001working good. All right. Thank you everybody for uh joining us this evening. We're going to go ahead and get started. Uh this isn't an official business meeting, so we don't have to call the meeting to order. Uh but we will go ahead and get into our discussion this evening. um from t last Tuesday's meeting uh it was good to hear from the public and so we have taken a lot of the questions via public comment and from email um to get the get those addressed as much as we can tonight and then the board will have the discussion in public so everybody can hear um what that is. Uh this is a normal workshop. So if you haven't attended one of our workshops before, um there's really no audience participation. So no clapping or booing
002or anything like that. Um because you may agree with some things we say, you may disagree with some things that are said. Um I do ask that if you're having a conversation with your neighbor, just be mindful that probably the person next to you is really wanting to hear what is being said. So you're welcome to step out into the lobby and have those conversations. So, um hopefully the meeting will be less than six hours. So, anyways, but for all our sakes, right? But if you wouldn't mind, uh standing with me, we're going to go ahead and do the pledge of allegiance and then we'll kick off. So all right stands nationisible. All righty. Well, Dr. Dr. Hill, I think you wanted to kind of um where we had asked you to sort of walk
003us back a little bit to kind of how we got here um just so we could bring everybody along and make sure um both the board and the community kind of understands why we're here. Awesome. Well, thank you and um thanks for everybody who's in attendance and watching online as well. Um I was going to kick off the meeting by embarrassing Jen Marsh because it's her birthday and make us all sing, but I'm not going to do it. Happy birthday. Yeah, you can clap. We'll just clap for her. We won't sing. So, um there's your present, Jen. I embarrassed you. Um so, yeah, I think um obviously we we've got a lot more interest in this topic now than we we've had in the past. So, we thought maybe we'd take a little bit of
004time to recap, um some of the information that has been shared uh in the past and talk a little bit about why we are where we are today. So, um I know Mel's gonna kind of drive the slides for me. So, if we can get the slide presentation up there. There it is. Okay. So, let's go back and just look at um enrollment data timeline. I know that's a lot of words on a screen, but I'll I'll try to um so bear with me for a second, but essentially, as we talked about, um enrollment has been declining in D-51 since uh the 2019 uh 2020 school year. Um we have about 1,200 less students now uh than we did four years ago. And that's a a little over a 5% uh decline in our student
005uh population. And so this is not something that um that is new to us uh within the school system. We we've we've known that we've had some uh declining enrollment over the last few years. Um just a reminder for the general public, we're funded per pupil. Um so uh every less student that we have coming into the system is less funding um for our school district. We receive a little over $9,000 uh in per pupil funding for our students. Um, and so when a school declines in enrollment, um, they in turn end up receiving less, uh, FTE, which is essentially staff. And I know Mel's going to walk us through a little bit about what what exactly FTE is and what is our staffing model just for a better understanding of all that. But that's
006really the um the reason why this is such a big issue for us right now is that with less funding and less students means less um, uh, FTE at our school buildings and less staffing within our buildings. So when a school drops below a certain number um it in turn becomes harder um to properly staff them for programmatic needs. Um and then we have to cut staff in school. We've had to cut we have had to cut staff uh in schools the last few years especially at the middle school level. The middle school level is the one that's getting hit the hardest right now and they've been hit the hardest over the last uh couple years. But every school um for the most part has been feeling the impacts of having to cut staff uh
007from the buildings due to loss of enrollment. Um and so based on the projections that we've received um we are projected to continue to head in that direction uh and to have to cut staff even uh more next year and then you know potentially in the the outy years as well. Um these are rough numbers. So, um this is based off of uh capacity numbers from um from a prior document that we had, but we have about um a little under 12,000 elementary seats within our system. Um if you count every available seat within our elementary schools, and this does not include um charters and special campuses because I I didn't have that enrollment data or the capacity data right away. But um and we have about we have 8,945 elementary students. So, we're utilizing
008about 75% of our seats uh in the elementary schools. We've got about 5,398 middle school seats um with about 3,798 kids. Um so, we have about 70% usage there and then about 6,182 high school seats with 5,642 of them being used right now. So, about 91.2%. Um so, and obviously the impacts are hitting certain areas of town different than others. So you have some schools that are not dealing with as much decline or or maybe not any at all and others that are declining more rapidly. But that's kind of a picture of where we are right now. Um and then again this is not a new problem. Um but the problem just it has not been addressed in the past. So um that's why we're trying to look for ways to address it now. Um
009this is historical data on here. So it goes all the way back to 0708. Um, and so the main point of this is that we've been pretty steady for a long period of time. And so, um, that's why this might feel new to our community, um, because we haven't seen declines, um, until recently, uh, over the last, uh, 3 to four years, uh, within our enrollment. Um, so, next slide. So, I'm this is Shannon's data. I'll I won't speak for Shannon, but I'll um, just remind folks that this is some of the data on um, birth rates in Mesa County. And so um part of them the reasons that we're experiencing less kids coming into our school system is because of low birth rates rates along with other factors as well. Um next slide. Um
010I think this one's pretty telling. Um uh and again if you've saw the presentation back in I think January uh we shared this slide but just a reminder that this is a 2017 enrollment by grade versus 2022 enrollment by grade. you can see our cohorts that are coming into the school system and then moving through our school system are smaller than they were um even 5 years ago. And so that's why we haven't seen as much of an impact at the high school level as we have seen at the middle school and the elementary level because they're obviously the kids are going to move through the system over time. So we will see some impact at high school even next year um and moving forward. Um this is Shannon's data again. So, um, this is
011real numbers on top and then forecasted numbers on the bottom. And so, again, um, we're we're looking at what's going to happen within our school system over the next 7 to eight years if if projections are correct. Um, having us drop down to about 185 uh 18,500 students in a district that used to be over 22,000. Next slide. There's a lot of text on this one, so I apologize. Um, so, uh, again, if projections are are accurate, uh, we've been told that 11 historically large neighborhood elementary schools will be under 300 students by 2027. Uh, and Shannon, you can correct me if if I'm saying any this wrong, but eight elementary schools have or will have significantly dis uh, diminished utilization by 2030. So, less utilization of those buildings. Uh, three historically large neighborhood middle
012schools will be under 400 students by 2027. and then five middle schools have or will have significantly dis diminished utilization by 2030. So, um according to the projections, um one of the questions that's been brought up is the the timeline for all this and why has it felt so short. Um so, just a couple things to point out. Uh we use projections every year for when we make decisions. We've been using uh Shannon's projections as our demographer for uh about 18 years. um some of the work that he he does for us and and has done in the past is provides enrollment projections which again we use that for staffing projections. So Mel takes those numbers and then tries to um prepare staffing sheets for our buildings based off those projections um and then also
013assist with boundary changes that we've made in the past and then uh re more recently we had to do some uh board member district boundary changes and he's helped us with that as well. Um, so our latest enrollment projection data was uh delivered to us on November 28th. Um, and so that's when we first got uh the newest numbers showing us where we're projected to be for next year and and beyond. Um, I I want to point out and put it up here that it's not that was not board initiated. We receive those numbers every year. I know that there's a lot of uh rumors and things out there that this was like some plan to try to close schools behind closed doors and that's that's not the case. It was we got the data
014and it was concerning to us that we were seeing uh continued enrollment loss by a significant amount um and especially in certain schools and so we we felt like we needed to to bring this forward and do something about it. Um we notified the board in December of the enrollment projection concerns uh and the need to actually address it. Uh this time because of winter break and scheduling um we we actually weren't able to have that first public presentation of Shannon's data until January 17th at that board meeting. Um and so he presented that data publicly. Um and we talked about next steps. Um we we discussed that if consolidations were to be considered for next school year, we needed to have recommendations pretty quickly because it's it's a domino effect of things that would
015happen and really by the end of February would would have been ideal. Um I think at first we were even talking about March, but there was a lot of issues with that as well. So um so we uh enlisted Shannon to help us study possible candidates for consolidations um after that January 17th board meeting presentation. Um so again that's one month. I realize that's a short timeline especially for folks that don't live this every day and haven't um seen this data over the years. But um it was about a month time period to try to collect as much data as we could. Um, we talked about surveys, some of town halls, school walkthroughs with school and district administration. We had a structural engineer come out to one of the buildings to look at it. We
016looked at boundary studies, board presentations, etc. So, a lot uh in a short period of time. Um, so the final recommendation was received from Shannon on the 17th. Um, we tried to notify principles and staff at the potential closure schools soon as possible. We wanted them to hear that before the public did. Um, and then notified all staff and families. and then we had our board meeting on the 21st. Um, so I would say this, you know, for this last bullet, this is not I would say it's not a normal time frame we would want for an important decision like this. Um, but I I want to be very clear inaction in the past has left us in a worse situation and a real sense of urgency on our side to try to provide some
017relief for our school buildings who are experiencing um staffing uh cuts due to enrollment uh decreases. Um, so with that, I think is the next slide. I'm going to turn it over to Mel because I think um a big question has been what is the e exactly the direct impact for our schools if we don't do something um and what's the impact that's happened over the last few years for our schools and how do we staff our buildings and why does it depend on number of students and so Mel's going to walk us through some um some data around that right so of course the entirety of Shannon's uh projections that he provided us with through 2030 show declines in enrollment each year. And we're already seeing some of those projected declines come to fruition
018over the last couple of years. Like Dr. Hill said, about 1,200 students, 1,195 fewer students since 1920, which is a 5.4% decline. Um, we've spoken to the way that our funding is averaged through the state funding formula where when districts are declining in enrollment, uh, the state allows for a rolling five-year average. And so that shielded us from about half of that decline in funding um to this point. Of course, that eventually catches up, right, as those higher years drop off. We have two higher years left in that current five-year calculation. And so this year alone, for example, we're receiving about $5 million more in per pupil revenue than the students we actually have. So it's about a 560 FTE difference. our per pupil revenue changes each year. Um, so that's another factor when we
019start talking about projecting this over time. It really is set by the state yeartoyear. It's through the legislative process. Usually one of the last things that they do in a year. So that's a component certainly and part of our financial um story is just that dependency on state revenue um even going forward. So if we looked at those out years in the slide prior um even fewer students are projected in the future um those student decreases range from 225 students to 396 so almost 400 in some years through 2030 meaning that even though the declines we felt now are significant that's still another 2359 fewer students projected going forward. Um, so that averaging has certainly helped us, but it it spreads those reductions over time is what it does. So it allows for a system
020to make the changes that they need to to truly have a system operating at this size going forward. So just to kind of put that all all of that slide into a graph, there are several components that are shown here. The blue bars are our total student count. Um, student count and FTE are different. um a high school student, for example, if they have a half-time schedule, we receive half funding for them. And so that's where an FTE might be different than a student count. So body count is always more than FTE. Um going in the past, so 1819 and a 1920, you see only one line there instead of the red and green line. And that's because we weren't in an averaging position. we were being funded for exactly the number of FTE that
021we had because our enrollment was stable. Um, starting in 2021 with that drop is when we started to be in averaging and that's where we have three years now into there and you can see the two higher years remaining in that five-year calculation. That's what it means when we speak to that. And so the difference in between those lines may seem small, but that's the $5 million that we're receiving in funding for FTE that are out of our system. Um, this those of us that have been around a while, right, it's important to note that this reduction is inherently different than the reductions we experienced. So if you think back to like the last recession 2008 through 2010 um that was a reduction in the amount we re were receiving per student FTE versus being
022funded for fewer FTE. So I think that's an important distinction when we think about how we address this within our system. It's truly driven by fewer students versus less amount per student. And that's what that yellow um overlay really shows is one, we know we're very reliant on state funding. We know that there are blips within that. So if you look to 1920 to 2021, for example, there was a big dip. Um this is what's called a V-shaped recession. So this was a recession that we know what it was caused by, right? March 2020, everything was going great. We were looking ahead to the potential for our next year's funding. um believing that we were going to have an increase in the amount of PPR and then of course everything across the state, the country,
023the world shut down and the economic reality of the money available in this across the state was very different. And so that was a year for example where absolutely we had to be reactory because it wasn't until the end of June. I think we actually approved the budget June 30th for our fiscal year that started July 1st and that was with not an increase in PPR but a sudden decrease of 10% um to our per pupil revenue. So even on this upward trajectory of PPR which absolutely we're thankful for um that the state has been working to buy down the negative factor in recent years. E economic conditions have been pretty good aside from that blip of course. Um but the other piece of that is that inflation is a component in the funding formula
024and certainly we know we've had record inflation and so that certainly is driving that per pupil revenue up as well. Uh which means of course as we're all experiencing that things are costing more at the same time. Um, if we were to look at projections for next year, it's really early, of course, um, like I mentioned, it's not until one of the last things passed in the session in May, and there has been haven't been any draft bills that have been presented yet, but early recommendations are that there is an 8% inflation rate that the state would use. And so that's where we have the potential for growth in per pupil funding next year, but we won't know that for quite some time. Um so really just to delve into the staffing model um the
025one of the main philosophies of our staffing model is that staff follows where our students are. So whether that shifts in between schools which has primarily been up until these last few years. Those are a normal part of our process. Um but we apply the same ratios by level to our elementary, middle, and high. So each one has a unique ratio that's applied to their number of students. but the same across all of our schools. Um, so when we talk about that we are overstaffed, what we're really talking is that we have some unfunded positions at each of those levels based on the ratios and student counts. So if we were looking at our October count and our staffing for this year, uh, we see that we're eight and a half over at elementary, 23
026and a half over at middle, and five which over at high school. So that's where that um those grades of cohorts moving through. Ne uh this year is the first year that that eighth grade class is moving up into high school and it certainly comp will compound beyond there where we jump here from five over to 14 over at the high school level. So I think each of these levels is a little bit different in what their story is in relation to their staffing and their student count. So we know that at elementary um the declines and adjustments um have reduced maybe some parah hours or other support positions. It's also led to fewer rounds. So more and more of our schools are in that size where they are two rounds versus three or more
027rounds per grade level which can lead to unbalancing of class sizes. Um within the projections for next year, most of our elementarymentaries are one to two FTE over within the staffing model. middle school has been and continues to be the largest area of impact. And so that's where despite the efforts of the past few years to address these overages, mostly mostly through attrition to this point, uh we're still 23 FTE over. And so that's where already there's been changing to core scheduling, some of the elective offerings, um but still considerable over staffing there. And then now, like I mentioned, it's reaching high school. So some of our middle schools, just for context, are four to six FTE over. And so if you can think about pulling that number of FTE out of a school for
028next year, um it would be extremely difficult. Um just another visual um to see if uh this kind of hits home. The top bar, the yellow or orangeish color is our total of teacher FTE. So this is anybody according to CDE's um job classifications with a code of teacher. And then our blue line is our student enrollment. And so this is looking back to 2018 and looking at a five years. You can see that um we have started within the last couple of years to reduce some teacher FTE like I mentioned through the staffing model and through attrition. Um, but in no way are we keeping pace with the changes in district enrollment. And so I think this is a good demonstration of we know the difficult decisions that have already been made out at
029our schools to address some of the staffing to date, but that gap is ever widening and what we're doing right now isn't keeping pace. Just to kind of further go down that path of um compounding effect. So inaction or delayed action of to this issue, we know that we're 45 FTEE over for next year projected. If we use Shannon's um projections and apply these, not all of our students fall within our regular elementary, middle, and high. So, for these purposes, they won't match Shannon's enrollments because it's not including some of our program schools, our option schools, our K12, any of those schools that are a little bit different by design and have a different uh staffing model. Um, but just applying these ratios how they could play out. Um, in 2425, a decrease of 270
030more three more students would mean 178.8 fewer staffing FTE available out at schools. to play that out another year going into 2526 another 340 student decline would be another 21.7 uh fewer FTE and so when we look at our 45 uh staffing FTE over and our 3.7 million difference now I mean this could increase it close to I believe it's 85 positions over three years and so just in that short time frame this becomes an even more serious vious problem if we don't get a handle on it. Melanie, that's in addition to what we already need to do, right? Yep. That's in addition. So, it would be 45 plus that 39 and a half. So, it adds up really quickly. Um, our group here in the strategic plan was presenting to the board just last
031month something very similar to this. And so just to ground ourselves in where our resources are currently going, um our general fund budget, uh 81% of it is for instruction, pupil support, and school administration by program type. That's the graph up at the top right, which as you would expect, the bulk of bulk of our budget is in our schools, as it should be. Um the bottom left hand is looking at our expenditures by type instead. And so salary and benefits are nearly 86% of our general fund budget. So the idea that we can look at the smaller pieces of these graphs as a way to cut ourselves out of this problem um is unrealistic at this point. So without impacting positions FTEE salaries and benefits or without impacting costs out at schools um we
032simply can't find these types of dollars anywhere else. Um, so I want to walk everyone through just a couple examples of how our staffing model works. Um, because there are some intricacies to it. And when we talk about it, I want to make sure that we're all kind of on the same page far as the kind of staffing conversations that happen every year at this time. So outside of this consolidation um process review, this is the time of the year where we would be using Shannon's projections. We would be trying to build out staffing models for each one of our schools um and we would be uh sending our site directors out to work with principles to come up with their staffing for the next year. Our schools do have some autonomy in determining their
033needs. And so I just want to show kind of what that process might look like. And so these are the staffing sheets. I've taken off anything that's identifying, but these are real schools in our system. And so, um, if they were sitting down with the principal of this school, they would go over the projected, um, student FTE for the next year. They do staff just K5. Preschool is staffed in a different manner, applying that consistent ratio. Um, within this model, when we say staffing FTE, that's a little bit different than just plain FTE fuller half. and that there's also a budgetary component to that. So a 1.0 is a full-time teacher whereas a principal or assistant principal or even counselors who work a little bit longer contract would be more than a one FTE in
034this model. So, it's based on um their pay schedule as well as the number of days that they're working and whereas some of our classified um positions such as a parah are more of a two to each 2 to one um ratio where there might be two adults out in a building for the same cost approximate budgetary cost of a teacher. And so that's where schools do have some autonomy and each school is going to look a little bit different. Um, but there's some factoring that a school could have some FTE above and beyond the ratio if they have a really high free and reduced lunch count for instance. And then there's some minimum allocation. So a certain level of service that they have to provide with assistant principles, counseling, and secretarial support um just
035to make sure that those essential things are being covered uniformly across our district. And so the piece I really wanted to demonstrate is that this particular school, sorry, if I hop back to here, they are a school that is over by one FTE. So if you go back down here, and so you think one FTE, that's that's not too bad, right? And certainly in in the range of all of the impacts out at schools, um it's it's not the worst, but still looking at that decision, if we were to reduce, and we never balance exactly to zero. We do allow some leeway there, right? Where they might be like one one and a quarter um somewhere in that range. But if you take their current rounds, so this school has some two round grades and
036some three round grades. They don't have any staff members paid from their general fund model that are interventionists. They do have a music and a PE teacher. So they have 18 certified positions. And then we just use our October count or Shannon's projected counts. Um, we also look at January counts as part of this. Um, just so that we aren't relying completely on one data point of a projection, but we're also averaging their actual Janu January count into this truly trying to staff for the whole year. And so, just if we were looking at this, the average class sizes for next year, their kinder and their first grade are large, right? 27 and 28 students. But here's kind of the unbalancing of this. They have three rounds of second grade and so those are down
037to an average of 16 um which is a little on the small side. So they really vary but the average class size here between all of those would be 21 and a half with 18 positions. And so if we were to try to take a position back like for example we say fifth grade is pretty good and maybe that's where that reduction takes place that then takes that fifth grade classroom up to 26 students. So that's certainly one thing that um this school could opt to do in order to address that. That does of course increase the average class size right to 23. Um and so if we put that back the other piece that they could look to balance that and uh is through classified positions. So I mentioned that classified positions even if
038they are full-time account for less than one in the staffing model. A lot of our paras are work like these guys are seven hours. Uh this one is a four hour position. But in order to get that 1.35, this would be another option. Right? This totals 1.32. So they may look at taking three adults out of their school rather than affecting that one um position, teaching position or some combination of those. So those are the difficult positions that our schools make every year um in terms of uh reducing FTE. So, I wanted to demonstrate the opposite point of that. And this is where when we talk about that we're able to better balance class sizes and that elementary schools when they're not in the 250 student range when they are closer to 350 or 400
039operate better um are able to staff more robustly um more programming options. And so this is a school um that may be receiving FTE or students and FTE that would go along with them through some consolidation. Still sticking to that same ratio, right? Still the same minimums, but when you come down here, they would be 8 and a quarter FTE that they would have to decide where they want to put that. And so this is a much different conversation when we're working through it. So they currently have 14 um certified teaching positions over here, an average class size of 21.4. All of these projected counts would include the students coming from another school. And so that's why this average class size is what it is, right? We've put the students here but not adjusted the
