LRSD Board Meeting, May 01, 2025

001to make a motion for somebody. Good evening. So, we're going to go ahead and continue um our meeting from April 24th. Do we need a move to Yes. So, um I think that um what we're going to start with is go ahead. I'll entertain a motion. I think we have a number of changes um from that initial motion. So, the motion that we had previously was for us to cover everything. I think that there is at least one item that we won't cover uh that we're wanting to move to next meeting, actual meeting. Which item is is that the 6.1 that like you guys were just talking about? That is the 6.1. Yes, ma'am. Do we need to make a motion to to adjurnn our recess first? Go ahead. You just the president just has

002return for recess. Okay. She's pretty much covered that. Yes. I can't get this pen. Okay. And did you have another question? No. I I then I imagine somebody's going to make a motion to modify the agenda. Okay. The I move that we modify the agenda of tonight's board meeting to move item 6.1 to remove item 6.1 and hear that at a future meeting date. Second. It's been moved and properly second that we remove item 6.1 hearing it at a different um a um a future meeting is different or future future I think she said future future at a future board meeting future board meeting date or agenda. Um, all in favor? I I Any oppose? The motion carries. Okay, so we're going to go ahead and get started. Um, we do have a quorum and

003we'll move forward with our first item on the agenda and seven. Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, okay. So if you will look before you, we have um a 5.3 personnel change and personnel recommendation. So I'll entertain a motion specific to that. What is the change and what is the motion for 5.3? So the employment recommendation contract for 25 through 26 which was voted on prior to the recess recess inadvertently included three positions. A corrected list has been provided to the board. Additionally, the board voted on an agenda item 5.2 and 5.3 together. Based on the advice of Mr. Hela, the board should take action to resend the earlier vote and to adopt the new list. Rescending the earlier motion will also resend the action taken on agenda item 5.2 in order to clarify

004the record. The proposed motion below captures the the action of the board. So essentially what has occurred is the employment recommendation contract which was voted on prior to the research inadvertently included three positions uh that it should not have and a corrected list has now been provided to the board. So can you please tell us what three positions that is what are the three positions? So uh they cuz I don't remember seeing it updated. The positions were in student services that uh AL related to AL and student hearing offices that are being restructured and those positions should not have been on the round three recommendations. Okay. So Okay. So So when I was Okay. And so are are those um positions that are new titles or new um FTEES or are they these are taking

005away contracts from people that these are these are on the round three employment recommendations. So these are existing employees. These are three uh positions that should not have been on there. And which positions are those? because you're asking us to modify and I it was a it was a secretary and two hearing officers and if you recall the hearing officers is being reduced to one position so everybody in the alley is being restructured and interviewing um and so those three positions should not have been on there okay uh can we have a moment to look I don't know I I haven't seen this is it in our packet some yes is it a new packet which is different because I don't remember seeing an amendment. That's what I'm asking. The amendment she said, there is

006an amendment. There is an a motion. We were advised from Chris Heller that in order to correct this that we should the board should resend the vote that you guys did last week and then there's a new motion on here to accept or to approve the round three recommendation list without those three names on there. That's what we were advised to do. Okay. So, it will be two votes that have to take place in order for it to Dear quick question. Oh, there is this the new blue blue blue folder and not the one from last week. Yes. I don't see them on the Are they on here somewhere? The two, but the the agenda still the same. Well, those two motions, but not the people. Okay. No, not the people. The motions. Just a

007quick question. Were those people sent a contract? They have not. No one has been sent a contract yet from that round. No. Okay. But they were notified the day after we discovered the mistake. Um they were notified that it um was mistake and that um it will be corrected at the next board meeting. Okay. That's a major mistake. Okay. So the chair will entertain a motion. I move that the LRC board of directors resend a motion and vote relating to the adoption of the personnel changes contained in agenda item 52 and approve of 53. Round three, employment recommendations contracts for 2025 2026 school year prior to the recess. Could you guys hear me? Yes, ma'am. Okay. I'm sorry. Any second? Second. It's been moved and properly second that um we um resend the motion and

008vote relating to the adoption of the personnel changes contained in agenda items 5.2 and approval of 5.3 round three employment recommendation contracts for the 2526 school year prior to the recess. Are there any questions or comments? Questions or comments? Just to clarify, the updated list is what is on the Maya the April 24th board agenda at this time if I'm looking online. Okay. I just for everybody in the world also out there so who might be interested in this. Correct. Trying to find it. Absolutely. Thank you. It's been moved and properly second. All in favor? Oh, I'm sorry, honey. You have a question? Just a a question on how was it missed and then if there's someone else I don't know. Okay. Thanks. Okay. I think the question the question was how was it missed

009previously? Is that correct? Yeah, because it it raises um questions about overall uh do due diligence and um checking and double-checking to because these are contracts and so for a person to receive a contract and then for us to resend a contract um that's that that's a major um you know we want to be polite and call it a mistake. Okay. So, we had a have a question on the floor. Go ahead, ma'am. Just how how did it happen? How how Okay. The question is how did um your team miss it um being within the uh recommendations or why was it added if it wasn't supposed to? I don't know how to answer that question because um I don't know exactly. Well, I do know how it got on the list. the person who supervises

010those employees um recommended them and it was filtered to HR but the person who recommended them is no longer the person who is actually over that particular department. Oh, I see. Okay. Okay. Any other questions or comments? Other questions or comments? Okay. It's been moved and properly second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? The motion carries. Chair will entertain a motion. I move that the LRSD board of directors adopt the personnel changes in item 5. It's 5.2 or 5.3. The fact that we are confused on what we're doing. 5.3 correct. I think there's a typo in the motion. I move that the LRSD board of directors adopt the because we just rescended point 2. So there is no typo in the board member. You all took action on items 5.2 and 5.3 last

011week and rescending you rescended both actions. Okay. So in order to restore you to what I believe the board intended to do, you need to do you repeat your action on 5.2 and also take the action on 5.3. Question on 5.2. uh because there were two separate so there was three positions that was created that wasn't approved by the board um that was approved right and or we moved it down so 5.2 two and 5.3 just because I I can't get online for some reason. Um if you need it 5 point here's the those two positions are addressed within the motion. So is this which I'm sorry with the exception of the two added positions related to motion. So what about the interim principal? Because you can't you you you can't hire or appoint an

012interim at the start of the school year. You can only appoint an interim a after the start of a school year. You can appoint an interim principal anytime there's a need. Can I complete my motion? Oh, I'm so I'm so sorry. There's a million motion on the floor. I'm so sorry. It wasn't it was a confusion of a motion with clarity, but I but I was getting clarity on on what exactly we're doing since right since it's not fully together. Absolutely. So, he provided the clarity. So, go ahead with the main motion, please. I move that the LRSD board of directors adopt the personnel changes in agenda item 5.2 with the exception of the two added positions related to culture and wellness department and approved 5.3 round three employment recommendation contracts for the 202526 school

013year as shown on the corrected list. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and properly second that the LRD board of directors adopt the personnel changes and agenda item 5.2 2 with the exception of the two added positions related to the culture and wellness department and approved 5.3 employment recommendation contracts for the 2526 school year as are as shown on they are shown on the corrected list. Are there any questions or comments? It's been moved and properly second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? One opposed. Director Hatter. The motion carries. Okay, we'll go ahead and move forward. Um, we modified that to 7.1 and modified that 7.1. Good afternoon, board superintendent. Don't think I'll be before you long on this agenda item. Plug in and see if we can get up. So

014on on last month, uh we had some difficulty with our einance uh report. So this is going to include two months report, our February and our March report. And they are attached and I'll go over them briefly. uh they look similar on here, but you'll notice one has February 2025, another one's going to have March 2025. So on the February report as we go through here, of course, you have your still your summary information here. As far as the revenue update, uh as far as uh property tax for our first collection at one uh 11110, it's not going to change any of that's finalized for the year. Uh we're working on the second half of the t property tax collection January through our June 30th. uh as of this date of February, the end of

015February, we had collected about $9.2 million in that uh the major influx will come uh this month, May now. So today is May 1st. Uh delinquent taxes, you can kind of see what we have budget over here. So we made our budget on that first one by a little over 2 million. Still, we had budgeted 86 million on the second portion. We still have a quite a ways to go, but this is going to be May is going to be the big month when we get a majority of those taxes in. The liquid property tax seem to be trending to come in close to that projected number 13.6. Excess commissions are right there. Uh we budget about 4.1 million. Uh everything else is pretty much on on track uh to come in. Interest on investments

016of course we've uh passed that amount that we had budgeted 2.6. We're at 3 almost 3.5 million based on where interest rates are right now. So that's that's good. As far as our expenditures uh for this past month, uh displaying if you're looking at the reports that's attached here once we get past the summary, you're going to see some things that displaying it displays 16.5 million available out there. We have it about a $1 million availability. It depends on the timing of that report when you're running and it finalizing. So, uh the other areas that we we're looking at because we've discussed overtime in our budget reduction. So, those are some things we're looking at. It's not my time, is it? All right. All right, another piece. I'm sorry. Wrap it up. My three minutes.

017I'm wrapping it up. I'm going to get on down. But these are other pieces we're looking at as well. Some areas that I have it highlighted in red. We know that the deficiencies here. Uh the big part construction service and other uh architect services are the ones you're going to see. Uh we have contracts out there mainly for our Pinnacle View High School and some other projects out there that um I mean we encumbered the whole amount. We're going to have to actually go out and get some more money and we discussed that uh later on maybe upcoming fiscal year or so uh to finish the rest of the projects, but we have encumbered money out there. So that it's going to show a negative. Not that we're uh negatively right now on cash, but

018it will be if we continue without those additional funds. Mr. Bailey, could I just type in right there for a question? So you're showing that for this year's budget, you are over but not over in the overall budget for those construction projects. Yes. Is that correct? This is a capital improvement fund. So, West Lorac was about 153 million. We've issued a couple more contract for our Park View. Uh that 300 million wasn't enough to cover everything else. We talked about having to go out there as we identify the final projects. We pretty much have finalized all those. Y'all approve the the major projects. Yes, I I know we've approved that. I just was making sure that what you're showing here is just for this fiscal year's estimated portion of all of that. Yeah. We won't

019we won't end up 21 million in because that's that's just a portion that's actually encumbered basically. reserving that budget amount. We'll roll over for next year. So, yes. Thanks. Just making sure. I'm sorry about that. You guys try and help me with it. We try and wait till the end of their present. Well, we we've tried to do that, right guys? We tried to do that. So, just in keeping with, you know, the structure that we like to maintain just so that it won't start to become, you know what I mean? Yeah. So, as far as our fund balance update, operating fund balance as of the end of February was uh 39 almost $39.5 million. Of course, that's uh depleting a little bit now until we get our other influx of money in. Capital improvement

020fund balance is gone down to about 48.3 million. Federal fund balance um and that's of course most of that's on a reimburseable basis right at about 98,000 and child nutrition still has a fairly healthy balance which they they're still dulling that down. So, we're healthy in those areas right as of this financial report. And as you look through, of course, you have a kind of pictorial chart of our fund balance and how it's kind of eb and flow. So, it's pretty much flowed. It hadn't ebed much, but it's going downhill for the the yellow part is our capital improvement funds. And you can see our uh let's see here. You can see how low this little gray part gets down for our our regular operating, you know, fund balance. It got pretty low in October

02124 instead of going down. and you'll see it kind of dip a little bit more as we uh get into our next month budget. But behind here, you have all the the updates you that I've kind of gone through. You can see the actual numbers and it's always here. It's a lot of detail behind all our revenue sources here on the first three pages. Uh you get to the next I think four or five pages. You're going to see all our our different transactions as far as our expenditures or object codes as we call it. So this is what I was talking about. You may see on this this report here, it shows available balance of 12.939. some of those incumbents get released as we are processing payroll and that doesn't accurately reflect on this

022this report. Uh and of course if you keep going down further you can see the fund balances the different fund balances that make up the ones I have on the summary year. Any questions on our February 2025 financial report? Any questions? No. Thanks. And I don't know if y'all want to approve them separately or approve them both together. I'm not sure. We should do it separately. Separately. Yeah. Okay. Chair will entertain a motion. I move approval of the February budget finance report. Second. Second. It's been moved and properly second that we approve the February. February. Yes. 2025. Is that true? February. Yeah, I guess it is. February. 2025. Yes. Somebody can't see big. Okay. It's just me. 2025. Was 2025. No. um February. Okay. 2025. Any um questions, comments? It's been moved and properly second.

