Regular Board Meeting - 10/21/2025 (6:00 p.m.)

001It is 6:12. I am calling to order the regular school board meeting for Tuesday, October 25th. Mrs. Douly, may we get a roll call, please? >> Yes, you may. I'll start with the ones I think that are not present. So, Amy Levy, Tom Henkins, Megan Miller, Carol Fox >> here, >> Joanne Rule >> here, >> Brian Nichols >> here, >> and uh Tia Johnson >> here. The row reflects that uh Miss Miller, Miss Levy, and Mr. Henkins are not present tonight. Thank you, Megan. No. A motion for approval of tonight's agenda. >> So moved. >> Second. >> A motion by Brian Nichols, seconded by Joanne Rue. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? >> I I >> I. >> Any oppose? Motion carries unanimously. Tonight we have the privilege of having principal Malot with us

002and she is here to introduce a Converse student or students who will be leading us in tonight's pledge. Mrs. Malot, four of our 20 Girls on the Run members. This is our sixth season of Girls on the Run. So, this is four of our wonderful girls. Are you ready? >> Okay. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Converse. Our next agenda item is the board president's report. Good evening and thank you for joining us tonight both in person and virtually. The board of education has been busy since our last regular school board meeting. At that meeting, the board formally accepted Dr. Garrison's resignation effective at the end of the

003calendar year. Since then, we've been listening listening closely to our staff, families, and community members about their hopes for the future of the school district of Boe. Board members continue to visit schools and participate in community events. I recently had the pleasure of attending a Bach Academy event at Bo Memorial High School. Box stands for business, art, communication, and hospitality. I was honored to serve as a guest judge for the culinary hospitality midterm in Mr. Finnberg's class. Students developed and priced full menus, then prepared and presented their dishes as to the panel of judges. It was the finest dining a finest dining and the finest dining experience I have had in a long time. Some of the dishes had bold flavors and colorful combinations while others had subtle, sophisticated textures and seasonings. The creativity, flavor,

004and presentation were simply outstanding. I would gladly pay for that meal again. It truly showcased the incredible talents of our students and fellow board members. If you have the opportunity to be a judge on this panel, I strongly encourage you to take that opportunity. While attending this, I did learn of Blo Memorial is the first in the nation to launch another C certification opportunity for our high school students. The professional in destination management program is for our students interested in destination marketing and tourism and exploring the career possibilities in in the travel and tourism industry. This certification became a reality of our district due to the efforts of Celestine Celestino Ruffini the CEO of Visit Bloit and Mr. Brian Michaels the career academy coach. Thank you to both and everyone who was involved in doing

005this for our students and our community. We also want to recognize a major academic achievement. Arthur Duffy, a student at Blit Memorial, earned a remarkable score of 35 on the ACT, placing him in the 99th percentile nationwide. Congratulations, Arthur. Your hard work and dedication are truly commendable. The governance committee has been working on a draft of new district goals. This draft will will be shared with the full board for review, discussion, and expected approval in early November. We are currently waiting on a few final data points related to student attendance before finalizing. The city of Boy and local municipalities impacted by the future reconstruction of Cranston Road held anformational and listening session. Many people shared concerns about the effect on safety and traffic congestion at Robinson Elementary. The city of boy engineering department is continuing

006to work with batterman engineers and the school district of boy to create practical solutions. As many of you know, October is National Principles Month, a time to recognize the hard work and leadership of our school principles. Principles are often the unsung heroes in education, leading the their schools with vision, determination, and unwavering commitment to student success. On behalf of the board of education, I want to thank each of our outstanding principles for everything you do. Your leadership matters and your efforts do not go unnoticed. Happy Nationals Principles Month. You are truly the best. Finally, as we begin the transition process with Dr. Garrison's departure today, the interim superintendent position was posted on weekend. The position will remain open until it is filled. The candidate and candidate interviews will be scheduled soon. We want to thank

007Dr. Garrison for his service and dedication to the district. The board of education wishes him all the best in his future endeavors. Again, thank you for your continued engagement and support everyone, everyone here and watching virtually. Finally, we wish everyone a safe and happy Halloween. And that concludes my president's report. Next up, we have upcoming events and announcements. Vice President Nichols, >> thank you. And I will start with an item that just uh just popped into my mind based on uh based on your board report or president's report. And uh you're a photo of you enjoying yourself at the uh at the breakfast at Boy Memorial High. Uh made it to LinkedIn. So you're you're worldwide. You have a worldwide renown of how much you enjoyed yourself that evening. So anyway, seriously, um yesterday, October

00820th, was a professional learning day for the district. This offer this offered valuable learning experiences and meaningful opportunities for staff development and growth. Tomorrow, October 22nd, the Boowit Memorial High School fall orchestra concert will be held at the high school at 7 p.m. Try to attend if you can. And that will be an amazing concert on on October the 23rd and October the 28th. Evening conferences will be held at all of our elementary schools. Term one ends on October the 31st. Upcoming board meetings. The annual budget adoption meeting will be Monday, October the 27th at 6 PM. The policy and HR committee will meet on Monday, November the 3rd at 4 PM. The business operations and finance committee will meet on Tuesday, November the 4th at 5:00 p.m. And the next regular board meeting will

009be held on Tuesday, November the 4th at 6 p.m. And that concludes tonight's board announcements. >> Thank you, Vice President Nichols. Next up, we have recognitions. And tonight, the board is recognizing the Converse Elementary PTO and PTA. And we have Principal Malot to help assist with tonight's recognition. >> Yeah. Um, so I have two of my members here. I have Emily Parker and Carrie Hicks. Can wave? Um, they've been instrumental in getting us our PTO up and moving again. So, after COVID, things kind of died out with our PTO. Um, so these ladies have been great at recruiting um, some other families into our PTO. We even have one dad on our PTO, so that's amazing. Um, we had a carnival come back to our school last spring and it will be an annual event.

010So that's been amazing as well. But just lots of fun um, events and and things for our kids. Um, they hosted a dance party for our third Friday day for our kids. So that was motivating and fun for them. So, just a lot of things that they've been doing to help us out um engage our families in our school community. So, we we appreciate you. Thank you so much. Next, we have public comment. Mrs. Douly, are there any members or any um emailed submissions for public comment? There were not any emails that were received uh for tonight and until now I have not received any public comment cards. Are there any? >> Looks like no. >> Thank you. Our next item is our reports to the board. We will start with the teaching learning and

011equity pupil services committee meeting. Chairperson Joanne Rue. >> Thank you. Today we heard a few reports. We had um um updated information on the strengthening families program. Uh we now have 16 staff members trained and um hopefully we will get that started soon. Um then we also heard of the need for some changes in courses at the high school uh specifically in some science courses, one of the trades courses and an art class. Um that will be an action item next month. Um and then we received uh the data collected from the ad hoc showing uh our schools are doing well. Uh they're uh starting the year with clear and high expectations. We voted to continue the work of the ad hoc through the completion of the 2526 school year. And highlight of the evening,

012Carol Fox uh has now been part of her first uh TLE meeting. So we're glad to have her be part of our meeting as well. So that was our meeting. Thank you, Mrs. Rue. Our next report to the board is the policy and HR committee meeting. Chairperson Nichols. >> Thank you, board president Johnson. Yes, we uh we met this evening, postponed meeting from yesterday u due to lack of a quorum and we uh discussed and approved a u an ASL sign language interpreter uh for a for a young student whose IEP requires consistent interpretation. Um and so we approved that to move through the full board for approval later on tonight. And then we also approve discussed and approved the uh exhibit A and exhibit B from human resources uh for approval to to the

013four board. And that concludes the H HR and policy committee meeting. Thank you Chair Nichols. Next up we have our communications update from the Headley Group. Tonight we have Lindsay and Shauna here. And there is a typo on the agenda. This should be um um presentation between 20 and 25 minutes. Thank you. All right. Good evening. Hi everyone. We're back. Lindsay Shidell and Shauna the with the Hadley Group. Uh we are your communications partner um that has been helping facilitate some listening, some very important listening to help inform uh future planning, future considerations um for the possibility of a referendum coming up. Um we're really happy to be here tonight. You've heard us kind of tease a little bit along the way of some things that we've been working on. Um you'll hear Shauna introduce

014a little bit later um or sooner um about kind of that the approach that we've taken this time around. We were your partner last spring and really proud of that work and happy to be back again. Um Shauna, why don't you go ahead? You can kind of run us through um kind of our four-step process and where we're at today and why we're here tonight. Okay. >> Perfect. All right. Um, so as Lindsay mentioned, um, we outlined a four-step process with starting with Lyn listening, which was intentional. So this is a step we did not have last time. We didn't have have the time built in last time and so we were so grateful for the leadership to bring us on with enough time to really do this really important foundational strategic step in your