040classroom sizes. And so even if I were to go through this example and take them to three rounds maybe all the way across. So we can see what that does for our average class sizes. It's 21.44. We started out as 21.42. That's still only putting six of those eight and a quarter positions out into classrooms. So that means that they could look at this fourth grade class maybe and say, "Well, that's a little larger and maybe I have the space that I want to take that to another round." They could do that. They could also look at adding an interventionist, right? It doesn't do anything to take down the average class size in this calculation, but it is more supports out there and to help those students that needing are needing an intervention. Um, they
041could also look at adding a counseling position. So, we're still just at seven even with doing all of this. They could look at adding more specials like maybe this brings art back into the mix. And so, really to get to some of those options that would get us to the 8ft FTE with still a quarter to spare. Um so, like this uh school for example, they have a halftime secretary. Maybe they want to take that person up to a full FTE to support the additional um students and staff. like they would be able to do all of these things just by having a more right-sized um elementary school um within our staffing model without impacting classroom size. So hopefully that's helpful. I think just maybe to walk through it and to kind of understand what
042our staffing looks like each year. I think the the only thing I want to add to is, you know, we sometimes we hear from families um that say we want these certain positions within our school buildings um like librarians and and different positions like that. And so um the principles have had to make difficult decisions, especially at the middle school level over the last few years when we're reducing um FTE to their in their buildings because they're they're losing enrollment. they have to make those tough decisions on do I uh use an FTE on this position or this other position. And so to Mel's point, um the the more enrolled students within that building, the more staffing they get, the more flexibility they have. We have a lot of autonomy uh in the district with
043what the uh principles can do with their staffing, but they obviously have less flexibility the less FTE we give them because of the decline in enrollment. So I guess when we start talking about savings and efficiencies right the whole one of the purposes of doing this and I would say the main purpose behind this is that it gives us a path forward to addressing these unfunded positions in a way that one is possible right we know I we I don't know if any of us can imagine pulling that 23 FTE out of our middle schools at this point um so this does so without having continued impacting to program and classroom supports. Um it also doesn't negatively impact our overall class sizes. So if we look at what's at the critical point in our system,
044it's our staffing and our programming. Um after this, the receiving schools will be better sized and have the ability for more programming opportunities. Um, so when we look at savings and efficiencies and how those will be realized, uh, we'll be able to better staff to our existing model ratios through the reduction of those unfunded positions. Um, when we come up with our dollar amounts, of course, it's not, you can't look at a school like one of the schools that's proposed and say, well, we know the cost of operating this school is what the savings are. because the reality is that those those people in those positions will have the opportunity to go to other places in our district. So, it's that's not the cost of the savings. Um, we also can't look at something like
045utilities because there will still have to be some minimal um upkeep of those vacated buildings. And so, we base these on averages, right? So, our average cost of that 1.0 staffing FTE with benefits is 83,000. So, when we're talking about reducing unfunded positions, that's the dollar amount that I'm using for savings. We know that there will be some efficiencies, some immediate, some over time. So, with less square footage to maintain and clean, but an example of where this won't be 100% savings again is that like custodial supply budgets, for example, those schools receiving students will still go through more paper towels, more all of those supplies because of the additional students out there. So it's not a onetoone savings, but there will be some savings and efficiencies garnered there. Fewer kitchens and operations, but their
046staffing and nutrition services is based on the labor hours per meal served. So those kitchens receiving students will still be serving more meals and still have the associated food costs. So there might be some savings or efficiencies garnered there, but again, not 100%. uh our system will need to look at special ed and special service provider staffing which is still to be determined at this point. Um we believe that by having fewer buildings that are more efficiently used um we'll reduce some duplication of services and like I mentioned on the utility costs certainly we won't be paying the utility costs of operating school day in and day out but there will be some minimal utility costs right winter for example there will still need to be some level of heating and there the heat of
047summer level of cooling um uh continuing mowing the lawns outside our buildings irrigating them maintenance of the grounds will continue until those vacated buildings have a new purpose either in our system or sold off. Um so that's where some of those um savings and efficiencies will be realized. And so I just want to take some time the staffing model is obviously the clearest way when we're talking about closing that $3.7 million gap. So I've taken some liberties here and uh work through the staffing models based on the recommendations. If we're looking at the elementary level and addressing that eight and a half, um I believe we can get there through the staffing at those proposed uh consolidation schools. So the elementary level, that 8 and a half FTE is a total of 700,000 roughly. Middle
048school, like I mentioned, is by far our biggest stressor in our system right now. And so the consolidation would allow us a way forward on re addressing those unfunded positions. Maybe about 17 and a half of them, but there's still about five out there from those uh schools that would remain open and wouldn't be receiving additional students through any boundary changes. And so that's the two components when we look at the middle school accounting for almost 1.9 1.9 million of that total. And then high school, right? there's no recommendation um to do anything with our high school boundaries or number of schools. And so that 14 FTE and over staffing would not be impacted by the consolidations, but that's a $1.1 um million impact there. And so I do believe we have a path forward
049if all of these recommendations went forward even next year to reducing that 45 um unfunded staffing FTE and closing that $3.7 million gap. So 2.1 of it could come from the consolidations. Another one and a half still would be our annual staffing model adjustments um by those schools that have fewer students. Um, I think one caveat in this and why it's a little bit difficult and why I say I approach this conservatively is just that our school of choice process has already happened for next year. And so these consolidations, there would be some like a reso process or transfer process, something that would have to happen for those families um that would their school of choice would be impacted by this change in boundaries or school options. And so that's where it's a little bit
050difficult at this point to get down to the individual school levels. So that would have to be another process that takes place. So I guess in summary, uh our staffing is really what's reached the the critical point in our system. Uh it's simply too large of a uh piece of those pies, those graphs in our system on the instructional and school-based side and salaries and benefits. um to cut ourselves out of this without impacting positions and without impacting them at the school level. We know that our reductions to date have not kept pace with our enrollment declines. Um when we think about it, I I think even a couple years ago, it was hard to imagine that as our school district would ever get to the point of those projections of being 18,500 students. But
051our system has to look different at that level from the 22,000 that we've known it for so long. Um especially if we're trying to operate at the same time in the same number of locations. So obviously by continuing down this trajectory, there's some serious financial implications. Um but we are still in a position where we can proactively address these um and avoid a point of financial crisis. We know that's one of been our main points in our last few budgets is being strategic with our ESR dollars. Really um looking at our available resources and shoring up our reserves to a a point that are it's more in line with a district our size. Uh we know that they definitely weren't at an appropriate level before. We've made a really concerted effort to do better in
052that area. Um, we know that funding levels have certainly helped from the state in the last few years towards that goal, but they are vary yeartoyear and um, conditions can change rapidly as we've seen even just in the last few years. And so there's those points where we have to be reactive in our system versus the areas where we can be a little bit more proactive when we see these things coming. And I think one again one of just the overarching things is that this is different than the past where it's a funding of fewer FTE versus less funding per FTE. So my last thing that I'll leave you guys with is just that in reviewing this I think there's three main um paths or three main um pathways of different options to address these
053issues. Certainly each level maybe has a a different story and or a different piece in this. So the first option would be to continue to adhere to our staffing model ratios. Um that's where that 45 FTE of unfunded position comes in. That means that most schools across our system would lose FTEES next year. Um like I've mentioned, elementaryaries 1 to two, middle schools up to six at some of our middle schools. And we certainly can't do that without significant impacts to programming. Um, as the declines continue, this would be an annual loss for most of our schools as they get smaller and smaller over time. Uh, the second distinct option would be to maintain our current staffing levels for one more year. Um, I know that's how we addressed it in part last year at
054the middle school level was that we were able to access ESSER funds um, in order to save some of that uh, FTE out there, but ESSER ends after next school year. Um the other option is if we do end up getting some new per pupil revenue that this would be off the top of that um or as a priority for any new funds. Obviously the risk there is if there aren't new funds then it would have to be addressed through reductions to our current expenses. Um this is temporary. It buys us some time. It gets us through another year but it doesn't change the inevitable. So when you think about the other needs across our system like our teacherbased pay, some of our other staffing challenges, uh those this certainly would have lasting impacts to
055our entire system if we were to use that significant of a dollar amount off the top. Uh we know that if we get new money, so are other districts across the state. And while we've made some real concerted efforts in the last couple years, especially to increase our teacherbased pay, if we're not, if something puts us behind, being able to keep up with what everybody else is doing, that puts us again further back. The other piece is ESSER. Um, we have some really important things that across our system that we're using ESSER items for. So remember, ESSER was that federal grant dollars that were put into our school system um to address COVID challenging challenges such as lost learning. So we're doing some interventions. That's how summer school is currently being funded. Um our online
056program out at GR and so the the band-aid fix that we had for this year out of Esser was just one year. And so if we were extending that in any amount um it would be through uh adjusting some of the planned items already in our ESRE budget. The last distinct option is to adopt the demographers's recommendations for consolidation. Like I've mentioned, this gives us a way um systematically to address those unfunded FTEEs while not increasing class sizes and maybe even improving some of our programming options out in schools. Nobody wants to close schools. Um, but receiving schools will receive FTE and be able to add back rounds, better balance class sizes, and maybe add back some of the supports that have been lost in recent years. Of course, this doesn't fix everything. There would
057still be, like that other slide show, um, FTEES that should be reduced from some of the schools that wouldn't receive, um, any type of adjustment through consolidation. And then the last option I think is any combination of these. Um so if there's uh some solutions that maybe fit one level better than the other, that would be something for the board maybe to look at considering. So um that's the end of our formal presentation. I think the the main thing we just wanted to get across was um like I said, this is this is a real problem that we've been dealing with for a few years as a district. Um I think we we within the system uh know the impact it's had. We we hear from our principles about um the tough decisions they're having
058to make when we have to reduce staff at their buildings. And so um folks have been asking for a solution. Um and so this is where we find ourselves right now. I think um if there's questions specifically for Shannon, obviously Shannon's here too, or if there's questions for Mel around the staffing model. Um but just wanted to reiterate now that like I said, we have more um attention on the topic um kind of how we got into the position we're in right now um and why we're looking for some solutions to be able to um take care of it immediately or in in the very near future uh for our district. So I I do have a couple questions. One for Shannon, one for Mel. Huh? Hello. This thing on. All right. All right. So,
059I do have a couple questions. One for Shannon, one for Mel. So, Shannon, in your presentation um last week, we talked about um there were a lot we talked about, but you had said that the construction in the Redlands was on hold because of whatever reason in the 360 Redlands 360 area. And the question I asked you was I just wanted to know if the Redlands is on hold right now, how do we know that Orchard Mesa is not going to grow? Is that I mean are there numbers that says there's not growing because with all the construction and the things and the homes are going up out there, are the homes just single parents that don't have kids or are just families that don't have kids or do we know that it's not growing
060anymore or how do we know that it's not going to grow like the Redlands area? Well, couple of things. is I did a full impact analysis of Redlands 360 in May of 2020 and um at that time um we were looking at a very detailed phasing analysis for Redlands 360. I can show you that if you'd like to look at it please. So, we were working in conjunction with Dave Thornton at the city of Grand Junction and with the developer of Redlands 360, and we developed this very detailed 23-year absorption schedule for the development. So, you can see there are a variety of dwelling types there that are all still on the books. And so some of these higher density products will be affordable for families and will possibly generate children. And then some of
061these that are identified as move up and some of them that are identified as intermediate, although they're smaller than some of the more custom homes that are on the bottom of the table will be homes that would be um viable as family housing. Now what has happened is interest rates the third week of October went to about 7%. So that put about 2thirds of the home buying public out of range of being able to get a mortgage. And all of the builders have begun to offer big discounts and have really switched to a focus on developing their vacant lot inventory instead of building homes because they're waiting. And a lot of us are saying May of 2024 is when everything is going to normalize and then we would be back in the business of a
062lot of development happening in the valley. Now I did a windshield survey in December when I was first asked to initiate this work. I think I saw about 35 homes under construction. A lot of the homes that are happening in Redlands 360 now are people who do not need a mortgage. They're either taking equity out of another house or they're taking equity out of another state and many of them are paying cash for those properties. So, um, now on Orchard Mesa, there is still development, but when I was driving around over there, I saw 12 to 15 homes under construction, different pricing points, and again, a lot of those homes are homes that people would need a mortgage to pay for. And there was some momentum from about 10 months ago because a lot of
063folks that paid for a house 10 months ago because of supply chain issues, it's taking 10 to 12 months to build a home. So some of what you were seeing in the field at that time had been bought and paid for back in January or February. And that's just because of how long it takes to build a home. So I'm attempting to answer kind of two of your questions. One is Redlands 360 and one is um Orchard Mesa, but those are two distinct areas. So, here's Redlands 360. Here's Scenic. Here's Windgate. And it's positioned right in the middle. This is a big developer that I've worked with on other developments before. It's about 1666 units. And this will happen. It's just going to happen slower because as what because of what has happened to us
064with interest rates and um this developer um may not be as familiar with our contracting structure over here on the western slope where we have smaller builders that build fewer houses a year. But this was what they were giving us directly as far as what they thought was their best guess phasing schedule. the city is not in the business of reconciling all of this with these developers. That's just not within the scope of what they do. Um so we have to depend upon the developer to give us a phasing schedule. But these were the impacts to the individual schools and this really indicates that at some point um the expansion replacement of scenic uh with a bigger facility would be in line with with uh that Redlands 360 development. Now again, what you're seeing being
065built there is very expensive homes and those are homes that I would not expect to generate as many children. And I think the other housing that is in these other categories is on hold just because it's so difficult to qualify uh for a mortgage at 7% right now. I have a can I have a follow-up question to that? So, there's a development, I think it's called Simon Ridge, which is 129 homes on Orchard Mesa. Um, that's under construction right now. Was that sounds like more than the 12 that you saw? It would be, but they're building the lot inventory or are they building all of the homes at once? I would think they're just building the lot inventory. And then what will happen is once uh they get back into an environment where they're not
066going to have to offer a discount for every house and it becomes a little bit more profitable to build and sell homes. They'll start in on an annual absorption schedule where they'll build 25 or 30 of those a year over a long period of time. But the key to my statement here is that in these communities that are 90 to 95% built out, which is the same category that downtown is in, and I did a housing market analysis for downtown Grand Junction Development Authority that was paid for by Regeneration Development Associates in 2017. And what I find is that when a neighborhood is 90 to 95% built out and continues to develop to develop, we don't get a significant amount of children from kind of the icing on the cake part of a community. That
067last little bit of development doesn't seem to make um that much of a dent in the number of students that come from a larger neighborhood area in aggregate terms. But in the case of this Redlands 360, this is such a big chunk of what's over there is that that's why we were concerned that this might make an impact. It may very well produce nothing. Uh but again, they're building the more expensive homes first because they don't require mortgages. And then so like and then my question to Mel. Um so if we went with any of the options I mean what's what is the I mean or for option number two um where it's possible that you know raises won't happen or possible so is it possible that more schools will be added to the list
068or would we close more schools or we set on two schools three schools no schools I mean if option number two happens and we I mean that's what I'm asking if we wait on it what's the what's the I think that's still a little bit of Shannon's analysis too um comes comes into play on there, but we've seen how quickly those FTE um would ramp up. And so if that does lead us to a point where we aren't just looking at the recommendation recommendated schools that Shannon's saying, yeah, these grayed out, we can do these now, and we do have to get to those further down recommendations. Um purely from a financial point as well, then I think that's a real possibility. I think it would be fair to say. Um, I think over time,
069anytime that our schools are getting down to that that small size and the more of them that we have, the more costs we're going to be putting into operating them. I don't know that I think that's elementary that I'm speaking to. I really do think that middle school is probably different. When we look at like the the school sizes after taking one middle school offline, like that's a significant improvement. Rather than having schools that are close to 400, one in the low 300s, it really puts all of them into the high 400s, 500 range. And so I don't see anything more in that area. Um, but I guess elementary that would be where I I don't know if Shannon would continue to if we would need to go down that path of further um less
070highly graded options at some point. Well, and the other area that we was presented but wasn't part of the recommendation was that fruit area. We'd have to to obviously figure out what we're going to do in the fruit area. So, there there were options that were thrown out there. Um you could do some consolidation out there as far as trying to normalize the grades. Um we talked about does it if it would it be a boundary change um to try to help with some of that so maybe you don't have to add on to buildings so there would be impacts potentially to Fra as well um with some more time. So I want to go back for just a moment. Are you plugged in Mel? Just so that everybody can see the slide. And just
071to add in, I'm definitely concerned. I I just want to make sure that we're really looking at this holistically and and if we have to make this kind of a heavy lift with our community, I I think it would be easier to do it all at once than to try to um undercut how many elementary schools we we really need to consolidate. I know at one point um there was some conversation about I think it was in January about doing three. Now we're at two. I just want to make sure is two enough? I mean we don't want to lose any of them. Let's be clear. We would we would love for things to be able to just stay the same. that if they can't stay the same, are we being realistic and um prudent
072enough in going forward so that we don't have to have this same upset and shuffle twice and that we do it one time. So, I just want to throw that out there. I don't know that we need an answer on that yet, but um I'm also concerned just that we if we have to do the heavy lifting, let's do the heavy lifting and and do it at one time so that the entire community can know what's coming and move forward. Can I follow up on that question? So, it's a great point. You know, how do we how do we know exactly how many we're looking at? And I was just really struck by the in the staffing slide where it said that elementary schools were overstaffed by eight FTE now and next year. It feels
073really surprising to me that we need to cut a school or two or three schools when we're talking about 8ft FTE. Are we looking is part of that though looking into the future because it's going to continue to decline? Yeah. So that's another really great point. Yeah. I think my my one of my biggest questions is, you know, typically when we're thinking about future numbers, you know, nobody thinks that we're going to lose exactly 2,359 students by 2030. You know, there's a range, right? There's some expected range. There's some uncertainty with our models. and you know digging through the state data and then people who use state data um like certain economic groups everybody else seems to indicate in Mesa County that um the decline in birth rates stops in 2023 and everybody else is
074projecting a slight increase. I'm not a demographer. I don't know anything. I was just looking at other people's numbers. So, I'm just wondering kind of what's the potential variability in your ranges and um you know, does everybody think that our birth rates are going to decline at the same rate for the next 10 years? Doesn't doesn't seem to be the case, but I'd just like to understand that. Yeah. And as we're thinking about, well, this problem's going to keep compounding. Um you know, there seems to be a lot of disagreement about that. Um well, I'll try to address some of that. Um I think that um it's hard to predict the birth rate. The way that the uh younger generations are choosing to have families is kind of unprecedented in recent history. Um I have
075gotten the 2022 provisional data from Colorado Department of Public Health and we're down another already. So we're down to 1350 from 1450. So they have released that in provisional form. They haven't recanted their provisional data in the last couple of years. So I think that number is going to be fairly real. Um we have 1650 seniors and 1350 kindergarten kids in the last couple of years. So right there there's 300 children right out the door just as that cycles through. So, I I think that are we going to bottom out? Um, I'm seeing some data that's unsubstantiated from Alaska showing they may be bottoming out. So, I'm trying to look for that bottom because I want to find that bottom. I want this stuff to end. I want to go back to building schools. But,
076I think that um um it's going to be hard to say. And I think given the fact that we've already lost so many children in K through seven, those children are missing. The smaller birth cohorts in ages zero through four have already happened and they're coming to the elementary grade level. Just just to be clear, the births aren't of for five year olds. The births are newborns. So it takes five years for them to get into the system. So we've got K through seven where we're already hurt and then we've got zero through four where we're hurt. So we're looking at five years of decline. Even if we turned around this year, we would still have this five years of decline. And then I'm just trying to figure out why would we turn around and
077grow? And the only thing during my career that I've been able to prove is that enrollment growth is directly correlated to job growth. And until we start getting a bunch of major employers back into the valley and we see an uptick, I'm not real convinced that we're going to see much of a turnaround. Now, other people might choose to argue with me, might see that because of growth in CMU and growth in the medical community businesses here that we have more people who are in their mid20s moving into the valley. Fine. What I'm seeing all over the country is that people in their mid20s instead of having 2.2 children as a family, they're having 1.2 children as a family. And that's going to change the basic set of children that we have to work with.
078And so that's kind of the the one issue that I think is most demographers are seeing now family sizes are smaller than they they have been historically and that is sending a wave through the entire country and through Canada as well with uh families being fundamentally smaller and there being these huge infrastructures for public education that are bigger. than that are based upon the the prior family size. Shannon, we're still not even if we reduce two as recommended so far, even if we let's just say stretched it and went to three, we're still not topping out our stu our our schools. I mean, we're not filling them to the brim to where there isn't any room for at least a reasonable amount of growth that we could expect given what the numbers look like currently.
