estimate into the budget and you believe as a committee it's going to come in higher so we're going to increase our

014appropriation to support that the alternative is if you think we have too much revenue built in for the state school fund you can decrease the appropriation for that the other the last one is moving between major funds and functions so when we look at this slide we can be we can say Okay general fund Support Services is heavy we're going to we want to move 500,000 from Support Services to instruction and then at the end of the day it's up to Administration to figure out how to make that happen all right building the historical data and information so we have last physical year this is our last audited financials we had $133 Million worth of total resources of which 61% was general fund the rest is set aside for a specific purpose general fund is

015our operating funds so that's what's paying our general instruction our teachers our instructional AIDS um that's what pays the electricity generally operates the buildings our restricted grants which was s sorry restricting grants which is 17.9% of the total resources that is our Ida funds our high school Success our siia so funds that we receive that we can only spend been on a specific purpose that we have to keep outside of the general fund nutrition services is required to keep outside of all of the other funds and then we have our debt services and our capital projects capital projects is where a lot of our bond expenditures are going to be if we take that general fund out of that and look at it a little bit more deeply 81 million of those resources was general

016fund and then we have within that we have our property taxes our County School fund our common School fund our state Timber and then our state school fund and then there's 5% less everything other than that 5% is controlled by the state school fund formula and basically enrollment driven number of students we have in the demographics of those students and that is so if one goes up the other one can go down so if we receive more property taxes one year then the average in the state then we might get a little less State School fund or if we receive less property taxes than the average we might get a little bit more State School fund so it's all those kind of play on one another the 5% is really what is District control that's

017going to be our interest our rebates uh student fees all of those other things that are not enrollment driven we look at enrollments a little bit more and enrollment compared to State School fund there's a difference um we look at monitor enrollment constantly throughout the year we project for the following year but we actually get funded based on enrollment over the course of the Year our average daily membership so average daily attendance through the year and then we get additional weights for students with IEPs uh students elll students poverty Foster pregnant and parenting and so you can see our enrollment at a particular time was 5,751 students but we only got funded for 5,718 students because it's waited for the course of the year so it's not that we can look at we have this

018many students today we have to average it and look at it over the course and then we get all of the additional weights so we actually got funded for 7,191 weights so it just kind of shows a little bit of a difference of looking at enrollment at a point in time and how that impacts our states but the point in time um change is is that a designated point in time when they is that an average when they eventually come back and say okay this is where you are or is that at the same point in time based on the point in time so the enrollment one that was just an October 1st enrollment number the funded weights uh in Orange that is the average attendance Aver not average attendance but average enrollment over the

019course of the year the whole year so it's not a kid was sick a day so we don't get funded it's when they hit that 10day drop then they get dropped from our enrollment and that impacts our system so it's it's a little complex yeah I the question is do we have like a a thing about acronyms so that people know what they mean sorry um last year's budget book is a list of acronyms and so that's on the website plus the very last slide we have for you today has some links and the acronyms are in there too so we'll have will the new budget book have the acronyms the new budget book will have it in the back too so um I don't have that on me and if you need to pause

020us to translate anything please do yes like do you want to know a specific one right now not what is PMP P&P pregnant parenting let me go through them all four okay pregnant parenting and then Foster poverty elll English language Learners AEP is students with disabilities and then admr is the average daily membership over the course of the year and then the other one's the enrollment um the back of the budget book is a great resource it's got a lot of things but page 185 has all your acronyms thank you no please ask questions and then when we look at how we spend our resources last year we had $8.9 million of total expenditures of which 75% of that was salaries and benefits with we add subservices in because we have now moved to Contracting

021subservices that increases it to 77% um services and utilities that 15.6 in green that includes contracted Services um custodial excuse me custodial Transportation um any tuition fees that we have so that has a lot of salaries and benefits in it as if if we were to have that inh housee so some districts have those inous some districts contract those Services um so we are actually higher than that 75% but some of those are embedded in that Services grouping if we look at how we extend our Resources by major function this is broken out by instruction on the bottom Support Services is the light green 2324 we expended 62% of our budget on instruction and 36% on Support Services um to talk a little bit about the difference of those two instruction is everything that's directly

022related to the classroom so that's going to be our classroom teachers or instructional assistance that direct classroom support um everything in that support services bucket is going to be everything else that's going to be those utilities it's going to be the library AIDS it's going to be our counselors can be our administrators district office maintenance everything else goes in that bucket so that um 62% for instruction is that direct classroom interaction historical ending fund balance ending fund balance is the difference of resources received for the course of the year and expenditures expended so this is our the funds that we have available to support the kickoff of the next year and to help um yeah so over time historically we have budgeted between 8 and 10% and then we end closer to 14% so we

023budget low conservatively and we end a little bit higher uh you can see from 2021 uh on WE that Gap got bigger and that's primarily from the pandemic expenditure Trends changed we had a lot of additional federal funds that we got for Co um and we are we're trying to balance that back down trying to get those closer again it will take a couple of years as we start to start to get that aligned um we have probably one more year of a couple of carryover grants that we're using um that is causing the Gap to be a little bit bigger still today um but we will over the next couple of years get that closer alignment last year we ended at 21% a little bit later you'll see where we're projecting us to end

024this year I is the the difference the constittution reserves effectively I guess right our ending fund balance is basically the reserve for the following year uh our board policy is that we have to maintain at least an 8% ending fund balance um but there's no policy for them maximum um are we want to budget closer to the 8% and there's lots of years um we we actually budget higher than the 8% because we know what's going to happen the following year or there's uncertainties the F the year after that so our budget is the line so this year we actually budgeted 11.7% um depending on what we know and anticipate for the upcoming years and trying to balance that um but we're our current spending trend is deficit spending so that is naturally going to

025come down in the next couple years yeah I I would just say too that other than many many years ago we've been uh we haven't been in the news as much as other districts um so we we do typically we are sort of conservative but we are not we're not we don't find oursel in the situation that other districts do good point um okay so a little bit about how we compare to like districts so we can always look at how we spend our resources but are we spending them in alignment with others are similar size or similar demographics and that's kind it gives us an idea of where we are compared to others are we out of alignment um when we're looking at District comparables we look at districts that are similar size so

026we have 5,700 students um we have to in order to get enough districts like us that range is fairly large so we're looking plus or minus 3,000 students the other thing we look at is additional weights 5% so Force Grove is about 25% additional weights and so we're looking for other districts that have similar weights similar demographics as us um we we could if we look at just the first bullet point Lake asigo could be in there but we are not a lake asigo um so this kind of helps us figure out and give us actual comparables that could mean something to us um and then the last one is really looking at Geographics um geographically we can have the first two but they're going to be in southern Oregon or they're going to be

