Board of Education Meeting - May 5, 2025

001Welcome. The May 5th, 2025 board of education meeting is called to order, and I welcome everyone present. The Witchaw Public Schools will be the premier district of choice and inspire each student and staff member to thrive and become future ready within the greater community. This is a business meeting of the board of education, and we are pleased that you've taken the time to join us. For the roll call, all board members are present. Please join me in a moment of silence. Thank you. Our color guard tonight is from Northwest High School, Jerot TC. Please stand for the presentation of the colors followed by the pledge of allegiance. face and colors. You can post the colors or colors closed. Please join to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nation

002under indivisible with liberty and justice for all. [Applause] Thank you. Northwest High School JROTC color guard Latona. First item, good news. Inaugural welcoming schools micro grant recipients. Welcome, Wendy. Hello. I wasn't sure whether anyone was going to come down before me. It is pleasure to be here. I've got some really cool stuff to share with you and I appreciate the opportunity to allow you to celebrate the educators that are coming down to join me. Um, when I started creating the family and community engagement work back in the fall, we spent a lot of time reviewing best practice research and talking to principles and our family engagement site contacts through the lens of what is most important for our families to do to um connect with school and support students success. And that's really important. The

003six keys to success call to action that you have a copy of in front of you is the result of that research. We are using data from our district's safety and belonging survey to inform our work going forward. And we're focused on your priorities from the strategic plan, most directly strategic plan goal three, which is to create and enhance safety and belonging. Immediately after we defined the six keys, we knew that we had to flip the lens and ask families. We asked our educators. Now we need to ask our families what they need schools to do in order to allow families to connect and support student success. That listening work is ongoing. It will continue through the summer uh and into the fall as my replacement is selected. In the meantime, however, um we've used

004the six keys framework to look inward and consider what schools need to do to allow families to connect with and support student success. And the good news item that we bring forward tonight is one of those outgrowths. So, part of the research that we reviewed suggests that school environment, clear communication, and accessible and friendly school facilities form the critical foundation for family-friendly schools. And the welcoming schools micro grant project which these amazing people are part of is designed to creatively consider how to improve a school's welcoming environment. So 14 schools applied for the first welcoming schools micro grant and six have been selected. These leaders believe that when families feel valued, respected and sincerely encouraged to participate in their students education, powerful things can happen. So, I want to introduce you to these folks and

005um make sure that you know that we will see greatness from them as we continue our work going forward. So, I want to say thank you to Brooke HL at Anderson, Camille Evans at Jefferson, and Jill Feifer, and I forgot what your pup's name is. Lety. Laura Drew at Riverside, and I don't think Laura was able to join us tonight. Karen Waterman Overgard at Coleman Middle School, Connie Reick at Curtis Middle School, and Poncho Bustos at Marshall Middle School. And Poncho was unable to join us tonight, as was Laura. Um, like I said, over the next several months, the family and community engagement team will work with these leaders to define their vision specifically. They had substance in their microrant applications and now we have to marry substance with funding and figure out how much

006of the creative ideas we'll actually be able to do in this goround and my hope will be that um you'll see the brilliance shine through and when we ask for funding again Miss Addie um that there will be uh enthusiasm for continuing the project. Um, so I asked Karen if she might want to share a couple of words about Coleman's microrant application just to give you a feel for um, one example of what you may see happen in the coming months and then we'll invite you to give all of these leaders a round of applause. I put the glasses on. With the resources from the welcoming schools microrant, we will create a more welcoming and inclusive school environment by enhancing our communication strategies including inhome languages. We just added a newcomer program this year and

007we speak many many in-home languages and we want to make sure that we can make our families feel like they belong in our building. Um we also want to provide support for our families. Our vision includes improving our communications. will develop clear and comprehensive written and oral communication materials that are in our home languages and familyfriendly. This includes updating our weekly newsletter to provide better access to information. We'll also want to enhance our school facilities. We'll create welcoming spaces within the school such as comfortable waiting areas for families and dedicated spaces for our family meetings and events. Uh we want to support family engagement. So, we will bolster our family engagement activities to involve families in their child's academic achievement and connect them with community services. This includes providing resources and materials to help families

008learn about school goals, policies, and procedures. We'd love to somehow have Coleman thought of as a community center within our neighborhood. Again, thank you. We're very grateful to have been chosen for this microrant. One interesting tie-in I will add Karen mentioned languages that we are experimenting with some AI technology that I have not yet visited with Rob about um but is widely available technology to um help our schools with some frontline encounters with families who may choose not to come into the school environment because there's not a translator there that can support them. So more on that. We're starting to test some of those devices out and um I'm really excited about the transformation that may come from the ability for our front offices to welcome families in. So, thank you very much for the

009opportunity to share this work with you. And if you have any questions for our leaders, I'm sure they'll be happy to take take those questions. Okay, seeing no questions, we thank you very much for your hard work and dedication and we look forward to seeing the great things that you guys create within your buildings and please invite us out to come see and experience next year. So, thank you very much. Thank you, [Applause] Lona. Next item. Good news senior celebration. Welcome, Tim. I had to wait for Lenny to get out of the way there. So, uh, Tim Hamlin, executive director of college and career readiness. Thank you, President Albert, Superintendent Billfield, members of the board. Um, I know most of you were present earlier this evening, but for those in the audience, tonight we had

010the opportunity, this is kind of the kickoff to graduation season. I can't believe that we're already there. It's amazing. But this evening we had the opportunity to honor and celebrate many of our seniors. Certainly not every single one of them. But what we did, we had a reception in the cafeteria here at North High starting at 5:00. We had each school bring forward four students. Two students were to be the students that had earned the highest scholarship amounts this school year. And then the other two students were those that had earned the most industry recognized credentials through our Witchto Public Schools programming. So, it was a very nice evening. I thought a very nice event. They were treated to cookies and uh punch. I remember last time I was up here, I gave you cookies

011and I left the tray in there. So, I'm so sorry. But, um it was a like I said, it was a great evening. Culminated with a group photo out in the courtyard and look forward to all of the wonderful things those students are going to achieve in their life and thank you for creating the opportunities for them to do so. So, thank you. Very good. Thank you very much. Latona. Next item. United Teachers of Witchah. Welcome, Katie. Good evening. Um, President Albert, uh, Vice President McCrae Miller, uh, Superintendent, uh, Belifeld, and distinguished board members. Um, as we begin teacher appreciation week, I want to speak not only as the president of United Teachers of Witchaw, but also as a proud WPS parent. My son began his journey in Witchaw Public Schools as a prek student,

012and next week he will graduate from Northwest High School. As a parent, I'm filled with pride. And as the union president, I'm filled with deep gratitude for the incredible educators who've supported him and the thousands of other students that walk through our halls through every step of their educational journey. It's been one of the greatest honors of my life to work alongside the very teachers who have shaped my son's future. So tonight, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to every educator who's made a difference in his life and every educator across this district. Thank you. Thank you for your dedication, your passion, your resilience, and your commitment to our students in your in our community. Appreciation cannot just be spoken. It has to be demonstrated. One of the most powerful ways that we

013can show our appreciation is by truly listening to the people doing the work. If we want to know how to best support our students, we must start by listening to the educators who spend every day with them. That's why it was concerning to learn about the district's financial oversight committee that includes community members, district staff, and administrators. But there are no classroom educators on this committee. If we're serious about making informed, equitable decisions that serve our students, teachers must have a seat at that table. Excluding educator voice sends a wrong message and creates distance between decision-making and that livedin classroom experience. We've also heard serious concerns from educators involved in the pilot with the continuum program for students receiving their special education services. Teachers have shared that district staff have not reached out to hear

014how the program is going at the ground level. That no data has been collected to evaluate its effectiveness. Multiple staff members have been injured and once again educator voice has been left out. Yet the programs being expanded next year. That is not how we show appreciation to professionals who are doing some of our most demanding and critical work in our schools. At our organization, we're committed to investing in what works for students and for teachers. That's why we're proud to be completing our third year of the reading opens the world initiative. We've given $10,000 last year and the year before in a grants to provide books to six elementary schools to go home with students to boost early literacy and improve third grade reading. proficiency. The results have been promising and this fall we will

015once again be giving a book to every incoming kindergarten student to help spark a love of reading from the very start to support our teachers navigating the new certifi certification requirements. We're offer we're offering free practice prep to Witchaw public school educators impacted by the new literacy seal requirements. And just last week, our vice president, Mice Mike Harris, led a training developed in partnership with AFT and Microsoft on how AI tools can help reduce workload and support effective planning for our special educa special education teachers. That's what appreciation looks like. Trust, support, and partnership. So, as we celebrate teacher appreciation week, we need to move beyond muffins and morning announcements. We need to commit to truly listening to our educators, to engaging them in decision-m and evaluing their expertise in ways that are lasting and

016real. Thank you again to all the educators in WPS and especially to those who guided my own child along the way. You are making a difference every day. Thank you. Thank you, [Applause] Katie. Lona, next item. Service Employees International Union. I do not see a representative from SEIU. So, next item, public communications, Dave Fish. Okay. For the people that have signed up for public comment tonight, we thank you for joining us and um you will have three minutes to speak. We kindly ask that you acknowledge your aotted time according to the timer displayed on the screen. We encourage you to share your thoughts openly and honestly, but we ask that your remarks remain focused on school related matters and are respectful and constructive. The board will listen to your input, but will not respond during

017this meeting. However, we are listening carefully and may follow up as appropriate. So, we welcome our first speaker, Mr. Fish. Good evening, board members, superintendent, and district leadership team. I'm Dave Fish, and I continue to urge you to reverse an okay closure as soon as possible. OK is a good apple. a Northwest Gem among among its peers factually, historically, and strategically. uh per USC 259 uh material and the Woodsaw Eagle uh current okay facilities Rome was completely rebuilt between 2005 and 2014 making it primarily an 11-year to 20 year old facility even if a ram of 1952 exists or even a smidgen of a 148 year or 1948 year exists. When compared to OK's peers to our north and south, OK has a 149-year school teaching mission and opportunities to celebrate as opposed to 69

018or 70 years. OK actually has twice as many new classrooms added since 2000. OK actually has the largest acreage in comparison. Okay. Is strategically located in the northwest, three stop lightss to north to northwest or to maize. Why seed the gateway across the big ditch to Mace? Why not seize this opportunity to support and take a stand? Good meetings. There appears to be some good dialogue started to help our kids with their education, keep up school maintenance as good stewards. I'm encouraged by this. I've been I've been speaking on behalf of okay because I know its circumstances and the board knows that I am empathetic to all schools and issues involved. District 5 repres 5 representative Kathy Bond recognized in September that the scope of the bond project wasn't right and I agree. She's now

019working hard along with other proactive and innovative people to find solutions. I'm interested in the financial uh oversight committee providing recommendations on funding priorities, resource allocation, long-term financial planning, and I've heard some really good ideas coming from that group, a few in that group. And I hope that the team's really taking those comments seriously. uh realizing that closures are not innovative or proactive, but they're reactive and they rarely solve problems. And as the last choice that and and is that the bell? It is. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Fish. We have your pamphlet here with your information. Okay. Uh, I do hope to attend one of the two finance meetings. By the way, the financial oversight committee meetings are open to the public and the meetings time and location are displayed on the website.

020Okay, great. Thank you so much. Thank you. Latona, next speaker, Aaron Andrews. Welcome, Erin. I'm going to be the worst one up here tonight regarding public speaking because I do not do that. I am a bluecollar working father of two students at OK Elementary and I was a former student of OK Elementary though 30 some odd years ago. But and we we met before this past summer. I stood in front of y'all and um expressed my my concern about the closers. Um Miss Albert, you have exchanged phone numbers with me at that meeting in the past and I actually called you with a big concern and u my whole thing is it I'm just going to start like this. I went to that school. It was the best childhood I could have ever hoped for.

021And I'm so grateful to my parents for raising me in that neighborhood and putting me in that school. To this day, I still have friends that I met in first grade, second grade, and so on. We went to Hadley Middle School together after we left. Okay. We went to North High School. Looks a lot different now. But, uh, you know, I just the memories of that school and I love you, mama. She passed away December 1st, 2021. One of her last wishes was that I was to buy a house or at least get into a a house over in that neighborhood and get my kids into that school. I did it. And now that school is up on the list to be closed. My kids love that school. I love that school. I don't get

022but one day a week to pick them up because I work night shift to provide for them so they can stay in that school and we can stay in the house and stay in the neighborhood. Um when I do get the opportunity to go to school assemblies, the music teacher that is there to this day, Miss Nina Kent was my music teacher 30 years ago. She does such a great job with all those kids, including my little baby girl. She uh gets on the on the Raptors up there or the stand or whatever that is and you know she sings her heart out. She shakes her little booty. She just loves being over there. She she has such just impact with the teachers relationship. My 5-year-old son wasn't able to start this year because of

023the consolidating of the prek class. There was only one class available. We are going to get them in there next year. And I my wish and I know my mother's wish in heaven is to have my kids go to that school throughout their elementary years. And the concern also is with consolidating schools. Just this morning, I went into Wilbur Middle School. Um my 12-year-old son has been holding back a secret. And come to find out, and I express this to you about the bus issue, he has been beaten and abused on the school bus by another kid all this year. And I couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. And he finally told me, "Dad, he's hitting me, beating on me, and he's humiliating me, bullying me." So I had to go sit down

024with the principal today. This is my concern. when consolidating schools and putting kids sorry together from different neighborhoods and different backgrounds, different ethnicities. You're asking for trouble. Thank you, Mr. Andrews. We Well, we will follow up. Thank you. Yep. Appreciate you sharing your thoughts, Latona. Next item. Rebecca Armstrong. Welcome, Rebecca. I am here to express my deep concerns about USD 259 spraying glyphosate, which is Roundup, at our schools and the persistent mowing around our schools. These behaviors are not value added. They do not serve our mission so should be minimized in order to have the resources available for our mission. In the case of spraying it should be eliminated completely. Mowing do its due to its nonvalue added nature should be minimized. Our mission at USD259 is to prepare each student for an active and

