001Uh welcome everybody. This is uh November 18th, 2025 is our 5:00 board of education meeting. We are going to begin by indicating who is here. Clark, will you start? >> Clark Nelson, >> Karen Wer, Chris W, >> Connie Burgess, >> Kim Chandler. >> Um Julie was here. I don't know where she went. >> Todd, are you here? Todd, will you sir >> Todd Hopper, Ben Worsley, >> Nicole McDermott, and we'll I'm assuming Julie will be here in just a second. Oh, [clears throat] >> excuse me. >> Introduce yourself, Julie. >> Julie Jackson. >> Thank you. All right, we're going to go ahead and turn the time over to Todd for a budget update. It's fun to be at this side of the table because I actually can see everybody and not look over shoulders. So,
002we're going to spend a few minutes this afternoon and talk about the uh tax what I'm calling the TNT budget disruption having to do with the tax rate that was not certified by the uh state tax commission. So we'll talk through a little bit what their decision was and what that impact is. We'll talk about the fiscal and timing issues that that presents for us. Uh we will take a few minutes or as long as you want and talk through what the uh fiscal considerations are. how do we manage the the financial situation as we move forward and then uh look at what are some of the long-term budget considerations that we want to keep in mind as we look at how do we address this year's particular challenge. So here's the letter from the
003tax commission. It's really small but when it came it made a big splash. So what what we received here on September 17th was notice from the tax commission that they had not certified our tax rate and that the particular statute that we had not complied with or had not fully complied with in my opinion is that we did not have a separate agenda for the tax hearing itself. Now we had produced an agenda but it was coupled with the agenda of the regular meeting that was held the same day. So we had all the agenda information but what we failed to do was to have two different agendas published as two standalone agenda items. Uh so that was the technicality. What made this particular year challenging is that the the legislature had changed the authority
004of the tax commission. Uh in years past, the tax commission had a responsibility to look and make sure that truth and taxation processes were were followed, but they didn't have this authority to actually deny or approve even though they went through an approval process. The statute that changed for this year was that they could not certify unless all of the provisions of the tax law had been adhered to. So that's what's different between last year and this year. And that's of note because we followed the same process this year that we did last year. And last year the tax rate was certified and this year it was not. So that's what caught us off a little bit is well we did the same thing. Why why do we have a different outcome? In their uh
005opinion the outcome's different because their authority had changed. What does that mean for us? That means that the tax rate that we had approved as a board, so that's those are the items that are in the pink colors there, those rates were moved back to what is the auditor certified rate. So those are the if you look at the final rate column to the second to right there, you'll see the the rates were simply moved back to what the auditor had certified the rates to be before the tax hearing. So, we didn't move back to last year's tax rate. So, it's not like a a full reversal back a whole year. It just goes back to the certified rates from the county auditor. Does that make sense? Because I know I've had questions. People said,
006"Well, is it just last year's rate?" Not really. No, it's not last year's rate. It's the certified rate before the board's proposal. What does that mean? That means that we have a one-year disruption in our budget. So, we do not have the tax authority to raise the additional revenues that we thought we would raise in our budget. Um, and assuming that we would restore that next year, so the board has the ability to generate these taxes next year. There's no prohibition. There's no if you miss this year, you can never do it again. It's not like that. The the board can go and make up for the lost revenue. So, if you look at uh our opportunities through that lens, we have a one-year challenge. [cough] It's this year's fiscal challenge of $14.5 million on
007the operating side and $3.2 million on the capital side of our budgets. As we look at what are our opportunities or how do we address this shortfall on the operations side, uh we have a history of coming in under budget about 2% every year. So this is looking back seven years as to how much under budget we've come in. That 2% average is about 14.5 million. So one of the options uh going forward would be that we hold steady on the budget. We don't actually go in and cut budgets. We say that we are going to manage the budget through this year with the intent that we experience the same underbudget that we've had in the last 5 to seven years. What that means is we have conversations saying that we do not make any
008unnecessary budget expenditures. uh that we reduce scope of projects to keep them constrained and less than necessary or than may have been envisioned at the time. We can delay expenditures. We often get to the end of the fiscal year and people will say, "Oh, I got budget. I need to spend the budget." We say, "Don't do that. Just this year, don't do that. We need to to save those uh dollars so that we can get through this fiscal year." Uh eliminate discretionary spending. we can sweep balances from last year that are brought forward into this year. We just say, "We thought you'd have it, but now you're not." And uh we are able to to manage the budgets that way. We can also look at contracts. We also on on many occasions, a vendor will
009say, "We'll give you an extra discount, 3 to 5% if you pay for your three-year contract all up front." And we would just simply say, "We can't afford to do that. will will not take the discount so that we keep the cash flow under control for this year only and then move forward with contract discussions on that basis. So those are the ideas around we just we just hold steady um and work with all of our managers and directors to make sure that we're not spending more than we absolutely need to for this fiscal year. Another area within the budget is to look at reserves. You've seen this chart before. This represents the different areas in which we have reserves. Some are reserves that we can't touch. Some are reserves that we can touch. Some
010are reserves that we can move around and delay. And others are ones that we need to to keep hold and on target. So, here are the areas. I'm going to pull out some ideas uh from this chart uh that are worth considering if we want to go down the the path of using reserves for again one year with the anticipation that we'd make up those dollars the next year within our uh retirement program. So the district offers an early retirement incentive as well as a retirement benefit. That program is fully funded. We go through an actuarial study every year to determine how much money needs to be held in reserves and then on top of that we've uh reserved an additional 30%. Uh district experience has been that that actual study will have some variability
011to it. So we will put an extra 30% in just to cover variability. Well this last year the variability went in our favor as they went through as the actuators went through their analysis. They actually identified a $10 million reduction in the reserves because we had better interest returns on our investments. So that was a positive. Uh so this uh we have about 11.3 million in that excess reserve. This doesn't change any benefits. It doesn't change any uh decisions that way. It's just we have more reserves uh than is necessary to be covered at 100%. uh and so it would become available. I also understand that this the district in the past has actually dipped into this particular reserve to cover shortfalls at other times. >> What's the typical 30%. >> Uh about this much.