027way over in eastern Oregon and so when we're looking at Financial comparables we might not completely align with that so looking at that Partland metro area I5 Corridor i84 um within Reon to Portland PDX and so when we look at that we have mcinville Centennial cambi Central Oregon City Corvalis Newberg Silver Falls Oregon Trail and then there's the hillsb banks gas and tilm and Beaverton our neighbor um to give comparisons for and so sometimes we pull in our neighbors sometimes we do both oh I'm sorry thank you and then um this is the November 2024 class siiz report this is all grades all subjects uh the median of all of our comparables is 24:1 we are at 23:1 and so we're slightly below the median but you can kind of see where we are in

028comparison to our neor neighbors and our comparable districts on average class Siz based on the November report another way to look at our comparisons is where we land on how much we expend on instruction versus how much we expend on support services and we last year had 62% of our budget spent on instruction and the average was right at 60 um so we're slightly average on the funds and resources that we commit to instruction versus support services this one's kind of ugly um but it's the same thing just but by Major objects salaries benefits um services and supplies and this one I I mentioned earlier that it's really hard because some District's Contract Services and some District have them in house so this is where you'll see a lot more of that variability just because

029if we have Subs in house and another District doesn't it's going to be on in uh salaries column whereas ours is going to be on Services it's another perspective another way to look at it but we try to focus on the last one instruction versus Support Services because that's much more meaningful to us pending fund balance as a comparison uh another way to look at comparables to other districts but again there's always variability uh we ended last year just over 20% whereas other districts were unfortunately fairly low and some were higher every district has its own um things that they have going on they have their own issues they have their own reserves in other areas so a a district could have a lower ending fund balance but a reserve somewhere else so it's one

030way to look at things but it's not the end off all right um any questions before we go on this has been a lot okay Financial update typically when we give a financial update we'll give you the resources on top expenditures in the middle and then at the very bottom is your ending fund balance two years of historical data the current Year's budget current year's forecast is in the block and then trying to compare it to the adopted budget and then compare it to the board report that I gave in October so we can see how the changes happened and where it's happening at if we look at the variance to budget column our total resources is almost $2.6 million higher than what we had built into the budget there's two big factors into this

031one is our local resources interest revenue is staying fairly High we continue to get more and more interest every month than what we had budgeted um part of it is because we've had to shift the way we are investing our resources historically we have always just had all of our resources in our lgip our local government investment schol but now that we have our bond funds we can only have so much there so now we have to take some of our general fund and some of our bond fund and invest them it's generating significantly more resources than what we would get in a normal year but it's because we can't hold those resources in our lgip like we can um there's a is there a cap on the absolute dollar amount that you can put

032in there or there's a cap on the lgp amount correct yeah so once we hit that and because we have Bond resources we've exceeded that the last few years so we'll um we'll keep watching the interest and maybe in the future keep doing some more Investments depending on rates between the lgip and uh our investment opportunities so so are we just selecting our own Investments to we hire Piper uh Sandler to help support us and we have very strict rules on how we can invest um so it's all very secure very um there's there's not a lot of risk in it so so but we do hire a third party to do that for us man doing well yes yes so um interest and then the other part on that is our high school gym

033floor flooded last year and so we had to get it replaced um you'll see down farther under expenditures we had more expenditures under Capital so we have an increase in our revenue and an increase in our expenditure because of that insurance claim um and then the other one under resources is our beginning fund balance where we budgeted and thought we were going to end the year versus where we actually end in the year was $1.4 Million difference so our in our beginning fund balance uh increased because of that a lot of that is um a good portion of that is utilizing Grant funds that were expiring in creative ways that qualified for the grant so that we didn't leave any money on the table as far as expenditures by Major object our salaries and benefits

034are about 1.3 million under budget for this year a lot of that's turnover it's vacancies um it does assume a little bit more continued Grant utilization at the end of this current fiscal year based on what I'm seeing right now but overall we're looking at $3.7 million increase in our ending fund balance this year as compared to what we had in our built into our adopted budget um which is about 15% but if you look at the bottom of the circle it's still almost a $4 million deficit spending so it's our beginning fund balance coming in and our projected ending fund balance so we're utilizing about $4 million of that this current fiscal year and I do have a mistype on this so sorry I just realized that as I was coming in here it's

03511.3 B 36 billion in the upper right corner um this is a projection of our ending fund balance for the upcoming several years this is taking if we currently spend and continue our current spending Trends this year next year the following year and project forward our enrollment based on flat funding an .36 billion State School fund build in a moderate Cola step our Pur rate increases so just doing some primary preliminary assumptions built into it this is what our ending fund balance looks like over time we're not going to get it to where forever it's going to be above that zero but our goal is to try to push that out a little bit so that we can make incremental changes year-over-year so so we're not making any drastic changes we can make a change

036adjust make a change adjust a little bit um if we try to get that to hit an 8% ending fund balance forever it will be really challenging the other thing is is we do budget conservatively a little bit so youve seen that gap between our budget and actual this then allows us to be able to build that into the next year and use it so that we can keep modifying over time but but I think the big ticket item with this is is we are in deficit spending and we will have to make adjustments going into this budget season if the state school fund was not 11 and3 and was 13 how close would we be to being able to ride that line or and I'm throwing that number out only because that was a

037number just suggested by that last just as a incentive for this state to consider I would have to I mean yeah run it run it um but if you do increase the state school fund um the more you increase the state school fund the more you're going to take that line right and and build it up so but I'd have to run that specifically to be clear though it it won't resolve the problem no we still are in a position where we we will need to tighten our belt we are not as Direct dor Clute mentioned in the situation similar to some districts around the state but we we were at a point where we need to be very careful with our resources right um all right what any other questions before I move on

038budget considerations things we're looking at um right now we're in the process of building the budget we're Gathering all of the data we're running our enrollment estimates or Staffing projections going into next year um getting feedback from our administrators getting feedback from our programs and our directors to try to build the budget to figure and then April we'll work primarily on balancing the budget um but the big things that we're looking at in this budget season and that are very high on our radar is the legislative session the governor's recommended budget that came out in December was 11.36 so that's what we're starting with um we are in full bargaining and will be in full bargaining this spring with both fga and osca are licensed and classified Union groups so this budget will have an

039estimate for Cola in it but it will most likely change because we probably won't have that set before we propose a budget um but it will have an estimate built into it our Pur rates are increasing this next bym so we will see a 4.4% increase in 4.4% of salaries increase in the next year for our Purge rates and then just to have it on everybody's radar in 2027 2029 bym our Pur U rate credit which is helping to bring down our purse cost will expire and so that bium we will have a bump up in our Pur rate because we will no longer have that credit so we are looking at our Pur reserves and trying to figure out how can we balance that and level that off so it's not a big impact

040right away so we are looking not just at this next bium but we are looking another bium ahead just so we can plan ahead I mean what is the u f unfunded Actuarial liability um the next one is impact Oregan Paid Family Medical this is our first year of it we do have to increase our budget a little bit for the impact of it this year do believe that it is going to increase next year over and above this year this year it's getting kick started people are learning about it um and this is District funded so um you know how much it cost us this year i' have to look again maybe you can send me an email curious we have both the cost of the insurance that we have to buy for it

