001Um I will take full responsibility um for the delay. I did not communicate to our team that we were hoping that um um some slides would be shared this evening. So thank you for your patience um as we feel like those would be helpful. So that is um my fault for not communicating that. So, um, we will go ahead and call the meeting to order. Um, and then Amy, do you want to do roll call? Mr. Chavez, here. Mrs. Evansson here. Mrs. Heights, here. Mr. Jones, here. Miss Lima here. Right. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda for this evening? Motion to approve the agenda. Second. Mr. Chavez, yes. Mrs. Evansson, yes. Mrs. Heights, yes. Mr. Jones, yes. Miss Lima, yes. All right. Um, so this evening we're here um to address the
002resolution to close Clifton Elementary and Scenic Elementary. I know when we left the meeting on Tuesday evening and um I know thank you for many of you that stayed till the end. We know that not everybody could because uh you all have jobs and had to get kiddos in bed. I know many watched online as well. Um or if they didn't watch it Tuesday, I know many went back and watched the the full meeting. Um if you haven't had a chance to do that, I'd highly recommend that you do. Um so we before we um have a motion for resolution um we do have Shannon here, our demographer in person uh because there were a couple of outstanding questions the board had that evening uh that we wanted to get addressed. So, um Shannon, if
003you're ready, if you could come up. We'd like to, um look at some of those capacity um I think issues of receiving schools that were um that we were left uh wondering about. And thank you for helping accommodate the slides. I appreciate. You're most welcome. Would you like me to cycle through what I've collected so far? So, there there were some board questions that were um referred to me. I also uh just spent two hours in the Redlands. Okay. Thoroughly looking at everything. So, I've been inventorying developments there for 18 years. I have a pretty good feel for the general contracting environment. I've been in the referral loop for Redlands 360 for almost seven years now. In direct communication with Llata regarding their plans and absorption schedules, in contact with a lot of the other
004smaller um general contractors in the area in order to monitor um housing pace. Um, for what it's worth, I have overprotected Windgate and Scenic the last three years in a row because I continue to respond to forecasting from the building community that we're going to build houses there. And we are not getting student growth from the neighborhood. We may be getting students from those homes, but um, uh, in general, the neighborhood continues to decline. So, some of what I will show you talks a little bit about that area in general. Um, Grand Junction shares with Montrose the feature of we have small contractors and a smaller general contracting environment. We don't have large national builders like Richmond Homes or Shea Homes or LAR or uh other big builders that build 300 homes a year in
005a subdivision. We build our homes in groups of five or six uh from one general contractor. So that's very consistent with what we continue to see in the Redlands. So for example, this afternoon there are 24 homes under construction in the Redlands. single family detached, six town homes and two duplexes. That's it. So, as far as that being an explosive growth situation, one that will reverse demographic trends in the overall housing stock, something would have to change before we get to the point to where we're seeing a largecale reversal in the direction of student decline in that neighborhood. So, for example, we have had a consistent decline in kindergarten and first grade in all three of our elementary schools in that neighborhood. This year, Windgate had in kindergarten 36 children, first grade 54 followed by
00663, 65, 66,79. So, as you know, those children move through the grades. So, that 36 student grade is moving into first and into second and into third. And unless we have new housing coming in and adding more children to the mix, nothing else is there to add children to those grade levels. So my point in observing those is that all three of the schools in those primary grades K1 and two were small and those were going to migrate in and the birth trajectory is downward and it's downward to the tune of the next five years. My expectation is we're going to see 15 to 20% fewer kinders, kindergarten children by the end of the five-year period or the four-year period that we had birth data for. So that 36, even though I try to have
007hope that we're going to have a lot of children coming in through new housing that are going to keep that 36 or 40, the numbers say that that number is going to continue to go down into the upper 20s. So, as we continue to have fewer babies born in those attendance areas in the Redlands, that's going to influence those numbers downwards. The 60s and 70s that you see in fourth and fifth grade off the right side of that little array of numbers, those children are going to drop off. And they don't drop off, they move on to Redlands Middle School. So those children are going to move on into the secondary schools, but they're replaced by smaller grades every year. So, if we didn't have the Redlands 360 growth and growth from the other nine