015planning. Um, so our listening approach was our first step which took place in August and September. Um, and this is designed really to help the board and leadership move forward with clarity and alignment um, with staff and community voices. Um, so we we're excited to share this data with you. Um, just kind of wanted to briefly outline a few of the things that were done in step one. You'll see here on this slide. Um, internal listening started with the board. We were able to meet with six out of seven board members. This was about seven or eight hours of listening to each of you. Um so thank you so much for your time on that. Then we moved to staff um which we'll report on a little bit in a little bit here. Um and

016again that was intentional to start with staff your your internal team your your you know frontline to your parents um and hear kind of what they had to say and then followed by the community survey. That staff feedback really helped us shape our community survey. So we'll talk a little bit more about that. Um in step one also included some stakeholder mapping um some one-on-one conversations, channel and content audits really looked at your channels, conversations happening online conversations. We keep a pulse on the the news um here in Bo um and community engagement there. Um language checks, we got to know kind of how your community speaks um and really listening that way as well. So listening included the surveys, but it also was Lindsay and I listening to board meetings, reading the newspapers, listening

017to conversations online, which helps us then, uh, provide you with really strong, uh, feedback moving forward here. So, um, I'm going to turn it over to Lindsay. She's going to just briefly talk about the methodology behind the survey process. And my eyes aren't as good as probably everyone else's, so I've got a little cheat sheet here. But um you know I think it's important to to recognize that this is one form of listening. As Shauna mentioned, we've been tuning into your board meetings. We know there's so much work going on in the district, right? Um we heard from teaching and learning. We in our cabinet meetings that we've joined in our weekly meetings with Dr. Garrison. We're hearing about all of this um conversations and communication happening with people and feedback that they have about

018how to improve the district wins for the district challenges. Um our type of listening that we did as communications professional professionals is very it's called what's directional listening. So it was done with intent to inform our messaging process moving forward if uh and when you should move into a referendum planning season. Um, so a little bit about the method. So we did design and uh all of the surveys that were done. Um, we also did all of the analysis of the surveys with tools that most PR professionals use today. Um, the district, just so everyone in the room knows, retains, you know, ownership of all that data, all of the work that we had done. So if anyone's curious about what that is, got plenty of resources here to see that. Um, know that the

019findings we're about to report on are descriptive. Um, they're meant to inform. They are not meant to advocate for or against anything. Uh, our methodology, we for our staff survey, we were able to deliver that in English. Um, in the community survey, we were able to do that both in English and Spanish with the help of Dr. Garrison and his team in translation services was amazing. Um, questions proposed on both surveys were multi-response. They were open-ended as well. Notice when we talk about some percentages here and as you dive into the reports deeper, um, some of those percentages exceed 100%, it's not a clerical error. It's not a mathematical error. It's because we have some open-ended multi-choice questions. Okay? So, sometimes people get thrown off by that. They start adding up on their own. Um,

020wanted to add to that our listening doesn't end as step one closes up. There's still feedback coming in on these surveys. We didn't want to necessarily close them off to everyone. Um, what I mean by that is there's been some special accommodations that have been made for someone who maybe needs a printed out survey and mailed in. The data you see today we feel is whole. Um, but we didn't want to close it off if someone needed a special accommodation to still participate in the survey. Um, some limitations. Let's just talk about those really quick. This was voluntary. There was no paid advertising. There was no paid engagement. This was all very organic listening. Um, it's a non-probability sample, not a scientific poll, not designed to forecast any type of voting. Okay. Um, it's definitely,

021um, not intended for advocacy, like I said, and I did want to just acknowledge that because you do not have an internal communications team. You really don't. You're you're all boots on the grounds. Everyone's doing it. I see principles in here in charge of communicating to parents and staff. Uh, Mrs. Beavers, Mrs. Douly was so helpful. Dr. Garrison was with us. I'm sure we've he's going to be happy to get us off his clock. Um, but I just wanted to acknowledge that this really was a team effort on behalf of your district staff in helping get the surveys out to both um, employees as well as parents, community members, and thank you so much to the board. We saw we knew that you also were getting those community survey links out to your your connections

022and we really appreciate that. Shauna is going to dive into um kind of some the fun stuff, right? So, some staff listening themes that were pulled out. >> Yeah. So, let's start with the the survey summary. Um, there were 245 responses. Um, again, kudos to Dr. Garrison, the team um for getting this out. You guys executed this beautifully. Um, sent reminders, that kind of thing. Uh, to make sure that staff knew all staff were invited to participate, but you'll see um about 63% were teachers. So, your teachers uh really responded here. Um the time frame was August and I really want to call your attention to this over 37% uh response rate on this survey. Uh that is significantly above an industry average. So uh really um a very engaged staff wanting to share their

023feedback and so we were really glad to see that. You'll see here through the numbers um seasoned staff um are sharing their perspective which is wonderful. And then one of the other themes that I just wanted to include in this at a glance is 70% of the respondents in this survey said that funding limitations from past referendums do affect their day-to-day. Um and so that was a theme we really wanted to pull out uh as a significant number. Um so now we'll go to the next slide and I'm going to pull out a couple other top level themes uh that staff that rose to the top for staff. Um over there in that peach colored box I'm going to share um as Lindsay mentioned there were a few open-ended questions and this was intentionally done

024to really let um again listening hearing their voices how they speak. Um and we there were 362 comments. Um this shows that your teachers not only are just checking the yes no boxes but they're really taking the time to put thoughtful um responses in there. So again, you have the full reports, you have the full data sets. I encourage you to dive into those, but I just wanted to uh share that as well. We kind of pulled out a quote there below as well. Um, and again, you have that full set. But at the top of the themes was really staff pay and retention. This was a top priority for all staff and you'll see the data to support that. Um, wanting earlier inclusion and understanding. So staff want to be part of the planning

025and the committees. They want to be engaged. they want to be heard. Um, and so that that's an opportunity there. Simplification. A lot of them mentioned wanting really simplified tools um to explain funding and initiatives. Um, they are your front lines to maybe parent question students and so really giving them simple tools to be able to inform people um as you're as you're working on your communication. Um, we had a question around preferred channels. um both in the community survey and the staff survey, people said email um which we were kind of surprised by, but that rose to the top for both uh groups. So thinking about that um supervisor briefings, they want to hear from their leadership in the schools. Um so again, that's importance of educating uh those people as well, principles and

026and leadership in there. um identifying top priorities. You'll see there student behavior and engagement, achievement, class sizes, safety, pay and retention. These themes are probably not a surprise. I know you guys are doing a lot of work around these themes. Um and so to see those there as well. And then just needing more support. Um they want families and communities more involved. Um they want to be sharing and communicating and having that two-way communication with their community. Um, so the next slide here, I wanted to talk about some some data to support some of that. So, um, that top bullet point, uh, this really stood out to us, um, as a retention risk if funding stays tight. Um, that percentage of people that were very likely or somewhat likely to look for employment outside of

027the district if funding remains limited was was significant and something we wanted to make sure uh, we were pulling out for you there. Um, family engagement. We talked a little bit about that. Um, teachers uh or participants reported that they feel that the community and families aren't as engaged as they would like to see. Um, so something they noted a confidence gap in talking about funding. Um, staff don't feel as confident as they would like to about talking about funding. And then that kind of goes um into the next point as well about community understanding low. a lot of them reported feeling that um they don't feel that the community really understands um kind of their work or kind of their struggles throughout this. So um the top three priorities that we listed here um

028again that very top one was staff retention and pay uh followed by student behavior, motivation and engagement and followed by academic excellence and support. Um so we listed those top three priorities there as well. Um does anyone have any questions? I just want to pause after the staff survey. The staff survey, I realize, um, is like a 15-page document for you guys to enjoy. So, there's a lot more. These are really highlevel themes that we wanted to share tonight, but I wanted to give you a quick minute before we jump into the community survey to ask some questions about the staff survey if you had any. >> Any any questions? >> Dr. Garrison. >> Yes. So, I just want to thank the staff again for participating in the in the staff survey for the referendum

029conversations that we're having and of course the listening is very important, but we also recognize that there's going to be other opportunities if the board, you know, the course moves forward with this opportunity to to hear from the staff as it pertains to some of the things that they would love to see in the referendum. Uh, one of the things that I want to just make mention and note of is that when we do these surveys, naturally, we we set out to have 100%. you know, we want everybody to participate in them, but naturally throughout a conversation or throughout the time frame of a survey, we'll get, you know, sporadic participation. Then there's reminders and I would just like to thank all of the staff again who participated and getting up to 37% was is

030is a huge marking. I did have a hope for about 60%. Um, but I'm just joking, but I just want to make sure I thank the staff for participating in that survey. Thank you. >> Yes. And when you told us 60% I reminded you that that was a lofty goal and I would be happy with very happy with what we got. So yes, I love it. All right. Now Lindsay is going to uh dive into the community survey results. >> Thanks Shauna. Yeah, just as a reference um I believe it's actually in the report, but I think like national standards for internal employee listening participation in surveys, especially online surveys, is closer to 20%. So, you almost doubled that. So, I I'd like to echo that as well. It was um it was really impressive