012>> Oh, is that okay? >> Yeah. It'll range between 9 and and 12. Uh within our planned projects, we have had about $7 million set aside for different IT uh projects. Some of those based off of the study that was done in 2022 where a third party uh team came in and reviewed and said, you know, this is best practice. This is what you could improve upon. These are things that you're doing well. At that time, money started to be set aside to address those opportunities of things that we could approve uh within the the IT area. The ERP set aside ERP is our accounting and human resource system. Uh we've set some money aside. We know we're at the point where we should be upgrading or changing that system. Um and so monies have
013been set aside to that end. Uh so we we can identify those those are things that don't have to happen today can be delayed and uh so that's worth looking at. Uh for the last couple of years we've been saving money towards the wellness center. Number two uh there is a capital outlay that is necessary to accomplish that. We've saved $3 million towards that end. Uh this again could delay there. there's not an immediate necessity to put that online and so this would be an opportunity for a delay. >> Quick follow up there, Todd. What is the projected outlay? >> This is $3 million set aside. >> The target towards 10. >> We think we need about 10 there. The construction is probably between four to five depending on the site uh decision and then
014the first year of having that center in place will have a contract with a third party provider. >> Right. So we want to have the front the front load that for that contract and then the savings that are generated by having a center would then start to generate and it would be self- sustaining after that. >> Understood. Thank you. >> The next one is is probably a less attractive one but we're turning over every rock in our in our budget story here and that is school reserves. So the schools do carry reserves in their accounts as well. Uh part of that reserve is funded through a district allocation that we provide to help support the schools. Uh the reserve level in the schools is actually around $11 million. So this particular number of just under
015$5 million represents how much the district annually provides to schools uh to support the school level programming. So the messaging here would be we would hold back on that distribution with the encouragement of the schools to spend down their reserves, but we can't go beyond what we would normally give them. So that's what this would be. >> What what can you just give us an idea and maybe this is something that maybe some of our principles could chime in on our former principles. >> I'm sure they will. >> Um but what what are those reserves generally like? Is that just emergency funds? What is that usually used for in the schools? >> It can range from a number of things. It could be uh very specific reserves and that they are saving money towards the
016purchase of some special equipment in an extracurricular program whether it's uniforms, helmets for football players, the sticks and goals for lacrosse, soccer goals, those types of equipment. You won't ask the participants to try to pay for all of that in one year. you'll spread that cost across multiple years of fee payers. You'll build up a balance until you're able to make that purchase. So, some of the monies could be tied to that in which case we wouldn't want to touch any of those dollars. >> But if that's but you're saying that the district also gives reserves that largely should come from fees. So what that's why I say is there a differentiation between the fees that are reserved at the school for things like that or and this this reserve that we give to them.
017>> Yeah. So at at the school level the the school funds or the district dollars that come are co-mingled with the fees if you're in the extracurricular programs. So you might have a program that costs $50,000. You're going to raise fees for about$10,000 of that. You might have some donations for another five. And then the district brings in money as well uh through the now that we don't assess fees in all program areas, we have some dollars that we put in. So it'll be a combination of all those dollars. So those balances come down to a question of well which of those three dollars did you spend first? Did you spend that donated dollar first? Did you spend the fee dollar first? Or did you spend the district dollar first? This starts to put pressure
018on the idea that you spend all of your other dollars first and the district dollar is the the last dollar spent. So if you're holding on to a reserve, it's a district dollar that's in reserve, not a dollar that was assessed through a fee. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Uh we also have the economic stabilization account. This is a statutory account uh where we can reserve up to 5% of our operating budget in in this reserve. This is when someone says do you have a rainy day fund? This is the rainy day fund. We have other reserves but this one is the one that you would call the rainy day uh fund. Now these dollars because they're statutoily identified they can only be taken out by board resolution. The other funds are administrative. you know,
019you can direct superintendent, hey, go do this, and it and it happens administratively. This one would require board action to take the funds out. Typically, these funds are for actually economic downturns. So there there's some economic crisis within the state and we're not getting monies or there's economic crisis within the nation, we're not getting federal dollars, there's a drop in those revenues, you would turn to this fund to cover that situation. Our particular situation of having a a tax rate denied doesn't quite fit the definition. It's not excluded, but it doesn't doesn't quite fit. And for this one, I would say this is like one where we keep our powder dry because we do have economic forecasts coming that aren't positive. And we also are aware of some uh budget changes coming down the line
020both from the state and the federal governments that we may need to have these reserves on hand to address those situations as they arise. The next area would be to go in and start reducing budgets. Uh, so we could look at implementing a hiring freeze, which we've actually walked into at this point. We don't have a lot of non-classroom positions that generate a lot of money. So, we can go through the exercise, but it it won't generate a great deal, but is is worth the the effort as we try to make sure we keep our budgets balanced. Um, we we also when we build budgets, there are positions that are vacant, meaning that we know we're going to hire the person. they're just not on board today when we're building the budget, but we [clears
021throat] anticipate hiring them. Well, we would just simply say any vacant uh budget positions you don't fill. They weren't filled today, don't plan on filling it for the balance of the year. We could also uh look at uh travel. So, non- studentent travel, we would eliminate uh non- studentent travel and generate a little bit of savings there. Uh we also have a subsidy that we provide to the Granite Education Foundation. A number of their uh personnel positions are funded through a district transfer. Uh they have reserves at this time of a little over $3 million on a one for a onetime basis. We could forego that transfer of funds. Um the last couple of years, the district dollars appear to be building their fund balance. They've moved from 1.5 up to 3 million. So maybe