023All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? The motion carries. All right, we're going to move to the next one, which looks very similar to the one you just looked at, but it has March 2025. So, we always, of course, a month behind. This is the one that I would have normally been presenting, April 24th, 25. So, we still have the same summary statuses here. You can see that top number hadn't changed any there. Like I said, that's fixed for this amount. We did collect about another million dollars in our property tax for our uh second half of the year. Uh a little bit more in delinquent. Some of these are filling up a little bit more as we go along. So, of course, uh we have through June 30th to get collection. So, the

024majority of our collections do come in in the latter part of April, uh first mid part of uh May as well. So, we'll have a few trickle in the latter part of May and some in June. But for the most part, you can see this has grown as well. the interest in investment has gone up a little bit more from the previous report. So like I said on the revenue on the February, we're trending to come in as projected. So pretty close there too. So we'll know after we get this last major push of of revenue in uh same point on here. This one actually displaying about 1.1.5 million here as we uh finished processing different payments and overtime and whatever it might have been. So I'm projecting about.3. So we're still in the positive

025for our salaries not much but that may change a little bit depending on if uh people leave the district and we did have had some resation and different things. So uh those are typically based on vacancies that we have available. Uh same amounts here for the most part. Nothing's really changed on on these areas of concern we have. So these will be areas we look at increasing or or looking at them a little more harder uh during our budget cycle this upcoming year. So, with the exception of this construction service and the architect service that I just spoke about. So, those amounts typically just roll over. Uh, as far as our fund balance, uh, I believe on that other one was 30. I forgot what it was. I just closed it out. You can see

026it it drops quite a bit. So, payroll typically runs about, uh, close to about $20 million a month or so. Uh so we did get some money in to offset that but you can see that operating fund balance is going down 26 million on this report. Uh capital improvement dropped from about 48 to 41 on this one. Federal fund balance is actually negative on this and that was based on a reimbursement. So we had spent money and we're waiting on reimbursement which typically comes uh within 10 days or so after the close when when they make that pool. So uh that's that's something that not to be alarmed on. Our child nutrition balance is fairly about the same still about 2.9 million. As you look across here again, you can you can kind of see

027this as well. So you can see it everything is trending down. We don't have a any more capital improvement funds coming in at this time. We will have to go out and get some more to finish up some of those projects uh as we get ready to uh occupy some. We are spending quite a bit of money on. Uh Central's coming on board with their furniture fixture equipment for their new science wing. Uh once we get Park V, we'll have to furnish that auditorium along with we have one more. I think we put on hold baseline for now. I think you all approved one more. I forgot what it is now. I know some chillers, but I'll I'll remember it later. But just just a ptor chart picture of our fund balance here and we'll

028get that updated on a monthly basis. But you have the same backup behind here like you have on the previous months here if you want some more detail. And I typically do this in what's called a board format. Otherwise, it would be probably about 700 pages because it goes into detail with all the functions and everything out there. So, this kind of gives you something to roll up as far as our different funds that's available as far as revenue and uh expenses. Any questions on this? Yes, questions. Yes. Okay. Questions me. Okay. I knew you were looking. Yes. Question. Okay. Um I see last year I'm just the back to your graph which I do love. Thank you for including that every time um of the fund balances. I know our operating fund balance looks

029like it hit its lowest point in October of last year. Are you feeling like we are going to be safe in October of this year of not hitting a zero dollar there? We won't hit zero. Yes. So on those things, so we actually, let's see, had I don't know what the low point was there, but it was it was pretty low. I give it to you. So like it was like $7 million or something. Yeah, that's at the point where you um you can't make the next payroll if you don't bring money in. Yeah, we hadn't got to that point yet. You may hold some AP payments or something, construction payments until, you know, you get those reimbursements in. We've been there in the past. So when I started here, sometime maintenance had to pretty

030much end projects in September, October just because you didn't have the funds. So that it's a big cash flow issue as we watch that. So that's what we talk about when we're getting to a point where your fund balance is getting to the $15 million under the $20 million and when you have a a payroll that cost 20 million. So uh over that time in October is usually the low when we spend down from the money we actually collected uh during that period of time and we get a you know influx in in November. So you typically have to pay your taxes by October 15th. Most people wait fairly close to that and pay them and so we get money in but the big portion of our taxes actually come in in May when the

031escro companies pay there. So okay but hopefully we won't that's one we we look at. So uh myself along with my director of finance and accounting assistant director as well as we are paying AP and making payroll. So we always want to make payroll. You don't want to get to a point where we actually have to go borrow money for it. So some districts do have to borrow money for payroll short-term loans. Other questions? Questions? Okay. Chair will entertain a motion. I move that RSD board of education accept the March 2025 financial reports as submitted. Second. It's been moved and properly second that the LRSD board of education approve the fiscal year 2024 regulatory no the March 2025 financial report as submitted. Any questions? Any comments? All in favor say I. Any oppose? The motion

032carries. Thank go. All right. You'll move on to the big one. I think you done. Oh, is that it? Yeah. Are you done? I'm done on all my sevens. What's the all your sevens? So 7.5. You don't Yeah, he's going to do the intro. Oh, okay. Okay. I was thinking 7.5 unplugged here. I thought it was I think now I mean both of us start. It's like both hours. All right, let me get here. So, I'm I'm going let me get to this other part real quick. Plug this away. Make sure I got it. All right. All right. I'm going to be the opening act for this 7.5 here. So, uh, fiscal year 2026 budget planning. So, just jumping on a few things. So, I won't be before you about 5 or 10 minutes when

033we jump to the main presentation here. But this is just some past budget things we've looked at in the past. So, we've had some some hard things in the past to look at. So, whether it was a working project, Uncharted Waters was our kind of after effect, the post-pandemic things and went from surviving to thriving and other things. So, you like these titles, Dr. Wright. I do. Thriving to thrive, then uh reimagining and then last year retooling. So, um, we've had some tough budget years. We've had some good budget years, but I mean, uh, we're here to to make those decisions as an administration and board. So, as we get here, uh, fiscal year end balance, want to kind of show you those kind of highlights on where we we've come from. Um, this is

034just over the past four years. So, at the end of fiscal year 22, we ended at 31,222,74. Uh you can see uh end of 23 31 million 344 450. So about there the same uh we had a drop there 23 million u 919 314 and 24 and then we had another drop this this past year. So uh some of those were we we knew we had some decline in enrollment and other things. So but before we get there give you a pop quiz. How did we get there? How did we get here? Was it a economic condition? all the above or maybe none of the above. It could be might be some of those. I may not even have what's listed out there. Y'all don't have to answer those. That's just I'm going to get

035to it. So, the main part that's gotten us here is uh this chart here, and we've looked at this several times in the past, uh the enrollment piece here. So, over the last have six years displayed here. As we look over from FY20 through 25, you can kind of see the decline here. And I've highlighted some things here. Of course, 20 was our pandemic year. As we look at uh 101 20 uh 2020 uh and I take October 1st which is our cycle 2 data. So that's the official data for enrollment. As we go through here you can see how much prek dropped dropped in over half there. We've had some gains there. But one other drops has been elementary for big part. That was a major drop there. We went from 10,785 before the

036pandemic to during the pandemic uh 10,045. So that was over 700 uh population drop in the elementary section. Middle school we always had bleed over there over past years before this. Uh we kind of maintain that. We have had a little slide there as well. So you can kind of see over that period of time, but we've pretty much gone from when we was in 2020. I think we were still the largest district in the state to 237. Of course, we're second now, but we've lost uh over third now. Are we third? Who's Springdale? Bentonville is now larger than us. Oh well, well, well, we number three. Well, I know Springdale Desert is larger. So, right now with 21 based on this October 1st, 2186 and this includes preK. So, when you look at the

037the blue line right below it, that's our ADM. That's our K12. That's what we actually funded on based on state foundation funding. You can kind of see where it's gone from. So, although prek has gone back up, we don't get foundation funding for prek. So it doesn't help us on the overall state foundation funding. And you can see that bottom line, that green line and follow across there where we've gone from as far as and 53 almost 54 million down to uh 38 and a half this year and projected maybe 31 uh three for next year based on maybe a 20 something decline in enrollment. And that's where we've kind of come up we've come up not counted but come up with the 15 million. So if I go back here the 8.4 four we

038had here for our deficit basically for this up this year along with this amount potential for next year where we are as far as decline uh that's that 15 million really about 15.4 but we have some infl uh appreciation in property value that increase some all this uh reduction on foundation funding hadn't just been related just to u the decline in enrollment so much based on your appreciation of property value. So they look at that that portion your property value that appreciates. So a portion of it is paid from the state and a portion comes from your your local revenue. But I mean it's directly attributable to your decline in enrollment. So you can see uh so if you answered any of these I mean some of those may have some you know small factors

039into that but I mean it's not the major factors what we're looking at right here on this enrollment history. We have to it's based on student body. As we look back as well on on LRSD facilities and staffing comparison, I'm just doing this with Springdale since they're the second largest. We kind of make a comparison here and I have UV there. It's unverified, but I mean it's based on my research to kind of pull it there. So I know that the third quarter ADM we can kind of see and we a lot of times we said they they're much different in our district. They are much different right now, but uh based on ADM, uh they have about 1,900 more students and that's K12 ELELLL students. They have about 4,000 more ELELLL students. So the

040population is higher. Free and reduced. They have about 1,400 more students. I had I guess I'll pull Benville as well. Number of schools, we are right at 40. They're right at 30. I think 30 31. So I have 10 10 We have 10 more employees. We're running about 3,300. They're about 3,100 200 less. So you start looking at the financials down here as well. So uh their millage rate is uh less than ours. We're at 46.4. They're at 39.8. But our tax base is significantly more than their tax base. So we're about 2 billion dollar more on tax base. Uh if you add what they get in tax revenue, if we had 100% collection, which we typically don't, uh you can probably say in a 90% collection rate if you added both of these together.

041So the difference here is about 47 million that we get a little bit more. So we do have some normalizing probably to look at. I mean it's a fairly good comparison I would think here based on free and reduced ELLL. The ELLL's population are much higher than ours. But everything else is pretty much uh I would think be trending where we need to trend to. Uh AL this is one part we've been looking at for the last past years. Uh I'm not sure the AL population but I know they they getting significant amount more than we are getting about 2 almost 2.8 million and I started here we were about 2 million that we were getting at AL. So really have to look at that and see how we're coding the kids out there and

042trying to get that funding up. That's another aspect of funding we may be able to they they actually we actually are trying to mirror what they're doing with their ELLL population. They actually write without saying it's for the ELLL population. and they actually write um in their AL plan to provide services for their their kids. So they get you know population not population but they get funding for uh their ALS just like we do but they also get AL funding for the ALS and so we we are revising our application this year to kind of mirror what they're doing hoping that it can generate some more funds for us. So would that mean that you're going to put English sec English to second learners over at the AL? No, AL alternative learning education is just

043a moniker for anything that's not traditional education. Doesn't mean the alternative school. So, what we're trying to do um so like the newcomer programs that we've started in kindergarten kindergarten in our elementary schools, we're looking to do something similar at the high school level. Uh the kids uh mainly at Southwest because they have a high population of ills and so it could be that we have almost like a ACC for our English language learners right there on the campus of Southwest. uh which is what similar to what they're doing in Springdale. Okay. And so it's taking AL changing it from a punitive standpoint which is kind of right supposed to be well well not really not and then not if it's alternative cuz alternative learning just as you said could be anything but taking it

044from a punitive standpoint to um adding more layers or options or features within within it is what you're saying. Yep. And even our our our school should not be punitive. It shouldn't. But have you been over there? It's being ran like it, but it shouldn't be behavior maybe. So, but yeah, AL is not for punitive. So, they won't fund you for punitive schools. So, that's something I mean, we have some opportunity here. So, I want to show you the opportunities we have here. So the opportunities we currently have this LRD facility footprint which is quite a bit more 10 schools more and uh with less of a population plus we have some other funding pieces we can look at as well as we go through them. Chief Deputy, the the state foundation funding, that's 67.

045This is Yeah, they get about we get $67 million less in state foundation. When you're looking at state foundation funding, your local tax revenue makes up a portion and then the state makes up the difference. Okay. Uh since we have a a much greater tax base, so our tax base is 4.7 billion and theirs is 2.6 billion. So they they're going to get more foundation funding than we if you look at uh Flasky County, they get zero as far as their foundation funding because their local tax makes up pretty much that whole percent. And then ours is thank and just for the public who may not know then then our state uh based funding per student is about $1,900 right under gone from like 25 about 1,900 out of that 7,771. So, and I have

046a another spreadsheet I can show you all as well. I don't have one here, but Okay. I had another question director to Adam. Yes, Mr. Bailey. So, when will do do you already know or when will we know what that state foundation funding per student amount will be for the coming year? Yeah, it's been published now and this is kind of a estimate. Now, I need to put in a new amount. So, I mean, we're still waiting on the three third quarter to come in to do this average. So, based on what I I can get from the first quarter and the second quarter, looking like this may Uh-oh, I'm clicking, but I'm trying to highlight, but uh look like we may be at 195 or something for our ADM, which is going to be

047about a $7 million decrease maybe in funding. Maybe a little bit less than that based on the funding form, but we'll get that. So, that's what that 15 million. So, the the approximately $1,900 we get per student in the state, how will that be for next year? Uh, I need to look on it. So, it's based on cuz we're going to get I think our assessment is finalized now. I have to show it to you. I can show it to you next month. So, you'll take your your assessment basically if it's finalized and look at that amount based on the the foundation overall funding amount you have to take. There's a calculation that goes into making that. So, maybe a little bit less than 1,900. It depends. So if your local revenue makes up a

048larger portion, the more your local revenue grows, the less the state puts in on that. So, uh, if you're looking at like a charter school, they're going to get 100% of that because they don't have a local tax base. Uh, if you have a high tax base, one that pretty much funds all that, but if you look at Plaster County and a few others, they I mean, they may get zero to only 100 so dollars per student. So, it's a little bit different. So our amount has gone from about 2750 to 25 down to about 19 this past year. Thank you. So that's just for comparison purposes. I guess I'll have to throw in is it Benville? You said it is right there. Okay. A little larger than us now. So So what's next? It's

049an immediate discussion. Pretty healthy discussion and tough decisions. So all of them are always uh tough decision when you it deals with personnel. So 70% of our 75% of our budgets is the salaries and benefits. So it's going to affect positions and people and services out there. Uh as we look over there, so I just put this out there just for important versus essential. Uh we've taken pretty much all the easier approaches and low fruit we can. I mean we've done, you know, energy efficient things. We've reduced some services uh uh in the past. We reduced a lot of positions in the past. We've gone from about a 4,000 employer uh district to about 3,300. So that's going to go down a little bit more. But we've gone from 25,000 students down to, you know,

05021,000 as well. So as we look across here, these I mean it's hard to make decision across here cuz you're affecting every department. Everybody's going to have to have a little more on their plate. Uh we reimagining positions and just restructuring. So we're looking at things that are important. I mean everything that we're looking at now has importance but we have to look and see whether they're essential for the operation cuz you're at the point where you you're looking at having all your essentials and a few importance. So those are when it really gets hard to make decision on on reduction. So I mean no one takes this this step lightly and superintendent no one ever wants to close schools ever uh or reduce positions. I mean, you can always have additional services that are

051needed throughout the the district. And I mean, most people want those additional service and personnel, but this is kind of where we are now, the real the real deal. So, uh, we we've dreamed about getting all these students back. We hadn't gotten them back now. So, we're, you know, that we're 20,000 population district. So, we have to take those measures to make sure we stay afloat. So, that's pretty much it. We can go, I think. Um, go ahead. I think he was going to go into you guys have questions. I'm sorry. Oh, I was just gonna ask a quick question. Absolutely. Do you are you incorporating any estimate for the impact of the education freedom fund voucher situation? Um, and what and like and is that broken down by school? Is it broken down by

052the district as a whole? I mean, I know in Little Rock, we have a lot of private schools that already, I assume, are pretty full because that's their business model, but I didn't know if you had worked with any other CFOs to kind of Yeah, that's kind of hard to look at. I mean, you can look at enrollment trends and kind of see where you're losing. I mean, we were losing students before the vouchers come out. So, when I looking at economic conditional laws and things have changed, so like I said, we we have a long history of that enrollment and kind of the trend that where it's going. I'm not sure where it's going to plateau at. That's the part we kind of have to get to. So, right now based on this, we're

053at 218 86, but may hopefully we won't lose many more at that point. Uh, like I said, I know a lot of the private schools are probably about in capacity and they still are private and they're not going to take all the students. We're going to always have students here. So, we just have to get to a point where we we think we're going to be and make that. Just to follow up on that, what if we get to the fall and we end up with 18,500 kids enrolled? What if people have registered and and have already made a decision but haven't let us know? What happens? Budget cut. I mean, yeah, but I like I'd just like to hear from you like I mean, is that then I mean, is there something we do