025successful life in our community and the world. Our world with the techni technological information challenges of our time has changed drastically in the last 15 years. USD259 does not have librarians in high schools. They do not have periodicals. Despite misinformation, disinformation, and the mass of unlimited information, it's a challenge for all of us. Few know be know better than librarians how to manage the onslaught. Yet there are no librarians in high school libraries. Librarians are an essential element to our mission of preparing students for the future and and give them an understanding how to navigate the information onslaught we are experiencing. Spraying glyphosate should be eliminated entirely. There is no need to spray. The dangers to our environment and human human health outweigh any possible benefit. I have asked many times during the bond process

026for the dollar amount being spent on mowing schools, but never received a reply. In the last meeting at Northeast Magnet bond issue, I was told that USD259 did not have that information. They should. The grounds of northeast magnet were planted with prairie mix on the outer edges with which require mowing only one time per season. The grounds are being mowed at least weekly and we have seen four days between mowing of reason. The plant material is less than an inch tall creating areas with no plant material because it just dies out and leaves dirt. It is re it is recommended in heat and drought conditions to leave 4 in so it can provide shade and hold the water. Dirt washes out onto sidewalks and drives and leaves gaps under the cement. The north 34 acres

027were left in prairie state until two years ago. Last year it was cut entirely. habitat of redwing blackbirds, meadowarks, killed air, and other native birds and insects disappeared. The environmental cost was beyond acceptable. Thank you, Rebecca. Thank you, Lona. Next, Jessica Carr. Welcome, Jessica. Thank you. Greetings, Superintendent Beielfield, members of the board. My name is Jessica Carr. I live in USD259 District 2. I'm speaking today regarding the removal of diversity, equity, and inclusion messaging from the USD 259 website and the district review and proposed permanent changes to DEI policies and programs. A month has passed since I spoke at the last board meeting. I hope that the true intentions of federal executive orders and decrees against DEI programs are crystal clear by now. This is not about fairness. This is not about some plan to

028promote a just equity among our citizens. Here's what's happening. Black Americans have been removed from senior positions in the military. Works written by black women and Jewish authors have been removed from the Naval Academy while mine by Hitler remains. The Smithsonian, especially the Museum of African-American History, has been accused of spreading improper ideology. The National Park Service had to rewrite its history of the Underground Railroad. The civil rights divisions of the US justice department and education department have been decimated. A ban on segregated facilities in government contracts has been removed. A school desegregation order in Louisiana standing since 1966 has been removed, etc. I repeat, these federal orders are not about fairness and equality. Speaking for myself and many others in the community, I ask you not to think that you are simply cleaning up

029a few policy details and that good intentions regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion will suffice for the district. What we are asking for is civic courage. We are asking that you stand up for the values of our nation as taught in the district's US history and AP US history courses as well as in classrooms from elementary school on. At a law forum two weeks ago, former Supreme Court Justice Steven Brier turned to the audience and said, "It is up to you whether we have a rule of law in the United States or whether we don't." Yes, it is up to us. We are the people. In conclusion, as you move forward, please let me know if you need a statement of support from community organizations or perhaps you are working on forming a consortium with other

030school districts to stand up together. Or perhaps you will just return to former times in which the district website touts our diversity and programs and policies supporting equity and inclusion are solidly in place. Thank you for the people. Thank you. [Applause] Platona. Next speaker, Marty Fish. Welcome Marty. Good evening, school board members. Thank you for allowing me to speak tonight. My name is Marty Fish. You've seen me up here before standing with Dave, but you've never heard me talk, so you're in luck tonight. [Laughter] Um, I just want to thank each of you for your dedication and hard work for what you do for our schools, our students, and our families. It's hard work. I know. And it probably goes unth thanked many times and I really want you to know that we do appreciate

031you and the sacrifice that you spend on for our in support of our kids. We are here today to ask an important question. Is closing schools the only answer to budget challenges? Are we approaching this challenge with a fixed mindset or a growth mindset? The fixed mindset sees only one path forward. Close schools to fix the budget. But we know this approach comes at a high cost. disrupting children's education, displacing families, and weakening neighborhoods. At schools like okay, where kids can safely walk or bike, closure means more than losing a building. It means losing a vital community hub. A growth mindset takes a different approach. It starts with listening to the needs of our school communities and building the budget around those priorities. It asks what's possible, not just what must be cut. We believe

032this district can be defined by innovation, not closures. Let's focus on solutions that reflect the strengths and values of our community. Instead, instead of shutting schools down, let's explore new ways to manage the budget while preserving what matters most. Our students, our families, and our neighborhoods. We also want to support the finance committee in their work. They were created to examine the budget shortfalls. So, let's give them the time and trust to bring forward real solutions, including a new bond proposal that our community can rally behind. And we want a 97% turnout vote, yes, for that one. At the end of the day, we all want what's best for the kids. That means keeping neighborhood schools open and functioning. Let's protect the schools that help our communities grow and give families a reason to invest

033in our district's future. Thank you. Thank you, Marty. Next speaker, Jeff Janice. Hello board superintendent. Thank you for having me again. Uh I appreciate it. I will first say um my name is Jeff Janice, former PTA site council uh neighborhood guy next to the school. Uh all my kids have gone through the Witchaw public school system, every one of them. Um, one thing I'd like to get us back to though and get us to refocus is our mutual goal. What is that? It's to improve student performance. Uh, that could be done in a one room schoolhouse as proven by history or it could be done in a high-rise building somewhere or it could be done out in the park and under a shade tree. But we got to remember that's the priority here. It's not

034to um focus more on budget than we do on performance. There's no reason for us to be here if we're going to do that. Um, anyhow, less we forget that we're all here and we need to remember that there is no mention in the $450 million bond proposal either about in improving student performance. That's not in there. This is this is a facilities issue. Uh, you do remember, I'll take you back a little bit, the bond vote, a big no. Uh, it was a no from the public was because they couldn't handle an undefined, fiscally irresponsible proposal. And that's what this is. I'm all for wearing things out. Fix them till you can't, but we just said we need 450 million with what I'm perceiving from the people we've talked to, not a whole lot

035of education about what what did that mean or not mean. Um, anyhow, a friend of mine asked me, he who also voted no, but he said, "Would you would you need a $450 million car when you have the bond 2000208 okay model that's perfectly acceptable when maintained properly, which includes deferral where appropriate and true end of life planning? Yes, there is a thing called deferred maintenance. It's something that's planned for and can be done, but in end of life, there's a point at which this podium is going to be worthless. It's going to be firewood and you're going to have something else here. That's just the way things go. Um, maintenance. It's been said, we heard this in 2000, uh, deferred maintenance, deferred maintenance, deferred maintenance. Here we are in various sources of information with

036either a 200 million or 464 million in deferred maintenance. That's almost as much as the whole program here, folks. I I don't understand how that comes out to be good numbers. And I don't need a rearrangement of the term deferred. I know exactly what that means in my own products and my own cars. Concerning OK Elementary specifically, um this may affect others, but specifically Okay. As you've heard by now, OK is the best school not to close. Um conditions with improvements of the bond issues make it superior to other schools. its location, its site expansion allowance, bus capability. My recommendation is to keep okay open for good. Use it until it's reached its end of life cycle. Revisit the master plan and thank you. Facilities plan promoting transparency and data sharing and accountability. Thank you.

037Thank you, Latona. Next speaker, Ela Elaine Janice. Good evening. Good evening, Elaine. Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to share a few random thoughts. In 1964, 51 years ago this coming fall, I started attending Fabric Elementary as a kindergartener and attended there all seven years of my elementary education. We had no air conditioning. We had no iPads or computers, but we learned basic reading, writing, math, and science skills and lessons that prepared us well for the future. We also acquired many of the attributes we want our children to have today. respect for each other, common sense, common courtesy, a great work ethic. I have two daughters and both of it both of them attended OK Elementary. The classrooms again were not airond conditioned and more than a few years there were very large classes

038in very crowded classrooms. And yet they both excelled in school and graduated from USD 259 schools. One as a validictorian from Northeast Magnet and one from the IB program at East. and my husband and I worked hard to get air conditioning for future students with the bond issue passed in 2000. OK Elementary was established in 1877, the website says, and celebrated its hundth year of existence the year I graduated high school from Southeast. Um, it'll soon be 150 years old. And that is just so awesome to have some history here. Um, on a trip to Chicago a few years back, my husband took me around and showed me places he went as a kid, the schools he went to, where he played sports, where he went swimming, and it's a place where he has history.

039And yet, if okay closes, all of the schools that my daughter and I attended will be gone except for Curtis and East. Empty buildings are not good for any neighborhood. I believe there is a lot of data that says we learn better by writing things down. Children learn best with sensory approaches, touching, smelling, moving, experimenting, etc. I do not believe that we should have technology in the classroom at the elementary school level. Kids will learn how to use computers. They'll all learn it and iPhones and everything else. U my kids learned later. They learned about in high school when computers came into being, I guess. Um but nobody has an inherent right to owning an iPad or a computer at their home. I mean it's we don't we have always had to live physically responsibly.

040We always supported our schools our schools the schools our kids attended with our time and our talents and part of the reason we could do that was because it was a neighborhood school. Schools are the heart and soul of our communities and neighborhoods. A great way to meet your neighbors and other families. The largest portion of okay is only about 25 years old. And because of that, I feel confident that it has many years of use left to be used as a neighborhood school. New buildings do not teach our children. Kind, loving people with a passion for teaching, who love children, teach children. I would ask that you let your budget committee look for ways to utilize the buildings you currently have. And I would ask you to revisit the master plan for USD 259

041and to consider not closing any of the four buildings in the near future. Thank you, Wayne. Thank you. Next speaker, Trish Hileman. Welcome, Trish. Thanks. Sorry, I would have stood up, but I didn't know if I was next. Okay. So, hi. Um, hello President Albert, uh, Vice President McCrae Miller, Superintendent Beetlefield, and school board members. My name is Trish Hileman. I'm a parent of five USD 259 students, uh, president of Witchah Independent Neighborhoods, a board member of College Hill Neighborhood Association, and I'm here to respectfully ask you to reconsider closing school as part of your facilities master plan. First, I want to thank you. By the way, I meant to say schools, not singular. Okay, thank you. First, I want to thank you. The communication, outreach, and transparency your team has demonstrated throughout this process

042is commendable. The challenge before you is significant, and I don't envy your role in addressing it. Uh, but I urge you to consider the broader cost of this decision, not just in dollars, but in trust, stability, and educational outcomes. As I work with neighborhoods in and around Witchah, my why is every resident having their home as a restbite and a refuge where they are safe and able to recover from their work so they can go back out there and use their gifts for what they're called to do. Closing schools dismantles communities that have taken decades to build. It sends a message to families that public schools in Witchah may no longer be a reliable long-term option. That uncertainty hurts enrollment, which then further damages the budget, a dangerous cycle. Yes, enrollment has declined, but instead

043of reaching reacting by reducing our footprints, let's lead with innovation. Let's become the district of choice. We are the district of choice, a place where families want to send their children, focus on improving outcomes, highlighting success stories, and actively bringing families back, not closing the doors on them. I appreciate the thorough work the facilities team has done, gathering data. Your goal of creating a fiscally responsible, long-term plan is a worthy one. Mr. Mr. Luke Newman, your work is difficult and you are leading well. Thank you. But as I've dug into FCI scores, capacity numbers, deferred maintenance figures, I've come away with more questions than clarity, which I'm working on. I'm especially grateful for the opportunity for parents and community members to engage the financial advisory committee. Their experience and facilities and budgeting is invaluable, and

044I believe they may help surface new and better options. For a relatively small financial gain, we risk lasting damage to public trust. When schools close, especially in lower income or older neighborhoods, families elsewhere begin to fear, will we be next? That fear pushes even more students out of our district. You've asked, "If not this, then what?" Come on, bring the solutions. I offer a few. Reduce elementary tech spending, limit screens, and prioritize face-to-face learning and literacy. The data is clear. Pursue historic preservation grants. Many of our older buildings now qualify at a new 40% state and could be even federal rate. as your little onepager uh defines for you. Consolidate or reduce nonschool district buildings. Partner more actively with community organizations to lease space, share costs, and strengthen neighborhood ties. This decision should not be

045just about buildings. It should be about people, perception, and the future of public education in Witchah. If there are other paths that protect communities, thank you, Trish. Next speaker, John Profiser. Welcome, John. Ladies and gentlemen of the board, I'm uh here as a parent of USD259 students. uh four of them uh three of them currently going to OK Elementary School. Uh obviously my focus is uh keeping OK Elementary School open since I do have a interest in having that school remain. I do live in the area and I believe it's going to affect the community and and uh value of our our community and our housing. Um, the schools do provide a basis for people wanting to move into an area just just as a church does or a grocery store does. A school leaving

046an area creates a a empty spot for parents to not want to move to. My wife and I chose this house not just because we liked it, but because we liked the school across the street from us. And it was a choice that we decided to make to move to the west side, from the east side. and we would like the rest of our kids to continue to go to school there and graduate. I know all the schools need have the right and and would like to fight for their schools to stay open. I think that all the schools should at this point. The school bond did not pass and at that point I believe that the uh master plan should be uh re-evaluated and gone back through. Um, I know that the all the

047school if if the schools do close, the buildings, they're not trash. They're not worthless. They'll become something else. All the schools that have closed, I tried to look up to find out how many actually have been demolished. I really didn't find that information, but I know my previous elementary school turned into a a apartment building at Sunnyside and Kellogg did the same. and uh and you guys currently use Southeast for you know teacher or training facilities. It the schools will never go away. Uh they'll be repurposed as something else which means that they can still be a school and they can still be the community school to keep us keep our community together and not divide the community where families will move away. Unfortunately, I don't want to move. I will stay as long as

