001To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands nationy for all. Okay, starting off, uh, we'll do citizens request to speak on non non-action items, but since, um, we only have two speakers, we can go ahead, uh, with Genie Castro. If Scott would like to go first, that's fine, too. like that. Okay. >> Good evening, school board, Mr. President and Dr. Nichollet. I would like to address the fact that our schools and these buildings are our most valuable asset. Um number one is why you're entertaining the idea of already selling these schools. Um you know the value uh when I spoke with you Nick um before the vote you had said that people already were calling you about um buying these schools. Um so but there is a
002greater greater value that um if we keep these schools then we don't have to build a new school when our population increases. And the likelihood of that is very very good. Um, in the last few weeks, I've been talking to so many um, young people, people with families, people who are projecting they want to have a family and that's why they moved into the downtown area or out by Holton. And some of them don't even have children yet or they have children that are under the age of five. So, they're not documented yet. um they really want these educational situations that we already uh relinquished. But I think that we really need to hold on to these schools the so that that we have this um potential to keep or uh re-evaluate the situation later.
003I know that to build a new school would really pose a great um expense for our taxpayers. So, I want to just express the value of keeping these schools. Thank you. >> Thank you, Jamie. >> Scott Ellingsson. >> Two minutes. Yeah, >> like like a lot of people, including Jeanie, um I'm certainly grieving the decision that was made in October, but I'm here to talk about something else. Um so, I don't know how many of you got to go. I think Molly might have been there when I was if I remember right, but I don't know how many of you went to Susicle the Musical or the Home for the Holidays concert. Um, I know I went last night, so I went to both. We have a family tradition of going to both. And um
004I guess the main point I'd like to make is you know obviously we are so blessed with so much talent in our district and so much hard work by all the by the students and the the parents helping out and the the great direction of like you know Ryan de la Croy and Jamie Paul Vicki and Krie Heistler and so many others and just we're just so blessed with that and I just come away thinking wow I should expect so much more from my students because they can do so much and I I'm really blessed that in the same chair. I have Mason Manarek in my in my class. In a different class, I have um Kira King or Nariah King, excuse me, who was Jojo. And what was amazing to me was Macy. Right
005away, I would guess that she would do things like this. But um but Nariah was this very quiet student and then there she was Jojo and just doing this amazing work. But I guess my main point is this. At the end of the day, hopefully all of our students or many of our students end up at the high school. No matter what elementary school they went to, no matter what kind of situation they had, any changes they've had, and they ended up at the high school where we have so many great opportunities and the community can just be so proud with whether it's athletics, music, or other activities. And I just think that's the thing, the big picture we want to keep in mind is having a great district and knowing that at the end
006of the day, we're all going to well, most of us hopefully as many as possible end up at the high school and just make us shine and make us proud. So that's all I wanted to say tonight. Thank you. >> Thank you, Scott. And very good comments about the the programs that we are lucky to have and and witness as a community here. So, um, moving on to reports, we have a school board election or Nick is going to comment. >> Uh, yep. Just, uh, just a reminder, schoolboard election, April 7th. Uh, so we have put the class whatever notice in the papers, I write, Tim, uh, last month. You saw a lot of them for all the different, uh, school boards and other municipalities up for, uh, election are Megan Rosski, Maria Rudy, um,
007both board members. Uh it would be for a term that begins April 27th, 2026, expiring on April 22nd, 2029. So uh the candidate file date uh to file for school board uh to run is Jan Tuesday, January 6th uh no later than 5:00 p.m. on that day and then be right here at the district office. Tim Miner would be the person taking the uh applications for that. So, if there is a primary needed, which means there would be more than four people running, uh there would be a primary that would be held on Tuesday, February 17th. Any questions about the upcoming school board election? >> All right. >> Now, you're still up, Nick. >> All right. Uh so, I had the uh honor today to to head up to uh New Richmond, New Richmond Ford
008or Johnson Johnson Ford up in New Richmond. uh got an email from them last week asking uh if be willing to come up they wanted to give our school district a donation. Uh they didn't give me any other information other than that. They said they were uh you know celebrating 100 years of being in business in New Richmond. Uh and they have multiple dealerships. And so I said, "Okay, we'll come up." And there were multiple uh community organizations that got checks today from from uh the uh New Richmond Ford dealership, Johnson Ford up there in New Richmond. Uh and they awarded the district a $4,000 check uh to be used. And so one of the things we're going to do is we're going to kind of do uh this was Bonnie's idea to do a
009mini kind of competition uh with our buildings to say, you know, if people have uh some ideas that need to be funded or activities or projects that they'd like to see funded. uh because there was no strings attached to the to the money. Um principles would be able to uh submit uh ideas for their buildings and we'd take a look at them and either give all the money to that idea or fund a couple different ideas with it. So really really a great opportunity. Um uh had like I said had no idea that this is what we were walking into or uh the amount and so it was really great but wanted to make sure we put that out there. uh you know it's not often that we have a business in another community that
010is offering to give us money. So all right that's all I had on that donation. There are no comments. We'll move on to topics for discussion and possible action. Um I would look for a motion for um approving consent items one through three. >> Mr. President. >> Yes. I make a motion uh to approve the consent items and that the chief financial and operations officer be authorized to pay bills in the amount of 9113,165 uh $165.37. >> Thank you. Do I have a second? >> Second by Kate. And I think Andrea looking at me like she's got something. Oh, no. >> Oh. Oh. Okay. Um there are no questions. Uh to a vote. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Post say nay. Hearing none. Consent items are approved. >> And Mr. President,
011now it's my turn. So I I was I'm excited to celebrate the retirements that you guys just took action on. So want to talk about the specific people that you approved tonight. First up is Kelly Curtis. She is school counselor and um currently at EP Rock and has been in the school district for 16 years. We also have Tim Chuckle. He's been in a variety of roles over the years, but currently assistant activities director and a computer science teacher at the middle school. He's been in the district 30 years. Uh Tammy Holland, um a par profofessional, a regular ed para profofessional at EP Rock for five years. Then we have Rachel Miller. She's a third grade teacher at Rivercrest currently and again I think been about every building at this point and 35 years um
012of service to the district. and Carlo Willoughby who's a a speech and language pathologist at Rivercrest and she's been in the district for six years. So again, I always love this time of year when we can start recognizing these people and then looking into the recognition banquet this spring where um all of our retirees will be celebrated. >> Thank you. Wonderful. I hate to lose these these valuable employees with all that extended as Tim Chuckle talked about going right into the sub pool I hope or anything. Yes, this is a steady um or consistent conversation I have with all of them and I have commitments from Rachel too, I think. So, we're going to be um pursuant to the rules of WRS, we will certainly be using them as subs. >> Anybody have any Okay.
013Uh moving forward to our visitors tonight, uh MG MGT demographic report. So, that Nick, you want to take? >> Yes. So, go ahead and we'll let them kind of get set up in front of us. Um, so this is kind of the uh uh the unveiling of the demographic report that MGT put together for us. Uh, Lauren and Maya have been um working with the district over the last couple months to get our data and and working in the district as they've driven and they can kind of talk through a lot of that those pieces um and what that and what that looks like. But um looking forward to what they have to say and and what this process is. And I think you know asking questions from board members at any point is is
014definitely okay. Yeah, we're um not opposed to having ask questions. So, >> all right, I'll turn it over to them. >> Yeah. Um yeah, we're um really appreciate you all having us out here. Um missed the zoocle. We knew that was happening, but we weren't we came in today, so sorry. Uh that we're driving we were driving development last month. She spots the sign. I'm like, "Oh, yeah. When is it?" Oh, no. We're not It's you know Yeah. If you had a a weekday showing then we would have been here for sure. Um I again I want to thank you all for having us here. This is a important subject within K12 throughout the country um and understanding the enrollment shifts that are occurring within um our society. And it's it's not just a Hudson
015uh situation. And it's a situation probably 80 90% of the other school districts. Um, as Nick Nick probably has told you, I work with other parts of the country. I'm on a with the board president and a Los Angeles school district that's in the Bay Area. Kind of the same conversations right now. The the other part is it's a California district, so they're losing kids in other parts because they just can't afford to live in the area. So, you have all that fun stuff. Tim, I'm gonna point to you when it's time to go. Yes, sir. So, our methodology, we'll talk about methodology, our spatial data collection. When we're here, we're just not meeting with staff. We're actually driving around and getting a feel for what where are the schools. One, it's always nice to
016have a map. It's another thing to understand the layout of the district, but also it's important for us to drive up on >> Quick question. >> Yes, ma'am. Could you talk to us just initially about your company, how long you've been doing this? >> Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's good. That was a great question. Um, so I've been doing this I was an accountant early on out of college. Imagine that. Great personality for accounting office. Um, I did forensic accounting for 10 years and then I got into um, I've had three arcs my career. So, I was an accountant. I did operational analysis for a food manufacturing company. It's one of the largest ones in North America. Um, all stuff you didn't go to college for. Okay. One day I decided uh I had
017a call for a friend of mine, Nick knows the story. I had a call for a friend of mine who's an anthropologist who was on uh gone to do a um presentation at Chicago and she wanted to attend a thing called GIS day but didn't know what it was. said, "Hey, Lauren, can you go attend this for me? You understand things quicker and understand technology better and can explain it pretty well. Can you go to this and find out what GIS day is and what GIS is?" So, here I am in my mid30s going to this thing held by a bunch of 4 kids discovering that you can take tabular information, convert it into maps, and be able to spatially show what's going on in the world blew my mind away. 20 something years ago
018this happens. Go home, tell my wife, you know what? I think I want to go and go go back go back to school, get a certificate in this GIS and really figure out because I could I was doing it already with the accounting part. I was doing it already with the the uh analytics with with uh with the supply chain. It's just I didn't have the mapping component and I was working closely with athletic organizations in Southern California and using the GIS for exactly what we're doing now, understanding where their participants lived and where they were not participating from. I deeming the underserved areas. I found this company called Davis Demographics. uh while doing this work in Davis Demographics, uh I was hired as an analyst for early on in the project manager and then
019suddenly uh began as uh became their person that talked about GIS to people at school district level and countywide explained how GIS works and kind of get it across to, you know, it's not just tabular information anymore. We need to be able to look at where things are. That was almost 20 years ago now. And I've been doing that with now MGT. MGT when I was a partner with Davis, we uh uh merged with MGT. And um and so now what the best part about what I'm doing is now Maya and I have a question. We just don't sit there in a black box and not know how to answer that question. We can text somebody in our firm that may have something a question about curriculum. You know, my mom was a teacher. That's
020as much as I know about curriculum, but I have somebody I can call right away if there's a question that comes up or something else. So, our company is a six pillar, basically six pillars of operations. Our major components are um TSG technology solutions group. We're number two solution in the nation. Now we own three server farms, solely own three server farms, uh, and maintain our own enterprise, uh, security and and, uh, storage systems. Um, that's the nice thing about this. So when when Nick and I are talking, I I can walk around with a laptop and there's no data. I just have to log into a secure server and then pull the stuff down. So there's no more of this. It's it's very very cool being in this organization doing what we're doing. Maya
021Maya, you want to tell us a little bit about what you're doing with the company? >> Yeah, I definitely have not been a part of the company as long as Lauren has been. >> Yeah. >> Um, but my background is in food and security work. And so what I was doing there was using GIS or this mapping software to kind of map out enrollment trends in like federal food programs. So here now I've been able to kind of work on using those same skills in mapping, using those same skills in like data analytics, but now um associating it with like school trends and things. So it's been really interesting. Um I am still pretty new to this role, but I've been able to learn a lot just at Hudson as well. So it's been great.
