001if you don't have a flag. >> Yep, it is. >> Yeah. >> Brady, give us the Okay. [clears throat] >> All right. We're good. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> All right. I will call the uh January 27th meeting of the board of education to order. And at this time uh would you please rise for the pledge? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the flag of the republic >> for which it stands. >> One nation >> under God, >> indivisible with liberty and >> forever. >> Thank you. And I imagine 60 kids singing during co that way. [laughter] Yeah, right. >> And I just Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Lori, would you do roll call, please? >> Christopher Ael >> in attendance. >> David Bowman, >> I'm here. >> Biff
002Hansen >> here. >> And Holen >> here. >> Mary Loy Bronnik >> present. >> No, you're not. You're here, [laughter] >> Terry. Tra, >> I'm here. >> Thank you. >> So, uh, roll call done. We will move right away to our business for the night. Open enrollment people service people with disability information. >> Great. Thank you. Um, just to provide a little background, uh, beginning with the 19 2019 2020 school year, the reimbursement rate for pupils with disabilities who are open enrolled to a district changed. Um it the the state began reimbursing non-resident school districts a flat rate for educating non-resident open enrolled pupils with disabilities as opposed to the previous reimbursement model which was where districts had the ability to uh be reimbursed up to $30,000 for educating pupils with disabilities. So um as
003you know the cost of educating pupils with disabilities in regard to uh all the services and supports that are required is a significant cost for school districts. Um, and even though the state reimbursement rate for pups with disabilities who are open enrolled to a district is approximately and tends to be approximately $3,000 greater than the the total reimbursement for students without disabilities who are open enrolled to a district, uh, it doesn't necessarily cover the cost of educating those students. So when the state changed that reimbursement formula for school districts, uh they also began requiring that we determine based on our projected case loads and projected staffing for the next school year. We determine and make public our space availability for students with disabilities who would elect to open enroll in Manitwalk in January of the
004year before. And then that determines helps determine our funding uh staffing and then the services that we would be able to plan for and budget for for the next school year. So it's a little bit of a background in case you're new to this whole process. We're legally required to have this conversation and have you vote on our space availability. Again, this is for students who have disabilities who would elect to open enroll in the Manitwalk Public School District for the 26 27 school year. Um there's basically the only requirement that the state provides is that we have a system for making these determinations. Um we worked closely with a group of um of network directors through CISA7 um to talk about how other districts are are doing this and and in the last few
005years we've landed on a formula that you have uh you have the matrix our formula matrix. It basically becomes a a workload matrix that evaluates the level of service and the level of need for students with disabilities that we project forward for enrollment for the 2627 school year. Based on that matrix and based on the level of need and level of service for students with disabilities, we then determine what we have available at each level for space using our current staffing formula. Um, so that includes professional teacher staff. It does not include paraprofessional staff as that paraprof professional staffing ratio is typically determined by level of need for students. So we're looking at our current teacher FTE in relation to what we have moving forward projected for the 26 27th school [clears throat] year. Um,
006there should be a little key that you received that talks about the um potentially the no little uh I'm not sure why I'm escaping the words, but the little acronyms or initials that are used for each level. My apology for stumbling over my words there. Um, and then there is a key that describes what minimal, moderate, extensive, and comprehensive support looks like. um just to help with some of our special education acronyms that we utilize that are utilized throughout this chart. And then we have a student teacher score based on that workload matrix. So as you know um when we're talking about students with disabilities, it we can't just look at numbers and case loads because um one student's level of service is very different than the next. So, um, it's easier to determine this
007student teacher score by looking at the the level of service and the amount of needs that a student has as required by their IEP. Any questions about the process or the workload matrix? >> Okay. So, then if you flip if you flip to the next two pages, this is a breakdown of all of our grade bands. Um, so we have early childhood and 4K, our three and four-year-old students who receive disabilities. Um, an interesting little nugget about that number is that that number only grows as the school year progresses. Um, so we have currently 22 special education evaluations in the hopper at the EC level. Those students, not it doesn't mean all of them will qualify. It just means that there are 22 students that are being evaluated um for special education services. If they
008qualify, then that number right now that we have projected to roll over jumps to 52 with the same number of staff. So, as you can see at our early childhood level, we are closed. We would not have any space available for students at the three or four year old level to open enroll into our district. We know that we will also as a more transient school district have our own moveins to move into the community. Um if we hearken back to the fall uh all the way back to September, we had 54 moveins and four move outs of our district of students with disabilities alone. So we know that we will have have individuals who move into this district. Um the next three levels we have elementary, intermediate, high school because of the transient nature
009of of our community. Um I accounted for [clears throat] some movein students at those levels to know that we will have that. So I took you know an a low average of what we have had move in at those levels in the past few years in order to determine some movein allowance which is required for us to also consider when we're looking at our formula. So I do have a movein allowance at each of the levels. If we start with elementary we have a movein allowance of eight students. Uh we had 16 at that level move in in the fall of this year. Um it's been around that like 10 12 16 the last few years. So we said eight. Um our because of our consolidation we do have an opportunity to have fewer sites