022a one-year hiatus would be in order. We could also look at an acrosstheboard reduction. You know, the 14 million that we're talking about is unrestricted or unreserved funds. So I can't put a 2% budget reduction on special ed or on title one programs because those dollars can only be spent for those purposes. So this would be for programs that aren't restricted by the state or the federal government. uh if we do that type of exercise at 2% we would generate about $3.7 million as an across the board uh budget reduction. We're also uh this year we have uh implemented the additional instructional coaches into our schools. We're finding that we're not uh coming across as many qualified individuals to fill those positions. So it could be that we just stop at this point and say
023they're not there. So therefore we'll just save those dollars, plan to use those dollars next year when the the pools are deeper and we have more qualified candidates to participate. Another item that we're finding is that our rental rates for our facilities are not capturing true cost of operating the facilities. Under statute, we're allowed to capture up to our actual cost. We can't make profit. We're not even capturing our cost right now on our fee schedules. So, another area that we could look at is to start adjusting our fees to capture those costs. Again, it won't be lots of money, but it would be better than nothing. Uh we talked about uh contracts getting into multi-year contracts. We could also take a look at contracts that we have in place right now. All of our
024contracts have a clause called a non-appropriation clause, which means if the money isn't available, hasn't been appropriated by the board, then we can begin to cancel those contracts. So, we could start an exercise where we go through and look at our contracts and determine which ones uh should be concluded or put on hold under that provision. at this point. So this is on the operating side. Uh executive leadership team met earlier today and we walked through all of these scenarios and said what are the pros and cons uh to each of these ideas and uh we put together not a recommendation so much but just some thinking and now I can't pull it up. So in our thinking what we would uh look at doing is that we would do a combination of these different
025ideas, combinations of managing the budget cash flow, look at reserves and look at budget reductions in a combination of efforts. The primary piece of money that we would lean on would be to look at that excess reserve uh for the retirement program in to the amount of about $8.5 million. So, not all of it, a lion share of it, but not all of it. But again, that's an excess reserve. It doesn't change any of the benefit offerings or operations of the district. We would look to continue a hiring freeze, a soft hiring freeze, which means that as positions come open, those positions are then brought to the ELT and we review those and determine whether that's a position that does need to be filled or is it one that could be held off for a
026while. We would also look to and that would be about we don't know what the dollar is on that one specifically. So that would be more an exercise than capturing dollars. We would also look at uh stopping or or holding on the instructional coaches. That would save about a million dollars in that exercise. We'd look to reduce the IT initiatives by $2 million. We would delay the ERP or the accounting and uh human resource system. That would save $3 million. Then we would look at an acrosstheboard reduction in the sense that we would communicate that we're going to have a 1 to 2% reduction in budgets, but not take those dollars away, but go through the exercise of please review your budgets and determine what do you actually need to do for the balance of
027this school year. And uh and we would expect that again to be a a dialogue where we are communicating with directors and schools uh to see how we could manage that through the rest of the year. And then we would also have a soft freeze on non- studentent travel meaning that anyone who would like to do a travel would have to go through an additional review process by the ELT. And through those means, we believe we can capture the 14.5 million for this fiscal year with the anticipation that the board would look to a tax increase or an effort to recapture the lost revenues at the next tax cycle. Does that make sense? All right, let's jump over to the capital side. In this one, uh we're about $3.2 $2 million short. 900,000 of that
028had to do with providing additional revenues for deferred maintenance. Thank you very much for putting that in there. We're going to have to pass for a year. And that's kind of the the message there is we thought we would get it. It would have been great. We're just not going to try and and recapture that. We'll just let that go for a year. outside of that we could look. So the remaining two $2 million uh we would just manage projects. The the two million isn't significant enough to throw projects out of their planned cycles. So the impact will really be more felt at the end if we don't recapture those dollars in the next tax cycle. If we want don't want to go into delaying projects down the line, uh we could look at uh
029asset liquidation, which means are we selling school properties or school assets to make up the the $2 million that we've lost. Um, and then there's also some accounting maneuverings with regards to debt service transfers that we use uh with our IT department that's allowed under statute and we just manage that differently to capture about $1.5 million. So the capital side we think we can really just manage uh through other practices and uh again with the anticipation that those dollars would be made up next year at the next uh tax cycle >> and by saying that you you mean all those other things other than asset liquidation. >> Yeah, asset liquidation would be permanent. Uh but then it doesn't um require a makeup for this year. You would just have your tax increase for the rest
030of the pay as you go cycle. This is all in context of how does this look longterm. So looking like what happens in 2027 and beyond because that would be the next tax cycle is generating revenues for the fiscal year 27. We already know from legislation that was passed this year that we have a $7 million shortfall in state monies. Uh that again has to do with the voted and board leeway programs. Um that will then double so it becomes another an additional $7 million in fiscal year 28. So as we look at opportunities now, do we start to prime the pump, so to speak? do we start looking at ongoing cuts even today which then would benefit us as we get into the next budget cycle conversations. Um and then we have in fiscal
031year 29 that's when the last of the state support for the school fees ends and uh the district would then have to generate that much money to make up for the lost uh fee revenues through that legislation. Is this extended an extra year because now because we also weren't approved of this year with this year because it is based on two years. >> Uh no, so the these have actually do not take into account the fact that we had a tax proposed increase. So So this is assuming actually the scenario we're in right now. >> Okay. >> If we had generated more revenue, there would have been a different impact. It would have it would it have been a a lesser impact? >> It it would have been more >> more. Okay. >> And then