079Yes, we would have room for growth. and the schools that are in the positions where we would experience the most growth specifically in Fruda and various parts of the Redlands. The attendance areas for the Fruda schools were drawn to pick up the area that is shown in the 2009 Fruta master plan. So I had a big school site master plan that showed seven school sites that we would buy and I think we've already bought two of them. So, we have two school sites up in that area. So, that kind of planning's been done. And then the village plan for Northwest Grand Junction that we worked with um Dave and the staff, the city of Grand Junction to draw, we were looking at school sites up in that area as well. And so, we're in position
080to address growth that would happen in Grand Junction when it spills north of I7 into that greater Appleton area. But as as far as you know ultimately when things turn around will we be able to accommodate? Yes, we will continue to build new schools. But when you ask the question, well was two elementaryaries and a middle enough and how long would that cover us? I was just trying to see if I could come up with a number that would save the majority of the jobs that are at risk tonight. And if we were going to come up with a three-year plan for closing schools, not many districts do that. They tend to take it more on an incremental approach and let things settle out, restabilize, and then look again. If we were going to add
081more to the closure pallet, I think the scoring the scoring that I built was probably pretty fair. Although the the Clifton closure just did not make sense to me for a variety of reasons from a child impact standpoint, the Fruda trifecta seemed to make some sense because it would somewhat address some of the goals of that community even though there would probably be some double portable classrooms here and there in order to accommodate that change. And then we're still looking at a community that I'm looking at this graphic now. I can show you this to you. That's got nine square miles of future development uh set aside. Now, if you want to hand that to me. So, so you know, at any rate, that's that's that's kind of where I was coming from on what
082we identify. If you want to go further, um you know, we could go further in that regard. or if there are other areas you'd like to suggest. I could I don't want to go this far, but I don't want to go further. I was just posing the question. Um, you know, I don't want to kick the can down the road and so you know which slide I'm talking about, Mel, with the sharp decline and yet we're still growing. If you wanted to do that one, Shannon, sorry you could have done that one first, but so that that was really my point being made about that is when I look at the growth you showed with us continuing to hire and Yes. And I mean still growing by 1.571% in 2022 while our student numbers are
083declining almost three and a half% but yet we're still growing one and a half. So the one and a half is a change from 2018. So over that time where we were even right. Yeah. But there's still Yeah. There's still 1 and a.5% growth and a 3 and 12% reduction in students. I would say one of the intricacies of these two is just that this is anyone with a job code of teacher. So it includes special education and it includes title one. So some of those programs might have just staffing needs to why you would still add um even if student enrollment like we see in going 19 to 20 did start to decline. but some of the programmatic needs or some of the staffing choices within title might lend to that. But certainly that
084large gap we've seen ever since then is speaks for itself too. So coming back to that I just this has been brewing for a while. I mean there we we got a lot of comments um in the I think over 230ome emails. Um, we got a lot of comments about you're rushing, it's too fast, you need to take time to really look at the at the information. And I just want to point out that you have been looking at the information from a district point of view. Everybody's been working on this for a really long time. You've been watching it. And this is and this is where we are now. When I see that kind of a difference, I mean, private business could not handle that. they they couldn't they couldn't there's nowhere to absorb
085it. There is no, you know, shuffling of funds and making this work and putting a band-aid on it long enough. That would be that would be a cliff. And so I want to make sure I know that you know you've worked really really hard, the district has worked really hard to get us out of the hole that we were in a few years ago financially and we have some really good safe reserves and I would hate to see that diminish to a point that it could be really terrible very quickly because if we continue on this just gets this gap gets a lot worse. And I think that um there's some other points too. If we're looking at this number of schools versus more schools, that could change some of the processes on the human
086resources side as well where the number of positions affected and in one year even with all the recommendations is still less than the hiring. So that's where we're talking like displacement versus reduction in force. This was a point Nikki brought up today that was a good one of when if you try doing more than that you get to a point where maybe there aren't enough positions for people to land as well. And so I think there's a consideration to the impact of our system as far as just that piece of natural attrition as well too because we are talking about reducing positions right now but hopefully with everyone having a place to land if they choose to. So actually could you could you help me understand? And so if we're reducing positions but guaranteeing everybody
087a job. So two questions. One, where does the savings come from there? But then two, I still really want to understand. So if we have eight FTE total across all of our elementary schools for the next couple of years, um I how does that justify closing an elementary school? Well, I think it's eight for next year, but this slide here, like if you take it out those next two years, it's another 11 and it's another 12. Um, so, right, so it's not just eight like in two more years, it's another it's 30 total, not eight. Is that cumulative? These are each individual year. So, 157 is 10.9 and 173 is 12.1 on top of the 8 and a half. Um, and so I think obviously middle school is and has been the biggest area of
088concern. And so, um, those smaller grades though, I mean, they'll continue to work their way through and those reductions would continue to come. So, it's certainly not the 23 at middle school, but it it's nothing. While it may seem small this year, in just a couple short more years, it's significant as well if it's not addressed. You said in three years 85 positions over the system. Yeah. Over the system because this is another 39 and a half down here and we're already at 45 for next year. And then if I'm understanding correctly with the 85 positions, we still would because of natural attrition whether people move or they retire or whatnot. That's where we're going to be able to absorb if we if we close facilities, we'll be able to guarantee those people jobs because
089of that natural attrition. They're just going to move into positions that would normally stay. Technically, we would still be reducing that 85 positions. We're reducing that overall. So, even if we just look at next year when the number is 45, there's that many fewer positions of staffing FTE. So whether they're two a teacher or two paris or whatever that looks like on the restaffing you still have fewer positions overall but we know every year a lot of folks retire or resign and it's more than that number I think custodial nutrition so some of those um positions that aren't impacted directly through the staffing model those also are positions that we're rarely fully staffed anyways. Yeah. So there are vacancies there um frequently. Can I ask so I'm having a hard time getting all of the
090information on all the different slides straight. So this is for these are projected so there's some error that we don't understand and and right this is part of the art and not just science right of budgeting and projecting. And so in the previous there was another slide where it showed eight and eight for for the next two years. we find that that so the 2223 is 8 and a half and that's based on our October and count and our current staffing um next year it it continues it's close it's 8.3 going into next year so that's eight and a half that we have out in our buildings right now will still be over by nearly that identical amount next year so there's some intricacies in our staffing model and that's why like it's more than
091it's always hard to put it into like a little snippet of there's factoring and so that's dependent on the number of free and reduced lunch percentage of our schools that can add FTE into the model as a factor. There's a small school size factor too. So anytime a small a school is below a certain level at the elementary or middle school there's additional FTE awarded for that. So that's where just there's some intricacies within the staffing model that impact it as well. But Mel, you've been do you've been doing this model for a while now, right? Yeah. How long? I think we've been on it since maybe 14, 15, 13, 14. Um, so how how close do you think you get on your numbers? Historically, how close? I think they're really good. Obviously, we've used
092Shannon for 18 years, right? You've heard that. Um, we use his numbers not just for staffing, but for budget as well. And so an example like this year when we came back to you for readopted budget I think across our whole system we were off like 8ft FTE um from our projected funding to our actual funding and that's even taking into account the averaging component which makes it a little more difficult these days and so I mean certainly things are crazy lately right things are a little less predictable than they used to be um but they've still been pretty spot-on given everything. Well, I guess that's just my point is that um even with a lot of the comments that we've been been getting, I just I don't want there to be this um I
093I guess this doubt with our staff because you guys have been doing this for a really long time and we've been relying on these numbers from you all for a really long time. And so I think we you guys are the experts in this field along with you and Nikki when you guys are looking at these staffing models. And so when I keep seeing that we're down eight FTE this year with elementary and if we don't do anything the next year we're down 16 FTE. I mean I just get the visual of us continuing to dig a hole that then we have to backfill somehow. Well, I'm guessing we're pretty close for the next two years anyway. Well, even beyond middle school is a whole different thing. Well, and where we are with middle school
094right now is where we'll be in two years or is with elementaryaries if we don't. Mhm. Yeah. Right. Exactly. And I can't imagine taking six like we have some middle schools set right now, right? That they're they're looking to have to cut somewhere around six FTE. So that could be I mean I don't even know how you would take four or five six teachers out of a building or you lose two, three, four pair of professionals. And I think the Can I just ask a I'm sorry Carrie, you actually had another question. So I'll wait for my list of questions until you're done. Okay. Well, just to follow up on that. So I'm just So okay. So if we add all those together over the next four years, it's 8 8 10 and 12 or
095something like that based on these population projections that maybe others would not have the same estimates. And I I still am not sure that I understand or I don't understand what the possible range is. Again, nobody I know that you're not arguing that we're going to lose exactly this number of students. Like I know that you have some understanding of what that range might be and I have no understanding of what that range might be. So how much possible error is there? But regardless, let's say that this bears out that we lose so in in the elementary schools, let's say that we lose 38 FTE over the next four years. That's just trying to add up what I believe you have on your slides. So over 26 schools, you know, that's one at each school
096and a little bit more, you know, one at most schools and two at a couple. And I'm just trying to understand, do do our elementary schools feel that that losing one FTE or maybe one and a half FTE or maybe two FTE in the next few years is is that dire? So within that number, right, the eight and a half, um, most of our elementary schools for next year, that's already a net number. So most are down one to two. There are some that have a little bit of growth in a grade. And so they if we were implementing the model as we have in years past to like full implementation, we would actually give out one or two FTE here and there as well. So that 8 FTE is net. So um I don't
097want to minimize the one or two FTE. um even especially if it's three or four bodies, adult bodies out of an elementary isn't significant. um because I think it still is and that would be for this next year and the next year and the next year like each each year is another eight and 10 and 12 and so that's where and rather than one or two maybe it's three to six over a threeyear span from a school and I think just in that example where I was trying to walk through like the difficult decisions when you get down into two roundsiz schools is you don't have the flexibility you either end up with two large two large classrooms or or two large classrooms or three small classrooms. And if you don't have the ability to
098have that third small classroom, they're all going to be two large classrooms across our district. And that that's one of the things that we had some conversation about this week that I just want to say publicly is there was that fear that well we're going to cram just tons of too many kids into the surrounding schools and they would be that would cause the class sizes to become larger. when in actuality because of the way the staffing model works we're potentially looking at slightly smaller classes instead of larger right and that's where there's a little bit of the it comes down to how a school chooses to use that FTE right if they're using it for classroom supports like paras versus an additional teacher so an additional teacher obviously impacts the average classroom size paras
099don't even though they still provide support um counselors don't but they still provide provide needed support. And so that's a little bit of it like an interventionist or you add an extra specials like it's still enriching the overall building no matter how they choose to implement it. That's also where we see variations is that that's been our philosophy is that our school should have some choice in their staffing too rather than us just saying you will have this next year. Um which is the way that some models work. And so overall, by more properly staffing a little bit fewer fewer schools, we end up with better programming, smaller class sizes, and more resources in those schools. Yeah, possibly. I mean, depending on how the individual school decides to spend their FD. Can I just really
100quickly can I just ask for an answer? how what is the range that we expect in these projections and how you said other people would argue with you. What would they argue? I think we all need to understand what we're looking at as we look out at these projections. Well, regarding a range, um I mean these this is not these are not conservative numbers. So, um I I tend to wait until the absolute last moment before I believe that Grand Junction is going to decline the way that I see it declining. So, um as far as a range goes, what other people are saying is that um the young people that are in town now are going to reproduce at the rate that they did 15 years ago based upon standard uh survival forecasting. That
101was true back then when people had families at that rate and it's just not what's happening anywhere in the country right now. There are 50 other districts that I know of right now that are having the conversation you're having tonight sometime this spring because they're dealing with this problem. As far as the range goes, I think it could be instead of losing what am I saying 3,000 over an 8year period? 2359 59 going forward. How many? 359 forward 2400. I could say it could range as high as 3500 and maybe as low as 2,000, but I would say we're going to lose those kids just because of what's built into the K7 loss bars that you saw up there and what's built into the loss that we've had in births. If we look at the
102standard correlation of our birth rate to kindergarten based upon the number that CDPHE just released at the end of January, I mean, I'm looking at us possibly going to just having a thousand kids per grade level. If all of that happens and we stay as static as we have been, but the difference between those bars, that loss has already happened and it's headed toward the high school grades and then those kindergarteners are five years old. So if if I were to show you the the birth graphic is very much a diagonal line downward that represents that 0 to four continum. That's not good news as far as what we're going to get in the way of kindergarteners. And so if there's some phenomenon that's going to happen where a lot of population comes here, it's
103either going to have to be a change in fertility of existing residents or a massive influx of young people with families. And right now what we're seeing is a massive outflow of young people with families from the state of Colorado because of housing cost and a variety of other factors. and one of those two things would have to happen. And I just I just I don't I I I'm I'm having a hard time imagining what that would be. So, let me let me just I'm trying to understand it. So, you're saying that other people would argue that the birth rate is going to be higher than you think it's going to be. Yeah. They would they would say that it's going to bottom out this year and it's going to turn around and it's going
104to go the other way. And I'm sitting here saying, "Prove it because that's not the trajectory of the line." I mean, let me show you the line. Um, I'll show you what has happened to us. I guess my other point here, though, is that other people what, you know, it's it's hard to be sitting here trying to say, okay, well, in 2030, this is what it's going to be, and so we're, you know, we're going to be decreasing until then. And then when we're trying to understand how precise that is the answer is that you know it's it's of course I know that we're talking about projections but but we haven't looked at that and instead of having instead of knowing what that answer is I know that you just threw out some numbers that
105you think might be true and I appreciate you trying to answer the spirit of my question but the point is we haven't done that work and explored those really based on what other folks think and I'm sure that there's reasons to have professional disagreements with them, but as we're trying to, you know, keep kids in their home schools that it really matters to me what that might be because it is just an estimate. Can I throw in just that event would have to be what would that event be that would turn all this around? I don't know. I'm not a demographer. I'm just saying that, you know, the state data show that it's turning around this year. People who use the state data have have agre like the lead school of business has this big
106economic forecast and um they also point to those data and so you know I'm just asking the question of I I don't know what that would be. That's not my job. My point is other folks think it might happen and so I'm just trying to understand in you know that the two options are that we're just going to keep decreasing you know and lose thousands more kids or we won't and so like what is the range in there and how do we think about it? My answer is that even if we don't, if we flatline at that 1387 that's shown right there and we hold there, we're still going to lose 2,000 kids just because of the difference between the 1,600 that were born in 2017 and the 1387 that were born in 2022. That's
107going to be the magnitude of loss of our incoming K. And then that's going to survive forward into those grades like those other missing bars in that six-year observation there. That's going to survive on in. So even if everything turned around, we would still be in about a 2000 student loss situation for the next 5 to eight years. If everything turned around and we went back to that 2000 and it was the summer of love or something like I don't know. I don't know what that event would be. I just don't. I mean, I've I've got folks saying that you've got these young people here. They're all going to reproduce like like you folks did when you had your children, you know, 20 years ago. And I'm going, that's not the societal trajectory right now.
108The societal trajectory is towards smaller families in all sectors of American life. Uh uh and and that's why I tend to argue with people that are looking at a formula and saying, "I've got young peop. I've got young adults. I've got kids." And that I just don't think that's true anymore. And I I think you've got young adults. You need to think about ask those young people what they plan to do. And when I interview young adults over and over again, I'm seeing a higher percentage of people who do not plan to have families. and you look at any of the national research that are looking at American family behavior in any u spiritual connotation, anything you look at, they're looking at smaller families are what we should be expecting. Now again, if there's some
109economist out there that says all of this is going to bottom out and turn around and ascend, um, okay, I I you know, I don't I don't know how to how do you argue with that? I mean I mean to me as a demographer that's like water running uphill and I just I just I just don't know what that would be. What would that be? I don't know. So because of where we're looking back to 2017, those are the that's the the stream of new kids coming into elementary schools and then on up. But because it's been on the decline, that that is how many kids that's how many new births we've had for sure. That's the number, right? That that is that is the number. So with that lower number of kids coming into
110the system, that's really where you're getting this number. Yeah. I mean, and this this is not calculus. I mean, it's not anything other than arithmetic. I mean, I'm looking at a correlation here of about 0.88 on average every year. And if I have 1387 births, I'm looking at 1,218 kindergarteners based upon that kind of a number. So, you know, if you say, okay, that's if I'm kind and I say we're going to go to maybe losing 54 a year, I'm still looking at K going down. Unless that stops tomorrow and those family sizes start going back up and we start having a lot more babies or people moving in who have young children and all of that changes overnight and goes back up. Even if it changes overnight and goes back up, we have to
111wait five years to get back the fertility that we've lost and then that fertility is in that cohort system, right? It's coming in just one year at a time. So am I I don't know that I'm explaining this. Well, I mean the the short term of it is based off of the children that we know are alive today that are feeding in, we can at least project what's going to happen for the five years. So the question for us is are we able to sustain where we're at right now for the next 5 years without continuing to dig ourselves into a hole? Because if we're at 3.1 million this year and if we then sustain for four million next year, we're then at seven million and then by year three, I don't even know what
112we would be at. Five, six million. So then we're at 13 million. I mean, it just continues to compound. I mean, I think if that if you took off the table like what we're trying to anticipate children that will still be born, we're we're at least looking at an immediate five years of knowing what what what kids are in, you know, may be feeding into the system. Is that is that correct? At least from what we know number-wise right now from children that were born in 2017 and prior that will then be feeding into our schools. Yep. And that's what our forecast is. So, I have a question. Um, if we delay, Melanie, you said that we would have to utilize ESER funds to keep the building or to utilize ESER funds for that. Correct?