041and and then we have the sub costs associated to all of the leave so uh we ran it this fall and it's on that legislative priority sheet that we had approved by the board I just didn't bring it with me thank you um the next one is the impact of federal funding at this time we're moving forward with our budgets at flat funding for federal uh grants but there is a lot of uncertainty there and then the last one is our continued declining enrollment we are declining in our enrollment um so we will be budgeting floor funding for enrollment because the state school fund formula has the in it it has a greater of so when you're in declining enrollment it gives you the greater of the two years um so you have one year

042to kind of catch up for it so we will be budgeting floor funding going into next year for that okay all right I'm going to cover the next next few slides here and um pause just for a moment to um read into the record that Peter Bower has joined us so thank you for joining us Peter good to see you um I want to talk a little bit about state of Oregon and legislative session as director Clute mentioned the session is active right now this is the long session which means it's going to go all the way till June when we are budgeting during a long session that does present some complications for us in that we will be running our budget process and bringing forward to the budget committee our best estimate of what

043we think the state school fund budget will be and more than likely we will need to make adjustments we will adopt a budget that then will require us to do some adjusting because it won't exactly match where the state legislature ends up but the timeline is that February 26 in May 14th we receive a revenue forecast the revenue forecast in May 14th is a significant driver in determining what the state school fund is that's why you see that there in Green in March the co-chairs typically release their budget so the process for budgeting at the state level for those of us that pay attention to what takes place is the governor proposes a budget the legislators that we elect work with the governor's proposed budget and then the co-chairs return their budget once the co-chairs

044returned their budget that's when the finagling really begins that's when our legislators um along with Advocates around the state really um push and mold in shape to arrive at a state school fund for the next vium and then on June 29th the session closes So based on the timeline that director Clute showed earlier we will be adopting a budget before the session closes and that could create a little bit of a gap between knowing what the final number is there are some hot topics around the budget that are important for us to watch and we are watching them closely the governor has proposed technical adjustments to the state school fund um specifically correcting some of the errors that have existed for a long time in the current service level calculation those adjustments are very important

045to us in some it's about 00 million additional dollars based on compared to the calculation as it would have sat last year so that's really important to us and we are working with the assumption that the governor's proposed budget will be the floor for that haggling that takes place after the co-chairs release their budget in addition to that there's a great deal of momentum around changes in the way special education is funded across the state specifically there are three different efforts underway that we're monitoring closely the first effort is high cost disability reimbursement right now for students with disabilities that whose service requires a significant amount of resources we're reimbursed up to $30,000 and then only a portion of the cost beyond that so there are Advocates who are working really hard to fully fund

046high cost disability and if not fly fund at least raise the trust that that funds the reimbursement to our school districts in addition to that the uh weight for students who receive special education services is capped at 11% across the state the state average special education percent per district is about 15% so right there you can see that there's a gap between what costs to educate students versus what the state is providing to school districts to educate students who are receiving special education services for our district our percent is closer to about 177% so our Gap is even more significant there's two different efforts underway one is to completely lift the cap and fully fund the special education cost across the state the other is to raise the cap and the number that I hear

047being used most Reg L is the 15% which is our state average our state average matches the national average as well and then the last thing that we're keeping a close eye on is there is a bill moving through the legislature right now specific to unemployment benefits for employees who strike this would be new right now employees who are striking cannot claim unemployment benefits if this passes that could be something that has a financial impact impact on school districts there are a lot of people advocating for changes to the bill as it currently sits right now so that it doesn't impact anyone who's currently bargaining um because that could impact how those negotiations play out um and there are some other tweaks to the bill that people are advocating for that would be beneficial to

048schools and protect some of the resources that we might have to expend here but the most important reason why we're keeping track of this although this is a budget presentation is that if you remove the incentive to stay at the table which providing unemployment benefit insurance may do for some negotiations then it is likely that a strike would be protracted and that simply isn't good for kids so there's a lot of people trying to shape this to make sure that it doesn't have an adverse impact on students next slide please so I mentioned already that we have quite a lot of policy and advocacy work taking place with the current long session um these are just some of the areas that there are work groups and advocacy groups across the state leaning into the bills

049that are being moved through our current session um as a school district some of us here are involved in shaping that as well and providing testimony but all of these different areas we are monitoring closely because they all have an impact on school funding um sometimes it's hard to see that sometimes the legislature makes decisions where they don't realize that they are impacting schools one of the most publicized examples of that is just recently there was a bill passed through our legislature that requires that all of these lights be changed to LED lights for a district R size that's a million doll cost and that's not funded that that's not any kind of increase that we would have seen in the state school fund that would be a million dollars that we would not be

050investing in students were we to do that today so that's why we lean into this work and why we advocate in the areas where we feel like we need to shape the conversation we Advanced some legislative priorities just a couple months ago as a school board and as a school district other groups are doing that as well kosa which is the Coalition of Oregon school administrators osba which is the Oregon School Board Association oaso which are all Financial officers around the state so there's are a lot of advocacy groups that are watching this CL okay and then this last slide here is one I've shown in the boardroom recently I want to orient you to what you're seeing here director clue has already mentioned that we have declining enrollment what you're looking at here if

051we start with the blue line the blue line is our enrollment decline from the 20156 school year so that's our starting point the 15 16 school year and what you see is that enrollment has been slightly dropping in the few years following school year 1516 then the pandemic H and it dropped significantly and we haven't recovered so we still have a significant decline in enrollment compared to where we were just a decade ago when director Clute talked about how enrollment matters to the budget process our funding is based on our enrollment so these numbers are catching up to us now one of the considerations that we need to pay attention to for our school district is that while enrollment has declined the amount of staff that we have hired has increased now that initial increase

052in staff was due to the pandemic and you can look at any school district across the state and you would see a similar escalation in the number of staff we refer to that as FTE full-time equivalency but after we came out of the pandemic as a school district we didn't adjust so enrollment stayed low and we continued to add staff we're at a point now where that's caught up with us and we need to start to right size the discrepancy between the increase in staff and the decline in enrollment now what the decline in enrollment has done coupled with that increase in staff is you can see that students per FTE has continued to decline since the 15 16 school year that is strictly a function of less students and more adults so before I

053pitch it back to director please do you have any questions about those slides what were the factors that drove the significant Step Up in at the EAS for the pmic hit yeah it's a great question um for those of us who worked in schools at the time you'll remember some of the things I'm going to put in the room here um when we came back we came back in a hybrid fashion for most school districts I wasn't in Forest Grove at the time but I'm assuming it was also true um we had kids on a rotation basis so we needed more staff to take care of the health and safety needs that were required for gosh the better part of 18 months I think it was in our schools um we had to bring in