032there's all kinds of questions around the federal impacts and and this is trying to look through a through a crystal ball that's cracked and foggy and who knows what's really going to happen. Uh but there are some timelines that we have to brace ourselves for. uh in the fiscal year 26 so the year that we're in right now uh we were already informed that the gear up funding would not be available. So we have already been going through processes of funding that internally and working with the university who is the grantor in this process uh to help manage those costs. So that's happening where we're managing that now as we speak. Uh, we also received our Medicaid letter and the FMAP rates have changed, meaning that we're eligible for less money or in other words,
033we have to put more of our own money into the Medicaid costs and the federal government will reimburse. Uh, that's looking to be something in the $2 million range. So, those are things we're managing today, working our way through as we look at what the potential budget is for the federal fiscal year 26. and and that right now we don't know what that will be. The f federal fiscal year 25 is on a continuing resolution till January. That's not even the year that we're trying to understand what the budget will be for 2 federal fiscal year 26. But if you look at the conversations that are happening right now, we can expect title programs in in our case to lose about $4 and a half million dollars, adult ed about a half million dollars, and
034special education is unclear at this moment as to what those impacts would mean. So, we do have some uh things that we need to brace ourselves for and that's where that economic stabilization account is is helpful because we can move forward planning and programming and supporting our students and worry less about what is the federal government doing because we have dollars that we could bring to bear and get our our schools up and running and then we just wait for the federal government to work out its um its things. With that, I am open to any feedback or comments if there's any guidance that you would like to give us as we manage our way through fiscal year 26. >> Can I ask a question to clarify? when you're talking about using funds from reserve
035accounts and then recouping those funds at the next tax cycle you're talking about, I'm assuming, not only reinstating the increased rate that the board approved this year, but approving a rate over and above that to recoup the money to replenish the reserves. Is that right? >> Yes. So there there are two levels. there is the put the rate in place that would have been in place so that on an ongoing basis moving forward we can fund the programs that we funded this year if we want to uh add on top of that the lost revenue. So in other words as you've described replace uh the reserves yes you could do that as well on a onetime basis and then bring it down in a subsequent year. That's all open for discussion like do we feel
036compelled that we need to make up that piece of reserves or do we just let reserves build as they normally do through operation savings and things of that nature and they they replenish themselves over time. >> Thank you. Um, and then the Gear Up example, that's federal funds you're talking about there. But I guess begs the question for me, I feel like we should be looking at discussions on some of these programs about whether or not we should be continuing them and not just automatically saying we're going to figure out how to fund them. And I'm not seeing a lot of that in this discussion >> on this this slide that I have here. This is heads up. It it's not deciding one way or the other. It's just we will have to make a
037decision whether those dollars show up or no. And it would go right to what you're describing. We need to do that deep dive and say, well, if those monies aren't there, what do we plan to do? Are those services redirected elsewhere? Do they come to an end? are they managed through some other process? Um, but again, it's a futurity question. It's not asking today. Do we do we need to discontinue programs or redesign programs today? >> And I understand that, but I guess that's just one example. I'm I'm kind of talking about this year's budget. >> Mhm. >> I don't see a lot of that kind of thing brought up like are there contracts we maybe or programs we maybe shouldn't be continuing. And so it doesn't seem like that's been considered much. Am I
038wrong on that? >> So right now we're looking at the $14 million that won't be coming in through property tax. So we haven't gone into the federal or other state restricted programs and started questioning those programs, looking at whether we should reduce those, change those, redesign those. They won't generate money to cover the shortfall on the property tax side. they would be their own standalone conversation of do we continue those efforts and those programmings. >> So there's no contracts or programs that we currently do that would be our ongoing budget funds. Those are all separate state grant money. Is that what you're saying? >> A good number of them are. Yes. >> Okay. Any other questions, thoughts? So, as your recommendation, I'm assuming going forward a a >> a combination of things, >> a combination
039of all those. And we feel like that will adequately cover it. >> That will get us through the rest of this school year and then set us up for the discussions that we need for next school year on what do we do about tax rates? Are we going to do a catchup, not do a catchup? Do we put the rate in place that should have been there? And then that will be coupled with other conversations that actually have to do with next tax year. What do we do about the reduction in state funds? What do we do about declining enrollment? What do we do if federal program dollars don't arrive as we anticipate? Those will all have to happen still. Okay. Um Todd, you had at the beginning there um uh you kind of had
040categorized it by uh you know our our net gap um by uh the operations and capital budgets. Yeah. here the capital budget impact that 3 million um is that 3 million that goes into um I can't think of what it's called um maintenance is that what that is and so >> so two parts so think of it about >> because I also know we're saving up and I'm like okay is this a save up situation and can we just not save that much and >> because I haven't seen you talk about that. >> Yeah. So the on the capital uh budget we can look at um a couple of things. Imagine a third of it has to do with deferred maintenance. When we uh went through the budget process, we asked for additional just short
041of a million dollars of funding to start to tackle the deferred maintenance. We could decide just not to do that. Like could have had it this year, we don't have it this year. Let's build it into next year's budget moving forward so you get the million, but don't try and catch up this year. You just, right, >> we just we have deferred maintenance like we've had for decades >> and this is not the year to to catch it up. The other $2 million is related to the pay as you go funding strategy of the district. Those are dollars that we would want to talk about recapturing not only on the ongoing side, but do we try to make up this year? If we choose not to do it this year, the impacts will be felt