113We could. Okay. So, what what would we be taking away from those ESSER dollars? Like what are those ESSER dollars used for right now? Right. So, to be clear, like the what amount we moved to ESRE this year was just for this year. So, we would have to already refund that 1.7 plus any increases and benefits or rates um for next year plus the additional. So, I mean, we're funding things like our staff for our online program out of there because that's absolutely related to CO, right? It started when um we all went remote. We're funding our summer school for this summer and next summer out of it. That's at a cost close to a million dollars a year. 800 to a million somewhere in that range. I mean, these are the big dollar amounts
114in ESSER. Um there's staff positions um related to COVID um lost learning recovery all of those types of things. Um I don't think there's an easy place to take it from. The other piece of that is that we do have to have 20% of our overall spending in a set aside which is just to address address loss learning. Like that part we would be hardressed to push any of this into that especially. And so we're really looking at just 80% of our remaining ESSER budget in order to fill that gap, but it would be at some of the the cost potentially of those other programs that were running. So we we would have to make a decision between spending dollars on loss of learning and keeping summer school open. Some of those options, right? I
115mean, this is what we're what it's boiling down to. for a school consolidation if we use ESSER. So ESSER is a one-year fix, right? We know it ends after next school year. So that's a place that we could look to just because it is temporary. So yes, it would be at the expense of those things. The other thing is if we do end up getting some money from the state next year, it could be off the top of that. The risk there is we don't get any new money from the state or we don't get very much, right? It's super early. nothing's been presented other than a governor's recommendation at this point. So if that doesn't happen, then we've backed ourselves into a place where we're having to reduce something else from the general fund
116in in lie of using ESSER or having new money. And so I think that it's really easy for us to fall back into that place where we've always landed in the past of having to be reactionary as these things pile up. So, the good news is, and I don't know if I'm just going on a rant at this point, um, but is that you guys do have viable options in front of you to address it. Like, we aren't at that critical point where we can't be strategic about it. Um, but certainly the longer a decision is delayed, the more significant that overage of FTE is and the harder it is to address um, from a real planned and thoughtful place. So, um, okay, thank you for that because I kind what I want to understand
117as the board makes a decision is there's always going to be some kind of opportunity cost. You're either providing an opportunity or you take one away and that's just how budgets work. This would also tie our hands. Let's just say we got that money from the state. We would not be able to increase our teacher base pay. It would take away from any resources for it. Yeah. depending well I mean we either fund buildings or we pay teachers right well and I don't want to I do so I think it would well maybe I shouldn't be finance it so we there may be a potential to do some still incre increase for teachers but it wouldn't necessarily be as much as we could have done so like the last two years we've been able to
118do a 10% and an 8% I think uh correct so maybe you're not able to do as much it would be a much smaller amount um so we we wouldn't know until we get the final numbers from the state so that's that's the impact effect. Yeah. I think the other thing that comes off the top of that too is if we know Esther is going away after next school year too. And so anything that we want to try to keep like a summer school or some of those positions like our online program, some of those things that are in ESSER right now that have been working, if we want to keep any of those, it would be prudent to start putting that into some type of reserver holding that back as well. Um, so I
119think there's a lot of considerations across the needs that we have as a system, not just in the the school staffing, which certainly is big, but there's some other areas too. Well, I guess when I kind of look at what and again, nobody wants to close schools and I I mean, I have I know all of us have laid awake at night and we're trying to figure out what the best solutions here and this is certainly not where any of us ever want to be to make a decision. What I find really difficult and and I'll just share my heart on this is do we take away from everybody by trying to increase teacher pay at some point to just try to keep a few buildings open and I get it. I understand the communities
120and I'm just stating this because these are the real thoughts that we have to have when we're making these higher level decisions. It's not easy. I mean, I think Shannon, last time you talked about pruning, you know, kind of, you know, um, do you let do you let the whole system wither and and then not pruned? I mean, that's what that's what you have to do in order to make a system strong. And even if in five years we rebounded, um, there's schools we have right now that in five years we would have to scrape and replace and make bigger and better anyways. So, I think there's there's planning that goes into that if there is a big rebound. But I'm just and I and I'm just kind of speaking and thinking out loud that
121these are the options that we're going to have to look at from a board standpoint of I would really one of my big things is I've wanted to get our teacher base pay up so we can attract and retain our teachers because then if our base pay is up that means all of our teachers from there on up also get you know benefit from that. And if we So anyways, I just um it's hard. I feel I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. And then I really worry about middle schools right now because we are really in the hole on middle schools. And I've talked to a couple different middle schools this week. Um and I don't know, I don't know if there's somebody here that could explain the junior high model
122versus the block model because I think there were some benefits. um we've had to move to a junior high model with our element or excuse me our middle schools versus the core sorry not the block but the core schedule and if we keep diminishing we're going to have to keep on the junior high model which and correct me if I'm wrong but in my basis of understanding the core model seems to support our middle school students better in their learning versus the junior high model so I don't know if yeah I don't know Dan or somebody could um speak to that because there's all these multiaceted pieces that go into it and then we move over here. All right. I guess sorry the board is asking for a five minute break. So sorry that you
123just just got up. We need a break and then Dr. Hill, I would like for a followup on I know we're getting a lot of questions on process and so um I feel like we've been through a process and then I I'll just I'll come back to you on that one, but I just want you to think about that for a second. So, we'll take five minutes. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Okay, we'll go ahead and get started again here. Yeah, I mean that makes that makes sense, but I just it's also never been I mean I know I know you've been waiting for a question. So, all right. So yeah, if you guys could elaborate on just in kind of the last week or two, having visited a handful of elementary schools and
124some of our middle schools and talking with our middle school principles and staff, um my understanding is that we've had this there's a junior high model and then there's a a core model. And so could you tell us kind of what those are and and the pros and cons and because it sounds like a lot of our middle schools have move had to move back to a junior high model if you guys could. Yeah. So I'll I'll start first. I was um a middle school principal um out at Grand Mesa and we definitely had that core model meaning I had two rounds or two cores. Each core consisted of the four core contents the English, the math, the science and the social studies. And each core really was their own um their own little world,
125their own little environment. So in the six in each grade, sixth, seven, and eight, I had two different cores. They stayed with their same teachers. They stayed with their same peers most all the day um all day except for the times when they went to exploratories. So the two cores, the two sixth grade cores went to exploratories at the same time. Um but during their core content those four con four four contents they were only with the same four teachers and the same um the same peers most all their they ate their lunch together they went outside and they really became a community. Um Graham Mesa in particular we I had at least 100 or 120 um students 120 was high for each core. So um definitely over 600. I think when I was the
126assistant principal at Gram Mesa, I was close to over 700 in um in Gram Mesa. When you have those bigger schools, that's what the core does. It helps provide that smaller space. However, due to enrollment, cores don't everybody has decor and um Dan can share exactly what that looks like now and how the middle schools have had to adapt. So I think the point that Jennifer makes there is in a core you have um you have a group of teachers who um each have their own content. They stay at that grade level content so they work within those standards for that particular grade level. What we've seen in the last three years as we have taken more and more staff out of the middle schools is um some master schedule challenges when it comes to
127being able to stay in a core situation where we just have an ELA, math, science, and social studies teacher on a core. Um we have in at least four of the eight middle schools currently right now, we do have more junior high type master schedules. And I'll just describe that. That would be a situation in which you would have a teacher who is highly qualified grade 68, but instead of just staying in sixth grade ELA, that teacher may be teaching sixth grade ELA, seventh grade ELA, and eighth grade. So it pulls the community core piece apart because now they've got multiple grade levels basically during passing period coming in and out of a lo a location that was specifically set up as a core the core model in district 51. I've been here for 27
128years started in the middle school. It's been around for at least that long and it has been a philosophy when it comes to teacher collaboration and it when it comes to just the kids in a community um being able to get to know each other as Jennifer mentioned. So we've got a lot of middle schools started out with two cores at each grade level. Some of our larger ones and then we've got some of our middle schools that just have you know a one core grade level. Those, like I said, have have had some sharp declines in the last three years as we've um, you know, had to remove the FTE in those schools. So, last year we had a significant number of FTEEs that that had to come out of middle school and many
129of our principles went ahead and and got real creative with their schedules and and were able to align themselves more to a junior high model, which that is not easy on teachers. I'll just say that right now. for for teachers who have stayed and elementary folks can attest to this. If you've you've been in a grade level for a long time teaching the same standards um at at that grade level for a while, you become really comfortable with it. Um to go in and ask teachers to now either learn three sets of standards now at multiple grade levels or we have situations now where we have some teachers teaching multiple content. So there's the other piece of what you would see in a junior high model where we may have some of our teachers teaching
130sixth grade ELA, they may be teaching seventh grade social studies, we may have some math people teaching science. And so um it's a testament to to many of our principles to really sit down with their staff and come up with the best way to to try to serve our kids outside of a coring situation. So we're we're there now. um we knew going into this year we we were not able to um take everything out that was needed last year and so we're kind of at that point when you saw the data up on the screen at 23 FTE um we're at a a point as directors as HR and Melanie and our budget where it it's now time if something doesn't happen to to sit down with eight principles and really problem solve and
131come up with possible answers that we just do not know how we're going to be able to do it. So, um it's not something we've been looking forward to and it's obviously been it's been a trend over the last three years. Um I would say 5 years ago when the four of us um stepped into these roles, we were still at 22,000 students and we were um we were just shuffling kids from different parts in our valley, right? But now instead of just shuffling 22,000 students, we have a loss of of students. So, we've had to really make some pretty serious adjustments to to what we do staffing wise. Yeah. Do you have a question? Well, I have a couple that Okay. or you want to Well, I just So, I think well that my
132one follow-up question was do our educators like the model they're in right now and I'm I'm guessing not because they're um teaching multiple contents or multiple grades which then if we talk about the strategic plan in trying to really focus in on the standards and correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds like if we can get uber focused on let's say sixth grade ELA and knowing exactly what the standards are that we'd probably see or we'd anticipate greater outcomes because those teachers are being hyperfocused in the content. Is that would that be a good assumption to make or not? It is. And the other thing is it's trying to find a teacher who's highly qualified in in both in English and social studies. So it's not even that they have to teach sometimes this
133English six, seven, and eight. They may have to do English six and seventh social studies. And so it's trying to find a teacher that isn't is even highly qualified in both of those contents. So we're spreading we're spreading them kind of thin because we have to um I mean we just have to ask them to do more. So for instance I spoke with the um school board president in Jeffco because you know they closed 13 elementary schools 16 excuse me. Yes. Um, and now they're looking at their secondary schools. And so obviously we all saw Jeffco in the paper and saw all the things and I was like asking them what what did you learn like what not to do, you know, and I don't know that anybody has been able to approach this subject
134and anybody's gotten it perfectly right um on school consolidations. She said that they had an elementary school that they did try to keep open, I think only with about a hundred students in it. And she said the principal had to also teach plus help out at lunch and do some other things and they had no librarians, no math PE or I mean uh music PE and um I mean it became even though the school was small and then they were spending like two or three times the PPR. So, let's just say the PPR was 10,000 per student, which I don't know what it is for Jeffco, but she said they were spending nearly twice as much at that school, um, you know, funding it, which is kind of what we're talking about, to just keep
135the smaller school open. And then those students weren't getting any of those resources. So, I mean, is that that's what the reality of it is, right? Is that what we see is I know small schools sound great, but I think what we're I think the point that Director Leman was making is that if the school itself is larger, we can really diminish class size. And I think that our educators, at least from what we have gotten public comment, is a classroom is more manageable when you have actually less kids in there. Um, and you can do more when you don't have so many little ones that you've got to shuffle or even middle schoolers, I guess, bigger ones that you got to try to to work with. Is are those Am I tracking right with
136with kind of that thinking and what I've been hearing? Yes, absolutely. And now we have to make some hard decisions at the middle school level because as you saw the middle school number that we need that we're overstaffed based the FTE based on enrollment FTE that's four to six. Where do our middle schools cut? I mean how are we going to choose content teachers? So our content teachers have to teach more or different contents. Are we going to choose our elective teachers? Are we going to ensure that it's it's the staffing model depend you know the principal can then decide is it um an aid although that we don't have very many or if any aids at that middle school level. So where where where do those cuts come from and what's left after those
137cuts are done and how large are your class sizes at that point and how underutilized right are our middle schools gear questions I'm I'm good on my followup I'll I have some other ones for Shannon and Dr. Hill later. Um, first off, um, there's a there's a number of things these are not there's some questions in here and there's just some comments for, you know, that I've thought about maybe to pose them to you guys is is I think root in a lot of this are are a lot of assumptions we're making are going to happen and they may or may not, but I think we have to be grounded that there there are some assumptions and projections and everything that may or may not happen. One benefit about being an old thing like me
138is that I've been around enough in our district since 1980 and through that time I've been through series of we're going to we have to cut this and have to cut that and this is going to happen and and you know I I found that over time they're never as dire as they're pro um brought out to be and sometimes they're ne they're not as good as maybe people think they're going to be you know so so there's it's that sense of panic Um, I I I think we could step back a bit sometimes and not not project the worst. It's always good to plan for that, but it doesn't mean it's going to happen either and to be prepared for that. And and just some other things here um about the middle school and
139I and I threw this scenario out to Melanie. I don't know if she's thought about it since. Um, you know, I I I'm what I'm thinking is, and I may have this all wrong, and this is more a male question, but if we're looking at this 3 point something million dollars this year and four something next year is going to let's let's say part of that is to our middle schools as an example to help under to help subsidize the cost of running those schools. Is that fair to say? So my question was if I'm a middle school principal or middle school community or an elementary for that fact and you went to me and said you're losing x number of fes personnel can you still get the job done can you still have a
140high performing school can you meet these criteria that we've set out and if if they believe they can and they have the commitment they can then if there's a side says why not let them if not at a minimum let them go for for it or at least lay out on a on a table say here's how we're going to do this. We've thought about it. It's really at the grassroots of the decision- making, the community, the staff, the parents that that make up that school. Could they do it? And then I think the response was, well, I'm paraphrasing, is well, they're always going to say they can do it, right? So my question is a why would they always say they could do it? If it's that dire and it's that strenuous and it's
141that taxing on everybody, why would they why would they want to continue? If I'm in a boat that's sinking, has holes all over, I I may wave the flag up to get the Coast Guard helicopter to rescue me. And I don't see that happening. I don't see and maybe they are and we're not privy to that. We don't we don't visit with principles and staff to see how they believe they can make it work, right? So sometimes it feels like big brother telling them what they can and cannot do and not leaving up to the real autonomy. So when you talk about models and we talked about the middle the core model or the junior high model implied in that is there's a cost associated with those models. So my question is are we trying
142to make the dollars fit into the model or should the model we use fit into what we have to spend? Right? And if we can do it, and I suspect there are places that say we can do it, and there's other places that may not depending on leadership and staff quality and everything else, it it it may be something to consider. That's all I'm getting at. I I think I want to ask Mel, but I don't think that the models are associated with costs. The models are associated with the number of students. You can't have a s you can't have a core model if you don't have enough students to but the students drive the cost if if you if you have x number of student that's what we've been hearing from some of these
143middle schools great we'll take those students and we can re-implement the model so what I'm saying is yes I I get it the more students but implied in that is I have more students I get more FTEES I can make that model work and and I so this this is more a thought thing where I'm coming at and I have a few more so let me ramble here Um so that that was one question and not specific to middle schools but even uh Dr. Schultz was bringing up you know the the the projected loss of FTEES over time which may or may not happen and I'm convinced of that that may or may not happen. Um but let's assume they do then again do you go just because they're here right and they've been act
144if you go to a school like Orchard Avenue or LOM or whatever the school may be and you ask them say we've got to make these cuts so your your staff like everybody else and and these are the dollars we have I would venture to say they'd probably say we can do it we can plan it. you can do it. And if they don't, they're going to tell you because we we put out or I was listening to and I wrote this down. This is bleak, right? And I'm thinking if that's that bleak and these middle school people are thinking it's that bleak, they're going to be they're going to be coming to us begging that we do something because they can't make it work anymore. Well, they have. We've heard we've gotten emails from
145two this week that said we're in dire need. Great. I mean, yeah, there's two middle schools, not east, but two that have actually emailed the board. Then then then my that's to my point exactly is is let's listen to them what they're saying at the grassroots level, what they can and cannot do that that there are guidelines and and and expectations that need to be met before we come down. So that that's one thing and and and the other couple things is um you know we talk one thing we haven't talked about for some time are what do we value as a system I know when we were looking at the long range planning committee one of the questions that came up and we had community members business leaders staff everybody in this room and
146we talked about what do we value in high schools do we value the mega schools right 000 plus students or do we want the Palisad uh size high schools and unanimously it came out we want the smaller high schools. There was a value that was established by the community and we haven't recently asked that again. And if if if if the value is okay and I'm saying ifs that we value small schools right we know that is associated with a cost then you can go to the community and say okay this is what it's going to cost this is how we can make it work and if we value something different then we make that happen but it's a discussion we haven't had um and maybe need to have before we go ahead and make
147decisions and and that gets I probably have more points but I'll make this last one is you know the concept of decision making you know we hear often in many cir you know families here wherever about tough decisions and I've really thought about that and that you know there are a lot of things that are tough decisions but we want to be grounded when we make those decisions that they're not ill-informed decisions that they're not hasty decisions that they're not um dumb decisions right that that we've really thought them out because anybody can make a tough decision. It's making the right decision and the best decision based on all the information we can get and and then go ahead and and please don't hear me say I I get it. We may have to cut
148three schools, may have to cut 10 schools. I understand that. But I because it's so significant. I I I I want to I I think that extra wealth of knowledge and and clear u decisive expert thinking will help us to do that. And um and it's not minimizing what Melanie has said. I know the top-notch program and and Shannon, it's just uh I know our board to to the credit has been out to schools visiting, talking to them, reading all the emails and stuff. And I think all that does for me is say we have a lot to to to disseminate. But to Dr. Hill's point, we can't drag this out forever either. All right. There comes a point you got to make a decision. And I and I appreciate that. I think it gets
149back to the question you asked before the break around, you know, process. Um, and that's something that obviously we've all been thinking about. I I think there's there's two pieces to that question. there's process of what we've been trying to do internally over the last few years to try to um soften the blow for a lack of a better term. And so there's a lot of work that's gone into trying to find ways to um find other funding sources to make reductions in other areas. Um we you you can see from the models that were up there, we didn't take the full FT out of middle school when we should have and so that process to your question has been going on internally. um for years to try to figure out how to not cut
150so deep at the schools that they can't function, they can't offer, you know, programs that we want to be able to offer. So, I think that's that's the first piece. I think the this the second part of that is where we find ourselves today. And um and I've already mentioned at the beginning of this meeting and I've mentioned other times like more time would be great, right? Like we'd always would say we'd want more time and so, you know, I can't change what did or didn't happen in the past. Um, it would have been great if the um level of um I don't even know if to say urgency, but just the the more detailed level of raising the concerns around what we're dealing with. I wish that had been brought up in years past
151at a at a bigger level at board meetings. We could have had more time to bring the community along in this. Um, but you know, that that did not happen. So, we've been working internally to try to figure out um how to fix this. I don't want to speak for Mel, but I know Mel's been on us every year of saying like we got to do something here and then every time we're like, well, we'll find some money here. We'll try to we'll use ESSER funding to soften that blow. So, I I think for that process for the general community, I can understand where somebody would say this feels really fast. Um, this feels like we weren't brought along in it um because of the timing of when we received the, like I said, the
152latest data to when we were trying to get information to the board if a decision were to be made for next school year. So, I totally can understand that and I can see where somebody would be coming um to say this is too fast and if the board doesn't feel like they have the information they need to make the decision, that's a to me that's a concern as well. Um and so more time to be able to do those things would be great. I just think we need to have that honest conversation of that if we're going to do that then we've got to we've got to go back and figure out where we're going to find that funding to provide more of that time if that makes sense. Um or we're going to do
153what we said from those options of we're going to need to go in and make those cuts at the schools and then yeah, we could the principles will have to tell us if they can make it work because they haven't really felt that cut yet. They we've we've held off from the 20 or so positions that we should have cut by using those other funding sources. So I don't I don't know that they've actually I don't know they can speak right now to what that feels like at their campus because they haven't had that chance. That's the point I'm bring if we had the two they came here and then the decisions it's a moot point at that point you know the the people in the trenches are making say this is what we need
154to be more effective right and and that's something we haven't heard I haven't I mean we have through emails but not through a process of really vetting out where we are I think it's really so it's hard to come to these meetings it's hard for staff to sit here and then and say I I mean anybody who comes to present to the board. And I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not disagreeing. I'm not arguing with you, but I'm just saying that we've we've received emails at least from no from two middle school principles that have said we are going to be in a real pinch next year if something doesn't shift. They like they do not know. And then we've I've conversed with them to say, you know, how I mean, how dire is
155it for you? I mean, they do not know where they're going to find those people and I'm more than happy to forward those emails on to you. I think Dr. Hill, what you just also expressed was the second part of my of the process is I know we've had a lot of people ask, well, why is closing schools or consolidating schools your guys' first option? Well, obviously it's not. You guys have been trying to figure out from the inside how to stop it, right? How to how to change it. But now we're seeing where the staffing model is is moving towards and we have been trying to stop it by throwing more money at it. Um and so I just think that that answers one question where this wasn't the first option. I mean I'm
156h I'm really hardressed to say and I agree with Melanie in her presentation that that anything I think we come up with is only a band-aid. I mean, unless Doug, to your point, we decide to put some kind of mill levy on the ballot this fall, but then we're gambling at that point on that the whole community, the entire Mesa County is going to get on board when I could I can hear the same Well, I'm going to hear another part of our community say, "Well, if you guys can make the cuts and figure out where you need to do it, then why would I approve a mill levy?" And so I just I think that's a a bit of a gamble. I mean, we can only deal with what we kind of know. I