054health staff into our offices we were required for a period of time to do offer covid tests to our students um to our staff so we needed additional staff to work on that um the the increase in requirements that we had to manage as a school system was pretty significant during those early months of the pandemic then when we came back fulltime um I believe this was true in Forest Grove as well based on what I've heard we were confronted with two things one the realization that the pandemic and learning online was not good for anyone that was just generally not a period of time where we saw the kind of growth that we would expect for a full year of school so we had a lot of catchup that we needed to do there

055the other thing that we all experienced which I don't think we expected and responded to with additional ft is that students lost a very important Social Development year and they came back disregulated they came back without the year of Social Development that would have position them well for the grade that they entered into a lot of disregulation a lot of peer interactions that were problematic and the way that most school districts attempted to address that Forest Grove included was to bring in additional staff so that we could provide more support to students and I'll pause there director F I wasn't in the district during the pandemic so is there anything you want to add to that no um just thinking of the FTE increase from 20156 to current um it is it is just that

056our average class sizes are much lower than that they were prior uh we do have more instructional assistance across the board more counseling like we we we have a significant amount of additional resources and supports in in the buildings and at the district than uh we had back then so follow question for you I know that municipalities there was a lot of money started FL from Washington down to try and offset the impact of the pandemic was that something that occurred in school districts as well yes Esser is an acronym that many people are familiar with that was the emergency relief fund issued by the federal government there were actually three different grants over the course of the pandemic that were issued and just this past year was the final expiration date for the last

057Grant um my understanding and I'll ask director cl to fill in any gaps here is that while some of that money was used certainly for additional staff it wasn't a significant amount most of the resources that this District received um were moveed towards one-time expenses some of those were the health and safety requirements that were early on in the pandemic like mass and hand sanitizer and door labels and those sorts of things but also some really important changes that needed to be made to air circulation so HVAC systems were updated to ensure that we had the proper age uh air circulation occurring in our learning spaces anything you want to add to that the Lear largest source of all of our federal funds that we' got through the pandemic was HVAC related um or air

058filter changes we did have health aids and a couple of licensed FTE and some intervention funds uh some of which have been embedded back into the general fund budget uh or absorb back into that um and some of which we no longer have anymore so um welcome all right uh so I talked a little bit about this earlier but where we are in the process this month February and March is really about us Gathering data gathering information having conversations working with our department heads um figuring out what all the needs are across the district and building that budget in April our Focus administratively internally is really going to be around balancing the budget and then you will get the budget proposed in May and then again the last one is throughout we'll be through negotiations

059so um I think at this point we'll just have an estimate built into the budget and then we'll have to go from there so and the last one is just the resources I'll send this information out to everybody but these are just links that might be helpful especially to newer budget committee members that haven't been through the process um the Oregon program budgeting and accounting manual that's our pbam that is the required way that we have to uh code all of our expenditures so that we're consistent across the state the 2425 adopted budget uh all of the prior Year's budget presentation materials if you guys want to dig in and go to sleep um the PBM might make you do that um Oregon budget law budget manual osba handbook uh the current Year's calendar and

060then again that acronyms uh so it's there if you want it otherwise I am definitely here just for a one-on-one conversation if you guys have any questions I want to be able to help support you guys through uh the process and um yeah that is it do you guys have any other questions for Dr West or director CL okay seeing and hearing none uh there will be no further business the meeting is adjourned at 6:26 p.m. and the next meeting is April 22nd see you all l you e e e has they were the February 25th 2025 forest grow School District Board of Directors meeting is called to order at 6:35 p.m. we'll start with a roll call at board members president now here um I am here Brad is absent tonight Mark here Kate

061here and paa here uh well if we can ask everybody to rise for FL salute I PL allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands na indivisible liberty and justice for all all right I'm looking for uh motion to approve tonight's agenda so I'll second all in favor I I and we'll start with a student representative report paa welcome thank you good evening everyone um so on February 20th Linda and the she's the ASB Vice President we attended the Mari TR concert at the high school it was a great performance like always um but they did mention some future dates so May 9th they will be hosting a Mother's Day concert and May 31st is when they will be celebrating their 10th anniversary of the Mari uh

062program so looking forward to attending those uh janza gym was successfully hosted on February 18th and then just some other projects that ASB representatives are working on are just developing a Unity week for our High School uh creating monthly awareness campaigns um and from March I believe the focus will be on women's History Month also just to give you guys an update on ASB elections they are going smoothly so far based on the current timeline they are scheduled to be completed the week after spring break as long as everything stays on track um and then just a couple of other events going on at the high school um the island of Dr Maro play um will have performances on February 28th and March 1st at 7 p.m. and then March 2nd at 2: p.m. uh

063both boys and girls basketball have a game tonight at Newberg and they will also have games at home this Thursday for wrestling um both Kennedy blinton and Renee Cook were named Regional Champions um for bowling uh the the bowling team alongside Liberty became the 2025 team state champions but the dance team brought second place in both p and Hip Hop and our cheer team also brought home second place at their last competition and that is all we have [Applause] congratulations the crowd is excited tonight about that um they've been doing a nice job to in the paper of highlighting those teams and their accomplishments um okay for board report I do I'm going to talk a little bit about some some kids student things first and then I'm talk a little little politics um I

064would like to go I think the first slide I wanted to talk about this um the circle that you see and I know there's some people in our audience tonight that usually aren't at school board meetings but we talk a lot about when we talk about instruction the kinds of students that we're wanting to to help we want students to have traits when they leave high school now especially in this world to be able to have choices we talk about this a choicefield life but when I really started thinking about the critical thinker piece and the communicator piece there were a couple um there were a couple things that happened this week that I just wanted to share that I thought were really great I mean one was I did attend the G the gym

065as well and I want to compliment I saw the third quarter of I believe it was the JB girls team and one of the things I really appreciated about that team is the I don't remember the teams when I was in high school hustling that much consistently but it felt like their defensive takeaways on every end of the court and they're never giving up but really the teamwork that you see where uh you know when kids are little and they go down and they just shoot the ball but you know as as they grow and they understand the team watching those girls really share the ball and appreciate where the strengths were on that team was really great and then I went across the gym for the rest of the one of the I think

066it was Varsity Boys and I I didn't know this but I sat in the section with apparently I think it might have been the fifth and sixth grade basketball teams I thought it was the adults but it turned out it was just the coaches so a shout out and appreciation to parents and coaches who really were helping that group of boys who were the best cheering section I've seen really like kind of sneak over and say okay that little a little bit much we're going to bring it down a notch or we need to be respectful and I really appreciated watching the crowd interact and the the team itself that was apparently down before I got there by quite a bit and ended up fighting and fighting and fighting and coming back at the end

