Agenda Meeting/Board Work Session - Jan 08 2026

001Good evening. We're going to go ahead and get started and welcome 2026. Happy New Year. And we are going to go ahead and move forward January 8th, 5:30 p.m. or 5:36. And um I'm going to call the meeting to order. Of course, we don't have to just because it's not a formalized agenda meeting. However, we're going to go ahead and go to >> You want to make your statement? Cool. >> So, I want to go ahead and um ask that Mr. Kazay comes um forward. Um we are I would like to entertain a motion. However, we have some difference of ideas around it and so I'd like to gain some clarity on it specific to what we need to do to move forward, how we should proceed forward. >> Happy new year, board. All right,

002this one comes before my time, but in policy 1.14, uh, and I'll I'll give you a teaspoon full of David opinion along with this. Um, policy 1.14 creates, and I'm making a guess as to how it was drafted and why it was drafted, but it seems to create seems to contemplate that this board customarily has had a regular board meeting per state law forever and has had an agenda meeting. And so it contemplates both of those, I think. And the relevant paragraph in uh policy 1.14 is board members whose request for an agenda item has been denied or failed to make a timely request um shall make Oh, actually, let me make sure I've got that right. I make a motion to add an item during the regularly scheduled agenda meeting. The agenda item shall

003be added if there's a majority vote. Now then it goes down like two paragraphs and contemplates the same process if there's been a an item for to be added to the regular board meeting. So that's what your policy says. Um, if it were me, and not to skip too far ahead to what I'm going to talk with you all about later, I would strike that through and treat the agenda meeting as a time where you guys could bring whatever it is you want to bring because the point of an agenda meeting is to set the agenda for your regular board meeting. Um, I heir on the side of being a little bit conservative around your policies and that's what your policy says and it says uh to add an item during the regularly scheduled agenda

004meeting. I don't know exactly why it says that and when I revised your set of policies I struck through that. So that's where we are. So it says specifically board members whose request for an agenda item has been denied as he said or failed to make a timely request which is the second criteria that was met to add an agenda item previously may make a motion to add an item during the regularly scheduled agenda meeting. The agenda item shall be added if there is a majority vote. Now, I thought perhaps this is semantics and perhaps they were referring to the board meeting because I recognize that we always call a special meeting if we need to vote. So, I read further and it said, "If a board member has been denied a request from an

005agenda item or would like to add an agenda item after the regularly scheduled agenda meeting, the board meeting or member may make a motion to suspend the rules and add the agenda item at the regularly scheduled board meeting, which indicated to me that they were making a difference between the regularly scheduled meeting and the regularly scheduled agenda meeting. I think the I'm sorry, but I think the difference that they're making, >> again, I didn't write this policy. I think it's the difference between a regularly scheduled agenda meeting >> and a special session. >> Yeah, >> that's what I think the difference is. >> And this also goes back to 23 20 Oh, >> sorry. Okay. It also goes back to 2023 and when the board was going back and forth about um things coming before

006the board and putting on the agenda. Um however for uh our agenda meetings from past histories years this is the whole point of the agenda meeting is for the entire board to be able to look at the agenda. Normally in past years whatever is on this agenda >> sure >> is what's our business meeting is about. >> So this is the time for us to remove and take to add or remove things >> and just like um me and some my other colleague we agree we're not voting so we can't then we don't vote on these uh meetings. So whatever it is you want to add or whoever want to add something what are who who has the question about adding something? >> So so the issue is that we want to hear from Mr.

007Ham. Um we were talk um there is talk about modifying the Go ahead >> can it happen at the next meeting? Is it the old is it the old argument of changing pinnacle view from I mean I'm this is just me I'm I'm just one member but if it's something that can go on on the agenda because I don't see um the draft agenda anyway for next for the two weeks if it can go on that and so because it's a because we aren't going to vote on it. We we're just going to hear about it. >> Yes. >> We just heard from Mr. Kaz and we didn't vote on that. So >> yeah, >> the plan was not to So the plan was not to vote on what he was stating, but was to

008>> the So what the policy is indicating and you you um feel free to speak on this is that the rule should be suspended and there could be a vote on that to suspend the rules to add an item. So that is what Mr. Kazay is indicating that our policy says, >> but we don't need to do that. you. So if we um take a vote, which is what Mr. Kazay is saying that our policy says that we're able to do, then that's essentially what we are asking at this point that someone makes a motion so that we're able to add some to suspend the rules to be able to have it agenda item. >> We can't take a vote at this meeting. >> So our legally we can't take a vote. our attorney is

009in >> board members. I'm I'm not arguing the the question of voting or not voting. I'm I'm just simply saying that your your policies create a process that it doesn't talk about emergency meetings. It doesn't talk about special meetings. It doesn't talk about regular board meetings. It it says the regularly scheduled agenda meeting. And the plain use of those words indicates to me that it's this meeting. Now, I suppose if if you all had an aversion to taking a vote, which I completely understand, then if there's no objection, I suppose that you could hear from nearly anybody um at this session if you wanted to. Um I'm just telling you what your policy reads right now today. Whether that should be the policy, I'm not arguing. That's just the way that I find it. >>

010He interprets it. Yes, ma'am. Miss Strong, >> Mr. Kazay, and I will I will admit that I was not around when our if if if ever the two meetings matched um with your agenda meeting and your formal board meeting. But what I'm in reading policy 1.14, what I'm wondering is if it could be referring to the fact that often the agenda is one of the items on the agenda and the board the full board agenda is often one of the items on the board agenda. The agenda meeting agenda. It's too many words. Usually we have a draft sometimes we have a draft agenda on this agenda at this meeting. And so what I'm wondering is if the language in here about adding an agenda item would be about adding an agenda item to the full

011board meeting and not to the agenda that is with embedded within this agenda meeting and not and so we wouldn't be voting on this meeting's agenda but on adding an item into the future board meeting agenda. And so if you like missed the timeline for that >> there's a there's a certain logic to that. Um, >> that was a lot of confusing words. >> The first paragraph uh specifically talks about if you want an item placed on the monthly agenda, you can do so in writing in five calendar days before the regularly scheduled agenda meeting, which I take to be this meeting. >> And then you skip down about six paragraphs. Um, and then district patrons wishing to have an item placed on the agenda must submit their request in writing at least 5 days

012before the regularly scheduled agenda meeting. Um, it seems to me that there is ambiguity in your policy and that's why not >> it's being reviewed now to modify it. >> That's why I struck it. So, so, so what I'm saying is and what he's saying and believe me, I mean, we have talked about this all day because I absolutely have said the same thing that you all are saying. However, Mr. Gaz sitting in the position that he does indicated to me that this is his interpretation and understanding of it and so I must trust his judgment and truly in reading it, it looks like that's what it says. However, I think that it is totally in conflict with our practice and what we have done traditionally. However, it's what the policy says. I mean, that's

013what the policy says. That's what he reads and that's what he interprets. Yes, ma'am. >> Yeah. So, technically, we have made this a part of our meeting, right? This that wasn't on the agenda. So, um and in recent years, yes, we have gotten away from how we did it pre203. So, um I don't know about anybody else, but I'm kind of ready to move on. >> Me, me, too. Me, too. So, I would just ask for So, I would just request Yes. >> I just want to make a comment. I I agree with the the consensus that that we w we shouldn't vote on. The vote takes up an official meeting. I agree with that consensus. My one concern and and I and I appreciate the thought about being flexible, you know, but my my

014one hesitation um I may be persuaded to get over that hesitation, but my one hesitation about adding things that are not on the public agenda for the agenda meeting is that we haven't let the public know we're going to talk about them. Now, we're not going to vote on them, so they still have a chance to weigh in, right? But if this was an an area of interest, they that they wanted to listen to the discussion and pay attention to the discussion and and they looked at the agenda yesterday and said, "Well, there's nothing that's really there for me." But if they knew this was going to happen, then they would be interested and they and you know, for some people would do that. And so it I do have some concern about kind of

015um a lack of good faith for our public to let them know what we're going to be spending our time discussing. >> Okay. When I know we want to move on, but >> yes, >> I said this in the very first agenda meeting that I came to in this round. >> It is the silliest thing I have ever heard of to have an agenda for an agenda meeting. >> Sure. >> I mean, I I've objected to that all along. Piece of paper we should have >> should say draft across it and it should be the agenda for the regular meeting. >> Sure. >> Then we can talk about anything we want to talk about. We can talk about the things that are on that list. we can talk about things we want added to that

016list >> and just roll on. And that's the way it was done. I know there are laws now that weren't there, but that's the way it was done in the old days. In fact, it's the way I'm going to urge us to do it after 1 of March when we have a new board that we not have something that says it's the agenda for the agenda meeting. >> I hear silly. >> Yes, I I I uh I totally understand that. So, um, so I've heard what I think that we've all understood and heard what everyone has said and I would like to move that we suspend the rules and add an agenda item uh, specifically uh, that Mr. Helmet is able to discuss the change of the um, >> Madam Chair, >> high school point

017of order. Yes, we cannot make a motion. >> We can make a motion. >> That means we're we're voting. >> Yes. And the point 1.14 says that we're able to do that. So that's why I'm making a motion. If the motion dies, it dies. But that's what that's what my understanding and interpretation of it is from the attorney. >> Yeah. So I don't want to be in conflict >> with our with our laws that says, you know, we can't vote. So >> I mean the policy says we can't that on this particular item that's all >> but but policy doesn't trump the law right so so if we understand that policy doesn't trump the law okay >> so then we understand that the law stands the law is supposed to be the truth >> regardless

018if our policy >> is in conflict with okay with it so how about that piece how about that piece is that valid Because >> honestly from my perspective guys, I just want to make sure that we are following the law of the land as well as the policy. If we have conflict, whatever we have, I want to make sure it's in alignment. And so that's why we're asking the attorney for his insight with regard to that. Board members, as I said earlier, if there's a reluctance to take a formal vote, which I understand, um it seems to me that as a body, you could certainly decide if there's no objection to hearing from Mr. Helm on the issue of the high school, you can do so. Um which I would, if anyone were to challenge,

019I would say you've substantially complied with your policy and you will not have taken a vote if that's how you want to approach it. once again. >> So I guess I I guess I was just trying to gain clarity though. So >> much clarity out of conflicting stuff. >> I know, right? But I get Well, you know what? We're not We're going to move on. So, so I guess the question is if if we're conflicted around we know what the policy says and I was I guess what I was asking is the law in conflict with that and should we be following the law because it should supersede the policy and so I mean but you know we've been talking about this all day and this is why because I was completely on that same

020you know piece but I just want to make sure that we're Can I ask you a question? >> Yes. >> What is it? Um because >> that the question had been asked a um the same question in different ways and it comes back to the same thing. The majority of the board we already have said we need to what it is. We already set stated our our piece. I agree. I I do agree with our with with our colleague >> um Director Adams that if people wanted to have um a say or come in or whatever tune in virtually, you know, online, they that may be an item that they want to tune in on, but if we talk about it now, they don't have have the option. Um >> have we added agenda items