031to see, but also I was glad that we were able to pull out kind of some open-ended question um calculations because that number to Shauna and I who we look at reports like this and pull them together. That was a huge response rate. You know, that showed us that the staff that chose to participate really put some time into it. So, um, yes, if you see a staff member, and that was anyone, that wasn't just teachers that were asked. It was anyone who works for the district was encouraged. Um, please thank them for their participation. So, all right. So, let's dive into some community listening. Um, similar to the staff, we did start with staff. We thought that was important. Um, also staff responses helped us shape some of the questions that we asked in

032the community listening survey. uh a little bit smaller sample of engagement. Uh we would have liked to have seen that number closer to a 450 to 520 range. So again this is a directional listening survey analysis. This is not for scientific data in any in any way. Um so please take it as that. Uh some things about access. You know, this was we mentioned earlier provided both in English and Spanish online survey. Community members were also welcome to contact the board secretary, have a survey mailed to them um that they could return back or pick one up here at the district. Happy to make accommodations for that as well. We also put the survey online on the board's website web page. Um and we also encourage the board um to share this. Right. So you

033you all did a great job trying to encourage your community, your friends, your connections, your business partners to the district to be a part of this. We were happy to see some um in the respondent categories, some business leaders, civic leaders also participated in this. Um we gave about two weeks for folks to do that. I will say the majority came in the first week. The second week kind of fell short a little bit. So, um, again, completely organic. We didn't put any paid paid dollars behind trying to get folks to do this. There was no incentives. Um, it was purely voluntary. So, some themes, uh, similar to staff, you'll see some crossover, which we'll present later, but really with community listening, trust came out loud and clear. Um and that was trust from leadership

034including the board, transparency, oversight, clear explanations. Again, questions were uh related to referendum planning and communication. This is not when when we're talking about these themes. Please do not think district as a whole. The survey was focused on a potential referendum. Um individual cost. So so many folks this was a majority um outcome that came really more concerned about the tax impact on them individually not on bloit in general. Um, communication again we were surprised a little bit in the world of communication. Sean and I together with more than 50 50 years if you add our experience together. Email communication is no longer the preferred method of most communities. But in Bo, we heard it from staff and your community members. They they want to be emailed. Um, which will would be helpful if uh

035any type of referendum cycle is is is to come after this. Uh the bilingual information absolutely came up as well. Um focus very similar to staff. A lot of responses when people talked about what's important to them right now. It was other people whether it was staff, their kids' teachers, their students, their kids. Um we heard from alumni as well, which I thought was very um a neat take. Um, one thing that was, you know, a great opportunity that presented itself was we picked up as communications professionals is that there's a misguided narrative. So, we did ask people where do they choose to get their information about the district or the board as it pertains to referendum. I will say we were a little shocked that the majority of the community told us they receive

036board information on social media. The board of education does not have their own social media platform. So who is relaying board information through social media? Um there's an opportunity there to guide your narrative back to you as the author. Um some notable splits similar to staff email we talked about um led using the district website more often social media um there wasn't much interest in in-person meetings. I know in the past referendums that's been a focus of getting out there in the community. That's not what this survey showed us. um oversight uncertainty. Uh the large majority of respondents were not sure um in you know board oversight and trust when it comes to a referendum. Community understanding um they want a clear plan, transparent communication as do most people when they're asked to make a

037decision, right? Um ahead of other factors. There was this was interesting too. there was like this opt-in appetite like yes we we want to be engaged we want to hear more we want to see more of leadership but don't don't ask us to come to any more meetings let us let us opt in so good to know uh this listening too I wanted to mention whether a referendum cycles on the horizon or not this listening should be gold for all of your planning moving ahead um where now where staff and community intersect Um hopefully this helps inform some um some planning in the future, but clarity in sources, using more simple explanations to things, one location with primary documents. Um close the loop, right? Close the loop. If you're going to show some input on

038something, what are you going to do with it? And make sure there's some regular cadence and sharing. um people and results. Again, they centered so much on staffing stability, behavior engagement, achievement, class size, safety. Uh again, access for communication, email first. Um one thing we we we picked up as well where some of these themes inter intersected in the open-ended the community survey also had open-ended questions. Um, we did pick up there was some fatigue with polarization, fingerpointing, you know, people were pleading almost in some of their comments for more respectful solution focused dialogue with the community. Um, and really striving to build this alignment around one shared solution. Any questions about the community listening survey? I think this one was about 15 pages, too. So there's a lot of reading material to get into

039very very quick overview we're providing. Yes. So what does a schoolboard social media presence look like? That's an excellent question and something we um we're going to provide you with some suggestions on all the audience that we directed this uh listening to some suggestions on how to meet some of those needs in the future. >> Yeah, I'm really glad you asked that because along with those reports um there's also a supplemental piece which is a um list of like Lindsay said some suggestions per group that you guys can take. So, I love that you're ready to take action. That's wonderful. Any other questions about community listening? >> Just a comment. >> Yeah, thank you so much too. I want to thank the the community I want to thank the community for also participating in the

040communitywide survey. Um, one of the things that well, I shouldn't say communitywide, what we were able to get from the community. One of the things about community is that we know that their voices does matter and we want to make sure that we're able to capture their voices best way we know how to. Um, just like I mentioned with the staff opportunities, there will be other opportunities where communities can kind of chime in and share their voices as around as it pertains to a potential referendum space that the board will have to make a decision on. Uh, my hopes is that the community will again rally around the school district and support anything that we've decided to put forth if that's what the board decides to do. Um, naturally, we also want this to be

041an opportunity for us just to just to to hear the feedback, too. And so I want to thank you for of course pulling all this data together and at least allowing us as a team um to hear it. Um and of course one of the things that I kind of lean back on when I'm thinking about community is that you know sometimes you're you're not you're listening for the people who of course chime in naturally you get that information but it's also a group that that don't chime in right and I think we've all tried to work with that group as well and want to hear from that group as much as possible. And so if there's other ways that you can probably provide the board with information on how to lean into with that

042group, that would be greatly appreciated as well. Thank you. >> Yeah, absolutely. And just, you know, I know we're closing up on our time. We've got two more quick slides just so everyone understands kind of Hadley's role next in um in in our four-step process. So, two quick slides, please. >> Yeah. So, so mine is really quick. We obviously uh just wrapped up uh step one um and a four-step process that really builds on itself. Again, this is a very strategic process starting with listening. Um the Hadley team, uh Lindsay and I are already into step two uh which is proposal um kind of framing into our October work. So, I'm going to let Lindsay uh dive into that a little bit, but you'll see step one wrapped up and start stepping. >> Yeah. So,

043real quick, I know we we don't have much time, but um step two, it's kind of outlined October, November. We're we're ahead of schedule here on our end. Um we've gone ahead and analyzed the survey results. We've done some listening in insights. Next up, really, we're kind of on um not hold, but we're going to wait back and and save some hours to put it to the most priority work. And that's going to be we're going to allow you all some time to review these listening outcomes, the companion piece which has suggestions on how to better engage with each of the targeted audiences that we heard from. Um, and hopefully all of the listening in addition to what we've done, like I said, we've heard teaching and learning and some other groups have done some

044listening as well. you've our suggestion is you go forward looking at everything um to really help inform kind of any type of referendum consider considerations for the future. Once you decide, you know, where you're headed, we're here waiting for you with these next couple boxes here. So, uh we're ready to support the admin leadership, the board with how to present information to the community. um get some visuals ready, learn on and build on a lot of the listening that we did um that we were able to collect and be here as your partner um in any way that we can as in a communications capacity. >> So, thank you. >> Thank you. Are there any questions or comments from board members? >> Thank you so much, Dr. >> Thank you all so much for your

045time. >> Questions or comments? I just want to say thank you again to the community and the staff and um of course to the board for this opportunity for this portion of the agenda. Thank you. >> Thank you all so much. >> Next on our agenda we have enrollment and projection update. Sorry about that. This is to inform the board on enrollment projections and staffing. Dr. Garrison. >> Yes, ma'am. So this presentation is um being brought to you by the people here in the school district of Bo. U one of the things that I would like to say about enrollment and projections. Um naturally we know that enrollment is always changing. We also know that when you're thinking about a school year um there's going to be touch points where we look at enrollment and

046we look at staffing throughout the school year. We also know that from a school perspective that there's um cadences that we look at. Um, everyone in the room now definitely understands that in the school year there is definitely cadences that we look at as pertains to when we can revise and revisit this information. Naturally, at this point of the school year, we're kind of wrapping up with the enrollment projections for this school year knowing that uh we have third Friday count again to look at in January. So these are ever going or ongoing conversations that we have to have um as it pertains to staffing and staffing workbooks and staffing presentations. Um we start these processes as like I said as soon as we wrap up one. And so as we kind of end this

