2/9/26 SGASD School Board Meeting Livestream

001like that type of >> we business is running Do you need anything comfortable? >> You know. >> All right. Well, pay you down here for night. >> This is acceptable. >> Huh? >> This will work. >> No. Dave told me I had to get down here. >> What? So Dave's paying for you. >> You are directed to report his taking out my salary a day. >> Yeah. >> Good evening. At this time, we're going to call the Spring Grove meeting to order. At this time, please rise. I allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice. You may take your seats. Okay. Thank you for everyone coming out this evening. Uh real quick, I just wanted to

002give everyone a heads up and who is listening online. Uh tonight's meeting will be a little lengthy. We are going to have uh some presentations and um you're by all means more than welcome to stay. After your presentation, if you have other obligations, please, you know, you're more welcome to leave as well. So at this time we are going to do roll call. Suzanne >> Marshinger >> Bomb >> here. >> Ramsey >> here. >> Ritz >> here. >> Shear >> here. >> Stein >> here. >> Wersto >> here. >> White >> here. >> Wilson >> here. >> All right. Everyone's in present here. Uh we had announcement uh executive session held um February 2nd. That was for labor negotiations and legal reasons. So, at this time, uh would anyone like to address the board? Okay,

003we uh moving on to correspondence. So, at your desk, uh, you will see a sheet from York Tech and basically, um, Mike Ritz and I, Mike sits on the authority or JC, I sit on the authority. >> Uh, both, um, all members have agreed to pass to purchase land. So, if you read through this, uh, York Tech is purchasing some land that will eventually be used for the, uh, LPN adult, which will be paid for, so it will have an income. And then what that's going to do is move that program out of the school, and that will open it up for more students to participate, so they won't have to be turned away. Uh basically if you read this uh their loan their uh lease is up to eight years. Uh we were told

004that we probably could break that and offer them a lease up to three years. Uh but the bottom line is they have an opportunity to buy land that is adjacent to the school which will be on the school grounds. So as we always say that's a plus. Uh I'm going to go by what Doug Stein always says. you know, it you never know when you're going to need that land, so hold on to that land. So, this is an opportunity for everyone um to vote and basically you have a each one has a form to fill out, correct? Yep. Each one has about to fill out as yes or no. So, like I said, both um the authority and JOC saw value in it and did pass it. So, that's the correspondence I have on

005that. It won't it won't be passed till we get every board member in the county to vote on >> right here. Mike, do you have anything else you'd like to add on that? >> Covered it all. >> All right. Yes. So, we need those filled out tonight. Correct. Yes. So, if everyone can fill those out tonight and pass those to Suzanne, we'll get those submitted. Okay. Moving on. Uh we have district department reports and we'll start with Paradise Elementary. Oh, these are just the reports. Okay. I'm sorry. The links they're all I do apologize. >> So, uh, special committee reports. Uh, we have, uh, curriculum and the board chairman's and building and grounds each have minutes at their, uh, seats. So, you're more welcome to go over those. >> Got to hop back a second.

006a general question and I'll I'll follow up this with an email. Um, this was just to all of the building department reports. Um, I appreciate all of those. I was largely curious like when I saw all of the building goals, they all seemed very very like general. Um, and so I would like to know how how do we determine whether we've hit those goals? And that's kind of all of the buildings and I don't know how to follow that up. Do you want to do that in curriculum? Um because I'm just cur very very general. >> So that Thank you, Eric. That that is a great question. So uh I am not here to embarrass anyone this evening. So going through these reports, um my question was a lot of them were pretty much the

007same and uh some did take the time and and go fill them out a little more lengthy, some did a copy and paste. So that is a great question. Um, so Eric, if if anyone want if you want to ask some questions or uh have them reach out to him and have them, you know, bring it back to you as the uh curriculum chairman. >> Yeah, m Mr. W >> just email you and >> Yeah, I would say one thing. We're going to hear from all the buildings here in a little bit. Um, and they're going to talk specifically about their action plans. A lot of them are going to talk about their goals. So, I would say we we listen to those. you have questions that we can answer tonight, great. If not, we

008can follow up with an email. It would be fabulous. >> Thank you. >> Perfect. So, at this time, uh, Eric, you have minutes at your seat for the last curriculum meeting. If you'd like to bring anything up to the board and then we can move it over to Ben since he has notes on that as well. >> Sure. Um, at this time, we didn't really have anything to bring um to the board. We did have hear a presentation from the middle school and high school math departments and it was a good productive meeting but we didn't have anything that needs to be really discussed at this time. >> Thank you Ben. >> We had a buildings and grounds meeting. It was really a catchup um the first DSF in March. We plan to have um

009details with all the ad alternates and all the different options um to come out and to be able to present put it in a calculator format. That way everybody has a chance to look at it and understand the differences in costs and pros and cons with as an example if we use stone for areas versus asphalt versus concrete. How many areas we're going to pave? we're going to have the number of ba three bays off of the building, four bays off of the building. So, it was really just a refresher to get everybody up to speed. Um, and so we weren't doing that when we were trying to do uh what is hopefully the final presentation on the first DSF in March. So, we can hopefully put on this thing and uh get it going

010for the second one, second meeting in March. So, rear access road, we also talked a little bit about at the last meeting. Um, and Mr. Stein brought that back up so we could explore that grant. And the capital projects we just kind of talked about and we asked that when we get those and we present them that we can present them by building in the stuff that's due in the next upcoming years instead of it having being such an overwhelming amount of information. So the seven in March is going to be where we'll have all those details hopefully presented. >> All right. Well, thank you both very much. Appreciate it. Uh moving on, we have regular voting action items and we'll start with uh budget and finance. Jessica. >> Yes. Thank you, Mr. White. Uh

011we have budget and finance board actions requested just one here tonight. A template for use with sitebased budget preparation um which is attached uh behind this in your packets as well. So moved on budget and finance. >> Is there any questions? Dang. >> I I did have a question. I'm just curious as to how who would be determining what ends up on that sheet. Is that the different building administrators and department? Who is deciding what shows up on >> have um as I mentioned I use the term site um administrators or site budgets? You can refer to them as departments. So um for example uh myself I oversee the business office. Uh Dr. Lewig, first person I saw, she oversees special education. Right, there would be two sites or two departments. Each one of us,

012uh, Hope would have one for HR. Bill would have one for facilities. So, um, and it's not just for staff reductions. It's for any reduction, anything as we're moving forward with our budget and finance committee me meetings. And you have those site or those department budgets and we start to have a conversation about something. um it gives the uh that site uh or department leader the opportunity to put that down as a possible reduction. Uh we talked about this in the budget and finance committee that over the years we've had numerous various forms. We wanted to have one form that was consistent through all the sites and all the departments >> and do we know when we will have those to look at in our budget and finance meetings when we're talking about the budget

013for next year? So my plan is after tonight if it is approved um I'll be presenting this to all the leadership team members all the site or building department leaders so that they can start working on these um tomorrow if possible >> are we talking March Mark is that >> uh we'll be able to start uh discussing these at the next budget and finance committee meeting >> prior to March >> correct thank you >> thank you Mark Eric uh the only thing I ask is when they are filled out by individuals uh you know per building. Can we receive those instead of being all in one form? So like SG I S you know Paradise York New I mean >> a different form for each >> different form for each. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh

014we have personnel Nicole. Oh, sorry. I'm Russian. Roll call vote. >> Yes. >> Shear, >> yes. >> Wilson, >> yes. >> Ramsey, >> yes. >> Ritz, >> yes. >> Bomb, >> yes. >> Wersto, >> yes. >> Stein, >> yes. >> White, >> yes. >> Now we'll move on to personnel. And Nicole, >> personnel board actions requested. Um, letter A, memorandum of understanding, approval of the attached uh, memorandum of understanding between Springrove Area School District and Springrove Area Education Association for Deborah Penszinger to prov to provide virtual instruction to SG Flex students synchronously with and in the same manner as in-person students of her class for a period of 18 weeks, the second semester of 2025 2026 school year. Letter B, uh, retirement acceptance of the following retirement with regret. uh Leilana Flemens um at New

015Salem Elementary School. The resignations acceptance of the following resignations as listed. Letter D, a level five appointment approval of the following appointment. Connie Lore um in the technology center. Um she ising receipt of updated clearances completed act 168 disclosures from previous computers. Letter E, appointment approval of the following appointment provisionally hired pending receipt. Um, Matthew Ferman at New Salem Elementary second shift custodian. Letter F, classified substitutes approval of the following substitutes for the class for the for the classification as listed. Letter G, athletics approval of the following coaches for the 2526 season as listed. So moved on personnel. Is there any questions? I do have one question. Uh, looking over your list, uh, do we not have a lacrosse head coach? I saw we have an assistant, but I didn't see a Oh, >> so

016those individuals most likely were approved prior than the as a vacancy occurred, we generally announce for it and then uh get board approval. So that's probably why you don't see them on there. >> Okay. And because I saw there was to be determined a vacant for track and field. So, >> that one has not been filled yet. >> Okay, that's fine. Thank you. All righty. Roll call vote. >> Wilson, >> yes. >> Bomb, >> yes. >> Shear, >> yeah. >> Baringer, >> yes. >> Werstore, >> yes. >> Ramsey, >> yes. >> Ritz, >> yes. >> Stein, >> yes. >> White, >> yes. >> Thank you everyone. and Dave, you want to introduce? >> Oh, okay. >> Nobody's here tonight, right? >> Yeah, >> that's what I thought. I I was looking around, but I don't

017know Matthew and I don't I didn't know if Okay, thank you. Yeah, they're not here. >> Okay. Well, thank you. Uh, curriculum, Eric. >> Curriculum board actions requested. There is a trip request approval for Mr. from Raser Smith, high school music teacher to accompany a high school students to the 2026 PMEA region 5 course festival and lit its PA February 20th to 21st. So moved. >> Second. >> Okay, any questions? Roll call vote. >> Yes. >> Wersto, >> yes. >> Wilson, >> yes. >> Baringer, >> yes. >> Ramsey, >> yes. >> Stein, >> yes. Bomb. >> Yes. >> Ricks, >> yes. >> White, >> yes. Very good. At this time, we are in German of the action voting meeting. >> What's that? >> Moved. Yeah. >> Sorry. Need a motion. >> Second. >> All in

018favor? >> Okay. Now, we're moving on to the director study and call to order. Everyone is in here at present. And would anyone else like to come and speak? The floor is yours. Seeing none, we'll move on. All right, Eric have a long night ahead of you. >> I don't uh all of these people, these fine people do. So, I'm going to hand this over to Steve. He's got a pile. >> Thank you. Uh, we're going to get started here tonight. Um, we invited um all of our uh building principles tonight to uh talk to you a little bit about um their plans for the rest of the year as as uh pertains to achievement and growth. Um we're going to roll through here when we get the presentation going. Um we're going to start

019with um elementary and K four buildings are going to go first and then we'll go upwards from there. and uh finish with the high school. So, where are we up here? Maybe come on when I talk. All right. Good. All righty. Um, so we're going to start off with talking about what we've been working on at the elementary level. Um, as far as our goals and our um, supports for students. One of the main things at the elementary level that we focus on is creating a strong base in our reading and math foundational skills to make sure that all of our students are successful. So here over in the right hand side there, you'll see the MTSS pyramid, which is um, what we've worked on at the elementary level. And that means that we're developing

020a multi-tiered system of support for students. Um, our focus is on that bottom section, which is the green part that says tier one. And that's on um, strong core instruction for all students. Our goal is to really make sure that what we're doing in our classroom meets the needs of at least 80% of our students. So, we've been really focused on doing that through a couple different things. One of them is um, getting more consistent at all three of the elementary buildings. We've worked really hard to um use our professional learning time with teachers so they can collaborate and really focus on consistency in standardsbased instruction in um our resources and also in what the educational opportunities that we're providing to students at each of the three elementary buildings. And part of that has also

021been um just in the um adoption of new materials and new resources for teachers. So, as you know, this year we're focused on common math materials for students in K to6. And that's so that we do have more evidence-based, systematic, and explicit instruction in all of our grade levels that builds and really make sure that we get that progression um right for students and that our tier one is really strong. So, with that, um we're working really hard on that in math. And then we're also now looking at um ELA resources and that's um partially to meet our needs as we've already talked about at our curriculum level meetings and then also to meet the new legislative mandates that are coming out in 2728 which will require Pennsylvania schools to use an evidence-based uh structured

022literacy program. So we're working really hard on that. In addition to that, um we have our interventions in place for tier two and tier one and we're really working to make sure that we are meeting students um at whatever needs they have. So we'll talk a little bit more about that. I'm going to turn over to Dr. Fistell who's going to talk specifically about our goals that we set for oursel as an elementary team and that we've really worked hard with our teachers and how we're meeting those goals through our tears supports. >> Doug, wait, you ready? I have like 50 m minutes. It's just me. You sure? >> I I before I I jump off this slide, I want to go back and just address I know Eric had a question about um you

023know, probably our three reports looking identical. Um and as I expressed to you guys in the fall, you know, we are trying to build more consistency among the elementary. I mean, our job and go back to the analogy I gave back in the fall was that, you know, our job is build the foundation. You know, we need to get it right before we build the rest of the structure on top of that, which is your intermediate, your middle school, and your high school here. Um you know, in Spring Grove. If we don't get that right, you're going to start seeing the gaps and you're going to start seeing that structure start to shake as the students get older. So, going back, you know, our reports look very similar because again, we're trying to build that

024consistency. Something that we haven't really had in our buildings in these three buildings um since I've come here. Um and I know some have been here longer and you know, they'll shake their head and say, "Yeah, we kind of did this a little bit different, a little bit different here." Um so, again, we're just trying to go back build consistency so our buildings look similar. So when we produce a product that goes into the Springrove intermediate school, they're Springrove students. They're not New Salem students. They're not Paradise students. So again, our reports, our action items are, those things are going to look very similar. Another reason for that, too, is if we move teachers around and I have a teacher coming from New Salem this year, um, you over to SGE and they did things

025differently, they're going to say, "Well, why are we doing it this way?" And then we're playing against each other. And again, that's not what we're trying to do. We're going to go back. All of this, you know, it takes the village. So, if we're not consistent in our practice and what we do, you know, there there's going to be structural damage there and we're going to have problems as as we move on up through. Now, to address your um questions about the the um the goals and how do we reach our goals and so forth and I talked back in the fall to the board about um reading by the end of third grade and we think that is very important and what you see up there is based on our cadence data getting students

026you know in year four 80% of our students general population of our students reaching that proficiency mark of that on grade level um you know standard you know based on our cadian spring benchmark um we're starting out this year at 65 5% and or growth and I say that because it is very important that we had an attainable goal. If we just say all right you know this year we want 65% of our students you know reading at grade level we know that's not realist realistic based on our our former data data from last year um two years ago and so forth. So again we're looking at realistic goals and we go back to that growth piece because again that's another thing if I just sn I can't snap my fingers today and say all

027students are going to achieve at this level. It's just not going to happen. We know we have students at all different levels, but we also know that every student, regardless of their background, where they're coming from, can grow. So, we're focusing on that growth measure this year. We're really putting a lot of emphasis on that. And basically, one for one, one year's worth of growth for that year of service. If we can do that, as I told the board in the fall, at all three of our elementary schools, we've hit the mark. Regardless if the student is reading by the end of third grade, we are doing that student justice and we're doing our community justice. Now the end goal, the ultimate goal is that 2028, 2029 or somewhere in that range. And I say

028somewhere in that range because again I the timelines are are very stringent. And yes, we need to have that goal and we need to look to the future. But again, we get tripped up. Things happen. I'm going to go back 2020. What happened? And that shut us all down. I'm hoping that never happens again. But again, there's unforeseen things there that we can't control. So again, in that 28, 29, maybe 2030, we're hitting that 80%. We're getting up there. Maybe it's 70%, 75, but we'll be in a much better spot than we are today. Um, but right now, we're focusing on that growth piece and continuing to grow kids. We know that some students have to grow more than a year. But again, year one, if we can focus on growing all kids, we hit

029the mark and we feel really good about ourselves. Our teachers feel good because that's the other part of this is build building that teacher efficacy that teachers believe that all students can can grow. And if we have some some unattainable goal there, it's not going to happen. They're going to shut down, say, "See, this didn't work." But if we make it a goal that we can reach, it's attainable. People start feeling good about yourself. And I think all of us can stand here today in midyear meetings and we talk to teachers about where their data is right now and they feel good or they're feeling excited. U we just finished the Acadians benchmark and again their excitement is justified. they've done well and they're on track right now. Um, again, if we would have made