042in projects past 2035 because we will be able to cash flow the the 2 million like it won't disrupt cycles and schedules. >> So I think that was my question is how much of that is that top 10 project and you're saying it's about twothirds of that. >> Yeah, 2/3. >> Okay. >> Roughly. >> Thanks. >> Any other questions? Go ahead. I just wanted to thank Todd for all his work on this. We spent several hours today uh together as a leadership team to kind of hone in on some actual recommendations and uh we recognize the severity of the challenges moving forward, not just right now, but the next uh two years uh worth of $7 million declines in our revenue. Um so I just want to reiterate that uh this is is going to
043be a very difficult year uh budget-wise moving into next spring. And then on top of that, uh, with with taxation questions, um, obviously we want to continue to reiterate, uh, that we're doing our part to, uh, be as fiscally prudent as possible to make sure that we're pushing as much as our revenue and resources to our classrooms as possible. So, we'll continue to have th those conversations, but you'll likely hear from some community members with questions or concerns. So, we want to make sure that you have the information necessary to answer those questions. Okay, thanks Todd. We're going to go ahead and move on to our strategic plan update. Invite Dr. Bramble up. >> We would normally like to spend lots and lots of time like hours uh relishing the data here. We are on
044a tight schedule. So if we could is it possible to keep our presentation to about 10 minutes? Will that work? >> That works. Okay, that leaves time for questions and then we can get to uh the last presentation before we need to move to executive. >> We're excited to hear from both uh Miss Bramble and uh Michael Douglas. >> Thanks for uh letting us update the board on our strategic plan. We appreciate the opportunity. So, couple of things we want to make sure that we highlight are the two goals um for proficiency improvement in our um math and ESL and our 10% graduation rate improvement. These are these are a big focus of our strategic plan this school year. We wanted to update you on a few highlights. Um there's some Go ahead. >> Sorry.
045What you just said is we met our goals. >> I just felt like it was said unceremoniously and that is a really big deal and I just want to make sure we all understand and also appreciate all the great people who made this happen because it's a huge team effort and we haven't done it in a while. So, um I think it's a really big deal. Maybe you're going to make a bigger deal later, too, but I just want to make >> I was just setting the stage so we would have the big uh finale in a moment here. Yeah. So, I I can't uh agree more with you. The the hard work that's gone into this has been uh it's been huge, but we've done some really neat things. We're about to show you
046some of those exciting things on the next slide. So, thank you for that opportunity. Just a couple of highlights. Um we've we've had a goal for 100% of our teachers districtwide to take a daily attendance. Another one is regular attendance attenders will increase by 10% or higher. Um in talent development all employees uh will complete compliance training uh and that'll be at 85% or higher and then 95% of all contract positions will be filled at the beginning of each school year. So, an exciting uh trajectory that we're on is 85% of employees completing their compliance training. We're at 72%. But we have until November 30th. We anticipate that uh increasing and that's on our Vector platform that we use. >> So, if there's any board members who have not, you're part of that statistic. >>
047Yeah, we would love for you to complete it. Yeah. Thank you. >> Will you please send reminders if we are? Thank you. >> Happy to. Um Einstein. >> This this next um achievement is pretty remarkable um because it it directly impacts our wonderful students. 95% of all educator contract positions will be filled at the beginning of the school year. Um and we had 98% of our educator contract positions were filled as of October 1st. So, we're excited about that. Um, with our regular attenders, our goal is to increase the amount of regular attenders by 10% or higher. So, um, as of our report, 61% of students are attending, 90% or better at this point. So, um, what we're hoping to see is end of year data, uh, chart shows a decrease of 1% for the
0482425 school year. Um and then we have some indicators over the last uh three school years August, September, October, November. We are seeing a a decrease as of November from from years past. So you mentioned the exciting news about some of the increases. We don't have those official yet. So um but we are seeing some really exciting increases in our proficiency and our graduation. So, we're excited at some point to share that with you. Um, and I think if you look um on some of the state uh sites, they're kind of the results are rolling in a bit and so we are excited about those. The other thing we're really excited about is our booth schools um that we're working hard with and we wanted to just give you a quick update on what we're
049doing with um our elementary schools. Um we have these six that we're working with and we've got um full-time instructional coaches in those full-time assistant principles and that is in addition to the coaching um and admin um coaching that they already have um available to them. The tier one instruction um and it's really um I tried to collapse some of the these things that are happening but there's a lot of unique things that are happening in every school. we've looked at them individually and and done a needs assessment and said these are the things that they really need. Um but just to give you that high level um they're working towards improving tier one instruction. That's always a goal that we have and one of the things is making sure that they're using assessment authentically
050to drive their instruction. Um they're incorporating small group instruction. They're doing things like um having uh active student engagement and teacher clarity. So there's a lot of things that they're doing to improve tier one instruction that we know needs to happen. Another major piece is behavior and climate. They need to make sure that they've got some clear expectations. And as we looked across the board at a lot of our booth schools, that was one thing that we noticed that they needed to make sure those systems were clearly in place so that they had some um good expectations for students and um also enhancing their family and um community connections. We've had some cool highlights like from Magna Elementary where they had an amazing um family event that was really well attended and so we we
051got to celebrate a lot of those things that are happening at some of the schools. Uh district supports that are in place. We have purchased some in intervention materials and some targeted support for some of our schools. Uh we're compensating some of our teachers to learn outside of their contract hours too. And then our secondary schools, um we have um also some great coaching going on and uh we've tried to to do some unique things here too that are uh unique to the schools that we're working with. So there's common uh time for PLC's at Valley. Um at Mat, we really had to start with the some foundational work um and transition of a leadership team there. Granger has been doing some really exciting things. In fact, we heard from Jared in our last um