047conversation moving towards a final budget, we of course roll right back into the same conversations again starting right away in January. Um and so one of the things that we did was we wanted to kind of pull together um a snapshot of how we are are looking at enrollment and our projections. Let me just say this, this could easily be a workshop as well um for the board. When I say easily be a workshop, we could spend hours looking at this information. And so what you're about to get today is again a highle overview um of this information. Again, everyone in the room kind of understands that space. And so we're not asking anyone in the room to try to explain every single thing in every single space, but we will have a high level

048overview for the board to consider and and not only consider, but ask questions as we kind of go through. Um I do have with me the cabinet that's going to help present this information naturally and I also have some principles that have um agreed to um assist us in this conversation today as well. And so without further ado, I will turn over the conversations to Mrs. Elwood. >> Thank you. Um so I just wanted to give a brief overview of how we budget for enrollment and membership. So for membership um we budgeted for the 2526 school year. We did a budget estimate of 6,203 students. And when we got all the numbers back from the DPI and we counted all our children and we got all our open enrollment numbers and our um independent charter

049school numbers, our October 15th number ended up at 6207. So a little bit better than what we had projected. Um that number um is a three-year average of the last three years. So for 2420 or I'm sorry for 2526 um we had estimated um 6,069 students um and that number came in at 6,080. So a little higher which is what why the um three-year average is a little higher. Now you're wondering okay that's our membership but our enrollment is a completely different number. So, if you look on the right side of the screen, you'll um see how we get from our third Friday count, which was the 4762, and we take out those open enrollment kids that have come in and we add in the open enrollment kids out and that gives us our total

050of 5561. But then the DPI does a FTE calculation because some of our kiddos are in um 4K and preschool and so those get adjusted down a little bit. So our total FTE for the revenue limit is 5412 but then we get to um add in some of the summer school kids. Um Challenge Academy, we didn't have that number yet and the independent charter schools came in a little bit higher than we expected um by about eight kids um for a final number of of 628.8. eight students. So our final revenue limit membership is that six um 6080. So that's how we get from kids that are attending school >> Butts and seats. Yep. To membership. Any questions? Do board members have any questions? I I do have one on at the last meeting on

051the PI-1563 pupil count report. This has a pupil count September count of 4,831 for grades 1 through 12. And this this report today has um September 3rd Friday 4,762. What's what's the difference between these two numbers? I mean, I don't mean the mathematical difference. What's the significant difference? What what what what do these numbers mean? Why why am I looking at two different numbers? >> Um I think that include Can you give me the number again? Sorry, without having it in front of me. >> From the um PI 1563 pupil count report um 4,831 That's crazy, >> right? But this and this one says third Friday and this one is less than this one. So if we're counting all students on third Friday, would it be more than this one? Because this one is only

052grades 1 through 12. Just so so may maybe um >> just to clarify are you looking at 1 through 12 or >> well I'm looking at the document that was given to the board last meeting and compared to this one um to >> so we don't have just 1 through 12. >> Okay. Okay. So, I'm looking where where does that total count then show up on this one? >> Right here, I think. >> Is this a 5561? Is one different? >> This is 5560. >> Okay. Thanks, Okay. Um this next slide is a overview of all the staffing we have budgeted for for 2526. Um of note here the um majority of our staffing is for teachers and for paras. Um teachers are at 59.89% 89% and paras are 18.25% of our budget. >> I

053apologize for this this slide being so small with the numbers. Um I tried to enlarge it and it just didn't work out that way but the numbers are extremely small and I know for some of us even me um those numbers look like I can't even see them anymore. So sorry about that. So the total at the bottom is 718 people or FTE sorry >> any questions? >> Uh this next slide is just an enrollment snapshot as of October 13th. Um we run a report every week um and do an audit in Skyward to make sure our numbers are correct. Um you can see this is by grade level and then also by school depending on the way you want to look at it vertically or horizontally. Um and as of October 13th the enrollment

054number was 4834. And you'll see that's different than the third Friday count because third Friday count is literal attendance on that day. I don't know who's doing this. >> Any questions, >> Mrs. Fox? >> Uh, yeah. I I don't quite know where to jump in here on this one. Um, I made a specific request for class size information and I don't see it here. I don't think we're that far yet numbers of of students per section. >> I think we're we're only midway through the presentation at this point. >> Okay. >> I still don't see it. >> I don't know who the next one is. Thank you. Good evening. The next slide uh talks about what our projected enrollment was when we did our workbook conversation um earlier in the year um versus the actual

055number of students and this is reflected by school. And I believe Mrs. box. This may be close to what you were requesting where we show the number of students and how we change the number of staff and I see you say no. Okay. So this slide is strictly the number of students and the number of FTEEs to those students. When we actually did the enrollment count in September, uh some of them went up and so we added an FTE. For example, Converse received um had an an additional excuse me, kindergarten FTE added for 19 instead of the 18. Gaston, there was no change. But then you look at Hacket and there was a reduction at the 4K DLI level. At Merrill, we had no change. We just swapped out grade levels for staffing due to

056the different enrollment at each of the grade levels. and Robinson did see one reduced, but there's a possibility that um we may need to increase the number at 4K. And then lastly, Todd had a 22 FTE count and um that's because we had almost 10 additional students calculated originally. So, we repurposed two of those FTEEs when we closed the uh DLI sections at K and one and one at 4K at Hackit and Todd Molingual to uh bring that number down to and compensate for um the deficits elsewhere. At the next slide, we see the same uh numbers and assigned um FTEEs to classrooms for the middle and high schools. And there was no significant change at the two middle schools um or at BLA. We were a little low at the Bo Memorial. We had

057163 students less. And so we are actually went or going through a final revision of the uh course review to see how that impacted the number of teachers, numbers of sections offered. Any questions? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Mrs. R. Um so I know the 4K programs have been we have a a lot of students. Um have we shifted teachers in the last week because uh I think just a week ago I had someone reach out to me still asking about that. >> Absolutely. And so we're still in the process of identifying the best way to address it. uh because if you have 25 students in one classroom and 24 in a second and you put in a third section, then you end up having very very small uh prek sections per staff. And so one

058of the things that we bounced around was the possibility of perhaps creating a prek classroom on each side, one east, one west, and identifying in which schools so that then uh we can combine those what would be smaller third sections and some of these um buildings into one building on each side. >> So how is PK different from the 4K program? So the 4K is what I'm referring to. >> Oh, okay. Sorry, I'm used to calling it prek old school. >> So you would be adding one 4K on the east side and one 4K on the west side. And and when would that take place? >> Well, we're currently working on that. I think that there's just a lot of collaboration between departments for um students and how we're going to um combine those students

059into those schools, transportation and then the actual assignment of um of staff to the two different uh classrooms that would be created as a result. >> Is there like a soft deadline? >> I don't added cost to the budget for two positions. So that's about $200,000 with benefits. >> Mhm. Right. >> And I do believe that so we uh broached we got closer to a resolution after the third Friday count was finalized uh last cabinet meeting. We have a cabinet meeting scheduled for tomorrow and I think we would have a definitive timeline. I would presume by no later than tomorrow's cabinet meeting. Okay. >> Let me just add this too. One of the things that we have to remember is that when we're thinking about adding anything, we want to make sure we get through

060a budget cycle, right? And so the budget cycle technically ends on October the 27th when we're able to kind of produce that budget cycle and then we able to look at what extra monies we have to do these opportunities that we would love to to you know move and move into. So although Mrs. Almondas did just mention tomorrow being a space. We wouldn't be bringing this to the board until sometime in November to possibly add more sections of a of a position based off of budgets and monies that we >> I I think this is a very important and um time-sensitive issue. 24 students, 25 students, 27 students, 28 students in a 4-year-old classroom is not okay. especially when our soft cap is 22. So, I think this is something that we really need to

061focus some time and energy on and if we need to have special meetings to get it done faster, I think it needs to happen. >> The staff is working for this um board. I want y'all to hear that we've been doing this since we've since third party count and we have to get through a space of one budget cycle ending to determine what monies we have to bring back to the board for these considerations. It is not something that we want to pause on because we are definitely trying to figure out what's the best next steps for these positions regardless like Mrs. Um almonds just mentioned as soon as we decrease class sizes now you got class sizes around 12 to 13 kids in them now when we start to do that in the 4K

062spaces. So those are some of the balances that we have to look at. Additionally we need to look at just for the board to know this. Do we have space in the buildings to even add another classroom? And so we have to look at that as another opportunity for my staff and I to kind of consider as we move forward with adding 4K extra help. Thank you, >> Mrs. Fox. Um again um this is not at all what I was looking for. Um I still believe we need to have a report that actually delineates the number of sections and the number of students per section. um and with the class sizes for the high school and a staffing plan for each building. That was what I asked for. I did not ask for a highle

