001thank you Dr Weston thank you good evening today is the last board meeting of February which is Black History Month I hope you've all had time to reflect on our history and the accomplishments and struggles of black Americans this month there are also some other things to reflect on for 202's Black History Month this year diversity equity and inclusion programs were closed for the federal government when State Department officials asked if they could release public statements commemorating Black History Month officials were told quote staff should highlight the valuable contributions of individual Americans throughout US History while ensuring our public Communications maintain the spirit of the directive eliminating diversity Equity accessibility and inclusion well that is a lot to reflect on this year the theme of Black History Month is labor this recognizes that black labor
002built much of our country the word takes on another meaning here though solidarity let me quote again the directive was to quote highlight the contribution of individual Americans the implication here is to erase any shared struggle any Collective history furthermore another executive order seems to say that schools with any diversity equity and inclusion programming will lose Federal funding potentially things like School meals this is literally a bully making a demand and if you don't go along with it he's going to take your lunch money in America we don't have to negotiate with bullies please mark this year's Black History Month by honoring the collective struggle and shared history of Black Americans and celebrate it however you want to I also want to add that I really appreciate our classified staff as well and um the
003efforts in our legisl by our legislators to lift the cap on special education funding I appreciate everyone's good work thank you so much George miles I also don't have very much um I did have the opportunity uh last week to join our Ela um curriculum ad committee which is a very thoughtful thorough very rich process made of dedicated Educators and parents and administrators and um uh really really wonderful thoughtful process um and I also want to thank all of the classified employees that make a difference in students lives every single day and people like B farnworth who I knew because she was at byon when my daughter was um they hold key positions and throughout the whole district and enrich our students experience and and um just to our superintendent um prompting that we should
004think of somebody that that we knew uh um so my mom was a classified employee she was a teacher and then she was an instructional Aid and as I think through my own experience I can remember as many classified staff as I can remember teachers and um so I just want to thank our our whole classified staff thank you so for me it's been a busy couple of weeks a lot of lobbying um I missed the LPC Wednesday call though so I'm hoping chair that maybe if you were there you could talk about stuff that was brought up then um I uh was doing boundary work and policy work um but really the the lobbying the uh emailing Senators texting uh representatives to help them understand the impact of bills that they might not other
005otherwise think impact education um that seems to be um an underlying theme this year there are bills that seem to have nothing to do with education but in fact they will if they are passed will cost districts a substantial amount of money or at least time and effort which is fundamentally the same thing as money um I did also want to talk about classified uh staff I mean I obviously I've spoken already but I uh I want to Echo what uh Vice chair heus said um I was a a classified staff member myself at by many many years ago and I got to know kids I worked as yard Duty and I got to know kids on the playground which was a very different environment than the classroom and so I really got to know
006the kids as kids not just as academic students and um and the relationships I was able to build with kids were really important and I know that all of our classified staff members are building similar relationships with kids every single day and that's hugely important um finally uh ping ponging off of what director Weston said this is why I wanted to go last I knew you were all going to bring it up um and it being Black History Month one of the things that I was really saddened about this weekend was I know that our black student union had their Multicultural fair at lak Ridge High School and I wasn't able to go I was intending to go and then the last minute something happened so I was wondering if anybody else was able to
007go and could report on what was there because it sounded like it was going to be an amazing event and I'm really bummed that I missed it okay NOP okay thank you very much that's all all right and I will just wrap up um and I did want to kind of which I was planning on before in terms of the resolution just kind of highlighting um of those things these are just a a small few of what those what our employees do our classi employees so it's keeping our schools clean and safe providing nutrition safely driving our students greeting the public helping them learn um our students learn keeping track of Records nurturing our students improving their educational environment so those are just a few of the things and it really I think having been
008worked sort of in the the classified realm as well and as a um classroom teacher it's it's such a partnership with um between the maybe classroom teachers and classified staff and and it's true that holistic child we see so differently um in the non sort of academic sense as director zers was talking about and so for me um Lynn Cooper she made my meals um as a kindergartener um and I went to a little little kindergarten and so and it was all kind of fresh food and I just remember her serving um those meals and then um Mrs Lamar who was the front office person at my elementary school um and then I went to school with her son Bobby Lamar um yep Bobby's mom um and she was incredible and so those are people
009that I also felt like knew my whole my whole little self um and so I again it's it's invaluable the work that all of our people do in all of the different spaces and I think we're really lucky to have such an incredible caliber of folks um in ttsd a quick little update and these can get really lengthy especially in the long session so I'll just keep this very high level but um today the Senate finance and revenue committee had an informational hearing on the corporate activities tax um which kind of ties into our Student Success fund and all of that um and then that they will also hear or they did hear a number of bills that would create industry specific exemptions to the CAT tax and so that would affect um what we
010would get for that student investment account Wednesday morning um this Wednesday the 26th the Senate and House Revenue committees will meet jointly for the March revenue forecast the final budget will be based on the May forecast but the initial draft of the coach's budget will be based on the March forecast so this is kind of one of those sort of critical Benchmark numbers that we look at um and then also on Wednesday the Senate and House committees will have a joint evening hearing to go over the results of the American institutes for research reports on education funding and the qem which is the quality education model um so those are some of the the high highle highlights and then certainly we um as mentioned there are hundreds and not thousands of bills and so uh
