001You ready guys at 6:00? Good evening everyone. I'm going to call to order the special called meeting of the Midway Independent School Board at 6:00. We have a quorum. On behalf of the board, I extend a warm welcome to those present and to our viewers online. We appreciate the time you have taken to join us and your interest in Midway Independent School District. Please silence your cell phones if you have not already done so. And please remember that the board's role is to set goals, listen to reports of the superintendent and staff, approve budgets, set tax rates, approve contracts, approve personnel recommendations, and make policy for the district. We are not here to make management decisions. Management [clears throat] is responsibility of the superintendent and his staff. And I have a few words I would
002like to say tonight. I think everyone knows this, but I want to remind everyone tonight's meeting needs to be conducted with respect, thought, and decorum. Tonight's meeting on the future of Speegleville Elementary School has not happened overnight. This is a decision the board takes very seriously and as a result, we have taken a long road to get to this point. I realize the time involved has been stressful and emotional for our Speegleville family and staff. I think I can speak on behalf of the board when I say none of the trustees sitting here tonight has taken this decision lightly nor without any emotion involved. We all care very deeply for the students, family, and staff of Speegleville. We know the future of everyone involved with Speegleville Elementary School is in our hands and we want
003the best for everyone moving forward. Tonight our final decision will be made based on facts that directly touch and influence not only the students, families, and staff of Speegleville, but also the students, families, and staff of Midway ISD. As leaders of our district, the board has responsibility and duty to make hard and impactful decisions for the entire Midway district. This is not always easy, and tonight is probably one of the hardest, if not the hardest, decisions this board has ever had to make. For over a year, we have watched and studied the decreasing enrollment of Speegleville and all Midway campuses. The future demographics show that our enrollment will continue to decline. At the same time, our basic allotment is flat. >> [clears throat] >> The board is dealing with less money from the state of
004Texas ever since the year 2019. Recently, the federal government has reduced some of our public education funding as well. The state has also changed the formula for property tax revenue. But regardless of less money coming into the district, the district continues to see its costs go up every year. To name a few areas where [clears throat] we see costs increasing yearly is insurance premiums, gas prices, maintenance repair costs, teacher salaries, and retirement contributions. You all have all [clears throat] heard of this before. Speegleville Elementary School is getting older and has significant maintenance challenges. It is not a candidate for building additions onto it because it is on a septic tank, and its student population is currently under enrolled. And we are not alone. Every day, I read about districts in the state closing campuses due
005to loss of enrollment and less revenue. >> [clears throat] >> We have a decision tonight that is full of emotion because we are talking about a school that has 72 years of community history. A school that has been part of Midway for 47 years. Years full of community gatherings, school recitals, students, staff, and families walking through its doors. No one wants to close a school. The decision the board makes tonight will be made with the best interest of current and future students and staff of Speegleville Elementary School, as well as the best interest for the future of all Midway students and staff. The board's job is to act in the best interest and behalf in the entire Midway district. Okay, it's my understanding we have no public comments this evening. Okay. So, >> [clears throat]
006>> we have on the agenda consider, discuss, and take appropriate action regarding the closure of Speigleville Elementary School at the end of the [clears throat] 2020, excuse me, 2025 to 2026 school year, and approval new attendance zones for students currently zoned to Speigleville Elementary School for the 2026 to 2027 school year. Dr. Allen is now going to give us a new, slightly new presentation this evening. >> Updated. Updated. >> Better word. Thank you. >> So, yes, ma'am. Tonight, I'm going to share some information with you. Some of this is even more recent than what I shared at the campus on Wednesday the 25th. And so, uh this is almost the same things that that group saw, uh a a timeline of the conversation, projected attendance zones, route time scenarios, and transition planning. But, there's a
007lot of data embedded within that. So, just as a reminder, and you mentioned this in your open remarks, Ms. Vick, we've been talking about this, uh in one form or another, uh in gathering information that has affected this decision for right at a year now. From February of 2025 to August of 2025, there's a facilities study committee um that was doing a lot of work around these issues. In August, there was the call for bond election. And September of 2025, September 8th seems to be exact, uh I went to Speigleville Elementary and talked about the impact of that bond program, why it was designed the way it was designed, and the discussion amongst that facility study committee about the notion of closing Speigleville. Many of the trustees were in attendance on that night. The bond
008election actually occurred on November 4th, and then from November of 2025 to February of 2026, we've been doing exactly what we said we were going to do, and that is get more data before making a final decision. Um that's exactly what was going on this on one of the slides from September 18th of 2025. On February 9th, I talked to the staff at Speigaville as well as the as well as the PTA president and told them that this would be a matter of discussion for the February 17th regular meeting of the board. On February 17th of this year, the board met to discuss this issue, at which time the board charged the administration with putting on the calendar tonight's special called board meeting. In between that meeting and this one, I went back out to
009Speigaville Elementary School to share some information about attendance zones and potential bus route times, amongst other things. So, I've covered this before, but just as a recap, uh we have been experiencing declining enrollment as a nation, a state, a district, and as Speigaville as a campus, and I have more data I will share with you about that here in just a moment. You mentioned the facility limitations. It It's limited by the lack of infrastructure. The building is 72 years old. The oldest part of the building is 72 years old. Um and because of uh that situation, as well as the fact that it's under-enrolled, it's just not a candidate to be added to, and we really don't have the population growth just to suggest that adding to it would be that this would be the
010right time to do that anyway. There's economic and educational delivery inefficiencies. I talked about this a little bit last time. Um you gain some benefit by having a certain number of staff on a campus that can't be replicated any other way. And because of the low enrollment, we also have a small staff, and it creates a disproportionate amount of burden for the staff, and it also creates some uh it loses some opportunities for students along the way. And then public uh school and middle budgets are underfunded. You again discussed that in your comments. Um I want to clarify because I try and clarify this every chance I get because I know it's so confusing. When we are funded, I have two broad buckets in public education. M&O funding, which is how we pay staff, electric
011bills, ongoing and reoccurring cost. And then we have INS funds. That's bond funds. It is illegal to use bond funds on reoccurring cost. It is very confusing to communities how school districts can build a school and then turn right around and cut teachers or cut teacher salaries. And it's because they come from completely different buckets of money and you're just not allowed to use INS funds for M&O expenses. It is not the single driver in this issue. There this is a layering of issue. If it were just one problem, it might be something we could come up with a strategy to overcome. But it's layers of issues that have brought this board to a decision point. I said I was going to talk about enrollment. I want to share two pieces of data with you.