054with our staff? Do we I mean, we've offered contracts, so we can't really go back on that at that point. Correct. Well, we just if financial emergency for financial reason, you can Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, I don't I'm not attorney. I don't know if Mr. Cass want to come up here. I know there are some outs out there as well. So, yeah. So that's why we try to do enrollment early, but you don't know who's all going to show up. I don't think you'll have that. Hope you won't have that many drop out, but I mean it's always a situation you kind of have to think about. Um, but I mean you just have you have to cut deeper at that point. Yeah. Or not hire. So we typically come into the school year

055not being 100% staff. So you have some Right. So and so we do that. We we assume a few some number of kids will will go. Correct. necessarily that we're trying to just you just can't hire 100%. I've been here for 16 years. We've never been 100% staff the beginning of the school year and you're still looking for people. So, this is a really important thing for us to be able to talk. Um, Mr. Hang on. No, I I I know that I know that we need to hear about some of these pieces. I just don't want us to, you know, I know we got another presentation. We have a I know that this is a big piece that we want to kind of jump into. Go ahead. Did you have something? You have something

056else? I was I was okay. I can come back in. Miss, did you have something? Um, well, it's all budget related and it goes into the budget cuts. Yeah. Um, so at the end of the day, I mean, whether people decide to take the freedom accounts and mostly those are people already in private school that is getting assistance from the government to pay for their private school that they're already attending. Um, and for for us, I would imagine because we only get $1,900 and not the full 77 umund or so base dollars, um, the hit would be I mean, we would obviously fill it to some extent, but not the way that a district that received the majority of their funding from the state would fill um about the enrollment piece. You know, we keep

057talking about and we've have those of us who've been here or been uh watching the district over a number of years. Uh we have we were projected to be at this point several years ago because of the declining enrollment. But more recently, um, typically when families leave, they are leaving a a a campus, you know, and so if instead of us being so heavy on uh purchasing programs or um creating new new positions and all of these other things, then then if we invest directly into our campuses and make sure that those campus leaders see themselves as CEOs and small business owners and that their client is the student and the families and then the majority of of our students would and families would stay and so um we're going to continue to see a

058decline. So as a district uh particularly even as a board because a board is able to direct a lot of what's happening in the district have a more heavier focus on campus culture, campus experience because people are are leaving and and they're going to continue to leave and most of the people that I talked to just like the lady I saw at FedEx uh just yesterday she is looking to pull her child from one school to another school, not because of the district and what we offer, but then because of the campus. So, I I I do think just just moving forward, then we need to really make sure that our campuses have what they need, but also is within budget and that we're not doing more for one campus over in in in in

059any other campus. Okay. Are any other questions? the last but just before you know just so we won't go back and okay anything else okay let me say something I'm sorry I just want to kind of piggy back on what Miss Hatter just said about campuses you know sometimes more campuses get more support than other campuses and that's something that we can't control but I do believe strongly that if you are the leader in that campus and you know what's going on in your building I think it's your responsibility to address it I think we have to understand the accountability. We can't control what goes on in your building. That's why you're there. So, I feel strongly that the leaders in the building have to take the responsibility of making sure that their customer service

060is on point. Director St. Last question I have for you, Mr. Bailey, was um what is the district doing to verify enrollment for the kids that are on our list right now? I mean, is this something we do? we do a call to check or we email to just say, "Hey, just wanted to make sure you're ready for school next year." I mean, is there anything we do to try to or that we could do in kind of an uncertain budget time to be a little more sure of that as we head into a different scenario just with that addition? I I am thinking particularly of a couple of schools in the Heights and Hillrest where some students do choose to go to private for middle school. I know that a lot of those kids

061will leave for fifth grade. And I just want to make sure that we are thinking and as we are looking at potential reductions in those schools that we are verifying exactly who is registered and when and how so that we can make the best efforts on on staffing and hiring. May have to let that's really in student services. So my divisions don't make those calls but I I know but it matters to you, right? It matters. Yeah, it matters to me. Maybe that's a question for Dr. Wright. I don't know. Or maybe it's something we could do. student services or Yeah, that's right. Student services, but I said something. So, I do know that in addition to the work that student services does to verify if um registrations are actually um going to produce real

062students showing up. I know that uh principles and and and school officials they call they follow up to um to make sure meeting with uh school I was meeting with principal register this afternoon and she has already sent um uh information to her families to kind of track and see if students are returning or not so that she can have a little bit more realistic uh numbers to to plan for. So yeah, I know the schools do that. Thank you for that. And I know Quesa did it as well the past year or two too when we had that. Yeah, but it's always good if your home school calls and check on see. So, thank you. All right. Um, Jack, you can pull up the may put it on here. You want to put right

063back there? I don't He I don't know. Can I control it with that? Okay. All right. All right. Well, thank you, Mr. Bailey for that uh introduction. Um you know, you've heard me say many times that having to close schools and having to deal with personnel reductions are probably the most difficult and challenging things um for us for me as a superintendent and for us as a board to have to deal with. And no matter how absolutely necessary we know um that we have to take these actions, it still doesn't uh feel good. We do know that many of our employees are going to be um negatively impacted and rightfully so. many folks are going to be unhappy with decisions um that we have to make. Um in our particular case, it is just simply

064unavoid unavoidable for us to um continue operating without taking u some drastic steps to get us um in the black. I think we all know that we have this is the this is my third year, but this is my second year um in a row, two consecutive years of starting the school year off in the red. And so we have to um take drastic steps u necessary to make sure that we start the 2526 school year in the black. So I'm getting ready to go through this uh presentation in a very um methodical way. I will pause at specific points to entertain questions um and comments from the board. There is a lot to unpack here um and I'm hoping that I'm able to clear up some misunderstandings and some miscommunication. Um, but if at

065all possible, I am going to plead with our board. Uh, if you will, um, if you can please, um, hold your questions and comments. I am going to pause pause periodically throughout the presentation. I'm not going to cover a whole bunch of stuff. Uh, but I'm going to cover it in chunks and pause for questions and comments. And if we can kind of keep that rhythm going, I just want to make sure that we get a chance to cover every single thing and that everyone gets a chance to ask the questions and make the comments that you need to to make, but most importantly that we get through everything and that we're able to um make some decisions at the end of this meeting. All right. So, I first want to start with um our

066budget timeline. And I think it's important for us to kind of remember that we just didn't start um this process. And so for board members, this presentation is in the the folder that you got today. Um so I think it's important that we understand that we did not just start trying to address this problem today. This is something um that we actually started back in September when we had our fiscal year 25 budget presentation from Mr. Bailey. And we realized then that we were I think about $9 million in a hole in terms of projections for this year. And that with the um fact that the students that we lost last year is going to hit us this upcoming school year, we were able to project and know that we need to shave off at

067least $15 million in expenditures for us to be able to operate um in the black for the upcoming school year. So in October, we kicked off our optimizing LRSD uh 2.0 were no initial conversations and we actually had our first um budget reduction brainstorming discussion with the board uh back in October where we um I presented a couple of uh presented a framework a couple of different categories and we had some discussions around what were some of the things that our board wanted to make sure um that we prioritized or covered or addressed um as we continue to plan for those budget reductions. Of course, in um December um we finalized those LRC recommendations um which included the closing of Brady and the merging of Carver and Washington. And we can see now um in

068the presentation I I'll get to further in this particular presentation that those closings I think we projected about 2.5 to 3.5 million um in savings and I think it ended up being about 3.4 million um that we were able to save with the closing and the merging of those particular schools. And then it was actually um in December of 2022 that I provided our board with the first draft of the staffing formula guidelines. Um and why that is important is because of course Mr. Bailey has already mentioned that most of our budget about 70 to 75% um is based upon salaries and benefits of our employees. The greatest number of our employees are in our schools. Uh, this district has had staffing formula guidelines, I know for I don't know for how long, but I

069know they existed well before I got here. But the issue is we have not been adhering to any of it. Uh, we have not been adhering to anything um within the the staffing guidelines. And so staffing looked different at all of our schools. Um and so this is the first year um that we uh took the steps necessary to make sure that um how we plan for staffing and plan for allocations of of positions for the 2526 school year are based upon those um staffing guidelines that were approved. I believe in January uh January 30th um is when uh those staffing formulas um were approved. So, I'm not going to go through all of this, but I think the thing that I really wanted to hone in is that, you know, today's presentation is a

070culmination of what I believe was three different conversations, uh, public conversations with the board in terms of how we were going to plan, uh, for these for these particular reductions. Here we go. All right. So, uh, the first thing that I wanted, uh, to start with is that whenever whenever you get around to planning for well I'm getting ahead of myself first let me start with the constraints that uh and when I use the word constraints I'm talking about things that um things that we have to work against in terms of planning uh for our fiscical year 26 budget of course the first thing we already know that we have to reduce our expenditures by 15 million um again I mentioned that this is the second consecutive year that we've had to deal with this

071um in my three years here this is the second consecutive year that we have had to deal with making personnel reduction and we know that that has a negative um impact on the culture and morale um within our school district. Um we hear every single day um every time we have a board meeting, we hear public comments, we know what happens uh in our district. We know that our needs far outweigh um the available resources um that we have in our district. And this point is important because as many people point out things that we need to give attention to, point out things that we need to fix, it's important to understand that we don't have the available resources to fix and to address um all of our needs in our district. And so we

072have to prioritize and determine what are we going to give our um prioriti prioritize and determine how we going to use our resources. And then you know people have different opinions on what we should prioritize and what we we shouldn't prioritize. But that is the responsibility um of this board. Again, unpredictable impact to enrollment uh with the freedom accounts. Um we are seeing a little bit of how um I know this past year in some of our schools um where we had larger kindergarten classes. Um we are seeing this year that some of our kindergarten classes and some of our schools that are traditionally seeing um a certain number of kindergarten students, we we're starting to see those numbers kind of shrink. And so this upcoming year will be another telling year um in terms

073of how those uh freedom accounts are impacting us. The thing that I'm really worried about is um the unknown impact to federal funds after this fiscal year. But we know that right now um at least I believe at this point that our fiscal year 26 federal allocations, correct me if I'm wrong, but we receive about maybe 45 46 million somewhere somewhere in the 40 40 mill 40 plus million dollars of federal funds that we use for a variety of reasons um and ways in our district and with our current federal um uh administration. I don't know um what that's going to look like after next school year. Um I am hoping and praying very hard that it remains stable because if not that you know a big chunk of our employees are funded um through

074federal dollars uh reversing and changing long established and accept accepted problematic staffing practices of the past and this is another issue. Unfortunately, I am um you know blessed with the opportunity of leading this district at this particular time in history. And so uh mentioned previously that you know we didn't adhere to staffing uh guidelines in the past past. Now we are enforcing um that across the district. And of course, whenever you um have to hold people accountable for doing something they haven't had to do before, it just creates a lot of consternation and conflict across the district, but it's it's just the point of where we are and we just have to make these particular changes. And then the last one I really want people to understand, and I know we've talked about this at

075length before, but for a district the size of LRSD, um it is baffling to me that we don't have the tools necessary to do like real school-based budgeting and staffing allocations. If you remember when I got here, I used to talk all the time about not knowing, you know, what our true vacancies were, not being able to keep up with things and how our systems don't necessarily talk to each other. And so it's hard to kind of uh keep um you know keep track of of of of not necessarily expenditures, but keeping track of your personnel and being able to monitor certain things. Um so last year when we attempted to you know shave off those $15 million, I can't tell you if we made it or not because especially at the school level, we

076just did not have uh the tools or the systems or the processes in place to even know. Uh so this particular school year we did internally create some things ourselves uh using some of our um um our human resources and other district staff to kind of create some spreadsheets and identify some processes that where we can actually track um and know the number of personnel that we have across our building um and be able to plan um for reductions and know that these numbers that I'm getting ready to present and these estimates I'm getting ready to present that they are actually real and we're able to to track those now. But the point is these are things that we created. In other places they actually have like um and databases also be able to do

077that. We are working with them on trying to to to get something developed. But the problem is everyone in the state has to use einance and e einance and echool, right? The issue is like even now the stuff that we're creating our staff still has to go back and put all of this stuff in e school and e finance. So it's almost like triple work. Um and then our uh the tool that we use for hiring, interviewing, um our HR tool is different than all of those system. So it's almost like we have to do triple and quadruple work with with some of these things. Um so before we even set foot on trying to identify reductions, we first wanted to identify what were going to be our major priorities. And so I do want

078to take a little bit of time um um and and focus on these major priorities because these are the things that we wanted to um keep and not touch. And um these things also serve as a filter for how we determine which positions to uh eliminate and which positions not to eliminate. And so the first thing is maintaining the extra supports to our priority schools including reduced class sizes. Um we started our this is the second year of our network structure. And so one of the changes that we um put forward this year in our staffing guidelines is to make sure that our priority schools, which are our schools that have um struggled uh persist persistently um with low student achievement. We um are staffing those schools with reduced class sizes. We wanted to make

079sure that we maintain our instructional lead teacher supports to all of our schools. So whether you're priority school or nonparty school, um we hear uh from our schools that our IOTS or our instructional lead teachers uh do make a big impact and so we wanted to make sure that we keep those in place. We have about 40, correct me if I'm wrong, Melissa, 40 plus reading intervention teachers, 40 40 reading intervention teachers that are spread out throughout the district. And what's unique about these particular teachers is they only work with students who have been identified for dyslexia or dyslexia like um issues. And so they actually take these students through a particular reading intervention program. And that's about $3.7 million just with those 40 uh teachers alone. Um and so we did not want to

080reduce the impact that those teachers make. So we kept those. The next thing here um is in bold because this is a big one. uh aligning, creating and enhancing supports for student discipline, uh behavior, wellness, belonging, and mental health. Um as we went through our strategic planning uh process, um those of you who were involved in the process, um especially all of the focus groups and the the large group u focus groups and the small group focus groups, one of the things that we heard or kept coming up in conversations quite a bit was about the challenges of dealing with disruptive behavior in classrooms. Um and then the second thing um when you look at that third party outcome um that deals with uh uh sense of belonging uh students wanting to be in a

081physically and emotionally safe environment. These are things that adults didn't come up with. Our student representatives um who participate in our strategic planning process um they were very uh vocal about um the need um for them to feel physically and emotionally safe in schools. Um and so this particular um budget priority is something that we're going to talk a lot about as we get into the presentation, but it is one that it is a priority um for me at this particular point. And then here to our staffing guidelines and then refining and enhancing network support structures. All those things there we'll get into a little later. And then some of the secondary priorities I'm not going to spend a lot of time with now, but these are things well I guess I need to because