022>> Well, Mike comes with us with a fresh set of eyes. >> Sometimes you you know Nick Dick and I look at the same thing for three days, realize that we missed something. We might have picked it up >> or something like that. Right. gentleman is going to come in after uh and talk a little bit. He's on his way. He's probably halfway here as Dr. Lance Richards, former superintendent of schools in in Indiana. He's now working with us doing uh community engagement. He has a background. He was a news reader at a college. He did uh TV news work. You'll you'll you'll see these camera ready when he comes in. He's not like me. >> Um but that's that does that helpful help you out? Good. Um, >> and Lauren, you you've worked with
023other districts in Wisconsin, Minneapolis. >> Yeah. So, my my a good good one is um Konosha. Konosha is my uh Chris up there for years has been uh they've been trying to get the point across. They had to close schools and and at one point there I think the facility director who had been working with us as on the software side for years had this problem. He goes, "Hey, we have to close schools. is just I'm telling people we're underenrolled and um it took him having to basically leave. He left the district out of frustration and Chris called us up and says, "Hey, what's going on? You know, I think you know what's going on in this area. Yeah, you guys need to close seven or eight schools." Yeah, I don't know if we need
024to or not. I'm like, the numbers the last eight years continued to say you need to close schools. And so we had we went up once everything all the dust settled we went up there and helped show them what needed to be closed, why, where the locations, you know, some some of the stuff that all that knowledge base had left. So we had to come in basically fill in the gaps, what I knew from my interaction through the years. Um, you know, we've worked in u Milwaukee public schools. I helped uh bring in our software solutions to their CFO, their finance department. um they several of their staff have been trained up in the the software that we work with. They work with that software. A lot of large districts will license what we're doing
025for you all because they have staff internally that can do this. Um but yeah, I work with I've worked with districts that are what I call campus districts that are there's one property and there's like two or three schools on it like a little liberal arts school. I worked with districts like that and I worked with the state of Hawaii with 13 separate districts and all the different islands, 13 separate superintendents. Imagine that. That's always fun. So, I've worked with districts that are state agencies all the way down to the uh 700 student school district. Is that good? Yeah. Um, so when we're working through this, there's a methodology. The methodology is not a black box. We're going to tell you how the how the cake's made and how the ingredients go into this making
026this cake. I have a colleague that uses food analogies. It makes everybody remember and get hungry by the speed up the process for the meetings. Um we'll talk about spatial, you know, spatial data creation. It's the words make it sound really fancy. We've taken the student file the last four years and geocoded the kids to the world. allows us then to understand physically the physical locations and how that ch how those changes have occurred over the last three to four years. We also start looking at other factors that go into this birth factors. You know how many houses are being built? Is there a lot of h are there a lot of houses? Where are the houses being built? What type of houses are they? And then providing a district forecast. All this is the
027foundation to help create and understand other things that are occurring within the district. Okay, Tim, hit it. So, our um our methodology we take in most cases, most districts are affected by three different items that are occurring in their area, unless you're in California, um where there's no housing development happening because of the costs and things. They large there's a lot of housing that's dropped off. But first component of this is birth. Understanding the birth in the area because you have to understand that earlier in the in the earlier in the meeting sometimes you just don't know where the kids are coming from. You know that there's young families. So you look at um um look at the historic uh relationships to how many kids were born in the area and how many will actually
028have shown up to help understand the what burst you could expect. Mobility factors the center one some people will hear mobility and they some people in our in in the in the business office will get excited because mobility you're thinking about ins and outs of at some uh districts ins and outs of apartments and things. That's true. That's kind of like mo mobility. In this case, the term mobility for us is an internal statement. It's a spatial cohort analysis where we're looking at where kids were in kindergarten the last three years and where they are in first grade the next three years. This kind of like a cohort analysis that you do tabularly to understand where to expect children enrollment wise. We're looking at physical locations and there's going to be an output of that
029called a mobility forecast or mobility um analysis and you'll see a spreadsheet that represents the um the various uh elementary areas. The cool thing about that is you have these elementary areas but within the elementary areas are kids that attend from prek uh 4K all the way up to 12th grade. So, you know, so someone goes, "Hey, well, Rock doesn't have uh 12th graders." It sure does. The kids live there. There are 12th graders that live in that zone. It helps us understand what are the shifts in those zones. And the last part of this are the driving development, looking at the houses. Everybody's, you know, we we see housing development. We even traveled and visited some of the areas outside the district that are areas where kids are open enrolling in some cases to
030this to the district. And so being able to have that information then allows us then to to apply the factors and to produce the student forecast. Keep in mind when you look at the student forecast, the base year is this year's fall snapshot. Tim next. So just a a snapshot of what's going on. We worked we collected your schools, your tenants areas, four years of student data. Um we took your you have your zones, right? And we took the natural splits of the zones and then we split them even further into these more refined planning areas called study areas. So your zones are now split into 241 of these study areas. And they follow things like the old rail line or waterways or not, you know, interstates. There's only so many ways to cross over
031an interstate. It's not walking over it. That's for sure. Um but looking at those looking at the development and then understanding the other analytics that are going on there. So, we have some spatial spatial tools that show the relationship of of historic students. Also, Mayo was really kind enough to have all that stuff ready for you all. And there's some really cool maps, too. So, you want you want to geek out, we get to this spot, you want to stop and talk about them. Cool. Thank you, Tim. So, pardon me. The basis of this has to start with student files, student data. So we were uh working with the district to make sure that we had the correct student information. We have a verification process that's like in county taking a look and making sure
032that you have the correct amounts that are uh that align with what was reported or close to what was reported to the state and then looking at them the last uh and then just doing some really basic basic analysis. In this case uh we say it's basic but for some folks they might find oh wow that's really cool. You know, this is it is cool. By the way, those are your study areas on the map. And uh those study areas, the anything that's in color indicates the areas of the greatest change over the last uh several years. You notice that what was that dark color out there, Maya? Maya does because I'm color blind, so I might yell at >> What color is that? >> Um the darker color that's like red. >> The pinkish
033color. Oh, pinkish color. Yeah, thank you. Sorry. Um, the darker color, darkest dark pe pink color are the areas that had the greatest rate of loss the last several years. This is actual these are actual changes within the population. So, start looking at those areas. You start thinking about those neighborhoods, right? And then you got a few areas that have some growth natural that that this they've been growing in some cases. And those are going to be those little uh blue areas. But really what's interesting what I and we take away from this if anything is not the not the decline or the or the or the growth areas but more of the areas with very little change are static. Isn't that interesting? Especially when you start looking at the smaller polygons near town because
034you smaller the polygon it's I'll go let me digress a little bit smaller the polygon the polygons are split in the way that not only do they follow street lines and things but they also are adhering to some other rules we try to make sure the splits have at least 50 to 75 students in each one of those polygons. So when you get in the smaller polygons, it means there's 50 to 75. It means it's a denser area. And so it's interesting that you're, you know, you're down in in town and you start seeing that there's very little shifts in that area. There's decline in fact. Okay, Tim, this is my favorite. Does everybody like a nice density map? Is it just me? >> I like all kinds. >> Oh my goodness. Okay. All right.
035So, um, what's what's if you thought about the district, what were your first ideas about where all the kids are? You know, that's why I always ask people, close your eyes. Where do you think all the kids are in this district? You drive around, you kind of already know they're south of the interstate. Well, geocode the kids and you can generalize them with a density map to show, of course, yeah, you have a lot of them that are below the interstate. Very cool, right? What's one of the one of the uh challenges for the district is you have a very high dense some highly dense neighborhoods right in that little peninsula there in the center of the district where it straddles the attendance zones and and that's on purpose because there's a neighborhood there that
036has some of the you know some really large numbers. You couldn't split it. I'm sorry I couldn't keep to the rule of 75 kids. I think they're like a hundred kids in one spot, but I think you already know those areas. Thank you, Tim. The attendance matrix, that's the next step. We done done some mapping, mapped the kids, and we have the zones and now we understand or now we start to show the spatial and visual relationships. So, we already know where kids are enrolled because we get an ADA ADA report, right? average daily attendance report for a zone where they're where they're enrolled. Well, that's that column. So, as of that snapshot date, that's how many kids that were enrolled like a like a a Holton there. It has um 218 kids that were
037enrolled at the snapshot. If you look down that line, so if we start at the column at the top where the school name is that highlighted area that's gray, I know gray is gray with the white number. Um, that's how many kids live in and are enrolled at that campus. Pretty cool. If you go down, you see North Hudson. You'll see that Hudson has Oh, Hudson has um four students that are going to North Hudson or from North Hudson, pardon me, to Holton. So, you have a couple four kids that are going up to school there. Maybe the maybe the family uh uh works out of town on the way out of town or something, right? Who knows? But what we use this for, it helps us understand, do we see any funny little outliers
038in the in the numbers? Do we see like a classroom of kids that are attending a campus that that doesn't make any sense? It typically when we see stuff like this early on, it means, oh, maybe there's a boundary line that's not in the right spot. Maybe maybe some kids are supposed to be both sides of the street is supposed to be at school or something. Um, in this case, there were no there were no red flags that went up. These this all made sense when we started reviewing it. So, the top line, Holton has 218 kids that live that enroll at that campus. But if you see that 203 number, there he is just in time. Um, if you see the top number where it says count of students living in the area boundary,
039Holton has 203 total students that live in their attendance zone. So, not that many more than are actually living there and enrolled there. Now, why is this important? Well, it's important for a couple things. This helps us understand if there's any spatial relationships that we need to focus on that maybe we're bringing people in that maybe they should be going to another school, we shouldn't be open enrolling or maybe we should be opening rolling those things. But on the next slide, Tim shows us what those what those numbers actually how what the what's the impact of those numbers. So there's a resident number. So there's the 203 kids that live in the area that Holton compared to their capacity. The capacity in this case the capacity is set in the way that is in relation
040to the the uh kindergarten through fifth grade student population. So their ratios for those schools well it's at 69%. with kids that are attending outside and living in there, the enrollment is 20 uh 218, the their utilization now goes up to 74%. And what's nice about this allows us to start adding some other context to what's going on in the district like Rock Elementary has 12 kids going out and 26 come coming into their area or 19 kids coming in from uh into Willow River Elementary School. These aren't really big numbers that would cause me to be startled. It's just that it looks business business as usual. You know, there's some cases where we'll look at 286 kids. There's a district in Illinois, same layout, different s different side of the river and um they
041had like a total of 140 kids attending outside the area. Finally, I said, "What is the why is this?" Oh, we forgot to tell you we have an open enrollment program with the neighboring campus next door. That's all I need to know. Perfect. It's a known It's a known anomaly, what I would say. But it helps us understand a couple things. basic math, there's a thousand empty seats right now in the school's elementary school system based off the school capacity for zero through five. That's pretty that's a pretty big number of empty seats for elementary. Go ahead. So, the next part of this, we know where the kids are. We geocoded them. We know the attendance areas are great. we start looking at the other factors, birth factors. The district had for a time uh
042been in had a few more students born in the area up until recently. You know, now the the new average is around 300 kids born in the area. What's kind of interesting is that um you know we kind of bucking the system in the trend of the n the national trend where nationally it's about three and a half% drop each year in most parts of the country. Some areas have an increase because of inward migration to offset it. But most most cases districts aren't have districts in most areas of the country are seeing just a decline in birth birth uh birth counts and that's nothing by the way that's nothing we're going to solve tonight. >> Mr. President. >> Yes. Um, so one question I have, when you talk about births in the area, are
043you measuring births to women who live in those >> birth to those those zip codes right there? Those are from the state. That's where those children, the moms are from. >> Okay. Yeah. Great. Because I know a lot of people go have their kids and >> Yeah. >> So, you know what your closest hospital or prefer? It's nice having the relationship with the health department, the health and statistics department here in the state because we're able to send a quick message over and they know, oh yeah, they need to know this and not Yeah. Not the song. Yeah, we had um the nice thing about Wisconsin is Wisconsin keeps the the numbers really well. In fact, um only problem is I I couldn't get a um you know, because it's not 2025 yet. So it's
044not we're not done yet. So, I wish we had a 2020 2025 number, but it is what it is. There's some some states where they still have haven't officially announced their 24 numbers, but you all are pretty lucky. Go ahead, Tim. Here it is. Mobility factors. Boy, this chart, this this looks like a really busy slide. Mobility factors help us understand what the shifts are within this within a neighborhood. We look at the neighborhoods that have not had recent development. >> Hey Lauren, real quick, we're going back to birth rates because this has kind of come up multiple times. Uh >> because it does look like birth rates are up and then you have it sitting at 99.7. Can you kind of talk what that is? And then also when you look at the birth
045rates of being 102, 103, it's based it's it's compared to the base year. Is that correct? >> Correct. So like you're so when you're looking at okay we have so many kids born it's it's like the calculation for mobility you have so many kids that are there what's the difference that we can expect the following year that's what we're looking at we're looking at the difference what's the difference we can expect based off this there's a natural increase that's occurring because the last couple years have been the lowest in fact next year we'll have that same impact because it's it's a couple kids shorter than 300 when we look at the outgoing years five through six or uh 6 through 7 or 6 through 10. I mean, we're taking into account some other information. We'll
046look at the the actual uh collection of students and you all sit at what 280 or uh 290. So all the kids that are born here about 290 show up to kindergarten >> where they at capture >> capture rate. But when you look at some other calculations, the a the actual shift in population projected through the census and the ACS comparison, you're seeing a slight decline in uh the next five years out out past 2000 um 31. And the reason behind that is they're taking into account also that people aren't the numbers are staying low. Um, so that's why that's set up the way it is. It's reflective of a static population. >> And just so the 99.7 is coming from just general population analysis and the trends of where you're seeing birth rates going.