021in the past though? >> Ma'am, the way that we operate this board the last three and a half years have been out of touch with with the way that we have been operating it coming back in 2020. >> So >> um what the colleagues have said they they they are correct in what we're all saying is that we can't vote. Uh and then at the agenda meeting and and then at the agenda meeting and maybe this is just for people who want to know this at the agenda meeting we have an agenda. The agenda and that agenda is supposed to mimic or be very closely aligned to what the business meeting is. >> Absolutely. >> But just like our colleagues have said, we have colleagues on this board that have never experienced the process prior

022to 2023. So we can just move on with what we have. >> So >> we have another meeting in two weeks. This isn't a major thing. The school's not going to open till 27th. So we can move on. >> Okay. So my thought is this. Is the board open to hearing anything around the name change or would you like to move that to the agenda? That's taking two weeks for that's taking a vote. It's it's >> No, I'm not asking for a vote. I'm just I'm just asking us to give >> right give a poll do >> just a sense of would you prefer the two weeks from today to hear about that item? >> I don't want to see if there's any objection because I don't Oh, well, >> we can make decisions. We

023just can't vote. >> We can't vote though. But I Yeah. So >> I'm just ready to move on. >> Well, so am I. So >> because we could either put this on the agenda that we don't have for next week. >> So So as week after next, >> so we as we had this discussion prior to the meeting all day >> and as we Yes, ma'am. Because we knew I knew, let me just say this. I knew that this would be >> money we spent on this one question. So I would say that for the majority of the day we've been back and forth about this because that has been my stance as well that we couldn't we've always had a meeting on special meeting call if we had to vote and all of the

024above and below. So we were given different guidance and so that's why we brought it before you guys to explore it. However, if that is not what we desire to do, I am not married to it at all and I'm not interested in pushing yes it forward. So we can move on. It sounds like this is not something that the board would like to entertain on this evening and I'm not objecting to that at all. I don't have any invested interest in it. I just want to make sure we're doing things the right way, correct way. >> All right. >> Thank you. Thank you, Mr. I appreciate you. >> And Mr. Hing, thank you so much for coming and we will at a later date. All right. >> All right. Okay. So, we're going to

025move on to 2.1 student enrollment and placement update. Hello. Happy New Year. Good evening again. So, at the request of the board, um I'm here to present some information on our uh student registration enrollment updates. Uh so just a quick this is these bullets are just a quick overview of the process updates that we've made this year to our student registration and enrollment um systems. We one of the first things we did was to revise the capacity numbers in CIS. Um, previously in CIS, our capacity numbers were based on the capacity of the building, how many um, classrooms they had and how many students the building could hold as opposed to staff, how many teachers we had to teach those classrooms. And so we revised our capacity numbers in CIS. That was one of the

026things um when we reviewed our processes that we found to hinder our ability to appropriately staff and enroll students. CIS was giving us one number, but when we talked to the school staff, they would say, "No, we only have room for this many third graders because we only have two third grade teachers, etc." Um we also updated our application processes for Forest Heights and Park View. Um, previously some of those processes were done outside of the enrollment system like um, for instance, scheduling auditions at Park View or providing test scores or other information for Forest Heights. We updated our processes so that all of those things were done in school meant so that parents did not have to go multiple places um, to complete an application. We shifted some of the registration tasks to schools

027to make it more convenient for parents such as address changes, um, phone number changes, emails, those things were previously done in student registration. We still allow parents to complete those tasks in student registration, but it's often much much easier for them to handle it at the school because they have regular contact and interaction at their schools. Um, we updated and simplified our enrollment timeline processes. In previous years, all parents students had to go through enrollment every year. This year, we rolled students up that were already current students if they were in our district. We just rolled them up to their next assignments. And parents only had to take action if they had moved or they decided, I don't want my current assignment. I'd like to apply for a TNT or for a magnet. Uh we

028also changed the format of support for schools that we have designated student service agents for particular schools that just helps with management of issues and concerns at each one of our sites. >> Questions as you go at the end >> whichever you prefer you have questions go ahead strong. >> Is that okay? Are you sure? Okay. Um I'm curious about the um I guess on the previous slide the bullet about Forest Heights and Park View. I know I had a lot of questions this year from zone zone 5 members about Forest Heights and the application to get in and there was not a lot of information out there about it about how to actually um be part of that school. Um unless you like knew somebody or called the school directly etc. Um has that

029been updated? Has that been changed? Is there better information out there about how to do that? And I don't know if the situation is the same for Park View or not. So when you say more information, so the process has always been um that there is an application process for all of our magnets and our specialty schools. And then once you you go in and click to apply for that, it tells you the criteria, the documents you need to submit um any additional information that's required is part of that application. And that and that information was um [clears throat] how to apply, not the actual criteria, but how to apply. That information was provided through multiple sources prior to o and during our open enrollment windows. >> Yes. During but I just had a lot

030of questions before open enrollment started. So before people could see their application. They wanted to be ready on the first day and wanted to understand what they needed and what the you know all of all of that. >> Yes. That information was provided prior to that window opening that >> where was that provided? I just >> it was provided on our website. It was also provided on social media. Okay. The Forest Heights application did not open the first day of open enrollment. The first day of open enrollment, all of that information was provided. So, I think that was the confusion. There were parents who were calling wanting to apply for Forest Heights on the first day. The application was not open on the first day of open enrollment. >> Right. But I think there was

031just anyway, we can and we can talk about this offline. I just I know a lot of people had, including myself, I spent probably half an hour trying to dig through our website and try to find information through the Forest Heights page and like their social media. could not find anything that said this is how you apply for admission to Forest Heights and how you get in and this is the criteria and these are how you submit test scores and all the things. It was just I had a lot of people looking at applying there for middle school that had been in a a zone school prior to that. >> Um and so anyway, I just I think there could be potentially some more clear updated information out there about about that process. And so

032I'm really excited to hear and I think open enrollment has gone really well. I've heard really good things. So, um, but I just do think they're putting that information out before and outside of the open enrollment process would be really helpful. >> Okay. >> So, especially for those two two schools, >> I have you want me to go back one? >> No, I'm just on the first slide. Oh, >> I I just have one question. It's more about the um load on the school secretaries. Um sorry, and I'll make this quick because we spent 30 minutes talking about adding stuff to agenda, but um about the workload. And so we have cut secretaries and regist registers at the >> no >> it had been proposed right it was proposed from going down am I missing

033this where it was two some of them now going to get one based on and so next school year um the the board then we we received a u report about [clears throat] changes into uh support staff at in the front office. So my question is will this put more strain on the schools secretaries and and reg the registars the attendance secretaries having to change the phone numbers and addresses. The reason I asked is because we did that one point and then it ended up messing up things um down the road. It created kinks. I think that's a better way. Uh kinks in the system. Um so I was just curious particularly about the the workload and the um fidelity of um making those changes right at the uh school level. So to answer your

034questions, no, I don't think it's going to add additional tasks. This is not a a mass thing that happens where everyone um I'll use myself as an example. I never changed my address or my phone number or email the entire time my children were in school. So that wasn't a a a service or a support that I needed. Many of our parents don't need it. There are parents that um change their addresses and don't even know where student registration is. So, as a service to the parent who's already come to the school to make the school aware, hey, I changed my address. I need a new bus. I changed my address um my email address so that this teacher can contact us. Instead of having to go two places to get that done, they can

035get that done at their school, which is the place that they um visit most often. They also can, if they so choose, go to student registration and get it done there. So, um, we were very intentional about saying we're no matter where the parent goes to request this service, we're not going to turn the parent away. So, this would be more of a trickle in as the parent comes in. We're also asking them to do it during times if we're calling about attendance. If we're having an IEP meeting, if we're having a student a parent teacher conference, just verifying the address, then oh, you do have a change and then we go ahead and make the change. So, no, I don't think it's going to add a additional load. It's actually been better keeping up

036with it um because oftentimes they'll get the information at the school and they're sending it out in the school, but because we have four student services representatives that take care of the entire school district, it actually takes those four people longer to do all of the address changes for the district than it would for an attendance secretary to do the ones that come into their school as needed. >> You have one. Okay. So also once the secretaries which I think is a great idea um since that's where the student attends um so when they make the correction it automatically uploads to student registration >> it's the same system >> anywhere it's made it it changes in throughout the entire system. >> Okay. Also what are some of the tasks that we cannot pass on to

037the schools? I see you have address phone and number changes are those the only ones. >> Um to be honest, we don't really have outside of the lotteryies. Um regular attendance uh zone enrollment, all of that actually could be done at the school level. It's done at the school level in other districts. Um the task that student registration completes that can't be done at the school level are things like running lotteryies, um TNT transfers between zone schools, uh magnet schools, specialty school applications, those things probably need to be done in the student registration office because that gets a little bit tricky. But just a regular um enrollment, I am enrolling my kindergartenner or fifth grader in my attendance zone school. that could be done um at the school level. >> Good. Thank you. >> Yes,

038ma'am. >> Please feel free to move forward. >> Okay. >> Uh so um additional updates I said one of them the major ones was this year we rolled all of our current students up to their current or zone school. Um and those letters were all emailed to the families. uh our current LRSD students were allowed to complete their TNT and magnet applications first before um January. In the past, we haven't started TNT applications until the end of January, early February. New registration window for students in LRSD zones. That's different um because we did have a question about that than school choice. These are students who live in our district zones but don't currently attend school in our zone. is not students that are trying to come into our district from out of district. Um they

039were at we added a student registration window for those students. Um our lottery was actually done yesterday. We are doing ver verification today. Just crossing tees um and dotting eyes before we send out letters. They'll start going out on Monday. And our school choice application window, the state school choice application window started on the 1st and it continues until May 1st. This is the enrollment timeline that we used. [clears throat] So in the first enrollment window, all of our students were rolled up to either the school they are currently attending or the attendance zone school that they would attend um if they are in a grade level that levels up. So, fifth graders, whatever school they were zoned for for sixth grade and eighth graders, whatever school they were zoned for for ninth grade. We

040also rolled up kindergarteners from prek to their attended zone schools. Also, um reassigned, alternately assigned students back to their attendance zone schools during this process. Those are students who were assigned to a different school maybe because of overcrowding or other other reasons that it was a one-year assignment only. The second window was our in district TNTs and magnets especially school applications. Third window was new students that live in our district but are not currently attending in our district. And then um our lottery was run this week. Those letters will go home on the 12th. And then our school of choice application window started on the 1st. It'll go through May 1st. And that's for students who are wanting to attend in our district that currently live outside of our school district. Um this is the

041new format for support. Each our district has been divided into sections and assigned to a student services um agent. Those agents are responsible for handling the enrollment questions and requests for their sites. We divided them by uh mostly by elementary and middle school, but also schools that typically tend to feed into their schools like Mapleville and Jair are um alternate locations for Lacy if Lacy is full and vice versa. So, by having one student service agent handle all of those schools, it just helps us with continuity and consistency of message um keeping up with seat counts and vacancies in a more accurate and efficient manner. Um, also Mr. Williams is responsible for all of our high schools. He is our um, student registration supervisor and he handles Forest Heights because it is the only school