012And this is a little bit busy and I'm going to point at this thing here in the back so y'all can see. But you can read the charts. I think I think they're kind of self-explanatory. I'm looking at the one I guess on the left says McLennan County and you can see that starting in 2010 and moving to the year 2026, a steady decline in the percent [clears throat] growth in births and additional babies being born. And then you can see the projection for that to continue forward. I would highlight that the 0.58% in growth is the lowest we have seen since 2010. And so when I talk about declining birth rate data declining birth rates, there's data that lives underneath this that is as local as it is at the state and national level.
013And you can see from these numbers that we're just having fewer kids being born in McLennan County coming into our schools. The chart on the right shows essentially the same data. It's the percent lower birth rate than grads. So And one's a little bit harder to orient to, but you see the year on the left side and then births per 1,000 people, year the graduate was born. So, if you'll see that 2008, kids born in 2008 are current seniors, right? And as you move down that chart, you will see that the number of kids graduating from schools in the United States is significantly greater than the number of kids coming into schools. And again, the way it's worded, it's a little confusing cuz it says percent lower birth rate. And so, the higher the number,
014the lower the birth rate relative to the graduates. And so, you can see that over time, based on just birth rate data, there going to be fewer kids in schools across the state of Texas. It would be easy to blame all of this on vouchers and school choice and other things of the sort. And certainly, that's probably had some impact in some communities. But birth rate data alone is is a reason for school districts across the state and the nation to have some of the types of struggles that we're talking about tonight. I mentioned in our previous board meeting, there are states that are closing almost 70 almost 70 schools in the last 2 years. I told you we've closed over 71 in the state of Texas, and that's an informal count. It may be
015higher. Um and so, uh I think that that is fairly compelling data. I'll have some more granular information to share with you a little bit later. But what I would tell you is that to get back to our growth rate in 2021, we need at least 14 new students entering the first grade each year. And considering that these births are spread over the entire county, and we only have about 20% of the students in the county coming into our schools, it's unlikely to believe that we're going to see a birth rate spike that overcomes this challenge anytime soon. >> [clears throat] >> I would also point out, and this is specifically about the chart on the right, that the current estimated fertility rate in Texas is 1.8 births per woman, which is a which is
016below the 2.1 replacement threshold that would be needed. And so, all of that's a bunch of numbers to tell you that the birth rate is declining both in McLennan County, across the state of Texas, and in the country. Um So, let's talk a little bit about tonight. The board is uh going to have to make a decision here in a little bit. And if Speegleville's closed, the board will uh close the school, and uh our recommendation would be to approve new attendance zones tonight as well for South Bosque Elementary School and Woodway Elementary School. Administration will begin to communicate and implement a transition plan for '26 '27. We've actually already started laying the groundwork for that. If left open, administration will have to manage staff allocations and other resources as appropriate based on student enrollment
017and composition. The point of this slide is just kind of make it clear that no matter what the board decides tonight, there will be changes at Speegleville uh relative to their declining enrollment, and we will still have the challenge of an aging building that uh according to our study needs $4 million worth of upgrades that we just don't have built into this bond. And so, we'll still have a significant challenge. We're going to have There's a challenge that we're going to have to overcome, no matter what the decision is tonight. So, let's talk a little bit about projected attendance zones. I want to just say from the uh beginning that we had priorities in building these. I showed you high-level views of those last time. We're going to look at those a little closer tonight.