082I am going to ask the board's feedback um on these particular things. Um, I think this is one of the things that I'm actually asking the board to actually approve because because we only have limited resources. There is only um so much that we're going to be able to address and tackle. And so between these major priorities and these secondary priorities, I want to make sure that these are the right things um that our board wants to support and to keep in place. And so the first one is keeping teacher and staff step increases in place in place based upon experience and uh advanced degrees. We just did a big increase um in stipens for athletic coaches. And not that um we are prioritizing athletics over academics, but if you saw how much we were

083paying our athletic coaches, it was I'm surprised that we had coaches who were working for us. It was just that low when you compared uh us to some of our surrounding districts. So, we definitely want to keep those in place. But if you also remember in our staffing guidelines, we want to make sure that our coaches realize and understand that they are teachers first because they get paid a teacher salary and a coaching stipen on top of that. And so in some cases we have, it's not across the district, but in some places we have coaches who may not teach a full load or in some cases may not teach anything or one or two courses. And so we want to make sure that we are maximizing the use um of our staff across the

084district. Um, we had some recent conversations around market demands for safety and security. And so I know that that's something that um, a couple of board members mentioned in terms of them being interested in making sure that we review um, the compensation of our safety and security folks. And so that's something that I put up here. A big one for me is uh, review and analysis of our special education operations. So, one of the things I really want to do next year, we just haven't had the the time to really dig into this as I would have liked, but I really would like um to have an outside audit, maybe a team from from the Council of Great City Schools or from from another agency to really come and take a look at um our

085special education op operations from from top to down. everything from our staffing structures to um how we operate um and give us some insight um in terms of what we need to do um to make um that better. I can tell you that one of the big issues and I know it's going to come up a little later is we have uh we have a a 101 parah issue in our district and I know kids who need oneonone paras and it's written into their IEPs we are legally responsible for providing them. Um but we need to take a hard look at the criteria that we are using uh to include that type of service in children's IEPs because at one point I was improving I was approving oneonone paras like two or three times a

086day. Um and what we have seen um in some cases is um the child may move to a different school but the oneonone pair remains at the school and it's still there. The child goes to another school and then gets another one pair but the oneonone pair they had is still at the other school. And so we wind up with several years with um just people around. And so we just need a a better uh system in place to make sure that number one we have the right type of criteria in place. And then number two that when those kids move from school to school or they leave our district um that we take the proper actions to make sure that the parah um whatever appropriate action is ne necessary with the pair who was

087assigned to that child um that we do. And then we've already talked about um communications and marketing. Um and so we that that RFP is out now. And so we will come back and bring that back to uh before the board when the RFP closes. And then uh downsizing of executive staff. All right. I promise y'all I'm almost done. Wait, before I go on, I want to stop here because I do want to I said I was going to stop periodically for now. It's not going back. Jack is actually Oh, Jack, you're doing it. Oh. Yes, let me put it down. So, I will stop here. Um, I'll pause here for questions or comments, but one of the comments I have for the board is are these the right major and secondary priorities that we

088need to keep in mind as we're developing our budget or is something missing because I am going to ask um for formal approval of these because these will be the things um that we we provide emphasis emphasis on um I would like to go through the entire budget of this so I can hear more because there are things you are proposing in here um that I do want to just hear more from. Okay. Um so I'll just hold my other Yes. I know you and I talked about this in our one-on-one last week, but um early childhood educators, um the paras that work in early childhood are also in addition to reviewing market compensation on the safety and security. I know that um that is a group that is paid kind of you know very

089around minimum wage not a little bit above maybe um for some of the folks who are not necessarily college educated or don't have that highly qualified statistic who are in our early childhood programs. I know they're all for prek, I know they're all with an actual a person with a a degree with a with a teacher, but um for the early childhood 0ero to2 programs, that is something I would be interested in in looking into just in compensation. Um and on the whole um pieces on the major priority around safety, I do think within that, making sure we're looking at our physical safety of our buildings. I know that y'all have done a lot of that. Um, but I know I've also have some some questions about places in in my zone where I feel

090like we could continue to improve this the physical safety and that's I know that's maybe a different uh pot of funding. It's not this. It's more of the um capital improvement funding, but it's just something that I would like to kind of continue to think about. Thank you. Other questions? I have one. I just I just want to since our district the student populations on special education is It's pretty pretty high. I would I would think that we would move uh review and analyze LRSD special education operations to a major priority. Okay, I have a Okay, question. So, we have major priorities and we have secondary priorities. So, how does that fit into the budget? Are we budgeting for both or are we going Good question. So, some of these things are already or will

091be included in what I'm what I'm going to present as we go throughout the rest of the evening. Some of the things like and I can tell you um review compensation market demands for safety and security. We have not planned to allocate any additional money to to that yet, but once that study or analysis is done, um if it's a priority, we will bring that to the board and have the board to, you know, discuss and figure out if that's something we want to move forward with. The same thing for the review and anal analysis of LRC sped operations. What I have asked Mr. Bailey to do as he is working on our budget is to uh put aside um some funds um to be able to pay for um an outside agency to come

092and do the evaluation. Um but what we will have to do after after that you know based upon whatever findings come back those are things that we have not necessarily allocated to set aside funds for but the good thing is we're having these discussions now um and not while we're in the fiscal year 26 and so we can kind of plan for some of those things now. So, and the communications and marketing RFP, those three things are things that we have not necessarily allocated funds for, but everything else that that is up here is included um already um in the budget plan. Those So, those three things there aren't funding tied to those just yet. Um Melissa, those 40 dyslexia interveners, how many kids are they serving? Oh, boy. I can tell you that. I

093don't know, but I we have a spreadsheet. Okay. Okay. C that I absolutely abhore the idea of saying that that money might not be spent best that way. But if 40 teachers are intervening, two kids each, 27 $2 million becomes a lot of money. Definitely not. There are guidelines from the program that we use. Sorry, I was yelling at her, so I didn't have my mic up. Sorry. It's definitely not two students and they're pretty tightly um managed by our two central dyslexia specialists. So, uh in order to meet state guidelines for providing this support for kids, you have to maintain the fidelity of the program. There are certain stipulations in the fidelity of the program. So, it's pretty tightly outlined and we keep pretty I mean, we were just having conversations today about trying

094to split folks and you know how difficult that is if you got to work into a schedule, but we I mean that's the kind of conversations we're having. Um yeah, so um happy to get those numbers for you though. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. And I have one more piece here that's not it's not terribly important to the to the budget, but I'd kind of like an answer. Um you highlighted because it's important to students you said the uh creating community where they feel belong where they feel like they belong. Of course I didn't speak to the students who were doing this the who were responding and the people who did you you were talked to some kids didn't you? Did you get the sense that they were talking about themselves or others? I would

095say both. Okay. Both. Okay. Yeah. All right. And I know Melissa was a part of those uh conversations. Well, several well several of us were in the room. I mean, there was so many different breakouts, but the big one is where um these things really came out and and I would say both. Okay. You know that so often uh that kids will uh claim to be talking about others when they're talking about themselves. And I was wondering if just you had a good sense of it was both. Okay. Yeah, that's that's good. Got it. Director Bowling. Oh, I'm sorry. Director Volley and then Director Callaway. Yeah. Uh, yes. I was just saying uh that maybe considering added to the priorities uh seeking more external funding opportunities with the assumption that it might be some cuts

096to federal funding. Uh looking at some ways to exploring exploring different grant opportunities related to special needs or learning loss or whatever target areas. So, uh, I don't know if it'll be major priority or secondary priority. I I look at it as a major priority, but just, uh, considering that. Dr. Callaway, question of uh, keeping teaching staff step increases based on experience and additional compensation for advanced degrees. Is that going to be a a a a a list that's going to be published not with people's names but like for instance for the nine and a quarter teachers who are teaching let's say secondary schools or uh primary schools or sped how's that going to work so it's currently what how our salary schedule is currently structured and so it's already structured to provide teachers and

097Mr. Bailey has come up to give you more information. Thank you for saving me. Go ahead. So, so based on the learnings act, so they got rid of the requirement for two salary schedule. You had a BA, you had a master salary schedule that was required by state law. Uh once learn came in, you had to bring everybody to 50,000 or anybody or and or 2,000 more than they were actually earning. Uh when you talking to a lot of uh CFOs or business managers across the state, uh we differentiated our salary scale. We left it basically the same. we uh reduced I think the percent between the steps but we left all the educational ranges there and all the experience steps there uh that wasn't required for learns act and a lot of districts might

098have had step one through five or step one through 10 still at 50,000 right uh so when we looking at it that's why I had essential versus important all these things are important here but some of them are essential so I think when you're looking at major priorities those are the essentials the things that critical we have to do others are still important and the funding is there. We'll continue to do it. So, uh, but we're unique. We have a pretty aggressive salary scale out there compared to some other districts around the state. And the reason why I was asking in order to keep teachers here, um, we're going to have to have an incentive, of course. And I have yet to see a in my five years on four or four years, however long

099I've been here, I've yet to see since the actual steps like for instance for the 9 and a quarter for 9 and a half and for uh and we're going to keep since the learns act got away with you just got the BS. There's no MA. Well, based on state law, you that's the salary schedule, but you can adopt I mean ours is beyond what learns act requires right out there. So, so only thing we had to do based on learners actually bring anybody if say if I was at 48,000 you had to bring me to 50,000. If I was already at 50,000 you had to take me to 52,000. But I mean most our teacher were seasoned. So this this helped out the lower end of the salary schedule. But we didn't have to

100metriculate the the same percent all across the salary schedule or leave all the educational lanes there. So for BA, BA1 12, BA 24, masters, masters 15, masters 30, all that's not required. Well, yeah, but we still have that. We have it. Yeah. And I think that's what the important part is up there. So Okay. So where is it located? I haven't seen that. Oh, it's out on the website. Yeah. Which I mean salary schedule salary schedule. Yes, ma'am. And it goes like from the BA and the MA. It go from a BA to a master's plus 30 plus 30. Then you can get an additional stipen for I think a doctor and all that. So yes. Okay. I was that good. You're good. Okay. Director Adams. I think he had one and you Adams had

101one. Yeah. Thank you. This just a couple comments. Um thank you Dr. Wright for all the work and putting this up there. This is helpful to me and I think it's probably for the for many the rest of us to see what are the guidelines and what are the principles that we that provides the lens that's going to help you to make the the difficult decisions and these are difficult decisions. Um I do want to make a comment on a couple. One I really appreciate the the part about the student discipline behavior wellness belonging mental health. I think that along with hearing that from staff people, you know, we've read about it, especially since the pandemic. We read about it all the time, both locally and nationally, how students are struggling even in more ways

102than they were before. And many of our students were struggling before and and I appreciate the um the the new look and new approach to our alternative learning students and and those concerns to try to find out how we can be better support to them. And of course, the better we do for those students who struggle, the better it's for the whole community and the culture in our school. And we know that and it and that'll impact, I think, our the academic progress that we're working so hard for. The other is that I'm so appreciative for the focus on special education and bringing somebody from the outside in to give us a real objective evaluation to how well we're doing, you know, where our strengths, where our needs. I thought for a long time that

103as large a district as we are, you know, if we we could set up if we could set up some model classrooms where we could say, you know, everything is this is why we're doing it in a way that really is best practices and we're seeing great results and we can train ourselves and have people come and make use of the capacity that we have. And there hasn't been a superintendent that I have talked to since 2010 that we have not talked in the office about special education and the need to take it to take a fresher look at it and see what we could do. So I really appreciate this. I think it's extremely important. Yeah. Just a question about the Carl Perkins fund. Are we still is has that been I heard something

104has been eliminated. Uh the state is not accepting federal funds for the Carl Perkins. What's what's going on with that one? Yep. So I'm going to get to that, but I can answer that now. Okay. Um so Carl Perkins funding is still there. what the state has done and I think this is all connected to uh the governor's workplace development plan or initiative is that some of the programs that they used to fund um I know that they tier they tier almost wish was here but they tier programs based upon high wage um high wage high demand high wage and so they looked at all of the jobs that are going to be available in Arkansas in the next you know 10 20 30 years and said these are the demands that we have as

105a state. These are high wage um high demand high wage jobs. And so if the programs that we were offering did not fit within this um high demand, highwage structure, they eliminated them. And um uh culinary arts is one u that's been eliminated. Uh criminal justice is one that's been eliminated. Cosmetology. Cosmetologyy's been eliminated. um and even courses like family and consumer science um and they're replacing it with with other things. And so there's a there's a array of different um programs and services that we used to offer. Um now with culinary arts because it is popular here, we decided or somebody decided in our budget um that uh we have three teachers. um we are keeping one that we're going to fund ourselves as a district so that our students um can still benefit

106from the program but we just won't be able to serve uh the number of students that we used to serve criminal justice I think the way in which we are keeping criminal justice and you'll see this in we get to some of the positions that have been eliminated we've eliminated some other positions like family and consumer science and some other things that we used to get funding for um in order to keep criminal justice because it is a a program that is popular and some of our kids can still benefit from it. The other program was the fire fire cadets. Fire cadets that they uh also is no longer funding and that's because you have to be 21 years of old to get into the academy and so it was just a big uh misalignment

107between you know high school kids and then Yeah. So, but you may also see some additional changes in Carl Perkins based on federal guidelines is coming down. I read something this week. So, they're looking out. Okay. Oh, okay. We have one more. We have one more over here. We have one more over here. Then I'll come back up there. Let's try and be concise though, guys, because I think we have probably about how many more pages to go? A whole lot more. A whole lot more. And I wish you wouldn't have stopped quite frankly. Uh but you know, hey, we're a little different dire. Go ahead. I did that. Um just a point of mention um which you already may be aware of, but the AD is going to um most likely be in the

108district anyway next year, right, to look at um special ed education. Um, and so like that that that may be um something uh we could just lean lean in with the state looking over sped instead of hiring um an outside firm to come in and then look at um sped. But but the state is going to be right in our district next school year anyway. Mr. Okay. Um, you know, some of y'all know, uh, this is really unbelievable to me. Uh, and I think starting back when, uh, what's his name? Asa, one of them said that we, everybody need to take uh, uh, keyboarding. And they started cutting back and cutting back and cutting back. for everybody what everybody does not know I am a fax teacher. I was a fax teacher and facts or