052salt uh meeting about what his uh team is doing to really enhance the things that are happening there. They decided that they would uh they wanted to start with 9th and 10th and build a really strong foundation for the students including some flex time to retach and we have some district supports that are moving into those schools to help with uh the teams. So our content specialists are supporting the work that's happening in those schools and we're seeing um some good things happening across the board. Uh one other thing I wanted to share is while the strategic plan uh should be driving everything we do. We're making some conscious efforts this year to attach that to our um each school's SIP plan. And um I have to give a shout out to Tyler in our
053meetings where we've been spending some time in admin meetings having the principles look back at their SIP plans and do some looking at the early indicators that are telling them whether or not they're on track with those goals. And it's been fun to be able to work in that environment and give them an opportunity to look at what other schools are doing and where they're seeing successes. And that's yeah that The next uh is just kind of a preview for um January when the next set of indicators will be shared. We do have a delay in our uh school report card release this year because we had a rest standard setting of the ELA. So those results came in later. They're rolling in right now and we're expecting to see our school report card results
054by mid January for public release. So, this just means everything's a little bit more delayed, but we will be sharing with you some great news in upcoming meetings. Any questions? I'll ask one. I don't I don't mean to detract from any of the positive uh information that you shared, but on the attendance, did I understand correctly that our leading indicators are that we are going we have gone down despite our efforts to go up by 10%, we went down by 4%. Is that >> fact? They went down by one. Okay. >> Um, but I I do believe >> I don't have a causation, but I do believe that as we have set a goal to ensure more employees are taking role, it does make sense that that would then cause if we're taking role better
055maybe. >> So, our numbers could have been worse beforehand is what you're saying. >> We're not sure that the data is really accurate because of that. And so that is that's definitely a factor. Uh and we'll be we're trying to look at some outliers too to say which schools are really getting great attendance so that we can see what are they doing and how can we maybe replicate some of those things. So it's definitely on our radar for how we might address attendance. Yeah, I'd be interested in those outliers because my recollection from the more granular data previously is that our attendance issues are pretty consistent across the district which are consistent across the county and the state and so forth. So yeah, I'd be very interested in that data if you have some outliers.
056>> We did get some uh comprehensive data from Jared uh yesterday in Salt. Was that yesterday? It was just >> Wesley, would you have Jared share that uh presentation with the the board and if they have questions, we'd be happy to discuss it further. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> All right. Um we have Dr. Nerden here to introduce us to this time project. Um it is something that we needed to introduce now uh just because it it is a little bit timesensitive and Ben you can thank Ben for that pun. Um but we also recognize that this may have a lot of questions. I would encourage you to write down your questions because we may not have time to get to all of them as we do
057need to make sure that we have enough time for the other things on our agenda tonight. So, please um listen, write down and we'll get to as many questions as we can and then uh we'll we'll try to revisit this or have have Dr. Nerden answer the questions separately. >> Yeah, thank you. Uh excited to be here. Appreciate the time. Time project stands for time invested for meaningful education. And it is a little play on words um because we are using time to help uh some of our most atrisisk students gain the the needed education that that they so desperately need and that we want to provide. Um the concept of increasing the time is not summer school. It is not this thing that we do at the end. it is it is a a
058zero quarter or a one out of five. It's at the beginning and that infusion of additional time. Um the research is quite clear that if we do that coupled with some very targeted and improved instruction that it has uh some pretty positive results. In addition, um the research talks about the kids having a a meaningful place to be that's safe, that they're involved in educational activities throughout the day, um and that they definitely lose less because of the that time that they would have been out and summer learning loss is real. Um again, I' I've got a few quotes here. happy to read those, but I'll I'll probably move on and let you read them. Research is definitely uh supportive of this concept. Some of the big uh highle things here is that school would
059start in June um just shortly after the end of the school year. Um third graders would end in May and then they would start their fourth grade year a couple of weeks later. Um like I said, it is not summer school. It's actually part of the academic calendar for this pilot school. Um, we're not looking at doing this everywhere. We want to try it somewhere, see if it works. Teachers will um will definitely need to choose to work at this school. So, we won't take an existing school and say, "Hey, now you get to do this." But, uh, all of the if when we pick the school, the teachers um will will need to apply to to work at this new school. Um students in that school will definitely be expected to participate the full
060um calendar year and if they do not want to participate we will provide them an alternative location and we will provide transportation to that alternative location. So the idea being that we at school A is where we're going to do it and the neighboring school B if you don't want to attend the summer the full uh extended year we would provide transportation to to location B. Um we've talked with the state um food services will be provided and paid for. Um we worked with the state superintendent. she's helping us um ensure that transportation costs for the extended school year will be covered. So um the cost of this is just for the employees and we've got some title ones set aside that will help um run us through this first pilot here. >> So in
061addition to that uh we have a meeting scheduled. It was actually scheduled for earlier this month to talk about one pilot school um with some interested legislators. Uh that meeting will be held with Senator Filmore will likely be a bill sponsor and uh Senate President Adams um who are interested in piloting some of these innovative out of the box um types of interventions for at risk uh students. So, that meeting is slated for later this month, and we're hoping that if there is additional pieces here that need to be funded that they'll look to assist us with that as part of a a three-year pilot. Maybe can I ask just a quick question? Would this be anticipated to be K through five or 1 through five? >> It will be K through five, but the