018And so, uh the desire was to try and keep neighborhoods together, minimize bus route times, and then manage enrollment between South Bosque and Woodway. There were some numbers we had to hit. We pretty much need to split these these numbers. Um and so, uh in a second, Ken Wolfe is going to come assist and show you some things on your computer. But just as a high-level view of that, this is what those lines look like, and here's what the numbers represent. So, on this map, you can see where Speegleville Elementary School's located. There are 108 students that would be zoned to South Bosque Elementary. And then there are 110 students that'd would zoned to Woodway. Uh Woodway's uh interesting in that if you look at that large green section that's in the outline to the
019top of the map, that's that represents 83 students. And then there's a pocket of 37 kiddos in the apartments that live the other side of Highway 6 over there. And so you add those two up and you get 110. Um but this gives us um Yeah, I'm I I apologize. I'm doing bad math in my head. That should say 27. I apologize. Um but yeah, that it it represents 110 students. And so to give us a a closer look at that, Ken's going to come up here and show you how that shakes out. This is where you need [clears throat] to switch over to the Yeah, there we go. Okay, I need a little help. Mine is just stuck on the agenda page. I don't know. I'm not I don't have a PC at home,
020so I don't know what to Right down here. This one is this NDI. Oh, okay. Thank you very much. Everybody have it? >> person. Thank you. All right, so what you see right [clears throat] here is kind of an overview of the entire district. Every blue dot represents a geocoded house with a student or students in it. Uh so we're going to focus on the green and the pink, which are going to be the new Woodway and South Bosque attendance zones, and kind of where we decided to draw those lines. Keep it in mind that we needed to look at bus route times for those new students, and um not breaking up neighborhoods and balancing the enrollment uh coming out of Speegleville into Woodway and South Bosque. Uh so the natural break point or the
021break point for those schools kind of was already preset here in the Woodway area. Uh so kind of just took that line across the lake and then followed uh throughout most of this uh natural barrier. So uh think of farmland that's split by a fence or a tree line, um drainage ditches, things like that uh outside of the Spiegelville area Uh the Spiegelville proper area. So kind of coming up through here is just mainly all through kind of pasture land till you get to Spiegelville Road. We kind of jot down Spiegelville Road a little bit and then shoot back up. This big portion right here is the land that the district already owns that big farmland. So we're kind of coming across that property line that goes right there. Then we start to get into
022Spiegelville proper. And so we come up here and we kind of come down. I think this is Randy. I can't see Um and then we decide to jot up this way a little bit and the reason we do that is to come and kind of cut through what's basically some I'd call them ranchettes or little little homestead type deals. So we don't break up the Lazy Acres and Randy Drive students. We don't you know draw the line right down Randy Drive where one student is going to one school and then the other student over here is going to another school. We did that you know kind of on purpose. So that line continues goes over hits Spiegel Road and then heads north again. I don't know that this over here has the subdivision has a
023name but kind of keeping this subdivision together the couple little pockets of kids along Spiegel over here together. We go past the school and then you see this kind of little cutout right here. And this little cutout happened because of when the need to balance the enrollment at the two campuses. This was the easiest area to carve out a pocket of kids following what is a natural little drainage area that kind of comes through here. And not break up a neighborhood of kids that may be playing together after school or that's used to riding the bus to school together you know something like that. And then we just kind of continue up and out down Spiegel Road till we get up here and I think it's Cedar Rock and then we just follow it and
024kind of cut it all the way back across. That made the most sense as far as trying to keep the neighborhoods together and not really break them apart and follow some pretty natural break points between what effectively will be the two new attendant zones. Um, you got any questions about the way we did it or thoughts? I will tell you when we shared this with the Spring Hill community on the 25th, they had they were very interested in where the students were going to go, but we did not get critiques of the map per se. Mhm. Given given the parameters around dividing the students. And so, they they after we were done, there's a little group and kind of really wanted to talk to Ken and dig in the computer and there was a a
025good look and good discussion of these lines. That is correct. No one No one was upset with [clears throat] how we drew through neighborhoods or or why we picked the way we did. Ken Dewey now? Do we have data on where current housing is actually being built out in that area? I mean, I know that kind of not being city of Waco, it's harder to maybe track some of those permits, but are we, you know, do do we have a dozen houses going in here or there that could materially affect this in the next year or two? Do we know? I don't know. Um, I could look I could overlay this map over the one that we get from Zonda that kind of shows those future locations and kind of see. Okay. We're not We're
026not seeing active development because there's they're all waiting on the white spot. >> Yeah, and it's probably not large numbers either way and I get that. >> Yeah, it's it's a handful here and there. Okay. Well, [clears throat] looks like to me you spent a lot of time on this and it's apparent that you are concerned about kids staying together and I think that's important. When I was growing up, the district moved our our line for middle schools and did it right down my street. >> [laughter] >> So, we were on one side went to a new middle school and everybody else got to stay at the the current middle school. >> you know, what I've seen that before and it's not fun. >> So, I'm glad you didn't do that and you kept the
027neighborhoods together. And also kept in mind the time of the bus routes, you know, as well. So, I think it's And we're going to get to that in just a moment, the actual ride times. Thank you. Yes. Yeah, that's the next thing we're going to look at is route times. And Kendall stay here for questions on that. So, here's Okay, y'all. Now, I'm going to talk about route times, but I need to be exceptionally clear on this. This is scenarios. And let me spend a little time talking about scenarios, okay? Every time So, we're a a group of fifth graders is going to go to River Valley Middle School, and there going to be some kindergarteners come in, and where students live affects route times. So, everything you're looking at is using where we currently
028have students in projecting what it would look like next year. Okay? So, I can't give you exact times for next year cuz I won't know till we see ridership. I will also tell you that everything I'm showing you tonight assumes that 100% of the students rides a bus. Any kiddo who doesn't ride a bus and rides with a mom or dad or car pools or whatever, it pulls these route times down. Okay? So, we I have to be very clear like in answering your question, Ms. Watts. I'm going to show you if we were using this year's kids as the our scenario for what it would look like. So, given that, uh and this has been updated even since the 25th, you can see that there'd be three routes that we'd be pulling kids currently
029in Springville to South Bosky with a 6:35 pick-up, a 6:34 pick-up, and a 6:28 pick-up. Um when I was at the campus last week, that 6:34 time was a 6:08. Uh but as Ken and I continued to talk about ways that they could refine that route to pull that time down, they were able to do so. >> [clears throat] >> And then the Springville to highway routes are 6:22, 6:33, and 6:18 a.m. pick-up. That all assumes that those students would be delivered at school by 7:00 a.m. Okay? Which is what we typically do. Um but that gives us a little wiggle room as well if we need to make a a tweak here or there along the way. Now, I want to put that in context for you before we actually look at the routes.