011when some of those sort of have some action that's worth kind of sharing in this space um we will absolutely between director zers and I um keep people informed on those and I think we're continuing to do a lot of good work with the bond um and having really wonderful conversations with parent groups and organizations the different schools um and so those have been really great conversations and so if you are wanting to help out um there are absolutely opportunities to get involved if you have questions because this can be new especially to our younger Elementary folks this sort of bond process might be new um please reach out and we the district will have some information there's a a bond pack that will have information and so there's a lot of ways to get
012those questions answered um and with that I will be done and then I just want to confirm there is no public comment for tonight all right so with that we will move to our first reports and discussion item the special education funding and budget with director C and director kench good evening board um so as um as you can see do director C and I are here to tell you as best as we can about special education budget and funding um which is a very comple complex um a complex way of of budgeting you'll see in a minute so we're going to start with a little context uh next slide please first I want to make sure that we're clear about what we're talking about we are specifically talking about special education under idea individuals
013with with disabilities Education Act um there are other laws like Section 504 that support and protect students with disabilities but specifically this is about Ida um and it is about making sure that students get what they need um under special education law specific to their disability when they need something different than other students next slide please so a little bit of background um this is some information about we serve in Special Education um it does not include the very little um low incidence disabilities like a student who might be deaf or visually impaired because they're so small that you don't really see the trends but what I would point out here is you can see over the years our students with specific learning disabilities has gone down and then our students with autism has gone
014up and then there's some smaller differences with other health impaired and students with emotional Behavior disability next slide so what I really wanted your attention on was to um zoom in on autism and you can see since 2017 we have doubled more than doubled the students with who are um considered having autism or developmental disabilities developmental disabilities is a new category um that are only for students that are under eight years old and it includes students who have um disabilities and at least two different preschool type areas like social communication um intellectual disability and so they typically are students who have more needs than um a student who has a communication disability next slide uh we do not here serve early intervention and early childhood the Northwest Regional ESD does but it's an important part
015of the story as you can see um there are more students that are entering into our early intervention and ecsc program meaning more students that come in in kindergarten um and I think the trends this is a trend from September to August it is a good thing to find kids early we want to prevent and we want to find students um and intervene early and sometimes they no longer need those services and sometimes they need them for their whole school career um so these are not necessarily bad numbers they're good numbers and you typically see an increase after a big event like a pandemic so it's not surprising but it does show that we have students who are coming into our system that have more needs next slide so this is our kindergarteners incoming Kinders
016so a couple years ago we had about we welcomed 74 students with ifsps Mo which is the early intervention version of an IEP moving into an IEP and this year we're set to um welcome six is what we currently have and those are students who have been identified when sometime before five so there are other students we find when kids for the first time go to school when they're in kindergarten next slide uh the 11% cap is an topic on everybody's mind so I thought I'd give you an idea of how we compare with other districts in the state mostly in the surrounding area I added in uh North cacus and Salem and wesland Wilsonville um so you can see we're just a tad bit over the 11% and that has changed over time the
017last five years next slide uh just thought you might want to know who we have working in special education since we just did the stiens we had a nice report um and people often forget about some of the people we always know our lovely assistants who you honored today our learning Specialists but we also have a lot of bus drivers that support our special education program and um and we have facilitators that help the learning specialist program for kids so just thought you might want to know who makes up our Special Education team next slide uh one thing that we were looking at over time was how much our per pupil spending has changed and and so in the last six years we've gone from approximately $11,000 of additional funding for special education that doesn't
018include the gened portion of that um and now we're around 16,000 per student um so they I think a couple things I would say and Jessica may have some more to add here is that we have seen an increase for all students um but we've seen a a bigger increase for students with disabilities um in the last six years next slide so you might ask yourself why do we see this increase and so Jessica and I her director C and I have been looking at this information um the primary areas that have increased is transportation substitutes substitutes has been um an increase in all parts of our district not just special education and then you'll those of you who were around when we started the Sia we made a commitment to move our assistance from
019part-time to full-time um so we had a lot of assistants that were 3 and a half hours or 5 hours and they didn't have full-time benefits so now all of our assistants are either six and a half hours or seven hour employees um and that was an commitment and investment that our district made which I'm very happy about we added learning Specialists uh we also added life work stay treatment program um so that was about 15 employ employees that we added to our district before that the Northwest Regional was running that program and then most importantly we've seen a pretty significant increase in students who have complex needs so of our thir 13 100 students the number of students and you'll see on the next slide um the number of students whose programs cost more
020than 30,000 has increased significantly um you can see that increase was happening prior to the pandemic so it wasn't just a post-pandemic um result of the pandemic so in 201920 it was about 175 students and this last year we recorded 190 students um we were just every time you want look at data right you want to learn more so you look a little closer and you look at this and you look at that so we were just looking at the number of students who cost upwards of 100,000 and that number number has increased significantly in the last two or three years so when we look at our cost um a lot of it is from this population of students who need more so we don't have a lot more students but we have students who
021need more next slide so how is special education funded and or next slide this I'm gonna hand it over to director SE great thank you so there's um a couple different components blending state and federal dollars and as director kinch mentioned we've also used student investment account funds to help specifically increase Staffing um but primarily um we look at the state school fund and I know if you were at our community budget Workshop a couple weeks ago you saw the decorrelation of the increase in the total state budget and how the percentage of funds allocated to K education has steadily decreased so um according to the Northwest Regional ESD 20% of the state of Oregon budget is um wrapped up in the state school fund and we are funded at a weighted student basis so