157mean, we don't know if we're going to get money from the state. We don't know that till May. We can't wait till May to make a decision because we don't know if we'll have it. What we do know is we have er funds. And so if we did have to do something, we know that those would be the funds we'd have to utilize. Um it's going to pull from from other purposes. Pull from other other things. I think the other um so two other things. I'm just going to I I want to put questions out there is we've had a lot of people ask about performance and are we considering a school's performance level in our metrics and why or why not and I don't know I mean based off of um looking at other
158schools um districts who are doing school consolidation and I don't know whether Shannon needs to answer this or if you all know is I don't see the school performance metric when they are consolidating schools. and and maybe I've I've just missed it in some places. So that's one question I have is are we going to consider um performance level and if you know if we do why if we don't why and then I know the programming like the challenge program um if that were to to move what are some of the thoughts around transportation because I know that that's a real concern um for families who use the challenge program. I also was surprised today to hear when we heard about the challenge program is that they actually do not get kids from the east
159end of town in the challenge program because those kids can't get to East. So, I mean, I just hope our community sees that this conversation goes both ways. We have kids from Clifton and Nley and Fruitale that can't get to East because of the challenge program. I understand that if the challenge program moves to a different middle school that those families are also saying, you know, we can't get there. So, from a district level, I'm saying, what can we do with transportation in both of those instances? What can we do to help make that program more accessible to our students no matter where it is? And then looking at the neurodeiversity cottage, I don't even know why that would have to move. It's a completely self-contained program in its building. And so, staff, if you
160can answer any of those questions or anything, those are some Wait, can I jump in really quickly? So, first of all, I think that those are excellent questions. I think that that that level of questions points to the um the work that we can and need to do on this process. Now, um a few things, one in terms of back best practices for closing schools, there's tons of guidance documents about how to pursue that. And all of them, all of them start with shared community values to understand what metrics you do include. So whether or not certain schools include performance, I'm sure some do and I'm sure some don't, but that is a choice that the community b makes based on our values, based on what we how we want to pursue this. Um, a
161a quick side note there is that I think that that again really speaks to where we're at in the process. I think that for me this has been so informative. I feel like I understand this at a much better level than I did before. Um and I think that for me I am understanding how this process could work successfully in terms of everybody getting on the same page about what criteria we're comparing, what our metrics are, what our measurements are, and how to move forward from there. Um and and so I I think that we have a good starting point to do that. I think that it I'm just going to speak for me, but I feel that it is obvious that we have to do something. So for me, that means putting a system
162in place where we can do something that is driven by our shared values and a shared process that everybody has enough time to understand and work on. Um, and in terms of how would we get through, you know, the next year, I I I really struggle wrapping my head around. So, you know, we for the middle schools, they knew that they had to cut another 17 FTE this year. And so, you know, that was the plan the the whole time. That's never not been the plan. That was the plan. And so I know that asking them to carry on the plan that they were asked to start two years ago um sounds like a big ask, but I I'm I'm confused about how if it was such a big ask at that point why people
163weren't like, "Well, we cannot do this. This cannot work at that point." So now that we're in this situation, I think it's really easy. I think I would be compelled if somebody was like, "Okay, we're going to close your school." I think it'd be easy to be like, "Yes, please close his school." because it's too big of a cut for for me if we don't close his school. But um but that's an that's an easy statement to make. You know, we weren't getting those emails before we were like, "Okay, we're closing that school." We got those emails after saying like, "Yes, that's a great idea to close that other person's school." So I think that we need to, you know, really interrogate what are what is our biggest goal here and it's to support students,
164support our staff and develop trust with our community. And I think that we could start a process now that does that works on all of those things. And I understand that if we took that path that this year would be rough and maybe even a little bit imprudent from like a raw financial perspective, but from a community trust building perspective and from a like making sure that we are grounded in making the best decisions for the community, I think that we just have to do it. And again, I think that all these questions about like, well, how how could we incorporate this into a process, you know, what would that look like? Is anybody else doing that? I think that those are perfect questions that we can ask and answer together, and I think it's
165a great time to do that. So, what would happen? I mean, I I know we had conversations with the middle school today and and so what would happen if we were to close the middle school and leave the elementary schools alone and still research what we have to do for further. I mean, I know it could be a possibility. I'm not saying we don't want to close any schools, but if we and that does look like the biggest, but if we if we go through saying if we go through saying that we're going to research this and research this, these schools could still be there tomorrow. They could be there next week, could be there next year, or none of them could be there. It could be add more to it. But I mean, no
166matter who is on that list, we're still going to have people in this room saying, "Don't close our schools." But I mean, I know we're at some point we're gonna have to get there. But so what would happen if we just close the middle school down for this year and then go research for further? Are we can I guess or is that a possibility? No, I I just want to clarify your question. You're saying um just so I understand it move forward with the middle school and then and then assess what to do with the elementary schools. Okay. I just I just you said not do the elementary schools. I No, I just wanted to make sure. So with the middle school question, are we including the Frto reconfiguration with that? Yes. So if we
167attacked the middle school issue, which would be right now according to the recommendation would be to consolidate east and also do the reconfiguration out in Fruda. Mhm. So I think that's was kind of the purpose of having that slide in there that had the different costs by level and whether it was impact because of consolidation or whether it was a school not impacted by the consolidations. So that's information that when I was going through this right is like any combination of these options maybe something works. So the other thing that you had on that slide was then also cleaning up the extra FTE across the system. So with if there's some in high school, there's some in elementary, those would I would suggest that we make those as well. I like the idea of really
168I mean if we need to take a little more time with with the process for the rest of it, I would be good. But it's past inaction to some degree that's led us to this point and at some point we got to make a calculated risk. I mean because the money does run out and it could be we could end up in a really dire situation. Um just for an example, Denver public schools few years back they were looking at closing 10 schools. There was public outcry and there were no don't close any of our schools. So they said well we'll do five. Well it ended up being they kicked the can down the road. We're not going to close any schools. Everybody settle down and go home. Now they're having to close 15 or
16916. They'd have I mean it's right now 16 schools, which is that's rough. So I you know I I understand I would be for taking some time possibly with the elementary schools but I'm I'm definitely in agreeance will that that that middle school piece is we're at a dire place right now. Well, and I think the only reason we've received the emails from those principles, and by no means did they say in their emails like, "Yeah, please close that school." Because they all preface it by, "This is not an easy decision, and nobody wants to have this happen." I think it's because it's been a new option that's been put on the table. Is I think they all have been racking their brains for the last few years on how they're going to cut that
170FTE. And so if there's now there's just a different option or solution presented. And so I don't want to I I'm not I don't want to make it sound like they are fine with any of the other schools um closing because that was certainly not what was conveyed in those emails. They were very compassionate and understanding for their um comrades that are having to go through this. So um and I also want clarity on this is not a whole start over on assessing schools which I guess I'll have to ask Shannon if we're taking more time to look at this. Um, I don't want to be yanking people back and forth and saying, "It's not your school. It is your school." I mean, I I do not want to play yo-yo with our community and
171give them hope that they think that they're not for consolidation and then that they are for consolidation and we're back and forth. So, I guess that will be a question I have for Shannon after Melanie looks at her we go over this slide. So, will to answer your question of what would it look like if we addressed some pieces of this, right? So if elementary um if those consolidation FTE didn't happen for next year, that's a $700,000 cost versus the 3.7. So addressing the consolidation at middle school and then still if uh those other couple of schools that were over in staffing, if that was still addressed and then addressing the unfunded positions at high school, that's worth 3 million of our 3.7. So, it does go a long way if that's what's needed is
172to take a deeper look at elementary. Um, I think the fruit of peace in here isn't factored, right? Because Shannon hasn't worked on what that would look like. So, this is just our our projection of what it could look like based on what we know right now and the numbers that we have. But it certainly would go a long way um to addressing two of the levels challenges while buying some time for the third which is the smaller um dollar amount of those. And then I think we Sorry, go ahead Melanie. I was going to say I think Dan's been trying to talk about what it looks like for middle school principles to a couple of of your guys' points of of what that means. I'm trying to get back to Doug. Doug asked me
173like ask us like five questions and then it's just kind of but anyways I I I want to go back to when you talk about how desperate are some of the principles right in middle school there are and and I do believe you have felt the impact of those staffing cuts over the last two and a half years I have sat in here and listened to our middle school school librarians time and time again talk about why have we lost our librarians hands on the middle schools. Okay. And that that is one of those areas in which a principal needs to get in and make cuts in the building. As Jen mentioned, is it going to be the content teachers? Who's where are we going to go with it? Right. Another piece of of at
174least the two that have taken it down as far as they can take it. It also has popped their classroom size up. And I do believe you fielded some questions out of those particular middle schools about we have 32 to 36 kids sitting in a classroom and it's because you're trying to move puzzle pieces around that may not be there and and not one principal ever wants to get in and cut a program or cut a content teacher. I I mean is it fine arts? Is it is it choir? Is it PE? Is it I mean, not one principal ever would want to get in and have those conversations, but when you get to a point that we're at with some of our middle schools, and now it's really all of our middle schools this
175year, there will have to be more of those decisions that are made regardless of if there's consolidation or not. You, you know, Mel's explained it, we've explained it, regardless if there is consolidation. So if there is a school that's taken offline, we will still have to go out and get the remaining FTE up there on the screen from those schools who were not able to get all the way there last year. It has been a two or three-year plan where a principal, you walk in, you sit down and say, "We need five FTE." Well, I can't abs we've done the math. We've gone over our master schedule. I can only get to two and a half. Great. Let's get to two and a half. And Mel has allowed us to say, "But we're coming back
176next year to get the other two and a half out," which this is the year now, right? The problem with that is, and what's happened, is not only did they owe us two and a half going into this next year, they kept losing students, and now some of those principles who owed two and a half now owe five. And it's and they were already like at an extreme place, right? And so that's what's happening with the declining enrollment piece. The bottom continues to fall out and and we've tried and we've been as compassionate as a system to try to keep up with it, but we're not keeping up with it. It's they're they're falling off faster than we and looking at the elementary numbers coming in like look at your fifth grade group coming in
177next year. It it's not it's not getting any better, right? Can I ask a question about that? Are do we have class is it this might be a very stupid question. Is it legal to have classrooms of 32 and 36 children? Do we actually have that? There are no laws. I thought there was a there was the class size reduction act of 20 2000 something. I am not aware of any. Of course, we always want to look at what is that best size for our for our classroom, for our teachers, for our students to build that community and for that teaching and learning. Um, I do believe I mean I don't know exactly where there are that large of classrooms. Well, I let me put another piece to that really quick. So if you take
178a librarian out of a out of a middle school, then the vocal arts, vocational, the the PE, all of a sudden those kids that were going into that particular uh exploratory now are absorbed by those those other specialist teachers and and I do know that has that has happened over the last two and a half years. So we have huge huge class sizes in some of those other sports and even if there is something in play like you said what teacher is going to cut or I mean what principal is going to cut a content teacher when we have we have to do English we have to do math we have to do social studies and science I mean those are obviously off the table and so then if again it goes back to my
179earlier statement about a small school of a hundred you now have the principal feeding kids lunch doing the custodian work and teaching a class and trying to be principal. I mean, it's it's the same concept. Now, you're just we have we put more kids into a classroom so that they can still learn the the four at least the four content areas that we have to get to, right? And by the time we get to middle school, I mean, we have students. I just think about my students, music students, um, they came to school for for band or for orchestra. And and the thought that's not a well-rounded school. If now we're we're we're essentially pitting our content teachers against our specials teachers, it's a whole ecosystem. We need all of our teachers. We need all
180of our teachers to ensure that we have that pro programming for a well-rounded student. We can't have um such, you know, and then our our content teachers need our exploratory teachers for for planning. They each give each other that that give and take when it comes to an ecosystem. We need all of our teachers and we need all of the program programming that our students would expect and our families and our parents would expect in the middle school. I guess going back to Fruda, um does the staff feel like they we would be able to look at the Fruda reconfiguration or is that something that um I mean again I know it's I know we just don't have enough time period. I mean, but is is that one like if we were to just look
181at east I don't know, you know, does that does that help us at least a little enough to slow us down a little bit? Is it better if we try to look at Fruda or is Fruda going to need to take a little bit more time because we have um we just have a few different factors that that go on with that one. Can I just Can I just say something really quickly? I think that's such a good question and I feel like it answers itself. If we don't even if if we if we're just saying all right, can we just do east because we don't have enough information about Fruda? That to me says I'm asking the staff I need them to answer. So I I think that there's a couple pieces, right? We
182know the east piece is a portion of that 1.8 8 and the consolidation ripple effect. But I think those 19 FTE that are still unaffected by the consolidation are important too when answering that question of is that enough for one year. So I guess I would ask you guys that would be part of the decision too, right? Because that 19 FTE is another almost 1.6 of the equation. So that would be a piece I mean otherwise I don't know if you guys want to speak to the Fruda piece. I don't have the numbers or scenarios run and I have heard from some teachers out at Fra Middle School who have expressed some concern around this next year on how they're going to move forward. So I I just I just wor I just worry that
183we're we're just disservicing our students. And I and I get Carrie what you're saying in that there there are some things that get answered with time. I I don't discount that. I also think that there can be a detriment because it takes more time. So, I mean, you've also had the I mean, you're darned if you do and you're darned if you don't. Um, I'll I mean, we were able to Shannon was able to go out with Dr. Hill and talk to the Fra community specifically. So unlike with our with um with East and and the two elementary schools that we're discussing um and that were recommended to consolidate the Fruda community overwhelming were for this reconfiguration at Fruda. So I feel like to Carrie's point we've already got the community on board. I mean
184everybody no but the majority of of the feedback that you guys got unless I'm mistaken was very favorable to going ahead with that reconfiguration in Fruda. So, I feel like that part of it is done. Um, if the staff has done the work to reach out to the people in those buildings and that's the feedback that you've gotten that that now would be a good time and you could handle that reconfiguration, then that would I think address a big chunk of this if we just went for middle school consolidation and Fruda. I I don't want to speak for Shannon. I think that's the remaining question for us in Fruda is I I agree with what you're saying. We we surveyed the community um for the overwhelming majority uh in that area said that they would
185like normalized grade structures out there. Um the question that we still don't have the answer to is can you fit um the kids uh into the So if we move the ninth grade out of the 89 and put them into the Fruit of Monument High School as it is right now, can you fit them? And then if you move the eighth grade um or excuse me the sixth and seventh over to the 89 and make that a 68, can that building hold all those students? Because I know at one time we were talking about you may have to do two different options. You may have to um add on to the buildings to accommodate that many students or the other option is you look at a boundary change to pull um some of the students
186out of that Fruda um attendant zone. So that's more of a question for Shannon as far as um which we don't have an answer as a district. we don't have an answer right now is can those facilities actually fit all the kids if we made that decision and didn't make any changes to boundaries. We just said next year all 9th graders from the 89 go to the Fruit of Monument High School and all the sixth and seventh move over to the 89 building and join the eighth graders. Do those facilities actually have the space for them? Um and are they ready to accept the kids? So that's that's more of a a Shannon question, but I hear what you're saying. people are ready for it, but are we I guess my the outstanding question is
187do we have the space to be able to accommodate that right now? Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you, Dan. Yeah, thanks you guys. Melanie, you should probably I think everyone's running from a potential coughing bout, but um I I would say that um I've got tomorrow. Um, I have I'm booked solid with focus groups and interviews in district 11 with program administrators and stuff, but tomorrow I was going to do field work in Parachute and then in Rifle School District and I could do that later if we wanted to go ask some of the questions about um facility viability given a certain enrollment. And that number is 765 by the way as far as what the 89 would have to hold. and uh it's the same building as book cliff plus two classrooms and it has
188had double portables outside of it before. So that would be the question and then the other question becomes um the idea of the windgate boundary change and I would show you some of the detail of that graphically just so that you understand that. But if we were to move the ninth grade in we would need to maybe start the first year of a phase change. identical to what we did with the scenic and Broadway transition to Grand Junction High School. So, there are some bits and pieces, but um and then I can I can hang around longer. I just um um I've got all these gaps in my schedule because of focus groups to deal with. Tomorrow is just a very good day. If you wanted if we wanted to do some of this tomorrow,
189I would be delighted to go ask some of those hard questions. I think in order to go forward, I mean, we have to have the we have to have the answer if if it's even a viable option at this at this point and if not what it would take to make it a viable option. Yeah. And again, I'm just going to, you know, anything beyond how this goes, I'm going to defer to Superintendent Hill, but I'm just offering that if you would like that data and it's um consistent with what the board goals are, I would be delighted to go out and ask the hard questions. And then regarding um windgate just to show you um when we look at windgate we are looking at oh let's see windgate. So when we look at windgate
190there are two components to windgate enrollment. Um, let's see here. So, there are the children that live um in the Windgate attendance area, but this green line is actually the Grand Junction Fruta Monument High School line. So, you can see the blue kids are junction kids and the red kids are Fra Monument kids. And this used to be the Windgate boundary, but when we switch this, we have almost perfect compliance with one two exceptions of all of those children electing to go uh to Junction High School. So, um, we made the change where the Broadway kids and the scenic kids go, but obviously these children are very approximate to, um, Grand Junction High School. And these children that are up in this area are quite frankly, I don't know how approximate they are to the
19189 because they have to go all the way around through the fruity interchange to get there. So this becomes a question of if you wanted to do a phase change, do you want to have some sort of stakeholder involvement on addressing the potential of that? Um, and that would take a little bit more time. But you can see there are junction kids right here around Windgate. Junction, junction kid, junction kid, junction kid, junction kid. And even up in here there are Grand Junction children. So, these students are just cycling over and going down Monument Road and on into into Grand Junction in order to attend Grand Junction High School. So, if you were to phase those students um into um uh Grand Junction High School one year at a time, there are 360 of them.
192And you can see that about 66 of them go to Grand Junction High School. So that leaves about 295 or in round figures 300. So about uh 75 per grade level. So, one year of transition, meaning the freshman at about a 70% participation rate, would pull 50 kids out of Fruit of Monument High School and probably free up close to enough space to make that viable. And then the second year, we would certainly have enough students transition at a 70% participation rate. And um that would set you up where all of the Redlands children would go to Grand Junction High School together uh from their middle school experience on in. And then if students that live over here more approximate to Fra Monument or for other reasons, family history, older siblings, etc., etc., etc., those
193children's could school of choice into uh Fra Monument High School. So that was that could be one solution. A lot of this data has kind of been floating around for a long time because we talked about it two years ago having everybody go. But that that's kind of we're getting back to kind of the trifecta. We need to see um if Fruda Monument could accommodate um 765 children in a 678 structure and then we would need to ask Fra Monument High School if they could use some alternative scheduling or some FAT sections or a zero or an eight period in order to get through one year. um with all of the ninth graders and a little bit of a um uh higher number of children in the building than might be desired. But again, if
194you would like, I can follow up on those issues and see if this might be possible. The one kind of obvious situation here is that we don't have a growth plan in this case for uh Fruda, which will continue to grow over time. And Fruda uh let's see that's not what I'm looking for. Fruda has um all of those children that are over in the uh the growing part of Fruda that we will eventually uh have to accommodate at all three levels. Um so we would have to put into our future master plan process a growth plan for Fruda that would address um bringing additional middle school seats back online. if you take the middle school offline. So my immediate thought is as we're going through these all these different options, how you know, so
195how many FTE So if we took that option, how many FTE would that pull out? And then would we also need to do east? You know, like is there an efficiency? Do we have to do all of it? Can we just do one of it? How do we make these decisions? Meaning the decision to add the fruit of Well, if we're Yeah. So, I mean, I think for all of us, it's we've we've all wondered why it wasn't included in the first place. So, I think we all wanted in there. I only speak for myself, but that is what I wanted in there. But then the question becomes, okay, so if we move forward with Fruda, do we also have to move forward? Is it still as critical that we pull another middle school, too?
196And is East the right middle school? You know, there's there's just all these additional questions. So, how many FTE would we be fixing if we did that? if we did the Fra reconfiguration. I don't think that's information we have without Shannon doing the work on the Fuda configur reconfiguration to see if we could do it. But if we could do it plus the additional FTE that needs to be cut from the other schools once the the reconfiguration is done. It's all of it. It's all of the middle school issue if I'm if I'm not mistaken. I mean, wouldn't it be I mean, that that's why I suggested if we include the fruit of reconfiguration, that takes care of 100% again with the additional FTE that everybody's going to have to cinch their belts up. Um,
197that would take care of that largest chunk of our shortfall and ongoing compounding of of the dollars that aren't going to be there. It certainly could. Yeah. Yeah. You know me, I like to see the numbers. I know. Dig in. But yeah, theoretically that would be all of it because we have addressed the entire middle school issue. I I think Fruda was in the set. It just had a lower rating. So, it was one of the candidates. it wasn't part of my recommendation because of the complexity of it and the fact that we don't leave a um an option for accommodating additional growth other than um uh boundary changes in the Appleton area would be the Alford. So then if it ended up that you needed more time that this to to get this done
198this fall just simply is is too much of a lift then maybe I mean I'm just posing this to the board then maybe an option is to do as much as we can at the middle school level and there again to your point would give us a little more time and because that the elementary school it is kind of at the start of having the big problem. The middle school's there. I mean, we are we have arrived. That that is, you know, past probably in too much past inaction. We needed to have this going on before now. We didn't. So, now is the time. I think we've got to we've got to do this before. I mean, we can try to react to it once it's happened, but I would much rather have a response
199going into it knowing where we're going than having to just start pulling plugs. So, you know, I'm just posing to the board if if they find that really this trifecta of all the things that have to happen with Fruda is just impossible to do all of that in the time that we're talking about. Would we want to move forward with just addressing the middle school issue and then, you know, it would give us another school year. I mean there are problems that come with that too that we've all discussed. You know there are there are teachers that you know just by history will show us that once you know that a school is going to close it becomes more and more difficult to staff it the way you want because people start to move immediately.