048I can. But if the property becomes something undesirable for the neighborhood and diminishes the the community of family and and housing, my wife and I will be forced to move. And that would be unfortunate because the area does have some great value to it. And the school has a great access point. And I know that no matter what happens, if the school board does decide to close things, I wish to see that OK Elementary gets seen as a possible buil possibility of being one of the schools that does get built or maybe it becomes the school that gets built. Um, and then last of all, uh, it's been brought to my attention that OK Elementary might be available for school or for historic status, and I don't know why that hasn't been, uh, addressed or

049if it if it has, I don't know why it hasn't been brought to anybody's attention. Thank you very much. Thank you, John. Next speaker, Walt Chapel. Welcome, Walt. Thank you very much. Kind of get slow here sometimes moving down at 83 years of age. He's been around the block a little bit and you understand that you have to trust but verify. Now, you have another agenda item coming up here in a few minutes called the consent agenda. The whole idea of the school board coming together is to be able to keep track of what your expenditures are and how you can educate kids keeping the tax dollars as low as possible. Now, it's a big job. I've said in your position in California as an elected schoolboard member, I've also served on the state board

050of education. I've seen the consent agenda used this way time and time again where you list a whole bunch of projects that have nothing to do with educating kids and you're asked to vote on it with yes or no. Now last time you met I think there was a item for 27% increase for transportation. You had one question from Melody. Thanks for asking. The answer you got was very vague. Didn't have any discussion. Went ahead and approved it. My point is that by closing schools, you haven't saved any money. You didn't have a $42 million deficit. There's been a carry forward of 200 some 30 million in unencumbered cash this fiscal year. There'll be another one for the coming year. You have on this list here millions and millions of dollars. 37 million is on

051the register for all of the expenses that already been paid out this last month. And you look through this consent agenda, there's a $14 million for Hutton to do some work on security. You have a parking lot that you're going to revise. You've got a whole bunch of items that these contractors have come in to your staff and been able to say, "Hey, we've got a great project for you. Why don't you approve this?" My point is that closing schools is not saving you any money. That's what the bond issue was about. Suppose you're going to be able to save a bunch of money if you close schools. You close six, you're supposed to save 16 million. You didn't save 16 million. Transportation costs this year at 40 million, up 9% in the last three

052years. So when you close a school, you got more kids to bus around. My concern is very sincere, folks. I've been in your place. I know how hard it is to get accurate information. And I ask you to please look at this master plan. Again, these four schools, you've heard from people from OKA. You have similar parents and teachers at each of the other three at Pleasant Valley, at Woodland, and at Lover. I've been in each of those buildings. They're in great shape. Smile, please, Kelly. I've actually walked through each of them. I've been in the boiler rooms. I've seen very clearly these schools have new classrooms. They have new boiler rooms. They have new HVAC. They're ready to educate kids. Please keep them open. Thank you. And later on in the board meeting, there'll

053be an explanation of what consent agenda items are for. And there will also be a budget presentation on budget reductions later on this evening. Latona. Next item. Strategic plan goal two, high school interim goal update. Kelly, you want to introduce that? Sure thing. I would like to invite Mr. Hamlin and Kelly Ingram to the table. Uh, tonight's presentation's uh a little bit different style than what we usually do. Um, so we're going to talk about uh post-secary assets, which is not only part of our strategic plan, but also a graduation requirement. Um, and then we are going to give uh hopefully some uh more context to what these actually are. You've seen the bullets on the PowerPoint slide several times. These are the post-secondary assets. Um, what we're hoping to do tonight is to bring

054them to life, so to speak. Um, with actual people who do actual things to help kids do uh a lot of what we've been hearing about, teaching kids uh real world skills, uh, common sense, hands-on things, those sorts of things. Um, so Lauren, um, I think our plan is going to be, and just to clarify with everybody, um, we're going to do the presentation. We'll have the what we're calling a parade of postsecondary assets. Um, a lot of these things we're going to be super excited about as board members to to say, "I love that thing." Um, if we could just hold that till the end and then at the end we can ask questions and um, celebrate and cheer for the cool things that we do. So instead of having lots of stops and

055starts, we'll kind of do them all at once and then at the end hold your questions for the end. So hopefully that makes sense. So all right, I'll pass it off to you guys, the experts. Let's go. You did it all. I think I'm done. So no, appreciate that very much. Um once again, Tim Hamlin, executive director of college and career readiness, joined this time by Holly Ingram, executive director of secondary curriculum instruction. And this evening, as Mr. Billfield indicated we are here reporting on student success outcome number two which is the strategic in the strategic plan is prepare students for life college and career. This evening we want to show you how things are progressing as we work to meet our goal in the strategic plan to have 50% of our students in their

056senior year earn five or more post-secary assets by 2029. In our report, you will hear about year one progress, and we'll take a look at the interim goal of system support, which says by the spring of 2025, we will have a fully implemented system to track post-secondary assets. Now, I do believe you have uh several handouts um and we'll reference those here as we go along, but I think we probably should begin with high school graduation requirements. Um this year, the incoming freshmen, so those are the students in the class of 2028. The graduation requirements changed and one of the changes is what we are focusing on here this evening, something called the postsecary asset. Now before we go too much further probably need to offer a definition of what a postsecondary asset is to

057some. Um and in short I basically think this kind of sums it up. A post-secary asset is an experience that is going to help the student transition to their life, their career and college after high school. Um you may recall a couple years ago there were two gentlemen I think both present here this evening that started a program called graduation plus and the postsecondary assets are very similar to that. So Witchaw has been ahead of the game here um before the state even decided to acknowledge the the value in the postsecary assets. So, at this point, we're going to go ahead and move on, and Holly is going to take you through a really cool graphic. So, one of your handouts is this target, if you will, that shows all of the different post-secondary assets

058and different experiences students have um related to their individual plan of study. And um then how they can expand that to things offered to all of our students in that second layer. And then in the third layer is where you see the post-secary assets explicitly. Um again they're not necessarily every student is going to do everything out in the green but everything in that middle uh middle layer is available to all students the ACT and ACT work keys the future ready centers etc. Um so this is actually um Tim talked about the tracking of it. So when our internal staff go to our post-secondary asset dashboard, this is what it looks like and they can click on one of these items out around the edge. Um so just for purposes, we've clicked on attendance and

059then it will take um our internal staff to a graphic such as this to show us where we're at as far as the number of students who are on track to earn this asset and or have already earned the asset. So there's a lot here. There's been a lot of folks who have um contributed to getting this available so that our principles, our counselors, our teachers um we talked to you last fall related to those advocacy check-ins. So, being able to check in with that advocacy class, have you started to earn these um and be able to utilize that data as we support students towards graduation. So, this is just a small little glimpse of what that dashboard looks like. So when this was first released, the the post-secondary asset and that it would be

060a graduation requirement regardless of what district a student was in was enrolled in, there was some anxiety. How how are we going to track this? How are we going to keep uh all of this aligned? So um as Holly indicated, it was a it was a collaborative effort with many many different departments, many different people, staff. Here are a couple of the um comments that we received from staff, mainly principles. Um what we what she just showed you there previously on the dashboard, the staff are able to go in and take a at a quick glance see where their students are. As you can see, one of these says it's letting them know quickly where I might need to look for areas to push for improvement. So, the feedback has been uh has been good.

061There's obviously been some hurdles or some hiccups that we knew and anticipated we would have and um but all in all we feel very very good about this tool the dashboard and our ability to track the postsecondary assets. This year I said that we would look at our year one progress. We had a another little sub sub goal that we wanted to have by the end of this year, we wanted 10% of this year's graduating class to have five or more postsecondary assets. So, having put all of our tracking and gathering together and a little drum roll, which I will do here, we will look and see that goal was 10% and we surpassed that at 13.96% of the graduating class have five or more post-secary assets. We certainly believe as we improve and as

062staff become more familiar with the process that we will see those numbers increase I think dramatically. So, so as we think about continuing this, how do we continue progress towards that goal in 2029 towards 50% of the class having five or more? We know that we need to continue to educate students, staff, and parents around the post-secondary assets. This is new. It's a new requirement, as Tim mentioned, for our current freshmen, but it doesn't mean it's not valuable to current seniors, juniors, and sophomores. So, how do we continue to educate both families, students, and our staff around these? So, continuing to do that work, continuing to fine-tune and adjust the tracking system, software, and processes. We're a big system with a lot of kids and a lot of people. So, just making sure we're not

063missing any gaps with kids. Knowing that it's highly critical for this year's freshmen that they have two to graduate. Um, we want to make sure that we are not letting any of our kids slip through the cracks. Um, not just in attaining the two, but again having opportunities to get to the five. Continuing to gather feedback from our internal uh stakeholders around that advocacy check-in. We did that this year. um how do we continue to improve that? How do we use this data dashboard to drive those conversations in the future? How do you check in with Moses and Titus Ingram who are freshman and need to have these when they walk across the stage um in a few years? And then to continue to work on how post-secary assets will be transcribed on students transcripts.

064So as they transfer in and out of our system, how do we make sure that we are providing them accurate information whether they leave our system or come into our system? So continuing to refine that process as we move forward. So now the boring part, if you will, is over. Um, and we're going to have, as uh the superintendent shared, a parade, if you will, of some post-secary assets, which Dr. Hatfield will kick us off. I think we need to level set on the word parade for a second. Normally a parade involves candy, floats, some characters. None of those things are happening um this evening. So I just want to level set on the word parade. We're using that very loosely um this evening, but it is going to be parade. What was there's some

065characters there? Well, there are that's true. Personality for sure. So hi, I am Lauren Hatfield. I'm the assistant superintendent of secondary schools and we are going to have a parade of sorts uh this evening to talk about these nine post-secary assets. Um the reason we picked nine is one we didn't want to be overwhelming and talk about every single one of them. Um and then two these are the ones that are maybe a little more nebulous than hey you got a certain score on a test. Um these are also assets that we have humans in our system that support these for the most part. So, I'm going to ask all of my friends in this parade to come on down here so we can not transition as much. And if you can remember the email,

066you can get an order or the order is also on the screen. That helps. Mandy did let me know she has cowbells in her car, so she almost brought them in to provide a more parade-like atmosphere, but I thought that might be a little overwhelming as well. So, all right. Okay. So, here's how this parade is going to work. Uh, each member of the parade is going to introduce themselves um and the role that they have in our district or student if that's your role. We are very excited that we have a student here to talk with you about one of the assets. um they're going to uh tell you the asset that they are going to be an expert in this evening and then they're going to talk about the benefits of that asset

067and then how that asset helps make a student future ready. All right. And I'm going to attempt to set the example with the first one. So that's a little bit dangerous letting me go first and yet they let me have this responsibility. So the first one is 40 plus community service hours. and community service helps students become future ready by encouraging civic responsibility and give students real world experience that can strengthen college and job applications. Volunteering also helps students explore different careers, build empathy, and connect students with mentors and professionals in the community who can open doors for their future. So, um that covers the 40 plus community service hours and I'm going to hand it over to Bennett to talk about being an Eagle or a Gold Scout. Hello, I'm Bennett McGlaughlin, a sophomore

068at Witto High School East. I'm here to talk about the valuable skills my sisters and I learned in our quest to the highest ranks in Girl Scouts and Scouting America, previously known as Boy Scouts. The Girl Scout Gold Award is earned by high school girls who demonstrate extraordinary leadership in developing sustainable solutions to local, national, and global challenges. My older sisters are both Gold World Girl Scouts in their individual paths for gold. They learned about their communities, the local government. They perfected their public speaking and networking skills. They raised nearly $4,000 in funding, planned comprehensive projects, and recruited and managed over 100 volunteers. I am currently a life scout completing my Eagle project. The Eagle Scout embodies the 12 character characteristics of being a scout. They are trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful,

069thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. In the process of earning this rank, I have increased my confidence and enhanced my public speaking and leadership skills. I have exercised my planning, preparation, and organizational skills and have better connected with my community. Both the Gold Award and the Eagle Scout demonstrate leadership, community involvement, problem solving skills, and a strong work ethic, which can be advantageous in college admissions, job applications, and military service. For these reasons, I'm excited to see both the Eagle Scout and the Gold Award listed as post-secondary asset options. Hi, my name is Andrea Brandt. I am a proud product of Witchaw Public Schools, uh, K through 12. I have served as a Spanish teacher in the district for 20 years and I'm currently representing as a world language curriculum specialist. I want to talk to

070you a little bit about the seal of biiteracy. The KSDE awards the seal of biiteracy to students who have attained proficiency in English and one other world language at least one other world language by the time they graduate. There are two levels to the seal of biiteracy. Um when a student achieves a proficiency level of intermediate mid they get the silver seal of biiteracy. Remember that's in both English and another language. And then the gold seal of biiteracy is for proficiency of advanced low or above. Um there are several benefits to a high school student for earning the seal of biiteracy. The first one is college credit. The second one is scholarship opportunities. Also available are study abroad programs and personal validation for learning another language. There are several also benefits that or how this

071asset helps student be future ready. More than just linguistic ability, it demonstrates academic rigor, communication skills, and cultural competence which are all essential in today's workforce and global society. Employers in fields like health care, education, business, and public service actively seek bilingual candidates. This seal also shows that our students can connect across cultures, solve problems with diverse teams, and serve communities. It is about being prepared for a world that is more connected than ever. Thank you. My name is Chris Aspenson. I am the director of athletics for USD 259 or commonly heard uh called the district athletic director. Um, and I just found out that there's not candy at this parade, too. So, um, in athletics and activities, um, it is one of the largest advocacy programs for our students. Um, and normally this group

072gives our kids a family or group atmosphere as, uh, many of our sponsors and coaches are mentors to these uh, students. So, I'm going to go really quickly. I don't want to waste uh, or I don't want to take too much time. So some of the benefits are obviously the physical activity uh and students learn um how to do these things or life skills that they'll learn for the rest of their life and they'll play these sports and and do these activities as they get older. Um there's also teamwork and cooperation along with a lot of character building uh in athletics and activities uh that goes along with it. Um, one of the biggest things is the communication skills that they have to develop to work with other players, to work with other groups, also