022we receive an amount per student based off of enrollment students who have an IEP or an individualized education program um most of them qualify for a double weight and that's because of the 11 % cap that you've probably heard a lot about even recently tonight so um we actually received an updated estimate for the 2425 school year last Friday and so for each special education student or at least um those at that 11% cap we receive an additional weight and that means total funding is $ 22,25 so about $11,100 for just the general weight and then we received an addition $1,100 for each student on an i and there's um you know those funds are available to the district to support students according to their their needs next slide so um why you will see
023advocacy for an increase to the cap is because of um what's happening Statewide so this chart shows that there's 59578 students receiving a weight um but if were to look at a higher cap Statewide um there might be an additional funding for an additional 16,000 students and it also shows that second line how many districts are currently funded at the cap 168 it's all districts who have sped students but an additional 86 or 86 of those districts would benefit from an increase in the cap so our average rate right now is at 14 and a half and Carol mentioned that tiger spon's a little bit under 12% this year so we can go to the next slide so here is specifically what that 11% cap has meant at Tiger totin so um we have and
024I'll explain a little bit of math here so in our first row for three years we have our total IEP students and then we have the actual number of students where we're receiving that additional weight that is derived off of our total student population and um the states it's there's two components there's actually the straight 11% calculation and then the state's allowed to create a formula to provide additional funds to all other districts who are over 11% but for our district that's about eight additional weights so um if you were to like look at our seat School fund calculation that's why you won't see an exact 11% all that to say though that that means that we have students that are in excess of that cap and which result in an amount not funded so
025what's really interesting is to look at um for example this year we have 1364 students with an IEP and that means 120 are going to um not be funded with an additional weight if you look at those amounts in contrast to 2223 we had fewer students with IEPs and um a much significant amount of students who weren't funded under the cap that's because we're kind of getting hit twice because we have declining enrollment because um the 11% applied against the total enrollment as our um total enrollment declines but our special our students with IEPs increase that's why we see a lot um or a significant difference between the amount not funded between for example 2223 and this year's estimate move to the next slide so now we'll talk about the high cost disability reimbursement so
026um this is an an amount that's addressed through the K12 allocation and sorry um it's part it about $55 million per year and this helps districts who spend more than $30,000 in providing services to students so um we have a couple examples of um one-on-one support in terms of Staffing some students require additional Staffing some have specialized placements outside of the district where we're paying for their tuition to attend to meet their IEP needs and then sometimes we have specialized equipment or services that we need to provide for those students so that $55 million per year is a um resource that all districts can access and so how those funds are distributed really depend on the participation and the accuracy of districts forecasting their costs and then actually reporting them and so you can see
027there's quite a bit of variability between how much we actually reimbursed so back in 1819 the First full Academic Year prior to the pandemic we received about 37.2 cents in 2122 we almost received 50 cents and then um the year that Dr Udo referred to earlier we received 4.7 cents of every dollar spent so um we spent about $6.9 million on students with high cost needs and we only received the 2.8 million that um the superintendent referred to next slide please so one of the third ways that we fund special education is through our regional inclusive Services these are services that come from the Northwest Regional ESD not the district so when we talk about our own special ed funding the services I'm going to describe to you are not part of that so it's
028actually the actual cost is even higher um and this gets a little confusing because our Northwest Regional ESD is our regional program we don't spend money on the services I'm going to describe to you but the North West Regional ESD is also our ESD and we can pay them to provide us with some services that are um like a school psychologist so these are the one the services that we do not pay for but the organ Department of Ed contracts with Northwest ESD to provide and therefore for students that have low incidence disabilities I know that sounds funny because we have autism up there and that is our number one disability but it was considered a low incident disability at one point in time it also um funds for students who are blind visually impaired
029death blind Orthopedic traumatic brain injury and they do a variety of things like we have a teacher of the DEA who may come into our schools or we have some classrooms we have a classroom we don't the Northwest Regional estd has a classroom at Groner um that we have a couple students who go to Groner to get those specialized um placement and programming we have specialized equipment and so we have teachers and coaching and training that comes from that this program next slide what I particularly liked about this highlighting the regional program is it talks about how complex students are so here's a fictional student named Ella and you can imagine Ella is a kindergartener who previously got ECS um Pro programming and she comes in with an orthopedic impairment and developmental disability um she
030requir a variety of services and those the funding for those Services comes from different types of funding so we've told you a little bit about the high cost disability fund we have our special education cap and then Regional inclusive next slide so just and we don't actually fund we don't like separate a student's funding out by all these different funds it's just a way to highlight the complexity of the funding sources so for Ella she might get $188,000 of her physical therapy coming from Regional programming we might have the nurse come from our general fund we could have Ida funds support the special educator um high cost disability fund would definitely provide us some reimbursements for some of the funding and then just our general fund for 's gener General teacher next slide so I
031added a couple more slides to highlight different types of kids programs um we don't need to go through each one of the items but it just really is um I mean I it's just amazing the programs that we put in place and the Ser the great Services students get and how we all come together to provide those services so this would be a student with whose blind or visual impairment they likely need a braille embosser um that is a equipment to create Braille they proba have a teacher or a support person that helps with Mobility um and moving around the community they would have a gened teacher they'd have a special education teacher and at the top you can see like when they're when their program cost above 30,000 then we're getting getting reimbursed for