030that some crazy number, a lot of people would have come in mid year like this isn't working, get frustrated, revert back to old practices. So, again, that's the way we're looking at reaching our goals. Uh, moving forward, there's going to be some adjustment there. We're going to come back probably, you know, in the spring, we're going to look at the end of the year data, you know, did we hit the mark? Are we good? Are we close? We over it. Um, we can adjust these numbers next year. Have a conversation in the fall about what are our new goals? What do they look like? you know, you know, what adjustments might we make? Um, the other piece of this is teachers are owning their data. So, um, you know, if you get down through, um,

031the focus there, uh, growth, all students use data determining their effectiveness. There's a data sample sheet there. And can I click on that? >> Can click on that data sample sheet there? That's just an example what we're asking teachers to do. And again, something different. We used to put data on their tables and that's kind of where it landed. Now we're asking teachers to go in there and actually look at the data, reflect on it and record it. There's accountability piece there. You got to record. You got to tell us what you're doing. And again, that's actionable then for the teachers. And I'm sorry if you can't click on that. That's okay. We did meet with every teacher at the beginning of the year and we just met with every teacher mid year. Again, reviewing

032that data, talking about the goals, you know, talking about expectations. Other piece of that goal setting piece is that we set the building level goals, okay? And we kept them consistent across all three buildings, but we've also asked the teachers then when they're doing their individual um student performance measures and individual action goals that that we asked them to align them then with our building level goals again. So we're all kind of rowing in the same direction. And then our teachers down there next progress monitoring once a month any students below the national the 25th national percentile. Now, these are students that will traditionally need to grow more than a year. So, they're really keeping a keen eye on those students and making adjustments more often for them. And then that data reflection, that sample

033data sheet there, um we're asking them to complete that every six to eight weeks. Um submit that to us. We then go in, look at it, comment on it. Um and like I said, we ask teachers then in the midyear meetings and so forth to bring their data and share their data. Um you know, with with what they're doing. So that's our plan there with with addressing students, you know, data focus, building consistency among all three buildings, right? Suzan, you locked me out. Doug, I might be here for 50 minutes. There it is. All right. So, next steps. Um, you know, what we're looking at here is math year 2. And I didn't talk about math. I talk more about reading right now, but the goal is to move forward and we would have a

034reading um a math by the end of third grade. Again, based on Cadence um assessments and data, uh we would do the same same thing. We're in next year we'll be in year two of you technically year one of the full implementation of reveal. Um but we kind of look at it year two and we're looking at additional professional development. I think that is something that's coming out of this this implementation year. We're realizing that the rigor is more than what we've been used to. So again looking at what we can do to help support teachers um with regard to to the professional development year too ELA then you know um Dr. Janice has been starting the the exploring the different pilots. Um you know then we looking at you know 2627 piloting a minimum

035of two programs and then looking at then maybe adopting an ELA program in 2728 again around that whole idea of building consistency you know in our ELA world. And then we're going to continue to use our benchmark assessments, the cadencel, the foundation, ufly, all of our pieces that we have available to us um at the elementary school in order to monitor the progress of our students and our buildings as we move forward. Again, it goes back to building that consistency across the board, growing students, you know, a minimum year for a year. um you know, as we progress to that ultimate goal of getting all of our students reading by the end of the second grade. >> You got to go to the mic. They can't hear you. >> He's actually not here by the

036way. Uh just to clarify the data form that was there for you to click on that many of you may have clicked on an individual student data form that gets filled out. That student is not making a year worth of growth whether that be above level or below level. Um so that's something that then we go through a child study team process. That's tier 2, tier three that we look at and we document and we also make sure that with intervention are they growing or not growing at a more strategic skill-based level. So that's in addition to the data reflections the teachers are doing which are in your board reports. If you clicked on the um actual board reports there is a copy of that overall teacher reflection piece that's done every six to eight

037weeks. >> Dr. Fistell just to confirm you said at one point reading by the end of third grade and then another point end of second grade. So can you clarify which one? >> If I said by the end of second grade I'm I I'm mistaken. It's by the end of third grade. >> Thank you. the the data sheet. It looks like that's fairly new and unique and I I man I can see that being really helpful to pass down from teacher to teacher. I can see how great that could be. um the actual education in the classroom. Are we doing anything unique this year to prior it was difficult to tell because it was a lot of like good stuff but some of that stuff I you I know >> the focus in the classroom

038is that when it comes to meeting individual needs of students is that small group instruction um and that's where we differentiate and we we break into the you know maybe three groups four groups within your class depending on on the spam have that is where we're looking at in that year too and the math and ELA is looking for some additional um professional development to help support the teachers in in those areas there. So to say we're doing anything spectacular, anything wonderful there. No, there's nothing there's not a silver bullet that there's not a magic pill there for that. But again, that's where the students are getting their individual um need instruction based on the data and the groupings that they would be in. >> Yeah. Yeah. I just curious because you had those goals

039and I think they're great 65 70 75 80, but if we've not yet hit it, what what is it that we're doing that will >> Yes. And I can speak because one of the things that we did do this year and we're really focused when we talk about third grade is just like monitoring our systems in place which is monitoring what we're doing which we do in that Acadian um spreadsheet that's linked to your board report in that document there's a five you know five last five years of data there and what we've noticed is that students we've made changes in kindergarten where we've hit the 80% pretty pretty solid for the last couple of years but we're having trouble in first grade. So this year we changed we did a um we changed what

040we're doing in first grade. We've moved to an additional um implementation of a second foundational reading block which would be UFly and that's been implemented with reading specialist in all three buildings. And if you look at our data this year for first grade, we're really pleased because our students are meeting the goal. Basically the pace is a little bit faster, the rigor is a little bit stronger and we're seeing that change. We saw it really well in over half the students. So now we we are seeing that. So we're excited about that and we have kind of conversations in place for what does that look like moving forward. So we are monitoring we can use our data to monitor the systems in place make sure that things are working and when they aren't that changes

041and that changes each year um based on the students that you have in front of you but I think that if we continue to make those changes and monitor it you know all students can be successful. So that's really our goal. Thank you. >> Isn't speaking because he's saving his voice for the later presentation, but he he's with us on all of this. >> Chair leader. All right. Good. We're going to move on to SGI. Oh, too far. Good evening. I'm going to say um a lot of similar things that the K4 administrators uh had mentioned but in a slightly different manner. Uh what we find at SGI is um first off we use a program called primarily and with they go on um scores of 100 or scores of um like 500 for example.

042If a student gets a score of 500 that means that a student is ready for fifth grade content. Put >> it in the slide. You're good >> while I explain. There you go. um if they have like a 550, we're we're describing that as they have they've acquired 50% of fifth grade material. Looking at data um of incoming fourth graders or incoming fifth graders and then fifth graders to sixth graders, what we're finding is that um not a lot of our incoming fifth graders are quote ready for fifth grade content. And that is um the link that was attached. Um for example um at the beginning of the year um with we had 38% of our fifth graders ready for fifth grade ELA content. We had 27% of our incoming fifth graders ready for fifth

043grade math content. So those are pretty low scores that they are not prepared according to EXL for their incoming grade level. We do a midyear assessment and um those same scores increased in all four areas or fifth grade ELA, sixth grade ELA, fifth grade math and sixth grade math. Those scores are increasing which is showing we are demonstrating growth with our students. um probably not as quickly or at a rate that the state says that we should, but our students are growing and that is evidenced there. So all of that being said, our focus is obviously on growth and achievement, but we what we've noticed with our midyear meetings that the K to4 administrators had also mentioned through conversations is our focus is meeting students where they are and allotting time and protecting that time

044during the day to meet those students where they are. That means whether they need enriched or they need remediated. And with it gives us a very nice score and a very nice indicator of the academic level that they are on their instructional level that we can meet them where they are and grow them. Um the key is finding teachers time, protecting that time and giving them the resources and the professional development they need to use that time to their advantage. Um, and then I truly believe we're going to start demonstrating growth when we can do that and and protect that time. We do have it now. Um, I would say it's not as protected as I would like it to be, meaning if a math lesson carries over, um, then we're more focused on the

045grade level content than we are on where we are meeting those kids um, where they need to be rather than pulling small groups and doing what we need to do. So, we want to do a a better focus on that. And again, that's whether they need remediated or enriched. Um, so that's a lot of the previous slides. Again, as mentioned by Kada to four, we're looking at reveal and we're looking at ELA resources with them, getting those supports and resources in the hands of the teachers. Um, our staff is very lucky. They have two phenomenal administrators. just uh that uh >> we should laugh now. >> Not laugh but laugh. Um you know we act we talked today. So um we wanted development with our nextive co-eing strategies um and how to move. They're very

046lucky to have us. Don't laugh at that either. No, I'm just kidding. Um, and then again those supports on how to effectively use that small group instruction time and meet kids where they are. Oh yeah, I have this. Sorry. Um, so yeah, those are kind of our four areas of focus. Some more supports and resources protecting um that guided math and guided reading time. Uh, we implementing data team meetings. We do those kind of on an as needed basis, but we would like to do more what K to4 does and do them on a more regular consistent basis and of course providing that professional development for staff. >> Kelly, kind of to Mr. Binger's question earlier, can you and I know you and I have talked about like what does what's going to look what

047would you like to look different in class to kind of get to those to the things that you're talking about? Can you explain to them what you mean when you say guided math or guided reading? Like what does that look like in for you? >> Sure. So our math classes and ELA classes are 80 minutes in length total. The idea is 40 minutes is whole grade whole group grade level content. So they are getting prepared for the PSSAs for their grade level material. The second 40 minutes, 30 to 40 minutes should be pulling small groups. Like maybe I have a group of kids that are on a second grade math level. I'm going to pull those kids that have common skill deficits and I'm going to work with them and I'm going to build up

048those deficits and fill those gaps hopefully. So as the K to4 administrators mentioned, I am meeting that year for a year's growth hopefully more than a year's growth. Um, and that's going to be evident on those scores as well. >> Thank you. I have a question and and you'll have to help me understand the it seems like the elementary schools are like they're up here when it comes to PSSA scores and then like we've been talking about how to support you at your building as to like because there's a precipitous decline now is that and you shared the score data and I'm just curious is that like are the PSSA standards and standards like not aligned. Are they seeing the same thing in third and fourth grade that their excl scores are well below but

049they're doing well on the tests? Does that question make sense? >> It does. So, this was going to be short, but now you open that door. Um, so one of the things to consider is there are grade level bands when it comes to the PSSA and teaching math at the middle school prior to becoming an administrator. This was very evident. So, a grade level band is K2, 3 through 5, 7 through 8 through 9, whatever. I I only care about till sixth grade. No, I'm just kidding. Um, the grade level bands say a lot. So, towards the depth of knowledge of the questions that kids are being asked on the PSSA. So, it makes logical sense that the three through five band, fifth graders are going to have a little bit more challenge and rigor

050to those questions. It's the top of the band. sixth grade improves a little bit because that's the beginning of a new band and as you find eighth grade tends to struggle on the PSSA again because you're talking about the top of a band. So that's one idea. Um the second thing to consider is every year that a student advances grade-wise, if they have gaps and deficits and we don't fill them, they are just getting larger. So by the time they get to fifth grade, they're 10 maybe 11 years old. You have six 5 years worth of education that you could potentially be trying to fill. Um, sixth grade gets worse, seventh grade gets worse. And I know kind of the scores start to look like they're not the greatest in the intermediate, and they're not.

051Don't get me wrong. They I mean they are, don't get me wrong. But if you follow a cohort of kids, which I have have done for several years, it's that number doesn't just drop at fifth grade. The number tends to drop year after year. It just looks pretty drastic at fifth grade, but our numbers are pretty stagnant. They're pretty the same, pretty much the same since they changed the test after um like 2015. Let's say something in support of the intermediate school. >> Oh my gosh, please. School and high school. Um, it goes back to what I was talking about the foundation. Um, and as she's saying, as they get older, the foundation gets shaky. So, it's important that we get it right. I'm not going to say take all the blame. No, I'm just

052But it is important. We are a system here, whether we like it or not. And what we do in kindergarten matters in high school. What we do in first and all the way up through. And again, like she's saying, if you look at our schools, they're pretty good, but we might have 40% of our students that aren't proficient. Well, there's gaps there. And that's where I go back to that growth piece. If we can get to a minimum of a year's worth of growth, then we can work on the year and a half, the two years worth of growth to close those achievement gap. It's not going to happen overnight. Her scores aren't going to go up until ours start go up and become more consistent. If we get to that 80%, you're going to

053see those scores, you're going to see her scores, you're going to see everybody else's scores start to go up. Um, you know, with regard to that. So like I said, I wanted to talk about that at the beginning and she brought that up, but that's very important that we understand it is a system and even when they get up to the, you know, to the high school level and and those subjects and so forth. So it's important that we build build the foundation. So if you want to spend money, elementary's looking. >> Oh, thanks Chip. I'll pay you later. >> That that wasn't very a lot of sense. if you you don't have the foundation, you can't fill it in in the middle and expect to end up where it belongs. So, I think what

054you guys are doing at the elementary school will support and I think we'll say that that'll show up here in the next couple years. So, >> and it's really been a new a new effort to try to coordinate all three three buildings. We have that's in the last couple years is when we've really started focusing on that and now obviously from hearing what's going on, we've got a plan now for that. Fact that all buildings are presenting together right now I think is an excellent step. So that's great. >> Yep. >> On the scoring uh where you talked about 500 and 550. Do we have what our average score was? >> Average score. >> Mhm. >> Uh no. I mean I could find that for you but no. >> Just curious. It was a benchmark

055that goes back to what he was just talking about as we can watch that uh come up if that's one of the metrics that we use as they're transitioning into that school. Oh, and >> uh Mr. Ramsey, we have actually been receiving that when we're going through the curriculum u meetings and meeting with each department at the elementary, intermediate, middle school. We they that is one of the pieces of information they have provided multiple times is scores, accadians, and in ELA. So, we've been getting a lot of that data which has been really helpful. So, >> thank you. Got middle schools up next. Hello. And bear with me. My voice is not the greatest either. I'm getting over a little bit of an illness. But hello. I'm going to have Mr. Ly up here with

056me. We're going to present together. So, I know Dr. Guanino had already shared the data. So, you have that. Um, the middle school was not good. Um I think we were at about 59.6% which we're not happy about at all. Um but I'm going to talk a little bit about or Mr. Lou and I will talk a little bit about our next steps. How are we going to address the data and what are we going to do from this point moving on to really prepare our students as they take the PSSA and Keystone assessments in August or in um August April and in May. So, some of the things that we do and we've been doing all year is we meet regularly by departments to review PSSA and Keystone data. Um, during those meetings, we

057don't have the accountability piece, but Mr. Fistle or Dr. Fistle gave me a really good idea with that, but during our department meetings, our teachers are expected to review PSSA projections. I'll talk a little bit more about what that is in a moment. um keystone data and just using that information to help drive their instruction. Um department chairs were provided earlier this year projection summaries. So what that is is that's coming from our PAS site and what it does is it takes it groups our students based on students that are expected to score advanced, expected to score proficient and those students that are projected to score basic and below basic. So what I did was I provided our highest kids and some of our low our lowest group of kids because those are the kids

058especially our low that we can really really move um to help our overall PAS score and then our high kids that are expected to score advance and historically they've been scoring advanced we provided those names so those teachers can then help to keep those kids high because if they're scoring advanced and then they end up scoring below basic that's going to hurt us. Um, we've also taken that information in the projection summaries to form our intervention groups. So, with the middle school, our students do meet every day in interventions. And that's really, really nice because with our intervention groups, our teachers are very strategic in how they group those kids. So, they can group our highest kids, they can group some of our kids that are lower that may may need different assistance. Um, they

059also can group them based on the content need, whether it be math, whether it be ELA, whether it be a science need for eighth graders that are going to take the science PSSA. And that has been really helpful in using those summaries to prepare those groups. I also provided staff with the state comparable data using Etric. So what it did was it took both the math and ELA keystone assessments from both seventh and eighth grade and it used all the different assessment anchors. It categorized them and it identified what we scored in comparison to the state and for the most part we did score above the average. Um but there were some specific assessment anchors where we scored pretty significantly below. So based on that information, the departments and the teams are now going to

060work to embed some of those content areas in remediation sessions during intervention. They're using that to better inform their bell ringers or their closure or just their overall instruction and activities. Um I also provided a whole staff data review presentation that was held back in November. That was great discussion. A lot of the teachers were not also happy um with the data because that that is something that I'm working to build. Um some of my staff have the attitude of okay well I'm not teaching to the test but um Mr. Louie and I we really help to you know we use it the example that actually I'm going to take from you Mr. But the example of you go to a restaurant and it's scored low. You know, this is our building score. This is