042that has an application process like theirs. So, we gave that one to the supervisor. That's why that one middle school is with the high schools as opposed to the other ones. Um, I'll stop there for questions before I go through the data. [snorts] Questions? I think I have a question but I think the data will probably answer it for me so I'm wait. >> Okay. Uh so one of the questions that um I was asked to provide data for was our enrollment um for homeschool and private school. The number of students by year um that withdrew from our school our district to attend private school or home school. I will say with this data, this these numbers only reflect the students who on their withdrawal stated they were going to homeschool or private school. >>

043Sure. >> Okay. Um so can we get a the report that breaks it down that that shows where what schools these children are coming from and then where did they end up? Um it's a that we used to get where it breaks it down to where if 30 kids from school Y ended up in Bryant um um or wherever I know these are school the home school and private school so we're missing the choice numbers too on um students that left the district and went to maybe our surrounding um school >> there is a report that pulls that by individual student. Um the request didn't in include choice which is why I didn't include it in that that I received didn't include choice. So I didn't include it in the report. However, yes, we can

044provide that. However, if the parent did not say what school they're going to, that is not going to be included in the report. The the parent isn't required to tell us which school. and the withdrawal code say home school, private school, school in another district is what the actual code is. So when we pull it by code, it would say one of those three things unless the unless the parent specifically specified where they went and the person who withdrew them actually typed that in in the withdrawal. >> And again, I don't know um our last um director, he was able to pull it from a just a report um from the statewide system report to is from the statewide system and in the statewide system the code is homeschool private school with withdrew like where

045you're going like it's to a school in another district to a school out of state is an actual code you don't type in specifically Vicky Hatter left Pinnacle View and went to Bryant Middle School there is a place for you to say specifically what the school is but the person the parent would have to say and the stu the person doing the withdrawal would have to type it in. So we would not necessarily have that specific of information for every single student who left some of them. Yes. But this information also with the school transfer to another district >> and then transfer out of state. We could I can pull it by those codes. >> I'll reach out because there is a way to do it. I um of course I don't I wouldn't know

046how to do it but I know there is a way to do it because we got that type of very direct um information um before because I think it will be um beneficial to see you know what what what schools are gaining the students and what schools are losing the um students but I understand >> no there is that's what I'm saying I'm saying is you might not necessarily get the the specific accurate ones for every single person because the school is not always provided. If it is provided, yes, we can pull it. We definitely know every school that the student withdrew from. We may not be know every school that the student transferred to is what I'm saying, but we would have the school for every one of these codes. >> Okay. >> Oh,

047your microphone. um over over the years um that type of report would just come in. Um it was in our original dashboard that we had um and we could go in there. We could click and also student services would provide that uh report to but too you can get it from this the state as well. Well, if you if you are able to pit on any new um >> no top no new topics um assignments, [laughter] but I'm just saying >> but if you're able to access it, you know, perhaps you guys can talk about it, you know, >> perhaps. >> Yeah. >> But I just think that that would help us to understand like 2 245 if if are are they coming from central? Are they coming from >> um out west? Are they

048like like what school is is a bunch of Southwest kids leaving? like who who's who is taking um you know um taking up the offer. >> Okay, >> that's all. >> Miss John, >> my only my only addition if you're going to run and add anything else is is um are charter schools embedded within other p other school district. >> Okay. So there's not a separate Okay. >> Public charters are Yes. >> Okay. So, um, but I can check and see, like I said, if we can we can run that report that way and we can run it by school if the actual school definitely the way Miss Hatter is asking, I can tell you what schools they're leaving from. >> Um, the going to might is depends on how the data was input. >>

049Okay. Okay. >> Good. >> So, these are our enrollment trends and projections um over the last five years. Uh there is a an asterct by the 26 27 for the upcoming school year for a couple of reasons. One, school choice window just opened and it stays open until May 1st. So none of those students are accounted for in that number. Um I think we've only gotten a handful of applications because it's January 9th and we just came back on the 5th. So, um, and we haven't started processing those applications yet because we were running lotteryies, um, for the first few days of this week. Also, the prek number is those applications typically come in throughout the second semester. So, we're at about half of what we normally have um, enrolled in the fall in prek.

050So, that is what that aster is for. And all of these numbers for 2627 are applications that were um submitted up to December 19th. >> Yes. >> I'm sorry. I have a million questions on all the things. Um on the prek numbers, do you know what percent of those are um with the new sliding scale this year? Do you have any idea? I I can get that information from Miss Jones. But yes, that's that's a little deeper than I go for prek registration, but yes, she saw that number and obviously freaked out and so um because it looked low, but I didn't realize it. I guess I saw it maybe before it had the little caveat on there, but um anyway, >> thanks, Mr. Adams. >> Oh, go ahead. >> Yeah, >> Dr. Lauren, do

051you have a do you remember how many about how many school choice students we had this year? I was thinking about how many we might expect could be added for next year. >> I do have that in a report that I can provide to you off the top of my head. I don't want to I don't want to guess the number, but I do have that. >> Yeah, thank you. That'd be helpful. Thank you. >> No problem. >> I just have a quick question. We don't have to go back to the slides. It's just something I thought about um and it's pre your time, but the uh process for Forest Heights and Park View. It was like a lot of discussion in 2016. Can't believe I've been around this long, but at the board level,

052um uh and I was attending the meeting that day. Uh there were a lot of discussion about the testing particularly for Forest Heights. Um and at the time they had questions around the kindergarteners having having the test in and u parents felt that that was a bit um traumatic having uh kindergarteners test in and then there were some other things going on. Um but my question is go with the changes what type of changes just and you don't have to list them but maybe the two biggest changes what are those two big changes >> for forest height and park view. Okay. So, for Forest Heights, um one of the things that was done is there's actually which um to Miss Strong's point, that's something that needs to be um shared there. They actually the the

053criteria that they've always had, they actually put it on a on a rubric scale so that people could see what the criteria was that was being used and mimic that uh rubric scale cut off to what we've used for the magnet schools is actually identical to what the magnet school policy is so that we have some continuity between our application based schools. That was the major that was the major one major change for forest heights. The second major change was previously students would apply through school men and I can't even remember the name of the other one. >> H >> no >> they didn't talk gateway >> gateway um they would apply and then the school or someone from student registration would have to reach out to the parents and ask for verification or go

054pull the verification. Now all of that can be uploaded at application. So when you apply there's a place to upload your report card. There's a place to upload the test scores. And to the point about kindergarten, that requirement is gone. It's been gone. So we don't have and the only change for Park View is instead was the same thing. They would apply and then the school and individual departments would have to reach out about auditions. They can schedule auditions through school men in their application. Just making it a one-stop shop for parents was the biggest change that we made. >> Awesome. Other questions? other questions. Okay, >> more information. Okay, so um these are our enrollment updates uh just to see how many TNT applications were submitted and how many magnet applications were submitted. I

055do want to say these are applicants who submitted applications and not the number of applications because one parent can sub submit an application for multiple magnet schools. Um so we wanted you I wanted to share that information also. This is the um ECC information for the number of applications the seats enrollment is actually higher than what we to the enrollment for because some of them rolled over. So you saw the 756 before the 840 is because some of those students rolled over. We have some prek and four that were like my kid with a late birthday. So he stayed in pre-k for two years. So some of that is in there as well. Um the last thing I do want to share I this is not part of the um presentation because we had our

056um update meeting with school mint this evening and they didn't send the information to me until 5 because the meeting was scheduled for today. Uh but we have had um this time last year we had a total of 3,776 applications applicants um submit applications in our system. This year we were at 4532. So we've seen an increase in applicants um of about 18% over last year. Also, we have had we had a total of um 464 student applications for TNTs processed, which is up from zero this time last year because we did not start TNT applications until February. Um, previously we felt like moving those timelines up would help us retain some of our students as people could start almost immediately all year long in other school districts applying and enrolling for next school year.

057So, we wanted to move our enrollment processes up, make them easier and more convenient for parents um to help with not only recruiting new students to the district, but retaining the students that we have. >> I have a quick question for you. Sure. This is really good. And so, uh, you answered my question then, uh, because I was going to ask you, am I Miss Smith? Am I on? Okay. I was I just making sure. Okay. Um, because, uh, I was going to ask ask you about the overall um, enrollment impact uh, by having the TNTs and and all of that happen first and then you have your choice students coming in. um whether or not that will be some level of impact by automatically rolling um our current students up without them in indicating

058whether or not they're going to stay at at their current current current school. But you answered it by saying in my mind um by saying you did that to retain um u to help with with the retention. Okay. My next question is probably not you. is probably a Kelsey question, but early childhood is up here. With the cuts to with the cuts and halts the more of a halt on funding um with the justifications, are are we seeing any type of impact for our centers? And I know that that's more of a Kelsey type of question because I know some of our private and um nonprofit um centers are are seeing some type of impact right now because of the justifications. That's a lot of work. It have created a level of um opportunity for

059me to go in and help some people. But I I'm just curious about like us like how is that impacting us with those? Do we have to write a justification or are we categorized in a different >> Are you talking about are you talking about and I know a bit about this from my day job but um >> the the changes from the state on um on rates for school readiness assistance which are vouchers >> were were put out there and then rolled back to a certain extent. We changed our rates in the middle of that and um and then the state came back to like I want to say 90% or so of where they had been before. So they didn't come they got about a 10% cut instead of like a 50% cut

060in most of our centers that are level five or six. Um but that's just for the zero and two kids and we don't have a ton of those you know they're mostly at Rockefeller and Guy Springs I believe. um only but so that so but the rest of this these are all the Arkansas better chance slots and then some of them we have I think I'm such a nerd I think we have um Arkansas better chance slots and then the rest of that is made up by what will be sliding scale or private pay families so because but we had previously paid for those out of like our um what's it called s er funds that were um our money for slate school achievement because that's a known evidence-based strategy to improve school outcomes. >>

061Well, now, well, it had been out of just kind of our general operations dollars. Yes. Out of the K12 dollars. Yes. And a lot of school districts use their K12 dollars to support some level of early childhood, but others like I think North Little Rock only only has income based slots. We have always offered some slots paid for for those families over income covered by our K like our K12 to my understanding. Have I got all that right? >> We um we've only had one cabinet meeting since we've been back because we've only been back >> four days. >> One Yeah. one week. Um >> but we'll definitely follow up with Miss Jones, but she didn't indicate anything yet about any drastic changes to um our numbers. Um so I'm I'm assuming and guessing there

062hasn't been much of an impact. >> Okay. Any anything else? All right. Thank you. And I appreciate your patience and your information. Thanks so much. >> All right. Finance and operations. >> Dr. R. >> I'm sorry. The first item is one that was requested about uh debt service payments or commitments. And so um Kelsey is going to cover that and then I'm going to cover some things regarding the FY27 budget. I think good evening. First of all, uh this is a document we covered uh probably a month or two ago with Mr. Trump was here as well. I think Miss Smith is gonna make it a little bit larger. I'm not sure what the questions were on it, but this gives a pretty detailed breakdown of where where we are as far as our debt