032some high cost dis from the high cost disability fund next slide and then here's just another example of a student with an orthopedic impairment and the types of services they might have have um you can see SLP Services that's speech and language Services they might have a augmentative communication device um that we might provide or the Northwest Regional ESD might provide um and again the different types of funding that they may have so when we do a high cost disability um sheet that we provide to come up with all of our calculations this is the kind of thing that we're looking at as all these different expenditures next slide and then the fourth funding area is Ida federal funds and so I we do get a portion of our funds from the federal uh that
033goes through the federal government to Oregan State and then they distribute to the districts it's a pretty complicated formula um so in a nutshell it's based on a 19999 amount um so that is and I like to high like that that has not changed that's the base anount based on the number of students that we had on our census in 1998 and then the formula is dependent on the student population um not just special education student but student population for that district and then the poverty factor and this really impacts when in 1999 when they did this it was pretty even across all states about per pupil funding for special education um and what you'll see now is it really varies depending on the size of the state so states with smaller populations get more
034per pupil than a state that like California that has a high population and we're somewhere in the middle um and I don't believe that was ever the intention but that is what is currently happening next slide so a lot of people ask um I think people think that the federal Ida funds cover most of special education and it is approximately about 8 to 9% of our current Revenue this is not what it costs to provide our special education services but these are the revenue sources specific to for our special education program and it's about 8 to %. and there's a little tiny bit for ecsc so what ecsc is our early childhood we spend those funds on evaluations and transition planning so it's a tiny little um Grant that we get through Ida next slide
035and just to end I think it's really important um for everybody to understand that all these programs it's one pot of money so let's take Regional programming they were cut um as far as the amount of money they the north R Regional got because the number of students Rose across all all the states all the all the school districts so our piece of the pie gets smaller and that also happened with Ida funds this year is that we got less money than we did last year or the year before and the year before and we've never in my time here and it's been a long time um we have never seen an increase in Ida funds but we were definitely saw a decrease this year and that's because the PO there's more students that need
036to be served um and the pie hasn't gotten bigger next slide and I want to thank OD we used some of their information and the Northwest Regional estd and combined all of these to try to make a presentation that would make sense around special education funding and budget so questions direct won yeah thank you so much and I really particularly appreciate your last slide um because I think it's important for the reimbursement to reflect reality such as without the cap but um I just want to double check I think um what this means is that um regardless of how it's calculated the state school fund is just getting moved around is that correct yeah so it's really important as we advocate for either well high cost disabilities a little bit easier because we can well
037I guess actually they're the same situation um increasing the amount of whether it's this the sped cap or the high cost disability pool and not adding actual money to the K12 allocation is Shifting money around and that's the point we need um a 12in pip pan not a 9 in pipan so um yes that's true yeah thank you so much and I just think um this is clearly an important issue um but I just really will not be losing sight of our complete budget picture with the state and um this is important work but it's not going to get us to a fully funded education budget um so it's good to do and I appreciate all the work being done around it U but it's not going to fill the whole well no it won't
038fill the hole completely um I would based on your question I would really recommend you go back and look at od's um presentation that they made to the house education committee on February 12th you can go into olis and look it up it's about an hour and a half long it is a fascinating presentation on the nature of special ed funding in the state I learned a ton of stuff and many of the questions that were asked by the committee members were exactly that question that you asked was one of the questions they have they asked and um and to see how it all plays out on the state level I think is really important so I would encourage all my fellow board members to watch that um I wanted to and thank you because
039it's really also useful having seen that presentation at the state level to then get it pulled down to the district level so I wanted to make sure I've got my numbers straight as I understand it because of the 11% cap there's 1.3 million that the district is not being funded and because of the high needs Gap there is a 4.1 million gap is that correct um yes 4.1 um what's our 2223 year because that year is reconciled and complete 2324 is pending the reporting that states will do this March and will receive any reconciling payment or potentially owe money back in may just depends on how all of the state mbers come together and yes that 1.3 million was from 2425 based off of our estimate okay so one is a year or two older
040than the other number so we don't have exact numbers but it's safe to say that we're we over $5 million that we by formula should be getting from the state for special ed that we're not currently getting is that correct okay so one of the things that was brought up by the the OD presentation that I think is a really important thing for board members to know but also for the public to know is that when special ed is underfunded the money for the kids is still spent and so the money comes out of our general budget and so we have have to scrimp and Save in other places to make it so that we can um still do oure right maintenance of effort for our special ed students so I want to make sure
041that everybody understands that um and the solution that's being presented at the state level is not simply well the pi is not going to get any bigger it's let's make the pi bigger and let's dedicate it to some special ed kids if they were able to do that it would mean that we would have then general fund freed up for our general fund for our general education kids so it's really a win for everybody I wanted to make sure that was clear thank you for all this detail this is great um I know that you were saying that we don't get the majority of our funding from the federal government um but I also know that they said they were going to fund it 40% 1975 and they haven't um I I just had a