200um you know we we know that um people from east are already are already putting that those moves into motion. So uh there is a little bit of a risk there but it would allow us that one more year to see what happens see if the projections are are continuing to go that way. It would give us one more year then we'd have to do it. I think we have to make I think the board has to make a decision before a year. So, I would like to know if if Shannon has the time. I'm just going to ask for myself. I would like the information on Fruda if we could get it if if that's something um he would have time to get to the board. Um, I think if we're to move forward,
201and this is I'm going to follow up on this question that I asked earlier about, um, you know, is we would have to make a decision by or, excuse me, I would want the district to come back to the board no later than end of August to have assessed everything and if that includes Fruda and if that includes also re-evaluating um, or not reeval before that. Andrea, what we'd have to know fr? You mean if we put it on hold? Never mind. You're right. Right. I'm saying if Shannon gives us the information based off of what he can go and get tomorrow and he's just saying no, I there's there's just more information we're going to have to get through like what you were saying, then that we would address Fruda. And then I guess
202I want to I I want to be clear because I think there's um some confusion of are we starting completely over on the elementary schools and evaluating it or are we just reconfirming the elementary schools? And so I'd want the district to be tasked with like I mentioned, are you going to consider performance data or not? And then um you know what else you know some other questions that we've had that we would address with looking at those schools. And then I think but no later than August the district presents it to us and then the board needs to vote on it no later than the end of October because we have to give our families plenty of time even before school of choice. Um which we would also have to address with the east
203families that they would have to have the option to do school of choice before next year of 2023. um so that there our families can be prepared. So I don't think we have a year to wait as far as the board making a decision. I think we have a few more months that we can have the district work a plan um a more in-depth plan but I don't um I those are the time frames that I think between talking with Dr. Hill and others that I think are are feasible um to and then again I agree with you Angela is that I I just really really worry that the morale at the buildings you know for a whole school year um of whether not knowing I I just I don't want to yank any of
204our schools around um of of not knowing where they would need to be. I just I feel like that would almost be worse that I don't know. I It's such a struggle because you know then if you're just those families and those those teachers and those buildings um you just knowing the inevitable. So I just again I'm just thinking out loud and just all the thoughts that go through our heads of just trying to figure this stuff out. But it seems like we've heard though from a lot of our our families in our community is that they would rather that they would rather have that year of of knowing what's coming rather than it happening just so quickly. But I worry that they're that I don't I guess I want to from a board standpoint,
205I think we need to be clear with our community that that year doesn't mean that they're going to change, right? It isn't going to change, but they would know for for sure when they could prepare. Correct. I would say that what doesn't change is that we're going to have to look for consolidations and so that that like if we're taking more time to try to figure out I mean unless like you said unless there's some other solution we've tried to look at everything we can over the last few years um and and we've tried to cut where we can uh to try to help with this. So I don't I don't see some other um you know 1300 kids just coming back to the district all of a sudden. Um, so I I think if
206the conversation is that we're going to continue to uh investigate um uh this process, if we're going to we would need more time if we're going to start talking about things like values and and are these certain criteria that we want to look at outside of the criteria that's uh that Shannon uses. So I that requires more time. Um but if but I don't wanna I hear what you're saying. I don't want to change the narrative to say that we're going to take more time so we can back off of doing the thing that may be hard in the end. We just won't It sounds like we need more time uh to look into these things a little bit further. I wonder about the middle school piece though because it sounds like you're saying that
207you want to um rip the band-aid off all at one time, but we're also having a discussion on should we take care of one of them now. So I I and I hear what you're saying too, like if they know something's coming down the road. Um so that is a dilemma as well. I Yeah. Well, Dr. Hill, that's a really good point. And I don't want to discount I want to make sure that, you know, we're we're in an interesting position here because we're not the ones tasked to do all of the work. We we've been presented with the work that you all have been doing. And I think that for our community, um, unless you've been attending every single board meeting for the last three to five years, it has been brought up. It
208just nobody thought it meant like, you know, it's always like, well, but it won't happen today, right? It'll may it'll happen one day, but not today. And all of a sudden, you wake up one morning and it's today and something some decisions it's time to make. So, while we're bantering around, you know, maybe not ripping the whole band-aid off as as you said, if if you would implore us to do that based on the work that you guys have done and have been doing, um, then maybe we need to listen to that recommendation as well. I I I don't want to discount all the work that you've you guys have really have put into this. If you know that this is the outcome, if you I mean within a reasonable doubt that this is what
209we need to do, then you know we need to maybe listen to those of you that are experts. I mean, when I look at Melany's face, and I've been looking at her face a lot this last week. We all have. Yeah. Sorry about that. No, it's It's cute face. We're happy about it. Um, I can see the worry. I can see the concern. And I mean, we've we've discussed that how how fortunate we are to have someone that has been in that office for I won't out you with how many years, a lot of 100 years. Um, you know this stuff inside and out. I don't think I've ever been able to any of us have ever come up with a question that you've been unable to answer. You're you're very conservative in giving those
210answers. And when I see that you've got this kind of concern about this and you're showing us those kinds of numbers that compound by several million dollars a year, I think we have to take the experts advice and and follow to some degree what you guys think we need to do. So I think one Thank you. Um my my second piece to that is there isn't an option not to make a decision. Like no matter which one of those four bullet points on that last slide um happens for next year, it is a decision. So whether it's the decision to find some funding that gets us through a year, that's a decision that has ripple effects across our system too. Um, so I think I just I just want to be clear on that piece
211of that there is a a cost of of time and maybe that cost of time is worth it in the end, but I just want to make sure that like it's not an action like it is a a deliberate decision to make one of those decisions. And I know that's where you guys are too, but it would be making that decision. Well, I think there's um maybe just looking at the happy medium is if let's just say we don't have we won't have enough information to to deal with Fruda. Um but we know that the middle school issue is an issue. So I I worry about utilizing we'll just say the ESRE dollars because we don't know what we'll get from the state. I worry about using those funds that we're going to take away
212from students who were highly impacted over COVID. We we we might have to cut back on summer school. We I mean I just I worry that then we're just we're just cutting paper. Well, right. But we're just we're we're gonna we're gonna it's just gonna be more of a challenge to to those kids will just be set back even further. Like we're not going to be making any headway. I mean because esser dollars are intended to try to help those kids to get caught up to have those those services. So and I did I did ask the principal at East today. I just said if if you were to close in 2023 or 2024 what would be your preference? And I'm just and I'm going to say that he has very much fighting and advocating
213for his school. There's no doubt about it. I know every principal in this district would fight and advocate for their schools. But if he he said that he would rather close in 2023 because waiting for a whole year for 2024 was very concerning about the morale for the building for the students and everybody for an entire school year. Staffing and staff Yeah. and staffing because they they lose the staffing. And so again, I just I there's no no easy there's no like answer that's just, you know, that that just seems perfect. But I'm just saying that those that's the reality of that situation, you know, and the challenge program I know can be moved. I mean, um we could look at keeping, you know, that team together and and working through that, but I just
214um I I mean, maybe there's, like you said at the your last point, there can be a combination of the options. I was going to say I think that's the more I've I've looked at this and and just come to grips with it myself, right? Like some of those enrollment numbers when you hear them like they take a minute to settle in and and just appreciate the gravity of it or some of those overages um even if they seem small or smaller in relation to others um but they all do compound like I've I've hoped to demonstrate tonight. And so I do think that it is maybe some combination of those options and and so I appreciate that you guys are looking into that because it seems like each level has some distinct nuances or
215some distinct differences in how they would be addressed elementary, middle, and high. I did um I know we had some concern in emails around um the displacement versus the how did you guys say it? Reduction in force. Yes. So, um I I don't want it to I think maybe whether it was misunderstood or I don't want it to come across as an insult to obviously our teachers who've been in our district for a long time that like they have to sort of reapply for their jobs, but I know there's like a lot of HR rules that we have to follow. Um I don't know if Nikki can maybe allude to a little more clarity around that displacement piece. Um, so we could just maybe revisit that to give clarity to our um, educators who kind
216of felt like, well, man, I've I've worked in this district for a really long time and like maybe they feel like they're starting over, but so maybe you could kind of speak to that process a little bit more. Sure. And I definitely understand that concern. I know that um um some staff may be nervous about having to reapply for jobs, but in the application process, depending on what you all decide and depending on the number of staff members who might be impacted, we do have to have a way to track not only what positions they're interested in, but it also gives them an opportunity to really display all their great strengths. By being able to present their resume and to fill out an application, it helps that hiring supervisor understand the depth of talent that
217we have in our district. That is so great. Thank you for finding the the light spot in that because I think for for most people it just that first that first statement is wait a minute I have to reapply and and instead of you have to it's sort of like you get to. Yeah. because they really get and I know that it's time consuming or it can be time consuming but it really gives everybody an opportunity to put their best foot forward and that's what we want our hiring supervisors to be able to see. And so we also of course we you know have a process of how we track who's interested in what positions and and when people are hired and and where they're hired. And so if we funnel that all through our
218application process, um that helps our processes in the end. And um you know, we're available to help educators if they're if the technology is something that they need help with. We'll sit down with them. We'll walk them through that. Um, depending on what you all decide and what schools are impacted, we plan on going out to the schools to sit alongside folks and help with whatever they need, whether that be getting online or if they just need some coaching on resumeumés or whatever we can do to try to make that process a little easier. So, the other help them with what kinds of maybe um fresh new things might be available that maybe people hadn't thought of. Sure. I mean where where you could give people a little bit of an idea of with with
219their particular credentials and interests. Hey, there's some of these things that maybe you haven't thought of, right? Okay. And you know that we just have to have a way to track which positions people are interested in. So for example, if there's an opening at Loma Elementary, well, not everybody's going to be interested in LMA Elementary, maybe because of the drive. And so we just want to make sure that there's a way where we can track what people are interested in and we want to be able to make sure that we can help them with whatever positions might be of interest. And I I think it's important to mention and and talk a little bit more about the mutual consent. So mutual consent is a state law that says if you have a non-probationary teacher who
220is displaced from a school closure, they have to find a position through mutual consent. Mutual consent means the principal and some teachers in that building that have gone through a selection process. They want that teacher and then the teacher has to agree to that as well. And so we are guaranteeing those non-probationary folks an interview. And so if they don't find a position in this hiring cycle, meaning this spring, they can continue to look all next year and we're going to temporarily place them somewhere for one year so their pay and benefits continue. Thank you. We're working on right now what that application process might look like. We hope that it would be um a condensed application. So, it's not the full length, but we're working on that now and we'll have more information. Well,
221did you have something? All right. I know another m meeting. I just want to go back to asking you, maybe you're not ready to answer it tonight. Um, but do you have a recommendation as far as do we do everything or do we go maybe part way because we're going to have to make a decision by next week? Yeah, we may need further discussion. I don't I don't know. Yeah, it's a good question. I think the other piece of that too is that um you know our our job is to try to provide um the board with with the best information that we can and so if there is um um hesitancy around that then that's a I think that's a question for the board as well and so if more time is a request
222from the board to be able to pull together more information and if we want more time for um you know engagement with the community that that's a that's something that we can have that discussion but it gets back to Mel's point um then we're that is a decision then um that means that we've got to figure out what we're going to do with um um financially uh with with the situations for next year. So I I don't want to be dismissive of um where the board is at in this process as well. Um because again we we've had to pull a lot together and in a very short period of time. Um, and so I guess that's also I'm throwing a question back to the board on whether or not um, you feel like you
223have everything you would need to make a decision because I would assume we'd be making a decision um, if we were going to make a decision on a closure or consolidation would be happening. I don't know if it's March 7th at the next work session or if it's another special meeting. But um, yeah. Well, because you guys I mean we we do need to make a decision because everybody is kind of sitting in limbo right now. Not just those schools or a school, whatever we decide. Um students Well, right. We've had people who've retired. We've had um would we Okay, so let's just say east. It's just east. Are are we opening up school of choice for those families? That's something that we talked about doing um potentially having just a very shortened window for
224the schools that were actually impacted by um the closures. But school of choice also depends on um availability in other schools. And so um and it impacts two ways. It's the um kids that were choicing into that um building and then the kids who had Oh, no. I guess it would just be the the kids that are currently at that building right now um choiced in um finding another another location for them. So, they'd either go back to their home school um or they'd have to choice into another building if had availability. And then if we move challenge, can we try to work out some ways for transportation that um would work out for either that program or and I know transportation's already been kind of working on a plan and granted they can only
225get so far because they don't have obviously a a complete decision from the board, but I would I would want to try to make it as easy as possible for for those families who if their kids wanted to remain in the challenge program, we could offer a a transportation option or or something. So that um and I wish Clint was here right now. That's a that's a change. Oh. Oh. Oh, there he is. I'm here. That is really creepy. I didn't realize you were on there the whole time. And you're really loud. I've been waiting to do that all night. I have. I've been waiting for that. Um, okay. Dr. Hill needs to decompose himself before he can go on. The only reason why I bring that up is because that would be a change
226in how we've done transportation for that program in the past, if that makes sense. So, I I understand what you're asking because that came up not only through emails, but um but questions in person as well as um we are we currently don't offer transportation for the challenge program. um just like we don't offer I don't believe we offer transportation um for like the middle school dual immersion program. They may have transportation hubs but not full-on transportation. So that's a that's a question that I don't know if Clint has the ability to answer right this second but that's that would be something we would have to look into if we if unless you have an answer maybe some option of that. I mean, like like I mentioned earlier, even if the you know, with the
227challenge program at East as it is right now, most of our kids from the east end of the valley don't even they're not even applying for it because they they can't get transportation to east, you know. So I I guess if if we have these kinds of programs in the district, I just feel like it's our obligation to try to find some ways maybe can't provide all the transportation but maybe we can find some ways to make it just the access more available to all the students across you know so I don't know Clint can you speak to maybe some thoughts you have if you can. Sure. So, we have been working on on just some of the boundary changes from last week, just kind of looking at what some possibilities are and the challenge
228program has been something that we've we've looked at and and some ideas around transportation and how we might be able to manage that. And um yeah, there's there is some more information that we're definitely going to need, but with some of the things that we're working on right now with our tiering system, um Shane and I uh have talked about uh you know, the possibility of being able to provide that service um at uh minimal or no cost um impact to the district. So again, some more information is needed and we need to work through it a little bit more, but I think it's doable. Okay, thank you. Any other thoughts or questions? Okay, so I know the things that are we we did not discuss tonight would Okay, actually let me back up. So
229if we are taking more time with the elementary schools, are we or are we not starting the entire process over to evaluate what schools those would be? Or are we or are we just reaffirming like getting more information that Orchard Avenue and Lincoln Orchard Mesa are the ones? I guess I I'm really really concerned. I do not want to be yanking people around thinking that there's hope of not being closed or then they could still be closed. I What is If we're You know, this is probably for Dr. Hill or Shannon. If if if the board waits on the elementary schools, what what are we looking for? And would you suggest I mean, is that what you want? Well, again, I'm I'm going to put it back to a question. I feel like the in
230the last meeting there was um there was a reservation from the board on whether or not um we felt like we had all the information that we needed. So, if if we're having more time, then um I think we would try to pull in other data points. You know, I talked to um Clint before about we were already going to be doing a revamped long-range facility plan process. So, do we need to bring some other folks in to um do a deeper dive into the facility conditions of the buildings? Um I think that there's a um we still haven't answered that question on whether or not um there are other things that the back to Doug's point, are there goals or um values that the board and the district want to look at outside of
231just um straight boundaries and facility conditions? That's a discussion that we haven't had the time to have. So, I you know, I think those are things that we could bring into the equation. Um, so yeah, I I guess I'm trying to answer because if if you're if we're saying that we've already made up all of our minds on everything, then I would question why why would you wait um unless we feel like we need more information um for the board to be able to make that decision. And if that's the if that's the request, then we can do that and we can talk about what a um a longer process would look like for us versus kind of the monthish that we've had um to get where we are today. Okay. Can I piggy back
232on that? So, in my opinion, a couple of things. one. Again, Fruda was totally off the table in elementary schools and Fruda has the lowest has the most schools with the lowest um you know percent utilization of the building. Um the most room for growth is that Yeah, but they still in the area because of that one big area that Well, but we thought we thought we'd build out and so we built a brand new school and we've got space out there. So, do we think that that's the area that will grow in the next 5 to 10 years? Yeah. And those are great points that I would argue need to be explored. Um, and I I think that that that honestly for me that further reinforces my concern about projections because when we built
233all those new schools, we were like, "Oh my gosh, we need all this space today because we're going to have this massive amount of growth and the growth has not come and our schools are under half utilized." And so, nobody thought we were going to have 9% inflation either two years ago. So, I mean, it it all it all I guess is kind of relative. And I mean, I understand what you're saying, but I guess we just we as a board need to be really clear. Are we asking them to completely start over? Um, or I'm going to say I I don't see any reason for them to completely start over. We had they had narrowed it down to a list of 10 schools that they were taking that deeper look at. I wouldn't s
234my I wouldn't suggest going starting completely from scratch. We don't have any new information that tells us that we need to completely scrap everything we've done to this point and you guys need to totally start over. But I would say that if you want to take the time to look at those 10 schools that were already identified, then that sounds it sounds like that would allow us to take that little bit deeper dive that you're talking about, Carrie. I I think that's a good starting point because I don't think we want to uh you know figure out what one school's better than the other school or or this and that performance that work and I know that but what I'm saying is we we talk about performance and and I I I love the fact
235that we have performance schools but if we look deep down and we really get to the bottom of it the building didn't make the performance the teachers made the performance so we can figure out what needs to happen or or if that's the decision we did make sure we made the right decision because I don't want to close a school and then turn around next year and said well we shouldn't have closed that one we should have closed this one we don't want to close any schools I just want to make sure that we have that list of 10 schools to make sure that the elementary schools are the right school. That's the right choice. If it turns out that those two are on the list are the right ones, so be it. If not,
236then we move on to what we need to do. So, I think that a good starting point is where we're at with the middle school and and give a precise, you know, by August, we have to have a decision whether it's the two we have on the list or four more we have. That's just my observation. And just to be clear, it we could see further evidence that we need to go further than to I think we have to be open to any results that they come with. Right. So I have a I thank you. I appreciate understanding your points of view. I disagree. I think that we need to start over because those 10 schools there were so many standards that I still don't understand. You know, we talked about we we were told
237that they were first um paired down based on dividability, but then you know, I asked about one specific school and I was like, "Oh, well, the architecture of that was really cool and that school that school is still in good shape." Okay, well that's not divid. You know, if we looked at our special programs, um some of our magnet schools, they would be the most easily dividable because they don't have a physical homeschool range, but we're protecting those because of our values. We believe that or at least that you know the initial assessment was that we wanted to protect those. But so I think that a I do not understand why every single one of those 10 schools was on the list and why every school single one of the other schools was not on
238the list. I think that there were misapplied standards and they were not clearly articulated to us. So maybe we could start by just being like, "All right, tell us exactly how these 10 got to it." And you know, we could have a group of people that see if they agree or disagree. But I I do not agree with that first calling. I do not agree with those 10. One, because I don't understand them, and B, because again, I was told that, you know, one reason was architecture, and that is not that does not align with my values. Well, then who are we going to have do that? We've already we've already paid Shannon the money who's worked in our district for 18 years. I'm not going to hire another I am not up for hiring
239another demographer just to then come back. I mean potentially with the same information. I mean and what I mean I we could have Clint do the RFP on facilities. I think that's actually a valid since we're going to do it anyways for our long range facilities plan. They could look at those facilities. I mean, I just I worry that we we need, you know, we need to be really careful about schools getting pitted against each other. I had to go do damage control this week at other elementary schools because of comments that were made on Tuesday that those schools felt were very disparaging to them. I worry that the longer we take, we're going to start eating our own. And so I don't know that I mean to take more time and completely start over
240the process. I mean I guess do we just do away with all the work Shannon did and then who would you recommend? Yeah. I'm not I'm not trying to be that like black and white. What I am saying is again I think that all of these decisions come back to our values and I think values are not something you hire somebody to figure out. I think that is a committee of people who say who could be tasked with you know coming up again there are standard best practices the first one is always develop the criterias met metrics and measurables for how to even approach these questions that committee could be tasked with ensuring that we don't have to hire a specialist using as much data are available like we could we could constrain it but
241I just I do not believe that this board can sit here and be like we are 100% behind these 10 schools that we don't know why they were chosen and some of them were chosen for very arbitrary reasons. Um so I think we need a committee. I think we need to keep cost down 100%. I think we do have a lot of data. We have a lot of expertise and and Shannon did collect a lot of great data that we can rely on but I think we need to go all the way back to following standard best practices which exist. So, I guess that gets back to my question on even the middle school piece. Like, is this a um is there also reservations about that or are we are folks more confident with um
242the middle school um discussion? Uh that would give us some direction, too. Are we are we also talking about going back to square one with I shouldn't say square one but um that same level with with middle schools or do folks on the board feel more confident in the information that's been delivered around that? So I think that's an excellent question and I I could not sit here and say that I know why East was chosen. I do not know why East was chosen. But regardless if we're if we're thinking about something like Fruda I have very limited understanding of it because we don't have that information yet. But I I mean I would argue for the same thing. Um Fra feels very different for me because everybody already attends both of those schools effectively
243and so it just it feels that one feels a little bit different for me. Um so I could I could see myself being more comfortable moving forward with Frutoa with a with more information sooner. um because again all those students attend both of those schools. So the reason I mean as we've sat here all night and said we don't want to close any schools. The reason that East Sins a little bit um and we were at a we walked up that school today and the principal himself was like, you know, if you're going to rip the band-aid off, you might as well rip it off because we've already but the competation when they got the letter saying that, you know, you guys may be up. Teachers already started looking for jobs. So, and and they've
244already started, you know, he's already wrote countless recommendations. And the part that sucks about it is even though we say, you know, okay, you might be okay, they want to guarantee that, we can't we can't give them a guarantee. We can't say, hey, you have five years, hey, you have three years, hey, you have two years. We can't say that. So that bandage's already been ripped off. So I mean, even him, the admin saying that, you know, it it's time to, you know, move on even though we don't want to. It's something we have to do. I mean, it's it's right there. That's one reason I say east is, you know, we where we have to move at. Yeah, I I hear that. Thank you. I think I have two thoughts about that. One, I
245still don't know why we chose east. But two, do is it our belief that if we were to do something with Fruda, we would also need to do something with East. I feel like do we have that much information? Do we know that already? I think that's what Angela was alluding to earlier. So, we might not even know that yet. We might not know what. Sorry, I'm I'm not We need to consolidate both of those schools. No, I think we do. No, we there's no question. Middle school has to be dealt with across the board. We have a Pruda element and we have and we have the in town element. Okay. I don't know. I I guess I see Shannon's rubric way more clear. I mean, and maybe Shannon can just allude to that again.