073with the adults, the coaches and the parents and and have those kind of conversations. Um, they often are their own advocates and this is a place where they start to learn to do that uh to advocate for themselves. Um there's under uh there's an understanding of working within the regulations and the rules that they must perform these activities underneath that that builds that uh understanding of how they have to have to work in the uh world afterwards. Um and then of course they do problem solving um and they have to obviously face adversity and learn how to be sportsman's when they're successful and they have to learn citizenship and all of this is part of athletics and activities. Um, in the business world, obviously, these people are sought out um because of their ability to

074have the things I listed above. Um, but also just because they can work as a group and a team, which is what a lot of businesses are looking for. Um, and also there's scholarship opportunities for them to go on um and further into college and their career um as we go. Thank you. Good evening everyone. I'm Lieutenant Colonel Shannon P, the director of JRTC. So I'll be talking about the post-secondary asset JRTC tonight. The mission of JRTC is to motivate young people to become better citizens. We currently have several alumni serving in elected positions around the city and in the county. The benefit of earning the GRTC asset as a high school student is developing positive character and values, learning about personal social responsibilities, leadership, teamwork, selfless service to the community and others, improving communication

075skills and improving their self-esteem. A student in JTC is taught to be a good leader, you must first be a good follower. Students are placed in both follower role and leadership roles to develop their skills. Our extracurricular teams of marching, physical fitness, drones, and archery give them the opportunity to compete. We teach them how to become winners on teams and in life. Our archery team just had the individual national championship winner in all of JRTC this year. 20,000 shooters in JRTC and we have the number one here in Witchah. Uh we had the second and third place team out of the top 160 teams in the nation. Uh they came from Hawaii, they came from all over the the United States, and we have the second and third place teams out of 160 of the

076best teams in the nation. Uh local businesses and colleges seek out our students who are future ready. They have the discipline to show up on time and be hardworking with a never give up attitude. They are mentally tough and can handle the stress and the work of the day. They are great team members and can solve problems as required. Thank you. Hi, I'm Kathy Mong and I am a teaching specialist for career and technical education. My topic is industry recognized certifications. They're not just recognized by industry, they are by industry and they are developed to identify the skills and knowledge needed for specific skills within that trade. Because the certifications are valued and created by that industry, they make our uh students and all individuals more valuable in a very competitive workforce. Some of the

077ones that we offer here in the district are things like CNA in the health field, um in CCER in construction trades, the parapro in education. Yay. and ASSE in the automotive trades. I am Mandy Bradoff. I did not bring my cowbells, but I really wanted to. Um I am a CTE teaching specialist um along with Kathy and I have the um client- centered projects float in our parade. Client- centered projects are hands-on learning experiences where our students work on real world problems provided by actual clients who in our world we refer to them as industry partners um under the guidance of their teacher. These projects not only help our students gain more experience but meet the need of whatever the local business might want us to do. Um, this asset helps make students future ready

078by providing realworld work experience. There's a lot of Rs and W's in there. Um, a chance to grow and develop their skill set, build their port portfolio, network opportunities, potential job offers, confidence boost, just to name a few. Some examples of how we're currently already offering these. Um my marketing teacher at Northwest, his marketing application students are um in their second year of having a fundraiser for a golf tournament. And so they have gone to Newton and met with the golf course up there that I don't remember the name. Um have met with local caterers to negotiate price on lunch, different things like that. So they're kind of already happening loosely, but it's definitely there's lots of possibilities for this to grow. Thank you. Hello once again. Um I'm here to speak on workplace learning

079experiences and you'll probably pick up there's some overlap particularly in the last three that have been presented here. Um before I get into it, I always kind of like to say this about career and technical education. Um, if I gave you the instructions how to ride a bike, most of us in here, we could read that. We're probably not going to be able to go out and successfully ride that bike. We have to have those skills developed through practice and through experiences. When we talk about the workplace learning experiences and the post-secary assets, it really has three categories and they kind of align with the course levels in career and technical education. You start out with introductory, then you have technical, then you have the application level. So the first of the categories that we're

080going to talk about within the learning with workplace learning experiences is internships. And most of us are probably familiar with those. Those are going to align more with the application level in the career and teched courses. These are situations where a student either during the summer, sometimes during the school year, will actually go out to a business and they'll be exposed to hopefully a wide variety of different aspects within that industry or organization. When we talk about workbased experience classes, that's the second category. Those align mostly with our technical level courses. Those are where mostly the sophomores, the juniors are going to be taking those courses in our pathways. The last category is the one that I am the most excited about. Um, and it really is has the most we have the most latitude

081or discretion to use it here, but that's simply work experience in this category. I firmly believe what takes place during the the traditional classroom is incredibly important, but we have a whole lot of young people that go out and work either after after school, during the summer, on the weekends, and the experiences and the lessons they're learning in those entry level positions are incredibly important. So in this subcategory, we do have the opportunity to first acknowledge that those experiences are valuable, but also find a way to capture them so that they would count as a post-secary asset as well. So a lot of the these are all phenomenal opportunities, young people, as I said earlier, they're just experiences that help that student prepare, transition for career, life, and college. I don't know how I got

082the front and the end of the parade and yet I did. So, I'm back for the board of regents curriculum. Uh the board of regents curriculum is defined by the Kansas Board of Regents, which are the state schools in the state of Kansas. There's six of those. And a Board of Regents curriculum is four credits of math, four credits of English, three credits of science, three credits of social studies, and then two credits of foreign language. and you also have to take the ACT. If you check all of those boxes, you have completed the Board of Regents curriculum. The Board of Regents curriculum is advantageous for a student because completing that curriculum allows you to potentially be named a state scholar. And state scholars are awarded up to $1,000 annually for their entire undergraduate experience

083um through the state of Kansas. And so gives them an opportunity to earn some money um for their future college endeavors. So, um, me and all of my friends in the parade should you need them, plus Tim and Holly. Um, stand ready for any questions that you have. And thank you for your time this evening. So, I'll I'll just summarize before we have any comments or questions. Um, the I like the graphic a lot because the center of the bullseye is really where it starts. And I think you'll see um with most of these that we've talked about, you can't Sometimes with high school credit, if you miss a class along the way, at the end, we can catch you up, right? We can do a bunch of classes your senior year and you could

084do credit recovery. Um, post-secary assets aren't quite that way. You can't just suddenly do an Eagle Scout, right? You can't just all of a sudden do that. You have to do the things ahead of that to lead up to it. Regent's recommended curriculum, certifications, right? A lot of these things you have to have an individualized plan in order to help you get to where you want to go. Um, and so that's a bit of part of the bigger plan of what we've been talking about the last few months, the five-year plan, the advocacy check-ins, all of this aligns with helping kids to know what am I good at, what am I passionate about, what do I want to do? I think Tim Tim made a really great point. Um, a lot of what we focus

085on in goal number one is about what kids know. A lot of goal number two is what kids can do. What skills do they have? What are they able to to show and demonstrate? Um, and that's just as critical as as what they know. Some employers might say more critical. Um, riding a bike is a good example. I think a phabbotomy class is another great example, right? Don't just read the manual to learn how to draw my blood. You better you better practice that a few times to know uh what for me to trust you on that. And all of us here in this room need people that are trained to draw blood. Well, right. We all benefit from our kids being ready and having these post-secary assets. So, um, great work. I'm excited, uh,

086for the presentation. I think it turned out well, minus the candy. So, appreciate everybody here. Um, so, oh, yeah. Yeah, we do have some more. We always need room for improvement. So, we got that next time. All right. Well, I'll quit talking and let any of the board uh ask any questions to any of the people. Okay. We do have a new system that we're using starting tonight. So, are there any questions from the board? I have questions. Oh, it is not. Okay. Well, Melody, it's not showing up on my computer. So, um that was a great great presentation. I really enjoyed the parade actually. Right. But anyway, um so when we talk about um postsecary assets, it is it is starting to really sink in with me as a newer board member. I'm not

087the I'm no longer new new but as a newer board member it is really starting to soak in with to me as to why we do this and the benefits that come from it. Um I know I was at a at North High for one of their um actually it was service day just I think it was the past Monday and they were that's what they were working on. teachers were working on talking about how it is that they could do and even well they looked at the statistics so they looked at the data as to what how their building is fairing and then of course there were questions as to how they could perform even better past the 13.6 or 13.3 which I know exceeded our goal of 10%. Um, so when so it's

088all being put into motion is what I'm is what I'm getting at. It's not just for me I'm I was really trying to I was struggling with understanding how are we doing this? How is it actually landing in the class classroom advocacy? How are families and parents actually being able to engage effectively where they understand what postsecondary assets are to begin with and how they benefit their student and the role that they play. Um, so it it it's it's best understood when you are actually in that classroom setting andor looking at it through the lens of a service day where you're seeing what our buildings are doing in order to improve these outcomes and um and to order to engage students. So I don't really have a question. It's just still the teacher in me

089that wants to be able to explain that I'm getting it, you know, and I hope that families are getting it because it's really it's really not only about us. I mean, it's not about us. It's really about the students that we are teaching. And we have to be able to figure out how to engage those families so that they can get excited about getting the two postsecondary assets. And I know I think in 2020 is it eight that it goes to four or it increased the graduation requirements are two for the class of 2028 and after. Okay. So it's two for the strategic plan goal of knowing the more you have the more options you have right so we that's how we try to promote and present it. So, in advocacy, how besides how do

090we track, how how how are we going to do an even better job of tracking? Because I know I think that was one thing that you mentioned um in terms of being able to to actively and and effectively track and then encourage even more students to do this. So, one of the blessings of this is that the assets that my boys who are freshman choose to get don't have to be the same assets that other students. So, there's a lot of choice as the superintendent pointed out with that individual plan of study. What really will benefit student A, student B, and student Could look very different. So, that's great, but then that also creates a challenge of how do we make sure we've communicated it with the student? How do we make sure they know

091how to because for example the Eagle Scout, they're not doing that inside our buildings, but we need to let students and families know and then how they submit that award, if you will, or recognition. So, we have a system and a process that we just have to keep communicating over and over again and sharing with our students and with our families. Community service as another example, they may do that with us. We have a lot of organizations. JOTC does community service. National Honor Society does that, but they may do that through a church organization, other community partners that they're a part of. So, we just have to make sure we've clearly communicated that often and frequently with staff, with students and families, so they know how um with the program we have, students are able

092to upload information that is then verified by their club sponsor, their activity sponsor, whatever. um that allows us to capture things that are done inside or outside of our system. So, communicate and communicate and communicate some more. It just has to be our strategy because we're large and we have a lot of adults and we have a lot of kids and just making sure that they continue to hear it over and over again. And so, um when when looking at let's take the nine that we actually covered. And so one of them um and because there's 22 right now couple of questions how do we add additional ones it what's the process for actually vetting and adding an additional asset and then let's take client- centered projects uh for one is it is it the

093student that chooses the project is it the comm the community um that says, "Hey, I've got a project. I need a student. I'd love to um you know, actually connect with the student." H how does it happen? How do how do those happen? And then how is there a rubric in terms of how we measure that they active that they actually did complete? It's going to be easier for let's say Eagle Scout, Gold Scout. Um so adding to the list, this is a a list um done at the state department and our state board of education approved it. Um so to add to it would take advocacy at the state level. So this list is developed by KSD through feedback from a lot of different groups and then the state board of education voted on

094it. Um so while we could make argument at our level there's a few we would like to add if we got to make our own list um it is a state um list on that as far as the client- centered project again that's going to be communicating what that is and then you know what is the client if the client is um I believe we have students working with um Luke Newman's team on some things so he might be the client that some students are creating something for that then is something that we can do because it's happening in our system. If students are going out to other community partners through communication with their advocacy teachers or CTE teachers, we would then help them be able to submit whatever documentation or verification that they've completed

095that project. So there isn't a set protocol guide. It's just kind of you choose it, you do it. Well, we accept it. I don't know how to say this, but I have been in in multiple meetings around the state and it's kind of the wild wild west out there. Um, there are some districts that this is really basically just an honor system. Oh, okay. There literally are some districts that have a Excel spreadsheet. They're small enough that they have all the students listed in it and the kids go in and enter what PSA that they want to say they've they've earned. So we do not obviously we have invested a tremendous amount in the integrity of this. Um to speak to the specific example with Luke Newman, we have kids at Heights High School. We

096obviously have a lot of cabinetry in Witchaw public schools. There's a lot a lot of cabinets involved. Sometimes those break, sometimes they're in disrepair and they need to be replaced. So we have a program now that students at Witto High in Witto Heights in the CA cabinetry carpentry program are working with Luke Newman's people at the service center and building those cabinets. So imagine the cost savings there to the district and the valuable experience those students are are earning and gaining through that. So um but how can they come about? If some community member asks us to maybe take on a project, which has happened, we can vet that. That's what the two young ladies at the end of the parade would do, the last two floats. Um they would take those requests and vet

097and see and make sure that it's something that would a align to the competencies and the pathways and those things there. So, so thank you for the questions. I appreciate that. A a couple other um not to steal thunder, but a couple other examples. When we have culinary programs cater our meals, that's essentially a client center project. Um the future ready center for manufacturing, advanced manufacturing um with some of their CNC machines, go forges, 3D printers, create um keychains, fobs, trophies, I mean all sorts of things. Uh I don't know. In actuality, our our plane build is is is to be honest a client. very good example. So, I think all of our pathways have some examples on different layers of this. Um, some are harder than that, but I think ideally, you know, it