067and winning in overtime and it was it was just actually a really um hopeful metaphor for the Times we're in right now I just really appreciated that part so um but the other piece there is uh we had to have a plumber come to our house last week cuz someone may or may not have put a nail into the main water line at our house and I'm I'm not going to take that any further but we had this plumber had to come out it was an emergency and it was a really young guy it was a kid in my eyes and he would spent about 25 minutes kind of working through what was going on and and his engagement with me as a as a professional was really noticeable and I think when we got

068to the end of our experience and he was leaving I complimented him and said you know you you really have amazing customer service skills and where where do you get that and he said well I don't know if you've heard about this program called Avid and I I said well I have taught Avid a long time ago but he he talked about his Abid teacher and his experience in the classroom and how his teacher would have him do these speeches and make him engage with other students and have those conversations that were really awkward and how between that and his parents really pushing him he he did those are the skills that he was bringing to this job and I just think when you when you see how that plays out and you see what

069we're hearing from employers too is they don't just want the skills they want the person and the human and it was just it was just a wonderful experience and so a reminder for the teachers out there that the work you're doing with those kind of soft skills but the work that we talk about up there about Communicator was that was a great example but my by my favorite example was a language arts teacher who shared that her students were reading a novel in middle school and as we know novels have themes and then a lot of teachers now are working to have kids work uh partner shares and we're we're doing claim evidence and reasoning and we're teaching kids to make a claim and back it up with evidence and then explain your reasoning and

070then she practiced that with a partner and these two boys were having this conversation and she was wandering and hearing them talk about this theme and this character in the book and one of the boys they're friends but they're different different kids that they've become friends in middle school and one of the boys she overheard saying well yeah but you know I'm a Republican and the other boy said well he said don't you think we might be a little young to be labeling ourselves we're just kids and I just loved that story as a teacher to to hear the critical thinking of middle school kids to be able to be trying out those ideas and then talking with each other about what that means and um and being able to to have like a mature

071respectful conversation again it's those pieces in school it's the it's the things that we're trying to teach the kids and as I kind of just segue into the politics part of it which sits with us up at the board um last night I saw I I've been you know I read the news at night and one of the communications I saw came out last night at 11 and I hope I'm wrong I hope this was just maybe something that wasn't accurate but it was a communication from our current president from the White House account and it involved name calling and it involved a tone that was completely inappropriate that would never be something that we would be putting out as board members as teachers as parents in this community and it's it's hard I think

072if we can remember that teachers are trying to show our kids what it looks like and as adults I think this community does such a good job of setting that bar so high of we're not going to be doing those pces no matter what political party you are in and so I just it it's really making me reflect on the importance of creating students now who see each other respectfully and can respond in an appropriate way and just trying to have the conversation of why they might not be seen that happen with adults but I think we have talking about budget before the budget we feel like the adults in this community do a really really good job of being respectful and being able to disagree and and I just wanted to say that piece

073the next piece I want to talk about with that being said examples of that actually this I might this is this is the advocacy letter we talked in the budget meeting just earlier about advocacy we've been doing especially around sped cap which is the real focus of a lot of the elected leaders now and our district was able to submit this letter which is supportive of a couple different bills that are in the house right now one is funding high cost disability uh one is the special Leed funding and one is adequately funding Early Education and early intervention and so that's just an example of what our our board has worked on that and the conversations that we're having around that with people at legislature even today um we being really active but the other

074things I think we've been doing I'll go to the last one I was thinking about I've been thinking about five things that I've accomplished um and that our board has accomplished this week just this just for some reason our board does a really great job of working together especially during the legislative session and making sure that we are getting our our numbers into our legislators Janine San is one of them so that she can use those facts from Forest Grove when she's advocating for bills in her ways and means um committee and so we've been we've Dr West and Kate and I went to the Ron wiid Town Hall um we were able to go I was able to go to to the suan vonii town hall and she had a meeting before with elected

075official Schoolboard chairs and we were able to talk with her about what's happening in our schools and we also advocated with mayor batty um for more frequent communication because we we feel like we going to need to know weekly where things stand and especially with schools making sure that we're sharing what our needs are and hearing what the current um issues are as far as funding goes so we're active with that um we are meeting I'm meeting with rep mlan on Saturday to have a conversation Dr West and I attending the Gayla on Friday with Senator zman um so we're really I feel very good about the relationships that we've all built with our legislators and just for the community to kind of hear the level of Engagement that we have and that we're making

076sure Forest gr's examples are helping other districts and we're hearing that as well and it senator and I'll end with this um there were a couple things that happened of significance there's several questions about schools as we heard at Rett plain's Town Hall as we heard at wien's Town Hall and also bonami lots of questions about what's happening with schools um but there was a gal that stood up there at the end of the table and she stood up and she was from Guatemala and she stood up to say I just wanted to come to this community conversation and I wanted to tell people at this table that you don't need to be afraid of me and my daughter and again coming back to the human aspect of all this and just reminding all of

077us that we are all human beings and we're all trying to work together it was very powerful moment she found a lot of support at that table that's a bipartisan group of community members because I know many of them and and I do think like it's it's hard with politics to sort of talk about where we are with politics but I think we only do that by practicing and talking about it so it was very um very informative Senator San's working on several bills some of which we are supportive of as a board um a couple of which we have some adjustments we'd like to make uh so we can support our schools but she's been a great partner in listening to us and reaching out and making sure that she's sharing um what what

078our needs are so that was quite a bit as usual but there has been quite a bit going on so um if anyone has questions about any of all that have comments about it our emails are always available we're very available for people um to let us know what you'd like us to be talking about or working on or anything so that's it thank you for you do it's all we're doing but I I appreciate it very much you okay um I'll I have a superintendent report to make that I am going to cut short because a lot of what I was going to say has already been said um so where I want to pick up is with some upcoming events that weren't all already mentioned um 6 March next week there is a

079belonging Summit AT Neil Armstrong Middle School I am super jazzed about this it starts at 5:00 p.m. on the evening of 6 March and there will be all sorts of breakout sessions focused for students and their families um community members are welcome in addition even if you don't have a child in our school the focus is on how to create pro-social behaviors in your teams how to keep your team safe online how to monitor their activity in a way that is supportive um and not necessarily cloying like every teenager feels of their parents um to provide both parents and students a forum to learn a little bit more about how to navigate what can really be tumultuous years and then you add on the phones that we all keep in our pockets and the relationships

080that they're trying to learn how to engage in it can be really messy so this is an opportunity to bring folks together to do some shared learning and to strengthen um what it looks like for students and families to engage in our schol so please please join us Dr West real quick I thought I read on the flyer that um Child Care would be provided can you confirm that correct yes Child Care will be provided so if people want to attend who have young students um or even Toddlers and you don't want to take them with you through the different sessions we have child care there will also be a food part on site um so that we'll be able if you're hungry we have food there so we want to make sure that people