042quick question about Transportation I know that you mentioned that Transportation costs increase does that mean the number of students needing Transportation or have transportation on their IEPs increase or is that just reflecting the cost of Transportation or both I believe it's both we have more students who who need Transportation I would just say kind of I think some of this is so complex and this was such a great way like direct said to kind of it is really high level and bringing it down to really help us and the community understand because people are hearing this 11% cap and with idea and title things and all of all of this stuff and it is really complicated but I think this and I know this took a I know it took a long time to kind
043of bring it down and really have these specifics for our district and I think this was so incred incredibly helpful and I think too just for the kind of Greater audience um this all kind of is around because I think what some folks and when I was talking to one of our Representatives um about this is that there are a lot of folks that don't understand unlike other programs kiddos that receive and require sped services that is a requirement and so it's not as though it's not funded so we just aren't able to do it that's why this becomes such a big issue is because it is drawing from our general funds and so as that money goes away those are that is money we are now required to spend which means these other really
044incredible important programs that are not required by law to fund and to service for our students then go away slowly and so that is why we need this also and we need a greater allocation of school budget funding and we need to also increase things like this cap because for folks you know again anything above that cap is out of pocket um for us essentially and so that's why and everybody for the most part is above that 11% and so that's why in that OD presentation was I didn't hear all of it because I had to stop but it's fantastic and it really helps explain so much of all of the calculations and sort of algorithms they use to kind of figure out all the money pieces but I think what's important to understand is
045because of Fai the free appropriate public education that allows students and requires schools to give them all the things that they need that are required and so because we've never been fully funded um under idea and because school budgets are going down at the state level and less funding at the federal level and now I know we have a lot of more questions around what that will look like moving forward that is why this is really so critical to ensure that we have this money because these are millions and millions of dollars um that that we are and rightfully so spending on these kiddos but that it has domino effect repercussions down the line and so um I think that was that was one of the things that the representative said would be really important
046to her counterparts um across the aisle was this idea that we have to keep funding all of these things which means these really cool programs that a lot of other kids um get to participate in would likely have to go away because we have to do this um and they're not auxiliary so I think this really explained that really well so thank you so much I have one thing to add to your comments I I think Cher and Cher Weston you make two really good points um and it's just to underscore this uh concept that the way that Oregon State funding has been designed it's that um not everything is kept in one really clean box for us to withdraw from and understand um what will be adequate for students but rather we we've heard
047this term braiding funding which means that we have several different pots of funding that ultimately uh help us make ends meet and if one thing on there is errant or one thing is missing we saw that this summer with some of our high school Success dollars um we see it with a shift on purs one way or another or with adequate special education funding that's right size the the services we're providing if those are off just a little bit it kind of throws everything off and we've historically found a way to make it work but um like uh director Weston said one without the other probably isn't going to be good enough for our kids we really do need both at this in this day and age and so I just really want to underscore
048for that and then also thank you all for your comments I think you all are are um doing an outstanding job of just communicating how complex it is but how important it is to make sure that we're getting adequate funding and thanks to the team for the presentation thank you so much all right and with that we'll move to our next reports and discussion item which is first read of board you typically have to sign up for public comment to ask questions and it's but you can but if you email email us um well we might have someone that will help you after the meeting if you want to stick around thank you um all right first read board policies with director Reed all right good evening so this evening we have a few policies
049that are up for um being revised um so if you took a look at the policies the first ones is under medication um they deleted the former policy in which we currently have and updated it to reflect you know the new requirements coming from ORS 339 and so there's the language especially around um the um opid um use and um like the Naran use so updating it for that information any questions on that one all right I think we have one question yes yeah I saw some thank you I saw some back and forth um in uh the policy about um if families could send something like an antibiotic if they do get like a four times a day dosage like which some of them do have are we including that ability or not I
050wasn't sure where that where that was with the policy so say repeat that again and maybe Carol can assist so if parents send a prescription needs to be administered at school that still is happening right yes okay it just wasn't clear with some of the comments I was like are we still figuring that out okay thank you absolutely okay the next one we have is graduation exercises ik kfv and that one is clarifying instead of using the term Alterna ative certificate replacing that with certificate of attendance that's the major change that's happening in that Pro that policy primarily any questions on that okay the next one um graduation requirements so we had updated that there are changes in terms of graduation requirements so those tables were updated um including the certificate of attendance so you
051see a lot of those changes in there were there any particular changes that um folks were wondering about or questions I would just like to say give a huge shout out to Vilma for all of her work on this policy because the way we got it from osba had no tables and our old policy which we loved had the tables and so she had to do an insane amount of cut and pasting and reformatting for this policy and I just wanted to say thank you I'll make sure to pass that message on all right and last but not least another one that we toiled over was instructional materials um so this one had a lot of work that went into it um in terms of updating it to the to reflect the new policy from
052osba were there any questions this policy there's changes in language to allow for more inclusivity in the curriculum and also being explicit around procedures um for you know non-instructional materials so are there any questions around this this particular policy all right hearing and seeing n this concludes our time around this yeah all right all right I think that's it thank you so much easy peasy all right and we will move on to our first action item which is open enrollment and District transfer process okay um good evening board chair irin Vice chair himz students um and board members and Dr Udo senta thank you for having us back to review considerations for the interdistrict transfer process for the 25 26 school year um I want to just apologize ahead of time there were some errors