098could be make a website, make a t-shirt, make a, you know, whatever it is. Um, and I just wanted to lift up. I think this is a good insertion point for the the community engagement of this, right? This, like Melody said, I think it was a really good point. This can't just exist in our schools. We need our industry partners. We need our families and parents understanding too because it takes takes all of us to get our kids ready for the future. Okay, thank you. Knock. Uh, first question is it 13.96% or 13.3%. So, because I'm super frugal, I hit print on Friday and then the number was higher. So, you got the most up to date on the slides and I just couldn't bring myself to reprint. Sorry. So 13.96 is the number as

099of this morning. So should have made that note for you all. No worries. And then uh what's uh for the class of 2026? Uh what's that goal for year two? So those will be conversation this summer I think to decide do we think we can hit 20? Do we want to stretch ourselves further? Um and just as we revisit what those kind of interim year-to-year goals are as we reach towards that fiveyear goal. So I think that's still to be determined. Can can I also say I think one of the bene one of the cool things about that 13.96 is it's really organic, right? The these seniors we haven't been talking to them for four years about post-secondary assets. These are things that these kids have been doing along the way and it's our job

100now to figure that out and to capture that. And so I think much of the work that's been done now is not hey you need to do these things because a lot of kids in our system have been doing this the whole time but how do we capture that our kids are doing these things. That's the magic. So that's really for me with a 13.96 represents more is that we found a way to capture that. Um and we need to keep finding a way to capture them and make sure that you know when Bennett does get the Eagles out that we know that and we that Bennett gets credit for that. um because it would be very easy for us to miss something like that. And then what's the uh percentage uh for zero postsecondary

101assets one, two, three, four? That's a great question that I do not know off the top of my head. Okay, I'll follow up on that. Um in terms of the uh feedback, um reading it, um it seemed a lot more positive. I'm wondering like in terms of like uh constructively critical like what what what did that feedback look like? I really think the feedback is ongoing because of this year the goal was get a dashboard and track it and I think as we now have the dashboard out there um now how do we make sure it's meeting the needs and is it the most effective and efficient. So I think people are just like hey I could now go check where we're at. That's why the feedback's pretty positive. Um but we haven't really done

102a whole lot of now how do we best use this? How do teachers use it? How do principles use it? Um, so I think that's where we can grow and improve because there's definitely area for that. I I would say just kind of add to that that if I were to ask folks today, I would probably get a few additional comments. Let's take the athletics activities for example. Um, if you've been responsible for entering that information and you are just now starting that in in May, you have almost three full seasons of rosters that that need to be entered. So, I think there will be um it it was a learn and grow and I think we will only see better numbers and I think people would self-report that hey, I need to be on

103this a little more be more consistent with my entering of data. What are the uh most common post-secondary assets? Like if you're to just like tally tally them all up like what like um like what would be like the top three for instance? I have my guess but I'll let you guys attendance is the top one. Um you have to have 95% attendance. Um that is our top postsecary asset from our from our students and it's not close. Um athletics and activities will be the second one once we get all rosters entered. uh that the fact that rosters aren't all entered um does does hamper that a little bit. Um and then there's a whole lot that hover right there in the same area underneath that. So it's kind of like there's two that clear

104everybody else and then everybody else kind of hovers. Um and again, some of them are all hovering in the same area right now because we've figured out how to track them. But maybe school X has entered in their data, but school Y is still working on it. And so that's a little bit of also why the data is pretty similar in that chunk underneath attendance and athletics and activities. Kind of going back to I do want to say this about feedback. Let's go back to that for a moment. Um as you see that list that's in front of you. Not all PSAs are created equal. Um and that has been the discussion in in multiple meetings. Um one of those there's some very lowhanging fruit. um complete the senior exit survey and boom, that's a

105post-secondary asset, get an A in your IB class. That that's a little bit different. So, um so that has been some feedback that um was shared with us. Again, to Holly's point though, that's not at our level to to really change anything. So, we can interpret, but we can't necessarily change. you heard earlier with the students who had like 15 industry recognized certifications that is one that we can count multiple times. So those students are counting hopefully they're all entered um are counting in that five plus um bucket. So there are some things uh the state assessment we can count that multiple times if they get a three or four on science, math and ELA. So there's some that we can count they could get multiple of others it's kind of you well I shouldn't

106say that I was going to say seal of biiteracy I guess if you did it twice that'd be two seals of biiteracy um and activities right yeah athletics and activities 12 athletics and activities you still only get the asset one time the go ahead sorry not sorry two more questions um so especially as like we u you know have better sense of the data as like the years go along with the postsecary assets. I think it would be interesting to compare like hey how's it you know our seniors our graduating class how is it that they're doing compared to let's say uh seniors at you know KCK or Topeka Manhattan uh the the question I had though um uh do other states um keep track of postsecondary assets or um I'm not sure if in

107this format they do. There are states that require FAFSA completion as a graduation requirement. U there's states that have requirements for um internships, workbased learning. I don't know if it's quite this broad in other states. Um that's a good question. Thank you. Okay. Are there any other questions from the board? Okay, seeing none, thank you guys very much. We thank you for your hard work and dedication and thank you everyone for being here to explain the great post-secondary assets. Platona. Next item, consent. So for the public's information, the purpose of the consent agenda is to help the board handle routine matters efficiently so that the board can spend more time reviewing, monitoring, and discussing the educational issues of the Witchaw public schools. Students academic success is the top priority for the board of education. Board

108members review these items in detail during the agenda review workshops held at 10:30 a.m. on the Fridays prior to each regular board meeting at the AAC building. These workshops are open to the public, but no action is taken. The workshop is for discussion and questions only and your presence is always welcome. Is there a motion to approve consent? So moved. Second motion made by Stan, seconded by Melody. Motion passes. 70 Platona. Next item discussion policy 1231, artificial intelligence. And I think Rob stepped out. Addie, would you be ready to come up now? yours. I think we'll go we'll go a little bit 3460 unrestricted reserves. Thank you, Audi. Absolutely. Um, so at the board's request, I think it's easier to go over a financial policy with some exhibits. Um so have a very short presentation

109on the policy that is proposed for discussion this evening. Okay. Um so tonight for discussion is a new board policy 3460 which is unrestricted reserves. Um the reason that we propose this policy to the board of education is for a few reasons. Um really it's best practices for any municipality to have um an established reserve policy. This certainly comes to us as a recommendation for from government finance officers of America which is an oversight body that um gives us a lot of guidelines and policy uh as we look to oversee school finance and wish public schools. Um, we've got a big push right now to uh improve transparency and accountability in our finances and of course establishing a board policy that you all are able to enforce helps us to improve that transparency and accountability.

110Um, and we of course want to always ensure the financial stability and continuity of operations in the district as we approach a time of the education um task force reviewing our funding formula that potentially sunset in in July of 2027. We've got to make sure that we have our own mechanisms in place to ensure our long-term financial stability. So ultimately, we've proposed a minimum and a maximum threshold for what our unrestricted reserves should be. Um, essentially a minimum threshold would be the annual average of one state aid payment and our maximum threshold is two months of regular operating budget expenditures. Um, and if that were to go under or over, we would have recommendations on some one-time opportunities to resolve and um any if we were under or some recommendations on how to um spend

111some onetime cash in order to get that cash balance to an appropriate limit. So, a very popular question that we get is why do we need cash on hand? And so, I've shared with the board this evening a timeline of when we get reimbursements from the state for state aid as well as property tax payments from the county. And I say reimbursements because that is a critical word to use when I talk about how we receive funding. Um we do not get um on day one when we have uh the the budget adopted, no one's sending us a check. We have to from you can see on the bottom line of this chart which is property taxes and the top line which is state aid. There are two months we barely receive any cash at

112all. And so we've got to have some cash on hand because we still have payrolls to pay and bills to pay and things to do. And so, um, September really is after we've adopted our budget when we have a larger state aid payment. Um, October is the first month of our fiscal year, which started all the way back in July, that we get state aid for our LOB and our special education fund, which are two of our largest budgeted funds. Um, and again, you can see on that bottom property tax line, we don't actually receive any property tax payments until January. So over 50% of our fiscal year has passed before we receive our first property tax payments. Um and so as you kind of go through that cadence of the year, you can see

113even it's it's February and then on to May and June before we receive a majority of the remainder of our funding. And so naturally the when we take a snapshot of our cash on June 30th of the end of a fiscal year that is the best it is going to look because we've just received all of our reimbursement. We haven't incurred any future expense and we still have several months that we have to have cash on hand in order to pay for our operations before we do receive any sort of reimbursement from the state or property taxes. I want to make sure that you guys know what this means for Witchaw public schools, how this policy would translate into actual financial oversight. And so this is an example of what this would mean for last

114fiscal year. So the 2324 um school year. So the minimum based on the average state aid would have been $43.7 million. The maximum based on two months of operating budget expenditures would be 92 point u 92.2 million. If we look at all the unrestricted funds that would qualify as as cash that's unrestricted um that figure is $71.6 million. So we're right in the middle of the policy. We're not on the low side. We're not on the high side. Um certainly the um this this policy came at the recommendation and approval of our newly established financial financial oversight committee and the feedback from this group was that this is a very defensible policy on your behalf. Um that maximum threshold for our policy is actually the recommended minimum for many governments. But this doesn't include all

115of our fund balances like capital outlay. And so this is just unrestricted cash reserves. Um so this this uh the committee recommended this policy to you all understanding our financial climate and circumstances and gave you a very defensible policy to hold us accountable to. Um and so I would recommend that policy 3460 unrestricted reserves be brought back to the next regular board meeting for approval. Thank you. Thank you Addie. Are there any questions or discussion from the board members? Melody. Thank you, Addie. So um if I'm understanding this correctly, what the what is being recommended in this policy as well as what has been supported by our newly created um oversight committee is that we maintain approximately 717 1.5 million in reserve. They're recommending a range for us to safely live within. So right now

116that range would be 43.7 up to 92.2 million and we're right in the middle and and Okay. So where we are currently is that right in the middle that is actual that's actual for last year. That's what for and what are we s what are what are you predicting for the the year? Um nothing has changed significantly in terms of our unrestricted cash balances. So, we'll bring this back to you in July once we close out the fiscal year and see where all of our fund balances are landing. Um, we don't have our final budget yet. Our final legal maximum is not published and adopted. So, um, but I don't anticipate a huge shift in um, where our unrestricted cash sits. And what would it be that draws us down to the minimum? And I

117and I I understand how we're when we actually receive our reimbursements of funding. Yep. Um for the public's sake, what what brings us to So if you look at the exhibit um up on the screen um and what you have in front of you, right, these are there are only a few funds that count as unrestricted and that means they don't have a special purpose. um they're flexible in nature and so we can use them for a w a wide array of operations. Um you won't see special education on here because the once we receive that funding, all we can use those funds for is for special education services. And so um bringing that cash balance down, you can see on the exhibit, right? Most of this is made up of um by our contingency

118reserves and that is our only unplanned, unbudgeted cash. And so bringing that number down would mean that the district has faced an emergency, a financial emergency that we have to tap into that one-time cash in order to resolve the emergency. A large facility issue would be an excellent example of where that could occur. Um a current year reduction in funding is another place that could occur. Um, and so those are just a couple of examples that could material materially bring that cash balance down. And for us to actually do that, dip into our reserves, which we did in order to help cure the deficit that we re that we actually had last budget year. Um, in order for us to do that, what's not only is there would the board have to approve it right

119now would that oversight um financial committee would that be something that they would actually over not oversee but have eyes on, give input? Sure. So, um, the the the one-time cash that we used for kind of the budget deficit, we used that in our LOB fund kind of transferred some funds over to offset a mill levy increase, which is something that you all approve. If we had an emergency facilities item, we would get that taken care of. So, um, that's not something that could wait for, you know, a committee meeting or a board approval. Um, we obviously would get approval for any type of spending that would need to happen out of contingency reserve. Um, but that would if it was something that we could plan for ahead of time, um, certainly we would advise

120all the the necessary groups, but typically an emergency is is something that's pretty uh forthcoming and urgent. So, and sorry if I would in this vein of cash flow and emergencies. Um, I I was an administrator when we we literally did not get payments on time from the state because we cut taxes so drastically the state didn't have any money. And so while currently and and not to get overly political here, but currently we have a surplus at the state, um they're projected in three years to be to be in the red deficit. Um, so we can't just rely on that chart even though that's what we expect. That is not I mean and this isn't you know 50 years ago this happened. This was I'm not that old you know this was when I

121was an administrator. So it does happen where they literally don't make their payments on time for whatever reason. So um anyway we have even seen late state aid payments during my tenure with the district. Right. We've had multiple years where the state has owed us money um and they have not paid us state aid on time. So, and it was only 15 years ago that current year major reductions took place. And so, when you're talking about being in March and then all of a sudden they they cut your funding and you you don't have any time to react to um cutting enough staff, which is some not something you want to do, right, in order to uh resolve that in that same fiscal year. And so you have to have some cash um for those

122types of emergencies. Yeah. I wish there were other individuals uh actually listening to this um budget overview because consistently persons look at our contingency and believe that oh they've got the money. The money is right there. So I'm just trying to clarify or be as for my sake uh as well as hopefully for public uh to say that there are explicit reasons why we hold these attempt to hold these dollars and it's possibility that there would be circumstances where we won't even it's possible that we don't have the contingency that we have today. So just And I'll be I would love to see us on the upper side of that cash balance, right? This is a very conservative policy. And so, um, you know, I think the threshold is is is very conservative and supports

123you all in in holding us accountable, but also keeping the district safe. So, thank you. Are there any other questions? Our raising hand on the computer monitoring is not working this evening. So, knock. Yeah. So how come for u reviewing the adequacy of the cash balance it's a annual process instead of uh like let's say a more common process throughout the year we're constantly looking at cash so it's in terms of this policy at any point if if we tried to take a snapshot of what that looked like at um let's just say March 30th well we don't have a majority of our transportation expenditures in in the month of June we pay 25% of our teacher contract salaries out and so we can forecast it, but it's not like we have a good actual