062kindergarten piece would look dramatically different. um maybe just a couple of weeks, half days, not the full not the full um quarter. Um we are trying to evaluate our schools to determine the best location. We've not decided on the location and these are some of the things that we're considering. We definitely are targeting um a school with a lot of at risk factors um disadvantaged students um possibly a place that has some enrollment challenges where we could maybe draw people in. We believe that people will want to send their kids to a school that is provided all summer long. Um it will it will be a great >> most of the summer. >> Yeah, most of the summer >> some other breaks. >> There are some breaks built in. Um, we will, uh, you know,
063if a community is just adamantly against it, we would definitely look to go somewhere else. Um, we need to make sure that the facility will work, um, with the AC isn't isn't on the fritz all the time. Uh, again, working through the staffing and the calendar and the alignment with uh, strategic goals, all all of those things that happen in that school will need to be in consideration for when we choose the school. Um we have considered a few schools and we are narrowing that um and are getting close to where we would like to go. Uh we do believe that uh the potential benefits for academics is that it will reduce learning loss and obviously more time with uh really solid targeted instruction will help um fill in the gaps and boost academic um
064achievement of our students. We believe that uh the established structures of learning um support students and that that time away is always a struggle to come back and we won't have that long time away and getting them back into the the norm of running school and and that uh we believe that we'll be better on on behavior. Um, it's an opportunity to take a school that maybe is low achieving and struggling to kind of reset it, uh, establish and rebuild a school climate where high achievement is the expected norm. Um, again, we're going to take the opportunity to really invest in the teachers, provide a lot of professional learning and coaching and deep collaboration to ensure that they don't just have additional time, but they have additional time with some really targeted and and powerful
065instruction. and that we believe that it will uh be a really big benefit to the community um for the the needs of their those families in the summertime when they're when those kids aren't normally supervised. Um and here is our fancy logo. So, [snorts] uh this was a little bit timesensitive and pun intended. the uh in order to uh start working with administration and building out the program um start getting engagement with the community that would need to happen likely in the first weeks of January um to start building up the schedule uh for anticipated roll out into the summer of this upcoming summer. Um we're we're looking at just about every other type of solution um to help support our schools and provide options for our families that will uh improve academic outcomes. Um
066in terms of the research, you can use your Google or your your AI to find out uh what industrialized nations and how long they send their kids to school on on an average. And uh you'll see that the United States in that 180day agrarian calendar is among the lowest. And so with our kids especially at that kindergarten through fifth grade level um coming to us uh in c certain circumstances um with challenges uh uh behind already uh maybe learning to speak English, maybe not getting the reading and uh supports at home to be able to to increase and uh enhance their learning um and their capacity that we believe they have. Um, we're looking at some we'd like to try some some different things and different approaches. So, this would definitely be considered a pilot.
067We're not looking at doing this at any [clears throat] other schools but just one. And again, with legislative support um evaluating the efficacy of this type of a program or approach and coming back and seeing what we might do to improve those outcomes for more kids and if it doesn't work, we go back to the drawing board and look at more options. Are you aware of any other districts that have been approached by the legislature to run a similar pilot? >> No, I approached them because >> understood. >> I don't want to use our title one money if we don't have to. I'd like them to pay for it. >> It is uh it isn't like it's a giant movement, but there are pockets of this kind of movement happening throughout the country. I say
068there's a study that you cited that was from Texas that they they did this in Texas. So Kim, so I have some some comments, some concerns really about this and I know we're short on time tonight, but I also hope that understanding is given that this is the first time that I've heard of this and it's being um rushed on us and so hopefully you will allow me time to express my concerns. Um I I don't like this idea at all to be frank. Um some concerns I have well I I also looked up some information studies some show benefits some show the benefits have produced inconclusive results and that really that what's shown is that quality of time is more important than quantity of time. So more time does not necessarily equal more learning.
069Um, but all kinds of things that that go off here for me. Like doing this means kids have less time for outside interests, which are also actually really important for kids. Um, 30 days of extra instruction, which is kind of what's alluded to here, is is basically no summer is what that means. Um, and I think that this will inevitably come with increased costs. I know you're saying right now it's not going to affect us. That's irrelevant. If it doesn't affect us in the pilot, great. But if we decide, okay, we're going to go ahead and do this, that's that's going to come with significant cost increases. Um, which I already have issues with how property taxes are being increased to the point where people are priced out of owning homes. I I think that
070this would be a no-go for me for increasing costs for this purpose. Um, I I do feel like some of what we're saying is a is a reason for this project is that kids have a place to go. So, it's a child care tool. And to me, that's inappropriate. I I feel like again, you're taking away the summer. Kids should not be raised by the government. Kids need to be we should be promoting and supporting things that that promote stronger families, more time with families, not putting ourselves in place of families. And that is what this does to me. It puts oursel in place of families. Um I think teachers are burned out by the time summer comes. I ran this by a couple of teachers. That was their immediate response that like we're already
071burned out. Who would want to do this? This is not not a good thing. I think kids are burned out by the time the summer comes. I think there's other solutions that that could be looked at like maybe we had a shorter summer but we took that break time and put it somewhere else and had longer breaks in between so that maybe we don't have such a big summer learning loss issue. There's other things like that that I think could be looked at. Um, I also think with teachers being burned out, I think this is one of those things that's going to push um and increase and promote, if you will, the addition additional growth of tech in the classroom in AIUS. Um, I feel like that's one of the outcomes that would come of
072burning teachers out in this way. So, I just want to make sure those are on the record. those concerns that I have. I I don't think it's a great idea. I just don't I'm sorry, but wanted to share those publicly. Appreciate >> I have some concerns, too. I I understand where we're trying to get. I do have similar concerns that Kim has mentioned. My biggest concern, though, is logistics. So to tell those kids that live next door to a school, you have to choose between going to this school longer or you'll just automatically be boundaried out to the neighbor school, which provides more problems even for those families. And so I'm over here trying to figure out, it's almost like a school closure. I hate to even mention that today, but it feels like forced