008or 10 small subdivisions ranging in size from 8 to 25 or 30 uh units, we would really be in a serious downward trajectory in all of our elementary schools if we didn't have a little bit of growth coming back in. This afternoon, there were six single family detached units under construction in Redlands 360. There was one foundation pit that was in process. There are two models that are open. There are eight occupied units and there are three speculatively built homes that are for sale. So the magnitude of that is such that it's not going to dramatically turn around this for next year because any home that's under construction right now would be sold this spring, occupied over the summer, and then if there are children in those homes, they would be in our schools this
009fall. So, if we were going to see a big bump even next year, we would be looking for scrapers, uh, water and sewer lines being installed, dozens and dozens of men in the field building subdivision infrastructure. We would see foundation pits being built. So the dive for this coming school year is already cast, meaning we're not going to have any growth for the school year 2526 in the Redlands with 20 to 25 homes under construction now because it takes 8 to 14 months to build a home. So, if we're in the home stretch um finishing those homes up and nothing is being started right now before the ground freezes, um we're not looking at a bumper crop of new housing for SY 2526. So, I have historically depended upon Redlands 360 and other growth from
010small subdivisions to keep my numbers from dropping down very low. But if everything just flows across, we would be 36 36 36. We would have 36 children in every grade for a total of 216 at Windgate, which absorbs the majority of the growth from um Redlands 360 under the boundary proposal that you're seeing because they are south of Highway 340 or Broadway. So what we're hoping is we've already planned that along with the boundary change component from scenic there would continue to be room for Redlands 360. But what's coming in from kindergarten is also um or from the birth data is suggesting that kindergarten enrollment will continue to dip. Even though I'm kind of hoping and praying that it's not, but the demographic data for the birth count is coming in lower every year and
011we've already got a five-year trajectory that points down. Same thing would be happening at scenic because we have small kinder small first. Here's the grade distribution for all three schools bundled together. So Broadway is in blue, scenic is in red in the middle and Windgate is on green on the outside. So you can see in grades three, four, and five, those children are going to metriculate into middle school and they're not going to be in elementary school any longer. And the children that are in K 1 and two will slide across into three, four, and five. And then the children that are in age zero through four, we've had fewer of those every year for the past five years. So that trajectory is also downward. So without any growth in the community, not only are
012we going to flatline straight across the board in all three schools, but we're also going to have fewer kindergarten and first for another half generation as that five years of diminished birthday to roll into kinder first and second. So, I would hope that Redlands 360 would bring us 100 or 150 children and that would certainly be um hopeful for the neighborhood. But the viability of keeping three schools operational in the neighborhood and having that be um adequate for us to have robust programs in every school. It's it's optimistic to assume that we would have enough for three schools. We we just in my opinion, we just don't have enough children to have three schools in the community. Um now, if I had seen 60 homes under construction in Redlands 360 this afternoon, if between the
013last time I looked six weeks ago and now there were 60 foundation pits dug, I would have a different opinion. But we're just not seeing rapid advancement into the vacant land portion of Redlands 360. And furthermore, there would have to be a shift in the way we build houses on the western slope, not just in Grand Junction, but also in Montrose. What we see in Montrose is we have six contractors that build a dozen houses a year. And I think that here we probably have 10 contractors that build a dozen houses a year on average, maybe a little less, but the two communities are fairly matched in the amount of general contracting personnel and companies and the amount of construction labor available. And we would have to get to where we would have a big
014regional firm or a national house builder come in who has the wherewithal to build 60 homes in a year in one spot um in order to really turn this around. Unfortunately, if we're going to continue on with 10 contractors who build between six and 10 homes a year, our chances of turning around our enrollment decline because of new housing are going to continue to be limited. Now from a birth standpoint, the reason I continue to be comfortable that we can accommodate both Redlands 360 uh and uh this uh a portion of the scenic students in Windgate is because our birth trajectories have been downward for the last 10 years in the three schools. So this this jagged line on the top are all three schools, Broadway, Scenic, and Windgate combined um into a birth dynamic.