124gauge of where ending cash um is going to be in a final state where um we could be, you know, making sure that we're we're always going to be making sure that we're within this policy, but it really is something that follows the cadence after we've received all our state aid, after we've received all our property taxes, after we have that big expenditure month in June, um to evaluate at that time. Um, and that's a good spot for us to see, okay, do we need to transfer any additional cash into our unrestricted reserves to make sure that we're meeting the minimum threshold? Um, or, you know, looking to the board for any direction on potentially getting a little um on that upper side of of the policy. So, um, that's certainly something that fits better

125once we've expended all of our all the things in the month of June. But we're always watching cash balances and our pulled cash. Yep. And then for the uh one-time investments uh it says that u salaries um that wouldn't be considered because it's recurring obligations but I was wondering for uh technology upgrades especially if you're talking about like licensing fees where it's like you know like there's recurrent payments for that like with I guess um question slashdirective maybe some clarity in terms like what are recurring obligations besides just the uh salary salaries I think would be helpful. Um and then the other thing I think that would be helpful uh in terms of the development of the financial recovery plan uh I'm assuming that the board will have to provide uh give approval for that

126um for that recovery plan. Right. You would be approving the recovery plan through the adoption of the budget. So we would have a budget line set aside if there if that circumstance ever came to be. Right. Certainly, I hope that's not in my tenure with the district, but if that was a reality that we were facing, you would be approving that through the budget process. Yes. Yeah. If possible, I think um maybe having language to that effect and then also having language to the effect of the financial oversight committee playing a role in um that financial recovery plan. Um that's all. Thank you, Noc. Any other questions from the board? Hazel? Yeah, just something real quick. Um, I just wanted to be clear that the policy was not developed or or made because we have

127abused or exceeded or it's made. If anything, our cash balances are low in um best practice recommendations from other oversight bodies and um certainly the financial oversight committee shared the same um information back with me, right, that our maximum threshold is is where they would like uh to see us be. So, this is not being established because there has been waste or abuse or um irresponsibility on behalf of the district with cash balances. Um, this is purely just to create, we've always operated with this kind of benchmark, unofficial benchmark of what we believe our cash balances to be. And so having a board policy that creates accountability and reporting back to you all on what our cash balances should be and are um is why we're bringing this policy to you. Perfect. Thank you. Yes,

128a great question. And and one of the one of the thoughts behind this too, you know, this state, we've talked about state funding a little bit tonight. you know, they they call it a rainy day fund, but they have statute that says they have to keep certain minimums of the budget back. And I think all of us in Kansas want them to do that because if something happens, an economic downturn, some sort of natural disaster, whatever, um there's a plan. And so I think the right thing for us to do and the right thing for us to do as stewards of this money is not to spend it down to zero, not to act like cash balances are some luxury. Most of our cash balances are restricted funds as Addie said. Um but to be

129good stewards of the money, we need to make sure we have a rainy day fund so to speak or some sort of protection against some something catastrophic. So u I think you did a great job explaining that and lifting it up. Yeah. Yeah, and I hope this provides better clarity and transparency to the public on what the actual cash balances are and the difference between unrestricted funds and restricted funds. And so, uh, we will not take any action on this tonight. This will come back to next month's board meeting. So, if people have questions or comments, they're welcome to contact the board um to have further discussion. But otherwise, we will see this again next month. Addie, thank you so much for presenting this and answering questions. So, we'll press pause on you for a

130minute and then we'll welcome Rob to talk about the next policy. Welcome board of education. My name's Rob Dixon, chief information officer and uh I presented to you is our AI policy. It uh is very brief. I would say our technology committee which comprises of uh staff members uh some parents uh developed this policy probably a little over a year ago honestly and we've been working through this uh I would say it's it's helps protect us uh both from a academic integrity standpoint when you look at uh students using generative AI but also allowing our staff to facilitate uh different efficiencies utilizing generative AI. Um the real work is happening right now with our technology committee in creating guidelines both at the elementary, middle and high school level. One of the things that we identified

131in our process is uh just helping our teachers to navigate what's appropriate age appropriateness. uh as you know uh even in technology uh we have age appropriateness for screen time right for elementary kids we don't have a onetoone anymore at that level some of that was budgetary some of that was uh feedback from our technology committee and I think you'll see us do that same approach with our uh use of generative AI as well so I'm open to any questions that you might have very good are there any questions Kathy How did this all come about? I mean, were there surveys to teachers or to parents or even students? Yeah. So, we um we developed this actually in process with our technology plan which started in 2024. Um generative AI, as you know, came about

132about two and a half years ago. And so seeing that come along the pike, we uh had those conversations in our technology committee and um you know as a committee kind of developed what needs came out of that and had those discussions. Uh you some of you know Amy Warren, she's one of the parents on our committee and she also is with me on the uh ISTE's digital citizenship coalition. So, uh, we have a lot of conversations around digital citizenship around this and that's kind of how it started. Without sounding uneducated, sure, what is the benefit of AI for our students besides letting an artificial intelligent inanimate object do their work for them? Um, I would tell you from a person uh who I use it every day. Sometimes it's when I'm stuck for ideas

133and I need additional ideas. If I think about doing a if I was a kid doing a book report and I couldn't think of a book or an idea to start with, I think that's a great area for a kid to to look at the creativity side of it, right? Some of it is generating images and uh knowing what you can the creativity that comes out of this is pretty amazing and the efficiencies from a student standpoint I would say that it elevates the level of output that a student can curate. Right? So for a teacher we teach them how to create lessons. uh some of those lessons now can be curated if I know the accessibility needs of that classroom, right? The needs of those students. In the same way, if I'm working in

134groups, I'll give you an example. Uh we utilized magic right in uh creative minds, our our school for uh the K6 vertical school for kids to develop a script for their innovation project to cold call a company. Could a second grader have done that script by themselves? Probably not. Well, it would have had to have been with the assistance of a teacher to help them create that script, but the efficiency of having one teacher with those 16 students to be able to help generate that script for that kid to do the process, I think, is huge, right? So I then just elevated the ability for that student to do that project-based learning work and it didn't affect the cognitive ability of that student, right? They were still needed to work on interdisciplinary activities to complete

135that project, but it elevated the work of that project. So, in high school, when these students are using AI to do essays or reports, is it going to take more time for the teacher to check for plagiarism? Um, I would say it's not developing processes for plagiarism, but it's putting uh a human in the loop, right? So, those checks for understanding need to happen sometimes face to face, right? And we need to change sometimes how we do assessments. just doing an essay uh offsite is probably not a future uh homework assignment that we should probably do for students, right? But tying it more direct to a student's uh personality, having those traits really takes away from generative AI being able to to create content for that student. So the the teacher that is more seasoned

136or mature sure it's very difficult for us to think like this and I'm classifying myself in this frame. The old school way of doing things and the new way of doing things are in such conflict with my mind right now. Sure. and perhaps I can meet with you and you can show me how beneficial this will be for our students and teachers. Kathy, what I would say is even if we didn't have the policy and the guidelines, that practice would likely happen. And I think having these in place will help us navigate this better. I believe it'll give the guidelines and the parameters for all involved. Although we can't always control, right, every student, but as long as we the district knows that they're in place, we've got somewhere to start and have that that

137foundation and that baseline. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. And I would just um just to cross reference policy uh 1230 is our plagiarism policy that's referenced in there. Um because you're not wrong. I mean, I I totally agree with what you're saying. um have checked with my own kids about their use of AI, right? Because um these tools aren't new. Um I mentioned earlier I'm not that old, but I am old enough um that when I taught sophomore English and we did research papers 20 25 years ago, kids plagiarized those, right? I mean, so even there was no AI at the time. So we've always been chasing this as teachers. Well, I do admit I used AI for the very first time last night trying to figure out this new policy and boy, the words

138were a lot better than what could come out of my mind. So, but just as with any tool, right, with any tool, um, spellch check, a calculator, right? There's eras of time when calculators were going to make kids dumber, right? and and so with any new tool, we want to be on the forefront of it and not playing catch-up because the kids are smarter than us when it comes to this stuff and they they know how to use it better than we do. So, um part of part of the strategy is making sure our teachers are trained, they're comfortable with it, but using it in its appropriate context, it is not going to pay off for a kid to not to learn how to write and then they get to college and then they're not

139going to know how to write anything. Um, so we've got to embed that in the classroom and it's it's a challenging complex thing. There's no doubt. But thanks for that. Yeah. Yeah. Stan, um, I was just going to point out that um, listening to that um, question and answer between uh, Kathy and Rob, some of the public may have been a little confused here that this policy is just about us embracing AI uh, in every step of the way. And I just wanted to point out that the policy also uh addresses the issues and the concerns that uh Kathy mentioned and the way the superintendent answered such as number five, any use of AI tools by students shall align with policy uh 1230 and require appropriate credit to be given to tool to all sources

140and tools and plagiarism under 6B. be plagiarism and cheating. Students and staff may not copy from any sources including and like the superintendent just says, this has been ongoing since uh the very first research paper ever was written. Um it goes on at college level as well. Um, but I just didn't want the public to think that this the the exchange you two had was just saying, "Oh, we're going AI and we're take we're just embracing it 100%." This is a policy designed to make sure that AI is used in a proper way and does and still make sure that the students are doing critical thinking. Absolutely. and like to highlight again uh I think our guidelines will be much lengthier than what you see this policy right any further questions knock yeah for uh

141AIP3 students and staff shall receive support in developing AI literacy including when and how to use AI as well as an understanding of its foundational concepts in computer science and uh other disciplines Personally, I would like to see that expanded to not just AI literacy, but digital literacy uh in general in digital citizenship. I don't think we have a board policy um on that. I think uh I think it's long overdue. So, so in tandem with uh this AI policy conversation, how do we have that broader conversation on hey like you know, how do we uh uh for us as a school district um how do we promote ensure uh children adolescence are having more healthy relationships uh with digital technology? Absolutely. Um, so would you be open to a separate policy that maybe flushes

142that out a little bit more instead? Okay, I would we'll bring that to policy committee. And then for uh uh AIP6 uh subd compromising privacy, the district will not use AI in ways that compromise teacher or student privacy or lead to unauthorized data collection as this violates uh privacy laws. Um I would be curious like what are the uh consequences uh if that policy uh you know that subset of it were to be violated. So I think it depends uh on if that child is under 13 years or younger, right? When you think of COPA and you think of uh FURPA, um you would have to identify uh both the data items that were outside of directory information that were uh utilized in that. uh and then also uh notify any of the people that

143were affected by that. So it would be no different than a breach would. So could you um enlighten us on your acronyms? Yes. So what is COPA? COPA is uh children's online privacy act and uh furpa is federal education family right parental rights parental yeah so uh thinking of those one is uh thinking of uh student data privacy 13 years or younger so knowing that kids can't opt in themselves you have to have parents opt in so much of this is going into how we think about uh our process for approving apps. So today we have an approval tool. We have literally over 400 apps in there that we vetted. Um whenever you look at AI, we'll have to go through a completely different process. When an a company introduces AI as a mechanism within

144the app, we'll have to go through and bet that process as to whether do they train the model from that data. uh do they um do they sell that we already talked about do they sell the data right so we have uh data sharing privacy uh agreements with all these companies but when you think about the AI mechanism we also don't want their model trained from our data and so Kathy is this going to cost the district any money time and labor I would say more than anything else of looking through uh terms and agreements and making sure that uh these entities follow suit. You have any idea how much that might be in the ballpark? If not, it's okay. Maybe next week. Yeah, I really couldn't tell you at this time. Knock. So especially

145uh with the proliferation of AI in the past few years I guess from an academic integrity standpoint have we seen you know a significant increase in terms of uh plagiarism and cheating violations any u like increases you know teacher concerns um I don't have data on like specific because uh in synergy we don't identify it in that way that plagiarism was done with AI so that would be a tough one to to quantify. Um, but I could tell you that uh, you know, even just talking to teachers in our technology committee, we we see it, right? And it really depends on how the teacher is introducing that homework assignment or that lesson plan whether they're because there are ways that you can introduce these to where the checks for understanding are back face to face

146and I can validate whether Jimmy did that work or not. And then last question, um uh I I would be curious what um especially like boots on the ground perspective like with students and teachers um what they would think about this policy um you know what they like about it, what they don't like about it, um anything that they would recommend changing. So Okay. Okay. Very good. Any further questions? Okay. Seeing none, Rob, thank you very much. Uh we will not take any action on this policy tonight but we will have it come back to the board at next month's meeting. So with that Latona next finance budget report phase four budget reductions. Okay Addie, welcome back. Thanks so much. I did move and Julie uh caught me scooching in closer because these chairs are

147terribly uncomfortable. So um you all I think are stuck with me for all of the next upcoming board meetings for a budget report. Um, and so I'm excited to bring some um, really exciting information to you tonight regarding um, finalizing all of our budget reduction measures. I think we want to kind of wrap up this activity. It's certainly taken a tremendous amount of energy and time from you all as well as district leadership, um, building administration, all of our staff over the last year and a half as we've all worked together to resolve a $42 million budget deficit, which is a huge feat. Um, I would like to take a moment. Um, and Kelly doesn't know I'm doing this, but I think that is such a tremendous effort on your behalf and certainly our newish

148superintendent, right, who took on this challenge in his first two years in the role and accomplished um this this great challenge to reduce our budget by $42 million. It's a huge number. Um, it took a lot of strategy. It took a lot of collaboration. It took a lot of community feedback. It took a lot of education, so many things, so many expectations of district leadership to make sure that we um got this done and we did. And it's just I I think so much of this is attributed to your ability to guide the work and and make hard decisions and there were many hard decisions and um but you know we're we we're not broke but we don't want to be and so we've got this um budget deficit resolved and that's uh thanks to

149um all the work that you've guided on for us through this process. Um so I want to look through kind of just give you a reminder of all the phases that we've worked through for our our budget reductions. um show you the results of some of these decisions in play in our schools. How has this translated into um to some really exciting things in our schools? Um talk about all the admin centers, so all of our administrative center efficiencies that we've gained through the process and then look ahead onto how we want to maintain this work and continue creating efficiencies in our work going future in the future. So, we had to peacemeal this problem. You cannot um swallow an elephant, right? You have to take it but one bite at a time. And so,