030So, these are current routes. These are actual routes, not projected. Like as as today, real times. These are the earliest gen ed route times, okay? And so right now, the earliest route time in Speegleville picks up at 6:15. Next year, based on these projections, the earliest route time would pick up at 6:18. Okay? And And you can see those other times. I put asterisks next to route times that we have on other campuses that are within 5 minutes of 6:18 a.m. And so you can see that picking up in that general timeline is not necessarily non-typical for us. I will tell you the earliest route we have picks up at 6:05 in the morning. And that's a special education route that feeds uh Spring Valley. And so here's what those routes might look like. Again,
031these are scenarios. It's color-coded and matched up for your convenience, but you can see route one is in red. And this would be students going to South Bosque Elementary School. And you can see route two is the purple pickups. And then the bluish color would be route three. And you can see how those would uh run out, pick up students, and then come back into town. And again, these are scenarios. I don't want to beat that horse to death, but I want to make it very, very clear that this is uh things will change between now and next year. It These uh these route times assume open roads. What the software assumes typical travel time. Okay. So So we have a wild card out there that none of us can really predict. Like construction. Yes,
032sir. >> Yeah. Yes, sir. And then this is what it would look like in the Woodway area. Earliest pick up at 6:18, and that's that one that runs all the way out to Baylor Camp Road. Um but you can see how those routes would kind of stack up. >> It's a fair to say that that number three it it strikes me as it's comparable to the the the South Bosque route that has to go all the way out to Cotton Belt Parkway. Comparable to the route that goes out to Cotton Belt Parkway for South Bosque. >> Some some routes are long because we may have a a household or two Yes. >> that are on the farthest edges of the district. If that family chooses not to ride the bus, Right. >> then this could
033look or age out or get a ride with a friend. It could change those times. Yes, ma'am. >> Because it's possible some of these younger children have older siblings that could that are driving to the high school or something they could drive them. We could also have a student who's going to be a kindergartner next year who pops up out there and just takes the place of whoever number five is. And so it's it's a little bit of a coulda woulda shoulda. We can kind of predict what we think the fourth graders might do. It's It's the kindergartners coming in that are a bit of a wild card. So. And so with that I want to review some key data. These are things I talked about mostly in the last meeting. I have some additional
034insight on some of this. Um I want to talk about these projections. So we talked before about what it would do to the building sizes and this is a reminder of those numbers. Um there are two things I want to mention about South Bosque in particular and one is I have showed our birth rate data and I have some more data I'll show you in a second that may make you feel even more comfortable with that. Um so I there's not data to suggest that we're going to actually be growing in that building. It suggests we're going to be decreasing over time. However, we also have uh a lot of in the bond program some work to do within within South Bosque, some reconfiguration of existing space, not adding to the footprint, that uh we
035think can take that capacity up between 620 and 640 potentially. And so that would be coming online over the next two summers, which would help that capacity a little bit. All right, this is a super busy chart. And I'm going [clears throat] to I'm going to talk you through it to the best of my ability, okay? And again, I'm going to point at this one in the back cuz I think it's kind of the one you're looking at. So, these these crazy dots all over the place, you can almost ignore those for a minute. Look at your dotted lines, okay? Look at your dotted lines. And on the left, what you're basically looking at is students coming into the district. And on the right, what you're looking at is students exiting the district. Okay? And
036so, if you look at the 2011 line, you'll see the number of kids coming in compared to the number of kids going out was greater. We had more kids coming in as youngsters than we had going out. And so, as you looked as you looked from like if you imagine you're standing in a tunnel looking [laughter] from seniors back toward kindergartners, you had more kids coming at you. Okay? If you will now look at this dotted blue line, this is 2026. This is the number of kids who came in the system this year and the number of kids that are going to go out this year. Over time. And so, the more that that line slants, okay? If you're moving from left to right, the more it slants up as you go right, that means
037the the the more dramatic the difference is between kids coming in and kids going out. All right? And it continues to tell the story about birth rates and enrollment. And um it's funny cuz Kellen and I were in the office the other day kind of running an exercise, and we started looking at taking this year's juniors and going back 4 years and projecting what that would make the enrollment at the high school, taking this year's sophomores, projecting back 4 years. And you can see we're going to hover around 26, 2700 kids until the current seventh graders become seniors, and then we're going to if if the numbers hold, we're going to be a 2500 kid high school. There's no point in talking about a second high school anytime soon based on these numbers at all.