073on a community and I'm not I'm not a fan of this. I don't know that I would support it. You mentioned funding. Hoping for the legislature to pay for anything is not a good strategy. They don't have a good track record right now with us on as far as I mean, yeah, we get our WPU when they give us this money, but then they're undercutting over here. And so there's a net loss sometimes. And while we appreciate the funds that come from the legislature, I I don't like moving forward with this project hoping that the money comes through. And this does feel really rushed. If we've been considering this and now all of a sudden we have to make this decision within 4 weeks. I I don't I don't like the optics of that. I
074don't like the board not being able to vet this more. Um, and so I right now I'm not in support. >> Could I address some of those questions, concerns? I appreciate all these concerns and I would apologize for the the timeliness of this. This is actually something we speculated on under Dr. N's leadership. Um, we spent a great deal of time with with Aaron Wilson who was at that time in uh Dr. Bramble's position. We considered uh piloting this at Redwood way back when. Well, we all know what happened with Redwood Elementary at that at at this point in time. So, there there is a little bit of a time component. We're this was with respect to the timeline. These concerns are all valid and they need to be fleshed out and we're not expecting
075that we would go into a community um and tell them that this is what's going to happen. we would go in and invite conversation and discussion about the possibility of this type of program, get their feedback, address some of these types of questions and concerns and get their buy in uh to being a part of that type of a pilot. The timing is such that and I don't believe it's hope. I wouldn't have have scheduled the meeting or even put this on the agenda if we did not have a um a strong indication that we were going to we already have the funding structure in place um to be able to utilize set aside from title one. we can figure that component out. That is the only piece. We've already problem solved on on some
076of these other components with the funding. Um so again, I agree wholeheartedly with what Kim just said and I want to reiterate this um to what Mitch indicated in his slide deck. We're looking to reestablish a school climate with quality instruction. Everything that this district is doing at this po point in time has to do with improving the instruction happening in our classrooms. um all of our supports, the boost schools, all these initiatives is about improving the instruction. So having um more of the same type of lowquality instruction in a school that's already struggling will not cut the fat. It will not do the trick. This is about having more quality instruction and improved and enhanced instruction. So, we would definitely want to make sure that this summer portion of this program included some outdoor
077components included as he indicated on his slide deck engagement with families which we believe we'll have more opportunities to do in the summertime. Um, it would be a modified schedule because we would just have one school we were providing transportation for. So, our ability to be able to get kids in seats for that instruction in a shortened period of time would be more meaningful. we likely would not be pursuing a tremendous amount of non-ested subject areas. This is about getting um core subjects and quality instruction in a shorter period of time during that summer block. Um and so again, I don't want uh our families to feel like they're just looking to Granite School District to provide child care. This is about engaging with our families with highquality instruction in a program that will make
078meaningful difference in the in the lives of those families and those children by giving them the supports and and help necessary to be successful. So, I I absolutely agree with those family concerns. We're certainly not interested in replacing the family or circumventing the those family supports, but simply providing enhancements to those supports. So if our program isn't doing that and our pilot isn't working in that way, then we would want to pull back on that and make sure that it is doing that. Um, with respect to teacher burnout, we're also very sensitive to those concerns. We still have to go and meet with our uh valued partners in the association uh to work through some of those questions and concerns. But again, we're on a a little bit of a time frame here uh to
079to be able to possibly implement this if everything were to go correctly and well, and we get buyin from the the community, the leadership. Um, we do believe there are teachers who spend a great deal of their summertime working a second job, who go out and um, spend their time trying to earn extra money and who would be interested in a flexible schedule during the summertime that would allow them to come and continue to uh, meet and engage with their students. So, I I want to be clear that we're not working off of a strategy of hope here cuz that would be absolutely ridiculous. we do feel like uh this is something that is meaningful that could provide a difference. Um I want to make sure that we address these concerns as we move forward
080and that's why I asked for this presentation tonight. Um knowing that things were starting to to click and that we were going to be able to implement this sooner than later. I apologize again that we did not have opportunity to present this to you sooner and that I know there were some discussions with uh leadership way back when about the possibilities of of this type of pilot, but those quickly died down when we went a different direction with Redwood Elementary at that time. >> I do want to just add to what Superintendent Horsley said. This is all about improving student academic outcomes and and if it produces that, then it's successful. And if it does not it so the data is what's driving this and we believe that all of the concerns that have been
081brought up can be addressed and we can ensure that students get more out of this. um otherwise we wouldn't pursue it and if it doesn't produce that like you said we suggest >> we are a little bit short on time but I would like to continue these conversations offline and make sure that we're addressing any and all board concerns as we continue to have these meetings before we get into any um extensive conversations with the with whatever the community we ultimately select would be um we obviously want to have board support with respect to this administrative initiative >> thank We're going to go ahead and um adjourn to executive session. I do need a motion for that. For the purpose of character and competence, sorry. >> I move that we move to executive session for
082executive session for character and competence. >> I'll second. >> We have a motion and a second to move to executive session for the purpose of character and competence. This is a roll call vote. Please state your name as well as your vote. Julie >> Julie Jackson. I >> Kim Chandler. Okay. >> Connie Burgess. Yes. >> Chris W. Yes. >> Karen Winder. Yes.