246I mean, I thought he took a very objective level of not trying to pit one school against the other, but I do think we could look at the facilities a little bit more in depth. I think that is one piece where I I think we could look with Clint and and and or the uh the the organization that will I guess ultimately win the RFP for the facilities plan is I think we could look at at that piece because if you if you look at the the ingress and the egress of dropping kids off, picking them up, fences around schools, the location of schools far enough away from the code um you know the different factors that were presented I think to keep the schools on a neutral standpoint. I mean, I I I guess
247I followed the logic there on why those particular schools and then also backing it up with how it works within like the city of Grand Junction because there's literally no more room to build homes in a certain area that those would then not be where children would feed into those schools. And so I guess Shannon, that was another question I asked um was asked of me today was the thousand units I think apartments that's going in downtown. Um I think somebody had asked, "Well, wouldn't that be an option for children?" Thank you, Nikki. I know you probably want to get out of being in the front, don't you? That as fast as you can. Um can you can can you speak to those um apartment units or condo units that were are being built? What
248is um your experience of those being actually housing children I guess going into those schools in the the downtown area? We got three elementary kids out of the Railards project which was 198 students. We got three three. So my experience with um apartments is that they're y low yield fundamentally unless they're two and threebedroom units all affordable all subsidized. So, for the most part, and I do a lot of sampling, a lot of sampling of urban apartment buildings. In fact, I did a lot of that last week, and I get six or eight kids out of a building. So, a thousand units, that's probably five buildings. So, I think we're talking about, you know, 50 75 kids max. I think dividing them among elementary, middle, and high school. you know, just based on the work
249that I did for the R5 Whiteall uh funding project with the downtown uh development association, I just think we're looking at a more urbane resident and I think we're looking at people that are going to be less likely moving into that housing to have children. And uh Mesa County has probably the lowest apartment vacancy rate in the state. we had 4% back when I did that project. And so what happens is um people move around within the rental housing market and they'll move into the newer units and then some of the older units will open up for other people. And I just think we're probably looking at um older units in other parts of town really being where some of that that impact of those thousand additional housing units would probably be manifested. But just
250based on my experience downtown, and I've hung out downtown for almost 40 years now. Um, you know, just shopping for guitars and going to the fly shop and looking around and thinking, could I live here myself? And I just I I think it's it's it's it's an awesome place to be, but I just don't see a lot of young families gravitating downtown. That may be changing, but at this point, I just don't think it would be enough for us to base a school facility decision on that. When we open Chapa, we rebuilt Chapida, we did some pretty extensive study of downtown and we heard some of the growth forecasting and said, "Yes, uh, we think, uh, that new school would be justified." And, you know, Chapa has not swollen at all as a result of
251growth that's happening down there. So, I think we're fine downtown because it's 90 to 95% built out and we're just not going to get huge numbers out of those additional units. And and and again, I've done this forever. I've been over and over of all these things where somebody says this housing is going to completely explode your school. And I've heard that just dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of times. And a lot of times I'll go ahead and adjust figures to say, "Okay, we're going to bump this up." And I just just come back again and again where it does not have a meaningful impact because it's in a neighborhood that's 90 to 95% built out. You wind up with an equilibrium of a large housing stock. People move around within the housing
252stock. And if it's not a huge bump, you just don't get a school a neighborhood school impact out of it. Is that is that true for just infill conditions because Grand Junction is you know the urban environment is infilling with dense housing. So it's not just one unit or two units. It's it's going you know it's every vacant lot down there will be. I thought Northwest Grand Junction was going to go off the scale with the three or four big apartment buildings that got built over in the Pomona attendance area and it hasn't done anything to Pomona's numbers. So, I thought given the rate at which that 800 units came online that we'd get a bunch of kids out of it and we haven't. I thought we'd get a dozen kids out of the railards
253and I wanted to move it from Pomona to Chapida and we didn't do it in time because I was afraid it might produce kids. And now I've got three. I can show you the three kids on my computer system there. We've got three kids. So, I just, you know, and I don't know that they're 100% leased out yet, but they're close to it. I just I I you wish this weren't the case. I wish there were children. I mean, I miss seeing a lot of kids floating around all over the place. It's just we're just not seeing kids in some of these new housing projects like we used to. And I think the people that are buying them um are just a different profile of folks that are less likely to have kids. I could
254just throw in the question was asked earlier about elementary. So, I'll go back there. Just my sense about start over, reset. I'm not sure what either one of those means necessarily. I don't I would not be I don't necessarily There's been a lot of good groundwork done, a lot of good information. I don't think anybody's suggesting I'm certainly not to throw that all out the window. What what I've been suggesting last week and now is that we add to that with different perspectives, different Krie talked about, you know, a committee together. So we we it will help to bring more a solid foundation to the decisions we make about the schools regarding the schools if it's 10 11 three or whatever it is is that to me that part is reooked at and re-evaluated and
255you if the whole idea about creating extending the process a little bit or developing the process more and including more voices and more understandings and more data The whole idea there is a notion, at least in my mind, is that we're not I'm not comfortable with what's there now. And I and I would suggest that we say it's a reset. Not it's a reset on the schools we've looked at as far as we've identified right now with LOM and Orchard. And to me, schoolboard thing, we wipe the slate clean. we start over and say, as Dr. Hill said earlier, this is if he had to do it again, I would I would gather that we wouldn't have started presenting all this stuff January 17th and here we're a little month later making huge decisions. And
256that's not a knock on you. I mean, you you identified that this has been um a fast process because because of all the reasons we've been stating tonight. So long-winded. I I'd say um reset in terms of keep what we've we've learned uh the information we've gathered, gather more, and maybe that's where we have a meeting of some sort that that identifies here are the things we need answers to. If it's transportation, um special services, uh special ed programming, you name it. There's doz, you know, more than I could just announce. And then but with regards to the schools because you're right, we don't want would you say we don't want eating our own thing. We we don't want that and we don't want to promote that. And I think the way to do that
257is that that we're all in unison to say we're going to start a new as far as looking at the schools because then we'll have a criteria maybe adding to the criteria how a school is identified and then it'll be clear to everybody. Okay, well then these seven schools are going to be looked at and they may or may not include LOM and Orchard Avenue, but they're going to be in equal footing with everybody else because I think there's been some semblance of agreement that um that that's what we need to do that that I don't know that and maybe I'm wrong that that we're all convinced that those are the two schools that need to be um nixed uh for for the reasons that have been brought forth so far. So that so you
258would so you would go beyond not just the 10 schools you would want to have all elementary schools revaluated or because I think he's done some work to kind of narrow the field down but well what I'm saying is a group or who's ever part of the reassessment of this can say yep hey we agree with that that's that's where we're going to go or they may be and again when I say they people are more expert than any of us um that that can say, "Yeah, but we need to look at this, this, and that as as reasons to either expand or contract that list." And so to do that though, you have to start with with we don't want to wait give extra weight uh to to the schools have already been identified
259that there is some question were they properly identified or were they not? and and and this extended process with more voices may uh may confirm what what's been recommended those schools. Yeah, they're they're a lock solid to be whatever or or no, there aren't or there are more or we need to include. That's why I'm saying it's a relook, not a restart, not a start all over, but to see what we have and expand that and get but be clear about what for the time sake and the money's sake that we're clear about what are we asking this committee and who's going to be involved in it and and what are we asking them what do we task them with and I go when we do the calendar committee we we are specific with them
260these are the things that need to be considered with your recommendation you know from the board and it was I number minimizing um fragmented weeks, you know, the whole list. And that's all I'm saying here is because this could be endless, right? Any number. You could be here for three years and still and we don't want to do that. Uh we can't. No, we can't. No. And and I think we're longer even an option. I think we fi five to agree. I'm agreement with that. That's why I'm saying we need to be very narrowly focused. Uh I like um President Heights's idea that you know September 1st August 30th this has to be done and then bring us along during the way so it's not come that date doesn't come and then we start all
261over again why we don't like whatever is there that by the time that gets there we're signing off because we've been part of that process just like again with calendar committee they don't just drop that on us we're we're part of that process of development. So that's why I'm suggesting with the elementary with with the middle school, you know, I just have to admit it's it's I'm I'm more inclined in in what we've heard from schools and and that's where most of it's being sucked the money that that perhaps um we need to expediate that somehow. But the elementary I'm personally feel that I don't want to on the semantics of it but I I restart re over I I don't we have to do that. We've already put some good work. I think that's
262good and I I mean at least from what I'm hearing from everybody tonight I think I know we've had a lot of people emailing us to implore us to not close any schools. I just want people to understand that that's actually not an option. I mean school schools will be consolidated. So, I want people to understand that as the board is moving forward, we're we're just gonna we're like I like the term I like to use is measure twice, cut once because as we're saying, we're not looking at this to say that we we we're not closing schools or consolidating. But but I would suggest there and I and I'm you know that may be 99.9% true, but but I'm also s you you had brought it up earlier. Do we go for a mill
263levy? Right? because we're thinking that would that be a way to if if the if the community values and I'm I'm making a lot of just statements if the community values we value small schools at at all expense right then it suggests the community may be open and I'm not saying they will I I think that would be a long shot but when we're looking at this I want to look at the whole continuum of the absolute you know this is going to happen to we have win-wins all over nothing has to happen which I know may not happen But I think we have to there could always be that possibility if we go back to like Dr. Hill had suggested, you know, you go back and you do some type of, I don't know,
264survey. I hate to use that word, but some type of feel. What does a community what do we value? Right now, we're assuming they value the things that have been proposed, and they may or may not. Anyway, yeah, I could I feel like we could confine it because I I hear what you're saying. We could confine it to saying like, all right, you you committee have to come up with a plan for 40 FTE. I don't know. just like you have to come up with a plan for these 40 FTE. You can come up with two plans if you want to come up with a plan to fund those and then we want to see a plan to cut them because like you said, we cannot rely even if even if all of us here
265were like 100% we're going for a mill levy for $8 million to cover ourselves for the next five years. Like if that doesn't happen then what? So we could still say whatever explore whatever you want to come up with a plan for however many FTE we we feel or however we want to frame that you you have to be able to cut these. It isn't just the FTE. Sure. I mean there is right so a consolidationbased FTE plan and if you want to do something else great come up with that too but come up with we we know we need this plan within our scope. we we have to have this come up with that plan and then whatever come up with something else. Well, I also want to be very mindful too that while
266I'd love to just ask for mil levy money to cover that expense of 8 million, I think we're also cutting ourselves short that then we can't ask for mil levy money to cover resources, security. I mean, we could have to Well, right. We've got one. We also ask the community for certain things. And so then if we if the ask is, hey, give us money so we can keep these schools open, we also are giving up asking the community to help us with additional security. Um, right. Central High School, um, a community that's living with 9% inflation right now. Yeah. But what this does, right, it's f it gives us options, right? People like options. This does, I hope, and I think what Dr. Carrie mentioned earlier on what's critical in all this is that
267we we regain or or build trust in the community that we've been very thorough and right now I think I think it's reasonable to to say there's been some real questions in the community about that. Not that anybody intended it to be that way. And that's why we're having this special meeting for four hours now to to really hash this out that we want to have when we get that recommendation in three months, six months, whatever it may be, that people will they may not like the decision, right? But and and what the outcome is, uh they may not be happy with it, but at least to have the confidence that we've have really been thorough in this and that there is no other option. And and it may be like you said it maybe
268we just have well I guess I would rather I'd rather um underpromise and overd deliver because I don't want to say that there I mean based on the data and especially like I rely a lot on what Melany's data is and especially the one graph where our two lines like I don't know where those eventually would meet. I mean that is a huge gap. And so I guess you know if I feel like staff has looked at the options right over the last several years and I do get that the school closure conversation was was quick to sort of hit everybody. Obviously you know like Dr. Hill said if we if that could have been happening more frequently a couple of years ago. Again hindsight's 2020. So I do think between now and August we
269have, you know, in probably just like we're getting updates with the strategic plan, we would need updates on how this is this is rolling forward with, you know, Dr. Hill and his team. Um I just don't I don't want to give a false hope that there's to our community. Absolutely. Um that's just my only worry. Um because I I don't want to I don't want us to then seem like well you guys said this and now you're taking it back. So I'd rather and and I'm always and I'm always the person who's like I'm the glass half full person. I always like to try to find the better way of doing it. I'm also it's also just the reality that there's there's got to be some things and I'd hate to get back to where
270the district was in like '08 when they didn't get you know the the tax income from the property values because of the recession which I know you mentioned at the very beginning the meeting it's two very different things but then the district at that point was very much having to re-evaluate and change and I I believe at the time the board put together a committee to try to help look at the budget and figure out where um you know brought some outside people in that could help look at where to make cuts. So, and two points real quick. Thank you. The spot on truly. Um I I I want to on one thing again my opinion you know the money by this delay for lack of another word or or extension to really gain more
271understanding and and clear give us clear direction. It's been brought up obviously that would cost us money for next year, but I I I think we can look at that I hope we look at it as an investment because we're still kids are getting educated and we're doing all those things, but it's an investment in in our decision-m process that we're very thorough and that yes, it costs some money, but sometimes it it may end up saving us more too because we've been more thoughtful in this. And we also have we have a tiny bit Exactly. a tiny bit of wiggle room. That's right. With our elementary schools, I don't believe we have any I think we're out of room with our middle school situation. I think that has to be addressed. It quickly it
272does it that's the cliff. Yeah. Yeah. So So anyway, I I think good points and I I think there was a concern that you know that we don't want to give false hope. I don't think anything here tonight has you know it's I mean I saw one of the young teacher go out crying to death and and and um you know so I I think we're not giving anybody false hope we're giving everybody the hope hope that we're being even more thoughtful than than there and as Dr. Hill said that maybe gives him and the team and the HR people and transportation and maintenance and all the people have to look at this to to really give a sing more singular focus about what we need uh for not our just for us but for
273the community to say that's a good decision even if it means you know we're getting schools getting cut but I go back to I think we if if we choose to go this route that we clean the slate and every every everything's an option now as far as that elementary picture and um and and the schools look at it like we're we're back in the I was going to get a deck of cards tonight, you know, shuffle them. They're all back in the deck and we can um lay it out and we're going to look at everybody equally because there are we looked at we talked about Fruda the we have three elementary schools out there that are at half capacity, you know, and I'm not picking on fruit. I'm just saying we have from
274one end of the valley to the other that we really need to scrutinize more carefully with these new viewpoints we'll be getting. And so then it's a and the good thing in this town right community we have a lot of great resources. We have a university here people there can help us. We have community uh planners that can help us. So I I think we have a lot of resources if we tap into them. Well, did you So I'm just Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out where we're at for direction. Are we we all in agreeance that we have to do the middle schools or are we putting the middle schools on hold? Are we Well, I think that's where if we need to we need to make the vote probably by probably next
275week so that people know. I mean, what like like Melanie said, one way or the other, we have to make a decision. I think if if the board needs to take some time to um take this next week to ask any more questions or or talk to anybody, we can we can do that. That's definitely been an option that's been laid out tonight. Um you know, we're not taking any vote tonight. we can just kind of talk about what we've each expressed. Um, and then and that was that was the point was to kind of look at the options and the board to be able to share our thoughts and and kind of chat about that. But we did ask for more information about fruit, right? We do want Yeah. So that's required. Absolutely. So
276if we can't if we don't feel like if if we can't get the information back, thank you Carrie for reminding us. um if we can't get that information back, we would likely need to call a special meeting soon after the 7th um to take a vote because I mean we just HR is kind of at a standstill right now to be able to move forward with hiring for for other schools. So, so do we have a are we going to hold off on the elementary till then or is there a consensus now about I think we want to so I think okay where I'm sorry we'll do you have more to say no I think we need to get Fruda right we wanted to get the information on Fruda because I think then that will
277determine whether um kind of look at that along with east and then I at least I'm kind of sensing that everybody's willing to pump the brakes on the elementary school level because I think we all feel like we have a little more breathing room with the FTE at the elementary school level and then we can come back and give guidance to the district um to formulate that process, get some additional people to confirm or work within the information that Shannon's already started, but we want um I just think the end of August is a is a good time frame and a vote by October. Um, I just don't think this is something a new school board right out of the gate to, you know, well, however it ends up being, um, it's just way too
278much information. I I would hope and think if we get the information by September 1st and we've all been a part of that along I don't think we need to October. I No. Yeah. I just I'm just kind of giving us a a deadline that like we we need to as a board we need to be able to make a decision because then that gives our families enough time for the following year to make a plan. That shouldn't be I I wouldn't think that would be a problem. Okay. Yeah. And I would hope it wouldn't I'm looking back at the like middle school evaluation matrix right now and yeah I think definitely some more information this week because you know on here East is one of the few schools who won't be under 400 students
279by 2027. So, as we're talking about like, yes, I know why it's east. I definitely look for very firm understanding of why we think it's east when we're looking at declining enrollment when that school is not, you know, when it's doing okay. When we're thinking about absolute and there's property there is was a big consideration. Yes. There's no room for expansion. One thing too did you is you know Will and I were there talking to u some of the folks at East as you guys were and we're talking about capacity of buildings and and they brought up to our attention that what was listed or identified as a capacity was in their opinion way out of whack in in terms if we were viewing it as we're warehousing kids you probably could have that whatever
280that high number 600 or something because we're warehousing them and and you put 30 in a they were saying the the the sweet spot for that school and this was some a teacher had been there 19 years said is probably in that 500 range pardon me 485 and so it's it was in that range of where they thought you know you go much above it it it can be too too many kids and so I think that's something again as we look in this process we we have to consider those things too and and again I think that most buildings would say that there's a warehousing type number we can provide and then there's okay what is what is ideal optimal for instruction and program delivery and and what's the number that works and I
281don't know that for every building that was just anecdotal information from um some of the staff at east today as an example Shannon was there um was there a second to east I I'm I'm sorry I don't have the your presentation pulled up like a it was Fruda What came next? You want to amplify that? Well, well, but but together, right? Because we have a Fruda scenario. But but um I think that um getting back to the capacity observations, there were two capacity models. Uh one was uh five of seven and one was six of seven. So what the principles saw was kind of the junior high capacity, which is where we were headed four years ago when we did that look is that we didn't think we would be able to have a junior
282middle school capacity or schedule much longer. So that's what I showed the middle school capacities which are five of seven periods in use for all of those built for for for east and west were in the low 500s like 510 540 something like that. So then well I guess all right because I guess I'm seeing that fruit is fruit is something we're just we're going we we are moving forward towards. Um, so was there another middle school in town that we could that was in in Well, it was conversations versus east. It was East or West. East, West, and Bookcliff all had the same grade. So, yeah. So, so, so a part of the evaluation is can I draw a service area where the school will be relatively central in the service area. So that's
283part of the reason is the spacing of the schools is to put uh to be able to draw a service area and have a a school central to it. So um you know could bookcliffe be a consolidation candidate? Sure. I just given where it's located relative to the other buildings, it would wind up having a pretty strange service area if it were. And so from a combinability standpoint, I have to look at these things as far as how's it going to work for the next 40 years as a service area. And um you know that's that's the reason why it became east or west were the consolidation options for the schools that were in Grand Junction. It was just based upon where they are and can we run an institution with a building in that
284location and a service area that that is around it. If it comes down to West. What is I don't see the justification between the two of them. Um well I do you want me to kind of run through the bits and pieces? This just gets back to my bigger point is that this you know again I I so again the question is why you know whatever we're talking about these two specific schools. um we're we're buying into the idea that if you want to draw uniform service areas around them, it comes down to east or west, but then why east or west? You know, they're like a mile apart. Um so yeah, I just I feel like I I need to to feel really firm in that decision if we move forward to it. And
285I don't know if we want to do this or need to do this tonight. I think we need to. I mean, that's why we're here tonight. I mean, I think when what I recollected from from that was when Shannon showed us where where from west what it could grab in a different area that in east you could not. I mean, so I think maybe looking at that again I mean if that's what we need I mean because they own all that property. Well, but if we're talking about really considering a middle school, I think we need to look at it. I mean if that helps if that helps, we need to look at that again. And we also need the information on Yeah. So maybe that's a good Yeah. So a question for next time