081are able to attend and then there are not barriers great thank a couple of other reminders the week of 19 and 20 March we have conferences so if that's not already on your radar it should be that means that we'll have some students that are not in school and of course March spring break is right around the corner um and that's the 21st and 28th of March so make sure you're working that as well um so just a couple of other comments I also was at Jam the jym it was my first attendance and it was tremendous fun um I made a note here that our athletes performed incredibly well and one of the things that I was most struck with was the sportsmanship the our athletes were intense they were playing hard but they

082were playing fa and at the end of the game everybody paused and they acknowledged the hard work on the court and I really appreciated seeing that from our athletes I also have been visiting several classrooms over the past few weeks and similar to to what was shared by chair Ki one of the classrooms that I visited the students were deeply engaged in examining Gall pole data they were picking an issue that was of interest to them they were curious about they went to the gall po site and they were looking at well what what do my fellow Americans think of this issue and they were disaggregating data by a lot of different variables like region gender um their social status in terms of their incomes their ethnicity I mean all sorts of factors it was

083it was great and the kids were in it they were in it in a way if you've ever been a teacher where you have that moment where they are quiet and they are whispering to each other they were working in Partners they were in it and it was a magical moment and what I realized from talking with the teacher and from over hearing he's dropping on some of the students this lesson that they were engaged in was certainly teaching how to have constructive discourse and have differing opinions but still have a respectful conversation but what I heard from several students that struck me was curiosity so they may have a different opinion but they were pausing and they were asking questions like well tell me why you think that and really trying to listen to

084each other and listen to understand and I left that classroom feeling inspired um first and foremost but secondary to that I left with this passion that has been living in me since that experience that we need more of that we we want to see and we want to protect those opportunities for our young people to develop curiosity not just about the world they're inheriting and what they're learning but about each other and I think that will go a long way towards the types of relationships that we've been talking about that we want to have in our communities and with our neighbors so a couple of other quick things um last year I I think this is really um interesting for the board to know and certainly for anybody who's watching last year Oregon Senate Bill

0851552 passed and it it ordered the state to conduct an evaluation of the quality education model they contracted with air which is Research Institute American institutes for research and they took a year to evaluate the Q U the report was returned just in the last couple of weeks and it it's really interesting it's long it's like 300 pages so unless you're really into research I don't recommend you go through all of it but there are some summary pages that are worth paying attention to what I want to elevate from that research are a couple of Big Ideas that I think are important for us to hold on to as we engage in advocacy during this legislative session first and foremost um air suggests that the Q model is in fact adequate and that we should

086be funding to that level but it's appropriate for the type of education that we have expans that we would like our students to have second to that is they did an analysis of what we're currently spending per pupil and they put forth that if we wanted to raise academic outcomes for students by one standard deviation by one factor um we would need an additional $574 per pupil so that is significantly more than the state is currently spending they conducted a secondary analysis alongside that and they added in what would it cost the state if the State assumed some of the capital needs that our school districts are struggling with across the state I mentioned a few weeks ago the state is undertaking a survey of all the districts to figure out what the capital needs

087are what um the American institutes for research said is that based on what we know about the condition of our schools across the state the state would have to spend an additional $9,000 per student just to bring our buildings up to the state that we would want them and the condition that we would want them in so I'm bringing this forward because there's a lot of debate about the Q is it valid is it not according to the American institutes for research it it works it's a good model and the state should be funding to that level um so as we advocate in these coming months for the technical adjustments that the governor put forth I think holding this side by side with that and knowing that those technical adjustments are just the first step

088in ensuring that we have adequate funding for the state I also want to put forth briefly we talked a little bit about some legislative matters during the budget meeting we had previously that we are monitoring closely House Bill 2248 House Bill 2953 and House Bill 2682 all deal with increases in revenues for special education services all of those have moved out of the education committee and they are now with the house Revenue Department Revenue committee that's good news it means that it's advancing through the process so we're excited about that and I'll continue to bring updates to legislation as goes Advance that's all I have any questions I do I think I'd like to add one thing to that about the legislative bills was talked about in the budget committee is the bill 916 about

089um the unemployment I can't remember the I can't remember the title of it off my off the top of my head but I did I don't have the exact title but it is Senate Bill 916 it's Senate Bill 9116 and in a nutshell right now it's it's a bill that um I might need some help with how how I'm going to phrase this but basically it would for school districts if employees were to be out on strike school districts would be there we would be paying for the unemploy M benefits now what gets tricky about that bill and I was able to have a conversation with Senator soulman about that and there's been multiple School Board chairs who have been working with their boards because currently right now there's a statute one of the conversations

090I was able to have with a school board member was this bill in particular is a bill being sponsored by AFL CIO and it's their kind of their big bill for for unions and um and I think we've all been watching the Providence strike and what's been having happening with that well part of this bill didn't take into account an existing statute around back pay so when it comes to schools in particular there's pieces of that bill that would make it really difficult and maybe impossible for school budgets to be able to pay for that so one of the things we talked about with senators and multiple Senators is the unfunded mandates when if that bill were to pass there's a statute in that bill that would that prevents school districts from from being able

091to make that up with back pay I I don't know that that's been communicated yet there's multiple other pieces to that bill like that that that schools are going to need to take into account and are actively kind of now advocating back to our Senators to say hey we we support you know the collective action of all of these pieces but let me tell you what that would look like in our school district currently unless that statute is adjusted so some of the conversation now is around if that bill moves forward and that would be in Senator Soulman's committee making um considerations for exempting schools temporarily from that for or for changing some pieces to the school piece so that it's workable for districts and budgets there's more to that I know we've all been

092paying attention to that but I did want to sort of bring that up as well because that's a pretty highin conversation that we'll continue to have and would like to continue to have so as it goes forward there's lots of nuance to it so yeah thank you for that yeah I'd like to make comment too is um it's been very interesting to see and learn about the mandates that the legislators um they're they're great ideas they're wonderful ideas they have the best interest but one of them that's come forward is coding coding is great we love to see our high school kids have coding um but what they're proposing is that coding would be taught by our teachers K through 12 well if there's no where does the money come you know for the teachers

093to incorporate that within their classroom and where's the professional development and again you you're asking schools to do more and more with no funding and and that is a real big problem Force gr school day is probably the the smallest school day when I went to school we started school at 8:00 in the morning till 3:30 well now you know know what our days are right now and the teachers are really working very very hard but something has to give in the day I mean there's all these mids that come that do not have dollar amounts with them and they're great ideas we would love to have them but there's only so much and Focus needs to be on what Christy was talking about you know that we have relationships and that we communicate that

094we're working on reading and math um and our electives you know like our biking house and these other things that the high school of CTE those are really really important and we have Partnerships with that but the legislators don't seem to know you know they put out the bill but they don't really understand the ram ifications if there's no dollars with that that once it becomes a law then we have to do something and where does that money come and it comes from it's being taken away from our students and what we need in the classroom so I encourage you know everyone here and anyone listening is you know please please um write letters please um become really engaged because we need all of you to help us and making sure we get the dollars