063service payments and obligations. If you scroll all the way to the top, M it shows a series across there based on the issuance. So our bund all the way to the to the right side see that far column there. It's going to show our payments. So we typically have payments twice a year. may be interest for this fiscal year 27,794,124.71 that's going to go up by about 42 million based on the new $75 million of the debt we issued this this past fall in November. So payment if you scroll down just a little bit is going to be around 31 million and some change from this point on unless we uh you know issue some additional funds or do some refunding uh where rates end up dropping uh we can refund and save some money

064on some of those payments which we did over the last uh several years but I don't foresee rates going down anytime soon significantly. So >> um I had my question it was um what my question was is we have to pay our bond payments first out of um with our uh dollars. Is that correct? Is that still the case? >> We we pay them based on this schedule here. Let me slide over here. >> Uh we're never uh probably at risk of defaulting on it because they would actually take our tax money before they let any districts default on it. That's right. That's why rating is higher. Well, all districts rating higher. So that's one of the things Arkansas. So my um line of thought here is pro projecting forward and given the fact that

065we've already cut 30 plus million dollars out of our budget already. We're cutting another 12 to 15 and 2.5 if I'm if I remember that correctly is going into the fund balance which is you know that's not something we're I mean it will go in the fund balance but it's not going to make a significant difference. um with our overall um amount of our budget. My question is after we pay our payments um how much are we operating out of like to run our district? Because that is where I think we're going to at some point run into some issues because um we have a new high school coming on um how much of of this new payment or how how much of our debt service payment is going towards our new high school. Um

066and so like we as um since I'm still here, we as a board and then we as the public then is able to have some type of forward financial look of know of the state of our district. And so right now it's kind of, you know, I don't think people are able to properly follow along um with this, but understanding how much of our, you know, debt goes towards our new high school, what does after the total um debt payments are paid out, what are we left as a district to operate out of? Can we for foresee any more closure of schools, which you know we're going to have to because we have five high schools. We don't have currently enough school high schoolers to fill these high schools. And then um the last thing

067would be the operation of the new high school. Then we have Hall still to continue with as well as a couple other campuses. So um that is kind of that is what I would like to at some point see whether it's a quick um whether it's coming back to the board in February or whatever to show us how much of the debt service payment goes to our new high school after all the payments was left and then how do we foresee our budget outlook and whether or not we're going to ask for a tax increase from our voters. >> I have some questions. I mean because You gonna have to give me a ABCD choice to pick. Now I hear so. >> Yeah, a lot of this we actually discussed during that budget work session

068when we had Mr. Trump here. But our payment there is what our payment is going to be unless we issue anything else which we don't have any plans. So 31 million after this fiscal year. So we don't allocate a portion like go going to the high school because the high school is being built over three four years. So all those projects there I mean if you want to allocate a portion of it could probably break it out on how it it goes about on that. So our original debt service is about 21 million who we added about 200 million. I mean money was a little bit cheaper at that time. We could have built all these schools if we' have actually got board public approval in was it 17 probably for uh at least 40%

069cheaper than what we actually had here. Uh our debt service revenue is almost double on what we actually pay for debt service. When we went over it's in the high 50 mid to high 50s. So, but we only pay 31 million. We have 12.4 mills that actually go toward debt service, but we only use a portion of that to actual fund debt to pay debt service. So, we have the capacity there, but we have to wean oursel off of that money that we use for operational purposes. So, we have a lot of things that aren't funded. I mean, security is not funded, but we got to have security there. Uh we don't all nurses and Everything else is built in the foundation funding uh methodology that necessarily fit for all districts. So uh we do

070have some extra expenses that we have to fund out of operational. I know you had a multiart question, but >> it it's just projecting forward because we have to at some point and we're going to have to talk about our budget and it may be um smarter after loosely thinking about this and talking to some other districts about um our budget. It's just um it it may just be smarter to have the next board vote on it and so like they could take ownership of of the um the budget. um instead of rushing it because we are cutting 12 to 15 million dollars. Um I still you know there is still some thoughts around whether or not the last round of cuts um contri uh contributed or helped out any um with with with our

071um cuts. And so definitely don't want to rush the 2627 budget just just to meet a deadline. That is what I'm thinking is um we really need to have some very thoughtful conversations outside of um just these larger presentations. But I know we're >> going to have have these like broken out into work sessions is really what we need to have instead of having it at a business meeting because we should just be voting at those meetings. But >> so I know a few things on there. We were actually probably numbering it. This should be what 3.0 3.5 or something like that. So we've had various renditions of budget reduction. So we've been reducing budget for a long time. So I mean I started in 2009 and we started talking about it winning off u

072d funing at that point. So we we've cut we've cut probably $75 million out of the budget since I've been here. It's a lot. I mean we still have all well we still have five of the well we know we have four of the stipulated magnet schools now because closed carver and Brooker down but u many things that we talk about as far as the facility footprint that's a big one I mean that's a challenge that no one typically wants to talk about is closure buildings uh is hope that if we close a building we still have those competent personnel still in the district that students are still being taught wherever they are but we just have come to the realization that we're not a 25,000 student body district anymore and you don't need all

073the buildings. We've always had almost too many buildings out there. So, uh it's just showing I mean when economic conditions get like they are now I mean you don't have any room to error at all uh with Karen administration. I mean we had a scare early this year that we weren't sure we're going to get federal funding several different divisions. I think that's still going to be risky in the future for a few of those title programs whether we're looking at title three or title four title two I think title one is be solid 6B title six as well but those are all things we have to be aware of that's on the horizon there just in case fund balance that's one thing Dr. Right. And I talked quite a bit about you looked at

074the charts that I present every month. I mean, it's got scary scary this past July and August. So, where you uh you're looking at where you can whether you can make payroll, you want to get to a point where you have to borrow funds to make payroll or pay taxes while you're waiting on your, you know, your main tax money to come in. So, all those things are kind of coupled. So, you really don't I mean, we're really at the point where you have to make decisions now going forward. You're going to continue to have to make budgetary decision because the budget is a live document. When y'all vote in September, that's just a part as far as compliance to submit a budget. But y'all are talking about budget every time y'all vote on a

075program or personnel or anything else. So that's an action that we're taking. But we presenting a budget is a pictorial snapshot at that time on what we decided to do. So it's a lot of discussion. I mean, we had we never stopped talking about it because I mean, never want to take a axe approach to something where we have data and you can take a scalpel or something and cut off, you know, slices that you want to have cut off and not have to be forced at the last minute to start dropping an ax on different things to chop them off. So, and I know that wasn't part of this dead, but I know we got a whole another budget thing right out. I don't know if that leads us into the next, but I

076agree we have we have to have a lot of conversation around that. So, I think that's why we want to wanted to start this early. U y'all have to chime in on it. So, >> any question? Any more questions on that debt service schedule? We're good to go. We're ready to move. >> Okay. So, um we started this conversation at the beginning of December and so I am just going to highlight um some recent um uh changes or updates. Um and I do want to thoroughly go through uh this timeline because um there are some decisions that the board um that we'll be asking the board to make pretty soon. And I just want to make sure that we are all on the same page in terms of understanding um what is being expected. So

077Pam, if you can pull up the if you can go pull up the on the agenda, there's a documents listed for today's date 18. And the first one is the budget development timeline. And while she's pulling that up, go to the actual agenda and look under 18. Um while she's pulling up the budget development timeline, I do want to um this kind of goes to what Miss Hatter and um Mr. Bailey was talking about the keep scrolling all the way down. There's >> the budget development timeline. The first one um so we're doing there are two things happening at the same time. What we're talking about now with the the FY27 budget development process is what we're trying to do in the short term to address next school year. There's also a learn time. >>

078What am I trying to say? >> Long term. Yes. [laughter] There is also a long term process that we have started with uh solution seekers around the the whole district viability process. Um, and we are picking that back up again. And and that's looking at things that we need to do long term, like looking at what our forecasting what our student enrollment is going to be in the next two to three years and talking about like how many schools do we need to um for that particular uh number of students and whatever that number is, what is the process that we're going to go through to determine where those schools are going to be. And and so that's like long term. So we're doing kind of like two things at one time, but the FY27

079budget budget development process is shortterm. These are things that we're doing to make sure that we stay in the black for next school year and that we begin the process of building up our fund balance. So I just wanted to make that clarification. We know we need to be thinking about long-term stuff because we know that unfortunately we're not done with having conversations around what our school footprint needs to be. And so that's that's that's happening. Um, so when you look at there, there have been a couple of things added since we looked at this the last time. Um, everything that's been added is in blue. Um, right now all of our every district department um was getting ready to say something redundant. I was going to say every district department across the district, but

080it's the same thing. Um, but all of our department heads right now are uh taking a deep look at their budget. We know that um not every department is in a position or can afford to cut positions. Um but what I am asking every department to do is to look at operation spending. Um and we are expecting all of our departments to be able to report back ways in which that they can decrease um operating spending. And so uh that is happening from now until the 13th. And so we'll be able to have more of an um more of an understanding in in terms of what our departments will be able to contribute to this number that we're trying to get to. Um 116 to 629. Uh we Miss Burgess spent some time I believe

081it was in our December I don't know if it was the agenda meeting or the the board meeting but she went through the uh recommendation process. Um all of those steps that uh process is linked there. Um we've already kind of discussed that at length, but just reminding you that that's um that process will be kicking up pretty soon. Um in the on the 22nd, which is our January board meeting, this is very important. Two things are going to happen. Um number one, we will be bringing to the board, and you'll actually get this before the 22nd, but we will be bringing um to the board um a copy of proposed revisions to employee contracts. Um, and so you'll have that in advance of the 22nd to to look at. We've discussed some things that

082we um are thinking about, not thinking about, some things that we're proposing to change in the in the um employee contracts. There is language um currently there around non-renewal uh that doesn't uh necessarily align to all the new laws and things around learn. So, we're adjusting uh language there. We're also um putting some language in around um some language around if we project our enrollment to be such and such at a particular school and we get to the fall and it's significantly lower. Um we want to put in some language around rescending or the resention um of contracts if we find ourselves in that position. Now, there are there are areas in our personnel policies that kind of give us the ability to do that anyway. Um, but we just want to make sure that

083um it's not necessarily a riff because that's like 10% and this this this won't be anywhere near um that. But we're looking at um what our personnel policies um we're currently looking at what our personnel policies say and we're trying to align that and just make sure that that's covered um in the employee contracts, but you'll get that at least a week um if not more prior to the 22nd for you to begin to look at. Um but we will be discussing that on the 22nd. And then most importantly um on the 22nd we will be asking you to take a formal vote on the staffing formula guidelines. We presented those to you um at the beginning of December. Um there hasn't been any major changes since it's been presented. It's linked here. Um but