053in the initial copy some dates that were Incorrect and those have been updated and will be updated in in the packet next slide please okay uh so today we will um briefly review the 2425 inter District transfer options um um review the hardship transfer process and data and go over the considerations for the 2526 years school year process next slide please so um currently families have three options for transferring in and out of the district one through an approved interdistrict um transfer agreement um two they can pay tuition or three they are placed um in the district through Court placement or other other reasons next slide um for review um for the 2425 school year the board approved unlimited applications to attend in ttsd and 20 Lottery slots for release um in the cover sheet
054we included a link to a document including the hardship criteria as defined in the OD policy and the top reasons given by families for requesting hardship release um over the last three years the top grades um requested for hardship release and schools um that request releases um in the last three years so the top reasons for hardship release have been pretty consistent over the last three years and I even went back and looked at prior years and they you know remain pretty consistent um number one you know being mental and emotional well-being um often bullying and safety reasons um maintaining stability and relationships and then uh logistic and economic hardship and then sometimes medical and special needs um those have been kind of pretty consistent over the last probably five years um and in that
055process when someone requests a release the assistant superintendent reviews those or requests hardship release the assistant superintendent reviews those and then connects with the school administration to determine if there's um you know if the supports have been provided to the student um that they need and to the family and if um there's a way for the student to continue attending in their school and oftentimes they are able to find a way for the student to continue and stay in their school next slide please were there any questions about that I'm pause that information that was provided before we move on okay okay so quick review of the interdistrict transfer releases this school year we accepted applications beginning April 1st we had 59 students um released as as of February 20th this month three of these
056releases were based on the hardship criteria next slide please um in review of our interdistrict transfers into ttsd this year we accepted applications also being April 1st um uh 59 students were released from other school districts to attend in ttsd four of them being um releases based on the hardship criteria it's kind of interesting that the numbers are so close and we used to have a 20 in and 20 out policy before we went to the lottery so just kind of interesting how the numbers are so close but it's I actually double checked it to make sure okay next slide please okay and then this slide lists the current process for approval of interdistrict transfers to attend um it's kind of the same information that we've been following um for several years students who who
057move midyear summer typically approve to stay um and then um siblings of non-resident students can also continue and then of course hardship um criteria and students approved by Honor release can attend within ttsd next slide I have a quick question yeah um on the release midyear um if you go back yeah go back one SL please the first bullet the non-resident students who are released midy year that's only for the remainder of that year or is it for the remainder of their time at that school it's for the remainder of that year that okay thank you yeah and so Midsummer moves we have like an understanding between districts um to also allow for that one year to stay within the district yeah okay and so I just wanted to make sure um everyone knew that
058we currently have two schools who are not open to transfers and that's germ Elementary andity Middle School based on their current enrollment um being you know at capacity and so they are not open to transfers unless it's like a special circumstance next slide and so this slide outlines the current process for ttsd students to be released from ttsd after the 20 Lottery slots were filled um similar to the process for students coming into ttsd next slide so for the 2526 uh 2025 2026 school year um we're presenting these options for the board to consider for interdistrict transfers um open consideration requests to attend in ttsd schools um as Guided by the priorities that were listed on slides that and then two options for requests for release to a district outside of ttsd hardship only release
059of the um or hardship only um or release um 20 Lottery spots as we've done the past two years uh we would hope to begin accepting applications March 1st um move it up a month through May 1st based on kind of what other districts are doing around us um to honor their time that they close their transfer process um and to allow families to have you know um the information to make those um transfers if they need to is there a question if we had 59 students transferred last year four of them were hardships 20 of them were Lottery that means the other 34 went through the um going through the the priorities yeah priorities siblings um yeah because it's the whole household that receives the thought so okay so that's the bulk of the
060students that are doing transfers go through that of requests based on our priorities y thank you yeah so we're asking you to you know help us determine what we should do for next year um we have a lot of districts around us that are going to hardship only um we did ask our principles um what if they would be you know what they'd be okay with hardship release hardship only release um because they had been bringing it up that you know a lot of districts are going to that in 7 2% of our princip said yes I reached out to them again to get some clarification no one wanted to come forward to share why we had a couple people who said they were did not agree but they didn't step up to say you
061know why I think I did receive comments that there was some confusion between IND district and interdistrict and so I think um they definitely um want to be able to make a decision for in District and that would that would remain is that the for in District transfers principles would be the ones that make those decisions where inter District of course goes through the lottery or hardship so the question I have and I I don't know is that open consideration of requests as Guided by our priorities strikes me as the most human humane way of doing it right because that enables the principle to meet with the families to know the situation of theid to know what the plac is um that sort of thing what I don't know is how much time does that
062take and is that then a burden Upon Our principles that they have to go through that process and so then is going to hardship only just a cleaner yeah process for them so for the interdistrict transfer process principles are not involved um in any discussions regarding um the regular priorities we just follow those um for interdistrict transfers um they really come you know they're they're asked um you know their opinion when it's a hardship request and the assistant superintendent wants to learn more information about why the student wants to leave and so then you know they're you know they're asked um some more information but they're not really involved in the interdistrict transfer process um yeah when a request comes in even when we were doing that trade between 20 and 20 it was just