095amount we need for our students and teachers and I think that's two meetings ago we used that computer science bill as an example to show what it would cost our district should that bill go forward we've had those conversations already I will say Kate that since that conversation which we then sent to the ways and needs Comm um committee uh there were people on that committee that said they actually watched that conversation and and it was eye openening and I think that really stuck I just think those legislators aren't having direct conversations yet and what's happened just in those last two weeks that I feel like a wheel has started to move and they're starting to get it so again I agree with Kate the intention is good computer science bill in a K12 every

096K12 classroom which is a part of a larger state plan that is great but let us show you how that isn't going to fly right this second and why and then what are the ways that we are making that happen or what's the enforced Grove we' maybe like to see more flexibility so so we can have different types of CTE programs instead of a bill that dictates a certain programs but I mean I feel hopeful that that we are now having those conversations and I would encourage anyone if you are hearing about a bill like that to communicate with us and see like what have you heard right now and those are questions that we can Elevate but I also think sometimes what people hear about bills isn't what the bill may be and as

097we know the bill is literally changing from day-to-day based on these conversations so I feel I feel very good about our local relationships that it's having an impact but we do need to hear those questions and support from everybody thanks Kate that's a good point okay um I know where we [Applause] are okay we we are for Grove Education Association report I did not see Diana here tonight do we have you don't have any comment today no comment today okay thank you thank you um we are up to unscheduled public appearance the board appreciates community members sharing information during public comments public comments can be made in person or submitted through the designated form on the web page to be read by District staff or registered Zoom participants who indicated through the form they wanted

098to provide their comment live public comments will be limited to 3 minutes as a protocol for board meetings board members will not comment or respond to questions public criticism or complaints about the school district Personnel are not allowed and I have tonight we have three public comment and so I'm going to ask the first person to come up I believe it's Justa um is it sorid SED SED and so I'll have Justa come up to the to the microphone there which I believe is on and I think I'm going to ask you to introduce yourself and an address so name address and topic name address and topic yeah my name is justan sweed and I live at 2015 Main Street Apartment 1 and just could I could I ask you this do we do that

099it works fine just like that okay thank you does this work I think so 2015 Main Street Apartment One all right so my name is and I'm here my 10 okay so I'm here to represent the ELD department at the Forest Grove High School and I just wanted to say to everybody Welcome everybody um to our school board meeting and we the teachers of the ELD department at Forest Grove High School enthus enthusiastically recommend Brian Burke for the position of principal Brian has been supervising our department this year and we have been consistently impressed by his leadership qualities his dedication to our students and his commitment to support our work as teachers in El program as we expand expand and evolve into more integrated approaches for language Brian has consistently created opportunities for our department

100as well as World Language department and various content teachers to be involved with the expansion and diversification of the Dual language program in Forest Grove School District at the high school level we are all learning and collaborating together to understand best practices and program models that will work best for our population in Forest Grove he understands the unique needs of our students and advocates for resources and programs that will help them Thrive he values linguistic diversity and recognizes the importance of creating an inclusive environment where all students feel supported and celebrated one of Brian's greatest strengths is his approach to working with teachers he genuinely sees us as the experts in our field and treats us with respect and Trust I want I have three quotes this is from an MRI as a former student

101student teacher and current educator at Forest Grove High School branberg has been nothing but a great Advocate supporter and Mentor during my journey through a system that was not built for people who look like me he taught me that there can be a place where we can successfully fulfill our desires to be great Educators while also improving our students quality of education and Edison cab Caba Manalo wrote as a new teacher Brian provides essential Fe feedback that I need to improve uh my that I need in order to improve my instructural pra practices in classroom management practices he does not come in as just an evaluator but also as a guide uh for new faculty members like myself he has a commanding presence and a cal demeanor that I want to emulate in my classroom

102and then I wrote Brian is a great boss in the past I have worked for helicopter supervisors but Brian is so grounded he is there when I need questions answers but he give me the space to make my own stylistic teaching choices and he encourages me to use my experience and expertise as an educator he has always made me feel that my input is valuable if it's the perfect candidate that you're after look no further he's right here right on time thank you thank you thank you so [Music] much all right next is Laura [Applause] us hi guys good to see you I'm going to sit you were Brave standing the whole time hi my name is Laura Lewis I live at 3254 Barnett Street in for Grove 97116 does my time start and your

103topic oh branberg principal start cool hi guys my name is Laura Lewis I've been teaching at por high school for 20 years I also GR graduated from for high school and I have a son who will be attending for GR High School in a couple years as well maybe 10 years 12 years I don't know how long he's going to be an elementary and uh we're here to support Brian bur position your principal we know that the vacancy was posted and scheduled to close on February 15th and our understanding is that Brian did submit his completed application prior to the closing um of the application window and I think when the window reopened it signaled to us that maybe as a staff we need to be a little bit more vocal about our direct support

104for branberg I'll be reading the second of five letters written by staff members at the high school totaling about 100 signatures of our 140 staff members it is with absolute confidence that we write this letter of support to recommend Brian Burke for the position of principal at B high school with the undersigned feel strongly in our assertion that Mr Burke is not only deserving of the position but essential to the future success of for GR high school it's evident from his 14 years of experience as assistant principal that he consistently demonstrates a student first perspective in all of his decision making he understands that the needs of our students must always come first while also valuing and supporting other stakeholders including staff faculty and parents his ability to balance these sometimes competing priorities showcases his

105exceptional leadership qualities furthermore he is deeply focused on issues of equity and fairness he celebrates our diversity and consistently seeks to create an inclusive environment where every student has the opportunity to succeed one of Brian's standout skills is his approach to conflict resolution he resolves issues with the utmost respect compassion and a strong commitment to restorative justice this ability not only Fosters a positive environment in our school but also builds trust among all members of our community he engages students staff and families in dialogue that leads to healing and growth a vital skill in today's diverse educational landscape in addition to conflict resolution bran is an excellent Problem Solver which is crucial for any leader ship role he possesses a compelling vision for education and an exceptional ability to motivate others to work toward that

106Vision uh he inspires us to strive for excellence while also our uh encouraging our students to embrace learning with enthusiasm additionally Brian has cultivated an undeniable undeniable rapport with his colleagues and students alike he is widely respected by faculty for his collaborative spirit and approaches relationships with absolute sincerity students admire him for his AB his ability to connect with them making them feel valued and understood this remarkable Rapport allows him to lead by example and creates a sense of belonging within our school environment in conclusion how much time got it uh we strongly believe that Brian Burke should be the next principal at for of high school his impressive track record his dedication to students and ability to motivate others while remaining humble and approachable make him a valuable asset we are confident that he