015And we've gotten to where our sample set for births is so small that it's beginning to sputter. And when you start having high, low, high, low, high, low, high low, that's a problem with the sample sizes getting so small that they're up one year and they're down the next. But the trend line through all of that volatility is that we have generally come down. So we've come down from about 120 to kind of a a trend line median of about 90 for 2023. So we've come down about 25%. And my expectation would be four years from now, uh, we'll be down in those kinders about 25%. So if we have 36 at Windgate this year, we would be down 36. So that would be nine fewer. So the numbers, whether you want to trust the
016numbers, and I'm not all about the numbers. I'm certain it's an art and a science, but we'd be down by another nine kids from 36. So do the math. That puts us at 27 Kinder at Windgate. And then if you want to go back and look at where are we with Scenic, we're at 30. If we're down 25%, that would put us at 23. At Scenic, and at Broadway, we're at 32. And if we're down another 25%, that would put us at um 24 in Kinder at Broadway. So we wind up with three one round schools and then those children start moving across the grade distribution from kinder to fifth and we wash through the whole school a new demographic where we just have one class per grade level. Um, now again, that's just if
017you're going to do the math in a heartless way with your head down without looking up and watching what's happening around you, that's what the math says. Um, now I believe that our house construction in that area is strong. Majority of the homes being built are million-doll homes. um our existing housing stock um 15% of it is over 600,000 and 85% of it is under 600,000. So, I go through and I look at I match every child to their house in the county assessors database and then I use a Zillow multiplier of 1.5 to get to a true assessed value for what our children's homes are worth in specific areas. And so, I kind of look around and see where are we getting children? And in all price ranges, we get kids. there's not really
018a huge penalty, but with this higher price range being only 15% of the overall housing stock, it's the number of units that hurts us, not necessarily the yield that we get out of those homes to. So to say that we do not get children out of high-v value homes is inaccurate, but in this particular neighborhood, we're getting very few children out of the new housing in general. So, I'm going over there and I I haven't gotten arrested yet, but I'm kind of following people around and watching people's behaviors and I just don't see that many children and a lot of the folks that have moved into the newer housing. Um but but I have gone up and I have coded everybody and shown where everybody lives and I am seeing that we have quite a
019few homes in the whole of the big hill that includes Redlands 360 and the ridge. We have 52 K children on the on the bump right now. So those homes weren't there. None of them were there 10 years ago. So we are getting children out of those that new housing, but it's just not enough to offset this demographic change. And this birth rate thing is not just hurting us. It's hurting every district in the state of Colorado right now. And when Elizabeth Garner came over and warned us that her outlook for the future was 10 years of down enrollment, that was a reversal for the Colorado U. Demographers's office because they had been looking at housing growth and in migration to the state. And I'm out there going, "Excuse me, folks. Um, we're over here
020in the school districts and we're seeing fewer and fewer kindergarten children every year and fewer babies being born. can you help us understand what might be happening? And I think they're beginning to agree that we are going to be looking at fewer children in the state of Colorado um and on the western slope and in uh district 51 during the next 10 years and it's going to affect all of our areas unfortunately. again just to just to kind of be in a similar uh state of mind as Dr. Hill was at your last meeting. I didn't get into this business to close schools either. You know, I've activated probably 200 schools in my career and this is the last eight years have been a wild ride for me as far as trying to help districts
021um be as financially efficient as possible. Now, Redlands 360 is not everything in the Redlands. So, there are 8,700 addresses in the Redlands according to 911 dispatch. And there are another 300 more up on on top in the Little Dolores Basin back behind the monument. So, a total of about 9,000 homes. If Redlands 360 adds about 1,450 new homes, that would be an addition to the overall community of 13 to 18% or a midpoint of about 16% and half of that would be elementary or about 8%. So, um, the magnitude if everything came in overnight at face value, it would not completely knock our socks off. The other thing that I've seen after doing this for 42 years is once a community or a sub community like the Redlands gets up into that 85% built
022out range um and that's where we are in the Redlands. We're right at 85%. Sometimes uh new housing can rank fall from the sky like rain and it won't affect the total number of kids in the district because every year new housing is maybe 1% of what's happening to the housing stock and the existing housing stock is 99%. And you can have an a dynamic happening in the existing housing stock that will completely overshadow what happens from new homes. So, for example, in Douglas County this year, we built 2700 homes and we've lost 900 or a thousand kids. So at a certain point those dynamics start to switch around and because of the partial resort nature of the Redland sub community that may result in quite a bit of the housing that is available there