286to prepare like a clearer justification between these two schools. So Shannon, if you are able to and if Dr. Hill um allows or okays it um if he could take doa are we we able to um have Shannon bring all that information like you guys are trying to fish that up there. Okay, there we go. Who's Somebody lost their microphone. Okay. Oh, sorry. The cord for the computer. Well, I just I know it's long, guys, but I just feel like this is our doing our due diligence for our No, it's fine. It's fine. Will No. Well, why don't you guys just get up and go while Shannon's getting his um stuff. I'd say just y'all know where the bathrooms are. So, if you need to please could you just bring up showing us west versus
287east again for the board to be able to look at. It will at least be something that we can then take home with us for the next week to be able to to look at. And thank you for those of you that stuck around with us for another long meeting. four four hours. I know. Thank you. Mondays are up 4:30. Got him from the airport, took him home, and they came right to the meeting. So, I didn't really get to see him. Sorry. All right. If we can do we have your stuff on the screen or can we get his presentation? Is it not working? It probably was like I'm done and turning off. Yeah. School's good. So they both get a three. The difference between the two schools that is in this evaluation rubric
288is significant growth potential in the area. There is none in East. So it got a a closure uh score of one. Can you wait? Can I have you? What does significant closure to have no significant closure? What does that mean? To have what now? Or significant growth. Sorry. You said that. Um I'll I'll I'll show you. Um so so west is identified as having significant growth. So when I say significant growth, I mean square miles of growth potential. Okay. So when we look at the west attendance area or what is more approximate to west because west wouldn't own the attendance area. If east became the school, the attendance area becomes irrelevant. But what is proximate to west is northeast Grand Junction right up north of F Road here. This is northeast of the mall and
289those are growing subdivisions that we have been trying to reserve space in Pomona to accommodate. So that area in addition to the Appleton attendance area in in this part of Apple. Now again less growth but most of Appleton is already in the Fruda middle school Fruda 89 attendance area but this near part of Appleton that used to be Appleton is now Pomona would have some growth in it. So to quantify that there are about three half mileile half square mile areas worth of growth left in this immediate area that would develop as residential um that have been reserved including this this area here. I'm sorry, three half square miles in this area and maybe a little bit more up in here that would be approximate to west versus having to take that growth uh south
290of North Avenue to east. So that's why on that score sheet um east was identified as the closure candidate and west was not. Furthermore, we own the west site whereas east we do not own the field and so we have access to that as a playfield and can com and can police dog walking and dog waste on that site whereas we cannot on east and that is a relevant issue and also east drops are all on urban streets whereas on west we have some off streetet drops So those were the kind of the three overriding issues. Also, I felt I could draw a little bit better attendance area for West and it was immediately proximate to Grand Junction High School. So it made it seem a little bit more viable as a secondary campus versus
291the separation that would be created by North Avenue by using East. Furthermore, this portion, these red students are east kids that are north of north. And so if we were to make east the school, not only would we have the north of north kids up here, we would also have the north of north kids that are associated with west. And these numbers are significantly greater than the numbers of kids that are south of north in this immediate area. Now, that does not include these kids that are over here in Pear Park, and I don't know exactly how that quantifies, but those kids are transported anyhow. And um so I didn't really address that. And I think that um I assigned those kids to bookcliffe because in parent vehicles, those children could go straight north to
292Bookcliffe. These kids could go straight north to bookcliffe. So that kind of made some sense. Whereas if East became the surviving school, well, they would do the same thing. So in fairness, they would do the same thing under either scenario because my preference would be to draw the same service area for both schools regardless of which one was selected. Um so at any rate, um here's the mapping for that. So here we have these kids going to Bookcliffe, the the red kids that are shown here. And this actually wound up coinciding with the high school attendance area nicely. But to be fair, it coincides whichever school you select, it works pretty well. But that's the reason why East and West became the two the pair of consolidation candidates because of their proximity to each other
293and how the schools would be um arrayed um west to east across the valley. So in this circumstance I have Grand Mesa in the center of its attendance area. So, a student who is walking or cycling to school um in that attendance area looks is in a pretty good spot. Bookcliffe, we're looking at somewhat centered in the attendance area. So, students who are cycling or walking to school are more likely to get there if they've missed a bus or if they just want to get themselves to school or they're driven to school. The trip demand becomes a little bit lower if they're centered in the attendance area. And then over here in west, this would be the service area regardless of whether we went with east or west. And west would be a little bit
294more in the center of its service area versus east, which would be a little bit more on the fringe, but arguably not that much, but a little bit. And it would also be south of North Avenue. So those are that's kind of the process by which West was identified. I think my follow-up question would be so how many students are out are within the walking biking zone in west that would have to come across north to east like it there would be a comparison right versus the kids in east and pair park who have to go across north to bookcliffe relative to their walking and biking radius my quick radius and GIS I can kind of hazard a guess here but I don't know without love to have a because there are so many transportation
295hazards in this area. But here's west and I would say if a student lived north of well I I would think getting across FOD for a middle school student on a crosswalk would probably be okay. But I would say this is probably the walking area for F-road and let's test that now just for the heck of it. Well, we don't have to do it right now. We can do it later. Well, we're here and the software is here. So that's about 162 children. And if we're looking at the kids that could walk to east from and assuming that north would be a transportation hazard, not assuming would we take these children over here or is that they're on the other side of 50? Well, we would include anybody who could then cross to bookcliffe, too,
296because that's the comparison. It's crossing north across the board. So either the either everybody below has to go up or that group above has to come down. Well, these are the kids that could walk to to east if you left east online. So if you left west online, you get 162. If you leave east online, you get 113. So, it's a little bit better for West, but but again, um with with East offline, these kids wind up um you know, going to bookcliffe. So, um you know, these students would probably wind up being transported and and and conversely, if uh if, uh you know, these students up in here that are that are West students, uh if East stayed online would be transported down to East. And I think I've I've lost my little gold
297line here because it's on the other graphic. But you can see that that these students see these are the students that I would affect by by changing their location. Um so anyway, I hope I've answered your question. I would just love to have that summarized. What's that? A lot of information quickly. Just love to have that summarized for the next for when we talk about this again. Well, why don't we just I don't know. I How How do you want that summarized? Are you wanting that to be like more spelled out like just with the numbers of what he just went through or So, I'm just I All right. I So, I just am not totally Okay. So, it was 13 How much was it for West? 133 for west and then it'll be 108
298but they'll be bust and then presumably our thought is that not all the other ones will be bust that we're moving. I'm just trying to if if this is what we're comparing them on I want to make sure that I understand exactly what this means to me and um quantify and summarize that all for you. That would be great. Thank you. Because I want to be able to say when parents say to me, "This is why we are closing this school." I want to be like, "Here are all of the reasons and I know them." Instead of being like, "Yeah, I don't know. I don't remember. There was something about 20 more students who wouldn't cross north, you know." So, okay. Any other questions for Shannon on that? Okay. One other question, Mel, that um
299was brought up to us during the break. Um I think there's some concern around and I I don't know that we asked it this clearly but and my well might go to Nikki but I think more for finance is with I think there's some worry that while we have natural pe you know we have natural attrition people retiring um moving away is the concern around teachers who have contracts with us now waiting to where we then no longer have it's probably a Nikki question too. um where where we will not have the ability to fulfill those contracts because we won't be able to um if we wait we won't be able to fill those spots because I think what the the question is is and the concern is is that is it's better for our
300people to have their jobs now have those contracts and have employment versus waiting and then there is no opportunity for employment. Is that a real possibility that if we don't have um if we wait and we are not able to to fill these positions, we literally may not be able to fulfill some of those contracts. I think that that is a fair statement and it's hard to look into our crystal ball and say, well, what's going to happen for next year, right? So what we know is that heading into this year with whatever it is that the board decides to recommend that through attrition and through um the the number of staff that are going to go to receiving schools. We think that we can handle that. We know we can handle that through displacement.
301Now next year there's a lot of variables that come into play, right? It could be additional school closures. It could be additional financial climate that we're in. versus compared to this year. So there's there's just more unknown that we would have to work through next year just as we worked through this year. So I think that's kind of the question is we know what we know now. We know what FTE we're we need to to work with. We may not know what that's going to be next year. And if we delay and we spend money trying to prolong the process, we may also end up not being able to to employ our teachers, which for me is concerning and for the questioner who was concerning because now you're basically taking somebody out of a job
302and then and there's no more job. So, I mean, like you said, we're we're dealing with unknowns for next year. It might be fine, it might not. Or we might be having to find more FTE to cut, which then just means like even if we had our natural attrition, that may not be enough to move people around in the district to retain them and retain employment. True. And I want to just be very clear that it's always in everybody's best interest and what we value is is that we want to try to do everything we can to try to keep staff in the district. And so we would work through what that looked like next year and we you know there may be some things that we can talk about that we've implemented in prior
303years. Um but there that you know we would approach that in that manner in that we want to try to keep people here. We're going to do everything we can in order to do that but the more cuts we have and if we have some financial uncertainty you know obviously that compounds the solution or and and the issue. I yeah, I just I think I'm more making it kind of saying it to myself as something that we need to think about because we can deal with what we know now or we're gambling with what we don't know for that's going to happen next year. And I think the concern is that are we then gambling with people's livelihoods? I think it's just something we need to think on for the next week. Y and then
304Will, I think you had one kind of more concluding thought on kind of where we were going to your concern around the starting over piece. um and what what your thoughts were on starting at the two and then looking at the 10 and I just want to make sure I mean I I just want to make sure we're you know we're making the right decisions so we're at not start not starting over but you know like like we are everybody said not playing with people's livelihood either and you know so I think it's almost good that we just like I said we leave the list where it's at you know we start we look at that list and see if everybody on that list needs to be on that list you know and it could
305be you know that list stays is the same. Or it could be we add to that list. But I mean, I think if we start completely over, you know, we we didn't have other schools that worry and and and add unnecessarily worry. Um, but I just think it's better that we, you know, still have the list, you know, but I'm not saying but start with with that list, you know, start Orchard, Lincoln, Scenic, West, you know, wherever and just and go from there. But I mean, I want to make sure. But but my question, I had one final question to be fine. I know we talked about having a committee and having Shannon talk to or having somebody talk to Fuda. I want to make sure that we're completely 100%. You know, Shannon, that's his
306job. That's what we're doing. Or we having him go talk to Fuda and we're okay with him talking to Fuda because I don't want to be back here saying we don't trust anything that he said. So I want to make sure that if we say we want him to talk to Fuda, then it's Shannon talking to Fuda. So I'm fine with that. That's just where I'm Yeah, same. I just want to note that Fuda elementary schools are off the table then if we don't if we don't reconsider and that and FRA elementary schools are the lowest across the board. Is that the is that the decision we want? I just I I I mean we my concern and maybe we should work this backwards is my concern is that we when we first started this
307conversation just even a few weeks ago, we already had people kind of in a stir around their school and their school wasn't one that was identified. I I'd like to maybe walk it back a little bit differently is can we start with Orchard Avenue and Lincoln Orchard Mesa? Have Dr. Hill, his staff, the committee look that look at those two, then just look at the 10, you know, and then because I I I just I'm concerned that now every school is going to be back in a panic around what it could or couldn't be. And I I just I wonder if we should just walk it back from the information we already have. I think that that's why the that's why the standard best p best practices clearly detail what are the criteria and what
308are the metrics and measurables so everybody understands what those things are. And so, you know, that could help us, you know, if people start start to bombard us, like we can deal with emails, it's okay. But if people start to bombard us, we can say, well, um, you know, here's our criteria, and then they can see if their school will fall within or outside of their criteria and and it can be an informed process that we can point to. I still I am not on board with starting at where we are now again because our most empty schools are off the table and we have made some very arbitrary decisions that I do not agree with. And so I hear what you're saying, but I think that we I think that we I think that
309we help people feel more calm by being clear and transparent and and and developing a process. I think we don't I think that way the way we don't do it is just saying, "Okay, we've gotten to this point. we're gonna dig our heels in and we're just moving forward from here. I think we say, "Okay, this is how we're going to develop a process and just be absolutely transparent." Well, I think we should probably outline maybe a little more clearly what Shannon's already done because I'd imagine that part of that system is in the best practices and at least start to pinpoint what some of those pieces are. I mean, I Well, can you give us that, Shannon? I mean, can you just like list out what your criteria was for making this decision for
310selecting for for the selection of the 10 out of all the schools and then how you narrowed it down then? Why is why is Fuda off the table? Large scale growth areas in those attendance areas and most districts do not dispose of public assets in areas where there is significant growth. And so that's the reason I didn't include them. Would you like to if if we relax that criteria, we could put Shel uh combining with uh Rimrock and Monument View and we could put LMA and Shel as a combination candidate in a pairing and put them back in the group and then run run numbers based on that. I am not that what I absolutely do not want to do is I do not want to sit here and say well here's you know one
311other reason and one other reason I want a process that everybody understands again like I have a real big problem with like that one school that wasn't included because of its architecture like I we need to go we need to go back set clear standards and move forward from there and maybe maybe we agree on those standards already and we say all right because there's maybe going to be growth in Fra that we've been hoping for since 2012 that has not transpired. Maybe eventually there will be. So all those are off the table. You know, maybe that's a decision that the group makes, but I I'm not there. I've done processes where evaluation teams picked the criteria and that could be one thing that you could do is as an evaluating group you could identify
312the criteria that you want to that's forgive me again I probably wasn't clear that's what I thought we were suggesting is that we form this committee for lack of another term that does that very thing and then you can go back so putting the cart before the horse is determine that and then look at all the schools and say which one. And so Orchard and Loom may be right back on there, but so may other schools and and like you said, one of the criterias may be that if this looks like a growth area, they're going to be off the the table even if their their capacity utilization thing is is under what other criteria says. So I think that's the point when you look at steps, forgive me with the steps, that that would
313be step one to develop the criteria and then see who fits into it. And that should be a pretty easy exercise once you've determined that if you're going to look at this, this, and that meets I think Shannon's already established criter I mean I do too. And I just want to throw the question to you, Dr. Hill. Did you did you guys give Shannon some of those criterion that you wanted to that you wanted him to work with? Was it 100% Shannon just came and said, "Here's what I think or was it a collaboration of you and your team about how how we came to 10 and then we came to two?" Yeah. So y'all are asking questions about a lot of different things. So um the to ask it I I think there's also
314some assumptions built in. So but maybe that shouldn't be the case. So we've gotten questions on why aren't you considering um some of the choice schools. Well, we have we put caps on those schools. They can only take so many kids because of what we we've basically set that up for them. So that's something that I would have thought would have been not needed to wouldn't need to be stated, right? But we still have gotten questions about that. So I think backing up if we need to go back to that and say we're not going to consider closing a school like and I'm just I hate listing schools off because it makes I don't want them to feel like we're talking about them. But so a new Emerson, right? That's a small school. We have
315to do a small school factor for that building. Are we saying that we want to close that building? It's a choice school. kids. Um, they do a lottery process. We tell them they get capped out at a certain number. So, they're a small school because we've set them up to be a small school. If we don't want that anymore, then that's a discussion we need to have. So, that's getting back to having a conversation about things like that or is if Fruda if we don't actually think fruit of growth is going to happen, then I guess we do need to talk about the Fra area. My understanding is that we've been anticipating growth growth in the Fra area for a long time. So that's why when Shannon came to us, he said he's not looking
316at that area for the elementary schools because you're going to need room for when those schools do have more families moving into the area. If we don't want that, we can have that discussion. Um, so he focused on the areas where the enrollment decline, and I don't want to speak for you, but enrollment decline was happening in those neighborhoods and how do we actually take care of those schools in those neighborhoods where the enrollment decline's happening. the the Fruda area is something that um was done to that area, I would say, because when a new elementary school was open there, we did pull kids from the other schools. So, you know, you're we're getting into a whole lot of other discussions that um I don't know that we necessarily had time to have. So, yeah,
317some of those assumptions were built in. I I didn't think that we were going to be talking about do we need to talk about choice schools and if we're going to close choice schools, I mean, I those are things that I I wouldn't think would be on the table. And that gets back to if if we were in agreement, baby dot, that we formulate this committee and we hash through those details that need to be hashed through and then we then through that you then develop the list of schools that we're going to look at further. See, I just I think the criteria has already been set. The the the the number one factor is is the declining enrollment in that area. then Fruda would be a candidate then or is it just not growing?
318But where I get concerned is that we if we start all the way from the beginning again I mean we can make it clear I mean yeah whether we're doing choice schools or not but if the enrollment decline is in that area then okay throwa back into that mix which again we are looking at fra trying to figure out some things. Is Fruda in decline or is it is it stabilized? Is it enrollment and then with the pot with the amount of potential for growth in Fruda? That would make sense to me. If Fruda is not in a a decline or a significant decline, then that would that might change the Fruda that conversations. So, what's the possibility? I mean and and I'm just asking um what is the possibility that if we have this
319committee and this committee say we say by like you said by August 1st or September 1st we have these answers done. So if they look at it and say, "Okay, hey, we've looked at Fruda. Fuda needs to be in this group. We've looked at, you know, such and so and so in town, they need to be in this group. Is that a possibility that we can just I mean, because we're going to go run and run and run and run and run and round and run and run around when we don't need to. So, we either have a committee to set these things up and look at these things and decide a date that we need a an answer on this date and that's it or we, you know, sit here until the cows come
320home wondering what's going on in my opinion and and I that's a great point. I I think what you've said is Shannon's done this work and the I think we've all agreed with that he's done work on this but the thought and the idea behind the committee was to add to that and the criteria that he established with work with Dr. Dr. Hill and the group, we're not discounting that criteria. We're just saying are there other factors, other things we want to look at and what and why we want to look at those and then the ship can start rolling. But um that's what and that's what I'm saying is can they go with what he's recommended the two and the 10 and look at those first and with the criteria that's been established. But
321I think there I think we're just having a fundamental um disagreement here because and I understand what Dr. Schulties is saying is that we should just start from the beginning and start from there. I'm just saying if there's some criteria that's already been laid out, why are we not just looking at, you know, No, I get So, but what if this committee then determines a a factor or a criteria that would then include the fruit of schools as an example? So, do you not put put them in because they weren't in the original list or do we open it up because the the group has extended the criteria that was already? I think I think in my mind the way and correct me if I'm wrong Shannon I think there's again everybody's just this is
322a it's an art and a science of trying to make a prediction right I mean this would be so much easier if we know exactly what it was going to be I mean because then you could just say it definitively because you would know that you know the outcome is going to be we're trying to make a prediction I think because Fruda may have lower enrollment I think the expansion out there negates the lower enrollment because there is room for expansion there. When you look at schools in the city, they have declining enrollment, but they don't have the value to offset growth or expansion. So, I think when we are looking at a 20 or 30, 40year plan down the road, we can only hit so much growth in Grand Junction proper because there's no
323more land to build a property on. Granted, some miraculous event might happen. Um, summer of love, I think is as it was put, you know, but but that we might get more kids at some point. But the point is that when something happens, the growth is going to go where there's vacant land. The growth the the families will move to where the homes are being built and where they are. So, I guess I see one value offsets the other, which then is why fruit is taken off the table. I guess that's how I'm seeing it. Yeah. So I don't I don't disagree, but Fruda has 750 empty seats right now. And so I think I think you're right. I think that if we start with saying like here are the criteria and here's how we
324evaluated it and and start there, but I also want to ask the question, does the committee agree with the criteria? And if it's this obvious, then the committee will be like, yes, we agree with the criteria. We're good to go. you know, as long as they're tasked, as long as as long as everybody understands that we're not going to get out of closing schools here, um that, you know, they'll they'll be like, "Okay, we evaluate it. We agree that makes perfect sense. Moving on." Um but I want to again that is it is by far the most disproportionately massive vacant seat, you know, number raw number and relative percent than anywhere. So, you know, hopefully the committee would just be like, "Yep, makes sense. We're good to go." And I think that sounds fair. Okay,
325great. All right. Do I dare ask if there's any more questions? Any more comments? Okay, I'll say it quietly. All right. I think we're I think our we our time is done and we are baked, right? We're discuss. Oh, sorry. I thought that was what we were doing. No, there is no more other board open discussion. Well, there is, but we're going to take it one step at a time. All right. Okay. I think we're good. We'll just have our workshop u March 7th and I think we'll determine whether the board feels comfortable um having a small business meeting at that time to do um a vote. Um yeah, I think that makes sense. Yes. Yeah. Yes, that's the consent. Thank you. All right. Thank you everybody.