010which means that we can offer a better continuum of services at that elementary level by having more teachers in a building. Um, so you'll notice for the first time in a few years, we do have some space available at our elementary level for students who would seek open enrollment with very minimal needs. So again, if you think about their IEP, it would be a a student that does not require significant amount of behavior supports, would not require speech and language or deaf and heart of hearing, occupational therapy, physical therapy, uh visual in um visual supports, those students would still not be eligible. But if there are minimal supports on a student's IEP, um less than 25% of their time spent in the special education environment as indicated on that key, we would have four spaces
011available at the elementary level given our consolidation. So [clears throat] again, that's the first time we've had that opportunity in in quite a few years since I've been in this role. Mr. Shaw. >> Yes, thank you. um if that we fill that one vacancy that we have and a family says in March they want that slot, they're coming in here, but all of a sudden we get a number of people that come in to to increase our enrollment at that elementary level. Is that person safe? Even though it's a out of district person, is that person safe for the full year? Is that person safe forever in our school district? Um, our open enrollment policy, that's a good question. Our open enrollment policy indicates that once you're in, you're in until the next level. So,
012if a student open enrolls and we when the open enrollment window opens up in April and we take them and they're they would be in until they would be transitioning to the intermediate level. Um, so the next level then we would require that they reapply for their open enrollment status. >> Okay. >> And then they may not be eligible after that point. >> Gotcha. >> Other questions for Kate? >> Do we can I get a motion to approve a second? >> Can I ask another these these these um what we're doing tonight this gets sent to the state, right? or does this just stay local or does the state get a copy of our closed enrollments? >> Um, no. They they may request at some point like like let's say someone would contest our open
013enrollment decision. Um, what could happen is that the state could come back and say, I we want to see your process and your rationale for denying or not accepting that open enrollment application. Um, but again, the the better the system, you know, the more consistent those decisions are made, the the a better ability for our team to review an IEP as it comes in because that is required even even if we have a middle school student with an IEP apply for open enrollment. We are required to review that IEP. even though we're saying right now we're closed, we are still required to at least review that IEP um before we would notify the family and go through the process of that. So, um you know, sometimes another question is like let's say we have six
014kids move out um does that open up space? And the answer to that is no, that does not. Once this once our board is making this decision and you vote to approve this of seat availability that that's in stone for the 2627 school year. Again, you know, it's an extensive cost and I came to you in the fall asking for more staff because of our moveins. This trying to have a solid plan in place is to avoid having to ask for additional staffing um as we move forward. >> Correct. Okay. >> Anything else? I look for a motion to accept this. >> I make a motion to accept the uh move in policy developed by the board by by the administration. >> Second by David Bowman. Any other discussion? >> Katie, does Katie? >> Go
015ahead. Did the um change in the state funding affect the ability of of Manitwalk and other districts to take kids with disabilities? >> I I think it absolutely did. Um simply because we no longer have the ability to really do a cost analysis of what it takes to educate a student that may have some more significant needs. So, um, you know, by a going moving to a flat rate as opposed to being able to sort of cost analyze what it would take to be able to educate a student. Um, the difficult thing is that we know that some students that have moved into our district, such as, you know, our conversation in the fall, have things written in their IEP, like a one-on-one pair. Well, $14,000 or even $30,000 does not cost does not, you
016know, cover the cost of hiring an additional staff member. So, you know, that was even back then when it was more was pretty significantly underfunding, you know, the ability for for outside districts to take kids that don't live in their community. So, it was better, but it wasn't great even pre209. >> Okay. Thank you. [clears throat] >> Any other question? Any other questions for Kate? >> Kristas. Okay. Just to make sure that I'm reading this correctly, what we are approving is to notify the state that we have four open enrollment special ed spots and an elementary level provided they are not of great need. But everything else were basically locked. Okay. Just making sure we >> We're closed at the other areas. >> Yes, closed everywhere else. Thank you. >> Yep. >> Anything else? >>
017All those in favor say I. >> I. I. >> Oppose say nay. And that is good. The out ofstate travel information. Um that's an acceptance or is that just information for us? We have to vote on that. >> Yeah. >> What is that? >> My only questions on it. Do we know the number of staff for each of those trips that are going? >> Yeah. 20 and 20 and 10. >> 20 and 10. Okay. Thanks. >> Um, you want to take these together or apart? >> I move that we approve both requests for out of state travel. I'll second. >> I have a motion and a second. Any other discussion? All those in favor say I. >> I. >> A nay from David. >> Okay. >> Um, >> do you have a future meeting dates?
018>> Yes. >> Did David did he vote? >> That was an I. He probably saw me slowly [clears throat] [laughter] hand Sorry. Just clarifying. Thank you. >> Yes. Thank you, Kate or Lori. Um, so that was a unanimous vote. Good. Um, you see the dates for the meetings uh first week in February listed. Any other questions? And I will move for a motion to adjurnn. >> So move. >> I move we adjourn. >> Second. >> We have a motion by Carrie to adjurnn. A second by Keith. All those in favor say I. I >> All right, we are ajourned. Thank you. >> Thank you. Nice meeting