023being snapped up by empty nesters and seniors looking for that lifestyle. and they are competing with families that might want to buy the same home. And so that may result in the Redlands having fewer children as time goes by. Even though Redlands 360 is more targeted toward families, the data from Llata has told us that they expect 80% of their single family detached homes to be over $600,000. And so we're looking at 75% of their town home product being over um what is considered in many areas to be a family threshold. So their price points for single family detached units, even though what is on the ground now ranges in price from 650 to 850. In general, the overall price points for uh the rest of the housing in that development um ranges from uh
024600 to 1.4 and on up to 2 million. Now, um, with 18 or 20 homes on the ground now for calendar year 2024, they have told me that they expect a 20 to 30year buildout for that acreage up there. And given the general contracting environment that we have in town now, um, I would steer toward the higher end of that a that that year range. And given the fact that I've been watching development, lead the development for six or seven years now, looking at phasing and now we've got the first subdivision that has popped. Um, I'm thinking that that is going to be a slow, steady impact on the district and it's not going to keep up with generational change. All three of the schools, I've given them growth credit for various subdivisions in their
025forecasts and they're still being offset by this generational change where we're seeing smaller families coming into the school district. Um, if I take that uh 8% um and I think forward into the future um and given some of the price points of Redland 360 and the pacing of it, we could seeund 100 to 150 elementary students coming out of there and a similar number of middle and high school students. Um, but I don't I don't think it's going to be six or 900. And I don't think it's going to be coming to us uh during the coming or the following generation in a way where it's going to result in the need for you to change your thinking about school facilities in that area uh for the next 10 years at least. And until we
026get some sort of largecale general contracting capability in Mesa County, um I I I think that you can find a certain amount of comfort um in in that fact. Oops. Now, how big have these schools been? Um uh you can see that over their history they have been rather large, but these are all the schools that were listed in the um uh consolidation recommendations. And you can see that if we pick out Broadway, Broadway peaked at about 250 in 2017. Oops, 259 in 2022, 261 this year. We did a boundary change into Broadway. So, we went all the way out um to the west end of the attendance area and we pulled in two more subdivisions. I I just want to jump in here, too, because I know you went back to 2012. I went
027back to 2002 and Windgate got up to 500 um in08 and Broadway got up to 318 um back in ' 06. So I know your data just went back to 2012, but they've they've been even larger than this um prior than that. Thank you. Um you can see Windgate uh up in the 500s. Uh big, modern, robust building. um same um footprint as uh four or five of the other buildings in the district. And then you can just look at the other schools affected there and see how big they've been in the past. Now, just to reiterate this um some of these issues about how big is uh that uh that price point issue. 75% of our children come from homes that their parents own. So, 25% of our uh children are in rental properties.
028Um but once we get up above 600,000 that's about um uh 1% of the total housing stock. So we start looking at that price point as a share of the Mesa County market getting smaller and smaller and smaller over time. So if Redlands 360 were $300,000 homes um you know three to 400 uh that segment of our market is 27 or 28% of uh the total housing stock. So, you know, that issue is pretty pretty relevant um as far as what percentage of our housing stock um are these more expensive homes. Um and uh for Mesa County, it's a smaller percentage, although we've built a lot of it during the last 10 years in that area, and we do have children in that area, but not as much as we have had elsewhere in less
029expensive um um homes. So, those were some of the questions that I uh collected data and was uh uh prepared to respond to. I'd be delighted to answer any further questions. Um and I will uh stop now and defer to your questions. I just want to make sure that I heard you correctly. Uh you said that uh 100 to 150 children the time frame for them to be in our schools will be like 10 years maybe 20. But again with Redlands putting probably 18 or 20 built homes online during calendar 24. Um you know they're looking at a 30-year buildout. So, I'm thinking that we're going to decline a little bit every year from the incoming birth rate. At a certain point, we're going to stabilize. I'm starting to see some of my customers around
030the American West starting to stabilize. So, they're they're finally going to start hitting the bottom. But because of the birth count and that downward trajectory, we know we've got another four years of kindergarten decline in front of us just because of the number of babies that are being born. And if Redlands 360 only has six units under construction now, the other subdivisions probably have 15 other homes, that's about 20. that's really not going to make much of a dent in our child population from new housing construction. So, you could kind of assume that's going to be zero. But if they start grading and building and grading and building and they get some big construction labor operations in here, um I could see that bigger number coming to pass, but it's going to be up against
031that declining generational change dynamic every year. And um uh if we just wipe the big grades across the board um from this graphic here, that's going to be you know 120 out of windgate right there just as those small grades fan across and that would compensate for anything that gets built in Redlands 360. Now, that's kind of a very broad statement, but um and and does it mean that new housing doesn't matter in the Redlands? Not necessarily. But if you're just going to look at the numbers and who's loaded into kinder and first right now as they cycle across, those bars above that 40 mark are going to all get clipped. And that would be what we would hope new housing would be bringing back in to the system and there's only a certain amount