063overview. I asked for specific information and there are lots of issues with this information. Um 4K just being one of them. Um we I see the Converse principal here. We have a fourth grade at Converse. How many how many teachers do you have at that fourth grade? >> Two. That means they're 32 and 32. I >> 34 and 32. >> Second grade is overloaded there, too. >> Um, so we have some some other places that are are overloaded. We have some places I'm very concerned about. Merryill, it's down to 199 students. Um, I look at some of those numbers like uh this third grade at 25. You do have classes of 12 and 13. So, and I don't quite understand being an old principal why you're waiting for any of this. We always worked on

064on reconfiguring enrollments and redoing things about enrollments at the end of the first week of school. We are now almost at the end of October and some of these issues have not been addressed. And I think that that is inappropriate frankly because we're talking about dealing with our students. this little page I there's some inaccuracy on that one because we added a kindergarten at Gaston so there are 17 teachers over there so that's not correct. Um you say you only have 20 at Hackit but you reduced a 4K but down at the bottom you say you added a 4K. So that's not correct. So um this is very disappointing and um not at all what we need. And I think it's imperative that the board see this information prior to finalizing a budget, which we're

065supposed to finalize on Monday. 60% of this budget is for personnel. How can we be responsible to pass a budget if we have no knowledge of a staffing plan and we had cut counselors and social workers and psychologists and we need to see where those people are and know what's going on with how that's being staffed in our buildings. That's a staffing plan. Where are these people? Where are they being placed? How are services being provided to our children? And then we add in the vacancies because we have a ton. >> So um we need to track these cuts. Um we need to make sure that um things have occurred that we have asked to have occur. Um, we need to be responsible about our our that this is being done both educationally and fiscally

066responsibly. That is the role of the board and to have an overview like this without the information that was requested is totally inappropriate. >> Mrs. Fox, I know you're sharing that your your opinion around what you expected in this presentation. We still have more slides to kind of work through where you can see more information as it pertains to some of the sections and so you'll be able to see a little bit more of that information as we kind of go through it. Thank you so much. >> I studied the entire presentation over the weekend and I am not seeing anything here that's going to improve what I what I've just said. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Um can we go back to the slide that was just up? Um yeah. So, and you may

067have mentioned this and I was uh distracted. Um at Todd, um 20 repurposed repurposed the two FTE closed sections of DLI at K and one for 1.0 each 4K at Hackit and Todd Monolingo. I'm wondering if u Mrs. Almondas or Theresa Morate can explain. So, we've got we're closing some DLI. If we have DLI teachers, don't we don't we want to keep them in the purpose of DLI? >> The reason why some of these sections were closed is because of the lack of DLI teachers. >> Okay. And so um based on enrollment numbers, we either repurposed um the FTE for monolingual and provided supports through other delivery methods. Um and in this case specifically that you're mentioning, Todd, and to Mrs. Fox question. When we look at the numbers and what our needs are, we

068identified one FTE at 4K to be given back to Hacket and one monolingual um to remain at Todd because we had originally made the reductions when the numbers uh were what they were originally and we didn't have a teacher there. And then once we realize the numbers, we move that FTE and the teacher with that FTE back to that grade level. So, and this is a very fluctuating um and I don't want to misspeak but it's uh it's very fluctuating number one because we have had quite an unfortunate revolving door of teachers um which have forced us to do the best that we can do to move students around. uh we also have the regular vacancies that we started off the year with which have prompted the number of students per classroom. So to your

069point um I think a little bit maybe even if we had three classrooms for say Converse so that they wouldn't have 30 something students in each being able to secure a teacher for those sections. So certainly if we do secure a teacher and there's a need we can open that section but to open a section and not have a teacher to correspond to it does not really relieve the pressure in that vacuum. I do understand that there are other ways that that pressure can be released. There is room in that grade level at both Hackett and Gaston or there should be. Um and we're buzzing kids all over this town. I don't see any reason why we couldn't look for volunteers or some other people in those grade levels to to be be transported to

070those other schools so that their children can have a better education and everybody else can have a better education as well. And I know they've been saying that ha uh Converse has had a growing um ELLL population. Perfect. Let's to say maybe you want to go over to Hackit because they have DLI. So we offer those things to parents and we look at those things. The other thing that o over the weekend that I've been wondering about is our indist open enrollment and what kinds of things are going on with that because if there are kids that are sitting over at Converse that are in district open enrolled in those grade levels that enrollment was supposed to be or it used to be contingent on space. Well, obviously there's no space. So if you can't

071get volunteers then you go to to to that group. Again, all of that stuff should have been done over the summer or that first week of school. You don't you you kids aren't going to want families aren't going to want to move their kids at this time of year. That's why you have to be more proactive about making some of those changes. But again, you know, we need to be looking at that and DI is a complete issue. We have no idea what's going on with DLI. And if we had the staffing plan, we'd know what was going on with DLI because obvious now we have there's no 4K first grade or kindergarten at Todd. So pretty much half of the Todd program is gone. Um and yet when we look at this, there's no

072way to tell that unless unless you're really looking through it and going, "Oh my goodness, we've just lost the program." Um staffing plan is important. We need to see who's in every building and who's assigned there and who's who's missing. We need to see all of that stuff if we're if we're going to understand what's going on so that we can explain this to the community. If we can uh deal with issues that it came up on that Hadley thing twice, community and staff class size was an issue. How can we even understand what they're talking about if we're not seeing it? >> Thank you. This sorry this is just a snapshot of two of our schools. This is frozen and converse just to show um over time. So when we are working in January

073and we have the projections um it helps us to estimate the um section sizes and then as things change over the summer whether that's enrollments or teachers or vacancies um those types of things um we're adapting talking to principles um about what we're doing and so we go through that cycle um while they're uh doing the hiring cycle and then registration enrollment is all happening happening at the same time. Um, and so this is um, it is fluid because there's a lot of mobility in this district whether we're talking about students or staff. Um, and it's adapting to that mobility. So what is set in January is a good projection, but it certainly isn't going to stay um, as you um, those of you that have worked in schools understand. So um, just moving across

074here, you can see over time what was happening with frozen. I wanted to talk through this a little bit because of the two middle schools, this one did have kind of a decline in enrollment. So I want to talk about the work that we did in January for a projection and then why we kind of stayed where we were at with our core teacher numbers. So back in 22 was as you'll see this is when FURM was a 48 and then those were the number of sections and then we had the reconfiguration. So then we combined um the four fives obviously went back to the elementary schools. Uh that's something also that we have to consider when we talk about adding sections. A lot of our elementary schools do not have additional classroom spaces to

075add sections. So you also have to think about building uh capacity in the actual room sizes um in our K5 buildings. Um and then when we went down uh on 20 uh3 you can see we were at um 767 for our core teachers. Then um there's a DLI and an in a general enrollment. You have to add those two numbers together when you're looking at our core classrooms because there's times when all of those students are together. Um then when you go to F uh Y24 you can see that we did a reduction and now we're down to six six6 that's sixth seventh and eighth grade core teachers. Then when we moved into uh this year we did another reduction to five five and six. So as you can see we've been shaping that out

076as we've been resizing the district over the last uh several years. Um, and then the new numbers which I have over in the column over there in the green, uh, were to illustrate what those numbers are. And so when you look at, for example, sixth grade, if you were to divide that by 30, you'll get 4.6. And so in that moment, you make the decision, well, are we going to go down to four teachers for that grade level, or are we going to stay at at five? And so in that situation, um, keeping it at five, you have an average class size of about 29, I think it was. But if you were to go from 4.6 down to four, now your class sizes are at 36. So where it might look like you have

07730 less kids, why don't you reduce a core teacher? Um it it it doesn't always work out that way. Um and so I just wanted to illustrate there. Um based on our projections in January and frozen, uh we felt like at this time we should stay at 556 for the core teachers. And then Converse um is an example of a growing growing enrollment over time. Um and so when we meet with them, you can scroll over Missy if you don't mind to like 24 25. Yeah. Um when we meet with them in January, you can see where there's the red and the greens. That's just us signaling as a group because we're all working in collaboration together um about if we think we should reduce a section or if we're going to grow a section.