061how we're rated. So, you're not going to visit a restaurant that has a low score, has a low rating, you know. So, we use that analogy with our teachers to help them to understand like, okay, I get it's a test, but it is important. So, I think our teachers based off of this data and scoring very low, they're understanding that. Um, we've also um fully implemented our Firefly, which has been great. Um it has been created by PTE which al obviously creates the PSSA testing and keystone test and last year we piloted with one teacher and that worked really well. Um but now we fully implemented it. So now our science, our math and our ELA teachers are using that and we have teacher leaders identified to help provide the training for that this year

062which has been really really helpful. Um we also had four firefly last year. We had one teacher pilot it and then she was able to compare the data to what then students actually scored and it aligned beautifully. So we are going to be using Firefly again in the spring. They used it in the fall. We'll use it again in the spring to help best inform instruction right away and in preparation for the PSSA assessment in April. We also decided um I listened to my teachers and they were like, you know, Fallon, our Keystone exam dates are a little bit early. So, I adjusted them just to give our math teachers, our algebra 1B and algebra 1 teachers a little bit more time to better prepare our students. So, I'm very much so a type of

063leader that I I listen to my teachers. They're the ones in the front lines. They're in the classrooms. If they sense a need and they realize that, okay, we probably can have a little bit more time. I'm going to do what I need to do to adjust the schedule to make that happen. So hopefully with the extra two weeks that I provided them in adjusting the schedule that will also help to um better prepare them for the assessment. >> Yeah, I can I can tell you a little bit um the state started a it's a new a new assessment system that the state started. We actually um we used to use cdts and it would tell us strengths and weaknesses of students but the state developed Firefly. the questions are a little more PSSA like

064and they're finding that the data is much better. We actually heard from uh the high school during uh winter keystones got monitored by the state and one of the state PD people were here to monitor us and we were talking to him on the side and he gave us kind of like it's I think like are you using Firefly and we were like yes he's like like give a little bit of the inside scoop. He's like people are finding it much better. So, it's it's we're hopeful um after everybody learns the different parts and how to do it that we're going to get much better data. It helps the uh teachers kind of like how Kelly's using >> and how we use AD. It's a little bit of a predictor of how students would will

065do and then they're able to adjust based on that. >> And with CDTs, it and Firefly doesn't either. you don't have the writing component, the text dependent analysis, but with Firefly with ELA, it not only hits literature components, but it hits grammar and writing as well, where CDT didn't hit that as much and only focus more on the literature component. So, they're not doing the full out writing of the TDA, but they're still getting um the preparation for the writing piece that they will see. All right. So, Mr. Lou is going to talk a little bit more about CDT and Firefly and how we're using it. >> Yeah. So um as you can see here these are some of our key focuses moving forward and that's more usage of some diagnostic and benchmark tools um

066you know and that again is things that we hear from teachers all the time like we have a lot of things that we've created we have you know exams and tests but we're trying to utilize these things and and Firefly as was now just explained is is something that the department of ed created um and our teachers uh have been using that and then it it prints out like a summary sheet for each student that shows each of the um categories that they get assessed on and then they're actually conferencing with students individually and saying, you know, like, hey, in in data analysis, you know, here's where it had you score, you know, what what did you think you were going to score? So, actually trying to have those conversations so that students have some

067engagement, have some some ownership again in in that learning and looking at, well, here's where you are now. here's what your score was on last year's PSSA based on this Firefly exam. This is where it's projecting you to be if you keep doing what you've been doing. Are you happy with that? And you know, and having those conversations that encourage kids to say, well, I need to to dig harder on this particular area. You know, what do I need to do? So, those are things that we're doing. Um, Firefly is only for on grade level. So, the reason we have CDT for seventh grade science is the science exams only in eighth grade. So there isn't a Firefly exam for seventh grade. So we're still using the CDT. Um so you know th that's that's

068a main focus again in in for our teachers to be able to see where our students now that we've taught things and we've done these things how much have they improved. Uh so trying to do that more often during the year so that we have a better idea of how kids are progressing, what they need, what we still need to do, what remediation we need to provide. And then that kind of moves into, you know, the next couple bullets there. Really working um and I don't necessarily oversee the ELA side of things. That's more Fallon's area, but really trying to rebalance what we're doing in ELA to strengthen writing and analysis. Um you know, so there's there's multiple components, but an area that we've really felt like we needed to improve on is that writing

069ability and the ability to analyze text. Um, you know, and then as we use more of these diagnostic and benchmark tools, uh, when we look at math, we're really trying to rework math interventions, our whole entire math department is really working on those things. Um, you know, so again, you know, dur if you have math period 2, you're teaching whatever is in period 2, but if I have some students based on these assessments, based on just what I'm seeing as a teacher, um, during the intervention period every single day, we can rework those groups. So a teacher can say, "Hey, these are 15 kids that I have throughout my three math classes. I'm going to pull them all together, you know, during that intervention period and try to focus on spec specific things that they

070need." Um, we're also looking at adjusting a couple things in the master schedule uh specifically to meet some of the needs of our special education students. Again, that is coming to us from feedback from teachers. Uh, so just looking at like kind of where they fit time of day, you know. Um, so there's, you know, just certain content areas that are a little bit heavier and we're trying to put those at a time of the day that's more conducive when kids are going to be able to be at their best. Um, I mean, obviously we'd like them to be at their best all day long, but, you know, there's certain times of day that teachers are saying, I think we're going to do better if we have this group of kids doing ELA, you know,

071at 9:00 in the morning instead of at 1:45 in the afternoon. So we're trying to make those changes. Um and then just overall trying to you know working on increasing rigor and enrichment opportunities for for all students. Um you know and when we look at that growth score a lot of times we think oh we have all you know these kids who are taking the higher level courses. Um, you know, sometimes though the the growth scores on those students are actually lower because they're already achieving so high that and without getting into a lot, especially in math, they're achieving high in algebra, too. But we've got to still work on like what are they doing on their PS say 8th grade content because that doesn't always match up and line up exactly. So just trying

072to work on on those opportunities where we can push kids um and get them to, you know, engage at a deeper level and extend extend beyond just the basic things that we're teaching. >> Some of the other resources we have as well that we've been using and I know this year we recently implemented a reading intervention program um for some of our our struggling readers and that has been great. We've been using UFly this year. Um we also have like Kelly had mentioned. Um that's something we've been using that's been great for math ELA for differentiation. We also use our reading intervention program of achieve 3000 easy CBM a toz reading uh no red ink. So we use other programs as well to really and teachers use it to help track students and just enrich

073them but then also um use it for intervention needs as well. >> Any questions? I saw that you had and the elementary school seems to really focusing on that acadian scores and those reading scores and then uh Dr. Peak highlighted the LL and math and I assume ELA as well in there >> at the middle school. um what you just named a number of sources and some of those provide scores, some of those provide helpful instruction and scaffolding and things, but >> what data are you all looking at to determine like there's a lot of stuff whether you're effective, you know, once you're going into the summer for next year if this year worked. >> So our I would say we're going to be looking very heavily at our Firefly data. Uh teachers look very

074heavily atl throughout the year. Um but yeah, I I Firefly would probably be I know for me specifically, I'm using that as my goal measure um in the area of ELA. He's using it in the area of math. Just looking to see if we're working to grow students because they'll have the baseline data that they took in the fall. And then we'll have that data that they'll when they take the test again in the spring to see if they've been growing students. >> It's that's the benchmark that they're switching to. Mhm. But they but our teachers still use Exel and some of those other resources that I mentioned just to make sure to hold themselves accountable as educators to see and also to just again see what areas they're struggling in so they can use

075that to inform instruction. >> Any other questions for middle school? >> Yeah. So I'm a little slow at this. So your Firefly is just a tracking tool to see what they're scoring. It doesn't it doesn't create any better learning or anything like that, but you're using that to see what you need to teach her. Is that that? >> Yes. And and what it is. So, let's say Okay. So, the Firefly is a snapshot of let's say students took the PSSA assessment today. What would they score? It gives you a snapshot in time, but like Benon mentioned, it provides a progress sheet per student and also per class. So, you can use that. And then it's also based on eligible content area and assessment anchors. So you can use that class report and also the individual

076report to show what areas the students are struggling in and then based on that teachers can then use that for instruction purposes to prepare students to help grow them in those areas that they're that they see that they're struggling. >> So then you'll have programs to fall back on know what to implement. >> Absolutely. >> All right. >> And they can even align it with and you know that has let's say they're noticing that students are struggling in identifying main idea and themes. Okay. Well, then we can use I can use instruction, but then I can also use as a differentiation tool to focus on that specific area to help better grow and give students the resources for review. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> All right. Thank you. Have a good evening,

077everyone. >> All right. High school, you're up. All right. So, speaking of a lot of stuff, you got my slides in front of you. So, just give you a little idea where we're going here. Um, there are obviously a lot of things that happen at the high school in terms of data, uh, what kids do, what, how they get to graduation, act 158, keystones, AP scores. So, what I did was I took what we talked about before the school year started, some of the things I mentioned in that report, um, tied in some of the keystone stuff of where we've been, where we're at, where we're headed, and then it should be linked to what you got in terms of that initial board report. So, back to your original question of of some of that.

078I can answer some of that as we go. All right. So, um, as you know, the big thing for us, the high school is people, process, product. So the stuff I'm going to talk about related to scores and where we go, u none of that happens if the teachers aren't on board and the kids aren't on board. So that's why we've been spending as much time as we had uh developing those teams. The concept of shared leadership and really um I'm going to try to take as as little credit for the successes as we had because as you're going to hear, most of these things developed organically as we had those people kind of talking and working through the process. Um the process piece obviously is the curriculum instruction component at the high school. Uh

079instruction is collaborate. It's collaborative. So creativity through collaboration. The creativity piece is solving problems. Um think of it like this. We have give kids two options. When I went to school was a lot of here's the worksheet, fill it out. Um that's not going to do anybody any good. So now it's a lot of that organic thinking. uh coming up with um solutions to problems, in some cases creating the problems themselves and then figuring those things out. And as we've found over the years, whether it be college, whether it be career, whether it be military, um they're going to have to work with all different kinds of people. So that collaboration piece is one of those soft skills we can kind of hammer in the classroom. Product obviously is why we're here. So, couple things

080to keep in mind. high school, the easiest way I explain to people is you have the classrooms and all those pieces, but then you have all these operational components that affect those classrooms tremendously. Um, one of those, as we talked about at the beginning of the year, is the block schedule. So, uh, we are unique in the fact that we've already made this huge shift shift this year in terms of how we do business. Um, to give you an idea what I'm talking about with those teams, ninth grade the last few years has had a schedule within a schedule, kind of a a look into block a little bit. So, we have a little bit of data out there that kind of tells us we're heading in the right direction. Um, they also were trying

081to figure out what would they call structured study hall. Great idea, but as I said at the beginning of the year, if there's ways to do it better, we'll figure it out. Well, teachers have turned that into what we call this year is mission control. And those of you that have been at the curriculum council meetings or the reports you may share with each other. Um, I think each department that has come has had something nice to say about mission control and the time they're able to spend with teachers. So, again, very excited about where that's headed. The curriculum instruction piece testing for us in terms of Keystone is three areas. Alge lit bio. Um, the other three things up there, uh, we haven't talked about specifically. They were mentioned at the beginning of the

082year, but I'm happy to say we've actually kind of fleshed those out so I can show them to you today. Um, which are going to be kind of big steps going forward. All right, the algebra example. Um, if you've heard me talk about this, it's a really, really good example of how this data is used, where it's headed. So, here we go. scores coming in for us with algebra. It's a unique perspective because algebra itself is actually a subset of the entire freshman class. You have kids that take all these different math classes. Some are taking an advanced level math in middle school, some aren't, some are somewhere in between. So, we have all these different pockets of kids coming to us. We started to see like, all right, there's got to be a way

083that we can intervene, that we can be proactive rather than reactive. So working with the teachers, we really doubled down on how do we find that information and what skills do we need to focus on. Long story short, we were able to basically track it down to um three data points that give us a good idea of somebody who may struggle in algebra 1B is one of those classes that if somebody's struggling, that means there's a good chance they're going to struggle to graduate. So we know we have to get ahead of that early. So we figured out those three data points. Middle school, eighth grade math teachers helped us a ton with some information on skill development. So we identified skills in the high school. Hey kids, these are things we're seeing that we

084need. Can you give us some information on where this particular group of kids land? That's where the structured study hall piece came out of. From there, we started to see, all right, there's also a subset even within there of kids that have algebra 1 A who maybe fail or just barely pass that class. So there's got to be one more layer to this. So this year we have a fundamentals class that we put into place that they take in the fall. Block schedule allows us to do this and then they take algeb in the spring. So they're getting duplicate levels of skill development before they ever have to see that keystone exam. That's where we're at. So that now on a building level is full block with mission control operating. So some data within the

085data for you. This is based on no mission control, only freshman in block. So, time on task. Last couple years as they're doing that, we know they're doing better on the Keystone exam just by being and spending more time in the classroom working on algebra. So, we are optimistic. Um, we get our scores probably the state says in March. We'll see if that happens or not from the winter session. But having block having everyone take and and go through instruction in block then on top of it have mission control for intervention for enrichment for everything else. We are anticipating that this trend continues and if not even better on into the future. All right, that leads us to ELA and science. These are two unique paths. I will start with science because it's the most

086confusing and the data has the least relevance to us right now. Um for the for what that means is that just to give you an idea uh before the start of the school year we were anticipating that they would take the new bio keystone. Um we found out that that was not the case. They take the old bio keystone which they took and then in the spring they take the new bio keystone. So essentially all the data, the numbers we had off of standards and all that the last couple of tests really don't matter that much because it's going to be a brand new exam in the spring. Anyway, the good news, what this is saying is we've been ahead of that curve. So for the last year and a half, the teachers, the bio

087teachers specifically have been really working collaborative collaboratively to figure out how to appropriately instruct with the new steel standards. Easiest way I can explain this to you is it moves away from this to more of which one of these is the best fit given this scenario. So there's a lot more analysis involved in the exam. So they've been trying to figure out how to work that into their classes. Um so again feeling good about where we are because we've been a little ahead of the curve. The ELA is the one that's most interesting. Um, ELA really wanted to mirror what we did with algebra. It's a great idea. Find the information, be proactive, whole nine yards. But as those conversations continued, we started to see that there was a bigger issue that we needed to

088really double down on, and that was skill development. And so, it's a bunch of slides there, I know, but it's just one continuous slide is basically the effect I was going for. Um, what you have is this. So if you look at it, grades 9 to 12, there are certain skills that every ninth grader basically needs to know how to do. And then there are certain skills that every 10th grader is going to need to know how to do and 11th grader and 12th grader. And they should build on one another. It would make sense. So that creativity piece, that problem solving piece is what they should be doing the most of when they get to 12th grade. So, we spent a lot of this year with our teachers working in those kind of grade

089level pieces and within their departments, figuring out these are the skills that matter the most. These are the ones we really need to get on the same page about and then talking with their colleagues as they go to 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th grade. So, as a kid progresses through, they're building on one set of skills from one class to the other. for us, one of the biggest data points, and I'm super impressed with the teachers. Um, for those of you that may not know education and teachers real well, talking to a teacher about grading is like talking to a parent about their kid and how they parent them. It is super super personal. And our teachers have been attacking this the last year or so in terms of what does a grade actually mean in

090the high school. Now, why that matters here is let's say you took my biology class and you got an 88 in my class and you're going to go on to another teacher and take their science class and you took and one of your friends took a different teacher's biology class and they got like a 72 and then you both go to this new teacher and the person who had the 72 now has like a hundred and the person coming from my class has like a 67. That's can't happen. there's got to be some understanding of what did the kid actually learn and do I know what that means coming into my classroom and that's what they're working on and that's really really hard to do um when it comes to the number of classes they

091take the standards they have but the teachers are tackling that and it's actually a pretty um pretty developed um system which I'm going to show you here in a second all right brand new this year the departments have built and continue to build these scoreboards So, you talked about accountability, where we're at with things. This is a really good one. This is from world language. Uh, they done a phenomenal job. What is at the top is basically their identified skills. So, when you think about learning say Spanish, German, anything else, it makes sense that you have to be able to talk to people in that language. So, that's the interpersonal communication. So, they've identified that regardless what world language class you take, you're going to need interpersonal communication. What's below the second half is they

092took that and they broke that down into Spanish one. So regardless of who teaches Spanish one, they can have a collaborative conversation and say, "Are these kids learning these skills? Where are they? What can we help them with? What targeted intervention can we have?" So each department is building these out. Um right now it's a little bit of the wild wild west because they're going to come up with way better ideas than I'm going to put on all of them. But on the 20th we're going to come together. We're going to start building this out. start looking at where does some of those skills overlap because in the high school the beauty is yeah you have ELA class but you also have might have a STEM class you might have world language class you might

093have an art class you might have PE and if all these people are talking about the same general level of skills you don't have to be in ELA class to work on interpersonal communication all right now uh I'm going to throw some love to Mr. barge. He's in the crowd tonight. He's right over there. If you don't know who he is, he's sitting right there. He's worked a lot with our teachers on this. So, when it comes to data and when it comes to accountability measures, the high school, what you're looking at is a student dashboard. Basically, any teacher at the high school can go into the student dashboard and they can find out what they need to find out about their students, attendance, behaviors, academics, trends. This gives them real life up-to-date working data.