038And so um it it continues to paint the picture. So this tells us 675 seniors are graduating and 600 kindergarteners are taking their spot. Is that effectively what that tells us? Uh well, what the what the 1426 is telling us is we're going to have 600 plus seniors go out and fewer than 600 take their spot. Yeah, we're losing kids faster than we're replacing is what this tells you. >> Yeah, the dotted line is a trend line. >> The dotted line is a trend line. >> The hard line is actual numbers. Yes. >> Per grade. Got you. Yes, thank you for clarifying that, Mr. Wood. >> Yeah, so it's basically >> Those dotted lines are kind of best fit lines. That's what you call them. >> seniors and it's about 565 kindergarteners. Midway traditionally has
039been heavy on the elementary end, always bigger numbers there, and it always maintained or went down a little bit at >> We've been a growing district. >> Yeah. But Well, and I think we there's always been a little bit of a bump that happens in middle school because we know there's some parents that keep their kids home to home school or maybe they they use a private school, but they want to bring them into Midway for a lot of the programs we offer starting in middle school. And I think that's true here. You can see some of the lines go up after six. But not as much as it needs to. How long have we been a fast growth considered a fast growth growth district up until now? It's It's been some years, yes? It's
040been a while we were fast growth when I was here as high school principal and we stayed fast growth basically until the year I showed up as superintendent. >> [laughter] >> Correlation or causation? But my my my point being this this will mark perhaps the first year in a decade or so that we have not been considered fast growth. Uh it's been about 3 years that we fell out of that category. I just see a lot of kids so I think I see you. >> Yes, ma'am. But it's unusual. This is Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about class sizes and class size projections based on all the numbers we've used to create projections for next year. If Speegleville were to close, this is what your class size projection projections by campus would
041look like at the elementary level. And so that's to give you some sense about like what are we doing to the kiddos in these schools if we close Speegleville in terms of their classroom experience. And so you can see Spring Valley, Park Hill, Castleman Creek, South Bosque are 2.5 2.6 in that neighborhood. And then Hewitt, Woodway, Chapel 19.1. And then the average for the district is 20, 2.0 flat. And we calculated that based on kinder through five. We didn't count pre-K numbers cuz we just don't know how many of those kids are going to be yet. >> [clears throat] >> But we can we're able to actually control those class sizes pretty well. And so this gives you some idea about what this might look like in terms of classroom environment for students. I found
042this reassuring to know that if we were to close Speegleville that the other school the two schools in Bog would not be high high class numbers. So this was good. And that's to remind you of the potential cost savings. We'd have to add some additional full fuel to some current routes and then at least two additional routes. Those would be additional cost, but between staff redundancy and redistribution and savings on building cost, we're in that $1.2 million in savings. As a projection. A year. >> [clears throat] >> Yeah. It might be a little soft in year one as we Um are very compassionate in how we work with the staff and try and reassign folks in ways that take our our teachers who would otherwise remain employed in Midway and try and find a good
043landing spot for them. Um but we we're we've already been working on this and working the numbers and working cost projections. I'm confident we're going to come very close to that number, believe it or not. >> [clears throat] >> So, we haven't done the budget for next year yet, so we don't know uh what that deficit looks like, but if it's something similar to this year, which all indicators I would say would be close to that, what deficit What's What's this year's deficit? This year's deficit is currently $2.8 million. >> $2.8, so this doesn't even get us back to whole. No, and I'm glad you asked that question. I will tell you that they've reworked the frozen levy and we could see some increase in our M&O budget this year. It's hard to know exactly
044how much it could be, but it will affect this year's deficit. Best case scenario, best case is that it would bring us to to break even. Um but breaking even this year is actually a deficit budget for next year because it means I have no money for compensation increases for staff. Yeah. And to put that in perspective, your $2 million $2 million does not even get a 2% increase for everybody. Um and so uh the $1.245 million in savings is what we need to try and continue to stay in the fight, I guess is the way I'd put it. And and that's in addition to the $1.1 million that we expect to realize from reconfiguring middle schools, the CT changes, those other things we talked about back in the fall. Yes, sir. Okay. We're hoping
045the changes we make this year will last to give compensation increases and then go into the next session and fight for more funding. Um if Speaker of the House closed, we would uh start the transition plan almost immediately. Um, I have a meeting scheduled at Speigleville tomorrow afternoon. I'll put an asterisk there, really whether y'all vote to close or not, I'm going out there cuz no matter what, we're going to talk about next steps. Um, and then communicate attendance zones and transportation. We've already started some of that just by these meetings. Um, I call it projected attendance zones cuz it's not an attendance zone until you change it, but if you vote to close the campus and approve attendance zones as presented, they would become next year's attendance zones pretty much uh at the moment
046of that vote. And so, we have a link that we can make live and folks can start going in and really zooming in and looking at that if they'd like. And then transportation's an ongoing almost throughout the summer issue. Uh and that's typical for any given school year, y'all. As we build routes, we communicate times and then we refine those times as um the school year starts. We would hold an event at least one to honor the people, time, and legacy of Speigleville Elementary School. I've actually already had people approach me and ask if they could be part of, for lack of the better term, the steering committee that puts that together. Um, and um there's a a great desire to make sure that we do that well on part of administration and we have