078And so sometimes the reductions in in the expansions don't necessarily change the overall FTE in a building. Um and so then we allow the principal to make the best decisions about where you might be moving a teacher. Right? You might be opening a section in third grade, closing a section in second grade. Um and so your overall FTE stays the same, and then that principal makes um that decision with their staff about who's going to be switching a grade level. Um and so then uh also at Converse um we had a change uh if you scroll down you can see the other staff. So for example we expanded their interventionist you all just approved that um from a.5 to a 1.0. So that was an increase um of FTE there as well. Um and so

079those are just the workbooks over time. It also on the left hand side shows you some of the funding sources for some of the positions as well. So, that's kind of our process in a nutshell about where we go and how we change things. >> Any questions, Mrs. Fox? >> Yeah. Um, weren't looking for the process. Understand that it is a process. I I get that. You know, you it takes a lot of time to do those things. What I'm looking for is that 2526 >> with all of that staff underneath with the current information >> by school. I think I heard I think we heard you. So, we'll have to produce that for you so you can look at it. >> Yeah. Quickly and then you can add um you can highlight or add

080the ones that are are missing because I truly believe that we need to have time to study that and look at that before we approve any bud budget. >> Thank you. Can we go back to the um spreadsheet that you just had out the staffing workbook? >> Sure. Um, so, um, Mrs. Fox did write a memo with all of these requests in it, and I did send that to Dr. Garrison. I hope he shared it with the the cabinet members, but it does clearly say the number of sections and the number of students per section should be clearly delineated. the course is now being offered staffing plan. It's so I I I don't I'm not certain where the disconnect is, but there's obviously some disconnect. I don't understand why we're only looking at two schools

081in this staffing workbook. It would seem that it shouldn't be that difficult to have a tab at the bottom for each of our 10 schools so that we can receive this information. >> Sure, we did it that was requested. >> Yeah. I don't I have no problem. I'm just taking direction from leadership, but I um have no problem sharing the entire workbook. I didn't know we were expecting to go through it all tonight, but we can certainly do that right now. >> Expecting to go through all of it, but we do need if we are to make good decisions. We need good information. We need clear, comprehensive, thorough, honest information. That's I mean I I guess this was this was to me really clear what she was asking for and yet you're only giving us

082a glimpse of two schools. We're not asking for the process. We're asking for the data. >> Okay. >> That's >> So let me let me I want to I want to pause us on this conversation because it seems as if the board is asking the administration to bring back more information. And so I we've heard you all in this space. >> We're not asking you to bring back more information. The request was initially for this information. >> Okay. So once again, it seems as the board is asking us to bring back more information. I understand the request, but I was also thinking about time. We have these workbooks. We've shared these workbooks before. We can put all these workbooks right at the bottom of the screen like as just as you asked for. That was

083never an intention to us not to share this information with the board. We do have these other workbooks and we can give you all 10 schools. Okay? And let me just share this as well. We still have the uh middle and high schools here and they're going to have their workbooks here. So really, you're only missing four schools because the high schools have theirs tonight and the middle schools also have all of theirs there as well. And so I wanted to make sure that we were able to at least get to to hear our principal um information as well because they have the sections and all the information that the board is asking for as well. Thank you, >> Aldridge. >> Oh, Mrs. Rue, >> um I would just like to second Carol Fox's about

084needing to know about the the vacancies as well. Um, I think for myself, the reason why this information is so important is because these are the teachers that are emailing me and talking to me about their class sizes being too big for them. And so, in trying to balance the budget and figure this out, we need to have all of this information in order to be able to do that. And I would, again, we don't need the entire workbook. We just need this year's information. [Music] Hi everybody. >> Push turn your microphone off. Push the button for me. Thanks so much. >> Hi everybody. >> I'm feeling alone up here. No, I'm just kidding. I do have my lucky IU watch band on, so I'm ready to go. What can I What can I um

085what can I share with you guys tonight? Do you have any particular questions or do you want me to dive into a general overview of how I approach scheduling? >> We were looking for a staffing plan and the number of teachers you have and the number of you know support staff that you have and all of that is what we were looking for. Um I was interested in the the schedule. Yeah. Um um DLI just does social studies and science and humanities. Correct. >> Right. Now, but humanities is two different subjects combined into one. As much of a um challenge as DLI has presented scheduling now go back a few years when instead of humanities there was a Spanish language arts and uh Spanish social studies that had to be taught. And so that's not

086that's that's two subjects there plus science. And so there there was an extra core that they needed to teach that got combined into one. So that was really the greatest thing that's ever happened to DLI just about to make it work better in the schedule. Does that make sense? I mean >> yeah it yeah I was it was interesting to look at that schedule. Um like I said I I did spend some time looking at this information. >> Right. Well, imagine three cores instead of two and it even gets crazier. >> Mr. Vidox, what right now are your staffing concerns for for Aldridge? Do you need um to move more staff around? What's the feedback from your um teachers? or are they feeling um their classes are sizes are too too large, unmanageable, >> or

087everyone is is content? >> It's kind of like asking a starving man, you know, how much food do you want? You want any more food? So, and I'm not starving. That's not a great analogy, but um the you know, we we could always use more. I mean, that's always what I'm looking for. Specifically, I think para educators, those those people who provide the support really with our special ed population. We have a huge special ed population and I know that we're getting as as many as we can, but um that's always a challenge. Um and I can't give you the exact number I have. I think I have 13 or 14 divided up into ID rooms, crosscat, uh speech and language, OT, PT, that kind of thing. Well, those aren't special ed teachers. Um I

088think I got that right, didn't I? Yeah. So, that's always that's always a need. Um you know, I think Yeah, I I mean I'd love to have class sizes at 20 25 or less. You know, some are a little lower than that. Most are a little higher than that. So, but you know, we're managing and I think if you're talking staffing for us, it's candidates. We I have a couple positions I have to fill. Uh and I'm, you know, it's hard it's hard to do that uh when there's not a lot of candidates out there. Um and that puts just a strain on everybody and everything when you don't have that in place. You seem to have a pretty tight staff. They I I hear lots of positive things about being a staff member at

089Aldridge. Do you I'm sorry. Do you do your own recruiting or does um HR do that? Does the district do that? How do how do do you find staff to fill the positions at all? >> Yeah. Well, it's kind of a combination of things. Um the district provides job fairs. Uh that's resulted in a couple of paras that come to our building, but that's a thing, right? That's helping. Um there's a third party company out there. Um like a talent agency, what do you call it? Um uh staffing agency. There you go. And so that's provided a few people too. And so that's been helpful. Um you know, and recruiting. I mean, I don't go out and say, "Hey, Miss Blank over at this school, want to come to Aldridge?" But my teachers might reach

090out and say something to someone, you know. So I don't um recruiting for me personally then in in that way. But then there's weekend, right? We we post positions there and I might I remember one year I got uh the great Miss Chakorus for PE because I ask everybody on my staff, hey, just send out an email or get a hold of anybody you think might be unhappy anywhere else like in the world that you know of. and got a PE teacher that we've had now for three years and she does a great job. So, little things like that, but I'm not unique. I mean, we all are searching every single way, every single day to find staff members. That one just happened to work out for me. >> Thank you. Any other questions? >>

091Thank you, Mr. Vide. >> Thank you. Good evening, school board. Ryan Stangle, principal at Ferzen. And uh what what can I how can I be of your assistance? What can I help you with? Do any board members have specific questions for Mr. Stangle? >> If not, I'll ask you the same general questions that I just asked Mr. Videox. What right now are your concerns, your um um problem areas? What What do you need for to help to help you run Fusen in a more effective efficient manner? >> Yeah. with regards to staffing specifically. Um >> yeah, >> right. Yeah, right now we're talking about staff. >> Yes. >> So, um we have we have a couple vacancies right now. Uh we had a we had a couple unforeseen circumstances come up uh where I had

092to kind of uh you know as as principles have to do they come up with plans and uh uh try to find a consistent staff um plan throughout the day. For example, if a teacher is out for an extended period of time and we don't have uh someone to hire to put in that room. um working with um you know some it might be four or five different staff members during the day filling that period consistently. Um so we we had to do that. Um I I'm very lucky to have two permanent building subs and uh for example we are searching I for ELA teacher in eighth grade. um hope to have found one just recently. Uh but in the in the time being for the first now we're into the eighth week of school,

093one of my permanent permanent building subs has been filling that role. So, for example, it's it's always um looking weeks in advance and trying to uh put the pieces in place so that our kids are always in good hands and have a a good teacher in front of them. >> Any questions? This is a question for all of the principles. I I understand the district uses um when we can't find enough staff, there's uh contracted company that that we will use, whether it's teachers, sometimes we need um the pupil services areas covered. Do you know which of your staff members are contracted outside? And do you have any feedback on that? is how how is that working for you? How how is that affecting staff morale? >> Uh yes, of course. I know who all

094of my contracted staff are and uh we've had we we've found some very wonderful staff members to um fill some areas of need. Um and we've had some ones that haven't worked out and so then they are no longer with us. Um but it's an absolute necessity for um just speaking for Frzen um that we are able to fill some some vacancies where there's simply is no one to fill them otherwise. Um so yeah, lucky to have some paras who are um contracted staff members uh special ed staff. Um so yes and they've they've performed admirably and we've uh you know at Fzen we have a very good team of uh teachers and staff members who support everybody around them. Um, so we all pitch in uh whether it's a new teacher from from a

095district hire from we can or whether it's a um agency hire, we take we we support everybody and we're all one frozen team. So, >> thank you. Any questions on the frozen lunch or recess duty assignments? Um, I I have a couple questions. These might be more um uh better answered by uh HR. Is there um a minimum number of class periods a teacher needs to be teaching to be considered full-time? That is more of a T question because I think that we blend some of the classroom. So I think that's a joint here. So um if I'm understanding your question correctly, if we have one FTE, so we have a teacher that we have hired say at the high school to teach um family consumer science, the number of sections that they need to

096teach in order to be considered a 1.0 FTE. Is that what you're asking? Yeah, I noticed on some of these um staffing assignments, some some teachers have more than what if I'm reading this correctly have more than two prep periods and I had never heard of that before is and so I'm wondering if there's >> Yeah, I know. I know. Wouldn't you love? Um, so there all of our teachers are are um supposed to get two preps and the rest of the scheduling is part of the master schedule that is created at the building uh because they know how the kids each of the students are enrolled in what classes and if they need to move them because of lack of enrollment interest. So I am going to defer to my buddy over here Mr.