094That matters a ton in a world where we might see our kids for one block and we may not meet with a team of teachers outside of us needing to discuss what's going on. So this dashboard provides a ton of data that allows them to make that target intervention that's going to help on the back end when it comes to how do we look at maybe AP score or keystone score or an SAT score any score you want to look at. You take it one step further. What they're working on is this, which is now you can go one layer into that dashboard and you can look at this and you can say, "Okay, so the first student that's up there has a risk score of seven. That's somebody we got to talk about. We

095got to get counselors involved. We got to get on the horn with the administrator, the parents, whatever, because right now they are headed down the wrong path." Having this information at the teacher's fingertips allows us to intervene in a timely manner. And that's really what matters at the high school is with that uh remediation enrichment period during mission control. They now have that way to target intervention rather than just be kind of a random everybody do this, which is kind of what we were figuring out the last year or so. All right. So going forward, uh long story short, basically we'll see what the results come in the winter. So we'll get those in March. Um, we'll get a chance to see what this new bio keystone looks like in the spring. We'll have another

096round once we get all that data back over the summer. Now, we'll have a really good look at these changes that have been made. Where do we need to adjust? Um, with the skill development, with the scoreboards by department, that makes us flexible, that makes us nimble, it makes us able to kind of move that giant iceberg of the the high school a little bit easier. um and within by department. So that is a lot of information in a few minutes. What else do you need to know? >> Go ahead. >> Yep. >> Yes. It absolutely would be part of that conversation. What's not on there um because I wanted I want to try to figure out a way to show it to all of you is all the demographic information that goes with the

097student. So, as long as it's kept to the parent and the team, it's good. If you start clicking through there and looking at everybody else, that's where it gets a little Yeah. Yep. Yep. >> Yep. You're right. >> So form during the elementary is the start of that form. It's just not in the app. It's a different it's in Google. So that's there and we share it with parents in our meetings that we have when we bring them to the table to discuss the growth of their student or lack thereof. Um and then that transitions because I have shared over the years, it's taken three years to create that form. That form is now shared with SGI as they go on to fifth grade and so on. >> Any other questions for now? All right,

098thank you very much. >> Absolutely. >> We are going to trans uh transition here uh to our next topic. Um Dr. Dietrich has been asked to come and talk a little bit about um SG Flex, give us an update of kind of where things are uh currently and where we're headed. Um and with the voice he has left, he's gonna go through his slides. >> I do my best, guys. I apologize if you can't hear me. just let me know and I'll try and speak up. All right. Here to talk a little bit about SG Flex. Oh, you kept all my transitions in. Thanks, Suzanne. All right. So, actually these uh numbers are already not accurate as of today. Uh we had two more uh students uh who I was contacted about who are interested

099in SG Flex. So, numbers are actually increasing a little bit. Um but looking at currently enrolled 61 as the end of this week it'll be 63. So a total of 76 for the year um and 78. Uh why the difference students move uh they returned inerson learning sometimes if they're not being successful in the program. Um some students are were only enrolled in one semester and and they completed their courses and either had planned to come back in person or they finished their graduation requirements. Um, and there's different ways of looking at this. I put on here is estimated savings because if these students are leaving us and going to uh typical cyber charters, that's the number that that we're paying out. Uh, fortunately, we're not because they're in our program. Uh, this does not

100include the other students uh who are part-time. And so, I just again another estimated number of potential savings there. uh looking at growing enrollment uh over the last four years. Uh again, that number would be 78 for 2526 and I I would project that we're probably going to push up over 80 before the end of the year this year. Uh some of the things that we're doing, uh one of the things that we have to be careful of with SG Flex is making sure that we're offering enough courses for our students to be able to have a full high school uh actually middle and high school career uh in SG Flex. And so we're continuing to look at what courses can we off uh to offer uh different opportunities for our students. So we we

101added these courses this past year. Just give you a second to review those. And kind of the way this process works is I go to the teachers and say, would you be interested in supervising facilitating this course? How does it line up with things that we're doing in the high school? Because one of the things that we do try to think about is if a student does leave SG Flex to come back into the building, how do we transition that student? Uh that's one of the things that's very nice about SG Flex, having that flexibility. And so we try to match those things as much as we can. And then looking at for next year, having conversations, expanding into art. We we currently don't offer any art courses in SG Flex. uh looking to potentially

102expand some music uh and then STEM and world language. Uh we do have a growing uh number of students who are taking Spanish with us this year. I think we're up to about eight students and so I would like to be able to have the opportunity for those students to continue in Spanish next year and so working with the world language teachers on that. >> Hey, can I ask a quick question >> the courses that are being offered who who is the curriculum provider for those courses right now? So the platform that we use, great question. It's called Imagine uh Egeneuity. Uh it's an online platform. We actually purchase through a consortium with the LIU. And so we get a better rate going through the LIU through Imagine Egeneuity. Uh there's some other options out

103there. Uh I wouldn't argue that they're any better than what Imagine Egenuity. And they're actually continuing to update their their offerings. Uh they're now to their next level, which is called Edge X. uh those programs are more interactive, more videos and so uh the students just it's more engaging for the students. Uh one of the things that we're doing sorry is encouraging the hybrid model. Um why because the best of both worlds I mean you listen to uh Christian talk about the different opportunities that we have at the high school. uh we have the opportunity to have a flexible schedule for students where they can come in for a few of the classes in person that they might not be able to get in SG Flex, especially a lot of the hands-on classes that we

104have or some of those upper level classes where they really feel like they need to have a teacher in front of them. Uh for example, we have quite a few students that are in AP classes that come in person for those AP classes and then they're taking other classes through SG Flex. Access to in-person staff and and the pure actions are huge as well. And then obviously it keeps students connected to our school. Challenge with the hybrid model is we we provide transportation one way. Um and so that that presents a problem for for some of our students and their parents. Uh we can either bring them in on the bus in the morning and they need a ride home in the middle of the day or they need a ride to school in the

105middle of the day and we can take take them home in the afternoon. Not having that midday transportation uh is is a no-go for some of our families. And so that's something that we continue to explore. Thank you. It's not going to do anything but thank you. Nice gesture. Um other obstacles to uh just SG Flex and and just for our district in general to think about the the other the competition, this is what they do, right? You know, we are staffing SG Flex with the staff that we have and and they're doing a phenomenal job with the time that they're being given. Uh we have not just me u but Meredith Mccuri Howard McCur Howard who's a building admin assistant uh in the school counseling office at the high school is is super involved

106Brent Barge um the school attendance officers which are very much involved and then all of our teachers uh this is something that they're doing in addition to when you look at the cyber charters this is what they do um they're paying for Wi-Fi for families they're handing them devices they're paying stipens for inhome tutors All right. And then they had those synchronous course uh options for students and something and not a conversation that we're going to have here today, but at some point I'd love to sit down and have the conversation. What is going to be the future of synchronous courses uh for SG Flex uh by not by not offering those those opportunities, we're removing some of that access. And yes, we can do that in-person piece, that hybrid model. Then we got to

107overcome that barrier of the transportation piece. And there are just some situations um like a recent situation where you know the kid can't come in because of a medical issue in the in the home. We want to be able to create some of those opportunities for our students. Another option our students have is Lincoln Edge. Um this is a better option for some of our students. In fact, all of our K6 students go through Lincoln Edge for SG Flex. The reason for that is we don't have the staffing at the K through six level to be able to supervise those students for SG Flex. Uh we had tried it in the past. It it just it was cost prohibitive and it was just too much time for the teachers. Uh and then uh looking at

108cost, it's approximately half the cost, which is great. Um and then they are a little bit better staffed to serve students with IEPs. Uh and so if we do have a student with an IEP, often we'll have that conversation. Is this student a better candidate for Lincoln Edge rather than the SG Flex program? If we feel like we can service a student through SG Flex, then we'll do that. If we feel like we don't have that ability in that program, then we'll make that recommendation for for Lincoln Edge. And then they have they just offer more courses uh in the uh the Lincoln Edge program. They get into the CTE. So they have the staffing for CTE programs in Lincoln Edge and so on. And then again, just some some basic numbers for you. It's

109a little more a little more than half for the cost. Changes in regulations that have helped. I know Mr. Zap and Mrs. Lep have talked about this a little bit. Uh this is a big one for us. Uh in the past if we've had habitually true students as we've enforced attendance policies. A lot of times what would happen is families would have those students exited from our schools and put into cyber charter schools. Uh they can't do that anymore. Um any habitually trudent student is a student that has has six or more unlawful absences. Uh and believe it or not, some of our students hit that mark pretty quick. Um and so those students can no longer leave to go to a a cyber charter school. And that that is a huge win for traditional

110school districts across the state. Um and then next year they are the state is uh requiring check-ins for students. Uh so students that are on pace one to two times a month uh those check-ins can be uh live Zooms where we're seeing kids faces. It can be in person. If students are off pace, meaning they're falling behind in their courses, then we're going to be uh requiring them to come in a lot more for those those check-ins uh to make sure that they're getting on pace. And then some ideas for the future. I know I've been in conversation with Mr. Hehart um about a cyber cafe option. uh we have this beautiful space uh the IA uh but the high school you know is that a spot where a student who is in person for

111some of their their live courses could also just stay at the school that eliminates the issue of the transportation piece for some of those students could they sit in the IA work on some of those online courses independently we've got to have the the supervision the staffing to be able to do that right now we don't have that space open all four blocks of the day and so that becomes a little bit of a challenge that's something that we're having conversations is about um that can be by choice, that could be by assignment. If we have a student that's falling off pace, hey, you're going to come in person for a while until you're back on pace and now you can go back out again. And then we already talked about the challenge there. And

112then that uh that midday transportation piece, you know, is there is there an opportunity for us? How can we figure that out? That's another conversation for for a later time. questions for me. Throwing a lot at you. >> Yes. >> We we give our students devices >> charters. >> Can someone repeat his qu because he's not talking into a mic. So anyone >> he's he's asking. So, you're asking cyberchers pay for the device and the Wi-Fi. Are we doing that? If a family does not have access to Wi-Fi, we provide them with an air card. Yes. And we we provide all of our students with devices. And not just the the um the iPad, you know, for our PE our online PE class, for example, they get a u a fit, not a Fitbit, it's

113a Polar. They use a Polar um for that. So, yeah. I mean, there's there's some it's I didn't get into specifics there. There's a little more than just, you know, it's it's laptops, it's it's printers, it's it's all kinds of stuff. >> The only question I'm a little confused on is is the transportation. We only supply transportation one way. >> What happens is for the hybrid schedule, for example, like let's say, for example, I have a kid who's coming in from periods block one and two. They can ride the bus in, but there's no bus after block two. They'd have to wait until the end of block four. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. >> And we live, you know, you guys know the size of our district, 94 or 96 square miles. You know, you

114have, you know, let's say we have 10 kids that want to do that midday. You're driving to Sevens in Paradise. It's not efficient, right? So, how do we figure that out? You know, I think that's that's something to have a conversation about. So, first I want to I I love the cyber cafe idea. Um I love that and that would help solve some of that problem if a kid had a place to be. um what I am hoping so I think that this is currently solving some of the problems we're trying to aim to solve which it seems like we're really aiming for some flexibility for kids and for administrators because you you need that at times and a cost savings but I don't see us trying to compete with cyber and I'm not saying

115that we want to open our own cyber and bring in thousands of kids But we don't provide them with and you just gave I mean three very simple things that that those other um schools are doing or those other online cyers are doing. I'd love to see I think too often in the district we keep talk we we talk about cost cutting and cost savings and I'm all for efficiency but sometimes we need to spend a little money to then eventually save money and I would love to see what the your what your true ideal would be. I mean the the two suggestions the transportation and cyber cafe there's there's I mean we could they're not hard they're not they're not that difficult. But I feel like it's like low fruit, hanging fruit. But I'd

116be curious to see what it would look like if we had a true competitor because every single time that Mark and Jen share these online cyber like the percentage of kids in online cyber goes up. It's not like it's a even number. I keep seeing that and pulling kids back. That's a it's almost a fool's errand. What we really need is >> an alternative alternative to keep them here. And so I would for me I know one of nine but I would love to see what that like hairy audacious goal would be as to what SG cyber is and then we can talk about what we what's feasible and what's not feasible but I don't know I'm I'm I think SGEL is serving its role but is it's not serving I don't think it's going

117to keep those cyber kids here at least many of them here and I think we can just offer a much better product if we had more dedicated. We have a bunch of staff that are helping, but it's, you know, it's just a very different beast. Yeah, >> I'll make a comment. It won't be a question. I think I think we need to get a hold of our solicitor and get other school districts to stop this thinking cyber school for milking us for what they're getting paid. That's what's wrong. when we when we collect students get money in for students to to educate them and we can do it for a certain dollar if them parents or the kids want to go somewhere else and it's costing them twice as much they should have to pay

118the difference and there's no reason legislation can't make that happen. So I think we need to focus on that. I I it's terrible how they're they're raping this this school districts. >> I agree guys are doing a great job. It's looking better. It it's it's something we got to focus on. I just think some people are just they're just not like you say they're not going to come our way. >> Thank you everyone. >> All right. Thank you Dr. Dre. I have a question for you please. >> Yes. >> And I'm not saying I understand these presentations were supposed to not be 50 minutes each for Mr. White's sake. Um what's the role of our curriculum leaders? Um because I don't feel like I heard um us talking about if an individual teacher is getting

119better results than the other people of the same grade, how are we utilizing our curriculum leaders to identify that stuff? Um, and in hearing this, I understand a year's worth of learning is is a goal for us to get up to, but if we have people that are behind to the point that was made, they're going to stay behind. We're just going to keep it from getting worse. Um, the other thing that I didn't hear that I'm just, and I don't need a long explanation. And it was just two things that I was thinking about are are we differentiating the cadence of the analysis of the students that are farther behind because we need to we need to make up more ground with them. And one example was 6 to 8 weeks um for students

120that are behind. I I feel like that's too far apart to be able to close the gap um and to be able to learn. I'm not saying that to be insulting. I just those are the two things that I didn't hear. And uh I work on cars, not kids. Um but when I have people that are behind, we increase how often we audit them and we put them with their peers is how we do it. And I just didn't hear. Again, not saying those things aren't being done. It was just two things that I took away from the overall presentation. >> Okay. I think I got three things there, but I'm Yeah. Um the the first question is what do curriculum leaders do? The curriculum leaders roles are to they're not supervising and they're they're

121assisting the administrators who are in charge of those uh areas in um writing and evaluating the curriculum. They coordinate their colleagues when it we have a we used to have a six-year curriculum cycle. Now it's a fiveyear curriculum cycle. So each year in the cycle, they're responsible for different things within the curriculum, whether it's reviewing what's there, updating, then in the fifth year, they rewrite. They're they're the kind of the key point person there to kind of coordinate that. Um they also help with running meetings. If we if we have department meetings or curriculum meetings, they would be the person who's running those meetings to work with their colleagues. um they're also sometimes depending on what we're doing helping with the professional development that comes along with with whatever we're doing at that time. So

122that's their role. They get a little bit of a stipen to do that. Um their main role is to is as still is as a teacher. Um it's just a little bit of an extra duty that they take on. Um the in the old model, you might remember when we weren't in school, they had department heads and we still have some of those. They're the K12 departments. they're more of like in charge of everyone in the art department or everybody in the PE department. We don't have that as much because we've broken it down into K 6 7 8 5 6 whatever it might be and then 91 12 at the high school. So that's kind of what they're doing. The the second part of what you're saying is you're absolutely 100% right. If if

123a student is behind already behind, we've identified them as be being behind and we're grow and we're successful in growing them a year for a year, they're going to continually stay behind and and Mrs. Peak referred to that is ideally we want to try to grow them more than a year for a year, but we have to get them to a year for a year first. So, you're 100% right. Um, if we wanted to try to get them all the way caught up, we're never going to get there if we don't get more than a year. Um, but that's kind of the starting point is to get everybody to a year to a year. So, you're 100% right there. We have uh six teachers in the same grade and one is consistently getting the kids

124farther along than the others. Do we have anything in place for the teachers of the same grade to be able to at benchmarks throughout the course of the year to figure out why some are ahead versus other? we're doing the analysis and we're doing these sheets and we're doing these scores. And if we're not, are we going to look at if somebody's continually staying out in front, how are we how are we crossraining or I don't know if that's what we want to call it, but how are we figuring out why one person is um consistently outperforming the others? Because sure, you can have a different group of kids that are going to perform differently, but um the idea of collectively working together. We heard the phrase a couple times it takes a village seems

125like an effective way to understand what one person may be doing that somebody else isn't. >> We are we are continually looking at that data. Um, sometimes it's not consistent, but when we do have people who are consistent, we are trying, the all administrators are all, we have these conversations all the time and trying to get at what is going on in that classroom and then trying to transfer it. I wish it was as easy as that. Um, teaching is not is is some of it's art, some of it's science, and it's not always as easy. You um, you're 100% right in what you're saying. I just it's a lot harder in in practice than than actually it seems like it should be but it is very difficult but that's what we're trying to do.