047>> Correct. >> Okay. >> Yeah. It it you know we're you know anybody enjoy the statistics class in college? Yeah. Right, Megan? Good. view. So if you remember when we're looking at stuff, we got to be careful how how we apply micro numbers to macro. And so some cases we go, we can probably apply that, but it but looking at it based off of uh experience, it's not the it's not appropriate. Let's look at some other analysis. So, we pulled some the ACS numbers and looked and said, you know, the census is also everything seems to be flat except the the um the um uh younger students, the zero through four kids or zero through four population. It actually shows it declining um from 0.12 to 010. So, in this case, it would have been
04810%. But we're not going to do that. I think this is more appropriate. And the other thing is when we get out past five or six years, we're trying to get ahead of the the bigger mistakes. We want to make sure that the next three or four years we're ahead of. If there's something further out, maybe in about two years, let's re if we see something else, let's revisit it. But in this case, this has been how this this seems to be what uh it not seem this is uh the appropriate methodology for what we're doing right now. >> Okay, Tim. Mr. I have a question actually clarifying so and again just because this has been a focal point of conversation in the community. So you're using the American Community Survey ACS. >> That's right.
049And >> you're looking you're drilling down to Wisconsin specific to look at that. So you're pulling in and saying looking at zero to fours within the state of Wisconsin and through looking at that >> through No. >> Okay. >> Oh, I I should probably we actually have the ability to uh scale down to the district level. >> Great. So you're honing in on the zip codes within that that touch our district specifically. >> Yes. >> Perfect. And so what we're seeing here is essentially a flat trend and they're giving you a 99. I'm just want to giving us anything. We've come we've we've we've we've come up with the 99.7 because it it makes it represents what looks like what's occurring in other parts of Wisconsin. >> Okay. which is essentially flat, no change for
050the next >> after year five or six. >> Okay. So after >> so these the the the first several years that's if you look at the the kinder year so 2026 27 28 and 29 are the ones that are hardcoded numbers. Mhm. >> And if you see, and as Nick brought up, you'll notice that it's because another reason why it seems elevated is that you're a swing of eight, nine bursts. >> So, you got to be, you know, how how do you apply it, right? >> Okay. Mobility. Thank you. So, people ask, uh, you know, how do you track the ins and outs of the of the district? Well, we look at the existing established neighborhoods, not the ones that are having recent builds because we have we're collecting that information based off of development
051where we we have a different we have another part of that we're adding to this. So, um a good examp let's talk about this. So, if you see an area that's below one, that's an area that loses a you know there's a loss that from the year before to this year. So like for instance Hton Halton's case the first six uh was it one two three four five six grades they show a loss each year. So kids that were born or pardon me kids that were in kindergarten la last year if there were a hundred of them you would expect 99 or we've been not you should expect we have been expecting or receiving one less each year. The same thing holds true for first grade to second grade. third grade, you start seeing it.
052Uh you see a greater difference. And then once you get to fifth to sixth grade change, the kids that were there in fifth grade are you're missing seven. If there were 100 kids, you're missing seven by the time they get to sixth grade, >> Mr. President. >> Yes. >> And so then this is the net. So if you had two students move away and one student move in, you're looking at all of that at the same time. >> And we're not looking at specific families. We're looking at specific geographies specific. >> There's this many kids that were there. >> Yep. >> And they're not there. >> And because we we I'm like the accountant. I mean, where's our accounting people? Our accounting people, we take the Excel tables of the enrollment, line it up, offset
053it, and calculate the change. You already I already know that every single CFO and CBO in the nation already has this Excel sheet already. they just plug it in each year once they get the their approved ADA number. This is similar to that except we're looking at spatially. There's a you know okay because uh it allows us to understand what are the areas that are aging out what areas don't are in the existing neighborhoods don't have are seeing less of the young families >> and then fifth to sixth being lower that just means there's fewer sixth graders >> less sixth graders from the year before. Yeah. And you're still looking at within the Holton attendance area looking at the middle school and looking at the high school. >> Yeah, we're looking at student populations. But
054>> thank you. >> Yeah. So we're looking at that zone as a zone itself as geography. >> Um and you'll see and if you haven't said if anybody hasn't say they yet, you'll see people start say oh look at ninth grade eth to nth grade change. Of course, that's very common in an area that has a strong parochial program. You have kids that start to show up. There are some areas of uh some areas of the country where we work with where, you know, there there's multiple high schools and you'll see the kids leaving the private school programs and coming into the middle school. So, they feed in the feeder pattern to the specific high school. You'll see that jump up around sixth or seventh grade. In this case, this is typical of a de
055district that uh that has a parochial strong parochial system in the area or other school options. And then you'll see other parts of the district that have some growth that are in inward growth. So this means there's movement into the area. There's a positive number and let's say North Hudson, there's that positive number from first to second grade. But in general, the ro uh the ratios um uh showed uh uh show no growth or little to no growth in the K to8 range and that growth at high school has a direct correlation with the private school systems. Don't have very many dropouts. >> Yeah. Well, that's the other part is that I always that Dr. Richard goes, they don't have any dropouts. I call them super seniors, but I don't think they're super seniors. It's
056just that you don't have any dropouts. If this were, let's say we're in California, we'll use California. Say, >> stay broad. >> Yeah. >> California. California. If you if Okay, I'll tell someone can come in my my office and show me one of these with no other t no other naming conventions. I make the names t I can tell you what country or what part of the country it is. That's how it's like um showing the um precipitation maps. I can tell you what part of the country precipitation it's occurring or what. It's just we've seen these enough that you kind of already or poor Lance. >> It's very Sorry to interrupt, but that's a very strong number in your high schools. That's that's all I'm saying. >> Yeah, that's you don't see that. So
057you see that in California, but it's it's artificial because they I told Dick they have super super seniors. So you get this longer like instead of a 12-month year, they're an 18 18month senior year. But thank you for that. and uh single uh we're focusing on your single family detached because that's the seems to be that that seems to be that's one of the primary uh housing developments going on in the area. What we people ask, well, how do you figure that out? Well, we geocode the kids of the world so we know where they are and we know the housing type. So, let's turn on the housing type and then overlay the how many kids land on that type of house. Not there's no trickery to it. It's either they're there or they're not.