047people who have the knowledge and experience and the the uh relationship with that campus. So, should should the board do that, we'll make sure that we honor that campus appropriately. I've actually started kind of contemplating, y'all know I start every day on a campus somewhere, contemplating things that are on that campus that we'd want to make sure and relocate at other places. Important um statuettes and figurines. We'd get the plaque off the building that talks about the year it was constructed there. Things that we'd want to do that we make sure that we uh memorialize. Events, and I underlined the S on that on purpose, events to welcome students and and parents to South Bosque Elementary. We have a number of ideas around that. >> [clears throat] >> I will tell you um that I've
048already been in communication with uh the PTA presidents from both of those campuses. And they've talked about plans that they have to make sure that they try and solicit nominees for their executive boards for next year. From Speegleville parents. Um, obviously that has to go through a process where they're nominated and all that, but they're going to do everything they can to try and make sure that our Speegleville parents have voice early in the process. Personnel assignment pro and implementation, we need to tell the staff where they're going to be next year. Events to welcome staff to both of those campuses. Again, multiple. So when I say events, it's at least one in May and at least one in August. Um, communicate and coordinate staff relocation. That's a lot of words to say uh, pay
049for and execute a move. Box folks up and get them moved. And um, whatever time that it cost staff to be involved in that, make sure that we honor that time. Um, and then we'll the board will have to have some discussions at another time about determinations of the future of the facility. I was asked about this specifically on the 25th and I told them that we're we've really been focusing on the people part of this, but that um, of the discussions [clears throat] we've had about the facility, most of them have circled around concepts that would allow that space to continue to be a a resource to that community of some sort. There's a great playground out there. There it's a big green space that's used for lots of things, kids playing afternoon, whatever.
050I think uh, at least in the short term that there there's a desire that we would try and make sure that that stays something that kids in that community continue to have access to. And so I know the board has to think about that and and take all that up as as part of one of numerous factors, but that that was brought up and um, and so I wanted to make sure that I touched on that very briefly. Um, and then with that, I'll entertain any questions you have. Does anybody have any questions for Dr. Allen? Obviously, Speegleville is our school and we're going to do things that are very unique and specific to Speegleville. And Midway is its own district, and and we will honor our district priorities as well. That said, is it
051fair to say there are other districts, other trustees, other administrators that we work with who have been through this before, and we can draw on their wisdom and experience and guidance. We're not reinventing the wheel here. We There's There's some some pathways in place that that will serve us if we need that kind of help. Yes, ma'am. I've I've actually been in communication with district leaders from other places that have been through this process. And is there anything more specific you can tell us about the the staff relocation, like moving people into other positions around the district piece that we haven't already covered? Um I can share some with you. Um again, I'm very careful not to over promise, but what we've been doing is uh Ms. Bronstad's been getting a little bit of feedback
052from the staff that if the building should close and they had a choice as to where they went next. So, it's kind of like a first, second, third choice thing. Think about it almost like schedule selection at a school. And we're trying to match first choice desires with openings we have across the district. And I'll be able to give you an update on that as we get further through the spring. What I can say is that the outlook is very optimistic at this point. Ms. Sanders [clears throat] expects it's not It's It's different, but it's not too far removed from what we did when we had to rezone and open Chapel Park and Park Hill. We had staff that had to move. So, some of our staff have already been through something >> I worked
053with three very smart people who told me that's exactly what we did as part of that process. So, yes, ma'am. So, Dr. Allen, one of the one of the things that I know we've heard in emails and then and I've heard in conversation with some families is about the size of Spiegelville, and some of them like the smaller school, right? Um Um, some of them attribute the smaller school to better educational outcomes. And I think I think class size is probably relatively close, but I think there's some economies of scale and some things that actually mean a larger campus can provide better educational outcomes, better better professional development, better support for our teachers and staff, but also better ability to work with some of those students. What whether it's, you know, special ed, GT kids,
054things like that, where you need a core massive of of students. Talk about a little bit about that just so people will understand that um you know, going from a 218 student campus to a 600 student campus doesn't mean that all of a sudden those students are not going to get a good education. Does that make sense? Yes, sir. And I'm going to I'm going to take that apple a couple bites at a time, and then if I leave any detail out on something you want to hear more about, just tell me. It's It's worth noting our bigger campuses are A-rated campuses. Are our what? A-rated. They have a grade A from the star system. Y'all seen the data on that. Um So, I I think that right right from jump kind of speaks a
055little bit to that. Um, it's not it's not that you have to be big to make an A, but I also think that um what the research will tell you is that the map to success for students academically is a high-quality teacher. Even more than [clears throat] class size. But So, let's talk about high-quality teachers. So, when you're on a staff where you have maybe four teachers in a grade level, two doing RLA and two doing mathematics, and one of the teachers wants to talk to an instructional challenge with a student, or is trying to interpret data, or is trying to do work that it it improves her expertise or his expertise in the classroom, you have a thought partner that you can work with, and you're oftentimes looking at some of the similar data.