126You're not wrong. It's what we're trying to do. >> You guys said when I when I started I said I'm not saying we're not doing this. It was just I didn't hear it. So they were shortened presentations. It was just a question. I guess I'm I'll have one I have one comment that may not be wellreceived in this room, but I'm curious about it because in my world, I sell medical equipment, right? So, anytime I am charged to to do with do something that I call administrative work, um you know, expense reports, that type of thing where you have to spend time in your office, red time is what we call it. Um, I'm curious in terms of all of the effort around the data, reviewing the data for our teachers, how much time of

127their day do they spend reviewing the data, chasing the data, um, searching for the growth number, right, as opposed to teaching. And do we have teachers that are having difficulty balancing those pieces? So, I understand the data. I understand how important it is. But more importantly, teaching, engaging, interacting with our students, making meaningful connections with our students, I think probably transcends all of it. Right. So, just want to see and get your thoughts on that. Maybe not tonight, but eventually. >> I'll just have one more comment. I I I really appreciate these presentations. like I gave you a hard time about having these presentations, but it it's good to know what is going on. It's good to know where you people are at and it's good to know that we to hear that you people

128care because so we don't talk about this stuff in school board meetings and I'll tell you I really enjoyed tonight. I I mean that from the heart. I just I know you you people are here for the kids and it's just an awesome thing to see and to know and it just makes this all worthwhile. So I appreciate it. Thank you. >> I'm gonna very quickly pipe up and I'm I'm gonna respond to Nicole. can't speak for every single teacher but I speak to a lot of teachers and I was in a classroom that data that is being teachers aren't doing it during the day they don't have the time to do that it's during the evening so like we often many people are on this board talk about difference between private and public and

129teachers getting a hard time sometimes it is crazy how much time teachers spend on the weekends in the evenings grading things putting data together to build their lesson plans so when we look at sometimes like, oh, they have two months off in the summer and we're like, how how nice is that life but do that job for very long. They don't have the time to do the stuff the data stuff during the day. It's very difficult to find that time. So, it's it's in the night. >> All right. Any other questions? So, uh first of all, wow, thank you. Big big thank you to everyone. I mean, you know, at the end of the day, our teachers are the motors of this school. You know, from the principles to the assistants to all the admin,

130from Steve to Michelle, you know, we're like a manual transmission. You guys are shifting the gears to keep motivating everyone. Um, Chip, thank you so much for bringing to light about the consistency. I've been saying it for years. you know, it doesn't matter how a teacher teaches, just teach the same thing. So, we do have consistency through all the schools. Um, you know, real quick, I sat in with curriculum with the math program. um the uh enthusiasm, the excitement that they show, but but one thing they did say all of them was, you know, we need to seriously look at another curriculum leader because a lot of them can't take on the task. So, you know, as I know the board, we all talked about it, but that is something down the road we're seriously

131going to have to look at. So, again, I applaud every one of you for doing the presentation. I think nine of us can truly say we wear our hearts on our sleeve, but that's why we're here for the education. There's many times we get involved in our building projects or this or that and we kind of lose sight. So kudos to everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, moving on. Gonna >> floor still yours there, Eric. >> We're gonna go to the calendar. Yeah, we're going to talk about the calendar for a little bit here. You have uh a couple different links and a couple different things in front of you. Um just a little background. Um so, you know, we we go through a process every year of of putting together different options

132of the calendar and then run uh run those options past um all the different uh groups, the leadership team, the uh the teachers. Um we've talked to different board members. Um this year we started and we had three versions. Um and then we quickly uh ballooned to uh six versions and through a series of different meetings and and and some and met much discussion we've narrowed those choices down to to two and what the a recommended option which we'll talk about here is option F. Um but you have copies of option A and option F um in front of you. Um the memo uh talks a little bit about the the qualities or the um characteristics of that that calendar. Um I'll just give you a a short version. Um option A, the calendar with

133option A is is pretty much uh a traditional calendar that's it's pretty much like this year's calendar um with very few changes just updating it for the new year. Um, option F is is a hybrid of sorts um with trying to incorporate all the different suggestions um that we've heard from different um board members and from staff members um and and trying to keep all the things that people like and try to eliminate the things that they don't and try to compromise in between. Uh so that's what you're seeing there. Um, option F includes the early start date for our transition grades, kindergarten, fifth, 7th, and ninth graders, which is, uh, been a practice in the last couple years, and it's been, uh, very effective. Um, it includes two half days, uh, early dismiss, what

134would typically be an early dismissal days, but we they've been moved to a virtual learning on those days. So, what that would instead of having an early dismissal where students come in and um would uh secondary would leave at 10:30 and be busted home and then and um elementary would be getting out at 11:30 to 12:00. Um they would have a virtual day um for the morning and then the teachers would have um their inservice in the afternoon. It also includes uh tradition some traditional snow days. So there's some makeup days there um if we were to need it. Um both of the calendars um contain all staff in service on two days um built in. Um historically we've had inservice days that just involved the teachers. Uh but we found that we have um

135many opportunities if we plan ahead that we could have all staff um in on those days and have things that we could use those uh those days for. So, we've included that. Um, and then, um, in keeping with our our new, uh, collective bargaining agreement, we have, um, self-directed days that we have to be placed in at marking period, trimester day, ends of beginning of marking periods and trimesters. So, they're all in there. Um, all that being said, um, as we said before, option F is our recommendation. um I can answer questions based on all that. Ideally, what we would like to do is is get get your feelings on them and and hopefully have a calendar uh that we could bring forward uh for the next meeting. Um there is one additional um thing

136to discuss and it's on the second page of the memo. Um, historically we've had some questions um and some back and forth with um our K to4 staff about conferences and when to have them and the format to have them and such. Um, we did some surveying of them um at at their request this uh this year. Um and a majority of them indicated that they would prefer to do their fall conferences um in the afternoons and evenings uh in during two days in November, but that would require if we chose to do that, that would require two more early dismissal days uh to be added to the calendar. They are not on either version of the calendar right now. Um they could easily be put in, but if that's not something that you want

137to support, then we would not put that in. um if it if we don't do that, then we would go ahead and do it um their second choice was to do it kind of similarly how we do it now and they'd have it over four different nights um on a different week in November. So, kind of multiple things. Um feedback on option A and F and any feedback on the idea of adding those additional ones for conferences. Um, and anything you would like to share we can get ready for possibly bringing a calendar or any changes that you might have. >> Yeah, Steve, I have a I have a couple questions. I'm looking at just draft F. Um, and I know this is the preferred and I really appreciate this um in some of the

138feedback. It's it's nice and I'm glad everybody had a chance to look at it. My first question would be um for example in October there's a day off on the 12th and then 13th as well. It's in a row. What's the school of thought in not doing the same thing in February? So, there's a day off on the 15th and then there's a day off the next week on a Friday. >> That the wrestling tournament >> 26th of February. >> It is. Okay. So, it's the wrestling tournament. >> That is okay. >> That's the why. >> Thank you. Um my next question is this is so we're getting into that weird part we had it this last December and now where there's a few days before Christmas um that we would bring students in. Historically

139we've heard from teachers and everybody else those that's a tough week. Um, is there a reason we couldn't take a day, for example, from like November 30th, um, where it's just this Monday off that week and actually have students not coming in that 21st and 22nd and adjusting the calendar that way. >> November now. >> November, you're saying November 30th. Yeah, that's that's just historically a day that we've had off, but you could shift that. But I'm not understanding where would you move it. >> I'm I'm talking about the his you know the actually having two full weeks in for that winter time frame off over Christmas and New Year's. Um just >> so we're not coming in the 21st or the 22nd. Is that what you're saying? >> Yeah. And and my >> it

140just Yeah. They just have to come from somewhere and that's it and know Yeah. We're trying to jam it into the time you have. >> Yeah. I'm just I mean it's it's not 100% necessary, but when we think about expenses and then we think about, you know, students historically that week anyway, be coming in for two days is tough on the teachers and everyone. >> It's it's a challenge right now to start when we start and end and not go into June. So, we would be either taking a day, well, we find have to find two days somewhere. One could be the 30th, I guess, but then you need another one that's coming from somewhere else to to plug that hole. Otherwise, you're not going to fit it in to that. >> What's the total

141number of student days? So, they vary on each of these drafts. How many >> and if you look um >> December is the difference between the two >> the in draft F we have 178 um school day uh teacher uh 178 student days um which is really 179 if you count the first day with kindergarten fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth and then um we have 189 um teacher days which is what the contract says because we have a day of uh duties. So what was I'm sorry what was your question? >> So what's the what is the total number of days we have to have on the calendar >> there are that that change we used to have to have forever and ever and ever we had to have 180 school teach 180 student days

142no matter what. Um that is no longer the case. Um, we we have the ability to go 180 days or we have to go 900 hours in the elementary or at least 900 hours in the elementary and 990 at the secondary. We have those hours and we're well over those which allows us gives us a little bit of flexibility with snow and makeup and all that kinds of stuff and we don't have to hit 180. So, it's to answer your what I think is your question. Could we just make those days off and not and be okay? We'd be okay. It's just what how many days do we what do you want that base number of days to be? Um used to have to be 180. We're trying to we have tried to stay close

143to that. You can keep going down. Um >> Steve, if we if we remember back to the teacher contract, one of the things is that makes it a little tricky um is that the teach in the last teacher contract that we negotiated, we're giving all teachers time to finish up grading and that's like built into the calendar uh to finish up all the grading for their trimester and for the marking period. >> Each marking period, each trimester is a half day that we can't touch. bunch of days in here that like are just inflexible that we can't really move around too. >> Yeah, that they're very inflexible and that that is part of the problem. The other part of the to answer your question about number of days, we have a bus contract that says

144we are going to pay for 175 Mark tell me if I'm wrong uh days of transportation. If we drop below that, we're still paying for 175 days of transportation. Um, so to answer your question about draft F, if we drop two days off just to make a the a longer holiday or whatever, that would put us at 175 without missing a day for snow, without anything else. That's already right there. So, two things, and these are hunches, but I imagine whenever you have 10 days off in a row, the couple days beforehand, kids are going to be rambunctious. And um I'm going to go out on a limb and say where that feels nice. I don't know that the average person um parent has two weeks vacation to be able to stay home with the

145younger kids as well. So, uh, I completely respect the question and the thought, but I think no matter what, if you're going up against 10 or 14 days, the last couple days beforehand is going to be it's just a matter of when we're going to do it and when we're going to have it. I know my guys, um, they're forever using their vacation and it's a pain in the butt to schedule those two weeks because everybody's saving their days and saving them up for when their kids are home from school. So, uh, I'm not opposed to looking at it a different way. I just uh two things to throw in that um could potentially. So Steve, quick question. Uh November 30th, which right it's a hunting day, but since you can go on Saturdays now,

146what what days were you talking about? The two the elementaryaries wanted >> they if that was Yeah. The separate conversation was they wanted and this is sort of um November 23rd and 24th would be if if we wanted to have conferences like these would be set aside for conferences. So they would be half days and then they would have conferences in the e afternoons and evenings because they wouldn't have kids. >> Yeah. I mean can I can I >> that's a that's another very week. That's a whole another week. >> That's a whole other thing too. and then half days and parents to Ben's point. My the reason I'm asking these questions is first of all the Keystones end on the 18th. So then coming back those, you know, couple days or whatever, you know,

147and I know a school district beside us had a different calendar than we did this year. It it's tough on on parents certainly um any of these days. I just wanted to get a feel for and I don't want to go less days to school. That wasn't the the goal at all. Um, but I just wanted to get an understanding of the thought process with scheduling and then you know if you want to talk about >> well what I was going to say couldn't we took November 30th move it to a 23rd and >> we already >> November November 23rd November 20 the week of Thanksgiving typically we go to we have a regular day 23rd regular day 24th and then 25th is an inservice day we have tradein and some of the teachers are

148in, some aren't. Um, but that there's no kids here at all. So, the week it's it's a two-day week for the kids feeding into Thanksgiving, and then they get the Thanksgiving break, which we have typically extended into Monday, which you can do that or not. It's fine. >> Right. But I'm just saying if if you took 30th, moved it up to 23rd, that'd be one of the parent conference dates they were looking for. Correct. Yeah, that would work. I wouldn't do it the I would move it to the 24th though because you're not going to bring them you're not going to have them stay home on >> Okay. Come in on one day and then be off for the rest still. >> Yeah, you could do you could do that's another possibility. Yes, you could

149just >> Wouldn't that be adding an additional teaching day? So then we need like it would be then shift from a day off to an inservice day and then we'd have to take that from somewhere. >> I could I could shift the 30th to the 24th and we're the same. Suzanne, am I right about that? We're We're neutral. Net neutral. That solves >> students in for one day. >> You're bringing them in for one day. Yeah, that's the that's the thing. You bring it. It's bringing them in for one day or bringing them in for two half days for the week or just do the two days we're doing. I I could argue they're all not good, but I kind of like what we do. >> Let Let me just throw this out. So if

150you took the 23rd, made that a half day, make it a teaching virtual, then they would have the rest of the day, the 23rd for parent conferences and the 24th. >> No, you're bringing >> No, you're not a virtual virtual day and they would be off the rest of the week. >> Yes. >> Yep. So >> lost day. >> Yeah. We're not >> We're not getting a year's worth of teaching and or a year's worth of education in a year if we do too much. I mean and and again to the point who can come like what we're taking just two days now and saying parents have to schedule just those days, right? >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Which I think is tough on a holiday week. >> I'm not recom I'm not recommending. I

151just that's what they voted for. So I did wanted to bring it to your teachers. >> The teachers voted for that. The K4 teachers voted for that. I just wanted to bring it to you. That's not I don't I agree with a lot of what you're saying. I don't know that that week's the best. >> The recommendation on this calendar, um, I know where Mr. White stands on half days, but I'm curious, is this also the recommendation as to what our building administrators and teachers, do they feel the same way about half days? I mean, I totally get the reasons why Mr. White believes that with busing and all that stuff, for sure. But I didn't know if it was like really beneficial for teachers and administrators to have kids half of a day and

152then have inservice half of a day that to answer your question that be it's tied into this those self-directed days. If we can have students in in the morning and then have self-directed days the the self-directed time in the afternoon that works very well for everyone. The question is, do we want to bring kids in for that or do we want to make those a virtual day? The other thing you can do is have it be a full inservice day at those appropriate times and then just block off half the time for this teachers to have their self-directed time. It there's it's just a puzzle of trying to put it all together. >> Administrators and teachers, if we had a full inservice day and then you guys split that up however you want, >> that

153works just as fine. >> Teachers and administrators are happy with that setup as well. >> That would work. Yes. Okay. So that's my only question. So is there any is anybody is everybody okay with F in general? Can we are we good to leave this and move it forward? And are we leaving it the way it is without adding extra half days for conferences in the fall? if you guys can. I mean, it seems like that seems unfeasible unless you all can figure something out. And I I I'm I'm not opposed to it. I like I know that it is nice for those elementary school teachers to have that midday opportunity to bring in parents. Some parents work during the evening, so it can it's flexible for that. So, like I I totally get that,

154but if it seems impossible to put in the calendar, I it's like a rock and a hard place. I don't know what to do. been through this a number of times before. I think we just go with what the administration says unless you see something as really really out of whack. >> Agreed. >> And we're bringing just F. That is it. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. We're going to move on um and talk a little bit about summer school. Mark and I um Mark and I put together a memo for you that gives you um a summary of what we have um last year's summer school and what we uh spent um for credit recovery and credit acquisition at the high school and then credit recovery at the middle school. And you can

155see all those numbers. Um we were asked to kind of present those to you. um talk a little bit about um what we might what you might want to do about that. Um just to let you know um the high school is already um recommending that we not offer credit acquisition um this coming summer um with the new schedule. We don't need to do it anymore. Um so that we can if you guys are okay with that, we could take that off the table. Um, I guess the big question is what do we want to do about offering summer school next summer or this coming summer? Do we want to offer it or modify it in some way? >> So, the high school is not going to have any summer school. Is that correct? >>