097Stangle that he can um talk more to how that master schedule is created. Yeah, I mean I'll do my best here and um in the presentation I have our master schedule on there and um I I did um put in here the lunch and uh recess duties of our teachers. So there is just to clarify um right now there's no teacher at Fuszen who has more than two preps. Um I I tried to be as fair as possible with my staff. What you will see on on the master schedule perhaps is um all of our specialists have a zero hour prep that's 14 minutes long and then later in the day none of them have an advisory. So that's a 21 minute break. So if you put the combine the two together, we consider that

098like a shortened one prep, which adds up to 35 minutes. Um and then they get an additional prep. If you look at the content area teachers above, uh they get two uh 46 minute preps and then everyone gets a lunch. So, um, and I spoke to my specialists early in the year about the 14-minute prep and the 21minut prep. Um, and told them it was a conversation that we had and uh, those times would be protected so that they would have uh, the 35minut and then the 46 minute prep. If a stu if a teacher had more than that at the beginning of the year, um I I did assign them a lunch and recess duty so that it was fair across the board. So, um, yeah, many of our specialists have assigned a lunch

099recess duty, um, which provides them a fair schedule while at the same time providing that extra level of supervision that is very much needed during lunch and recess. Um, and I'm uh proud to to compare it to last year's lunch and recess supervision schedule where we were uh just how things worked out. we were very thin and uh it was not to the level of supervision that I would have liked and now this year uh we have seen the a difference in increasing that adult supervision at lunch and recess uh where there's always adults around kids feel safe if there's anything that's happening they they know right where to go there's always an adult to that they can seek seek help with >> wonderful thank you for that explanation clarifying the shortened preps versus combined

100to make a longer prep, >> which actually might be preferred by some teachers. >> Yeah. >> Any other questions for Mr. Stangle? >> Thank you. >> You don't I think that might be a Dr. Gar Dr. Garrison that gives you access. Okay. Good evening, um, board of education. I'm Emily Pel, the principal at Blit Memorial High School. Uh, in a moment, I'm going to give you a highlevel overview of, um, the data contained on this spreadsheet, um, what it is and how to interpret it. >> You did you >> is it going to me? >> Um, I'm sorry. I I don't know about other board members, but I could not view this this link. >> Do you The request is not coming to me. >> Who owns it? Who owns that? >> Can you share

101it with me and I'll share that? >> Yeah. >> I'm just gonna make you an editor. Just check it. >> Um, I tried when I tried it, I had to ask permission and somebody gave me permission. So, I have looked >> Did it say who? >> Uh, yeah. I have to look it up, but somebody >> Okay. Well, that that would be good to know. Thank you. >> We'll touch base later. Okay. So, um >> I just Yeah, because I I added you. Um Okay. So, there's 525 lines on this spreadsheet. So, we're not going to go through every single one. I'm assuming um take a while. But the first column is the name of the teachers at the high school. The second column, column B is the um enrollment for the course that is

102in column C. Column D is the period in which the course runs. Um column E is uh what day it meets on because we run an AB schedule. So some of their classes run on A days, the other set of their classes run on B days. And then um column F is notes for any type of special circumstance um that surrounds that teacher with uh their schedule or um with their enrollment or with even the classes that they offer. Um so at the high school a teacher teaches six sections of classes. However, you'll see that most teachers have se seven sections assigned to them because they also have an academic lab such uh flex time. Um the unique thing about academic lab and flex is everybody in the school is um in academic lab at

103the same time where all of the other classes um that are offered are dependent on the actual master schedule. But everybody's in academic lab on Mondays from 1 to two and then flex on Tuesdays through Friday from 1 to two. Um, some teachers, uh, you'll see have more than seven sections assigned to them. Um, like eight for example, because they teach an overload. Um, you'll see um that we have um some uh positions that are grant funded or partially grant-f funded um and so they have special stipulations around them. So, uh, for example, um, um, our JAG program is actually fully funded by, uh, Forward, uh, services corporation. Um, and so that that individual teaches JEG courses in our our school. Um but there's specific parameters around um you know how many students that they

104can service at a time and things like that um based on uh afford services uh corporations um you know rules and regulations. >> Sorry, JAG is >> uh jobs for America's graduates. >> Okay. >> Yep. Um, another thing that you'll notice is that um, if we have a course that's considered a capstone course, for example, and maybe there was some ro lower enrollment, we've actually doubled that up with um a a lower level class to be able to run it. So, for example, you might see um a machining um two and three put together or an advanced art and you know the the capstone uh class with the uh advanced or in in world languages that comes up too. um so like French two and three together or something like that so that we can

105continue to provide those opportunities for students not having to cut them um by putting two different courses in one room during one section. Um I'm trying to think here about any other um we have um you'll see as you um scroll through the data you'll you'll see um like a an enrollment of one if it's a a student teaching assistant. Um so you know the teacher assistant student might be during the same period that a teacher teaches their regular class. So you would see that differentiated in here as well. Um our special education courses are determined by the services that are outlined in a student's um IEP. And so those classes, they're sheltered classes. they tend to be um smaller in enrollment as well as some of our uh sections of sheltered elelll classes as

106well as our intervention classes. Um if you see a course that says AB, that means it runs every day. The same course runs every day during the same period. Yep. And so I think that is a highlevel overview of the data on this spreadsheet. Um I can't think of anything else to specifically point out to you, but I would be happy to answer any questions that you have. >> Mrs. True. >> You spoke of overloads. Is that due to the vacancies in the building? >> Uh, yes, partially. Um, so sometimes that's due to vacancies, sometimes that is due to just an exorbitant amount of students that are requesting that specific area or class. Um, and then sometimes that has to do with seats being available. So, um, high school's a little bit different than we're

107talking about, for example, maybe elementary where, um, and probably middle school, too, where your license as a teacher spans across all the grade levels that are there. In high school, it's ve very specialized. So, you know, you cannot be a chemistry teacher, a certified chemistry teacher and teach other content areas or even other courses in science without being specifically certified to teach that particular area. And so sometime and and and you know our our schedule is built and it's deterine it helps to us determine what staffing we need in what areas. Um but sometimes that's like one one teacher like one chemistry teacher and so their schedule is their schedule six sections like I said and so um making that course available or courses available to students based on their schedules becomes very tricky. And

108so you will see sometimes where, you know, we have periods during the day or blocks during the day where we start to run out of seats for kids to go into in courses that they're able to access based on prerequisites, based on qualifications of teachers, based on what course is running at that particular time in the day? So, a followup. Do teachers have the ability to say, "No, I don't want to be overloaded this year." >> Oh, yeah. I I mean, we don't make teachers overload. Um, luckily teachers have been very gracious in offering up solutions that often result in an overload. Um, so I guess I haven't really had to face that, you know. I guess I'm lucky as a principal. >> Overload is defined as >> um so you do not have a

109prep in your schedule. Instead, you're teaching a course. >> Okay, you got an that doesn't have anything to do with class size at all. >> Uh um well, it could I mean it's offering another section of a class. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I well it just there are some classes that are are you know uh there's an algebra one >> that's at 36 there's a couple at 33 uh there were some pees at 33 that that's concerning >> um so I I see some large cl I saw some very small classes too besides special ed um like an algebra 1 at 13 for freshmen >> um it just not enough enrollment kind of things >> some uh well I I wouldn't I don't think so because um when we do our course selection in December,

110we um use all of December and all of January to make sure every student has selected courses for the following year. And then we really start to look closely at that data in February. That's when we're making decisions on what to run and what not to run and the impact that that has on FTE. And as a result, sometimes we've had to cut FTE. So when we build our master schedule, it's based on that time and the data we have at that time, right? And and we make sure that everything is full with maybe some special circumstances where it would be like a capstone course and if we didn't offer it, it wouldn't impact that teacher's FTE availability availability. So like I said, they're teaching six sections. If we take one away, they still need

111to teach the other five. So, we need to keep them as a teacher, right? Um, so what happens sometimes after that whole process happens, we have kids moving out of, you know, out of the high school or kids are um requesting schedule changes. There are different things that impact the enrollment in a class after everything has been set and we say push the button, so to speak. I just um I do have a lot of questions but not necessarily about enrollment. It was all like because this AB. So one of these days I'm going to come over and see you. >> Okay, that would be great. >> Because I'd love to understand how all of this works. So both thank you. >> Um Dr. Garrison or anybody in it, can we make this so that