058And the best part about it is that the assessor uh was able to give us the details of the exact prop, you know, where the properties are or I should I'm going to do this air quote where they were listed in the data of the town or township they were in. So, it was nice because you're able to go look at the these larger samples. Again, it goes back to statistics class. We're looking at areas with the larger samples and a little bit more uh helps you all more specifically see those generation rates in the neighborhoods that you know city Hudson of course it's going to have a lower rate because it's not really it's aging out. It's kind of more of a a renewal. Um want to say the the um Silver Fox hipster
059area, you know, probably for Lance, not for me. Um St. Joseph, a little bit higher. And then town of Hudson, as you get further out, that's where you see the higher generation rates. Now, districtwide, you're at 33% or for K K5, you're at basically 14 students for every hundred homes built. Pretty cool. It's not It's not difficult math. And are there kids here? No algebra. No algebra was involved in this. It was real math. Okay, Tim. Hey, so we drove this entire district. It was fun. I wouldn't want to do it this week, but we were here one one month ago. Um looking forward to the zoole, but missing it. um but drove the entire district and drove outside the district and look at some of those areas like the old Troy. What people go,
060"Well, why are you tracking that?" Well, we there's kids that live in those areas or live around those areas that are open and rolling, which is fantastic when you're when you have space and be able to understand that and then be able to apply the apply the uh gener generation rate specifically for those areas. Um comes in really handy. down. Someone's going to go there's 665. That means, you know, whatever the number was. It's, you know, 665. That's what 90 almost 100 kids. I'm just trying to do my Rainman math right now. But 90 something 90 something kids. Okay. That's not all at once, right? That's over seven, 10 years in some cases. There's some developments that the the developments the h the houses are selling. They're moving. They're not moving on the scale that
061you all see in other parts of the country. That's just, you know, when you're selling uh brand new homes on three acre parcels, there's a lot of a lot of startup stuff that needs to happen. And so, it takes a little longer to get those things moving down the road. when we're working in other parts of the country where they're three acres, three acres is 25 homes in other parts of the country. You know, we were joking about driveways. Some people aren't familiar with driveway costs. I'm like, me, I'm a nerd. I stop and I'm like, "Holy cow, that's a $100,000 driveway right there." She's like going, "Oh my gosh, here we go again. Did you see that they're using 2 by sixes inside there? Oh my gosh. You know, and going over the different
062price differentials when you start looking at the materials. It's always fun. I love bringing the younger staff out to these things because they think I just go here. There he is out in the field pointing at stuff shouting at the clouds. But we're visiting these places. Um and uh we're able to then uh provide this in a online an analytics allows allowed staff to kind of make sure oh yeah that's that's where we are and then and then summarize the information advance of uh providing the forecasts Tim district forecast perfect this is my my staff hates me it's all colors but I do know one thing they color code in a way that shows the peak year the peak counts. It differentiates what the lower counts are. It's wonderful. I I like the colors and
063stuff. I um it basically is just showing you you've had some very large classes in the early part of early uh earlier last three or four years. your if we didn't look at anything else you have a natural shift occurring where you have less kids uh uh replacing the larger classes graduating through that's the way it's by the way it's not just in Hudson it's everywhere in the US there's it depends on where you are like in some parts of the US it's now that happened two years ago it was some parts of Texas it just depended on the recovery out of the last recession who what state recovered quicker and where that where that bubble went through. Does that sound right? >> It happened earlier in Indiana when I was superintendent. I mean, it's
064that's the easiest uh demographic demographic information that you can calculate. It's what goes out and what comes in >> over annualized across the trend. >> Yeah, it it I hate to put it that simplistically, but that's that's kind of the way it it's kind of the easy understanding of this the natural shifts that are occurring within the area. Um your district this if you look at these numbers on the screen I want to make sure you understand when it says resident students these are students that live in the zone in your district that are enrolled at your schools. So I don't understand this all the kids I go no no these are the kids that want to go to your schools that are living in your district. What about the other kids? I go, "The
065open roll kids, they could go to their other school district quicker than they than we can do anything about it." You have 200 200 plus of open enroll kids. Um, it's you can track them through enrollment forecasting, but other than that, they're not really, you know, if you do any zone change, it doesn't change where they're enrolled there. there are still going to be an open enrolled uh sample, but your district is projected to continue to u blue students and that and that has to do with a couple things. You have a a an adjustment to the lower lower grades, lower population, lower grades, and as they begin to settle, you start to see the district plateau. Um we we're talking about a a client that's in Pennsylvania that once had 25,000 students. It was
066down to 4,000. It, by the way, wasn't anything this district did. It was just just a rust belt thing, rust belt shift, and it was in an area where, you know, when you don't have people and you change the the lumber industry and you've gone to it really affects families living there. There's only so many kayaks you can rent. You go down to Alagany. I mean, this is it. But, um, but at some point, it doesn't go to zero. This is this is this is a pop. We're talking about population like another organism in in our world. It's not linear or anything like a like a like like math. We're not math. We don't math to zero. >> Okay. >> And and Lauren, just to kind of clarify on the numbers. So you have, you
067know, when we talk about being down 147 kids in the district, we're talking about the kids that we count for revenue purposes. >> Correct. When we talk about uh the kid counts that we do uh related to enrollment at the elementarymentaries that we give that report every month. Andrea gives that report. Those are for lack of a better term butts and seats. Those are inclusive of all kids including open enrolled in and all of those kids. >> And then you have this these numbers which you're basing your calculations on which are resident students that also attend. >> Correct. >> So they wouldn't include the open enrollment out students and things along those lines which >> that's right. our count students do do include those. So some people might say, well, why are the numbers different
068than what we've seen in different places? Just to clarify, that's that's the big difference. It's there are three different sets and they're used for very different reasons. Um, and they all have their own purpose. >> Yeah. And our methodologies specifically set up for facility facility planning, uh, long-term planning. I I I refer to as the forecast to help avoid the multi-million dollar uh, mistakes. try to try to get ahead of things. I have clients we worked with for years. I remember a client in Texas is like, "Oh my gosh, we got to reszone." Yeah. Okay, cool. Reszone. He goes, "When do we have to do this again?" I look at his forecast. I look at you won't have to do this for another eight years. He's laughing. Ah, he's retired. They had to reszone uh
069a year after he retired, year nine. I mean it's you we we it gave everybody plenty of law a bit plenty of room. Talk about law runway. I think he forgot about it. This retired and you know by the way it's time to split that or expand that elementary area that we talked about seven years ago. You know being able to look at it in this way makes it a lot easier to plan further out. Tim, thank you. Uh, I just have a question. >> Um, >> so I one thing that's come up a lot is people saying there's new development and I know you address some of that, but on this chart it says with no new development the next decade. >> Tell me what you mean by that. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
070So anybody, let's go skip ahead to the next one. That's bar graph. No one cares about that. Let's go. There we go. Thank you, Tim. You can look at bar graphs all you want. It's the same numbers as this picture making the picture of the numbers. Okay. So with no new development. So that was we have the ability to start looking at other relationships. What if the market crashes there's no development? That's what that looks like. Your district not doesn't drop to 4200. It drops closer to 4,000. So not a lot of impact from housing, but enough that you know, hey, the the housing development's in there. Guess what happens when it's not? It really starts to taper down, doesn't it? And you know, guess what? If the planning department and the cities decide, hey,
071you know what? might want to address how we reszone these neighborhoods. Then you don't have to come back and revisit this because if they go from a three to a one simple, you know, that's simple math, you know. >> So, so do you take into consideration in our area um trends as far as development and what seeing in the near future? I mean, that's one of the concerns is that we have, you know, townships that want to keep a rural >> Yeah. >> you know, makeup, >> but also >> we take that into account. So, when we're looking at the the development that they're they're working on at this point, the stuff that's either approved or in planning, we'll look to see, okay, what which ones? Oh, these are three threeacre ones. Okay, these are
072the threeacre ones. Where else are those? Well, most of the new big developments or the the most of the developments are these larger lot homes. So, yeah, we take that into account. >> So, you've taken already, so this is basically showing, okay, when people say we have 700 on the books, you've taken account almost 700 new homes being built in our school district, housing units, >> you've taken that in consideration plus the mobility rates, and that's how you came out with this calculation. So it's not like all of a sudden >> no we just all we did was we instead of putting uh instead of calculating the uh there you know it's it's it's a thing that you take a factor out we said okay what if homes don't happen the the you still track
073the plots like like before the you know during the recession we still track the plots know no homes were coming no schools were coming from and no homes were being built. So to do that you just say okay there's no student generation because there's no development happening yet we're still tracking those and there's no determined you know basically saying there's no determined value when that's going to come online. It's a it's a it's it's really nice thing to having softwarebuilt GIS that we use allows us to do the whatif scenarios like that. >> So sorry I stepped away. >> Okay. Slide 16 includes the 600 some that we know are going to happen. And then when we get to slide 18, that's they all fall apart and none of them get built. >> Nothing happens.
074>> Thank you. >> We thought it'd be interesting to have that in there because there's a there's a there's a there's discussions how significant housing is quite significant >> in all forecasting. But when you but to give you a better a better idea of how impactful is what does it look like if it not it's not there. >> So I mean you're sorry you're good. >> So you're basically talking about 5% swing and so when you're looking at these forecasts and you're looking at you basically have a three-legged stool here. You have you have birth rates you have mobility and then you have development. And so for districts, if you have a declining birth rate and your mobility, you don't have folks moving in because your housing stock doesn't support a lot ton of families
075coming into your district, then the only way that you can backfill that enrollment is through development. Well, your residential development is limited by the structures that are in place already. So that's an important number because that is a 5% swing. And to his point, should there be re on the flip side of that, if they rethink that policy and they look at it differently in the in the decade to come, then that could also be a 5% swing the other way. >> Pretty cool, huh? >> I think uh one of the things too is our are some of our neighboring uh areas across the river, Still Water, Lake Elmo. >> Yeah. >> Um you're seeing a very aggressive changing in their zoning for higher density housing. And a lot of people that perception is well
076we're building Hud homes in Hudson. Hudson's growing. We we know from the data that we're not seeing the kids coming with those those those purchases, but we what we're not seeing is an aggressive um plan to increase higher density housing. >> That's true. >> I think so. You saw that in South Washington. You know, they you know Woodbury had the had almost built out in some areas. this the last message before coming across the rivers you still water or south Washington basically where areas that you can build still right with with value that's close to the city people still need to commute in every couple times a week if if they're commuting in by the way there was no traffic coming this way was just us I was I was I Tim I was worried
077about the traffic coming this way thinking there's going to be oh they're probably waiting for Monday night football or something Um, it is Monday. >> Huh? >> It is Monday. I'm sorry. My whole day's been lost. >> Right. >> So, we we put this we put these numbers >> president. Yeah. >> Sorry. I had one more question. >> Maybe you talked about this with when you were talking about mobility, but one one factor that gets raised often is that um is housing turnover of current homes and and how do you think about that in your >> that's that's calculated through the mobility. So like like uh u Hton's a good example that there's not a lot of turnover occurring it with young families in that area. >> Um areas you know I didn't maybe it