109or used to be home economics is a very important thing that our kids need is to be allowed to learn life skills. now taking away culinary arts and we're putting that way up in Northwest Arkansas or wherever and that's where it's going according to the paper and that might not be true but we're wiping it out of our district and just learning basic skills how to write a check check checkbook you know balance a checkbook do your budgets whatever they're taking those things away from us and they're not important do what they're doing is rescheduling everything and cutting they're saying all of these things are no longer important and why can they do that and who who had the input to do this was this just the governor or was it the state board of

110education or uh and when I found out you know I couldn't talk for two or three weeks but that was like back back in the fall. But now that we're here back in the fall when February, okay, now that we're here, what can be done now? They're repurposing. They're retalking and they're doing a bunch of other things. Had a conversation with somebody from the east coast and they're upping that. They're upping culinary arts. They couldn't believe that they were cutting family and consumer science because they're upping that on the east coast. Why are we doing this? Are we creating a desert here? So, we're going to all pick cotton and and and that's exactly what they do. Okay. Did you have did you have any response that you have? Okay. All right. We have one

111more and maybe after after all of this, maybe we can just move on through the next ones. Director Adams. Thank you. Just a brief comment. I really appreciate right one slide, right? Two. Two. Okay. I do appreciate I think you know what to say. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. I do appreciate the sentiment and Miss Patter's comment about the state uh AD and special education. However, I would have to say that being the spouse of a special education teacher who has had extensive experience with the state department of special education, I hope we continue to try to bring in an outside group. Okay. Can we go ahead? All right, Jack, you can go to the next slide. This is We're getting to the meat and I will Oh, man. This color is is hard

112to read, but hopefully you can refer to your copies. Thank you. Hard to read copies. All right. So, um There it is. Next slide. Slides 5 through 8. This is a budget reduction framework summary. And so the next several slides are going to show the different categories uh in the budget reduction framework and the overall reduction amounts per each category. Um all of these categories are uh uh represent figures in which or numbers in which we are cutting except for the last um which identifies additional expenditures which are based on some of the priorities I just went over. And so um the first category is district office reductions. And what I did so that you can keep track on how things have changed since the last time um I crossed out what it was before

113and you can see what the total amount is for district office reductions 1.7 million for what we had for uh non-traditional school reductions um that number that amount has gone up well let me go back to district office reductions so what's important because I am going to ask the board to um give approval for this particular framework and what I'm asking approval for specifically is when you look in these boxes um identify the positions or the the the framework for which the positions were eliminated. And so these were positions that had the least impact on classroom instruction or district operations um duties that could be absorbed into other existing positions and departments that are going through restructuring for improved efficiency. For example, safety and security um in our English as a second language department, which

114I'll talk about a little a little later for our non-traditional school reductions. Um the positions that were eliminated here um were based upon discontinuence of programs. Uh for example, I knew that we serve uh juveniles um in the juvenile detention center, but I did not know that we had staff that actually serve adults um who were incarcerated. Um we just learned a couple months ago, maybe one month ago, um that the Department of Corrections will now be uh taking over um providing the educational services for the uh incarcerated adults. And so some of the positions that you see eliminated from adult ed um are employees who were providing um those particular services. And then of course we are um restructuring um ACC and AL which we've already um had a presentation about some program reductions

115um and you will actually getus for these coming up in the next month or so. But city year um what we are doing with city year I think we have six teams now. Uh two of those teams are middle schools. We are reducing the middle school teams and we'll only be serving um our elementary schools and we're going to be focusing specifically on second and third grade with the four remaining teams um that are left. Tendi will we'll have that discussion. We've already worked out with them what those reductions are going to look like and then we reduce the number of UAPTC career coaches that we have in our district. Some operational cost reductions. Some of these things we've already started working on. Some of the things um we are going to have to give

116some attention to. So, we already put some things in place to address overtime, uh, transportation expenses, athletic personnel. There is, um, and when we get to the detail, you'll see that, um, we're trying to correct the issue that we have where our school-based athletic directors have a shorter contract length than some of our head coaches. And so, they're supposed to be supervising athletic programs, but yet they're not even there when some of the high school coaches are there. And so what one of the things that we're proposing is to increase um I think by I think we're increasing the it's on there. When we get to it, you'll see it. But that's an example of operational change. And then something that we have to give some attention to is around staff extraduty pay practices. We

117started I think bringing something before the board last year. It kind of fell flat. We got a lot of push back u about it, but it's something that we are going to have to bring back um to eventually discuss. You can go to the next slide. These two I'm not going to spend a lot of time on right now because there is a bunch of slides dealing with the reductions at the school level. But one of the things I want to say um because I know we have some folks here from Jefferson. I want to make sure that this is known and understood by everybody in the universe that these um budget reductions that you see here these are not static or permanent. If enrollment changes then we will increase staff. And so even if

118the board approves um this framework, it doesn't mean that the cuts that you see here for your school are going to be permanent if enrollment increases. If enrollment increases and we have to add extra teachers based upon enrollment, we will. And so I just want to make sure that that is clear um and known by all. But I'm going to get in a little bit more detail when we get to the school by schools, but I just wanted to make sure that that was clear. Um, and then the last part are are there position changes aligned to FY26 budget priorities and district needs. And these are additional expenses. And I'm going to get to the details of what this will encompass um in the next couple of slides, but you can see that that is

119uh $365,000 of um uh reimagine positions. And I'll get into what those what those are about. But these this is the framework. This is the summary. Um this is all the categories that are contributing to that 13.9 million. Um and then we're going to get to um how these things are broken up in detail uh in a few moments. But you can go to the next slide. One thing that also I want to make sure that it is known that a lot of uh these figures are based upon average salaries not the actual salaries of the employees. And so um when we present the final budget in the fall, you know, some of these numbers will look different than what it is now because it is based upon it is based on average salaries. And

120even if the board approves this framework today, um we may find other areas in which we can save money and so we will continue to make those changes. So some of so some of these amounts uh may change and there'll be maybe some cases where there is some additional expenditures that we didn't account for, didn't know. Um just I again I just wanted to make that clear even between last week and this week we have found two additional areas in which we were able to um increase some of our expenditures. So, so as you're planning for budgets, things are continuously changing. That's the point. And the last not well you can go to the next slide. This slide provides based upon everything that I shared in those but I will never use this blue again

121because it is hard to see. Oh, that one looks a whole lot better than the one I'm looking at. Um, this number represents based upon everything that you saw in uh those categories on the previous sides. All of that adds up to be uh 13,923,45 whatever it is. Um and that is all of the expenditures minus that 365,000 which represent those those additional costs. But this is the net um number that we have right now which is about 1 million short of our 15 million goal. Um we still believe and when I say we I'm saying Mr. Bailey Mr. The daily still believes that we are in range to reach that 15 million. Um like I said, we're going to be taking a hard look at uh sped 101 paras. We believe that there are

122some additional savings that we could uh save there. Um we are going to bring back that staff extraduty pay for field trips. Um, and for just to refresh your memory, if you are a teacher and you go on a field trip, you're still getting your pay as if you were teaching for that particular day. But in some cases, they are getting additional stipens for um if they're on a field trip beyond their contract hours. um in some cases where people are taking overnight trips and maybe taking a group to a competition on a weekend or something. They're getting that salary and they're getting stipens for all of those days and times um outside of their contract hours. While we definitely need to take a look in making sure that we are being fair in terms

123of how we're compensating our staff, this is the seventh district that I've worked in. I have never seen that as a practice anywhere. Huh? Like while they're sleep sleeping like while they're sleeping. I mean, I may be exaggerating. Exaggerating, but but not exaggerating to the point to where they are getting paid for weekend time. That's left over from contract. Yes. Yeah. I mean, yeah. So, that's not an exaggeration at all. And so, we do need to take a look at that. But if they're working on the weekend and then they should be if that's outside of their uh contract hours or outside of the stipen. I mean because a lot of these teachers do do a lot of you know free labor. I mean I I mean even outside of that it still doesn't compare

124how much free labor they do. I agree. But we don't have anything there's nothing stopping there's nothing stopping me as a teacher from going on 25 trips a year. Um, and so in some cases we have staff doing an inordinate amount of field trips. And so we just have to have some things in place to make sure that we are being good stewards of of of of our resources. And then um, and I know this is going to be painful for several of us, but we are going to look at um, reducing operating budgets for departments um, across the district up to um, 5%. And so we believe with these particular um, things that we still would be able to get up to that $15 million mark. You want me to keep going? All right.

125All right, the next couple of slides are just the details of the categories that I just went over. And so, um, you can go into the next [Applause] one. So, in that district office category, that 1.7 million, this is just the detail of how, um, that 1.7 million um, how we got to that one 1.7 million. Um, you can see that there has been a position that has been reinstated. that was that dips position because I was able to um uh find two other positions that we eliminated on the well you'll see it it's coming up and so I just we just reinstated that one so that's there any questions with anything that's here questions like what like up front what we see questions about the positions or well uh I do have some questions

126um around of our communications department. So, if we just had a conversation about um increasing communications, uh why are we taking away from an already small stressed uh department is I have an answer for that. I just don't want to I can talk to you about that afterwards. I don't the employee. We know who that employee is and I don't I don't want to I I just I don't want to do that. No, no, no. I'm not asking about the the employee. I'm just saying why are we reducing communications then? Well, the department I'm not talking about the employee. Everybody know who it is. We only have a few of them. So, uh it's it's more about the position. If if if I mean it's more about the department. If if the goal is to

127um expand, you heard a number of board members say we could do a lot of in-house. there's a lot of things um we can do in partnership at no cost with other um folks and influencers. So after the director came up and spoke and said we can always use more help. Why would you take away help? Because I I would rather just I would rather Okay. Okay. Yes. Okay. So it's a person issue and not a a department issue. It's a combination of both. Okay. Okay. Okay. Were you wanting to yield at this point or were you wanting to move forward and wait? It would be nice if we can. Okay. All right. I'll circle back. All right. The next one, the next category was the uh non-traditional personnel reductions. And so, um, go to

128the next one, Jack. This is where I talked about um the adult ed student services that we just found out about. And so there were some additional um positions that were added here to get up to that $1.5 million mark. Um and I'll stop here to see if there's questions about any of these particular positions before I go on to the programs and operational costs with the adult ed programs. Those are are are are these positions the ones that are 100% funded by by the district because adult education it that that is a reimburseable right by the state. So yes ran by the state. Two of the people we put there as reassignments and then the third individual is fully paid by us but that person provides services in the in the jail. Okay. All

129right. I don't think there's much to elaborate on the programs and partnerships. You just see the amounts there um that their contracts will be reduced by. And then the operational costs I've already kind of talked about already, but you see it there. The the next slide I do want to spend a little bit of time on. I've got one question about this slide. Which one? Uh how are you going to get that $350,000 after school and athletic transportation cuts? I'll defer to Kelsey to that. It may be actually more than that. So when we went through the DCG windown getting away from the state money, this was one of the things we actually looked at. So we provide transportation for after school practices. A lot of districts don't. So that amount has grown from about

130700,000 to almost when I last pulled it last month about 1.4 million. But transportation cost is up there. So when we're looking at scheduling buses, uh you may have five buses show up there for a couple practices where you only need two. So getting with the contractor, getting with the coaches, and making sure that schedule is tight as possible. I think 350 is the minimum. I think it'll probably be a little bit more than that. At one time, we talked about eliminating it, but we cutting. So we're talking about 50 15 million here. We've cut 52 million out the budget over the past. We had a mand mandatory 42. We end up doing 52. So this is one I think be fairly fairly easy, I think, just based on scheduling. I suspected that was going

131to be what you were going to say. And we're not going to slip up and be back in federal court, are we? No. No. It wasn't required at that point. Well, it might very well be in the future. Yeah. If you have if you have minority kids who who don't get to go to practice because they don't have a bus coming. Yeah. I think we're still going to provide practice I mean buses, but not at the same you don't need five. If you have 100 kids, you don't typically need five. So, yeah. I just have it's a direct followup on that. Uh going back to a conversation some time ago um around buses and practices, athletics and coaches when the coaches are signing off on the buses um when the buses arrive there because they're

132ordered, right? Mhm. Okay. If the coaches are holding the kids past them right past the time of the bus supposed to leave, then um there there needs to be some type of conversation with coaches to telling them that they have to end practice so kids are able to load the bus and so we are not getting charged that 100 or 200 or whatever extra dollars that that we're being charged. Um and then the other thing was um and and this all could be outdated information from um three or more years ago, but um the other thing was uh there was a complaint about coaches signing off on buses that had no children on it and we were paying for that. And so there have to be a they have to be a accountability and um

133a piece there with coaches to ensure that one they are ending practice on time so kids are able to load the bus and the bus driver can pull off and the bus driver is not standing there talking to the coach helping to leave late. And then the other thing is um if if if if there's no kids for that bus, don't sign that um slip for payment um because then we are on the hook for an empty bus driving off. And so like we have some ownership and we not meaning the board but but the staff and the coaches have have ownership in in doing their due diligence um to help um us all. was all things we talked to the after records along with it. Uh Dr. Lauren and I as well. So if

134you order a bus, you have to pay for it. No different than me ordering a pizza. I decide I'm not hungry anymore. They deliver the pizza. I have to pay for it at that point. No different cuz they have to pay the drivers to come out. But those are some I mean those will be easy parts. So yeah. And let me ask you one more thing about athletics while we're on here. The a starting to write a question. What is the purpose of the district ad? and then right if we're going to have these ads on campus because then essentially what happened when that happened back a few several years ago when they start putting these ads on campus it it takes away the job of the district ad AD so and then on top

135of that the district ad doesn't evaluate these campus ads so why do we have campus level ads and paying all of this money for these coordinator leaders or whatever we are going to call them. Now, I'll just do a scenario. So, I'm the CFO of the district, but we have bookkeepers in every school. We have 40 schools. I can't be in 40 different places. So, on a school campus, if you just look at one of the high schools, you may have 10 different events. You have a lot of different activities going on. So, the AP is not a full-time AD is usually AP half the time and AD the other part. So, on the other part, you have to get refs. You have to I mean get fields ready. it's a lot of other administrative

136part that they won't be doing. So that happens in the central office part. So or whatever it may be, professional development and getting those things like the buses and making sure coaches aren't ordering five buses when they only need two and things like that. So it's a little give and take. I know we going through re reorganization of athletic department as well, but that's the kind of scenario I look at. So sometime central office I can do a lot here, but I'm not actually out in the building. So hopefully the support that they're getting is going to be a higher level as well to help with some of the things we're talking about and what you're talking about. So but but like you you weren't the AD. I'm talking about the AD. Oh no, I'm