063an automatic first come first yeah receive yeah I'm fine oh oh sorry can you just clarify for me what the difference would be difference differences if any well probably there are some between what is happening this year and what the proposal is for next year so if we were to go to hardship only we would not um have a lottery process or even a you know so many in and so many out it would just be people would submit an application based on hardship criteria only and is that the proposal because I'm seeing that one of the slides says propos process it's what yeah one I the recommendation based on feedback from our principles would be to consider going to hardship only okay so that that's a recommendation from principles yeah okay okay I just
064clarify slightly sorry our recommendation is that we go to a hardship only process we're basing that recommendation on what we've heard from the principles so thank you are would it be possible to have a hardship only process for requests pertaining to other districts that had hardship only but have more flexibility for districts that also had more flexibility um so what I would say to that is the lottery process that other districts have um is different in every District so Hillsboro for example bases their Lottery process um by the capacity of each school so the request comes into the school itself and then based on the capacity of the school they determine if they want to run a lottery um lake aigo has a lottery process that begins I think it already is open and then
065it actually closes and then no other applications are accepted so yeah I'd have to think about how that would work because every District seems to be a little bit different they either hardship only or you know a different type of Lottery process and my understanding of it is that we used to do it exactly like that where we would negotiate with districts but when the state law was passed some 10 years ago that says we have to have a specific policy on how we not policy it's the wrong word a specific procedure on what we're going to do and what we're not going to we can't say we're doing it this way with one district and this way with another District so it has to be one set procedure for every every student every District
066yeah I believe it does have to be consistent I have to go back and look um but I think those are also the only two districts that currently don't have around us that we who we receive um the most requests for other than one virtual school um that have um that are not hardship only is like a swo ands where everyone else's yeah hardship only is there like a I don't want to belabor this um but here I am belaboring um like something in the middle like I I'm just trying to think because I think I get hung up on this balance between I understand some concerns I think for high schools particularly around Athletics where um they I I think I understand some of the reasoning perhaps that some districts have gone I should
067say that some districts have gone to hardship only there are also those pieces for those priorities that also make sense and so I'm wondering if there's like a 20 slot Lottery kind of like only so or at least we know how many hardships there are and so if there's 15 left we Lottery those 15 like there's no then the priority kind of like we you don't get it ever to 59 it would be literally capped at 20 like something where there's a little more Humanity in terms of the things that are maybe more complex than just a hardship but also leave room like for those things I'm just wondering if they are districts that sort of do do that where we'll take these hardships it's by May 1 and then oh but then we have
068to have then that never mind I just answer my own question that gets hard I CH I think I hear what you're you're asking though is um for a mechanism that allows us to give consideration to um a limited amount of requests uh so as to um not open against the floodgates and to not leave it to Lottery but to have a opportunity for someone Beyond a hardship or what's designated as a hardship to have consideration is that what I'm hearing you ask for yeah so it' be like if we assume that we take an average like if 20 is this magic sort of I'm just using that as a magic number we typically get between two and five hardships let's say so we sort of have this lottery or this 15 extra slots in
069whichever way I'm just and and maybe that is way too complicated to think about but it that feels slightly better and I I understand the recommendation to go to hardship only so I really recognize that but there's that empath part of me that feels like there should be a little bit of that that ability to to have that sort of other category without it feeling to our community like oh now we're kind of picking and choosing because I think that gets tricky too could we look at the hardship criteria maybe more closely again and see if there's something within that so the hard is dictated by state law we can't touch that um but I think if we take your idea and we apply it to our current priorities and maybe what we do is
070we tighten up the priorities and so we still allow open consideration of requests as Guided by our priorities but we tighten up our priorities so that they are more like not quite as bad as hardship but not an open Lottery does that make sense and what about Durham and toity that are full should those be handled differently I think this is this is for um primarily for people who are asking to exit um but if they wanted to exit and those are totally full should we make that easier to for because then other people that want to transfer into those schools internally would be able to potentially the decision is up to the board ultimately um one thing to take into account though that I we I just really want to underscore is that for
071and uh director C might have to correct me I'm always little off on this number for every student that we have on average admw is about 11,000 is that about right so for every student that we Lottery out and it doesn't really matter what their reason is that does come at $11,000 loss to the district and so for context if um a student uh is transferring for an arbitrary reason especially if it's around Athletics which we see a lot of in this area then um that does come at a loss to our our students now if we um retain a student for every student we retain that that does give us a little bit of scale to try to modify um I think with some of our larger schools um we are doing some boundary
072adjustment uh work and we'll continue to do that to make sure that we have capacity although um we do know that with our Middle School actuality that's really dependent on one boundary work than two what happens with the bond because that would create more capacity of Bor as well yeah you know one idea might be to we could we could do continue with our 20 Lottery slots this year and we could actually track um why people are asking to leave we don't track that because we you know we're giving them we were giving them that release and so we didn't really feel like we needed to know why they were leaving um and so we haven't tracked that but we could ask that question um the other thing is I feel like our hard Tri
073criteria um I feel like we do a really good job our assistant superintendent with principles does a really good job um talking to families and working with families around um their concerns and reasons for wanting to leave and if they legitimately it's in the best interest of the student for them to go to another District we will honor that and usually Within that criteria there's they can fall you know their reasons um can meet one of those criteria so I I know that we're really looking at um meeting the needs of the family so that being said we still can just stick with the 20 if we want to releas sure that's helpful yes um so I just wanted to kind of uh piggyback on what the superintendent said because if we are creating those