032of that that can happen. Well, and just to be fair because there are two other schools that are closing. So, um or one that already has that the same trend was showing for and I know I sent this to the board. The same trend was showing for the schools that have been impacted by the Nisley closure and then also looking at the Clifton area. Like they're all trending downwards in the overall enrollment for the schools. So I would assume that's being impacted by the same issues that you shared here. I know you're focusing on the Redlands area, but we're seeing declines across the entire community and so it's impacting enrollment at every school. I think one other um question the other night that we could not get a hold of you on was just the
033um school of choice numbers um I think of scenic because I think there was a difference between I think 33 students and then maybe like 52. So if we could get some clarity on that. So there were let's say just for argument purposes there were roughly 15 children that were choice enrolled into scenic out of Broadway and 15 or 18 children that were choice enrolled into scenic out of Windgate. So the question was did I count those when I made the enrollment adjustment? And my answer to the question was I took all of the kids that would be redistributed from scenic back into the Broadway and Windgate at 100% face value without reducing them a little bit and I put them back in. And in every boundary change that I've ever gotten, if I get
03485% compliance, I'm very happy. Um, even in a neighborhood where I'm putting children back into almost adjacent attendance areas, families make choices for their children to choice enroll into um a a a different school a little farther away that might have a specialized curriculum or they'll make a choice to put their child in a charter school or they'll make a choice to put their child in a cho a church school or a private school, but it's never 100%. So instead of dwelling on that idea and hurting anybody's feelings, I just said the kids that are coming from those source areas in the form of the 15 kids, they will wash into the children that will wash back out again. And I thought it would just be close enough to a wash that it wouldn't be
035worth um showing you all the detailed accounting on a 15 student uh calculation. That's pretty iffy as far as that being 100% correct. It's never an exact science, but I just thought that they would wash back into the numbers if I took the transfers at 100% of of total. So that's what I did there. So I think that they're covered based on the fact that the children that are going to go from Scenic to Broadway are not going to be 100% of the total that live in Scenic. And the children that would go from scenic to Windgate are not going to be 100% of that total either. There's going to be probably an 85% compliance, but 15% of those children are going to seek another option. Thank you for that clarity. Um I think just
036in addition to kind of what you talked about, I actually um spoke with with Jane Quimby with Llata. Um a couple parents reached out to me and I ended up chatting with her. Um yeah, I was actually a little surprised that um I mean she said there's 22 lots up in Canyon Rim, which is the one that has more views and those are halfacre lots. Um the three lots that are already done, no one there has kids. And then she says there's three to four more lots coming online and I think they're all pre-sold and none of those families have kids and those are all north of a million. Um, and she said everything they've sold in Redlands 360, only one um, has had a loan on it, which is means they all are cash
037buyers. Um, not to say that people with kids can't pay cash, but it's just it it changes the demographics a little bit. Easter Hill, though, the filing where I think the more $600,000 homes would be, she said that there's 51 lots there that have been sold to two builders. And um I think this is where the escalation has come from since the spring is that they are um I think they're getting more lots online. Um she said the town homes which would be one bed, two bed and three bedrooms um they're not even starting on I think until even considering 2026. And so, um, and then I did get clarity on the, um, child care center and she said, um, it was just a consideration, um, that they would maybe look at it more closely
038in 2026 if they felt there was more families moving into the area, but they might but they might not use that particular area for a child care center. So, um, I think what you're saying lines up with what what she told me. Um, and I did ask her kind of what um what I mean and it's hard. She's like, "We hope families move in, but we don't know. We're trying to build a product that would attract families." Um, but it's hard to know um who will be buying those those properties. So, um, so anyways, that was some of the um, at least the nuts and bolts of the information I was able to garner from her. So, um, or do you guys have any other questions for Shannon? I have one for Clint, but All
039right, Clint, I just have a quick question. Um, I think we were just I know you went back up and walked um Windgate and Broadway. I think we just wanted to double check that. Um, we've obviously seen the capacity have been higher in the past. Um, you guys looked at those spaces up there and educational spaces. Um, again through at both buildings. We did. We walked uh through Windgate and uh through um Broadway. Uh walked through the classrooms. Jen and her team uh checked out some spaces and um did some numbers, worked through the numbers. And Jen can probably speak to some of this a little more clearly than I can, but we we did look at some of the spaces and what rooms we would be able to utilize, what are what classrooms or
040spaces we could possibly use. When we work with the principal, we had talked about that as well. and we feel comfortable that those spaces can be used and that we'll be able to get um the numbers in there of students that are going to be moving into those spaces from scenic. You guys have any questions for Clint? One of the other questions that came up as well was parking um at Broadway and um pickup and drop off. And so, um, Eddie and his team, uh, and I think, uh, Andy went out and looked at the space, and, uh, there's a a nice open field in the back. It would take some some infrastructure improvements, but we feel confident that we would be able to create a drop off space where we could stack vehicles in