056And so, what you do in our professional learning community meetings, our PLCs, is it is iron sharpening iron. You You grow together, and you grow better. Um And so, that's one aspect of that. The same thing would happen with the two math teachers in the same grade level, hypothetically. But, the other thing that happens is we're able to do flexible grouping that allows us to differentiate at a much higher level when you have multiple teachers. It's not unusual, especially this time of year, for our teachers to pull all the data they have on students in a given grade level, all of it. So, you might have every third grade teacher in a room and they'll start looking at data for every student. And they'll take those kids, regardless of which teacher they're assigned to, and
057put them in flexible groups where teachers can work on very specific learning skills that that student needs to grow and be successful. And then they can split and divide and take their expertise as teachers and apply it to whatever the deficit is for the young person, and they can match that up in a way where we can differentiate at a higher level and provide um a type of grouping that allows us to be more specific in the kind of work we do. And we're able to do the same thing with mathematics. Um and you can just kind of pull more resources into those types of conversations. Uh we are a smaller campus where, like for third grade, you might have one RLA teacher and one math teacher. If the RLA teacher struggling, it's not that
058there's no one around to help her. There's a full campus full of people, but it's not like thought partnering with someone who's doing the same content at the same time, looking at the same data you're looking at. And in terms of flexible grouping, the you're the you're it. And so, there are some real advantages that you get when you're able to bring more resources into a conversation about student achievement. Yeah, that's great. That's um I appreciate that that I'm not an educator, but I had a a rough sense of there were some economies of scale things that just getting a a certain mass of students together would actually potentially help with. So, I appreciate that. Yes, sir. That said, I I want to clarify everything you just said in no way reflects on the dedication
059and the commitment and the competence of the teachers at a small school. It's it's a numbers thing. Resources expand, thought, you know, brain trust expands, synergy expands. Uh and students who are struggling are distributed across four or five classrooms as opposed to being all in Correct. all one teacher, you know, Yeah, it's nothing against the staff at Spiegelville. Uh it's it's just a function of the numbers. And to that end, too, the other, you know, the other program I kind of mentioned was our [clears throat] GT program because I'm I'm a huge a huge fan of what we do in GT around here and I know that >> [snorts] >> a campus as small as Spiegelville, there may be grades where there's two GT kids identified in that grade. I just think it's hard to
060get to do meaningful grouping, uh meaningful teams work, meaningful things that challenge those kids. And I would imagine special ed is the same way. Um even services like speech and dyslexia, things like that. You definitely get a scale benefit when you get into a campus that is of a certain size. >> Yeah. Okay. Uh across everything. >> Right. Right. So, we're a long time [clears throat] getting here. Uh you know, I I would just say this is so uh my my time is short uh as serving here in the district. And one of my hopes was someday uh before I left to get this new a new school built out there. Cuz five or six years ago, we saw tremendous growth potential. We saw, you know, strong community um and we made plans that way.
061And a lot of that was based on some great demographic reports we'd gotten. Yes, sir. Um and so this all lined up, we got ready to do the uh uh the vote on the bond package about this, you know, this time last year. And it was a gut punch to come in and hear that we had actually gone down in enrollment. >> Mhm. And that's when uh you know, I know me me personally started digging in to the birth rate stuff. What are the What are all the factors, you know, homeschooling, birthrate, uh um in Anyway, so but we've got these great demographic reports out there. Have you had time to really go back and go, "Hey, where were we missing it on those reports versus the realities we're seeing today?" So, I've done some
062talk with our demographers on this. I haven't given it the deep dive that um you that you would probably want by way of an answer, but what I will tell you is that their methodologies have typically been on predicting enrollment based on houses. Okay? What has thrown everybody off a little bit is that the birthrates are going down. So, student enrollment based on houses is not just nearly as good of a predictor as it used to be. You've heard me say numerous times we're at about 0.5 kids per house. That's not holding steady. So, this idea that lots of houses means lots of kids is is not as true as it once was because you've got people living in those homes they're not having children or they're waiting till later in life to have children
063or they're having fewer children. And all of this is contributing to the slump in birthrates. I think there was also a bit of an assumption that birthrates would rebound coming out of COVID. We we we took a dip this all kind of started 2020-ish. And I think there was this thought that oh, well, coming out of COVID we'll we'll see a rebound. No one needs to overcorrect in methodologies and ways of thinking. And it's we're 6 years past and we've not seen the rebound. And so now there's this belief that it may be indicative of something else. Yeah. And I know, [clears throat] you know, for the many years we've been looking at those there's this pent-up uh new housing development uh numbers that are out there. You know, a tremendous amount of lots that