078adds to confusion if I add somebody else's stuff to it but there are other parts of the country where there is when people talk about oh they have people moving in the area. We work in districts in the Carolinas where no people are moving into the area. So their birth rates are their birth rates are artificially high because the inward migration of people their mobility numbers are in five six points greater in all those levels because young pe young families can afford to live in this area or those type of things. That's where we see that inward movement and change and turnover in existing neighborhoods. So when we were doing that study, when we're looking at each one of the study areas, we make sure to identify that study area as development the last several
079years. We need to make sure that's tracked with the development because if we do don't then sometimes you'll double count too in those areas. So we want to we've identified a lot of the areas that are recently recent builds. Anyway, so there's a chart up there that shows the difference between uh if development occurs and if development doesn't occur and there's the spread as it gets out there after year 10. And so I had 4.25. >> Lance math. Okay. So he's like me. We kind of round around up grandpa math. My dad getting money back from me. Math. Um with the discerning $20 math. Next slide. So, uh, in a nutshell, we we in this in this, uh, spreadsheet, we we identify, uh, the rate of change in over a three-year period. The only part
080of the district that doesn't have any that has any growth is the Riverest Elementary area. Everybody else, and we also put the middle school and high school because they're the total population. They remember they represent the entire uh uh geography of the district. But if you look at some of the other elementary zones, they're all projected to see a loss over the next three years. Next slide, please. Another chart to really bring it home. This is uh the dark color is year five. The lighter color is the year 10 number percentage. And uh yes, the high school seems to uh see an increase in decline in middle school. Why do you think that is? Because they've had these larger classes graduating through and they're eventually in year five, six, and seven, they're seeing these smaller
081grades come up. Yeah, I like uh so we don't do it that often, but I sometimes I'll put the chart in with side by side of the It looks like a wave from elementary to middle to high. Overall, there's the overall numbers breakdown over uh five and 10 years. Everybody's focused on the elementary areas, but the high schools and middle schools will see a a shift because just a natural effect of populations shifting and metriculating into the upper grades. Next slide, please. This is a great map. This is an example of all your study areas and then they're colorcoded in a way that shows your impact areas. So the red areas are the areas of of greatest decline and the lower one the bright green on the bottom is it is that bright green? >>
082The bright green is like >> Yeah, thanks. I got it. Bright green is the is the area of growth in the area. You'll notice in some cases they they follow um where the housing developments are occurring. Understanding this in the spatially is very very helpful for everybody that's you're already familiar with the district. Now you can kind of get a better idea of what specific uh where the shifts are actually occurring. And it's you know frankly it's not in one specific area. It's throughout the district. Now, keep in mind when you see a big old red polygon like that out in the eastern part of the district, that's a geography with only so many kids in it. >> So, that that's a direct reflection of your density of population to get that study to get
083that study size. >> Yeah. >> Next slide, please. So, overall, you're uh projected to lose nearly 600 kids over the next decade. Um most of this we've covered but just to keep in mind um it is as current as of when we pressed go. Someone comes in and changes master plan of a community might as well throw out the numbers, right? Someone comes in and says we're going to uh put in uh uh data centers in some areas. may not it's not going to happen but we put in some data center somewhere it changes the whole dynamics of that neighborhood right so this is as good as it is as we press go last week right and hit enter run the numbers and we made sure everything was in order 10 uh where the housing
084development is made sure the kids were geocoded correctly make sure that we had the correct birth information and then prepared the summary of information. A key component of this is is that your utilization rate in elementary is and in elementary is significant. It's tough. It's tough um when you're at a school because I I grew up in the I'm very young. I grew up in the went to elementary in the late 70s early 80s. Uh, and I remember attending a school that was un that was under enrolled for a period of time in a very small rural area. Superintendent's office was right in the same building. So, it was always fun getting yelled at, Nick. Someone like Nick yelling at us all the time. Um, but I remember that there was also the situation. I
085didn't know this at the time, but I knew because my mom was a teacher that we weren't getting some of the stuff the other schools were because there just wasn't enough funding for that campus under enrolled. There's only so many like you had I back in the day you had a uh traveling vice principal but I thought was normal. I didn't know that was not normal back then. That's that's what happened. So those are those are things to talk about. Um on uh on another fun note you know that's part of the part of our work um not at this scope but we look at capacity utilization and u gentleman to my left Dr. Richards uh helps with us when it comes to analyzing the data even further when it get when we get into
086that. That's when we call and people go what about curriculum as we pick up the phone and call one of our other pe other staff colleagues that are in the curriculum side. They'll walk through those parts. But one of the things I want to make sure I'm sorry I'm jumping all over the place. the middle part of the um executive summary. Don't want to overlook it that the middle school and high school numbers are projected to continue to be more impacted at in in year five and six. So >> Tim, go ahead. >> And we're in with Dr. Richards. >> Nobody's happier to be here than I am. >> Oh my gosh. Well, and before we move on to the the engagement piece, can we open up for any additional questions board would have >>
087related to the demographics or I don't know if they >> questions. I I don't know that it's a question. It's just kind of as I walk Thank you for the presentation and the analysis. It's super helpful to see um I mean the c the three-legged stool analogy was super helpful for me. And so it's kind of thinking birth rates, we had a decline and now we're basically going to be flat is what you're telling me. There's that's where that looking out at uh data from the American Community Survey drilling down to our zip codes. The other leg of the stool, new building. Yes, we do have new development happening, but because of geography, because of um uh community development plans that set how the type of development that happens, it's limited in what's happening. Later
088on, the mobility, we are low or flat with mobility. And so, we might have housing turnover, people, new people moving in, but that isn't really increasing and bringing in droves of students. And that may be factored into housing costs. And again, just historically birth rates declining, so people just naturally having fewer kids even though they may move into the district. Kind of the the three pieces that I took away. >> Wow, you should have set up here. That was way better than I could. >> Thank you. Um I did have one quick question for you guys and that is on when you go to slide and I just want to make sure because I development's a big conversation here and that's something people have really asked us about and said there's development happening. there's and
089we want to make sure we're accounting for that. And I know you guys on slide 14, you drove around and I see all these yellow dots um in the Holton area up by an 64 area. I think is there there was some plot of land up there where there were some things that were potentially up for sale. Like tell me about that piece of it. So, what we're going to include in these in this report, >> we're going to include any development that's greater than 25 units. >> Great. >> That's in any activity. >> Um, if it's not in any activity or it's not officially announced, we're not we won't be able to No, there are some that will Oh, wait a minute. That's next to this infrastructures here. It's clear that happens. >> When
090Yeah. When Yeah. When you get out into some rural areas, there's some areas that like in western PA where I'll drive by and go, "That's going to be 600 homes in five years." And the guy's like, "What are you talking about? There's an 8 inch aqueduct uh valve right there. It's flat and there's water. Five years later, they're building homes." I I think that's one of the questions that might come up because there are small pocket developments with this twoacre lots up in in Holton, but there might be 11 or 13 lots in that one. So, you're kind of not seeing that or not adding that in. >> And it's it's way too small. You all have don't have the scale >> the scale of development to offset what uh the decline that's occurring. Okay.
091And with that too, there's no chance of city water or sewer up there where down below 94 there's farmland >> and infrastructure. So that's what that's taking into consideration. So >> yeah, that's that's how as a developer that's how developers think too. I mean they're looking for what's the path of least resistance. So one of the things we keep hearing is 25 30 years ago when most of us had or some of us had you know young kids going through this is you know booming you know uh and that's that surge we've seen go through >> and uh >> what and um and the perception in the community by many who have lived through that think >> well this is just because of COVID and the recession and it's going to bounce back right back
092to where it was right and there's all these other factors that are saying this is potentially a new normal, right? >> Correct. So, you all are familiar with the term uh replacement for fertility replacement rates. Show of hands who or if you know the correct answer, what's the natural replacement rate? >> 2.1 know where we are in the US. >> What's that? >> 1.6. So, we're 50 50 points off of where we're supposed to be. You know, where we are and people, oh, we'll just have uh I like this part. This is my fun part. This is where I talk to the state agencies about this. They'll say, well, we'll just uh we'll just uh you know uh migration will help fix it. The whole Western Hemisphere is in a negative. Not Not North America.
093The entire Western Hemisphere is below replacement, natural replacement. Anybody show hands? where the only positive value is in the world. We're all if we are uh for us uh free Freeman uh economists, you should all read aware of it about 20 years ago. It's China. All fun stuff. Poor poor Nick has to put up with this. I've read a lot of white papers, too, which is fun. I don't read regular regular stuff. I read science stuff and it's always fun. But in the world, we're in decline. And someone asked the other day, I'm on a plane. They find out I'm a they start talking to me. I said, you know, well, is it true? We're supposed to get 12 million people in the world. I said, no, it's been adjusted. It's 9.2 probably at peak.
094And they're probably being be lower depending on if the numbers come out of China. There's reoccurring numbers that are coming out of China that they're a lot lower. So in the world, we're in a trend where we're now uh becoming like um Greece or Italy. We don't have enough We won't have enough kids. Is that fun? >> Dang. Hey, don't breed me in. Hey, I rather go to Zuzacle. Uh but this is my poor wife has to put up with this all the time, guys. I'm sorry. I'll sit there and I talk about this stuff and it's, you know, um but in in general, we understand. You're right. It's going to be a new normal. I hate that term, but we're there's coming out of co all co did co basically started showing it showing
095it a lot quicker because if you look at trend lines precoid and then coming back the bounce back in 2020 2021 you start seeing that trend line come back to come back into where it was or they dropped off. In some districts you'll see like a three or four percent shift to where it was projected earlier and now where it is. >> You got out of there before the co hit. >> No, I was a superintendent during co >> He was >> I'm still twitching. But we take all that in account. So if we're looking at like the little uh um uh little speck housing developments, we're not picking that up because that has a whole different mechanism. you know, there you're going to pick that up in the mobility numbers. It's not it's not
096a large development. >> Brian, >> just a a another question on the impact of new housing. So, I I think our the number of kids is something like 3.4 per housing unit something roughly >> for little kids. Yeah. 0.134. >> So, that to me just at face value feels shocking. You think of a new house, you think of a new family of four or five moving into it, right? They're expensive. That >> um can you put that number into context? Is that normal or is >> it's not I'll tell you what everybody wants to know what normal is. >> Um 33 is basically what you're seeing in suburban areas. Um, what isn't normal is when you start seeing what looked like a neighborhood and it's that brand new neighborhood going on and the entire K12
097is at below 0.2. That isn't normal. But it has to do a lot with people can't afford to move into those areas or um there's bypassing that and going to a different location altogether. It's also important to factor in that even if it generates children, it it's going to be across a K12 spectrum. So, you know, you always think of these I had a really nice 100 unit subdivision that was going in in my school district and I was oh because we needed oh we needed it like mana from heaven. We needed it and a big chunk of it opens up and like we're picking up like two kids. I'm like what's going on? Well, there were a lot of preschool like those tight little tight cars in the driveway. So there we were hoping
098they would age in, but we it just never it it wasn't it wasn't the saving grace that we all had hoped it would be in terms of that given of that single elementary. >> It didn't have the 1990s effect. >> No, when you built it, you had a point8 to one ratio ratio. Well, I mean, when we were when we were kids, we all knew families that were we were three and, you know, we had kids down the street were four and five and six and you we just there were large families growing up and a much higher generation rate. >> We're lovely at cocktail parties talking about this, by the way. So, if you need to hire us out, perfect. >> We can do the small talk. >> Let's go. Yeah, there we go.