041the back uh where the bus drop off is and uh create a space that would uh allow for students to and parents to pick up and drop off without uh impacting too much of the roadway there. Uh on top of that, there is already some the city's already working on doing some improvements to that area. We're working with the county and the city uh before any of this happened on some improvements that are going on there. So, we're continuing to having some conversations with them to maybe do some curb cuts out there to create uh some entrances into that that dirt field in the back. And when you guys are looking at that classroom capacity, we're not even considering putting modulars there, right? We're looking at where the build the buildings that are there because
042that's a last resort as far as it is a last resort. Um, you know, we'll see what the numbers look like, but right now we feel comfortable that students will be able to fit into the buildings. Clint, if you can uh kind of touch on this for me. We talked about traffic a little bit, but what about the the Clifton area with the kids that the parents that walk? I think we talked about buses and stuff, right? Yeah. There's a lot of information that we don't have in order to to to be clear on how those buses would work, but um it is possible to to look at some options for um maybe creating a bus hub in Clifton. And one of the things we'd want to do is try to create a neutral budget
043neutral option. Uh potentially using um the buses that would be at the um receiving schools that are already making stops. Could we possibly use uh a bus, for example, that's going to Thunder Mountain uh that's on the outskirts out of the walk zone and creating a stop at Clifton? That would be budget neutral. We wouldn't have to put another bus in place and do that for the rest of the schools. A lot of factors. We don't know how many students would be getting on that bus. So, um if if we had a lot of students get on the bus, we couldn't do that. We would have to create another route. Um but they are options. So, we're looking at that already. already talked to SDA about um working on some options with that. Right. And
044I think several of the students that walk to Clifton would now be in a busing zone. Would that be correct? Correct. Obviously, they're going to be further out. So, okay. All right. Any other questions? Okay. Um, so I'll just remind everybody that the board's going to take a vote and um, we're just asking for um, I mean for our uh, public comment rules, we just any outbursts. Um, we'll stick around afterwards if you want to talk to us um, have any conversations and um, go from there. So, uh, do I have a motion? Do I have a motion to approve a resolution to close Clifton Elementary and Scenic Elementary School to approve resolutions? Second. Any further discussion? I'll give you all a second. Seeing no further discussion, we can go ahead and move forward with
045the vote. Mr. Chavez. Mrs. Evansson, yes. Mrs. Heights, yes. Mr. Jones, yes. Miss Lima, yes. Resolution passes five to zero. Um, I did have something I had prepared to want to be able to say and board members, if you have anything. I'll share some final words, but I'll wait for everybody to clear out so that those of you are remaining can hear. All right. So, um, so tonight we're here before you with heavy hearts and a deep sense of responsibility. The decision to close two beloved schools is not one that any of us on this board have taken lightly. And we know that the schools are more than just buildings and they are the heart of neighborhoods, places where generations have learned, grown, and formed lifelong memories, which many of you shared with us on
046Tuesday. We know this decision impacts not only the students and staff in these walls, but also families, alumni, and the broader community. Throughout this process, the board has been guided by the framework and priorities that our community tasked us to establish. These priorities include ensuring that every student in D51 has access to the resources, opportunities, and support they need to thrive now and in the future. Sometimes this means making very difficult decisions for the greater good of the entire district. Closing school is never the preferred path, but given the realities we face, be it declining enrollment, aging facilities, or limited funding, and declining birth rates, we must steward our resources in a way that serves all students districtwide for years to come. I want to reassure you that this is not the end of the
047journey for the student, staff, and families impacted. the student or the superintendent and his team are committed to working closely with each school community to ensure as smooth as a as smooth as a transition as possible. They are going to meet with the affected families. They've already been doing this and staff to listen to concerns and work through solutions to provide tailored support. This includes helping our students and staff adjust to the new environments, honoring the legacy of these schools, and ensuring that no one feels left behind. To the students, staff, and families of these schools, we see you. We value you, and we are here for you. Even if you don't feel that we are. This is not a goodbye to your spirit, your traditions, or your contributions to our district. It is an
048opportunity to carry the best parts of these schools into new chapters and new communities. As we move forward, let us do so with grace and compassion, knowing that this decision, while difficult, was made with the best interests of all 19,000 students of our district students in mind. Together, we will honor the past and build stronger future for district 51. We thank you for your patience and understanding and commitment to our students board. Did anybody else want to share anything? All right. Have a motion to adjurnn. Motion to Thank you all for your time this evening.