156That we have to talk about that what we're recommending >> saying they were taking it off the >> the credit acquisition. So, every for I don't know how many years for forever, we've been offering the students the opportunity to take um health in the summer for credit. The first time that it's they're not making it up because they failed it. They're taking it getting it out of the way kind of deal. And um they take it in the summer. It helps their in the old schedule. It helped them schedule the other classes that they wanted. We have determined we don't need to do that anymore because of block scheduling. the way they're changing some of the things. So, we can take that one off the table. The question is, do we want to offer credit

157recovery? So, students that are failing classes at the middle school and or the high school, do we want to give them opportunities to earn those credits back over the summer? Um, and if so, what does that look like? You may remember last um last year you voted to have the students and parents start paying for some of those that for the first time. we we never had them pay anything and we set forth a plan where they would pay a little bit more each year. Um we did not make very much money back from that last year. Um so the question is what do you want to do uh moving forward with credit recovery? So I'll repeat what we shared during budget and finance one. I'm under the impression and I I I feel like

158this is true that all of our administrators and our teachers, any student who has like a health issue or they moved in in the middle of the year, some sort of ex extemporaneous some sort of impact on those students, we'll work with them like we that these students who are failing these courses who need credit recovery are not those students. Um and so this ends up being the students who are not putting forth full effort during the school year. And I am one who thinks we paid tax dollars to give you the kid the students an opportunity to succeed that that goround. And I think that if they need that opportunity, I think they have to pay for all of it out of pocket because at that point we're just taking tax dollars from our

159taxpayers to educate a kid for a second time that they had an opportunity for the first time. That's that's kind of where I fall on the credit recovery. So, if we I'm not opposed to us opering it, but I don't want any of our budget to go towards that hope it's paid by students. And I and Eric, I absolutely agree. I mean, $55,000 could go for, you know, better educational purposes. what we have unfortunately you know not to be hard bones about it but if you it starts at the dinner table so if Johnny or Susie is not coming to school and for attendance or whatever hit the parents pocketbook and I understand you know there are families out there that have different circumstances which right what you just mentioned but at the end of

160the day if these children were in college and they failed they're paying for college courses and you know they're not free either So are they come to school 178 180 days for that education and I don't think we should be offering any type of summer school unless they want to pay for you know full tuition for that. Yeah, I think I think the I and I I tend to agree. The problem is is that I how do you set that, right? Because it depends on how many people are going to need credit recovery. So, in order for them to fully pay for what it would cost us, it depends on how many are enrolled, right? So, we would not be able to say, "Okay, you know, Johnny, if you're if you want to repeat history,

161um, one year could be $1,500 that it's going to cost them. Another year could be 30500." >> Yeah, you're exactly right. Let's just say it if it's I'm just making up numbers, but if it was $4,000 for the teacher to offer social studies in the summer, if there was one student that needs it, that are we charging $4,000 or if there's 10 students that need it, or if there's 20, like, we don't know that until we know it. Um, and it's very difficult. Mark, would you have another way to figure that out? >> Steve, did you We asked I didn't see this in your data and maybe I just missed it. We had the question of how many students that need it needed it because need is very flexible. need just if they failed at

162one time and but they have like six open blocks or six open periods and a block schedule because >> Christian's here to Yeah, Christian, you want to jump up here and try to help us with the schedule? >> How many of those kids who still need credits didn't have space in their schedules? >> You understand the question? >> I do. Um, so summer school you I'm assuming you understand what I mean when I say like the butterfly effect that happens there, right? So to your point, yes, there's openings in a senior schedule. So that's where they would essentially back up. There's not openings in freshman, sophomore, um, little bit in junior schedule, but not a ton. Summer school historically is core content. So, if it's an elective class, you don't take that in summer school.

163Um, there's a maximum number of credits historically that would have been transferred to the following year, too. So, if a student had failed all four core subjects, they couldn't take all four and get all four. Um, because let's be honest, credit recovery is not the same thing as being in a room with a teacher. It's it's just not. So, um, yes, there's room. It affects senior year the most. That's the answer to the question. >> What? So yeah, I'm just asking for maybe your your opinion and your professional position what I stated is that does it feel ethical or moral or does it or is by position do you feel like well you don't really understand the situation and it's a lot easier from the outside like I does that make sense looking for your

164opinion. >> Do you want to know the morality of summer school? Well, as to offering it, I mean, you talked about a butterfly effect. I could see where, hey, if if there's a senior who is now in a classroom now, I can I guess ELA is the POS is the subject that is most aligned maybe to like there's a nth grade ELA, whereas science and social studies and there's a flexibility of grades that are in those classes. I could see a senior sitting in a class with freshmen >> and that not being conducive to learning. I what what we would do is we would use the schedule to our benefit. So you you almost have to take seniors out of the high school summer school analogy. Um there's a finality to the senior year that

165is different than every other year. Um there are ways to assist students who come across the need to get extra credits or whether that be because of something that happened in life or they just made a lot of mistakes when they were a freshman or whatever it is, you can you can figure that stuff out. Um, but you can use their schedule to kind of explain it. So, if a kid takes American Society that they need as a senior and they would fail it in the first semester, um, everybody over there knows my take on that is they take it again in the spring semester and I don't really care what it does to their schedule because you need it to graduate. There's a finality to that piece that can be used in lower grades.

166um the things that it would affect negatively like if you're looking at the pros and cons aspect of it is obviously the core subjects are going to be ahead of an elective credit. So what ends up happening and the part that gets to to get starts to spiral a little bit if you're not careful is that okay so Johnny fails ELA the first semester. So, do we decide to put him into ELA the second semester or do we decide to put him into ELA the fall of his sophomore year? If we put him into the spring semester, that means we got to pull a class out of there, which is going to be an elective. So, the classes that historically are more of the why someone would come are affected. The other piece it does

167is it really starts to mess with the course numbers in there. So if a teacher knows they're going to have 27 kids in that class, we just dump a 28th in there, they already didn't have a ton of success. So those are kind of the cons to in the year piece. The cons to the following year piece would be you have to your point someone who would be a year older now in a class with a class that would historically be maybe freshman. So really what it comes down to is um do we have the systems in place at the high school to intervene appropriately and catch that stuff? Because part of the summer school conversation is is you're not talking about 100 kids. You're not talking about 200 kids. You're not talking about a

168thousand kids. The numbers are small. It's as far to that line is my opinion as I want to go in a public meeting. The other the other part of this to make it I don't know even easier or more complicated is >> they can go they can do summer school but not with us. Now we we've now learned that Lincoln Edge which we talked about a little earlier >> is offering summer school to any of our students that want to go there for the whatever they they can they have to pay obviously they pay what Lincoln Edge wants and we could use Lincoln Edge as our summer school option. There are other that that being said, there are other school districts that offer summer school. We have sent them or not sent them, but we've

169allowed them to go there as well. They get they pay, parents pay, and then they let us know that they completed it. That's an option as well. Um it's just different than what we've done here. >> Pay for it. Lincoln Edge >> there is and I don't did they tell we just got information about it. I don't >> It's through the LU. >> Yeah. What's Did they say how much it was? >> No, they've had that program historically. It's usually I I mean I can get the exact number. I don't want you to guess. >> I was going to say it's usually $100 to $200 somewhere in that range. >> If we don't have enough kids in a class to be able to have a teacher to be even or positive, then we reroute it

170over there. If we have enough students in a class that we're not going to be losing money out of the equation, then we offer it. We find a balance because the idea of teaching kids to go outside of Spring Grove for anything is something we've all talked about not wanting to do. So, we hybrid the two situations. If we can have a fixed price on a class um that we figure out what that is and we're even or positive for that class, then we offer it. And if we can't, then we ship it over until we can get that part figured out. >> That makes again that makes perfect sense. The problem with it is we're not going to know how many kids until >> the last couple days of school. And it's very like

171we're either going to have be ready to go with summer school or we're not going to be ready like that. It's it's it's a little tricky. >> I I think if we're offering it, I'm okay to say yes, we're going to offer it. We need to figure out that relationship with the other school because they're not going to know either how many people they're going to have until the last couple. >> Right. But Lincoln Edge is offering they're they're they're doing it regardless. They're they're ready to take. Yeah, they're good. Yeah, they're good. >> It's we can do whatever. Yeah. And >> I had a question. Christian, could you talk a little bit about how the block scheduling helps with the by eliminating the online help? I know >> because then they could take AP

172classes. >> Yeah. No, it does. There's two pieces to it. So, um the old schedule basically what happened was if you wanted to start taking u full credit electives. So, think of your world language classes or some of your advanced AP classes. Because the numbers aren't huge, there's limited sections available for them. So, it basically takes the the amount of options you have and it funnels it down tremendously. And health being a half credit class, it just didn't fit into that kid's schedule well. So, to get that class in it, they had to like drop a full credit, which didn't make any sense. uh students who were in music, it was a train wreck trying to get somebody into ensembles and trying to get them um you know additional time to work on music and

173then fit a half credit in and take advanced level classes. You forget about it. That's why summer health started. Now what happens is with the block schedule um you know music is a set time and we can pair health with another class that a student's going to take. So, for instance, driver's ed is a very popular class that people take their sophomore, junior year. Driver's ed and health is a natural pair. We can put that on a course selection sheet and now instead of messing up an entire block or them having to drop something, it fits into one solid block together. So it allows basically uh it helps the student schedule but then on the teacher side what it does is where if let's say I was the health teacher I might have to teach

174health for part of a period and then I might get have to deal with study halls or whatever else. Pairing them allows us to basically say here's 25 kids taking driver's ed here's 25 kids taking health and then halfway through the block they switch. So that teacher actually gets twice as gets a chance to work with twice as many kids in one block. It helps their schedule out on the other end, too. >> Yeah, >> I'm gonna piggy back on that because I've had multiple parents reach out to me and for them, they've largely reached out because they're worried about their senior year with a bunch of AP classmates >> um who aren't interested in taking extra fizzed. Many of them would skip fizzed if they had the opportunity. So is this going to hurt

175like is this also going to solve that problem where they don't have a second half period class to partner that with because they don't need they don't want to take the >> So yeah like one of the adjustments we're making from this year to next year uh I talked to a few parents who know me from older kids they call in and I explained to them this way that um we had a lot of half credit courses that fall randomly throughout the day so it actually messes up two blocks. So, when we look at the popularity of certain courses and we start to pair them together, like putting two gyms into one block, it eliminates some of those problems and actually opens more time up for whatever classes they want to take when they get

176older. >> So, you can take a double gym junior year, >> then you don't need to take a gym your senior year. >> Yep. >> Mr. White, I I think we we're really off track here. uh we're we're having all these conversations about what if, asking this question, asking that question. Whereas at the end of the written presentation, it talks about planning considerations and next steps for summer 2026 and it lists six different things that we're going to that the board asked for. Budget impact review, second program offering, the third block scheduling analysis, the third student failure data, the third is enrollment and graduation impact. And the six is reporting timeline. We don't even have this information. So why are we asking all these questions and discussing it until we get a full report of

177what the administration thinks they want to do? >> Well, that's a great question, Doug, but we're allowing questions and as I said earlier, it's going to be a little bit of a long meeting with presentation. So >> better discussion if we had we would wait and get the information. I think >> Okay. >> Are you suggesting to just kick this to the next DSF next month? I >> I think so. Otherwise, we're just speculating. >> Very good. Does anyone else have any questions? We'll continue on. >> Thank you. Does this go to the DSF in March? Just >> Yes. >> Okay. Okay. Eric still up. Oh, let's see who's next. >> Mrs. L or Dr. Ludwig. >> All right. Sound good. Moving on. John >> and then Swing. And then the my final things, we

178have uh four trips, four major trips. Um all are trips that we've done historically. They're um we've done them in the past. Um the information for each of them is there. I can answer any questions if you have any. >> We're good. >> Thank you. You ready? Continue on business and finance committee. We have budget and finance. But before we do that, because we do have a guest here, I'm asking if we could move be up. Uh since we have Jesse here from uh Lobar and he could do his presentation real quick or whatever he needs to do. >> No, don't think. Oh, he's not. >> I'm sorry. I thought he was coming. No. >> Okay, then we'll stay on uh course then. So, budget finance, we have a general fund presentation. Jessica? >> Yes.

179Um and much like the curriculum, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Zap for the rest of this section. >> Thank you, Mr. So, I'll get started here. It's a slideshow. as um people are finding uh their seats. If you think back from September and as we were looking at our budget timeline, we started this uh budget process with adopting that timeline. um finalizing the 2425 um audit, working with the building site administrators, all the departmental leaders over um the November, December, January timeline. And we now have uh for you tonight our first look at our um 2627 budget. So tonight's agenda uh we're going to start by reviewing those budget uh parameters. basically the structure of our expenditures and our revenues. Um dovetail right into um our preliminary budget. Uh we'll first take

180a look at our um where we're going where we feel we're going to end uh this year at uh and then that'll uh give us the starting numbers for the 2627 and uh and talk a little bit more about that budget. Uh continue talking about uh military rates and then finally our next steps. So um as we talk about um our um um parameters and basically the structure of our budget, we start with our expenditure side. So we all you've probably have heard me um many years here talking about as we as we start on the ex on the expense side. We start by maintaining our current instructional and as well as all of our service programs. So that's our basis kind of thinking like a a big circle here and then we start moving

181in. So um first things that we start uh looking at is next is our salary and benefits. Um uh that's uh our our primary expense expenditures. Uh we know that we have a u collective bargaining agreement with our uh with our professional staff at a 3 3.2% uh increase in salaries. Uh Pasers rate uh that has been certified at 33.59%. This year it's currently at 34. So a slight reduction. And then we talked about health care of that if you remember from the January um uh discussion we were talking about that 11 to 15% um over the past number of weeks uh the business office has has we've been in discussions with Lincoln benefit trust and we've uh certified that rate at 11%. Uh again in January we talked a little bit about contracted services

182with the LIU at 15.6% increase. We know that um uh our York Learning Center at 48.7% uh good news transportation contract as you see there at zero and our level debt service at $5.1 million. All that u um that would give us our our uh I'm going to go back to uh the fourth bullet there, the charter school enrollments and tuition rates. As Dr. Dietrich mentioned um our expenses for next year for that 26 27 would then determine our charter school enrollments and tuition rates which we know will go up based on this budget. So um just a little bit about that. So if you look at um the first couple of budgets as I mentioned in January that brings us to approximately a $2.2 million increase just starting the structure of the expenditure budget.