099>> Great questions, by the way. Yeah, absolutely. And look, it, you know, that kind of leans its way straight into community engagement. Well, let me start over again. There's nobody happier to be here than I am after five and a half hours in the lounge at Chicago O'Hare. Um, I do I do appreciate your your your patience and letting me kind of join you late. Um, I'm very excited about community engagement. I mean, I know that there are some tough decisions that have had to been made here and you've got a lot of folks that are upset and trying to understand the why and you know, and I and this kind of comes back around to how we engage in community engagement when we talk to folks and we engage with folks and and it's
100a lesson for all of us in terms of don't assume because really what people want to know is is what is going to be the outcome. They're going to be up angry up front and there's a certain amount of denial and you know and another important factor about small schools is a few kids won't really swing a number or percentage or or you know even with test scores for those of you that that examine those things. So don't assume clarify what their key concerns are around that before you we lean in. Also in staying positive because no one needs a negative Nelly negative is so easy. Negative is lazy. It's e you just gota you got to stay positive and and try to frame it is and look in terms of what's best for the
101community and what's best for all kids. We know this is going to impact some families differently as as they as they go forward. We're going to talk a little bit about that in a little bit. but understanding their angsts and and acknowledging the emotions because change is hard and people really importantly people need to feel heard and that's the biggest part of our community engagement as we move forward making sure that we gather insights and and concerns from the from their community. So overall engagement point point. So basically I should just just say ditto because everything you've seen on that screen today in some form or fashion is what we're going to share with your community. We're going to talk about it. We're going to drill down into this. Okay, look, here's what it is
102with the development. I know those numbers are shocking. Uh we have got this three-legged stool and this is kind of how it works and you got to, you know, you got more kids walking dogs than pushing baby carriage, you know, and having those conversations around where are we now? That was our kind of our project initiation, but explaining to folks the reason we're here. People in your community know why we're here. All right, what do we know, which is kind of what we're talking about today. What where do we want to be? And then we we get that community feedback. So we're going to before we find that ba best way forward. So the biggest thing is is promoting transparency and it's promoting that accountability so people understand and can quantify the problem for themselves
103so they can understand the challenges because as the folks that are joining us online I'm sure tonight and the conversations we're going to have going forward. It's very important that they understand there's no hidden numbers. You may not like the numbers, but the data is real. And these folks spend an inordinate inordinate amount of time making sure that the data is accurate coming in because it's it's like baking a cake. You got to make sure you've got the right inputs so you have the right outputs. And we do in this case and I know that that that just when you see that number, you go I we thought it'd be different, you know, we thought it'd be different. So, educate and activate community members so we can create these informed decision makers so people can
104understand and you'll bring some people around. You know, we're not going to have a kumbaya moment at the end of our community engagement. Well, we might, but I doubtful. Um, but we're going to create that what what I call the elevator speech so people can explain and quantify because not everybody's going to be able to come to the community engagement. So the folks that do come are going to be some of your folks that are kind of serve in those social networks to kind of bring the information back out, share it in the larger community so that they can help you quantify the problem and explain the problem the the challenges sorry the challenges going forward. So framework and process. We'll talk through all this. You know, an engagement uh an engagement practice that is
105not just about the loudest voices because we all know who those folks are in the community that are very upset and that type of thing. But in our process, in our procedure, we're going to inform the decision-making criteria and we're going to understand that meaningful stakeholder engagement impacts final outcomes. So when we share this first meet in this first session, we will share some proposed boundary shifts and we will gather insights from folks surrounding those boundaries, bring those back, take a look at what we can and can't do and bring that information forward. What folks have to understand in terms of the boundary analysis is that no decisions are going to be made until after the community input. So everybody gets everybody let me be clear that everybody gets a chance to weigh in on
106this information because we'll have our our community engagement. We'll have public surveys that'll be sent out folks can weigh into. We'll bring that information in. We'll quantify it. We'll categorize it and we'll be able to bring that information back to you so you can understand the the key concerns of your community. >> I'm sorry. Next. >> I just say hit it. >> Hit it. All right. So some of the common some of the some of the common challenges around this are around understanding of the challenges so that a lot so that when we do this approach that we can align the district needs and present all of this information to the school community again transparency and accountability. Similarly around the shared data and making sure that the entire process to final recommendations that they understand
107the process and the procedure behind it all those ingredients and we have to be honest about the financial constraints and unrealistic expectations. We have to kind of mention that and kind of lean into that a little bit because look, you're doing what you have to do as as as a community board, as a school board in order to honor your commitment to all of the stakeholders of your school community. And you have a significant number of folks that don't have kids in the schools, may have never had kids in the schools. I mean, the old days we used to say it was kind of an 8020. 20% of your population has a direct tie in that moment to the schools and 80% doesn't. and all those folks are taxpayers. And so I one thing, one
108area I will applaud you because I I am just a little bit about me. I'm a 30 plus years in public education in Indiana. Um I was a superintendent during COVID. Uh they like the phrase call me a recovering superintendent. Um I still have my C I always lead with this. I still have my CDL. So if you got need somebody to drive the bus, >> I'm your man. Um, but having said all that, I would applaud you in that you you are trying to be out in front of this. The stark reality is you've got a thousand empty seats and your district is a goodiz district, but it's not an enormous district. And so you have to be out in front of that in order to be operationally viable because your operational dollars are
109like a jar of Skippy peanut butter and there's only so many pieces of toast those dollars can go back to and you can't go back to your the inefficiencies of buildings and operational costs. It's a hole that you can get into and once you get in the hole it's almost impossible to get out of. It's it's just it's it's a situation where in creating of equity of access to adequate facilities involves making sure you create equity and access to school facilities and programs for all your students in the best way possible and it locks you into long you know that long-term flexibility so you can understand it what you're doing now. Well, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expect. So, understanding that we're having to take these measures now
110in order to get out ahead of X, Y, or Z. And then, you know, again, we're going to lead with what's best for students driven by the sound data with impacted by community input. Here's our challenges. Here's what we're here's here's some proposals. What do you think about that? And weigh into that. Uh, just a little bit of our community engagement. So, they are a large it's a town hall like event. It's not an open mic night. Um, we present all of our, we share all the data. We have live polling with a program called poll everywhere. And those are some components of that. We have a word wall where we have single word like an area where your district excels and they'll throw that up and that kind of thing. Um, and then the
111poll everywhere is live polling. It's very much like um who wants to be be a millionaire when they when they live poll the audience the numbers come up and you can come across and people can weigh in that way. And then once we do that, based on that survey, we'll also send out a communitywide survey to connect further for folks that couldn't be there. And generally what happens is many times you'll we'll record that. It'll be, you know, uh sent out live streamed and that type of thing. And so folks that either watch it live stream or watch the recording then can participate in the survey the other way. And you can push that out through your it's a link. you can push it out through your school messenger program or any of the classroom
112dojo or any of those uh uh formats that you have. But it's important that we try to capture as much as we can in that and we capture if you've got you know I've done I've done sessions um you know believe it or not I did sessions on this exact thing in Utah where you anticipate with larger families continuing growth and there was a common refrain in the district I worked with there and they said yeah four is the new eight. What they said four is the new eight. Well, they were having the the newer families were having much smaller families going forward uh into those schools and that was they were facing some of those same uh demographic challenges going forward. So, it's important that we share all this information, we gather all that
113information. In those sessions, we had up to like 600 people and so we're able to bring all that and capture all that data and bring it back forward to you. But again, the key element here is is that we're going to share it all and then everybody gets to weigh in. Everybody has an opportunity. >> Mr. President, >> um just with the large scale town hall events, the two dates, so those are going to be the same type of presentation. So we have two options for people to attend. >> I'm glad I'm glad you mentioned that. The first one will be a presentation of representative of the work up to that point. >> Okay. >> And what we'll do is we'll we'll have maps. We'll show the changes within those maps. We'll have some discussion
114around those changes. People will be able to gateway into A, B or C, A and C that, you know, things that they could that they can understand, you know, some of the challenges and we're going to that some of those challenges are going to be reflective in this next slide that we're going to talk about. Uh because you're going to have homework, too, by the way. Um so um so the the second meeting will be a similar format sharing some of the same information in terms of the of the explaining the challenges but then it will have the re any of the revisions that we were able to make from that first meeting. We felt like in in talking with district leadership and this is kind of a little different format. We would normally just
115do just as you'd said. We'd normally come in, roll across two or three nights depending on the size of the district, present the same information, come back and get gather some insights and then bring that back to the board. In this case, it was felt that we needed to go to the community, get their insights, come back to the community, they can see the work of that so they have actually a second opportunity to weigh into those insights and then bring that in. So, you're going to kind of get an extra layer on that in terms of what's brought back around to to district leadership. >> That's great. And then um maybe you don't know the answer to this yet, but how many boundary options do you usually bring to the first meeting? >> I
116will tell you that the last time we did this, we had three and they were like, you know, blue, green, and yellow. We don't number them or we don't AB and C them. Sometimes it'll lend itself to a fourth one just depending on what where the development is and where because look, you got those study areas. So, you're working off the study areas. I'll be honest with you, sometimes it ends up just being a two a two option because that's just the way the math works and that's what these guys do. That's what these folks do every day um all year round and have had decades of experience. So having said that though, if we go to that next slide, this is kind of the driver behind it and this is kind of where you've
117got some homework coming forward and this is also information. So again, um, some of what you saw in my slides would be shared in a different format with your audience. Um, this will be shared with your audience and they'll be able to understand kind of how the problem has to be approached. And for you as district leadership, you've also got to take a look at this and decide, well, what's our what's our key drivers behind this because you have guiding principles and you have this kind of this bubble that works around. And I want to I want to I want to stress that these all are in direct conflict with one another in many ways because in your case, what you have is a capacity and utilization situation. So, we've got to take a look
118at that. Well, we'd all but you also have to consider transportation because it costs, you know, just shy of 10 bucks a mile to run a bus down the road when you factor all the costs involved. You'd love to minimize impact, but if you do that, what do you what happens five years, 10 years down the road if you don't make the big changes today that will ward off the challenges of the future? You've got special populations and demographics and programs and special needs and so economic concerns. You've got natural barriers of the interstate and golf courses and lakes and all those kind of things that roll in. your feeder patterns are are clean here. So there's not a it's not a feeder pattern considered and I'll I'll take that off for our presentation. You
119never want an island zone. You know, sometimes you'll see these school districts where they just pluck this whole development out here and truck them in because >> the development came online. This is the school that had the capacity and they didn't want to impact anyone else in terms of that. So we're not going to have any island zone. And then there's always a conversation around neighborhood schools. And so when you look like at your present elementary boundaries, you can see where the density of populations are based on just the size of the educa of the elementary zone in order to fill that building. And so those are those are all the things that kind of weigh into this. And they're almost like the the lotto picss when they see the ping pong balls bouncing around,
120they draw the numbers out. We we have to lean into these things and and they have to be balanced to meet the district needs. And we also have to as we move into this because people will offer this X Y and Z but there's always an unintended consequence that comes around that. So the key to this is that that conversation that comes back around the key considerations for your district to make all of your students as whole as possible. Um and making sure that you don't go through this process again in five years that that you answer the questions the first time. Look, you never get credit for the crisis that you avoid, right? I mean, you're you're taking steps now to avoid a future crisis. Thank you. Nobody's going to give you an add
121a boy or an add a girl for that. Okay? However, the next set of board members will understand that. The next set of district leadership will understand that. So, it's important that you make the decisions for all the kids the best way you can with the best information you have. At this time, this is your homework. You're going to have to give this some thought and I believe you have a meeting come back around >> on Monday to kind of bounce through some of these. >> Mr. President. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Um given you guys are going to do kind of a review of all the data on the 17th, can we record that so that anybody who can't make that meeting but comes to the 23rd can at least watch it and kind of
122have that opportunity to see that. >> Are you talking about the 13th? >> 13th. Yep. I'm pulling I made dates up. Sorry. >> Yeah. No, that's fine. >> So, yes, we can we can absolutely set up so we have the 13th meeting recorded and then we can put that online. >> Thank you. >> And then they will do us a briefer review on the >> Yeah, we kind of pair that down. The challenge I run into with that is there's always those folks that show up, they just I didn't know anything about this >> and they show up for the second meeting. So, and I'll apologize for folks that have engaged with us the first time or watched it online, but I also feel very strongly that we have to kind of step even if
123I do it in a much much more brief fashion or kind of this thing, but there's going to be somebody watching for the first time. There's going to be somebody sitting there for the first time and I don't want to short change their folks. If they took the time to come out and meet with us out of their day, their busy lives, I think it's important that we give them that information. And I think that it's important that when we share the second go round, I I you know, you you don't want to, you know, curtail expectations necessarily, but the reality is is there's only so many ways this pie can be sliced. And so the changes that folks will see at that second one, you know, there may be another one that come. We've
124seen situ I'll be honest with you. We've had situations where we presented red, gold, and yellow and the next time we come around it's orange, purple and mag no magenta and purple are kind of the same >> would know. >> Um but you know what I have to put it with >> that that folks leaned into a certain thing had concerns around a certain thing. I don't I don't we to be brutally honest we don't know what we don't know right now but I it it was felt that it was important to have the the two opportunities to weigh in. Now people may come our way mad after that second meeting because oh I wanted them to you again we've got guiding principles we have this overarching need to make sure that we create balance
125across the district for all students and so um but there there are always areas for change in that >> thank you >> Mr. president. >> Yeah, it is. >> Uh, so you said it's going to be a town hall style and there's going to be some polls. Um, I've heard some people say some of the other meetings that we've held where we've had people work in small groups and give feedback on laptops that they felt they were though that I personally found all the information that came from that to be very valuable because it was written down and I could read it and digest it. people felt that it was sort of performative or they didn't have a chance to really have discussion or get questions answered. >> So are can you explain a little
126bit more how it looks? Is it just polls or are people talking to each other? >> No, there's there's not in a general format. No, we have done it the other way where we've had hosts that would serve in groups and we had to have pre-signups to have people work in that discussion. The intentionality behind our community engagement is is that we present all the information to everybody and everybody has an opportunity to weigh in. We have there are multiple open-ended questions in that and at the end there are there's a complete open-ended where folks can can write whatever they want or they can provide information um later to us and that that comes into that incorporated because we kind of feel like if you have that concern, she has that concern and then we'll
127get a there will be a central theme that will come out of those comments. Um I'm not necessarily opposed to the small group format and that kind of thing. Um, what I have found is that when we do this and we do it well that we're able to gather, you know, because there's going to be some folks in that room that are kind of quiet that really are not going to ever speak up or speak out, but they can provide their insights into that. Um we want just want to make sure that that everyone has the same ability to participate and contribute >> and then as board members just coming and sitting within the audience and sort of >> being there. >> We will stay we will stay after to answer questions. people have questions
128about just form process and procedure or any of those kinds of things. You know, while we're there, we're going to be banging the drum of, hey, if you've got a concern or a question, get it in the comments because if you've got the concern, somebody else has got the concern, we can bring that forward. It can become a theme. What people have difficulty with is that there may be two or three people in there that are really charged up about an issue. And so what we have found many times is is that when you balance that against the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. And so it's important that we make sure we gather all those all all of that information. Did I answer the question? Okay. Sorry, I got going
129there and I but we'll stick around. Oh, you're the school board. We've had sessions where it's important. This is an important thing. This is an MGT meeting. It's it's not a school board meeting. I mean, if you want it to be, you can, but you got to do that whole thing. Um, so this is an opportunity for folks to come in and speak and contribute and see the information that MGT is bringing forward and see the information that we will be sharing. That's a part of our process and procedure before we bring those final the final maps, the final recommendations to you, the final scenarios. So we have been situations where folks come and you know we're introduced and we point out yada y wave and it and and I think that many times it
130works very well if folks are there they can speak to folks after the meeting so they can feel heard >> um because if they do want that one if they want that facetime it's important they get it but the importance of these committee engagements are is they're there to gather all of those insights. Well, I'll stick around until midnight to talk to people through the process. And many times you'll get a gathering of two or three people that kind of step forward and say, "Hey, you know, did you guys consider X, Y, and Z, or did you did you think about this?" Um, and and and those are those are insightful, but I always say make sure you get it in the survey. Make sure you get it in the open-ended because it's important for
131us to quantify and categorize all of that information. Sweep it all in because there will be some very key themes. Now, some of the things themes that'll come forward, good, bad, or ugly, they're just not going to be actional. Keep them all open. Build new schools. Those kinds of concerns will come into it. But again, we want to bring it all forward in terms of a process. We'll share it all, good, bad, or otherwise. >> Mr. President, >> you guys have said um like we did boundary lines six six years ago. It'll be seven plus years once we redo this one. Um, how often are you seeing boundary line changes in your line of work? Just so we can talk about that quickly. >> How how often do you see it for an existing client?