07420 spots what is that correct my math $220,000 they would be um just saying all right go take off where if we limit it to anybody that wants to come in fine that's great but going out would be hardship only to kind of mitigate why people are leaving the district I think that's more fiscally responsible for our um for all of our constituents and if we are just saying yes you may leave but it's only if you have a hardship where you are allowed to um to leave the district I don't think that Sports is a hardship will you break down for me one more time that how we got the out like people leaving at to 59 so um the lottery slots um in are for a household so some of those are multiple
075students okay um and then some of those are the crate priorities they're just meeting the priorities that that full number is not all lottery slots I think it was 40 something that was Lottery once we added all the students okay so the lottery spots were household spots they're household spots yeah that was my and and I would say what in speaking with families um when they call in asking about release that usually it is Athletics or it's proximity um they they feel they're closer they um you know they're coming here from that district and they want to stay there and so um once they're outside that midyear summer move then they're required to enroll with us and they want to stay you know in their home District we actually had several families who were NE
076had never been enrolled in public education and they just wanted to go to they want to choose the school they want the district they want to attend so um you know homeschool families that you know didn't want to ATT stay with us so those are really the reasons um and like I said you know for hardship we we really try to work with families and if you know meet their needs that's really helpful additional context thank you so of all of the ways that we release students the one that I dislike the most is the lottery because it um it skews because it's only a specific period of time it skews heavily towards the families that are going to be the most involved in the district know the most and it's really going to um
077be detrimental to the families who perhaps don't have English as their first language um are working two jobs and so don't have time to always read the newsletter and know that they have to make that exact window in order to get it and so it it tries to be random but it really pre-selects for certain kinds of families and so for that reason it doesn't feel like the most Equitable way to be releasing students so with that can I uh move to approve the 20226 TTS Z open ening process which let me like and which is that so I would say the O so is your motion to open in consideration of requests to attend ttsd as Guided by the list of priorities and for hardship only for release to attend non-resident District right that's
078what the proposal was right well yeah but up here it had the two options so I just want to make sure or number two because on here it was only that one yes okay so to consider um open consideration and option one which would one which would be the hardship only release to the nonresident districts I'll second motion was made by Vice chair Hees seconded by director Weston is there any discussion on the motion hearing none I'll move to a coral vote all those in favor please say I I any opposed motion carries thank you all right with that we have our nominations to the ttsd budget Committee Action item with director C all right good evening again so we had three budget committee vacancies this year with terms expiring last year we had one
079outgoing member indicate interest and complete the necessary steps to be considered for reappointment and then we also had community members apply for the remaining um remaining positions so an internal or interview committee including Vice chair HZ and um board member zme met and reviewed applic applications and interviewed candidates and we will have some recommendations and nominations for the budget committee for three-year terms starting this budget season do you want me to take this one year okay um so we had I thought all of our candidates that we interviewed were really well qualified so we had the decision of which of these wonderful people do we choose any of them would be terrific um my uh feeling is that two of them had more experience in our schools than the third um and so I would
080recommend I move to make the following threeyear appointments to Tiger Talton School District's budget committee Corey Morgan for reappointment Beth dman for initial appointment and Kelly Cameron for initial appointment I second all right motion was made by director zme and seconded by Vice chair h is there any discussion on the motion hearing none I'll move to a coral vote all those in favor please say I I I any opposed motion carries I am excited about all those appointments thank you for that that work thank you thank you all right with that we will move to uh contract agreement between Atta and director contract updates with director re all right good evening once again uh this time around I am present to uh present the agreement that was made between um the board and add of
081our administrator group um just to highlight a little bit of their agreement it is also a 2-year agreement similar to what we did with the confidential manager group um they are also receiving the cola of 4% for this year and next insurance at 3.4% and also an increase in work year and work year calendar for the secondary administrators over master schedule and the athletic directors if you recall and in the previous year we did a reduction in calendar but that work does not go away and those folks are still working so we adjusted for those particular individuals that are um overseeing that work in addition similar to the confidential managers they are having three additional days added for vacation payout and then the superintendent has agreed to Cola and Insurance increase for cabinet um and
082is proposing the following same Cola same insurance as everyone else so um for the cabinet group and the associate superintendent and if you're wondering where the superintendent we've already come up with that agreement so not on this particular one because we already have that in his contract all right so with that said are there any questions there's no questions I would entertain a motion I move that the tier twon School Board of Directors approve the contract terms between board and Atta cabinet and Associate superintendent as presented I second motion was made by Vice chair hes and seconded by director zme is there any discussion on the motion hearing none I'll move to a c vote all those in favor please say I I I any opposed motion carries thank you thank you all right and
083our final action item um historically uh we when complaints come to us through the KL process we will hear um those complaints in executive session and so this is one of those times so again the board is asked to consider the appeal of a complaint decision which has been reviewed and investigated by school administrators District administrators and the superintendent um and would like to follow through to the final step to be heard by the board um and with that I can answer questions although we won't have that information relative to the actual complaint until we agre to hear it no questions I just want to move that the tiger twon School District Board of Education will further consider the request to appeal the superintendent's decision regarding a complaint a second motion was made by Vice
084chair Hees and seconded by director Weston is there any discussion on the motion hearing none I'll move to a coral vote all those in favor please say I I any opposed motion carries and with that we have come to the end of our