137just I'm using my my child as examples. So I have bookkeepers because the AD just do AD. Yeah. Bookkeepers. The principles typically do. Yeah. I don't Y I help with the hiring process and training. Mhm. All right. You can go to the next slide. I do want to spend a little bit of time here and if you will um if you can if you're able to look at slide 12 and slide 13 at the same time like I just took mine out so I can keep them side by side because it would be helpful um as we're referencing back and forth. So the first thing I want to do is to focus on the first four positions in that reimagining uh position box. as uh the coordinator of culture, climate, secretary for the department of

138the culture and climate and well-being, the coordinator of MTSS, and the lead social worker. Those four positions and then if you refer to slide 13, um Jack, I'm going to ask you to toggle back and forth between these two. So these four reimagined positions are all included in the proposed department of culture, climate, and well-being. The purpose of the culture, climate, and well-being department that I'm proposing is to focus on all of the stuff you see here. uh staff and student culture and climate issues, MTSS and social emotional learning, both academic and behavioral discipline, um our code of conduct, counseling, mental health and behavioral supports, truency and attendance. Currently in our stand uh multi multi-ter systems of support. Okay, thank you. I was getting ready to say something else, but that's correct. Uh currently in

139our district, we don't have people who are giving attention to all the stuff that I just listed under the focus category. We have some, but those some people are spread out across different departments. They report to different people. There isn't a cohesive department or unit um that works together to give attention to all of these things. And what that means is, and I almost want to ask Melissa to come up here to say it in a nicer way. Um, so we talk a lot about having systems for intervention in schools, having processes in place to help kids who are having academic and social emotional problems. But the truth is it it varies campus by campus by campus. Um, we don't even have yet a district-wide system of supports or guidance or or assistance that we

140provide or model that we um provide to our schools and say this is the way that it needs to be done. We talk a lot about having restorative practices. It's really a lot of talk. It is not stuff that is actually ingrained um or systematized in terms of how we operate. So, I'm proposing that we have this new department to give attention to all of these things. This year, we hired our first MTSS um and SEO coordinator. She's one person and she has helped a great deal to kind of um help identify some system things that we need to put in place, but there's a whole lot more work that needs to be done. All right. So, the department will be staffed by these positions here. And the reason why I'm methodically going over this

141because I want you guys to understand where these increased um positions and costs are going to and what they're supposed to be doing. And so the director is we're eliminating we currently have a coordinator of staff wellness and culture. So if you look at line oh my eyes are bad. I think that's 85. What I am proposing is to do away with our current coordinator of staff wellness and culture position and create a director position which in essence is an increase of about $13,000. So that's the cost for the director position for the lead coordinate a lead coordinator for MTSS. That is a position that we already have. So that is not a increased cost. But what we're going to do differently because I am proposing to add a second one. If we are able

142to have a second one, this one person will support elementary schools in networks two and three and then we'll provide technical assistance to our high schools in network one because we will only have four high schools in network one. The bulk of our schools will be in networks two and three. If you look at line 87, I believe the coordinative MTSS that is on slide 12, this is a new position. And if you look at slide 13 up here, um you will see the new new lead coordinator for MTSSCO. This is a new position that I am proposing and it will do the same as the position above, but we have more to do because I'll explain why in a later a little bit later. But this person will support our middle schools in networks

143two and three. All right, everybody with me thus far? So, the next one, the coordinator of behavior supports, the lead social worker, which I believe is line 68. What I'm proposing to do is to make our lead social worker move this person to a 12-month position, which would be an increase of about $12,000, and she will be the coordinator of behavior supports. Um they will be responsible for securing, coordinating, and managing all of the mental and behavioral health partnerships that we have in the district, which provide two two tier two and three services throughout the district. And um we'll be able to supervise and coordinate and train all of our social workers um and social work interns that we have. Because she is a licensed clinical social worker, we are able to have and I

144forgot the number. I didn't even know we had this many, but I want to say it's between like 20 and 25 social work interns that are working in various places to our district and they're able to get their hours and become eventually become certified because she is able to provide the supervision and all that stuff for for them. Uh the counseling coordinator is an existing position, so that's nothing new. The truency assistant is a person that I didn't even know we had until I ran into her at the AL couple months ago and had a conversation and realized, well, I didn't know that you were even here. Um, but what I'm proposing to do, and you will notice that for the secretary position that you see on line 12, I am no longer asking for

145a new not line 12, that's line 80 something, 86. I'm no longer asking to add a new position for a secretary. Uh our truency assistant um will have dual roles and will be the truency assistant and the secretary. And that will cost us um 12 to $15,000 versus the $65,000 secretary position. And then the attendance person is a person that we already have. So these are the staff roles and positions that will make up the department of culture, climate, and well-being. And those are the first four positions that will be part of this department on the reimagine positions. Is that clear? Okay. The next one is the coordinator for student registration which is line 89. Um go back to slide 12. 12. So, the coordinator for student registration, you know, 12 uh the student registration

146office, you will notice that there were a couple of positions that were being eliminated from the student registration office and um we haven't gotten to them yet, but the student registration office will have new leadership um versus the person who is supervising it right now. And so one of the things that I am wanting to do, there is a long-term longtime employee who used to work in the student registration office. She now runs care. Um but I want to bring her back to the student registration office in a supervisory role for for um institutional knowledge and and and other purposes because she is a well-known hard worker has a lot of knowledge and was um a very intricate intricate part of our student registration office. And so that increase their increase that you see there

147will be moving her to a 12-month position since our student registration folks work a 12-month contract because they work all year round. Um so that's where that increase is being asked for. The next one um the multilingual support positions. If you can toggle over to slide 14. So this is part of the network enhancements um that was listed in the priorities before. Right now we have a director of ESOL and two network partners. And what has happened this year is because there are so many compliance and programmatic um needs at running an SE I'm sorry the our English as a second language program. There's a lot of grants and things involved. And so what has happened this year is our two network people who were supposed to be providing direct support to schools and to

148students ended up spending a lot of time doing uh compliance programmic needs at the district level. And so what I'm proposing because we know that we have a growing ESL population. Although we have done some great things supporting our K to8 um English language learners, we have so much ground to make up in terms of um our high school elves, especially our newcomers. And so what I am proposing is to add, we currently have two. I'm asking for three. one who will work at the district level with our coordinator and these are teacher positions and then the other two that we currently have um will be able to spend and dedicate um their time at the network and at the school level. And so that's where those three it's one new position and the two

149existing positions that we have we're moving them to an 11 month and let me just clear this up right now. Right now in our network structure we have some people working 10.5 some people work 11. Um and so we are moving to put everybody on the same contract uh 11-month contract so that we won't have um issues with some people doing 10.5 and 10 people doing some people doing 11. So that's why you see uh some of the changes here in terms of moving folks to 11 months and then well that's the case for the next one the instructional technology that's just getting them to 11 months to be aligned with everybody else. And then the last one, um, and I'm sure she won't mind me saying this is Miss Varela, who not only serves

150as our parent resolution specialist. She is also our district interpreter, she is our Spanish liaison, every event, everything that we have. We use her for any and everything, seven days a week. Um, and so, um, this is just, uh, to increase her from 10.5 to 12 months because we're ended up paying her additional work for all of the stuff she currently does. And so, I'm just trying to, uh, make her 12 months to satisfy all the work that she currently does. So, those are all of the additions that I am proposing and asking the board to approve. And I will stop there for questions. Question. Miss. No, I do have questions. Um, because we are creating a a new position, a new department for things that the principal should be doing with their culture and

151climate of their building cuz again um we already have a cultural person right now. Um, you know, uh, we haven't got any reports on exactly what have that been, how how successful has it been. And I know I've heard from campuses and received questions about that. Um, but if we are in a budget crisis and we are cutting positions, we're cutting programming that have um that have impact to campus um life and and and student experience. Why are we creating these positions that are able to be things that are able to be done at the campus level, culture and climate? That's a campus thing. Um, so can you help me like I got like four questions and I can always get in the queue, but can you help me understand that? I sure can. So,

152I'm going to go right back to the budget priorities that I talked about at the beginning. Yes, those things Yes, those things happen at the campus level, but you cannot expect principles to be able to address and do all of that without having folks who know how to do this work um to be there to support them, to support their teachers, to help develop the systems. And I'm not trying to be funny or anything, but we don't have any of these things systematized in our district at all. And so while we are really working with our principles, especially the last couple of years on trying to help our principles and our um ILTs and our assistant principles to become instructional leaders, that is a big part of their job. We cannot expect them to be

153able to learn how to be effective in instructional leaders and learn how to develop culture and climate in terms of MTSS systems, PBIS systems, learning how to do all of that stuff without having people to help support and to train and to coach them to do it. If if if that was something that they were able to do on their own, then we would have already been light years ahead of where we are as a district. Secondly, the person that we have, we have one person and her job is focused on adults. She doesn't have anything to do with culture and climate in schools in terms of students. She was the coordinator of adult culture. Um, and if you don't know what she does, I don't know how I can help you to understand that

154maybe a board person I we can we can definitely I don't know. But go ahead. Well, you cannot expect one person the impact of one person to be felt in one year across a whole entire district. So, what she has been doing is focusing her work on district leaders um and even school leaders. Um but again, that is one person. In order for us to have the systems that we need around these particular things, we have to have a team of people who are responsible for the work. And right now in our school district, we don't have people who are responsible for this particular work. And this is and this work, as we already know, it it is extremely important and significant to us continuing to be able to move forward as a district. Okay,

155I got that part. But as a as a principal, if if a principal cannot establish culture and climate in their building, which is the main reason on why people leave, behavior problems is the direct reflection of a principle. um uh those type of things, a sense of belonging, all of those things fall into the realm of the principal. That is why the principal is is there. Um is it because of the district having a number of of of of novice um principles? um because there there have been an exodus of the more seasoned mature um uh principles and educators exited from the district. So, is is is there a reason on why principles today don't it's is not expected because that's what I heard um and correct me if I'm wrong uh is not expected

156to um create culture and climate and systems within their buildings. So, is it more like a plug and play to where um it's kind of like Legos and you're just kind of putting it uh together? I'm I'm I'm just trying to figure out because everything you said um to me falls on a principle to create in their buildings. You are really explaining why these things are necessary. I mean you are exactly right. That is the one of the many task and roles of of a principal. So why do we hire them if they couldn't if they can't do that? The same can be said about classroom teachers. We expect classroom teachers to be able to do to be experts at their content to be experts at pedigogy. And we already know that we have teachers

157who come from from non-traditional non-educational backgrounds. We already know that from a student perspective. We have a a a large number of students in our district who come with many different challenges. And so you can't expect one person to be able to meet every single need of a student just like we can't expect a principal to be able to be masters and effective at everything that a principal is supposed to do without support. And if we don't have the people and the experts in our district to be able to provide them the expert coaching and support to be able to be good at all the things that they're supposed to be, then we will never get anywhere. Like nobody is there is even myself like as a Okay, I'm not trying to get down into

158that. I I just wanted to say on like the the these questions cuz it's not about about you. I I do want Can I circle back around to you there? Does anybody else have a question? I didn't see anybody. I don't know. Let's check. Well, anybody I mean I just want to be fair, right? Well, actually, you're not because no one raised their hand and so like you are elicit. You're soliciting questions. Well, so this is the thing. I have to just just one second, dear. I have to look this way and this way. So, I just want to be fair. That's all. That's it. That's it. It's not. I'm I'm I'm fine. I'm not I'm I'm just I'm just trying to get clarity. So, I just want to make sure we're good. Yes. Good.

159I was just trying to get clarity cuz it is a budget meeting and I'm not good. You know, and the thing about this is with this budget deal is that we have never had a budget meeting where it was only just the budget that we were talking about. This board have never been trained on budget. And so Little Rock and Beyond is entrusting people to make million-dollar cuts, impacting people's lives. We cater to one side more than the other side. And we haven't been trained. Uh I well I I mean I'm I'm currently in a national cohort and we went over budget cuts and we've been over the budget and from what I've learned um over the last couple years is that we haven't followed those normal processes that I that that I've been learning

160about. So just curious um and which is why I'm asking questions because we're cutting positions and then we're going to give um create a new department and then we're going to turn around and give the executive seuite hold on I'm still talking the the the executive seuite raises but yet for the campus folks that are going to absorb more work and do more things and be asked to uh work for free essentially they are not going to get any more time. So, I'm just trying to make sure that I have a clear understanding on what the superintendent is proposing because we don't have a uh financial strategic plan to even be able to say, and we just heard the superintendent say, not even sure if those $16 million cuts was actually true savings because there

161was no way to quantify that, which is disturbing. since we made cuts, we have exited a lot of people, particularly more more of the seasoned um people. Um and so I'm just trying to make sure that I'm that I'm having a better understanding on how we are cutting and adding new new positions and then turning around and giving associate superintendent and and everybody at the seauite more money for observing more duties. But we're not going to do that throughout. So, I'm just trying to just figure all this out. That's all I'm trying to dire. I believe the superintendent uh described earlier the his astonishment at the lack of detailed budget planning that reaches all the way down into the school level and all the way back up into the administration level. Is that a good

162characterization of what you said earlier? Exactly what I said. All right. We are not well I'm going to characterize the way I want to. Mr. Bailey can say I'm wrong. We're in a budget freefall. We're in a disastrous position with our student numbers falling the way they are. And that's going to require not just budget cuts, but it's going to require us to change the whole way we think about budgeting. And that's got to happen sooner rather than later. And that may be what you're talking about with having a a board meeting devoted expressly to the budget, but that would also could also be uh attached to the superintendent's idea of having a thorough budget building process. And so we're not looking at something we can do tomorrow or next week. We're looking at something

163we have to ease our way into even though we need to hurry. Uh it's a Zen Buddhist thing. To hurry is to go slow and to go slow is to be careful. And those are what that's what we need to do. Go fast by going slow and being careful. Um I don't like the idea of the raises for the upper level superintendent assistants associates either. And we'll probably vote against if I get a chance to in a little bit primarily because uh despite what we said or what Mr. uh Mr. Bailey said earlier, salaries are essential. They won't teach if they don't get paid. So yeah, they get their steps, but that doesn't keep up with inflation some years. And and in that when inflation don't keep up with inflation, we're cutting their salaries and

164that's no good. All that all of one piece if I'm understanding your questions and what the superintendent has said. I'm not saying you don't get to ask those questions because you do. You certainly do. I'm just saying that the answers are less clear than I think you want them to be. you're not going to get a a good ABC answer because it's more like well sort of A pretty sure B and C's really questionable. We don't see these things yet because we don't have the money. That's not what I'm saying. Let's try and keep it general. Let's try this. This is Listen, this school boards I mean people really do this is the job of the school board and people don't understand the role of the school board. Don't understand the authority of the school

165board. don't understand how to engage the school board. We literally are impacting children lives um in our district from 6 weeks until 93 whenever they decide to go home. And so we know everybody past 18 years old is to um educate and and uh provide a resource to to those 6 weeks to 18 years old or up to 21 if they are in the district that long. And this fiduciary responsibility that we have, it is beyond just approving a budget. It is looking down into it. And we do not do that like other districts do within the state and then across this country. And furthermore, I you know, the the request to have budget hearings, I mean, or yeah, they could be considered a hearing. budget hearings, meetings, workshops have have have to happen for

166years. We have not done that. And as a person, if I was on the other side of this and then I'm having contracts extended to me and now it's saying, "Oh, it is by mistake because we have a new supervisor and that supervisor doesn't want that. Um, so we're asking you to resend that." I would have a problem with that. I will have a problem with people making million-dollar cuts that have not been trained on how to properly look at it except for just just to approve it. And then um people become a little antsy or or just um people become irritated about questions being asked. Not irritating. No, I'm not talking about you. I'm just saying in general because this is what this is because we have not had a roundt the discussion about

167it. I'm not and and for no means at all people know people who know me know that I am you know I'm committed to what I'm committed to and then I'm not even upset. I'm I'm just saying that there is a process and if I was on the other end, I would have thoughts about just a having a group of people to be asked to approve something that um we haven't really had time to dive down into it and put it together and take it apart and and have a a financial um strategic plan on. And so this is not something new that have been asked for. This had been asked for for years because we are have known for a few school years now that like we're going to have to make budget cuts.