132>> Yep. >> I gave you an example earlier. >> Sorry. Coach voice. I just yell across the room. I uh I was using the example the other day earlier earlier when we talked about a client that we've been working with for a number of years. You know, typically we try to do it to where you don't have to reszone again for at least a decade or so. Um your projections indicate that fairly it's going to be a fairly static population that we you know you can be confident that you don't have to do this again. You all can Nick they can retire and not have to worry about it. >> But there but there can be game changers. I mean if there's a change of of building code if there's >> change of building code
133is a huge is a huge >> kind of would be a big shift >> that happened in Peoria when they >> they change they introduced the chip manufacturing plant in the north part of Peoria Arizona and everybody lost their minds right and it changed the whole dynamics of the housing in that area. What happened caused the student generations to decrease because all people who were buying the properties could afford to live near the brand new area and it typically was the people that weren't having kids. They're the double engineer household that have a trophy child and that's about it. >> You're not supposed to say trophy child out loud. >> I know I see it all the time. See people say, "Hey, we have all these kids. They're not your they're not going to school
134with you." What's nice that part about your district, you actually can see where your outgoing is because your district tracks it. Um, but yeah, that's the the takeaway is if you're not there's districts that are fast growth districts that we work in fast growth still in in inter inner growth inter uh um they're having to redistrict every three four years ahead of development and stuff. That's still happening. There's there are districts that still have to do that. um you know, but that's usually in 20% of the districts, 80% of districts are either static or in decline now. >> And a significant number a significant number of the ones that I work with are doing it in a moment of crisis because they've just waited too long. >> We we use the I don't know if
135you heard we used the example of Kenosha. Chris Chris said, "Hey, we got to we finally have to close these schools." They'd already he internally they had already known that they had to close schools. They were just pushing the kicking the can down the road. We want we want to avoid any of that. You don't want to kick the can down the road because what happens you start kicking the can down the road is people internally start getting really mad at whoever's been working uh doing who was in leadership at that point. Guys kept on pushing this pushing us down the road and it didn't get solved and now look at where we are. Well, you all are very you've even been very proactive in this. You understand that there's been a shift in the
136population. Um or you've seen that there hasn't been the growth that was thought that might have been in areas. You're already ahead of this. So, >> I think I have just one more question, but as sort of like crystal ball, but I think you know you all do very you do projections every day. Um I think there's still a lot of people in our community and I just think in our country in general that are having a hard time grappling with the idea of the declining birth rates and that like you know it didn't really turn around after the great recession and then co had sank and um you know I look at other countries you know like South Korea where it's like 7 you know like I just countries I see I haven't seen
137places where it starts to turn around. I'm just wondering if you know if if you had to place a bed or if some what do you think is going to happen in the in the coming years with birth rate? Like not I'm not saying like what number will we get to but but do you think it's going to turn around in the next 10 20 years or do you think this is a new normal for us? >> There's a generational shift in our in our in our in our in the human population. Oh, you know fun fact about me is I grew up in a household where there was a demographer great uncle was a demographer. He was uh from university from Purdue oil boiler maker sorry and um I remember this conversation I used
138I didn't understand it you five six year old and this guy's talking about wolves you studied wolves the wolves the population in North America and the correlation wolves and people and stuff and I remember arguments because you have it was a very we're not like argument men of all time but daily gatherings became these discussion nerdy bunch of nerds in our family by the way. Nerdy discussions about population statistics because I'm a little little kid trying to understand the fact that you know Uncle Derwood's talking about the population not growing anymore. But Time magazine says that we're about to hit we're about to burst because I was the kid. I was the I was the echo, you know, I was the Gen X Gen Xer. And so now I'm seven, eight years old listening to
139you know, uh, my great uncle talking about how the populations in in decline though China's in, you know, China's he started talking about China's one child policy, how that's going to affect things. You know, 30 40 now how am I now 50 years later, these numbers, these things that he was talking about are coming coming to effect. Two generations it took to get get us in the spot. It's going to take us a few generations to adjust It's not an over. So I I told you that we have a we have a we have a planners conference. We we have host with school districts. One year we had a person from uh state of Utah come and put on a presentation. This was four four years ago now about declines in in birth. He's coming
140in at state of Utah level. Every laugh Utah you know one point one one kid for every house. He's coming in with the same numbers talking about, hey, we're we're not our replacement value is not there anymore. We used to have like 08 and now we're at 6. And and everybody in that room, they internalize it. Internalize the the struggle like they're going to come to a solution. And I had to stand up and remind everybody that like I said today, we're not going to solve this when it comes to birth. It's a gen It's a multigenerational shift that we have to start accounting for. Um, you have uh young people that are um um not getting married as young as they used to. You have um young ladies that are um professionals greater percentage
141of young ladies that are professionals now that are um seeking a career path uh before their MRS degree. Well, it used to be the remember my wife used to joke about the M MRS degree, >> trophy wives and MRS for Lauren. >> That's right. Trophy kids, >> trophy kids and >> they're MRS. But uh that's one of the that's one of the things that we need to understand that that what we grew up in and what we're what we're familiar with is not the same as it is now. And um we we as uh K12 administrators and and leaders u just understand that there's certain things we can control. We control curriculum and control open enrollment. We control these things and make um I I use Austin as a case uh case study. Remind them
142that provide your market share that wants to attend your schools the best opportunity that they expect. >> Put your effort into your kids that want to attend your schools and they're living in your community. You you can hope and dream that they're going to have a lot more kids in the area, but plan plan for the worst, hope for the best. >> Well, and make the best opportunity you can make for the kids that reside within >> Bingo. In in your boundaries, >> you can hope that you'll get transfer kids and you can hope that programs will and if you've got space for them because they bring dollars and they'll come in. >> Yeah. >> But you build out for the kids that you have because those families have made a commitment to your community.
143>> Yeah. >> Win the home kids. That was way more answer I think than she wanted. >> She she likes that stuff. >> Mr. President, >> can I ask a variant on that question? So, when we were having the discussion about closing the two elementary schools, it's obviously a very permanent decision, right? >> It's a big deal. And you know, we talked a lot about it in terms of risk and you know, financial risk, enrollment risk, these things. Um, could you talk a little bit about I guess we could say call it upside risk. What what would have to happen here for enrollment to turn to you you talked a lot about at the macro level just now but at the micro level how much risk is there that enrollment is going to go in
144the opposite direction that that that uh yeah up yeah back to the three-legged stool I mean it's just a function of development it's a function of of housing stock pure and simple you're not going to change the you're the trajectory on birth rates is is is what it is and that's a that's a plane coming I mean there's there's going to be a spot but it we're not there yet and it may come back up but the only way that districts grow is through folks coming in and your your district is emblematic of the challenges I had in my district and I was part of the problem I moved in because it was a great place to live built this nice house raised my kids there K through 12 and I stayed because I liked
145living there. My kids weren't there and my house didn't turn over to bring kids further. Go fast forward. I have since moved since I've retired, moved to a neighboring city, built out this house, made sure my fourbedroom house, I I for those of you that live rural, I expanded my septic to make sure it was four bedroomedroom compliant. $18,000 because I, as superintendent leaving, I want to make sure a family could move into my house. Nope. Lauren Woods, the equivalent of Lauren Woods and his wife bought my house, >> knocked down a wall, turned into an office, all that fun stuff. >> Uh, and so >> thanks for the extra room, >> the because of the because of the price point to be honest with you, because you you have to have housing stock that
146is conducive to young families being here and living here. And so that becomes there comes a point where your folks begin to age out of homes begin you begin to see that it goes back to that other leg of the mobility because we've got some districts on the east coast that are older communities but there's enough variety of housing stock in there that some younger families can kind of come in and begin to to see that turn >> like Manchester City Manchester City school district in New Hampshire they had all this redevelopment going on. they started seeing this uptick in um student populations because they were building they they re repurposing buildings and they were marketing for families like valuewise and stuff. The city >> put it onus on themselves to provide a an environment
147for younger families because they were they were seeing the exodus. >> Well, that plenty of space to do it. That kind of goes back to your earlier question about how does that all change and there has to be kind of a different attitude about kids and a different policy around children and the associated costs and supports that go with that because most people have decided that a larger family one kid is tough, two kids is really expensive and a third kid's out of the question. >> Like in in Brian's case, it'd have to be radical. You'd have to have you'd have to have the township saying >> the townships would have to say enough. >> Townships have to say enough. We're going to go back and revisit our master planning of how we're how we're
148aligning this. You know, you don't have to have three acre lots, but you can do clover leaves that are isolated so that you still have a rule effect, but you're making more space. There's different ways to go at this. It's easy to say two, three acre lots set driveway setbacks 150 ft. you basically this now cornered the market on only on families that have to make a quarter million dollars or more to live here. >> And and just kind of going back to that, so your projections show us a K K5 basically for every hundred houses 13.5 kids. >> Yeah. >> So call it 14 kids. So every thousand houses is 140 kids. >> Yeah. Over over the sixth grades. over over the six grades. So, I mean, you're talking and even with our capacity,
149even with closing buildings, we have 400 plus empty seats. So, I mean, you're really talking 3,000 plus type of houses before we based on the same yield rates >> before all of a sudden we would start to run out of room. >> Yeah. Because you then you start having this inward move. But imagine the imagine waking up in the morning that your newspaper. I know a lot of people that are probably live here, but not like that to happen. >> Yeah, I think that's that's kind of the vast majority. I mean, and according to your numbers there, there's only 12,000 single family houses in our entire district now. Andre and that townships are getting to the point where they're pretty built out to start with, >> right? >> There's not much left to annex to
150the smaller type plots. >> Correct. you schools don't get to generally don't get to be out ahead of that. They get to react to it. Um in terms of student population, housing development, diff zones, all those kinds of things that come into play. So um only the big only the only the big the big county districts are kind of ahead of the curve because they have some integration with the planning departments within the education uh systems, >> right? And they can there are limits on development as they may impact schools. But generally schools don't get to determine the the they don't you don't get to determine how the homes are built or what's built in the right. >> Let's be clear in this area we do not get to determine. >> That's right. >> Community
151development. We don't get to determine housing costs. We the three-legged stool we're talking about here. >> We have no ca capability this board or administration to affect change on any one of these stools. We can create conversation and dialogue in our community. We can and are talking with folks who are in charge of community development plans and things of that nature to say what can we do. Those are all important conversations. But >> unfortunately, we're just in a reaction mode and we are reacting to the data that's in >> but there's a I I I don't want us to leave this on a on negative blah blah. Um, if you look at your trajectory, you will st you're going to stabilize and you're going to stabilize in a pretty good footprint and you're not going