084it's important that we ask it's important that the board take action on that on the 22nd because that is going to inform the recommendation process which will start like right then or the very next week. Um so um if you haven't had a chance to uh we we covered all of the changes that we made to it in December. Um, and the only changes that we made since then were just some corrections to some um, there hasn't been any substantive changes since the changes that we told you we made to it. It's just been some corrections uh, with regards to some allocation numbers that rolled over from the last manual that we didn't update. For example, for central, like there may have been some numbers in the red um, showing that they had I'm just

085making up something. it showed that they had five attendant secretaries um but the staffing formula may have indicated three and so we were just showing the difference but we've since made those changes this year but we went back and just corrected those numbers so it accurately reflects um where all of our schools are so there hadn't been any any substantive changes since we went over the changes that we made to it but we will be asking you to vote on that on the 22nd I saw a hand >> yeah um thank you is this is it sorry my voice is cracking. Is this um just just to jog my memory, is is this the one that proposed having um the PP the like the head of the PPC's to right to receive a stipen? Was

086that the same? >> No, that's the that was a stipen stipen document. >> Okay. >> Are the green items in here the things that changed? I missed that meeting and I'm sorry I haven't I did not listen through that part. I was getting ready to say I thought they were yellow, but >> there's yellow and green and so I just wasn't sure what the two colors. >> The greens were the changes. >> Okay. Yes. >> Okay. Thanks. >> I have to go back and refresh my mind, >> but it's all linked here. So, >> it's linked. Yeah, I was going to say it's linked in this document. So, I got >> So, 22nd, we'll be asking um the board to take action on that manual. Um we covered this already, but we have met with

087various constituent groups. Um we're asking um you know both classified certified PPCs principal roundts we've had detailed discussions around um all of this stuff they have been or will be talking to their constituent groups. Um I think they have until the 15th of this month to formally respond if there are alternative uh solutions or things they want us to consider other than the ones that we have initially um presented. Um, so that will be an ongoing process that we'll be working through up until um February, the end of February when we will bring um I don't want to get ahead of myself, but we will bring there's a budget reduction framework document that I'll get to in just a minute, but that as much of that that we can complete before this current board um

088goes away. That's what we'll be bringing to the board at the end of February, the February board meeting for the board to um approve. We will be asking um and I haven't officially talked to you about this yet, but I guess I'm talking to you about it now. [laughter] But on the 12th of February, um on the 22nd, we'll be bringing that copy of the employee contract just for discussion, but we'll be asking the board to uh take action um once you had a chance to look at it, give us feedback, any changes that we need to make, but we will be asking for requesting a special meeting um during our February work session. um for the board to vote on that because once we start the recommendation process and starting starting and start issuing

089contracts, we're going to need the actual contracts to issue to employees. And so we will need um the board to take action on that on the 12th. The other stuff, um the February 16th through the 19th, we're going to have two public meetings around um our budget process. We have the dates identified. Um we will work on the locations. We have the dates and the times. We'll work on the locations. We only have time to do two. Um so we'll try to be strategic in terms of where those are um across the city, but those will take place on the 17th and the 19th of February. And then on the 26th, which is the February board meeting, um again, we'll be asking you all to vote on um the budget reduction plan. And uh yeah,

090and I'll get to that in just a Yeah, we'll be asking you to vote on the the budget reduction plan. Um that framework will detail the steps that we plan to take to achieve that uh 12 to$15 million reduction. Um including recommended changes to contract limbs, all that stuff that we kind of talked about, I'll get to in just a moment. Um, and then we there there are going to be some things and I guess we can just go ahead and get to that next document, the actual budget um the budget framework, the budget reduction planning document. There will be some things. Go ahead and pull that up, Pam. >> While that is happening for one of those uh [snorts] two meetings, if uh one of those meetings could be at Henderson. >> Okay. Um

091because it's >> central. >> Oh yeah. And and and it's um Yeah. And then the other one >> wherever maybe at Southwest so we could capture the entire city. >> There we go. We got our two locations. [laughter] [snorts] >> Um on the budget reduction planning document. So these are all of the different areas that we are looking at currently. Um, not a lot has changed since we first presented this to you in December because we we've just been back. But this is showing all the different things that we are looking at um from um the district superintendent level to the network level to u district office. We're looking at um reduction of 12 month uh employee contracts. We have had some discussion. And initially, we we're looking at 3 to 5 days, but I

092think we are we have settled pending feedback from our employees on probably going with a three-day reduction of our 12-month employees because it will be easier to implement that. We would just close totally during the week of Thanksgiving because right now our employees work uh 12 month employees work two of those days and the other three days were off. And so if we cut um days by if we employ if we cut 12 month contracts by three days then in essence we will just shut down the district office during the week of >> Three days I'm sorry. >> So they work three days and you're cutting three. Yes. I said it said it backwards. >> Um we're looking at um We're looking at uh elementary principles. Um we have two different things that we're considering.

093Even moving either moving them back to 11 month contracts, which is where they were I think like three years ago. Um or we're looking at um cutting cutting their contracts by three days like we're doing with the other 12. Um but those are still discussions we're we're having, but that's all a part of this. We're also looking at teachers with um extended contracts. Um we have the list and we're digging into it. you know, some of them may be warranted, some of them um may be needed, others may not. Um and so we will be recommending changes to some of those. Most of them um from what I understand looking at the report that we looked at a couple days ago in our cabinet meeting. Um most of them are CTE teachers and I think

094there were some laws back in the day that said Cte teachers had to work a certain amount of days. Some of those laws have changed um but we have not changed um some of our practices and so we're taking a look into that as well. >> And what about those I guess maybe about two school years ago or so we took um I can't remember if they're nine or 10, but there was less than 12 month uh contract employees and then we made them 12 month employees. Um I think some of them were um classified as well as some of our certified staff. um secretaries was one of them because around that time um we the the thought was from the district is that they would be able to make contact with students um to

095help with the retention of of um students. So if an invite if we are seeing a decline in enrollment that would suggest that that wasn't that that maybe that didn't go as planned. So um and not just a single just that one type of position out but just across the board uh there was like a a a list of positions that was going from less than 12 months to 12 months. So, anybody who's currently on a 12-month I don't think we have any Do we have any 12-month secretaries? >> Yeah, we have I know some bookkeepers there at high schools. Maybe a few >> that's that's a small number. Most of our most of our school level, not as much. >> I think it was like at elementary. >> I can't remember. >> What we

096did, we we added attendance secretaries at elementary schools, but they were not they're they're not 12 months. >> Okay. I can't I I've slept since then and yeah I I was just thinking about how we went and add it. The thing that uh one other thing I want to make clear is some of the final reduction plans to get us to this 12 to 15 million we're we're not going to be able to have identified by the end of February for obvious reasons. Number one, we know that we're looking deeply at sped. Um but we just started that sped audit with um uh the group is actually just getting started right now. And so we won't um we won't know those. And then the bulk of these changes, not changes, but the bulk of the

097reductions are going to come um from our schools because we're we're looking closely to staff our schools based upon projected enrollment. Um I provided a report uh to the board the December board meeting that just showed a list of all of the courses across well two two reports. There was one that looked at elementary schools that came in below um uh the enrollment that we projected for this year, but we didn't make any staffing adjustments. Um and then the other was the secondary schools that showed all of the courses um that had students enrolled below below the course minimums. Um and again, I want to make clear that not every single some of those smaller courses, some of them are warranted and should be small, but some of them shouldn't. Um, and so um we're

098going to have to do a lot of work uh to collapse a lot of our smaller and most of them are electives, too. So, we're taking a deep um look at the number of electives that are that are offered across um all of our schools. And so where there are opportunities to collapse them and have less sections, um that is all going to have an impact on the number of teachers that we're going to need to staff the schools. And so all of the staffing, all of the recommendation process and all of the staffing from our elementary and secondary schools, we're not going to have that information um by the end of February because that is an ongoing process and that is where the bulk of this 12 to 15 million is probably going to

099come from. >> Yeah. Because you might February, you might have maybe what? Maybe two meetings with with this current setup. >> You mean two two re recommendation processes? >> No. Um board meetings with the election. I'm thinking about when the I'm I'm thinking about your your your time your your timeline. So, and how many meetings we have left. Oh, >> okay. Yeah, that's basically three after this one. >> Yeah. With the current board. majority majority of the city. >> So that's where we are. Um >> questions. Yes, ma'am. >> Um a few things on the budget reductions document. And I know I missed um December. I'm sorry, but these are a couple things I wanted to put on here. um the early childhood um so the sliding scale fee if we are um if we're

100asking approx we had approximately I was just looking back on my phone for the data [snorts] um 220 families who are self-pay >> currently >> that's about what we had this have this year in our early child Arkansas better chance slot or in the not in the they're above the Arkansas better chance limit so they are currently in in our district. That times $710 a month times 9 months is $1.4 million. I just want to note that that 1.4 million has been coming from somewhere else in our district and is no longer with the sliding scale going to be fully required on that. So, I would just think about that being a savings area with the sliding scale as we bring in revenue. >> Um, >> does that is not I'm not >> You're questioning

101my mouth. >> No, no, cuz I I never even thought of thought about that. That's part of why we were doing that to make sure we can continue to offer those slots even as our budget constraints get >> more serious. Yes, constraint. Yeah, I have a couple other things, but yes, come on. Jump in, Mr. >> Right. But will that income go to our general fund? >> So that's not going to have an impact on what we're trying to >> But right now >> because we're funding it from >> you're funding it out of your K12 dollars the for the overs. >> Yeah. >> Not I'm not talking about ESA at all though. Oh, I was thinking S. Sorry. Sorry. ESA. Yes. As ESA. Yeah. Right. >> Yes. Right. But those NSLA dollars then are

102flex freed up potentially if you have family pay coming in to help support that and it ensures that families still have access to our high quality programs but reduces the district's piece of that. Um, I would like to formally ask that we add, this is the second point of my three. Um, I would formally like to ask that we add, um, ending our participation in the federal lawsuit about learns to our budget reductions opportunities. Um, it is a board decision we could make. Now that we've made a decision about participating in that, um, we can always revisit that decision and it might be worth thinking about since it put us over budget for this year already. I would like to bring up that you will not be able to make a motion to that effect.