168Part we could blame learns now moving forward, but in part it was because of spending and how things was created and how we wasn't monitoring certain things. And so um I'm I'm I'm just trying to get and wrap my head around it as someone who's going to have to vote for it. That's what I'm saying. Okay. So let's go ahead and move forward then. Um, and initially I was just saying if we can just make general comments, we don't want to speak to each other as it's a business. Well, there's no problem with us speaking to each other. I'm just going to say that. I'm not I'm not going to I'm just going to say that when I have the floor, I talk whoever I want to. That's the rules. I'm just going to say

169that. Can you go forward? Slide 15. All right. So, for slides 15 through 22, um you can go to the next one. Instead of me going school by school by school by school about what the impact of uh the person reductions at each school, I just want to make a few general comments and then I I'll stop um if the board has questions about any particular school because I'm not going to go through all of these slides. The point that I want to make sure that everyone understands that when it comes to school personnel, reductions are made were made reduction decisions or recommendations were made solely on our staffing formulas. So the staffing formulas that the board voted on back in January was applied equally to all schools. It's also based upon enrollment projections. And

170so we go through a process of trying to determine what the enrollment for a school is going to be in the upcoming school year. And we try to staff our schools just based on the projected enrollment. And then for secondary schools, it goes a little deeper because we make staffing decisions based upon um the course needs based upon the master schedule. Now for our secondary schools, this is not a process that we have adhered [Music] to. I don't know how long we haven't adhered to it, but I can just generally say for a while. And some of that you can see by some of the um reduction amounts that you see uh on some of the some of the on the screen. These are not arbitrary cuts. like we just don't go to a school

171and say, "Hey, we're going to cut this many staff just because we are trying to reach a goal." These reductions are based again off of the staffing formulas that the board approved that we apply equally to all schools and enrollment projections and course needs. As enrollment changes and as course needs changes, so will the staff. I made this comment earlier that these numbers are not static. They are not permanent. Even if the board approves the budget framework today, it does not mean that these won't change. As our enrollment changes, staffing will change. I just want to make sure that is understood and known by everybody. These are not like permanent done deals. That's our best guess. Yes. Um and again, I'm not going to go through every single school. I will stop and see if

172there is a particular concern or question about any any one school that I may or may not be able to answer with Martin Luther King. Is I know that's a priority school, but the $12,000 is that a position or is that programming that is being added to that school? These are all these are personnel budgets. So it's not including Oh, it's all personel. Yeah, it's all personal. I don't know how that 12,000 came to be, but that's it's all personnel. This is all personnel. And and so it's so it's adding a position or something or whatever it is. And then with Bale Elementary, um, it is a reduction. It look like 36,000. So is that either stipens or like a par or something? Okay. I think um I think some of those clerk positions when

173you look at those average salaries are 36,000. So it could be most of those are some of those could be media clerks too. Okay, that's salary and and uh benefits. Benefits. This means benefits. Yes. Dr. I would just love to um thank you for your comments, I guess, about the about this not being permanent. But one of the things I would love is if we could look back at this maybe a little more regularly in the next few months as maybe every every full board meeting or every work session that we have over the next couple of months before the end of the fiscal year if we could take a look at this again. I think that would make me feel comfortable and help keep our community updated on where enrollment numbers are, what our

174budget and staffing are looking like and if there are any changes to that. So perhaps we could just make a spreadsheet and um note any changes in that each month. Would that be doable? Of course. Thank you, Dr. Wright. U for Stevens Elementary, it's $180,000 in in uh salaries that's being added. What is that $180,000 being added um to Stevens? I would imagine because Steven's enrollment um is pretty healthy. It's not decreasing. And so with our party schools, remember they had lower class sizes. So in some of our party schools, we ended up adding more positions. Um so I know it's a combination of probably reduced class sizes and we're keeping um the um the thing that I can't no day treatment. the day treatment program for remember we talked about doing some innovative things

175in the old Carver building but when we that budget was going to be way too much so we are keeping um the day treatment program at Stevens um and I think we're looking to even bring some more kids into that particular program and so that's probably where those that those extra expenses between more teachers for reduced class sizes and the additional staff for the day treatment program is probably contributing to that amount. Okay. And then um at the end of the first semester or actually we don't even have to wait till the end of the first semester um October one date are we able to then uh get a report of uh schools that are under utilized um so we can be aware of those schools. Yep. And our plan is if because if schools

176enrollment um comes in significant significantly less in the fall than what we projected, then we're going to have to make some adjustments to staffing in the fall. Um you know, we we won't be able to um allow folks to stay in schools if they're anyway, you know what I'm trying to say. So are are you saying that we'll you're you are anticipating or will entertain the thought of cutting folks contracts? Not necessarily cutting folks contracts, but that could be I mean if we're in a case where our enrollment actually comes in, you know, significantly less than what it is, then we would have to. But like what we did this year, we had some cases where schools enrollment was more than what we projected and in some cases it was less. And so we actually

177move teachers from some buildings to other buildings to accommodate. Um, that's mostly what I'm talking about. I don't I don't I hope we don't get to a point to where um we have to make those types of reductions, but I'm talking about right sizing um schools whose projections uh whose extra enrollment was more than what we projected and and having to move people around. Mhm. And Okay. So, like student enrollment cuz that plays a huge part in this. Um and why are we rearranging student enrollment again? Because before there were there were issues and over the last few school years it have gotten uh better. So why are why is there a restructuring of um of just student services and and like kind of parsing it out in general? Uh the biggest piece is the

178person who used to supervise all of these things will no longer be here. And so instead of hiring another person, um, a lot of his responsibilities were divided and divvied out amongst other people who were already here. Oh, so he's leaving. Mhm. Okay. He's retiring or something. I didn't know that. So with his Go ahead. So with this um um job duties being spreaded out um are these individuals going to actually be doing the work or they will kind of put their own little group together or how is that going to play if can you clarif okay if you if that person leaves and you say I'm over student registration but I have no experience of doing that. But you have a group of people that are sitting there now. So what I'm saying is

179that person that's going to be over student registration, is that person going to be over it or they actually going to be doing the work? The transition will it be because is there a transition there? Yeah. Yes. We're we're we're in the midst of transition planning now. Like there's transitioning happening now. Okay. Do they have to be trained on the new job functions that they're inheriting is what I'm asking. So what I'm saying is it going to slow down the process? No, it's not going to slow down the process at all. Some of the training in terms of learning like the school meant the new piece that we have a lot of this stuff is already happening now. Okay. So nothing will slow down at all. We actually um are looking to enhance um No,

180and I'll use this as an example. I can't and it's I almost don't want to speak to this because I don't know the ins and outs of all of the rules but it's very complicated of how we do um of how we of how we do u student assignment. Um I know cuz I've been dealing I've been speaking to Miss Register a lot for the last couple weeks before we started getting all these emails um around some specific issues um she was having um with trying to get enrollment numbers up. And so and and I even hate to speak to this because I don't even know all there's a period sometimes where you know if you want to transfer if you live outside of a zone TNT there's a time that you have to do

181that and if you don't do it by a certain time you can't but and it's all legal but we also have open slots available in schools. So if we have open slots available in the schools and we've got people who want those particular slots, like we just need to take a look at some of our practices to make sure that we are not shooting ourselves in the foot in terms of our enrollment by restricting people from being able to access schools that they want to attend when they're actually seats. And again, I am speaking without knowing all of the ins and outs. Uh I'm just speaking about some of the things that I've heard recently. Well, not even just recently, just just just some challenges and things that people have experienced. And so, especially now

182that we're in this age of school choice, um you know, people can go wherever they want to go. And as a district, I don't think whatever policies and practices we should in place. We shouldn't have policies or practices that restrict people from attending a school that they want to attend if they have seats. And I'll give you an example. Now this I do understand but I also think that we we got to look at this as well. So let's just say I'll use I think the class size in first grade is 25. So after we go through the lottery and all that stuff, we do enrollment projections and we say school A is projected to have 52 kids in first grade. What we will do is say since you're two over the class limit, we

183want and you have space for third first grade, we want we we're just going to close this off. we're not going to you're just going to have two first grades and that's it. But yet you may have somebody who wants to come to that school but you tell them that there's no space where technically there is space but we just in order to keep it at that particular class size we just say that there's no space and we send people to other places. Mhm. I just want to take a deeper look at that. Um and it may change it may change. I just want to take a deeper look at that to make sure that we aren't shooting ourselves in the foot by not allowing people to attend where they want to attend if they

184have space just because we're trying to stay within a certain number and not and I do understand the budgeting aspect of that too because if you get if you get 50 if you get 58 kids and no more you have to add another teacher for just a few kids and then you know you it's it's not cost beneficial as well. So there's all different types of factors that we need to look at. I'm just saying I just want to take a deeper look at those practices to make sure we don't want to find out we're turning away 15 kids at a school when that would have made a classroom that could have Oh, that's fine. I just didn't want to have a negative impact on the children. I just wanted the flow to keep going

185as far as their learning. But sometimes you can make changes and if you kind of throw them back a little bit. So I was just concerned about the students. I know and I know Dr. Wright when we've kind of talked about this too. I think the equity piece of this is really important and we don't want to take away from any school if students are I mean the school choice world is what we live in right now but as we think about kids moving from one school to another within our district I think we do want to think about the impact of that and um and what that looks like and I just think it needs to be something we keep our eyes on as we do this but I do think this is is

186good to look at when we have a school is you know that students want to go to and for whatever reason it's not completely full. I think it it makes a lot of sense to see if we can fill that school and um just as long as we keep an eye on how that's affecting the district as a whole. And then we also have zones and things to pay attention to. So, we don't want to make sure that we're adding costs to a school that then we have to take away something from the other schools to supplement um that uh school. I have one last question on this. Um, the technology coordinator. I don't I'm I'm paraphrasing it cuz I don't know exactly what it was, but what are they coordinating? Technology. Well, technology is

187so broad. I mean, your cell phone is technology. So, in networks one, you know, we have the virtual academy. We have all of these um um educational platforms that we use that require um rostering all different types of things. So all of the instructional technology needs that schools in a particular network have. I mean it's it's it's a whole bunch of things. Director B. Yeah. Just just out of curiosity, I was just wondering uh is there a reason why Gar Springs Early Childhood was left off? Oh, the early childhoods aren't aren't on there. They're they're funded totally different. Yeah. The moon. Yep. I guess we can go on to We're almost done. 23. All right. All right. We're almost to the end. So, the last two things that I I wanted to spend a little

188bit of time on were the things in blue. We've already seen these major and secondary parties, but I want to talk a little bit about these last two things. And I think the f uh downsizing executive staff and then refining enhancing network support structures to give you uh an ideal about what the network changes will be. Go to the next slide. So the first thing was just showing uh the changes in executive staff positions from uh 22 to the current year. And just again just to highlight the fact that um we are as we are decreasing and reducing staff across the district we also are um decreasing the number of executive staff and go to the next slide. And then here awful color um I will never use this blue again. Um but here I

189just wanted to show the changes in executive staff duties for the upcoming school year. Uh you can't see it there but you can see it behind you. Um, so for example, and I'm not reading all of this, I'm just going to really focus in on the changes for FY26. So Mr. Bailey will be keep will be picking up two additional uh departments, health services and care. Uh, Melissa Goody, who is doing the job of multiple people um is uh picking up early childhood and special education. And then the network changes that we'll get into on the next couple of side slides. You will see uh the changes in our network structure to make it simple and easy. Um we are moving all of our middle schools and K8s to networks two and three. So our

190networks two and three will be K8 networks instead of just elementary networks like they were before. Dr. Cooper will have all of our priority um elementary, middle, and K8 schools. Dr. Bratshaw will have a non-priority K8 schools. And then Dr. Lauren you can see will continue to supervise our high schools along with AL ACC adult ed dropout prevention hearing office CTE and student registration. So those are the biggest changes. If you go to the next slide and again I want to be uh very clear that um you know this is a proposal that I'm making. It is up to the board to uh vote yes or no. But everybody in our district um gets step raises every single year except for those folks who are already maxed out at step 20. I believe step 20

191is the highest. Is it 20? Yeah. So with the exception of our employees who are already at step 20, every single employee in our district gets a step raise every single year. Everybody does except me. Um what I am asking is that uh those four staff members who are taking on significant duties, I'm asking that they get an additional step. Um and if that's not honored and the board doesn't approve that, that's fine. I just at least wanted to ask because I believe that these individuals, and this is not uh to say that nobody else um or folks who working at the school level aren't working hard and aren't doing multiple things um because we know that is not not true. Um, I also believe that these individuals are the primary drivers behind a lot

192of the uh system changes that we are trying to make as a district. Um, and just as a ma matter of good faith that everybody gets step increases every single year and they're taking on additional duties and we pay everybody in this district for taking on extra duties for every little thing. Um, so I just asked if they could uh get an additional step and again if it's not honored that's fine. Just move on. Next slide. Oh, I hate this boo. This is just a visual uh depiction of um the changes in network one. Um again, Dr. Lauren will uh be responsible for high school transformation and post-secondary readiness. So everything associated with uh post-secary readiness as being pretty much aligned up under up under her. And you can see how all those different things

193um fit there. I had that slide of the 2024 Atlas um results um and pointing specifically to math and we are going to have and I didn't talk a lot about this but we are going to have an increase focused on math and one of the enhancements as you will see in our high school structure is that we don't have Southwest I believe was the only school who had instructional lead teachers who work directly with teachers who are teaching the content um that our students are test on to make sure that um the instruction is aligned to the standards and all that stuff blah blah blah blah. So now with this new enhancement, all of our high schools will have IoT support um um so that we can do something about uh these math scores.