183So moving on uh other side basically of the road the revenue side we know that in um in that September time frame October time frame the state released their act one index for the state it was 3 and a.5% spring group our enhanced index was at 4.7% and we adopted a resolution not to uh not to exceed that 4.7%. Um I talked a little bit about uh we are seeing some slight growth in our assessments uh little bit less than 1% in our assessed values. Uh and we know that um uh as we build this budget, we're going to be looking at uh basic and special education um you know as far as our our our funding from the state. Um keeping that as the same level as what we're currently got uh depending on

184how u the governor budgets was going to be presented. And we also know that uh on the federal side we weren't going to see any increase. So we take that millage rate as we talked about. Uh currently we're at a 25.407 uh71 mil. If we went up to that 4.7% that would give us an increase of 1.1941. Adding that to the 25 4071 could give us a potential millage rate of 26.5958. Uh that would yield us approximately a $2 million $2.2 a $2 million increase in our revenues. So, uh when you think about that, uh uh parameter, that structure for the revenues, that could be our highest uh uh mill rate and that the highest amount of revenue we would see if we went to a full tax increase. So, um going back to that,

185um November time frame as we were looking at uh uh finalizing and uh the board uh approved the um um our our audit, we know what our starting fund balance was then for this year. So, that $4.6 uh million was our uh our starting fund balance on the unassigned uh point. On the right there, you see our assigned fund balance totaling at $7.5 million. And I I just want to make u note that we have an unassigned fund balance of 4.6, a signed fund balance of 7.5. Not included in these numbers and not for discussion tonight is we have our capital reserve as you see on our treasures report at $1.5 million. We also have a bond fund of $7.9 million. So that is in addition to this. We talked about some of the the

186uh projects that we have going on um and other capital projects that Mr. Styles is going to be talking about in the very near future. So we have one.5 millions in our capital reserve and we have a $7.9 million for all those other potential projects not being discussed tonight. We're just talking about the unassigned in the assigned fund balance. Um so if you um as as um Mr. Celeppo and I were we as we look at this year and where we're trending and what we're looking at possibly ending this year as we talked about in our budget and finance committee meeting um we're right now anticipating that our revenues are at 87.6 million our expenses at 86 uh approximately $86 million. Um expenses coming in um a lot lower than budgeted. Revenues coming in at

187a slight uh higher than what uh budgeted approximately 350 uh 350,000 higher in revenue. The expenses are taking um um the the higher than what's budgeted due to what we've talked about in our budget and finance committee meeting that PTE 363 the charter school the un the cost avoidance of those charter schools. So approximately $7 to $800,000 of that surplus there, that $1.5 million surplus. The large portion of that is the cost avoidance of our charter schools as well as some of the staffing um like staffing positions that we have not currently filled here as of this year. So um we're ending uh the year with a uh we're anticipating a a strong fund balance ending assigned fund balance of $6.3 million. So what that does is that gives us then our starting point now

188as we're u as we talked about that structure of the revenues the expenses we now have our our starting point for uh for the 2627 of $6.3 million. So, our first look at our draft budget for 2627. Um, beginning fund balance of $6.3 million. We take in all of our revenue sources. Um, talked about the state, the BEF, SEF, as well as our our current tax base at our assessed values. Um, looking at um revenues of $87.9 million expenses. Um, as you as you saw there, that $2.2 $2 million increase uh working with all of our site and and departmental leaders at $91.3 million having a deficit of $3.3 million. Now, that's the difference between those revenues and expenses. So, having a a a deficit of $3.3 million. Um still ending with a a fund

189balance there of $2.9 million. Uh before I go any further, I just want to point out that in the seven years that I've been presenting um uh budgets, this is the first year that we actually have an ending fund balance that's positive. So over the past number of years, um I want to say that in 22 we had a $4.5 million negative, 23 3.3, and then last year 900. So, uh, some strong, uh, a stronger look now than we've had over the past number of years as far as that ending fund and balance as far as the first draft of our of our budget. So, uh, some some good news there. Some things I want to point out. So, um, a little bit better news. If we take There we go. If we take what

190um uh Miss Leo and I heard from the governor last week and we take what's proposed as far as our basic ed funding there, that top number, the 74,000 special ed funding, um our ready tolearn foundation grant, we're looking at um a a some you know uh a large what I want to say increase there in our state subsidy. We have not included that in this year's budget yet. Um we did a little bit last year as we got closer to the end of the year. We had some better news from the state as well as our our our um um Pasbo Foundation and um we we felt a lot comfortable in adding some of those numbers. Right now we have not included that in that first draft that you saw there. The other thing

191I want to include and talk about is the sale of a fixed asset. So currently um the YMCA project is slated for completion in that May time frame. Depending on when occupancy comes, we're looking at around that May time frame. Um Mr. Styles and I will be working with the administration at the uh at the administration at the ESC building. Um and we'll be looking on a move then over to that YMCA uh to the to our part of that building. So in the next couple of months after that we would be doing a sale to the historical society. I put down a half million million dollars. I know it's a little bit more than that but till the till we end that the day I I felt comfortable with a half million dollars. We

192know that um my best guess would be that it would be sold to the historical society in a few months within the year within that 26 27 calendar year. My recommendation would be instead of putting that 500,000 into capital reserve, which I just went over the one and a half million and the 7.9, I would say that that would just go into the general fund and then that would thus reduce our it wouldn't come in it would come in as a um as a revenue. So, it would be something that we would want to talk at our budget and finance committee meeting next uh in the next couple of weeks and make sure that that uh asset would be something that we would be comfortable with as a district to putting on the books uh

193under revenues. So, if you put all those together, we would possibly looking at an additional $1.1 million in revenue. So, um, putting that $1.1 million here. So, still having the same, uh, beginning fund balance of $6.3 million, our revenues now increased by that $1.1 million. So, looking at revenues of, um, $89.1 million, still having the same uh, number there for expenses uh, at 91. So now having a deficit of 1.1 million lower than what we currently have and again having a uh what I would call a stronger fund balance than we've shown over the past number of years of a uh ending assigned fund balance of 4 point um as you can see there slightly over $4 million. Still having our assigned fund balance there is $7.5 million. So I'm going to stop there before

194I get into the last couple of slides as far as our next steps and make see if there's any questions on anything that I I presented. Oh, an asset for 500 grand. What's the reason you don't just eliminate that in debt somewhere? Help not make the budget go up? If you're going to sell your the building for $500,000, why why not just get rid of $500,000 of debt instead of throwing it into the budget? You think we're going to >> Yeah. the one that says tax increases >> better spot instead of spending or asking for 500 more out of the taxpayers. >> No, I I don't think you maybe not heard me correctly or maybe I'm not understanding you. We we wouldn't we wouldn't show that we would show that as revenue on under a

195sale of a fixed asset and not that wouldn't be a um that wouldn't be an additional increase to our taxpayers. It would show as a positive. >> Yeah. Are you asking why we wouldn't pay down debt pay instead of throwing it into the general fund? >> Yeah, like long-term debt. >> You could, but right now you're showing that we're in a deficit, which means you would have to counter that by raising taxes, which would be about 1%. >> Good. Okay. Are you clear, Mike? >> Yeah. >> So, that 500,000, could you put that our our CAM cost to the YMCA would be a monthly charge. Um I it would be something that we would it would be something that we would budget. I don't think that um that would be a good recommendation to put

196that to dump that total $500,000 into one lump sum of a CAM cost. Um, right now our camera cost would be um I forget how many thousand square feet it would be at. Um, it would be something that we could talk about. Um, >> I >> Well, we would have that with our um ready with our capital reserve and our bond fund. Again, I think I think our facilities the the reason why I'm recommending that because I feel that our facilities are in decent shape. Um there's there's um as far as the if we look at the possible road behind the high school and um and the maintenance facility that we're looking at, even if we hit that $4 million, even if we hit that $4 million mark, we still have approximately $3.9 million in

197a bond fund plus a $1.5 million capital reserve. Um based on what U. Mr. Styles and I have put together as far as that capital reserve list um we are good for at least the next 5 to seven years. So to me it makes sense to um reduce uh the possibility of a tax increase next year. >> Our YMCA is are going to be substantially less. Our costs at the YMCA are substantially less than what they are at the ESC. >> I I feel absolutely that if you take a look at some of the days like we've had with the wind and the windows and our heating system and HVAC. Yes. >> And in this budget, we have it budgeted for us to be at the ESC, not at the YMCA or we have it

198budgeted to be split. Um, >> right now we have Right now, yeah, I want to make sure right now we have it bu budgeted at the ESC. We have not reduced anything as far as like for example the insurance on the ESC, the elevator, the simplex for other systems. sooner we get into the YMCA, the sooner we will be overbudgeted for what it's going to cost. Correct. Correction. >> Uh, Mr. Leo and I, we didn't we didn't feel comfortable yet eliminating all of those budget numbers out of the ESC just based on the the the um the the when we were going to move, when it was going to be the sale. There's other um in the weeds things. We didn't feel comfortable removing all of them yet, but yes. And then some of the

199stuff, and this goes back to the calculator conversation we had about coming out in the first DSF in March. Um, this does not include any revenues because I think historically we run 1.7 to$2.3 million on the on the maintenance side of it. that's not pulling anything out of that budget either that we could pull out and use the money that is allocated um in the other bucket of money that's at $7.9 million. So, have we looked at the projects and the stuff that we have in this budget and asked ourselves what can we pull out of the the maintenance money? >> Yes. So, we have some of them. For example, Mr. Ank is going to be talking about anate program. Um I know we that that was that cabling and we talked to Mr. Styles

200about any other possible uh projects that we can pull out through that or the PCCD grant. So we have done that. >> So this already has us pulling money for some of those projects correct out of that 7.9. >> Correct. >> How much of how much you >> I don't know um Mr. ank uh with that cabling project >> that that's going to be somewhere in $40,000 um that the -ate fund does not reimburse us for. >> Okay. >> Have that for the first DSF. We're going to when we do the calculator stuff. >> So, any other questions on um on this draft of the um of the budget? Again, more discussion in our budget and finance committee meeting on this. Yes. So, can you go back a couple slides, please, to the um keep

201going that one surplus of 1559603? >> Correct. If >> we had not raised taxes, we would have had the most balanced budget we've had in a really, really, really long time because we collected approximately a,584,000 in revenue. So that would have been the closest we ever would have been to a completely balanced budget if we had not raised taxes. You're smiling. >> Thank you, Mr. Ramsey. >> Any other questions? >> I just to add to that because I think that would be great, but there were a number of things that were in our budget that we did not end up doing that if we would have ended up doing those, we would be have running another deficit. >> Correct. And at the time >> at the time when we like we are right now, we

202have the governor's proposed budget. we're sitting here that that proposed budget wasn't approved until November and we didn't we didn't find out until November that there was such a a cost avoidance for that charter school. So, we're sitting here again with uh we're not quite sure what to tell you as far as for the state's budget, but um >> and and I say that every year. It's not fair to us. This process is designed for it to not be able to work. We have to effectively play the lottery to some level and it's not fair. um because we don't know what they're going to give us. We don't know what we're going to get. Um and when we get back into this conversation whenever it happens next year, I'm going to raise my hand and

203say that again because it gets contentious sometimes and there's nine different people that have nine different views on what we should do. But there is no clear path and there is no right way because there's too many variables in that math problem. I would suggest we move on given time and energy of the people in the room so we can take this back up at budget and finance right at the risk of us being here till midnight. >> Okay, I'll continue moving on but uh as I mentioned uh still um uh really strong for the the position that we're in currently right now. Um my next steps are um again continue this millage rate discussion as uh Mrs. Wilson mentioned, we're going to uh continue to move forward at our budget and finance committee meeting.

204Um Mr. Leppo and I will continue to uh uh investigate the state funding, what that means to us, any possible um um um you know uh new information that we can bring back uh as well as cons still cons uh still taking a look at our current financial review and considering that impact on next year's budget as we talked about there. um a a $ 1.5 million uh surplus. Um we'll continue to look at that and and and make sure that u as we're looking at that for next year that we hone that number in as close as possible. And then our last step then is to schedule our next um uh budget and finance committee meeting with Mrs. Watersf which we'll be putting out here very soon. Any final questions before I leave? Okay.

205Thank you. continue. >> Yeah. >> So, um you do have in front of you and as uh you have read u the LIU uh proposed general operating budget. So, um every year we we talk about this that the U LU has two budgets. um one that um is their general operating budget and then there's a piece of that that school districts by law need to approve. Um their general operating budget is is going up by 3.4%. The piece of the budget that we have to approve at by law by school districts is actually has been eliminated. So in their budget, so that line item now is zero. Uh they're showing a 0% tax increase. That is a uh a savings to the district of approximately $5,000. Um but uh it is a piece that we

206still have to approve. Even though it's a 0% increase by law, we still have to approve that uh that budget. So we're asking for your recommendation to continue to move that forward. Now that doesn't mean though u as far as our cost to the liu that $5,000 we will be eliminated. Um any additional services that through like Dr. Ledwick's office that we'll be requesting from the LIU will be at their rate. So there still be a charge with the LIU. I just wanted to make sure that was clear. I know everybody's tired, wanted to hear me correctly that I didn't say no ex no increase to the LIU um no increase to the to the operating budget that we um um that we supported. So any questions on that? >> Keep going. >> Okay. Uh

207what's next? Um so u as I mentioned um Chris ank has a a memorandum as well as a proposal there put together for you um for uh for some - uh uh uh -ate program through the district. It's a recallabling of uh Springer ele. Um if there's any questions I'm sure that you uh read that memo. Uh if there's any questions specifically that Chris can answer on the program or on the uh cabling or if there's anything I can answer, we're here for you. >> Okay. Um continue moving forward, we have a another memorandum um um this this time from Dr. Lewick. Uh as you me as you know um uh um Mr. Layman has has u left the district uh a few days ago and uh we're still in the search for his replacement.

208U in the meantime we have uh reached out to the PA's principles association as you see there in the in the memo. Um there's a um a rationale to uh what we're um asking for the individual as well as the agreement with PA's principles association cost association. Um all that is mentioned uh into the memorandum as well as the agreement with the PA principles association. Is there anything that um uh that Dr. Ludwick can answer for you at this time on the um on them on the um proposal. Okay. And then last um as Mr. Ramsey mentioned a little bit earlier uh uh we are applying for a uh school facility grant. Uh part of that is a resolution um uh that the board needs to adopt. Um just basically uh granting uh myself um

209you know authority to be able to sign any documents if we do receive that uh that grant. But this is the last step in the process is to get a resolution passed from the school board so that we can continue to move forward to uh finish out and apply for that grant. >> Is that for is that uh the five half a million dollars? >> Yeah. Yeah. It's uh from it was uh brought by Kristen Phillips. So school facility grants half million dollar would be the minimum. So um again as I mentioned I think in the buildings and grounds um I put on for the latest proposal that we had at um slightly over 5 million five and a half 500,000. It's getting late. 500,000 >> it was um up to 50% of the project

210too. >> Correct. Yeah. >> Okay. You say minimum is 500,000, >> but there's a 5050 match is what you asked, right? >> Right. Spend $500,000 total on the road. >> That's what I was getting ready to say. >> Correct. Um, we would only we would only receive half of that. So, it's it's up to%. >> Right. If the project's $500,000, we get a quarter. We get 250. >> Okay. >> Yeah. We're not It's not requiring us to spend half a million dollars. >> Correct. >> Yeah. Sorry if I said that wrong. >> So you Yeah. What are you applying for? >> I'm buying for that full amount of 500,000. >> Okay. >> Because based on the based on the the current um the current design as well as the current engineering uh scope of service,

211that's the best that I can go offer right now. If we don't need the full amount, it'll just be returned. >> Yeah. Yeah. We won't we won't make money on it or we won't have to spend it and say, "Hey, we need a $1 million road." But >> Yes. our chances of getting it. >> It's a competitive grant. Um I >> I don't know because competitive grants I don't know what other districts out there have you know uh school facility. It I mean it's a long application. I want to say 30 plus pages of of you know and and lots of as I've been using Steve's creative writing skills on you know on u on filling out. So, you know, you never know what who's going to take the time to fill it out. Some

212schools have grant writers. We don't. Um um but um and really depends on what you know. So, I I don't I don't want to guess what our chances are, but I'm hoping they're higher than >> you know, we're talking about doing this road based on the grant. What happens if we don't get the grant? >> We're not going to start the project of the road or looking into it until we get the answer on the grant. >> Okay. Yep. >> Mark, real quick, can you list on that grant the three uh problems we had this year? >> That's how I started the narrative. >> Yes. >> So, tell the board real quick of the three items of why it's necessary we need this road. >> So, one of the um Thanks, Mr. White. Uh uh

213the the way I started the grant was um one of the issues that we we we've talked about this road for numer numerous years. But one of the things that really hit hard this year were were three items. uh one was the um the officer's uh death in September uh where we saw a tremendous backlog of parents as well as students and buses and uh even though the situation um we controlled it very well but um it would have been just like the next um issue of the gas line and then having the mulch fire having three different scenarios there where we could have used a secondary access to be able to get um students out u in case something did happen like for example that gas line if that gas line would have been

214a few feet closer to the high school things would have been different. Um EMA U coordinators that were there on site had us evacuate um the Springer Elementary. We were close to evacuating other sites but we that was the closest if it would have been just like I said a few feet closer to the high school we would have been evacuating the high school possibly closing that road down. it would have made sense to have a rear access road to get all those kids out of there, all that staff out of there. So, it's just something that um has come up numerous times and three times this year. So, thanks, Mr. White. >> All right, moving on. Uh buildings and grounds. Ben, I think we covered most of this already, but Mr. Styles wants to

215get into the stuff that we didn't. Please, sir. And Mr. Zap, we can add a fourth thing to that list. We had a uh delivery truck that was jammed up in the rear parking lot of the high school last Friday afternoon. It needed assistance getting out right before dismissal. Um everybody has the report review in front of them. Nothing has changed since last Monday's um buildings and grounds on the access road. uh the walk-in cooler and freezer storage. We have uh the next item we're gonna have discuss the option. We have more information on that maintenance facility. Shaw Engineering was granted authorization to uh do the stakeout. Um, no no update on the uh rear access road since your approval and the YMCA project uh utilities were marked out last Wednesday and the school district

216and the YMCA are presently working with First Capital to obtain CAD drawings and uh start the RFI pro uh process um with the site work. Is there any questions on the review? Okay, moving forward on the next item. Um, the during the process of the final uh layout for the engineer for the walk-in coolers, it was determined he had concerns on the space between the uh actually cool cer boxes and the and the existing retaining wall. Um, I think you have some renderings of what it would look like with without anything. Um and you have a rendering with the panels that are similar to what is above um skirted on the high school gym and the auditorium. So we have three options to consider. Um one would be do nothing and then we wouldn't need

217to do anything for uh the next voting meeting. Uh, another option would be the skirting uh, which we called the rain guard wall on the north side and that cost was $14,5121. And then the option that they put together based on the um, buildings and grounds committee meeting last week was the sealant um, installing a termination bar um, counter flashing and applying sealant. And the cost came back at $2,950 for that. just a little less than 3,000. So, just looking for direction for um the the next voting meeting. Um do we do nothing and ride it out and and see how that goes with the retaining wall and monitor it? Uh we we do we put the the skirting on the same as as the high school um auditorium and gym for 14,05 or we

218just do the flashing and sealant for just three $3,000. No matter what, it's going to come out of the allocated money for building projects. Correct. >> From the bond fund. Yes. >> All right. Thank you, Bill. In fact, you might as well just stay there. >> He's looking for direction. >> Yeah. We need We need >> My my little vote is the flashing because that it solves the problem and it's the cheapest option. It's like so far out of the way, right? I mean, it's on the far the only people who really going to see this are like your your staff. those will be the only people that see it. And we also determined the components will not be affected by it because the components that run the cooler are internal to the unit. Um,

219so it's a visual component of being able to see it. Um, if we've eliminated that component, um, I agree. I'm okay with the flashing, but I'm one of nine people. Is there anything that's going to be different between now and the next meeting? um or are you asking because we're going to try to continue to move forward with it? >> We we uh Suzanne, we just need guidance of how we want to um put on the agenda for the action item. >> So, is there anybody that disagrees with putting it on for the 2900 and some odd change option? There you go. >> Thank you. >> All right. All right. Well, you might as well just stay there. So, moving on, we have uh policy Rodney while Bill's standing there. He could answer the question.