107will make an excellent principal and continue to Advocate your students and staff Brian is the leader we need the leader we want and the leader who will make force gr High School an even better place to learn teach and grow thank [Applause] you good evening uh my name is Travis toer I live at 1133 Southeast Brookwood Avenue in Hillsboro I'm teacher at Forest gr high school for the last nine years um I put my name down to help support Laura in case she ran out of time um and so uh we just wanted to reiterate that um a large portion of our staff is is fully um offering our support for Brian Burke in the principal position um he is unaware that we are here and that we have filled out these letters of support

108for him um so this is not a campaign um organized by him but by the teachers that he has inspired throughout his career high school thank you thank you TR all right that is that is everything do we have anyone on Zoom for public comment okay that is our public comment section we are going to move on to consent agenda and there's kind of an awkwardness to sometimes know if this would be an okay time for people to leave and it is if you'd like to but if you'd like to stay and listen to the consent agenda conversation welcome and thank you for coming it's a great time to come to school board meeting and here all the it is welcome anytime uh the consent agenda is made up a routine non-controversial items to be

109voted on under one motion are there any items within the consent agenda of board member or the superintendent wishes to discuss separately see none okay U all in all in favor I'll move that we approve the consent AGA as present all in favor [Music] opposed all right passes no presentations tonight action items uh we are starting with the transportation RFP with director flute seems so empty good evening so tonight we don't have any bond items so that's good um but we do have the transportation R um we started the process early this fall and so we went through through um the publishing process and developing the RFP this winter um we did end up having two highly qualified firms bid on the RFP process it does include uh our this would be for our primary

110services for all home to school routes all individualized school routes are mckenny vento our special education Foster any extended school year programs after school routes home to school field trips athletic trips so our primary Transportation provider I was just talking with both Brian and Melissa um for the budget committee meeting and before this meeting and we were trying to figure out when we last went out for an RFP and we're thinking it was 2005 so it's been many years since we've done an RFP for transportation and we've done a lot of extensions 5year extensions um but in talking with them many districts also 15 years in between rfps is pretty consistent just because the amount of equipment it's needed to um have that contract um but it is time we do have about 68 buses

111in our Fleet and provide services for 133 student days plus any weekend events or a lot of summer school opportunities um overall based on the two quotes that we got one was from the Columbia bus and one was from first student after looking at and considering cost the adjustments impacts equipment and qualifications just the quality of the management and the operations their safety program technology all of that we are recommending to continue to move forward with Mid Columbia bus for a 10-year contract with a 5-year extension option at the end of that ell I was wondering how come we don't can't see the rates of what the other RFP was for First Student I do have the rates um the way we set up our transportation contract is there's a fixed rate for the course

112of the year divided by the months so we have our fixed rate with um midco it is a million 137 270 which should have been on the cter sheet yeah I I'm seeing theirs I'm just not seeing what per student has so I would you know usually when you show us an R RP we get to see both quotes well there's a little bit of variation in the way the quotes were presented and so what I tried to do is look at a Year's worth of service and apply these rates to what a Year's worth of servic is and it's about $321,000 gap between moo and first student when I apply all of the overcharges the daily rates and um their fixed contct 321,000 less for midco correct than yeah what is the difference between

113our last year rates and this one I don't have the the difference in the annual Li rate for Mid code today versus because it after we go out for an RFP we're kind of fixed into that um I just have to build it into the budget it is an increase compared to what we're spending today but I don't have that in front of me today yeah I had just heard I'll talk to you guys a little bit about this I've heard from some of your bus drivers that they they didn't feel like they were really like when you guys raise the rates for us that they're not really feeling like they're seeing that um that you keep them under certain hours so they don't really have the benefits and they weren't getting really erased with

114some of them had left and the hillsb or other places so I would just ask that you keep that in mind you know how how you how this turns over to your employees I guess yeah every every increase that uh that we get to the contract the same amount is passed on to the driver every year and there has been years where moo has adjusted their um rates and then we've done the regular CPI plus an additional amount to account for that but that's when we would talk together about like what how do we want to adjust the rates to be able to have retention and then we would embed that in a contract amendment that would go over and above the CPI built into the contract so we still have that option to do

115and navigate some of those challenges and and this contract is about 3 and a half% more than what we were than this year thank you thank you other questions all right do I have a motion to award the student transportation services RFP 24- 11125 to Mid Columbia bus pending final successful contract negotiations so second any discussion hold on real quick pending pending contract negotiations clarify that for me please with with midco drivers or or with us no just between midco and us so the general terms and conditions that I have outlaid in the cover will stay the same it's just the it's the little nuances in the language that were just finalizing okay that's what I was like wait are they are they like negotiating with their drivers and then it can change or everything's

116pretty much left in uh with the terms and conditions on the cover sheet now it's just we're just fine-tuning the contract so that's why it wasn't attached in full okay great that was the only question I had we can vote all right all in favor say I I opposed all right motion passes thank you Dr Clute and we are up to uh the interd district transfer process timeline and open slots with Dr West yes thank you um this is a second read brought last time our last board meeting a transfer timeline um and a number of recommended slots for 2526 school year the timeline aligns with our neighboring districts that is important so that we are all processing our transfer requests at the same time the open slots for Forest Road School District are based

117on recommendations from building principles after review of their current enrollments and projected class sizes for grade looking at historical data the recommendation of slot available for release from our district is 20 and this aligns with the most recent past practice so I bring this to the board for Action questions all right do I have a motion to approve the timeline and recommended slots for the 2025 26 school year as presented second any discussion all in favor I oppos all right motion passes and finally the force gr High School Deca overnight trip request thank you Bethany for sneaking that into the agenda with Dr West yes thank you so our forest growth Deca group has submitted an overnight trip request to attend the international career and development conference in Orlando Florida this conference takes place on

118April 25th through March 1st so it's at the end of the next month um the objective of this trip is to compete in intern Nationals and attend leadership conferences the total cost of the trip is $2,000 per leadership student um 1500 for SBE and zero for state champions so there is some um tiered pricing what I know when you read that it seems well yeah so there's some tiered costs to those who participate in the conference um and we would like to ask the board to approve this so that our students can attend this conference and competition are they I think they did it last year too and it was in um it was in Anaheim and Nate are Bo rep once and he did great and had a great time I believe that the

119club pays for it or they fundraise I think they have a store and they sell things right so I mean they're paying for all the costs and it happens in the spring y couple months yeah think that April 26th through March 41st this I'm sorry April 25th ail the date's not correct it is not it is it should be April May 1 May 1 yep thank you for that correction my only question was just about the cost but yeah he had a great time I think and one things is that an an indust no it's in Orlando it's in Orlando and so on their last day of their application oh yeah anyway last year disne sure yeah I know do I have a motion to approve the force gr High School Becca's overnight trip request

120to Orlando from April 24th 2025 through May 1st 2025 so mov I'll discussion all in favor all right motion passes no first read no information we've given plenty and I think we're going to adjourn