064were supposed to come online. And then a lot of those developers put their projects on hold. Um you know, mortgage rates, whatever, demand has has shrunk. Um I certainly would have expected more new homes in our district than what we're actually seeing. Yes, sir. Um Yeah. >> Can Can you speak to the um after-school care at South Bosque Woodway as relates to Panther Kids or Mentoring Alliance and how the Speegleville kids will be able to be accepted into that knowing and again, I'm not intimately familiar with it, but knowing that Woodway and South Bosque have repeat students that are going to come back. They, you know, might get preference, but with Speegleville being new, ensuring that they have equitable opportunities to enroll. So, we enroll the students during the back-to-school season and we staff on
065what enrolls. So, we don't we don't turn students away, you know, to um typically. We have one-off situations for different reasons, but no, we staff on what we enroll. Okay. Now, are we are we Mentoring Alliance or Panther Kids at those campuses? What is our approach? >> Right now, at Woodway, we're Mentoring Alliance and at South Bosque, we're still Panther Kids. Okay. Sorry. For now? We're We're in We're actually in conversations about that as a potential transition as we speak. You talked to about if we kept it open, would that negatively impact, like AKA, go up in the class size compared to what we are today in your kind of thoughts? Like if we had to keep Speegleville open for another year and we had to allocate resources better, could that increase class sizes at
066that campus later than what we're seeing? >> Because we'd still have the significant economic inefficiency issue that we would have to try and figure out how to address. And so, for example, um we have had conversations at the administration building. We're projecting them to have 25 kids in the first grade next year. Well, um we try and maintain the 22:1 according to our DOI we can go up to as high as 23 or 24. We can go up to 24 according to our DOI. Um would we contemplate asking the board to make that 25 kid classroom a teacher and a paraprofessional? We would. Um but otherwise what you got is a class of 12 and a class of 13. W- And you've just taken that inefficiency and that becomes the issue. It's hard to justify
067the staffing of two administrators on a campus that has that few students. And so, that's why I said no matter what the board does, I'm out there tomorrow talking about next steps and what those might look like. I will tell you almost all of our attention has been on the potential closure scenarios so that we have answers for a presentation like tonight. Mhm. So, we'd have to go back to the drawing board a little bit, but um there's no guarantee that uh let me just put it to you this way. If anyone's under the assumption that leaving the building open means that we'll continue doing business the same, they need not have that assumption. I still have a responsibility to try and do whatever we need you to manage cost so long as it's reasonable.
068Thank you. You know, one of the things that when when we were there in September of this last year, one of the things I heard over and over again from families is that what whether they've been told this or been get you've been led to believe or whatever it is, um they feel like the can's been getting kicked down the road year after year after year and they feel like you know, next year will be our year, next year we'll get something, next year something will change. And I think you know, in in in my mind at this point the worst thing we can do is to try to keep things the way they are. And I think I think we we either need to say we're going to commit to try to find you
069know, the money we need to make that campus the kind of campus that it should be knowing that it'll never grow the way we need it might need it to grow or we need to say that's not that's not really a feasible approach forward and let them know you know, we're we're not kicking the can down the road anymore. We're not going to go one more year of this or one more year of that cuz I think it's maybe in the best interest of those families, those teachers, the students to know and have something settled. So that's not an argument for or against one or the other. I'm just saying I think uh I do think it's a time for choosing and not a time for you know, expecting different results from the same you
070know, approach. Um I've read the comments that y'all read and I have um been in conversations. You were out there the night of the 25th and and I would not characterize this comment as the only one that's been made, but I will say that one of the themes that has risen to the surface is whatever you're going to do, do it. Yeah. So that folks can be informed and just know what to plan for. Um I think I think the data is pretty clear and I think the more people have had a chance to study it and look at it and ask questions, the more the the the information begins to tell the story. Um information is great for informing decisions. It's bad for soothing an aching heart. And the way you soothe an aching
071heart is by making a decision that allows you to then start taking steps forward into restoration and recovery. But as as long as you're sitting in this in-between state, you hurt. You just hurt. And the hurt can't heal until you move past that. And um And um I'm motivated obviously by some of the comments I've made tonight and comments I made the last board meeting to make sure that whatever we do, we do it in as in as compassionate ways we possibly can. One of the things I made uh a comment I made to that group last week was that one of the things that we've tried to do to provide some sense of comfort to just give information. Sometimes just knowing helps a little bit. And so to your point, Mr. Witt, I think
072that there's a strong desire to just know. Any more questions for Dr. Allen? I want to thank you for the updated presentation. It gave us some new data that we didn't have. I appreciate everybody's comments and thoughtfulness in our discussion. At this time, I'm going to ask for a motion to close Springville Elementary School and rezone Springville students as presented. Who would like to make that motion? So moved. Uh motion made by Mr. Witt. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Mr. Tallis. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed to the same sign. The motion passes. And we will be closing Springville Elementary School and rezoning Springville students as presented. Thank you all. It was a unanimous vote. And that is our last agenda item. So we will adjourn
073the meeting at 7:49. 6:49. Oh, sorry. 6:49. We usually don't meet later. Thank you. >> Mhm.