112the board members can view this um document? >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, no problem. I'll add you all when I go sit down. >> Thank you, Mrs. Pel. >> Yep. >> I didn't know you guys didn't have access to it, but if you didn't, I mean, we can easily get you access to it. So, the No. >> Can I wrap Can I wrap up this part, right? >> Oh, yep. Yep. There is one more slide about the vac. >> Vacies. Correct. Um before we get into the vacancies with this this section. So, what we again attempted to do was part of the the write up that Mrs. U. Foxport did provide was to again try to show all of the classes, the numbers, the sections. Um, again, this is a lot of information

113and I didn't, you know, want to, you know, prolong the conversations. And again, if there's information, additional information that you all are requesting from the elementary schools, we can still provide that. Um, one of the things that I want to just bring note to is that the schools again as we kind of work through the school year, um, you know, enrollments still change. And I think that's something that we still need to kind of keep noting in this conversation. Students move classes, they switch classes. There's deadlines to switch classes of course at the high school level. And so this what you see now is again a snapshot of like one can argue today that could definitely again change you know once again and so I don't want anyone taking this information and saying you said

114this is what it was but again a student could easily drop a class within the first you know 10 or so days and it changes the numbers of the courses. So, I just wanted to make sure I noted that in the conversation. And the next um slide that we have, we'll we'll tackle the vacancies. >> Just um kind of response to that, we ask for more than enrollment. We ask for staffing. Um and as part of the staffing plan, we do need to know counselors, social workers, music teachers, art, PE, all of that, which is not necessarily part of your class size and enrollment. That is correct, Mrs. Fox. Some of that is captured on the workbooks and we can be more specific about that. Thank you. Do you want me to open? >> That

115would be great. Thank you. So, this next slide, um, we go over the vacancies that we currently have in our district. uh because we do use a third-party um placement agency, they're not reflected in our Skyward counts, so they're calculated separately. So, what you're looking at is exactly how many of our FTEEs are vacant, but about 50 I think right now we're down to 51, but we were at 58 um that we were processing that are third-party staff agencyplaced um individuals. And what you see here reflected is about uh vacancies of which 45 are teachers and about 31 are paras. And the balance is any combination of permanent building subs all the way to um pupil services staff such as speech language pathologists etc. So um do you have any questions for me? Any questions?

116>> Yeah. The the vacancies that are filled, are they mostly teachers? Are they mostly paras or does it vary? Um we have quite a good mix actually. Um I think the majority is still um pupil services special ed and um it's followed by um paras and I would say lastly would be teachers give or take >> Mrs. Almadaris just just for clarification. So at the first line you've got school nurse uh school nurse you've got number of positions five. So there's three filled and two vacancies. Is that am I I want to just make sure I'm reading that right? >> Yes. So we have the first um number column is the total number of FTEEs that we have for each of those positions. >> The next one is of all those of the FTEEs for

117that position. how many are currently filled and then the last column is how many um still remain unfilled. >> Okay. >> Can we just clarify? >> Yes. >> And that's in the district, right? That's the district that because building is in. >> Correct. I was just going to clarify what Miss Almonda said earlier like specifically for the nurse. We have five positions. Um three positions filled with district staff. Those other two that you see remaining for this specific line are filled by contracted staff. So, we do currently have five nurses in the district. Three are hired straight on. Two are contracted. But when we're contracting staff, and correct me, I mean like speak over me if I'm When we're contracting staff, we keep those vacancies like our our goal is to hire straight up through

118the district. So, does that make sense? So, we're still counting them as vacancies, >> right? Which goes back to my disclaimer that just because we show that we have 113 vacancies about half of those are filled with third party um staffing agency placements. >> Thank you Mrs. R. So um one is it possible for us to get that information in a column two like how many are actually of the vacant positions how many are filled with. >> Sure. This is a canned report from um our Skyward system but we can certainly manually add an additional column from a different source. Yes. >> Okay. And then this second part, um there's a lot of special ed positions open. This might be a missy question. How many do we um have on a special ed teacher's case

119load? Like what is a what is considered a case load in blo? It really just depends on the building and and right now we are significantly underststaffed and so um I mean I can tell you what how we staff in the average number that we usually use it's like 16 at the elementary and 18 at the secondary. Any other questions? Thank you Mrs. Almondus and all cabinet members and the principles that um worked on this and Dr. Garrison, we appreciate this and we are looking forward to receiving more information in the very near future. [Applause] Our next item tonight is the clean school bus program discontinuation. Yes. And so, um, I'm not sure if you all remember about a couple of months ago or maybe six or seven months ago, we came to the board

120in relationship to the the idea of a clean bus opportunity, um, here in the school district of Bo. Um, it was something that myself and um, the predecessor and the executive director of business services um, worked towards here. um it was a grant um that we wanted to kind of explore and once we explored the grant we actually got the grant and that was not necessarily a surprise to us because boy does have some unique needs as it pertains to some of the um air quality here in the city. Uh once we got the grant naturally uh we had to work through you know of course what it would look like here in the school district of their high level overview again. Um we wanted to explore the uh working with Highland Electric Fleet um

121and bringing those possible buses to Bo. Naturally we need to have to make some big changes here in the school district in order for that to happen. Um, one being of course redoing a lot of our current busing conversations as as well as moving um the electric fleet that we would eventually take over onto our properties which would also cost um which would come with a cost in a nutshell. And so overall um this is something that we of course wanted to take a look at. Naturally, we weren't able to get this off the ground. Um, simply put, because it would have cost us money. Naturally, the money that we would wanted to put towards something like this, we also needed to kind of look at um our own internal um budget, nickeling our own

122deficits that we have to work from. And so, Highland Electric Freak has came to us and asked us to consider moving away from this agreement that we've um went into with them. Naturally, it is something that the the school board, I wanted you all to know that we were going to be moving away from this opportunity. Um, but just because it was brought to the board and a lot of information was shared, I thought it'd be important for you all to know that this is the direction that the administration is um seeking to to move away from due to the simple fact that we just don't have the funds. Of course, we don't have the um the infrastructure to bring on these buses and of course the cost that comes along with this is something

123that we're not able to explore at the current time. Um Miss Elwood and I um of course wanted to make sure that you all had this information, but we also want to make sure that everyone was aware in the community as well that this is something that we're going to have to put a pause on for now. Miss Elwood, did I miss anything? Um, I think the only thing I'd like to comment on is that Durham actually pulled out of the agreement like six, eight months ago, correct? >> Because they they didn't find it feasible for them to do. So, at this point, there's no partnership with a bus company. So, that's another hiccup in the agreement. >> Thank you. Do any board members have any questions? >> Thank you, Dr. Garrison and Mrs. Elwood.

124Our next item is the consent agenda. Typically, there is no separate discussion on the items unless a board member so requests in which event the item or items will be removed from the general order of business and considered in their normal sequence on the agenda. Do any board members request any items be removed from tonight's consent agenda? Hearing none. Is there a motion for approval of the consent agenda? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Motion by Brian Nichols, seconded by Joanne Rue. Any discussion? >> Hearing and seeing. Oh, go ahead. >> Again, I really well for the one meeting, but I wasn't at some of those meetings. So, can I vote yes or no? Um, you you actually can vote yes if you have confidence that these minutes are accurate and correct. If you would

125prefer to abstain, I will make note of that as well. >> Okay. >> Um, any other questions? Okay. All in favor? I >> I >> any uh any oppose? Any abstensions? The consent agenda is approved unanimously. Our next item is the human resources and employee recommendations exhibit A and B. Are there any open session questions regarding exhibit A or B? Are there any close session questions regarding exhibit A or B? Hearing none, is there a motion? >> I move approval of HR committee exhibits A and B for approval. >> Second. >> Motion by Brian Nichols, seconded by Joan Rue. Any question or discussion hearing? None. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Our next item tonight is executive session. A motion may be made and a vote taken to convene the

126board of education into close session pursuant to section 19.85 8 85 PAR one parent F of the Wisconsin state statutes for the purpose of reviewing the expulsion orders of the independent hearing officer pursuant to section 120.13 one parent one parent E 4H of the Wisconsin state statutes and the board of education shall upon review approve reverse or modify the orders and pursuant to section 19.85 A5 par one par B of the Wisconsin state statutes relative to considering formal employee discipline. I I think that last one is a mistake. Um is there a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Motion by Brian Nichols. Second by Carol Fox. Any discussion hearing? None. Mrs. Douly, when you are ready, a roll call, please. >> Okay. Joanne Rue, >> I >> Carol Fox, >> I. >> Brian Nicholls,

127>> I. >> Antia Johnson, >> I. So, unanimous vote. >> Thank you. The board of education may reconvene to public session in order to take any action if necessary on items discussed in close session. Thank you. >> Yeah. Yeah. Remember to log out of the open session. >> Thank you.