150we took the same approach with this $42 million budget deficit. So, I've tried to reduce it into um seven different overarching initiatives, but there were probably far more categories than this. Um, phase one was kind of looking at all of our vacant administrative center and vacant non school-based ESSER funded positions um as well as other admin center budgets. And so in this phase, we did a 5% mandatory admin center discretionary budget reduction. Um, so that means all of my colleagues behind me, all of their budgets were reduced. They got to make choices on where they were able to make cuts and not spend. and return their budgets back in. Um we also opted to reduce esser parah hours at schools. This was a very big initiative about a $9 million initiative where we added hours

151and benefits to many of our par educators using esser dollars. Um and that just was not something that was sustainable and did not come back in feedback as um a you know a priority in terms of funding. And so we slowly as Paris turned over rolled back some of their hours and benefits. And then we um got rid of various vacant admin center and other esser vacant esser positions that we did not need to backfill. Um as we approached phase two and this came kind of in January of 2024, we started having conversations about um materially how we were going to approach this the the remainder of this deficit. Um and so the recommendation to review closing schools was presented to the board. Um and you all are very familiar that we proceeded with that

152particular solution. And so that concept of closing and welcoming schools was kind of what we called phase two. Phase three was after um after we got through all of the big decisions that came around closing schools, focusing the remainder of the year's work. Um knowing that we cannot cut a budget that amount of money in one year. um it's it's very detrimental and very hard to carry out all the action items that come with making sure those cuts happen. And so we did have a focus on continuing to look at admin center positions and continuing right sizing all of our other schools in the district um knowing that we were going to use some one-time cash to uh bite us over into this year. So phase four is work that has been ongoing in this

153fiscal year and we've kind of titled this creating efficiencies and so we deployed a mandatory 10% admin center position reduction um as well as looking at prioritizing program spending and other department consolidations. And so that is work that we've been focusing on um this fiscal year. Um, so let's take a look at um numbers wise, what has this all meant for us in terms of numbers? And I've given you some history in terms of where we originally told you we would project um the budget deficit to be. We came to you in the fall of 2023 and said we've got a $42 million budget deficit. And we estimated as we the best we can um what we believed all of those action items in phase 1, two, and three would save us in operational costs

154for the district. And so that's kind of your column two, that FY24 original estimated budget deficit. Um we didn't have actuals at that time. We were still implementing all of those decisions. And so that's what we thought things would materialize as. um $9 million from those vacant esser uh positions, vacant admin center positions in the pair hours. Um we estimated 16.2 originally for that that closing school process. Um phase three, we had hoped to achieve about $6 million. Um and we we also had to set aside some funds to resolve some department of justice requirements and so we took that into account in this process. um knowing that we wanted to be at a point where we could maybe use about $12 million of cash this year to carry us over. So those were all

155of our original estimates. And I see the superintendent wants to jump in. When you're done with the slide. Oh, sure. Um so the middle one is kind of where we ended last fiscal year when things came to be. Um, we added back positions at welcoming schools, making sure we fully evaluated special education programs, ESOL programs. Um, we also obviously at the end of the fiscal year, we have a better understanding of legislative changes. And so in that kind of first row, that budget deficit, right, it changed. We were at $42 million. Some of our revenue assumptions changed. You will recall we got we were estimating that we were going to get about $10 million in additional special education funding last year. Um we also had to make some assumptions around some changes with at risk

156revenues. Um some of our students that qualified for at risk were falling off of their direct certifications for Medicaid and so we anticipated a drop in our at risk numbers because of that change. Um there were changes to the mental health intervention team revenues. There were changes to the two-year look back. So many revenue changes kind of added and took away from our budget deficit. And so 42 became a 37.2 million number. We were still um seeing some of those phase one initiatives level out a bit. As we added additional roles back for all of those ancillary services that I mentioned before, we realized that closing schools was probably going to be closer, more realistically a$ 13.8 million item. We were on track to get about $5 million or so in ad other admin center

157and right sizing reductions and still had some DOJ work to solidify through the summer and what that agreement was going to mean for our district. Um and so we were right on target with where we wanted to be um and using about 11 million in cash. So through the summer and into um the fall and seeing where enrollment panned out um where all the revenues panned out through our audit, that final deficit was around $35.9 million. Essentially, that was because our at risk estimates were conservative. It wasn't as bad as we thought it was going to be. That's always good. We want to be you we want to have good news and not bad news. So um phase one cuts ended up being just under a million dollars. Phase two of closing and welcoming schools

158were about 14.5. Um, right sizing and admin centers came out to $6.1 million. Um, we did finalize all of our DOJ requirements. And I want to touch base with you all on this specifically this evening. Um, because those requirements did did mean we added staff. We had to add um administrators at our special day schools. We had to add extra behavior positions. We had to add supplementals in places. Um, we also had to add some admin center support to implement and oversee all of those requirements of that settlement agreement. And so there were some additional ads that came because of that um that settlement. And so phase four that left us to resolve this $6.2 million number. And I'm excited to say that as of today, that work is complete. So um, no more phases

159for budget reductions. We're going to stop at phase four. I'm super excited about these next two slides because all of these hard decisions really have paid off. Oh, I'm sorry. No, you're good. You did. You did say you wanted jumped in too early. Um, just to clarify the in in spring of 2024, we made the decision to close six schools. That save that reduced the budget by $14.5 million. Yes. Okay. Yes. So, closing schools helped the budget. Just want to make sure we're clear on schools helped the budget. Okay? And that is because when we looked at schools, right, we looked in areas where there were capacity in nearby schools for other teachers, existing positions to take um additional students into their classes, where we didn't have to add all of the positions back in

160order to support students. But class sizes are still at very good levels. This did not push anybody over our policies for our class sizes. Um, so it was strategic. Um, and it and it did accomplish one of the goals of that recommendation. We had three. There were three goals really of school closures. Only one was finances and we did accomplish that one. Yep. And now for your next two slides. Great. Okay. So the Oh, I have a question. So, um, just to add on to what Super Bel is is making even clearer, um, so we did actually realize a savings of 14.5 million in closing those six schools. That's right. And that's that's our operating budget primarily from salaries, right? And so if someone if some well I'm thinking of a specific individual that made

161the statement that we did not uh actually actualize any savings from closing those schools. How do we how does that actually look in our budget? It's that that $14.5 million number. Um you won't find it on any particular line item. This is in many funds and in many different salary line items. So there's not one spot you can go to see this 14.5. We kept track of this. We um did all the ads, all the minuses for over what I will show you over 400 positions um to make sure that we were keeping track and um holding holding all staff accountable through this budget reduction process too. So that final figure is 14.5 for what we saved to the operating budget for closing schools in spring of 2024. Right. And if we were to check

162our math, we would be able to look at the number of of employees FTEES that we did no longer have. You are you in store for some Yes. some great information. I just I I need to have concrete evidence. We're we're we're going to get we're getting there. It's going to be so You guys are stealing my thunder. Um Okay. So, if you think about the actions that we took in the spring of 2024, um extremely hard, extremely emotional. Um the last thing, the last resort in our budget toolbox for resolving budget issues is closing schools. The very last one. Um we did not close schools only for the budget. We closed schools because we were faced with other challenges. Um because our facilities have needs, major needs. We have many aging buildings and um

163no ability in our in our budget to uh get ahead of all the maintenance that's in all of our all of all 90 of those attendance centers. We also had huge vacancy numbers. We had 356 vacancies that we started the fiscal year with last year. So in August of 2023 when we took a snapshot of our vacancy list, we had 356 vacancies. 52 of those were special education teaching positions. 54 were reed positions. We had 123 para educator vacancies and 127 of a mixture of others. When we took a look at our vacancy list uh along the same time frame, so August of 2024 where we started the year, our teaching vacancies were more than halfway cut down. 24 in bed, 21 in rega teaching pair educators were reduced and um really those other the

164other category um reduced as well from closing 6% of our schools, six or 7% of our schools. You reduced our vacancy list by 33%. In total, 58% reduction of our classroom teaching vacancies. that has direct impact to all of our kids across the district. In every school in a positive way, not just the not just the schools that welcome students, but in every single school. There were benefits from um right sizing um making sure that every teacher that was in one of those closing schools was retained in the district and in any way, shape, or form that we could support them in. Um getting them in front of kids that needed them. Um, and so our kids are seeing the benefit from filling our vacancies and that decision had an exponential positive impact across the

165district. Um, and so I will pause here because I think uh, Kelly has another interjection. Did you have something? Yeah, I just want to point out that when we have a lot of teacher vacancies, we know that teachers are the biggest impact on increasing student outcomes. And so to kind of go back to a comment that was made earlier tonight that we're not focused on student outcomes. Um uh I would disagree wholeheartedly with that statement because we are trying to make sure that a certified teacher is in every classroom. um that we're compensating teachers well and recognizing their hard work that they do on a day in and dayout basis because we do want student achievement to increase and we are focused on student achievement and so by reducing the total vacancies uh that is

166that is a net positive for the district in many many ways. Superintendent that echo that um and then just also point out um that's that's still a lot of para openings right we still have a lot of need and we heard earlier about um continuum classrooms the key in my opinion the key for a continuum model to work in a school is staff that we can add 12 parap positions and say oh we're going to you know we're going to do this new model but if there's not human beings that are passionate about helping kids and train and all of that. It It doesn't work. So, uh we've made good headway. We've got we've got more to go. Um and then all the stuff Diane said too, Steve. Well, I was just going to triple

167that and just say when the speaker says this had the plan had nothing to do with academics, that is that is an example of not listening to a single thing that was said during the summer of that presentation. We tied everything right back to what the student needed in the classroom. So if you say that this that plan had nothing to do with student achievement and academic outcome, then you were not paying attention to the meetings that were we spent over or summer with of which I never see any of these speakers at. So, don't tell the board of education that we did not do our work because not only did we sacrifice our our family time and our community time to be at those meetings, but we vetted those informations day in and day

168out, meeting by meeting, and they were all tied to this type of thing. So, I I'm sorry if I'm sounding offended here, but I'm not going to put in all this work and then have you in a three minute speech tell me that I didn't do what I know what I know I did. So, this was attached to academic achievement. And when you're talking about buildings and uh facilities, yes, this was a specific facilities master plan. So, yes. And one of the speakers mentioned something about children can learn under a shade tree. Yes, they can. But are you going to send your grandchild to that school where they're going to be gathering under a a a school under a tree? You're not. You're going to ask for the very best student, the very best facility

169that your tax dollars can pay for. And that's why we had that facility master plan. So, please do not come up up here with misinformation and and deliberate misdirection. That's why I'm so passionate about uh critical thinking nowadays because one of the speakers introduces himself as a state board of former state board of education. He is a censored state board of education member. There is a big difference. So, please look at your ability to get all the information and this board of education is charged with looking at the big picture for all the children of this community. And I can I don't have any problem with you disagreeing with what I finally came up with decision with, but do not imply that this board of education did not look at all the facts and vet

170the facts. an open forum now. No, this is No, this is not an open forum. This is a business meeting of the board of education. That's not fair. Are there any other questions from the board members? Seeing none, Addie, please continue. All right. Well, we've got um some more positive information to share on some of the results of this work. Um so, if we look at substitutes, that was another big concern. We had so many last year of our um core content classes being filled with long-term subs. Um we have great subs. They work very hard, but we know that the best thing we can do for our kids is put a highly qualified full-time teacher in front of them to deliver their content. And so looking at the second semester of the 2324 school

171year, we had 191 classrooms that were being supported with a long-term substitute. This year we have 82. 109 additional classrooms in this district have a full-time highly qualified teacher in front of them this year. If you just take a for easy math, right, and apply that to a 20 student average, um you're impacting over 2,000 kids, almost 2,200 kids. And that's just on the minimum. If you think about just one math teacher in a middle school, a really critical area where we need full-time teachers, highly qualified teachers in that content area, a middle school teacher is impacting 100 to 150 kids in a day. And so really, that's a minimum number of kids. Some of those very difficult school closure decisions um they they did come with positive impacts. you're impacting a lot of kids

172with a highly qualified teacher and we're seeing that um in the number of subs that we have filling those classrooms. Um so Melody, this helps to address your question on where you might see the total number of FTE reduced in our budget. And I imagine you will see this in um we do publish the FTEES in uh the budget at a glance segment of our state budget document. And so some of that will be between this year and last year and some will be next year to this year. So it will be kind of hard to see this all looking at one um snapshot in the budget book, but that's why we have that information in a compact format for you this evening. So just kind of took this every single different phase of those

173reduction strategies to give you what we were able to impact our total FTE budget by. So FA and what I do want to point out to you was um many of these phases were focused on administrative center reductions. three out of the four had a focus on making sure that even while we were making um the the difficult recommendation to close schools, we were looking in our own um front yard too in admin centers and doing as much work if not more proportionately to try and help address the budget deficit issue. Um so phase one we and and FTE is a complicated term. So it is kind of um total positions but sometimes with those parah hours it wasn't a full position it was just backing off some hours of a parah. So phase one

174was 113 FTE. Um closing schools and and then welcoming back um having to add some positions it was about 243 FTE. Phase three cuts were about 92 93 FTE and our final phase phase four was 42 FTE. So almost 500 FTEES in our district were impacted um through this through all of the phases of our budget reduction. And I will add that 95% of the work of um these 500 positions involved us just not filling vacancies, right? In phase three, every single one of our those staff members that were impacted by that decision were guaranteed a job in the district if they wanted it. And so most of that work it was it did not come with um removing any employee from their job. Um it truly was just finding areas where we had vacancies