103Only the people who are on the winning side of that vote. >> I didn't make a motion on it. I just asked I'm here for considering you. >> Okay. Um and then finally um and I don't know that part of of Robert's rules. I didn't I don't I mean I feel like there we should be able to reconsider. I mean I don't know. >> The winners can reconsider but the losers can't. >> Okay. Well, I think it should be considered as part of our budget since that's putting us over budget as well. Um, and then finally, I think, you know, when we were talking, was it last board meeting before the holidays? Um, when we were talking about our special ed audit, and I know special ed's a place where there was a lot of

104discussion in that meeting a little while ago, we also talked about revenue. And we're not talking about maximizing revenue in places like Medicaid and other pieces of opportunities we might have. I was talking with a couple folks who had reached out to me and they said the district just put into place an electronic medical record one year ago, maybe two years ago, that there was just not like that we aren't doing a lot to make sure that we are fully documenting and billing for our billable health services for kids who have those therapy, speech therapy, OTP, PT, um, in there. So, I just really think we need to be looking at not just our cuts, but look at ways to bring in more revenue into our district when that is an opportunity from state and

105federal sources. So, I know we get flat money, you know, money from the state for sped and other things, state and federal government for sped, but I just think that we can look at Medicaid as well as a source to cover to help support not just for sped kids, but for any kid who has those therapy needs in our school, making sure we're billing at maximum ability for that. Thank you. >> Oh, I didn't know Miss was sitting [laughter] >> and I didn't have my mic on. So, Miss Still is over there. >> You want to repeat what M still said. >> So, I know the question about maximizing Medicaid billing and stuff. We have two different portion. You have the sped and you have actually the nurses that do the dental and vision which

106nurses new law that's passed is going to allow them to actually bill as well. But >> the revenue has doubled since last year on the billing. So she has a new billing person >> in spent that's helping quite a bit with that too. So one of the caveats there if you pay for a position so if she has a OTP or speech to somebody that's paid with federal dollars we can't bill Medicaid because it's already a federal part. So it becomes non billillable although they're providing a lot of services. So those are kind of the caveats you don't necessarily see. But >> so that would make so much sense though to pay for the PE be able to >> essentially expect people who are paid out of federal funds to not be billing if if

107we have positions you can't bill for and then be for those who can bill maximize their revenue that's coming in to help cover their time and expenses. I mean I don't know if it's possible but other places do that. other healthc care facilities cover their employees time with what is bills too. So, um and then I mean I understand not being able to double dip like that and not being able to double dipping on federal and state dollars, but um but really being smart with the way we're staffing on that I think makes a lot of sense. And then like you did say, I think I brought this up last month too, billing for nurses time is going to be ahead on top of all the ARMAC dollars and other things we do. Um I

108think is a really important piece to put in there. I think a big part of that revenue is uh getting additional revenue from the state changing that funding formula for SPE that hadn't changed in a while. If you have a severely disabled >> early childhood early childhood sped as well. So if you have a very disabled child that requires a a for all day and everywhere I mean it gets expensive and you you don't have enough funds to it's more than three times what we actually get in. But the funding formula needs to change. >> I believe >> I think I mean does and I just you know as we're at the table I know thank you Dr. Wright have mentioned being at the table for some of those discussions with the state on new

109funding formula opportunities. I mean that's going to come up sooner than later and being at the table and being able to share our data on what that looks like I think is super important as a an urban school district that is serving kids and has an increasingly high population of of children with special needs within our district. I think that's going to be really important for people to understand that because we know that families who need more services may come to urban areas to be able to access those for their families and then they're in our school district. And then I do really look forward I mean I don't I guess there's no way to charge all of the private schools that depend on our district to provide their bed staff and evaluations and all

110that. I don't guess we can charge anybody else for that. But >> um I guess acknowledging that as well I think is really important. So, >> I do want to add something to that to um at one point, I can't remember if it was in 2020 or 20, I can't remember when it was, but um but then we we were charging outside districts for using our services at some point. Um >> not for special education services. >> Okay. So, was that only for AP courses or >> Yeah, I think we had some for AP and maybe Metro where they contribute but for the most part not for exceeding children's bed. Yeah, it's a requirement. So we're the pass through all districts. So the state doesn't have a mechanism to provide those services. So they pass

111through the the home district of the the child. So if they're in a day treatment facility, you still may have anou or contract with them for number of days or >> yeah we pay for the education piece but the uh res for residential students um it is pass through money that the state just you know gives us based on the number of days the students attend uh school. >> So the numbers you see on the spreadsheet includes that revenue for pass through alone. So that money if we get a $100 in is $100 that goes out. So it's not like >> comes to about three million. >> Yeah, I just said [clears throat] 100. Yeah, it's a lot. Yes, a little over three million. >> I'm not sure. I know we've I know when we

112first did that spreadsheet, we didn't we the the gap that we initially said didn't take in consideration about the past two and some other things, but I know you went back and >> corrected it. I'm not sure if we the it's the spreadsheet is updated, but I'm not sure if we actually brought that back to the board's attention because the the actual real gap like for this year was like 30 it was $30 million in terms of what we're contributing from >> it was it was >> it's on my computer died so I can't >> on the it was updated from the first time that we we shared it. So I just I can't remember if we >> made that if we made that known to So, are um are we and excuse me, but

113um are we going to have another >> um discussion about spend later in this meeting? >> It won't it won't >> Well, we just started the audit that's that's looking at all of this stuff and by the time we get to that, that'll be the end of the school year. >> It'll be the end of the school year. >> So, so with the projections of us um with the side of us having a larger sped population because >> it is what it is, >> right? >> Um I guess some more robust or creative type of conversations would have to happen around now what like do you know because if a child needs it um then we have to provide it. Uh and then my last and my other ornament on the tree is with with

114our um accelerated learners or um our AP learners or gifted and talented tal talented learners. Uh they too are considered special ed, right? Like are they're part of the >> exceptional but not exceptional not under exceptional um and looking at more creative ways to sustain and provide services there to help out with our retention while at the same time making sure that we're we are meeting that special needs um um um our unique learners borrow um director Bali's uh terminology um services while business side of the district, which is the money, and making sure that we are continue to stay a sovereign district. >> I don't >> I I don't know. I Miss >> Goody, >> I'm just concerned with that um on how that will look in the next couple of school years. I

115don't think Miss Goodies in here, but I know we spent some time a couple of meetings ago talking about the talking about the population of kids that we may have been overlooking uh in terms of our gifted and talented and acceleration options and the state is actually pushing all districts to have um solid uh identified acceleration options for kids across the K12 spectrum. So I remember her uh presenting some of the things that we are looking at and some of the things that we are doing um to make sure that um our accelerated actually they're requiring us to do a quite a number of things without funding um to make those acceleration options uh um clearer. But we are we are working on tons of things um to make sure that that population of students

116um that we aren't u neglecting them and providing uh them the the types of acceleration options to keep them engaged and to and to keep them moving forward. So so I know that we are actively uh planning for that as well. I have a question and we have >> events. We have a lot of great looking facilities and I think few years ago we hosted a lot of really really nice events and I have to think they really really cost a little money but I noticed that we kind of trimmed down a little bit because we had a couple events right here. It was great. I had fun. So, are we looking at hosting events at our own facilities and also using my own personnel to cook? And the reason why I say that is

117because I attended a function at North Rock High ASBA sponsor and they sponsored a nice little area of the school and their cafeteria workers actually uh cook the food. So, I thought that was pretty neat. I think that would be one way to save money. I'm not saying maybe we shouldn't have one big event. I'm not saying that. But some of the little bitty ones or the smaller ones I think can be hosted in our own schools and facilities and even in in the boardroom. You remember that little outfit you had on Christmas what happened in the Christmas party. >> Well, so I can tell you since I've been here, I've been here coming up to 17 years. So we save a lot of money on especially professional development because we used to be at

118embassy suite and all the hotels around the city for every event. Most all our PDS held on campuses now. >> So I know we wore Roberts out, we went to Pinnacle View, we at Southwest with Lacy War out >> I mean every new spot we kind of wore out and we did we're making our circle back around now. So that's a saving but I'm not sure some of those other events that may not accommodate. So child nutrition, they can provide some. But a lot of those uh people actually work second jobs as well. So it has to be something we're going to consistently have because if they leaving, you know, our district at 1:00 and 2 o'clock, a lot of them are going to another job later that evening. So they're not going to miss

119out on that opportunity other places for a one time, you know. >> But we do use them for we do use them for quite a number of our district um events. Um, I think that the the one that I'm thinking about the most, I think I'm thinking of two, like our the the scholarship one that we do um for our commended scholars uh uh you know, the one that we just had at the library, that's one that we still have at other places. And then the teacher of the year um that we revamping this year to be a little different than it's been, those I think are too big um to to actually do here. So, those those are two that I'm thinking that I know that we have sponsors that take care of the

120the the scholars one. Um, but the teacher of the year one, that's probably Are there is there more than than that that we still go out? >> Probably. >> I would. >> Yeah. So we're >> here and our scholars academic signing day. >> So there's currently like three only three big ones that we we and two of them I know we get sponsors to cover. So, >> can I ask a question about um it's along the line of budgeting, but our graduations um >> so can we shift that up a little bit because so far, you know, um for our smaller classes, they could probably be held at the schoolhouse. And then central is really the only one that we really need to maybe park if they have a lot, but not really because it's

121only a thousand kids there. We will we will revisit it again. But I know when we looked at that last year, the cost to rent the equipment like the sound system, the chairs, and it didn't end up being that much of a savings >> than just having the same South sound system, same people operated in one place versus trying to do it at all the different schools. Um we did actually look at um some of the schools hosted it at their own schools. We we'll go back and revisit and we can we can present the the actual data to show um like comparing doing it at different schools versus having it at a central location using one service to do it all versus >> No, I mean we don't need to do I mean I

122would just say um um >> you can't put a price on misery. >> Some people love it. I don't know. But okay. So, I would just I just thought I'll just ask that that that that question. And I know Jack Stevens, which would be a great location, but >> a lot of people think that it's not difficult >> parking. >> Yeah, I think it How how many seats is in there? >> It's like 5 and how many is at the coliseum? >> 5,000. >> Seven. >> Oh, yeah. Those seats are small. If you have, you know, >> Okay. Thank you. I got one question. >> All right. It's okay. It's okay. I Yeah, exactly. Uh we talking about operational costs. Um is there like projections when we talk about how much we're spending on utilities

123and ways to be more energy efficient. >> Yeah. So that that's one of the things we focus on probably the last 10 years. So you look through all our buildings, all LED lights, uh making sure we have controls on these units. So we have a lot of older buildings that a lot of mechanical replacement have to happen. Uh so those use up some, but we've saved quite a bit over the years. That's how we've been able to do some of the renovations with the mechanical, but we're constantly looking at those things to kind of see. >> Do you have like a a special contract with the utility providers? >> We do. We get rates. Yeah. >> So So we do have a special rate. >> Yeah. For those Yeah. They'll reach out to us when

124a rate is going to change. So, uh Jay Hartman with energy or whoever it might be or we may have an agreement with u the gas as well. So, yeah. >> Okay. Yeah. I just want >> it's not a great great amount of savings. Most of the savings comes with us putting in controls and replace some of those older units. So, yeah. >> Well, I I just want to bring it up because if they give special rates to billion dollar companies, I don't see why the school district and children can't have a special rate to keep the lights on and provide all the utilities for the school. So, one of the savings we'll also see with is our solar PPA as well. So, yeah. question. Well, it's just one thing that ties into our budget,

125and I don't know if this fits here or somewhere else, but um when we talked about our early childhood sliding scale, um one of the pieces of feedback we got from some employees was >> was that offering that as a staff benefit would be a would be a really lovely thing to do to offer a either a discount a 50% discount perhaps, which is offered in a lot of other places. So, um I know that ties into probably contracts and benefits and all those things and it feels like the right time to bring that up as we're talking about budgets because it would potentially impact that 1.4 million in a minimal way, but I don't think there are a ton of our paid of the people that would be in our paid slots that are