152to be uh in your buildings aren't going to be in crisis and you're going to be dramatically underutilized. So, you've planned for this future that's coming in in an in an adequate manner. And so, there are there are applause for that because you're not in crisis and you're not going to be in crisis. you're just going to reflect the community that you have and and the realities of the numbers at that time. >> Applause would be great, but um >> we have Mr. President, you know, we have Yep. Oh, I'm sorry. >> I I have something before we end here. Um with um you guys talked a little about your work in Texas and Indiana, California. You you did even mention Kenosha. Um, and some people listening might just wonder kind of like what are
153you doing here? So, I'm wondering where can people go uh in the community to look for your work and feel confident in what you are pitching and proposing here? I mean, where would you send them? Like, would you send them to your website? You guys I I've found some great articles that speak very highly of your company. Where would you recommend community members to go and look for your track record? We have case studies on our website if you want to go to the website >> and could you say what that is? >> mgt us. >> Thank you. Um and then I just wanted to to mention that um I re I really appreciate that that people u you mentioned that people need to be heard and that um the community you're going to have
154the community live links and you know the whole promoting transparency and all that kind of stuff. I love that. Um I really appreciate that focus and I really look forward to that being the case. Thank you. >> Yeah, my my point I was going to make was just, you know, we we have a community that is is or a part of the community is saying, you know, this this is very rushed and we don't have the data or the most up-to-date data. And um you know from you know three almost four years ago we had you know community engagement where we brought this up. We talked about the challenges talked about this the state funding talked about uh needing legislators to be active talked about the communities doing something to increase affordable housing. So and
155at the time thought well we're making some points here. people are starting to understand, you know, but we're still and and I just say to because I don't expect everybody to buy in. Um, you know, one thing I've noticed while researching other districts that are going through this or have gone through this is that it's a very common theme, you know, mistrust um too fast, you know. So that's and and you know data how it's presented how it's so I agree with with what everyone has said about the process and Aaron um but uh you know I look forward to a very solid engagement effort um but that's going to be one of the challenges uh heard that these meetings are too close together there's not enough time to you know absorb the information make
156uh make good decisions so those those are just some of the challenges I didn't want to end it on something like that. >> Well, yes. Yes. If anybody would like to bail me out, that would be great. >> I tried to give you an out with a positive. you just >> so moving into next week, what would you like from the board prior to next, you know, by the time they get done next Monday so that we can send you those parameters or guiding principles? >> Well, disregarding your part. >> Well, it's really No, it's it's really about >> the guiding principles >> for you in terms of what your needs behind it. you know, we just need to, you know, it's you have people I'll use the term I'll use, let's say school safety
157and they'll use like catch catch phrases. School safety closes the school. What happens is that there's dozens and dozens of terms people will use. What what ends up happening is that we we tend to align as we're working together and figuring out the top three things. They all seem to align with those things. Close to schools, school safety, walk distance. That's those are those are all safety related issues. And then uh um uh balance balance the population and and making sure it's equitable for everybody. That's another one. Right. So to his point though, taking a look at those, understanding the guiding principles around that and coming back with what you perceive as a board as your key drivers behind that. I mean, some of it's, you know, capacity utilization is one of those things, but
158are there other factors in there that we need to consider as we move forward in this analysis? Again, it's going to play off of one another. It just is an actual it's a complete ying and yang when you begin pulling. >> It's not. Yeah. And it's not about the here's the we we have a colleague that helps and he does this work with us and you know his his he he really is adamant. He really doesn't want he doesn't talk about dollars and cents. It's not about dollars and cents. It's about population how making sure that we're being effective in in providing uh opportunities for the kids. Of course, money isn't is will things will happen with money as you take two schools offline and of course that happens. It's not that's not the underlying
159part. The underlying part is go was back to that story shared with being a person in a cl in a school that was underenrolled and even as a elementary age kid even though I was kind of dialed in with parents in education mom and education realizing oh yeah we were not getting everything some of the other schools in the district were getting because just operationally that was just the way it was you know we want to make sure that's not the case. We want to make sure everybody understands, hey, equitable solution. How many kids are here? Well, of course, we'll look at generalized numbers, but then what does it balance out at? What does it look like in this area? Are we are we making sure that the population represents the district as a whole?
160This is these aren't these aren't uh voting districts. We're not we're not looking at um a buildout of an area in the total population. We're looking at the stu students that are enrolled and living in the district, making sure that we're aligning with who your students are, >> Mr. President? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Um, so this is the the homework uh nerd student question to me. Do you have like a worksheet you're going to give us or are we just looking at these guiding principles and writing all I'm just wondering like to start brainstorming >> consensus around I do think you should give Megan a worksheet. Yes, definitely. Three-page paper, Megan. >> Single spaced >> and you get to be and it's group work and you're the leader. >> Yeah. Um, no, just share back
161with district leadership about, you know, your concerns and key drivers behind this, things you'd like for as a collective group you'd like for us to consider as we move forward. And that some of it's pretty lowhanging fruit in terms of capacity and utilization. That's why we're here. But if if you've got some key drivers around student populations that we need to be aware of, some key drivers around transportation, specific things that come into that out of those seven or eight items that are there, what are the, you know, the key drivers in the guiding principles that you see that we should consider going forward knowing that none of them can hold sway over the entire process. All of them some all of them will have to be balanced in some form or fashion. other than
162feeder patterns >> as well as an easy feeder pattern. >> Yeah. >> And and we'll work through a consensus building exercise just based on those eight circles actually about seven because we won't do feeder patterns that basically say okay here's the board parameters around these different these different areas and some of them are going to be pretty natural. I mean they just they are what they are. Obviously we don't want islands not going to have to spend a whole lot of time on on some of them and others. So, and I think the other piece and as we talked with the team, some people say, "How quickly can you turn this around?" We watched them do it in real time when they started to uh the cabin team and I and they started to show
163us this is how our software works. They basically just pick different zones, the whatever you guys called those planning zones. and then they hit, you know, kind of redo and all of a sudden it tells you how many third graders now are at EP Rock and how many fourth graders and how many fifth graders and they can they can make those changes very very quickly. >> Good point on I think glad you brought that up about that. You know, they're going to spin it around too fast. They're not going to consider this. The hard work's done on the front end of this. Getting the inputs, getting the information, locating the students, creating the study zones, making sure that your data is clean, that all your ingredients you're bringing into this cake. That's the hard work.
164And there have been we applaud your district and we've gotten good clean data data data from you. Uh there are some places where we're months in and cleaning up the information. So the fact that we got good clean data up front that we could bring into this process then it is just a function of of running the software and saying and looking at neighborhoods and drawing and drawing those lines. >> Thank you for your work. >> Calm down my not talk so much questions. Okay. Not going >> to do a recess before we go into this. >> Okay. All right. That's it. Are we see? >> Well, yeah. We can go into We can hit on C. There's not much There's not much new on C. I mean, this is the biggest thing with C,
165but um you know the the next thing we have on our agenda and it's just a brief update. We did send out the staffing survey. I don't know if Andrew wants to give a brief update and then we'll take a re quick recess before we go into close session. >> Yep. So, we sent out the staffing survey to both the affected certified staff groups as well as our support staff, all of our support staff. And as of tonight, the survey closed, both surveys closed. And we have um 230 uh 239 support staff and 244 teachers that completed those surveys. So, 483. I'm going to um I'm sure we'll have a few more stragglers come in overnight. And then we'll turn that survey off and then we really start the tough work from there where we
166start analyzing, reading all the information. I'm already sorting and um filtering the different pieces so that um we can make it as accessible as possible for all of our leadership teams. And then we're meeting um both the uh subgroups of the support staff staffing committee and the certified staff staffing committee on December 15th. So we have those scheduled. We're going to keep plugging ahead. >> Okay. Bonnie has some. >> Yeah. And I think um the operations committee and the logistics committee, we've also had a few meetings um to start that process. So the principles are currently working on um doing layouts of all their buildings, designating where classrooms will be next year and then we're doing inventory of all the furniture and that thing. So those conversations have started and Dustin and it are also
167working with contracts to see the contracts that we have to adjust based on the reduction of sites. So that work has started as well. >> I can share quick. We had a group of specialed teachers meet specific to PL transition planning for students with disabilities. We are meeting again uh tomorrow, tomorrow night after school um to finalize some of those plans to share out with the larger group, then start sharing with families. So you'll see a lot more information to come soon as we have round two tomorrow night. Then the group that is meeting about um we have a meeting for uh with the elementary principles and to figure out larger size of the group that is going to work on showcasing what's cool in our schools and then also um what we can do
168to honor the history and traditions of the two schools that are being closed. Um and we anticipate that um that will include not just staff and families but also community members. And actually we've had some community members already reach out. >> Any questions? >> Mr. President, I I'm just wondering if we'll be able to see the themes of that survey that you sent out as a board. >> The what? The staff survey. Right. >> So this staff survey is related to where do they want to be? So it's not a it's not a survey. There's not a theme analysis. It's a at least for the staffing it's a teacher would say you know my preference is to be at this building teach this grade level with with this thing. So it's not a not a
169there's not themes associated with it. >> Okay. I just saw that there was kind of some open-ended questions. So I don't >> there were there are so I we could probably come up um because we do do analysis of okay if with their order of priorities how many are we able to accommodate and so at some point in the process we'll be able to once we do the final placements we'll have some of that data um as well as yeah I'm sure we can do some thematic you know taking the personalized aspect away from it um just reading some of the comments already uh there's a lot of passion for um their placements and that a lot of things are considered and um so yeah, we can try to work on something to um give
170you guys a flavor of the information. There's no shortage of sharing, I would say. Um just trying to fit it all in in a document. Um the it there's I think they're very comfortable with um letting us know, you know, what they think is important as we're moving forward and making decisions. >> Very good. Thank you. I just with the survey. So this was sent to the 4K through five >> teachers and then was it sent to those staff who are considered >> um K through 12? Yes. >> As well in art and PE or >> art music. We have special ed, SLPs, school sites, counselor, social workers defined in the handbook which we also included within um our FAQ document that was produced. >> Uh so that we all of that information um was
171there and then support staff, it was all support staff um even the districtwide or like district office staff. Uh we had a lot of questions about that pop up as well. Um but yeah, we sent it out to that full group and then um certainly encouraged them and had their supervisors encourage them to complete the survey as well. >> Okay. Thank you. Um we'll go into a recess for 10 minutes and then come back and we'll entertain a motion to go into close session.