175that did not need to be filled. So very minimal impact in terms of um staff not being compensated, staff not receiving wages. That is tremendous that we can close schools. That shows how much capacity we had in the district, right? We can close schools and still offer everyone a job in the district. So uh truly um a feat for you all in that process. Okay. Okay, so now I want to shift gears and and celebrate um all of the hard work that has gone in with the admin center reductions and um I will share right district administration makes up 1.1% of the total budget and central uh business and operations makes up um maybe another four 4% four to 5% and so and that's not all FTE that's all the services. So, a very small

176portion of our budget is is really district administration. Um, when we looked at those 10% mandatory FT reductions, we had about 481 482 FTE that we needed to look at and review. Um, not every not every division um has 10 people. And so in divisions that had 678 um strategically looking at where reductions may or may not be able to be made. Not everyone could get a 10% because we can't eliminate a 6 of a person, right? Um and so that 10% mandatory column you see 41 and that was after we evaluated departments and divisions that we really couldn't reduce 10% because they had one or two people in them, right? So, um, broken down just so you can see the categories of classified staff, um, certified staff, and then your more highly compensated technical,

177supervisory, and administrative staff. And so, looking at that 10% mandatory reduction, we were able to strategically find 41 positions. um trying to see where we could restructure or realign or um repurpose roles. We found an additional 24.25 FTE on top of that mandatory 41. Um we did anticipate adding back some of those roles uh recognizing that you know we a little lofty in some of our goals needed to add back some positions to support the work um in the district. But ultimately our total net admin center reductions for FTE was 58.25. Um so that's 12% of our total admin center FTE. We saved $4.6 million in just our administrative centers. So over 10% of that budget deficit, that total budget deficit, which um you know, we the district's budget is not made up of 10%

178of administrative costs. Just general administration is 1.1%. Um but we were able to take a really hard look at our admin centers and make some strategic realignments and reductions to uh make sure that we were doing what we needed to do to become more efficient and um support the budget reduction process. Okay. Okay, so I'll wrap up kind of what we learned. Um, we did receive a lot of feedback and we did ask for a lot of feedback during our budget reduction process. Um, schools gave us feedback, community gave gave us parents gave us feedback. Um, we also got feedback during the bond issue that there there were um a lot of desire for us to become more efficient as a district. And so we used that feedback and we responded. Um, we've spent a

179lot of time this year at the leadership level looking at how we can strategically become more efficient. It's taken a lot of focus focus away from academics, right, to achieve this work. Um, my instructional peers, I had to take their time this year to make sure that we were getting this work done. Um, and it did take a lot of time to do this. We needed to do it. But it's a very complicated process when you look at an organization of our size with the complexities and the collaborations and all of the mandatory services were required to provide whether it's through finance or student support services. It doesn't matter. All of us have things that we have to get done. Um it was very complex. Um certainly more so than I thought day one. Um

180it took a significant time investment from all of our leadership team in order to accomplish this goal and it does require a lot of consistent oversight to make sure that we're be meeting our benchmarks and um you know having that just that feedback loop loop of making sure we're being strategic in all of our staffing and um so certainly a big time investment to get this accomplished. And so I I would like to thank my colleagues in the district leadership team who um were very collaborative in this process. No one wants to see any of our initiatives stopped, any of our um staffing, right? If you come to me and say you you're going to lose a person in your office, like I I would you want to fight to the death to make sure

181you keep that position because there's so much value add in everything that we do. Um everybody was so willing to pitch in, was super helpful in this process and ultimately helped us to accomplish this goal. So, thank you to all my colleagues. Could not have done it without them certainly. And so, now I want to jump into looking ahead. um the district uh in all of this restructuring and these two roles are in the figures that I shared with you previously in our admin center reductions, but in looking strategically at what we need to continue to be efficient and continue to make sure that I don't have to take a ton of district leadership time every single year to evaluate our efficiencies and um pull every single district leadership team member in when we're um

182talking about these processes. Um we do find that a chief operating officer is needed to continue these efforts and make sure that all of our divisions are aligned with our systems. Um so we can allow district leadership to focus on the work of our strategic plan and our academic outcomes. I distracted them many many times this year to try and resolve a budget deficit and I don't want to have to do that anymore. certainly um and a chief operating officer is needed to continue to support this work and making sure that we're always uh finding ways to be more efficient and strategic. Um as part of this reorganization as well, we also are adding back a position that we used to have. Um it's an assistant superintendent of learning services. This is not adding any

183additional administrative FTE. This is all occurring through a restructure. Um, and so we we had this role I want to say six or seven years ago. Um, and restructured and now we're kind of restructuring back to incorporate this role. Um, this will build some collaboration and teamwork, remove some barriers, um, and again help our uh, instructional district leadership team really focus on that strategic plan. Um, so now I would like to pause for any questions that you have for the work we've accomplished. um and our plans moving forward. Okay, Kathy. Thank you, Addie. In looking ahead, how different will the district look and operate with these two positions a little bit more elaborately if you could explain that? Would you like me to? Sure. Yeah, sure. Um with the I'll start with the assistant superintendent

184of learning services. That's a position like Eddie had said that we've had in the past. Um we I believe we can add that position in um restructure um and we've already begun some of this work honestly last week restructuring some of the roles in the departments um to align things a little bit more efficiently um that that's really the ultimate goal. I think outcomes for kids can improve through that. Um, and maybe uh I don't know how I would say it, better monitoring, different monitoring of some of the other programs, that big umbrella. Um, I'll just give one example and a shout out to um our ESOL director who took uh the role and expanded ESOL to all of our schools, expanded the ESOL weightings that we get to help support our budget. So it

185didn't cost the district any money to add these services. So that because every kid matters and we want every kid to be able to stay at their neighborhood school. Um that intentionality required a person to to keep a focus on that. And not that the people prior to that weren't a weren't willing to. They just were spread too thin. So um I I believe that reorganization can help us um with that. The chief operating officer is actually another position we used to have in the district um years ago. uh during uh the other bond well both prior to the '08 bond issue and then after um and that that I think will allow or really think of the service center and the IST department. Those are the two buildings um that with the current facility

186master plan that would remain there would be AAC the Morris Center building and then those two buildings would remain as the non-attendance centers. All the other non-attendant centers the Dumbar campus the instructional support center um were were scheduled to somehow be closed and enveloped in into the other spaces. So, um that would allow um better better support I think is a good way to put it. Uh better monitoring of what goes uh of those two buildings and then really align us well as a as a system to have um the AAC building and then those two buildings and um supervision and support really support for those leaders in those buildings. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. Addie, can you please repeat again that the um the administration is 1% of our budget? I

187think it's really important for our community to understand that. It's taken me almost four years to understand that. So, can you elaborate a little on that for the sake of our community? Sure. Um so, our operating budget, 86% of it is directly spent on things in the classroom. Um and those supports that like transportation that get our kids to school. Um 86%. Um there's 8% that's on facilities. There's again I'm so sorry you have to spend money on my salary, but people like to get paid. Uh bills like to get paid. It's just part of doing business. And so a very small portion is your business and operations which are really um we are so lean and so efficient. Our people are so smart. We have some of the smartest people I've ever met that

188work for this district that make amazing things happen with very few resources. And total district administration is 1.1% of our district budget. Um, very small. You can there's not a lot of tapping into um to save money on district administration for Witchaw public schools. It does not amount to much for misinformation that's out there. So I thank you for elaborating that. I just have one more question on slide 15, the center FTE reductions. Yes. Were there any programs that suffered from these reductions that we offer to our students? Um, suffer is a specific word. There's no loss of service. Okay. For our students, so no program was cut, right, for our students. So, our students are still able to go ahead and receive what we've offered before these reductions. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Knock. Sorry,

189just a point of clarification. What about Avid? Avid was not eliminated. It was reduced last year. Okay. Yeah. So, no programs I I think what Kathy was asking like eliminated entirely or like cut because I think there's a nuance with that. So, what's your question? Um, were any programs cut? Is that your question? Yeah. Yeah. Last year a we we reduced AVID. um to only be in four high schools and five middle schools, two it's current. Okay. Yeah. Sorry. I can get you that information, the specifics, but that was kind of a phase one item of um of reducing those AVID offerings. I would say for phase four, which is what I thought Kathy was asking about. I I can't think of something off the top of my head. Yeah. No, I didn't think so,

190but I just wanted to clarify. Yeah. Okay. Any further questions? Seeing none, Addie, thank you very much. We appreciate your hard work and we look forward to budget season approaching us. So, thank you very much, Lona. Next item. Action items 2025 26 and 2627 board of education meeting calendar. Okay. The board saw this at the last meeting. Are there any questions regarding the 2526 school year and 2627 school year for the board of education meeting calendar. Are there any questions or comments? Okay. I'll entertain a motion to approve. I move that we approve the calendars. Motion made by Julie, seconded by Melody. I made the motion. I can't get my vote. Motion passes. 70. Latona. Next item. Policy 5511, special assignment of students. Okay. The board received this policy. We saw this last month. Are

191there any questions or comments regarding this policy? Okay. Seeing none, is there a motion to approve policy 5511? I move to approve policy 5511. And I'll second. Motion made by Melody, seconded by Julie. Motion passes. 70. Next item. Latona, reports and requests. Superintendent report. All right. Um, just a couple things I wanted to share tonight. Um, first off, uh, one point of clarification. I should have brought this up when Addie was down here, so wave at me if I'm wrong. The Financial Oversight Committee, um, which I I'm excited that, um, it seems like there's been a lot of positive feedback, you know, from from speakers tonight about, um, the the directive or the the sandbox, so to speak, for the financial oversight committee is about long-term funding options. That's that's what's going to be talked

192about next meeting. they worked this policy that we just looked at tonight and then long-term funding options. That group is not re-evaluating the facility master plan. That is not what So, a couple people made mention of that that they were hoping the financial oversight committee would reevaluate the facility master plan. That isn't what that group is doing. So, just to make sure that's out there and clear for everybody. And again, I'm glad we mentioned public meetings. Anybody's open to to come um to those meetings. U. So, I wanted to to clarify that. The other thing I really wanted to talk about tonight was teachers. Um, because I do think that that was a a theme of tonight. Um, that teachers make the difference, right? We know that the most important part most important factor in

193a student success is the students teachers. Um, and I know from my own experience, um, with students in the district, um, that when when my student has a highly qualified certified teacher, um, it makes a difference. My kids have had years with three and four different long-term subs at a middle school core content class. That is a struggle. That is a real struggle. And so, um, our subs are great. We thank them for all that they do. Um, but it there's nothing like a highly qualified teacher in that classroom. That's part of why it's in our strategic plan and part of why we've made some of the hard decisions we've we've had to make. Um, but without our teachers, none of this really works. None of this really works. So, appreciate our teachers. We have

194some celebrations coming up that I wanted to mention. So, Wednesday night is longevity and retirement at Botanica. So, a cool way to celebrate our retirees and those uh employees that have hit milestones of I believe 10, 20, 30, 40 years. Is that what we recognize? Okay, just want to make sure I just hand out the certificates and shake hands. I don't know all the details. Um, but hope you all guys can all make that. Um, and then we have our uh teacher and staff appreciation day at the zoo uh coming up on the 18th of May. Okay, just double checking all my dates here. Um, uh, that is really a cool fun event. Um, part of being a really big district is that it's complex and challenging, but part of being a really big district

195is we can do super cool things like a zoo day, which um, other districts I think have would have a challenge pulling off. So, um, the it's a cool time of year. Um, I I mentioned at the senior recognition, um, this is this is my favorite time of year. May is so exciting in schools because um it's transitional for our kids, transitional for uh for our parents and teachers. Um hopefully we we acknowledge the accomplishments we've made throughout the year, the growth that we've seen our kids have. Um and I did want to mention, you know, the way at times the way our district gets defined um can be inaccurate to be honest. You know, we we tonight we celebrated seniors. Um, you know, one senior is going to Princeton, one senior is going to

196WTE, one senior is going to Colgate, one senior is going to University of Oklahoma, one senior is going to go weld. He got a certificate from W Tech. He's going to uh straight into the workforce. Um, one senior's going to Newman. Uh, one one's going to uh University of Pennsylvania. Um, our kids are super successful and our that's because of our teachers, right? It's because of our teachers. Um, our kids do amazing amazing things and sometimes when you hear the rhetoric about who we are as a district, it isn't really accurate because um, you know, I I've worked in other districts. We didn't send anyone to Ivy League schools for 10 years. Um, and that's that's a fact and we do it every year time and time again. Um, it's a tribute to our families.

197It's a tribute to our kids working really, really hard and it's a tribute to our teachers. So, that's who we are. We're a district of all sorts of different types of kids. Um, and we want every single one of them to be future ready. We want them to be able to hit that bullseye in the middle of the target. Whatever their plan is, whatever their passions are, whatever they're called to do, the way they're called to serve, um, we want to help them achieve those goals and be ready for um, life, college, and career after after they walk across the stage. So, that's really what we're here for. Um, and May is a cool time to celebrate all that and reflect on it. So that's it. Very good. Thank you, Kelly. Latona. Next item. New

198business and board of education requests. Okay. Are there any new business or board of education requests this evening? I I guess I have two. Um, if that's okay. Yeah. So, the uh first one u correct me if I'm wrong, we had about 190 uh members of the community apply for the financial oversight committee. Um I I think it'd be really cool u you know for the folks that didn't get picked uh again just to reiterate um you know how can we get them involved in our other committees but even more broadly like involved in our schools um you know their neighborhood schools involved in our district uh so you know working on a plan for that uh and then the second uh board of ed education request uh I think just u going back to

199the AI policy um uh having a broader digital literacy slash digital citizenship digital well-being uh policy um um as like an umbrella for that. So your first request we're already working on, but yeah, if you'd document the second one, that'd be great. Okay, thank you. Knock. Anything else? Okay, seeing no further requests, Latona. Next item, adjournment. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? Move to adjurnn. I'll second. Motion made by Melody, seconded by Diane. No, sorry. The rest of us want to motion passes 70. The board of education meeting is adjourned this evening.