126over income that are all I don't I mean I think it's majority community members and not all teachers kids. So anyway, I think that would be a really nice um olive leaf to put out there for our staff who are working hard and are giving to our district with all they have and making a staff benefit that is universally available to all of our staff that we can offer a 50% discount on our um paid prek 3 and four programs um for um the sliding scale that are >> I think that that was brought up previously, wasn't it? Okay. Um um >> texting so we can >> Thank you guys. That's great. >> Okay. Thank you all so much for the information. >> I I do have one last thing. >> You have one last

127thing. >> One last thing. It is >> He had one last She had one and you got one last thing. Go ahead. >> It is one last thing. With this 12 with this 15 million upward to $15 million cut. So, we're talking about all of these different um small but not in everyday life small um changes to save money. You know, 60,000 here, 100,000 here, D, but then we're talking about $15 million. And so, my concern is cutting the furthest away from student and family experience in the district because most time when people are leaving a situation whether it's work, school or whatever they are leaving a experience they are not necessarily leaving the global organization. So, um I I do want folks to be mindful about that and then when then when we're um

128being brought these various cuts to ask very deep questions about okay well who is going to be impacted? Is it being cut in schools that that that that have the highest need? And those are on the typical side of town that typically get those cuts because $15 million, that's a lot of money. I mean, I'm I'm surprised we're we are not talking about consolidating more schools. Um because we have low enrollment across the board and um and and when that conversation comes um my hope is that we are through a lens of equity and that um just south and east of our cities are not experiencing school closures because we have at least one or two schools north of Markham that is able to you know to have to at least to have that conversation

129and truly put it on the table. So, um, so as we move forward, I do want to make sure that we're thinking about student and family experience as well as employees experience because we want to keep a a nice robust staff. Um, but then we also want to make sure that we are staying sovereign and providing and telling a story and delivering the results that people are buying into because we're going to be left with for some people rock school district is going to be their only option. That's it. Like they are not able to afford choice. So I I just wanted to say that because it been on my mind for a while. >> Thank you. Okay. >> One last thing. One, one more. One more. You did a card. Okay. No, >> I

130just want to layer this on top of all these discussions we're having because we've got a lot of big um and I hate to use the word initiatives. We've got a lot of big things happening all at the same time. And I don't want us to forget about, you know, our our marketing, recruiting, recruitment, branding. There's been a lot of work that's been happening with that. That feeds into a lot of what we're talking about now. We've gotten a lot of feedback from community members, parents, um, around our district. And so, like there's and then this long-term planning like I talked about with solution seekers, like there's a lot of layers, um, to this process. So, I just want to just keep reminding people that, you know, again, what we're talking about now is shortterm

131just to get us to the next school year, but then we've got a bunch of things that that are that are going on to talk about, you know, employee experience. Um, what does our community think about um our school district, their experiences? What do we need to do to to to market better to have uh more um branding efforts and all of that? All of that stuff is happening all at the same time. So, I don't want to give the yeah lose sight that that we're having these budget conversations in isolation like it's it's a lot of things happening all at the same time. >> And you know what I was thinking about that I was about it's it's one thing a strategic communication plan and then to plan and say this is what we're

132going to do because that's the that's that is the advertisement we're doing to get people to recruit people. My right where my heart is is making sure that when Vicky Hatter or Mrs. still decide, okay, we're going to put our kids here. Then we want that to reconcile and pair up and not be disappointed and end up leaving because of the experience didn't match the advertisement and branding. And so it's making sure we have the systems in place and the people in place and all of those things. And so like I'm appreciative of of all of the hard work and and tilling of the ground that is being done right now. Um I just want to make sure that when the harvest come and people come to to get that that like they are getting

133a good product because that's kind of right where we're at >> part of the work. Mr. Adams, you have one more thing. >> Thank you. I just wanted to say I I really support what we're trying to do with with the staffing and getting the staffing right and and the low enrollment classes and those type of things because one of the things that I don't want to do as a board member and I think that for our community we have in the last five years and and more but since we have had a board back you know we have had to you know close or consolidate several schools and it's incredible ly painful thing for the community and it's a difficult thing for us to do here and I don't and we may eventually particularly

134if enrollment trends continue we may have to face that again but I don't want to face that again unless we have done everything possible to take you know to be as good of a steward with with the monies that we have you know I don't want to face going to the community to talk about possibly needing to close the school. If we have, you know, classes of five and 10 kids where we could without harming any quality of the education do a better job of getting more efficiency and still protecting the effectiveness and the quality of what we're doing. And so I don't think we should do that. We should not go to the community. we should not have to do that here until we have maximized our efforts with with what is already right

135there. So I really appreciate the efforts that's being looked at to do that so that we can make reducing our footprint which might be necessary again but we can make that really truly the last resort >> and thank you so much for the information. You have one more question too Mr. >> B. All right. Right. >> I think what and I reiterate what Mr. Adams say. I think if a kid goes from school A and school B that experience should be the same and that's consistently trying to get across the district. So I mean a lot of times the narrative is not told like that. I've have four kids and all of them been in various schools in Little Rock school district. I've always had a good experience. So, it's for parents like me and

136you. If your kids there, it's for us to sell it to other cuz I mean once they come into a building, they don't know how great a buildings are in Southwest cuz they hadn't gone out there. If they go out and look at Little Rock Southwest High or Marian Gil Lacu or Wakefield, it's some nice facilities or Chico or wherever it might be. U but you just got to give us a shot. So, we have some some great great people. >> All right. Thank you guys so much. >> All right. Five policy and personnel. Mr. Gazette. >> Yes. >> Board members. The I've been working to to update our policies in section sections 1, four, five, six, and seven for the last little while. Um, all of those se those sections are respectively board governance,

137uh, the student section, business affairs, community affairs, uh, and curriculum. Uh, I'll begin by letting you know that almost all of these updates are modeled on the uh, schoolboard association model policies. And as you've looked through them, you'll see that there are sort of these basic groupings. Uh, some of the groupings are are not particularly significant changes. uh the school boards association has migrated to uh disfavoring personal pronouns like he and she uh in the text of their policies and so it calls for the student. So you'll see a a lot of policies that are the same as they they were before but just that change in verbiage. Uh and then a second broad category of changes will be based on changes to the law and the school boards association. Um, I kind of like

138this about what they do. They have a tendency to drop the text of the law or substantially the text of the law into the policy itself. So, you're getting you're getting what the statute says. There have been a lot of changes in the statute uh over the last couple of years. Uh there are also changes that make reference to uh changes in rules from the department of education which are incorporated in various policies. It is big and comprehensive. The one thing I I can cheerfully tell you is that the discussion we had earlier in this meeting will not occur again if you all were to want to adopt the changes to policy 1.14 uh because that is all stricken and there is a much more streamlined process. Now the biggest part actually the biggest change

139to to policy 1.14 is uh since uh since it was last adopted the general assembly has passed a statute on public comment and so the school board association has largely dumped the the text of the statute into the policy. That's somewhat redundant, but I was waiting to see what the board wanted what what your appetite was on approving it before I recommended striking the public comment policy that you have later in section one. But that's largely what's going on uh through these. There are there are a couple of things that are that are blank that I'll probably uh ask you for decisions on at a board meeting. For instance, in that public section, that public comment section, I've left it blank on when a signup sheet will how many minutes before the meeting the signup

140sheet will be put out. Uh I would think 30, but I didn't want to assume for you. Uh that seems to be about how we do it now. Uh so largely those are the sorts of things. There's not much creativity on my part other than there were a few places where it just seemed like uh what we presently had like in policy 1.14 uh was a little ambigu ambiguous and it made more sense to to take the schoolboards association model. There are a few other things that'll probably need to take some action on and some things that in our policies were dated like in the student section that it it talks about graduation requirements for I think now years that have gone by or the current year and it it's got some things that reflect

141changes to the statute there. Um there's one other item that I'll mention to you uh that I haven't changed um because I want to I want to meet more with procurement. Uh there's a there's a policy there in section 7 that deals with procurement that quite candidly I think the way we're doing it now is better than the model. uh we have a very comprehensive policy our procedural manual around procurement that probably serves us better than the than the model but other than that uh largely these are these are drawn from the school boards association and I'll tell you this um because it's only when you do these kinds of things right I've we met in cabinet and I reported out that these were ready to to submit for you all's uh review and approval

142And in the meeting, the school boards association dumped a new update out on about 20 more. Uh so I'll be looking at those and there'll probably be some others that I'll I'll be asking you to do and those are all capturing rule changes promulgated by the department >> questions. M >> hi Mr. Cass, it's good to see you. I will see you Monday in our policy group. um as well. One of the question or the question I have is why now on this why is it not going through the policy group that was kind of chosen to do all this work and that has gone through section three and most of section 8? >> Uh because none of these are uh specific to personnel. Uh these are all these are all board level policies. Um

143the policy review committee doesn't strictly speaking have a lot of of interest in district level operations. Uh and there was some concern verbalized about why we weren't compliant on some things and so this is about getting us into compliance in a more timely manner. I absolutely support the compliance in a timely manner, but I believe that group was tasked with reviewing all all sections of our board policy through this group. I mean, I would think that our educators would have quite a lot of interest in the curriculum section, for example, and going through that with us and being able to have a voice as the board policy is developed. I would think that our educators would really like to be part of the the group that reviews these and makes some edits. So, I I

144I just I want I wanted to say this out loud. Um I'm happy just at me personally as being the person who's on that committee. Um I would still like to go through these with all of our policies with that group and I'm happy to make some timely changes that are needed to be made to update our our our policy board policies in in line with the law. But I also feel like that group still has some work to do potentially to make sure that we are starting in a great place so that going down the road that these these reviews that come out every six months or so from ASBA are are easier to incorporate and and add to the the work we do, but that these still accurately reflect a collaborative decision that

145engages educator voice and and and classified um classified and certified staff voice and uh principal voice and administration voice as well. That would be my two cents on this. Um though I do really appreciate you taking this very initial >> if I could. Oh, >> go ahead. >> I was going to say Oh, >> go ahead. >> I want to go before Miss Hatter just just to just >> just just to get on her nerves. Um now I've forgotten what I was Oh, all I wanted to say I'll just be quick. I think I I think both can occur. >> And I also want to be I also want to be clear that there's been a couple of things that we have got called out for um for not >> moving fast and being in

146compliance with certain things. And so I I think >> both need to >> I just the point I just in response to that the the point I just wanted to make is that I think we should still go through the process with all the other sections and then bring that back to the board with that formal review um after that. So yes I think that both can be true as well. Thank you. Um just hyster his historically. >> Okay. >> Um >> even in recent years >> um the staff attorney have uh naturally uh went over our uh board policies to keep us um in line with and and aware of various policies. So, and it's important to remember board policy and personnel policy are two separate things and board policy uh those are separate