220Yeah, you might as well go ahead. >> This the wrestling mat donation. Is that what we're on? >> Yep. >> So, you does everybody have a copy of what that looks like? Any >> any questions? Uh the project title was the Springrove area high school following officer uh tribute mat. Um it was um donated by um alumni. The cost is it has not been ordered yet. We're looking for approval tonight. >> Uh what's the reason for the >> Well, I I I had to Yep. I had to learn myself on that today myself, Mr. Ritz. The green stands for milit military and border patrol. Orange is search and rescue. The gray is for correctional officers. Yellow is for dispatchers and 911 centers. Blue is for police, law enforcement. Red firefighters, and white is EMS, paramedic,

221paramedics, and nurses. And it has our Springrove logo on it. And the CMBB 349 is U Officer Cody Becker's initials and um badge number. Great. >> How do we send a thank you? >> Wonderful. >> So, Bill can move ahead with that. We don't have to wait two weeks before we move ahead. Give that bill. You can move ahead. >> Move forward. >> Okay. And so, we can move forward. Uh, next thing is personnel Nicole. So, you have a memo in front of you that is um to present a comparison between adding a six-hour substitute pos coordinator position or a contracting substitute coordination service um to the HR department and Springrove. Um in the memo outlines the two courses of action um and some other information about pros and cons. um just a little bit

222and I'll try to be brief information that kind of led us to this uh these two courses of action. Um currently we're at about an average fill rate of 66% per month. Um which means that about a third of our absences are unfilled every day um for our teacher and uh classified staff that support those teachers. Um, so with that, we have one substitute coordinator that dedicates about three to four extra hours a day on top of her um, part-time job as an ABS attendant secretary. And then we have our HR generalist that also dedicates about that much time per day aside from her regular duties on managing substitutes. Um the Sarah Thompson is the attendance secretary. She gets up in the morning, starts about 5:35, 5:45, works until about 7. At that time, she

223does her attendance secretary job and then Tracy takes over. We still all communicate together. And then about 1:00 now, Sarah again takes over that role of coordinating substitutes. It's a lot of manual entry, a lot of manual updates um to all of the systems, coordination with all the principles, all of the staff to make sure we're trying to fill all those vacancies. Um Sarah sometimes spends time as late as 9:00 at night working on the next day's vacancies and Tracy and I communicate with her as well to try and fill those vacancies for the next day. Um, in addition to that, um, Tracy does all of the onboarding for all of our substitutes, classified and professional staff. And that takes her about 2 to three hours per day from start to finish for each substitute

224that we on board. Um, and then after that point, they'll come in for for some sort of onboarding or orientation training with Tracy, and then Sarah will take over after that on the coordination and substitute fill stuff. It leaves little time for actual training for our substitutes. Um, and it is not inconsistent. Everybody appreciates Sarah and Tracy. They work very hard at what they do, but it's a little inconsistent when it is one person starting in the morning, someone else taking over during the day, and then another person finishing off at night. Um, so that's kind of what led us to the courses of action that we're presenting to you guys. Either a six-hour substitute coordinator position or that uh substitute contracting service, right? And you'll see a little bit about the pros and cons

225of each on that second page of the memo. Um it talks about responsibilities for that substitute coordinator. Keeping in mind that despite that coordinator being a six-hour position, there is still going to be requirements from Tracy and myself to support that substitute coordinator with all of the needs of the substitutes and all of the needs of the coordinator to work to fill those positions. Um, the good thing about it is yes, it's a Springrove employee that is working with all of these substitutes and we know that is very important to the staff. Um, we also know that it helps build those stronger relationships with substitutes. Um, the cons again go back to that limited ability to support substitute staff um with the extra things that they need, the training that the substitutes require, the um

226extra care with onboarding, the clearances, the the other training that they have to do before they can even on board with the school. um assigned work hours. So part of the issue we face is with um getting past that 60 68% fill rate. Right now we're look we're generally at about average of 22 teacher vacancies per day and we're at about 21 active teachers that are taking more or substitutes that are taking more than one role throughout the year. So, it does make it a little more difficult to fill all of those vacancies through the active recruiting that we're doing and the onboarding that we're doing. Um, with a contracted service, we would still work tirelessly to maintain that Springrove uh feel for the subs, whether it's meeting them at the schools, making sure they

227have all the tools and resources they need to be successful when they get to that school. Um, but I think that as far as recruiting subs, I think they have a bigger pool, a bigger area, more experience to and more people to actively recruit those substitutes throughout the the county to work at Springrove. Um, they also have a bigger pool of representatives to help support Springrove and the substitutes when it comes to onboarding filling vacancies and working with us to try to increase that 68% fill rate to uh 70 or 75% fill rate. So, um, any questions you guys have, I can try to address them. Uh yeah, I appreciate all the pros and cons and everything. I heard the presentation before. Uh very nice. I guess two questions. Are you going to give us

228the bottom yearly costs for each option, the two option? And are you going to make a recommendation as to which ones you think would work best for human resources? >> Yeah. So, um, what we did was we looked at the those average number of vacancies per year for those teachers and we looked at, uh, 75% fill rate. Um, and Jen was great with doing some math on what that costs the district on average per year. Um, so that cost, not to include paying a substitute to come in every day, not to include the extra training for substitutes, um, and all the other costs associated. It's about, um, let me get my glasses. Sorry. It's about, um, with the addition of the coordinator, it's about $530,000. $531,000. >> I think what he's what he's asking is

229the co the substitute coordinator. How much how much would the substitute coordinator cost if we're going to hire one or and versus versus versus versus the automated system. Correct? Yes. Yeah. >> So to be honest, whether hiring a substitute coordinator would look to be about 50,000 a year. That being said, you're always going to have the automated service unless you're talking about a contractor. Is that >> contractor? So what what would it cost us to pay a vendor to do the substitutes? >> So it would cost about 506,000 a year. >> No, no, no, no. You have you have an employee. Yes. >> You're saying that'd be about 50 60,000 a year to employ a six month or six hourly six-hour employee. >> How much would it be if we went to the contractor? >>

230I'll let I'll let Jen take that. >> Yeah. So, what hope was is combining is um she's combining the salary of the six-hour position along with the sub cost because when you that would be our total cost it would cost the district and Jen can explain a little bit better in detail and then if we would go to an outside contractor we would pay they would pay the same cost and then they would have a fee. So that those are the two fees that Hope just gave you. >> Go ahead, Jen. Yeah. So the the way the fee structure works for um a substitute calling consultant group is they take our sub rate which is $125 per day and they mark it up it's that simple 31 a.5%. So when hope was talking about that

231the calculation was based on a 75% fill rate. So let's say whether we hire a coordinator and have one person designated or whether we go with the an outside contractor um we are calculating these numbers on a 75% fill rate because ultimately the goal is to increase that rate that fill rate. So what the contractor does again it takes $125 a day. It took our it took our total teacher absences of um 2,929. We were working with the same numbers um the pair of professionals at 630 days and our instructional assistance because these are everyone inside our classroom that we need to fill to keep that classroom running effectively and not have a disruption. So we we took and we can pass this out or send it as backup for you to understand it clearly.

232We used the total number and it it was based on an average of several years of the number of days that we're trying to fill throughout the school year. Then we took a percentage of the 75% and we calculated the cost. So they were we it was a straight this is what the contractor does. It's a mark of a 31.5% this is what it would cost if we kept it in house. Um the biggest cost to the district by keeping it in house is we have to pay the subs um the pieers rate which is 34%. So if you look at it from that standpoint alone um their fee is less than what we pay for peasers. What I did in the calculation was include the amount we get back in the subsidy for the

233retirement. So I I reduced that down to about 17%. Because we do get, you know, reimbursed for um the retirement piece of it. So again, if you look at it from a cost perspective, and we just say allin and we can provide this breakout for you, it pretty much comes to close to a break even. The outside contractor again, all things that I just said would cost the district 56,853. it would cost the district to do the same job 530,000 um 917. So it it would be an additional cost of about $20,000 to keep it in house that with the personnel expense. >> So um if we outsource it, we're spending how many hours a day now doing it? >> Well, the coordinator position is six hours. But so that's what that that price was

234p based off the coordinator position was based off 6 hours >> plus the people that are currently doing it still >> exactly that time has not been calculated in the equation because we're still going to have the or boarding piece the train like all that's still going to fall in the district so there is still personnel time from both Tracy and hope that's not part of the calculation >> and I think what you're asking the amount of hours that we're taking away from other duties and responsibilities at HRs would be decreased because the outside contractor would be doing the recruiting and hiring, the onboarding, all the clearances, all the training um and they would be tracking all of that stuff in communication with us. So it would be a collaborative effort but yes the amount

235of time we would that is added to that six hours would be reduced. >> Okay. So, the six-hour position would be an increase to what we're currently doing now by how much? >> Um, I would say >> we're looking for a number of hours, right, Ben? >> Dollars per hour. What is the dollar amount that we're looking to add? >> Well, again, we had to calculate, we calculated the salary based on whatever the starting rate is for that classification. I can't recall. I don't >> for the the six-hour employee >> plus it benefits. Correct. Correct. >> So that is 4 47,778. Is that what you're looking for? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> So, um, so we're going to add $48,000 and continue to do it the way that we're doing it now with some adjustments

236because it's going to free up people's time. Um, and it cost $20,000 more than if we outsource it. And the overall advantage of keeping it in house is we have a consistent person that can build relationships which um a topic that has come up in years past that um effectively should be able to help get us a better rate if we have the right person doing it. um is where I feel like so I'm just trying to pull it all together and go it's an additional $48,000 that we didn't have planned for, but it would cost us $20,000 more to do it that way than it would to do it outsourced. That is the real pro and con. And then do you have a recommendation to follow up with what Mr. Stein said? Do you

237feel like we're better off adding the $48,000 position or changing what we're doing and outsourcing it? >> Hold on, Hope. uh before you answer that. So, quick question. Uh since I spend so much time at the ESC now, um and I'm just asking, you know, I see Suzanne, Kelly, Aaron, Adrian, all doing the front desk. So, could this individual do the front desk and her job? And we could basically I mean we we we have a superintendent secretary doing a front desk which is just terrible. And then we have you know other other ladies doing it that have jobs there. So I I'm just not comprehending but we have other subs that work in there but don't fill in. So, can we make sense of adding that position be and and moving on, you know,

238where she can do that job and and uh the sub's job. So, I can't speak on the front desk piece, but what I can say is with the six-hour position, that's all substitute work. And I can't say what gets done at the front desk um during the day because I'm not down there. But the young lady that's doing the job now, Sarah, um she does that before she even gets to work in the morning. She does one and a half hours of work. And then when she's off at 12:30, she gets home and does another 1 and a half to two hours work. And then she's working at night. So the work that she's doing is not during her regular duty day, if that makes sense. Um the additional work that Tracy does with all

239of the onboarding stuff, she is doing also in addition to all of the things that she is doing. So, um, the small part of if we did a six-hour position, there may be a small part where they are at the ESC. Could they sit down at the front desk? Most definitely. I mean, they could, but that's a small portion of the time that they spend coordinating with subs because the bulk of it is in the morning and in the afternoon. >> Yeah. If I mean, I I feel like it's 10:15 at night. We are all exhausted at this point, including you. Um I don't think we have respectfully what we need um to make any decisions moving forward at this point. Um so we need I would love to see that paper that um you

240had in front of you. Um, so if if we could get at the differences of cost um hope and I from what I'm hearing you say hope it seemed to me that you were thinking leaning towards the um not the the the actual six-hour person if I was hearing you correctly because there was some pros in terms of of educating etc. um those types of things. So give us the pricing and then give us your recommendation and the wise um and then we can pick it back up. I feel like right >> well I feel if we're very soon going to have budget and finance meeting or conversations I that presentation said $5.3 million projected expense increase. And so I know that this is a very it can be very beneficial, but I kind of

241want to have that conversation amongst everything else because if I if I'm improving this position and then that means that we need to cut something else somewhere along the line, I have an issue there too. So feel like I want to have more information, kick it down the road, come back together. Can >> I just clarify? Hang on numbers. You said we average 22 subs per day. So we average about 22 teacher vacancies per um of our active subs about 21 of them teacher subs are what we regularly get to fill our teacher positions. >> I want you to spend I don't want to interrupt. >> What's the rate that we're not filling and the rate we're trying to get to? Did I hear you say 67 and 75% >> at about 68% average? We

242would like to get to about 75 for the filling. >> So, and this is going to piggy back off what Eric said. We're talking about one more teacher a day out of the 22 that we're not filling. >> Why would we want to get to 100%. That doesn't make any sense to >> Well, we would. Yeah. I mean, >> but it's getting substitutes. We just they're just not out there, >> right? >> I mean, >> we Yeah, ultimately we want 100% of our classrooms teachers covered. The problem is the if a if we're averaging 22 out and we only have 21 subs. There are days that are bad days that we have 28 30 or more out because it's an average. So, there's days that we have more. those days we are, you know, multiple

243people at each building that were short and the principles and teachers are scrambling to make that happen. So that's the the big problem. Um we you see and that that percentage and I could be wrong, Lee, but that percentage is including support staff as well >> for the fill rate. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah, that fill rate is she's that we're like talking about includes support staff as well. So, it's probably better to separate the two conversations because they're they're different and the impact is different and so just putting it out there. >> So, could we get information on what happens like with if if five teachers aren't and for the next conversation budget and finance or whatever, if five teachers aren't filled, what happens? And number two, we were told at the last meeting

244the teachers association was against the contractor and we don't have that information. So we also need that please. I just want to I was going to say the last piece because um Steve and I meet with SGE leadership monthly and back in the fall when they heard that this was a possibility they I would say adamantly said that they opposed this that they meet with their counterparts in all of their districts in the surrounding York County districts and they you I don't want to say unanimous I don't want to say something is true but overwhelmingly said that they don't support moving in this direction. Phil felt compelled and you just took the words right out of my mouth chest that at least you know the association as opposed to moving to a vent service for

245what it's worth and I think Nicole you're right on we need more time all right well >> hate to ask another question but either explain now or you send us in more information about you said about the pieer we don't pay they don't pay the pieer >> correct the contract the the the outside contractor would not pay the pasers rate because they're they wouldn't be a district employee. What um Jen meant was >> that hurt getting substitutes then because they wouldn't be getting money into >> it actually it actually helps because retired teachers and people who are not trying to get a a pension can work and they can work as much as they want and not affect >> Yeah. So, if a teacher left today and said, "I'm thinking about subbing," they would have

246to wait 60 days and then um before they could continue to sub for the district. So, uh they could start tomorrow for the contractor and not worry about um anything with their peasers. Our teachers, you don't do >> No, that's not a difference either way. I thought they couldn't um now explain that in the note. >> Thank you. >> All right. Well, thank you, Hope. And let's move on. Uh let's see. Any planning items to be considered for future agendas? Anyone have anything? >> Yes. >> Oh, much shorter meetings. >> I told you it's going to be long. The irony the irony of him becoming president and then we had the longest meeting we've ever had is kind of >> I gave everyone a heads up. >> It is >> once uh whatever. Okay. All

247in favor?