147documents. And so, um unless we are marrying both of those documents, personnel and board together, which >> which I'm still not a big fan of that because um things get murky and they get confused and um and that's just not a good thing to do. But as far as what uh attorney Kazay have done, he have done what it is that he iso that what he's supposed to do which is go through the policies and realize okay this have changed this have not been done his whole point from what I heard and please correct me if I'm wrong not trying to speak for you is that uh he's doing it because it's out of line. um there have been no conversation and call out about it and which means that we as a body the

148elected body have been operating out of step. So um I'm all for uh bringing um having those updates brought in so we can vote for them so we are able to be within step. And I'll just leave it at that at that because marrying those two policies is just is is just crazy to have the board the board set of policies and the personnel policies. Those are totally separate things. >> I think I have two or three things. >> Y >> um I've been waiting over a year to see some some movement in policy. I mean y'all have been moving, no doubt about it, but I haven't had an opportunity to vote on any policies. I mean that's just No, we haven't. >> Yeah, we vote we voted on section three in the spring. >>

149I'm sorry. Yeah, you're correct. >> We did and then we section 8 should be to I think we have I think this will be our last meeting on Monday. >> I feel like they should have been coming quicker. That's my just my that they should have been coming as they were done. That's just me. I wasn't on the committee. I wasn't on the committee. >> That's the whole point of not merging the two together. Understand? uh section 1.19 uh board member length of terms and holdovers. That doesn't say that we're electing seven board members from seven districts and we need to specify that if I as I recall because there are some districts that have at large members and we don't. So it needs to say that um I certainly think Mr. because they has

150the not the right but the responsibility to make these corrections and if y'all want to revisit them and drag it out another three months go ahead that's what I got to say >> Mr. Adams >> thank you >> um Mr. Hey, you and I had a nice conversation earlier this week about the non-discrimination policy that is being uh that would be updated to be consistent with the recommendation from ASVA which is based on the current law from what we discussed. I wanted to just to confirm if if there's anything else that you learned or understood after our conversation. No sir, there's not um in in relevant part and let me get that back in front of me. >> Is that 1.24 what we're talking about? >> It's under the student services I think. >> Oh,

151okay. The other end. >> Yeah, it's all right. >> Yeah, there was a >> I think it's 14 perhaps. 4.14 maybe. >> Let's see here. This was done in response to uh was that 4.11? Oh, I think you're correct. Thank you. >> Okay. And 4.11, let me get that properly in front of me. um deals with equal educational opportunity uh board members and it model strikes through the phrase any protected classification under law and then specifies the classifications of color, religion, national origin, sex, age or disability. Okay. And then it goes on in the final paragraph of the well the f well the third paragraph of the policy and strikes through the terms sexbased and replaces them with sexual uh with respect to harassment. This change came about from the school boards association in response

152largely to an attorney general's opinion uh opinion number uh 2023-059 and that opinion was squarely on point. It actually asked the question, if a school district were to adopt the policy as it was formerly written, would they be violating the law? Um, and the attorney general reasoned that to implement the policy as it had previously been written would violate Act 137 of 2015 and Acts 461 and 953 of 2021. Um, acts 461 and 953 deal with participation in school sports. Um, and it the acts require the segregation in school sports based on biological sex. Sports teams must be designated as male, female, or co-ed. Um, and it both acts prohibit males from sports teams designated for females. Act 137 of 2015 is a little bit older statute and it prohibits uh political subdivisions from creating

153protected classes that are not already contained in state law. Uh the attorney general reasoned that a school district would be a political subdivision within the meaning of the statute and I agree with that reasoning. uh I think it would be most easy for a court to get there as a public entity and so that specifically prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Um so in light of that is where that change is is coming from the school board's association in response to that and it's sort of on the theory that I wouldn't say very rarely uh because occasionally you will see well actually not occasionally with great regularity you will see attorney general's opinions that are very granular about this specific entity in this specific place like town X is doing

154whatever and can they do it? Um, I've not seen one before that asked a question about a school board policy before. Uh, but this is equally granular and the the requesting person was one of the sponsors of of the 2021 acts. So those things are are what informs that. I don't I don't see any solid basis to to not follow that guidance um based on the the reasoning of that AG's opinion. Uh but [snorts] also in our discussion, I I do think that it's worth mentioning that the Little Rock School District has made a very strong commitment through its strategic plan in every other way that I can think of to champion the student, the needs of the student, priority of students and student family needs and to create a welcoming environment for every student

155that chooses us. Uh the idea being that if you plant your life in the Little Rock School District, we're going to do everything we can to do right by you. Um and I think our strategic plan calls for that in a very wholesome and detailed way that the board has passed and that's also a state law requirement that there be a strategic plan. >> Thank you, Mr. Kazay. I just want to make a comment for for us. You know, it to me it really just deeply disappoints me and distresses me that that we may be we appear to be put in a position to take a step backwards and that we have moved forward in the past and being able to expand the number of groups that we explicitly say we are not going to

156discriminate against. And and the reason it's important in my view to list groups is because they have been historically marginalized or discriminated against. And that's why in the federal statutes and another thing, that's why you list groups. You don't just say we're going to treat everybody right. We're going to say and then and we're going to especially look at race and gender and religion because those have been reasons that people have been treated poorly. And we in this district have made I think the appropriate expansion of that to include sexual orientation and gender identity and gender expression because those groups also have been treated poorly in times past and in the present environment um are often publicly maligned and and so I think it's important that we do everything we and under the law to

157communicate support to those students and their families and also to our staff. And um when our discussion Mr. Kaz and I had it because of other federal guidelines, it does not appear we there's a need at this point to change our staff non discrimination policy because of some other because it's different uh because of other federal rules. But but in the students we will. And so I think that it is incumbent upon us to do what we have done and what we will continue to do which is to continue to communicate support and both in word and indeed to those students and to their families. Um even though we would have to take a step back, you know, in this way and it in this way and um I used to wonder sometimes if the

158words homophobia or transphobia was talked about fear was really the best word when I read these policies and whether multiple places where we are prohibited from even even using words. Um I think that fear is probably um not a bad um descriptor of of what is being communicated that there's a fear to even talk about things and and offer any support at all which which is really unfortunate and I think wrong. So, um I would hope that in the in the months to come that and that we'll be able to think about ways that we can continue to give a different kind of a message even though we may have no choice but to approve this. On a very different note, I just wanted to make a a different comment. um reading over these the

159policies um one of the things that struck me there's we have a section for valictorian and saludiatoran and I was really interested um and some of the other board members who were there Miss Johnson misster you may have had been interested too I don't know but when um secretary Aliva at the ASBA meeting um he talked about encouraging districts to move toward doing more what colleges do having sumakumlad, magnaumlad, kumlad distinctions as opposed to focusing on honoring one or two students, you know, and and sometimes the differences between those students and the other students can be very small in terms of a grade point average. and and that that idea really intrigued me and I thought that that had some potential and and so I don't know what our educators think about that but but

160uh but but I would encourage us to to to explore that >> and and to look at the pros and the cons and and and see because at that again on fa first impression that seemed like a really positive idea to explore. Okay, other comments or questions around policy, policy change or other ideas or and I don't know that we have um >> I think m I think attorney Kaz is still are you still processing? I'm sorry it just looked like you were like she was >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> No, directors. I just want to make sure I'm capturing the discussion because there are a few revisions I need to make. There's one there's a what I >> you have some >> I'm not a lawyer >> but I think there's a legal dodge

161in that list of things that we're not going to uh discriminate on the grounds of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age. If you drop the word sex, which is not the right term anyway, gender is the right term. If you drop the word sex, we've got it covered. Gender identity, we can argue that we're talking about gender identity. Who's male? Who's female? It doesn't say anything about how that originates. >> Oh, are you talking about how a person identified? >> Oh, no. It doesn't have to do anything. If we leave it like it is, take out the word sex and just leave the word gender identity. It doesn't matter how somebody identifies. That's not that's not what it's addressing in our policy. Now, very well state can back and say,

162"No, you need to put in particularly boys who pretend they're girls and girls who pretend they're boys." They'll have to do that. And they know they won't do that because that's that they catch all hell for that. >> I think I heard um attorney because they say or read um something about um >> naturalb born gender. I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember but >> biological gender. Yeah. >> But we we include that that falls under gender identity. biological gender is part of gender identity. I have a gender identity. I'm male. >> You know, I I think >> born that way. >> I think that I think in the Obama administration, they included some of those under the language that was already there. They already have, but I think that's been been different now. I mean,

163it's been interpreted differently. And we talked about that a little bit about that may have been an interpretation, but not an official rule >> that that we can use. And um I I wish that were so but you know that idea that we can't do anything to establish an additional class is is a >> I think it makes fewer classes >> take out sex which doesn't have a proper meaning in this sentence and just leave gender identity. We're covered both with the law and what we want to do the way we want to interpret it. That's whether it's we're actually covered by the law or not it's not for me to decide. >> That's for a judge to decide for Mr. because they decide before that. But, uh, it certainly seems like that's a better

164way to do it. >> Yeah. >> But, >> yeah, I don't know. >> Yeah. Anyway, we can we can be as inclusive as possible and be legal and >> compliant >> and I'm for it. >> Absolutely. >> Okay. Any other questions? Any other questions that we have specific to that? >> Thank you, Mr. Conser. >> Thank you, board members. I appreciate the conversation. >> [clears throat] >> Okay. So, we are down to board comments. >> No, not >> final score. >> Okay. >> To the final score. Yes, sir. >> Um, I just want to um lift up we have lost uh up a couple um educators and and legendary um coaches and educators over the last um week or last couple weeks and and over the holidays in general. Um at some point I then

165then I would like to offer up a resolution to um uh coaches um coach uh Flanigan's family as well as I going blank. I've been saying her name over and over in my head. Um we lost a central high school. She's art >> Amanda Sanchez >> and then of course the legendary um Mr. Anthony, which um director Bali have lifted him up in recognition. But um in past, and I know um some of y'all will remember this, then we used to send out letters and flowers u um to our uh educators and we would do a little something different for those that had a greater impact like a coach Flanigan as well as um Mr. Tim Anthony um because of the longevity right and and how they touch thousands and thousands of lives. So um

166I would like to uh maybe this is a board a board clerk to have something drawn up for us all to sign to where we are able to send to those uh families uh recognizing their service and their dedication. Um I I had the opportunity to attend U Coach Flanigan's homegoing and when I tell you I mean for those of you who know or heard of him LRSD and Park was all through um his his his service and um the impact that he has um had and um when I tell you there were such regal and um just some amazing educators that have been blessed to retire and coaches and folks that are still in the district. Um like the contribution was uh truly felt and seen. So I just wanted to um mention that.

167>> Thank you. Any other directors? Any other comments? Um superintendent, you have any comments? All right. If um so we will be excused if there is nothing else we will close the meeting you are excused. >> Um [snorts] just some amazing educators that have been blessed to retire and coaches and folks that are still in the district. Um like the contribution was uh truly felt and seen. So I just wanted to uh mention that. >> Thank you. Any other directors? Any other comments? Um, superintendent, you have any comments? All right.