194And again, I think we all know this although these math scores are happening with students in high schools, this is not a high school problem. This problem starts in kindergarten. Um but again, we know that we we need to have better outcomes in terms of what we're seeing at our high schools. You can go to the next slides. And then this one is showing networks two and three. Um you see the shared staff um that will be shared between these particular networks. Um I think it's a lot here to unpack. I think one of the well one of the enhancements and changes is we are also going to have an increased focus on middle schools. Um middle schools has been a problem area for a while. um and most of our middle schools um we're

195definitely not happy with their current grade. Um and so Dr. Maurice Guest who was a very successful um secondary principal um at EastM will be given direct support um to our middle schools to kind of help improve um instructional leadership in those particular areas. And that is I think go to the next slide. I believe that's the last one. That is it in slow go back I will be asking yeah all right so uh again just to recap these are the things that I am asking the board to approve um the budget reduction framework summary and we already talked about the different variances in terms of you know we had discussions around the major and secondary budget parties and I've gotten some feedback uh from some additional things that folks have said and then the

196requested step adjustments. Okay, go ahead. I'd like to make a motion uh that is just for one piece of this that reflects one of the comments I made earlier. Um, I I'd like to move that the LRSD Board of Education approve the budget reduction framework summary with the caveat that we will review monthly enrollment projections um and actual enrollment at um the schools that are facing cuts to see to ensure that we are staffing those appropriately and adjust as needed. I'm on 7.5 the first one. Um, and you feel we need to add that caveat despite it saying on every page of the super presentation that those numbers are not static, that they're going to be changing. I would like I assume you do. I would like to have that in there. Yes. I think

197it it puts some some I put think it puts a little bit of framework around um the way that we will look at this on a regular basis and ensure that we are are being thoughtful and we that we as a budget I know director hatter can you know often brings up you know we need to be involved and I think this will help make sure that we're involved with that and reviewing that on a regular basis. Okay. So let me let me say that we need training on it because this board have never been trained on budget or budget reductions or anything like that. I've been trained on the budget at the at the schoolboard assist. No, I meant for Little Rock School District budget and how you move forward. I manage the large

198budgets and I don't think I need one. Could you state your motion? Um, I move that the LRSD board of education approve the budget reduction framework summary with the caveat that we will review it review enrollment projections and actual enroll enrollment on a monthly basis between now and the start of the 2526 school year. How about that? Do you have that written? No, but I think Steph just got it. You have it? Okay, wonderful. I'll consult you at the time. is necessary. Okay. All right. We have a second. Second. Okay. It's been moved and properly second that the LRSD board of education approved the budget reduction framework summary with a caveat. Review enrollment that we will review enrollment projections and actual enrollment on a monthly basis between now and beginning of the 2025 2026 school

199year. Okay. Any questions? All in favor say I. I. I. Any oppose? No. Okay, we have two nos. Director Rose, director Hatter. One more. Director Bali. Voice not vote. Voice vote shouldn't have names attached to it. Okay. Thank you. Okay. We move forward. All right. May I have the floor? Absolutely. I move the LRSD board of education approve the budget reductions framework the major and secondary budget priorities. I want to approve major and secondary budget priorities. So not the budget reduction. Not the requested reductions. We're breaking it apart as you can see. So are you asking for the raises? Is that that No, no, no. The raises are the requested step adjustments for selected admin staff. I'm not saying that at all. Okay. What do you say? Say that again. Uh, I move the LRSD

200board of education approve the budget reductions contained in the major and secondary budget priorities PowerPoint. Second, primary and secondary priorities. Right. Correct. Okay. It's been moved and properly second that the LRSD board of education approve the budget reduction framework summary contained in the primary and secondary. Oh, you completing two different things. It's just really approved the major and secondary. Okay. But I don't know if that's I want to make sure you add the so I budget reduction framework summary and you're wanting to approve the major and secondary budget priorities. I think that's what I said the second time. Okay. Well, you guys are just adjusting motion. So, let me make sure we have the motion. So, move the LSD board of education approved the Major and secondary budget priorities contained in the primary and secondary.

201No, it's over. All right. Okay. Okay. So, it's been moved and probably seconded that the LRSD uh board of education uh approve the framework summary major and secondary B seconded, but I will Oh, you already did, Dr. Yeah. Okay, cool. We got a second major and secondary budget priorities. Period. Is that correct? Period. Okay. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Okay. I move that the LRSD board of education approve the requested step adjust adjustments for selected admin staff as presented. Second discussion then moved and properly second that the um just the part after this okay the adjustments for additional duties oh requested step adjustments for selected admin staff as so 7.5 was broken up to two motions that's what yeah that's why I didn't vote for it's being broken up I didn't vote

202for the first one yeah or the second pieces okay I didn't vote for any of I will repeat it I move that the LRSC board of education Approve the requested step adjust adjustments for selected admin staff as presented. Second. Okay. It's been moved and properly second that the requested step adjustments. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. That we approve the requested step step adjustments for selected admin staff as presented. All in favor of discussion. Discussion. Okay. Is there any discussion concern? So there's a concern here just from my I'm I'm sureing it's it's this thing is going to pass already. But if we're asking the campus staff to do le to do more work and get less pay or their contracts are being um reduced and they are being stipens taken away because they are doing

203more work and for the superintendent Jamal Wright to say that his staff is doing more work and they deserve more money that is tonedeaf. is disrespectful. It is. It it it just it it just shows that like there is a serious disconnection between the treetops and the people that's actually doing the work. And if I and and and and I would not be surprised, right, if we see more morale dip, we are creating departments that like that we necessarily do not need and and you know, people just need to work their contract and and then not do the extra to where right to where as the superintendent said, um his staff is the ones that are driving the work. Well, then they also might need to come down and do some work at the um

204district at the campus level because you cannot ask these folks to do more work, take less days, have have have their stipen taken away, and saying that we're going to delegate and they're going to absorb their co-workers work that they're losing regardless if some people are telling to to get a contract or not. That is just completely tonedeaf and it and it's disrespectful when you just said we just have people with stipens to take these k take our students to field trips. Well, these folks that are going on field trips are winning national awards. I think that they deserve that. And so I can't be a part of it's just disrespectful and and at some point we got to stop asking them to work for free when when the top um the heavy top of

205our district continues to get paid anywhere from $1,000 a day to $500. Like it just doesn't even make sense a day. Some of our staff doesn't even make that a week. So um for me it is a no vote. Yeah. Uh, can I deter I'm sorry, you have one as well. at some point, you know. Um, and I would appreciate if people do not interrupt me because some people are allowed to to to to speak for the entire meeting and continue to ask 25 questions and and never uh the clarity whatever clarity that was there does not exist at this at this juncture. I did not get that like that. But we're putting that out there in public. Oh yeah, well we're going to just stomp on the poor people and da da da. And

206maybe that is true, but I don't know because what it just by doing all of these things and having like four and five different uh motions on the board and dividing it up and everything. I'm Are y'all sure you know what you're voting for? Cuz I mean really cuz uh after all you got one motion and then you got another motion, you got another motion, you got another motion. I don't know what you voting on really. And so you know when you don't I don't I was never well not really in administration. I have, you know, that's not my that's not my forte. And I'm pretty sure most folks up here, that wasn't your forte as well. Now, what you what what I saw this evening was and uh direct attack on everything that was

207um that that's been put before us. I don't agree with everything I saw. Okay. I did, but I wasn't given a chance to talk. Okay. Really? And except for one time when I spoke out and then they said, "Oh, can't we move on?" But that that's neither here nor there. I don't know what we're trying to get tonight. Okay. We need to have I I heard it said more than one time that we need to have a a uh a a seminar on budget cuz you people are assuming that everybody here nobody here has worked on a budget before and that's a sincere misconception. I don't appreciate it. Now, I want to get a clear understanding what's going on here. I need clarity because when we start having clarity, we come up with something else

208and something else and something else and the conversation is being dominated. Okay. So the first two motions you can you get the first two motions one was that budget reduction framework summary that was presented and essentially that was specific to the budget reduction right and so the second one was the major and secondary FY25 budget priorities. So that that was secondary and uh what was the other major framework? Major and and um secondary uh priorities. And so uh that that framework essentially was being presented to ensure that we have a meeting of the mind specific to what we deem as a priority as it relates to the school district. So that's essentially what the two motions that were on the floor were specific to. I thought there were the third question is the third motion.

209Yeah, we're working on this third. It's a raise. The third question, it's the $17,000 on page 26. So, this third one is the um it's just it's page 26 the raises for that's that's the motion on the floor. Yes. Motion on the floor. $17,000. So, we're coming in questioning on that. And so, they broke up 7.5. I did. Yeah. Well, was I and I worked together to break it up. Yeah. So, so I So, let me just What did you say, Anna? I just uh director so if you look at on your blue sheet in your packet on the motion that's drafted in there I just did the first part before the first comma and then director Rose did the second part for major and secondary budget priorities and then the I just did the

210and I added to the first one with a request for those monthly reports and then now we're talking and then I just made the motion on the step adjustments for selected admin staff which is on page 26 of this document. So essentially the statement was broken up into three parts. I wish it would have just been printed that way because it is confusing and I think you let me absolutely I just wanted to make sure we have clarity and to apologize if we if you have not had an opportunity to speak as you desired to do so. I have another element to add to the clarity. Okay, feel free. When uh Director Strong didn't move the whole thing, I thought great, I don't want us to vote on the it raises with the the priorities.

211So, I split what was left in half. I think that was right. That was that's all I did cuz I didn't want to have to vote against the the secondary and primary uh Yeah. things when I didn't want to vote for the races. And I was just asking for clarity. Okay. Okay. And I'm just trying to make sure we we've got Okay. Because uh because we went somewhere else. We went fast. Yeah. No, somewhere else. Okay. Okay. Other questions? Go ahead. I'm sorry. I cannot vote for these raises. As long as the teachers don't get a raise. As soon as we're ready to give the teachers a step in addition to their step, then I can support this. But as of now, I can't request to remove this. Okay. Okay. So, we So, we had

212everybody So, we have a So, we have a uh one other comment before we move on to the other uh Superintendent has a comment as well. I'm I'm going to um I'm just going to remove asking the board to even vote on this all together and so we don't even I'm just going to remove the request. Uh well, actually, it's on the floor. So, you can't do that. You can ask us all to vote against it. Yeah, I want to vote against it, but you can't take it back. It's on the floor long. Pull it down. I mean, I guess we can't do that. Well, can the board just operate as a board? The motion is on the floor. So, allow the board to do what? So, the motion is on the floor. I think

213what we're discussing is how we like to address the motion. And who made the motion? You made the motion. So, um, it was seconded. So, it was was it was it second? Well, yeah. Uh, so once it was seconded, it belongs to the board. It's the board voter. know I have a question for our participants. I just want to make sure that if we can modify it in some way we can amend it. Yes. So so I'm asking the parliamentarian you can amend it if you want. Uh the the motion's properly seconded. It belongs to the board. It is yours to do with to vote up or down. You have heard from the administration that they withdraw their support from it which may inform your vote. Yeah. Um, so that's that's really the person that

214made the motion can withdraw the motion. Well, he he just did that. No, after seconded, it belongs to the board. Now, now, right, if you just want to favor and do what the superintendent says, just say that and just so we can move on, but let us roll the vote. Okay, let go ahead. Go ahead. It's not so much a It's not so much a withdraw the motion because once it becomes the part of the group. I mean, in some bodies, particularly informal bodies, they will do that. And there are such thing as people call friendly amendments from time to time. Um, you're in a more formal setting right now. You've made the motion in the second, you've heard from the administration that in light of the the discussion that the administration sort of withdraws

215their support, which may inform your vote. Uh, so that's really up to So as it relates to the amendment, just just bold. Okay. Okay. We just we just go forward. We just go forward. We'll go for Mr. B. I I believe Mr. B. Mr. Adams. Mr. Adams. Okay. Okay. Go ahead. Okay. I have one quick comment. Uh uh the reason why I'm voting the way that that I am is because I just believe in fair pay and equitable compensation for all. I believe in that practice. Uh there have been a bunch of concerns raised in particular this week with a lot of personnel changes in particular with uh schools like Jefferson, but also I I know that um that uh administration does deserve a raise, but the teachers, educators, employees, faculty at schools all deserve

216a raise. And that actually impacts enrollment too as well. When teachers aren't happy, they look for other job opportunities, which leads to decline in enrollment because we look at our teachers, our educators, and our faculties as an extra set of hands and parents for our students. And so, um, while I know that administration works hard and deserves a raise, I feel like, you know, everybody deserves a raise in fair compensation for the good work that they do so that we can start down that road to increase enrollment. Thank you, Director Adams. Thank you. I I'm in general, I just want to say thank you to Dr. Wright, Mr. Bailey, and all the people who are involved in all this the budget presentation this evening. I think it it reflects hundreds of hours of time and

217effort to to provide the kind of information that's been done. It's it's a very thoughtful thing by my impression, very strategic thing and uh and it's a moving target and and I appreciate that and I appreciate I've always appreciated the willingness of this administration to listen and adjust and and own things when they need to be mistakes and I think it's it's a real strength of this administration. The reason that I would be in favor of this, I really disagree with the narrative that's been given that we have not done things for other people since I've been on this board for 5 years. When I got on this board, our starting salary for teachers was about $36,000. Exactly. We increased that before the before the state required us to increase it, we increased it to

218nearly $50,000. And as Mr. Bailey mentioned tonight when other districts when we had the learns act come and made a minimum $50,000 some districts did not have a a vigorous salary scale and continue to pay people for more and for their experience. We did and you just heard tonight that we have increased stipens in the past years. We have a brand new salary scale for all employees across the district and we have um increased pay for our athletic coaches. So the the narrative that we have not done anything for other people and they're working for free I think is a false narrative. We have we have worked hard to do better by the people who are working here. And even tonight it was presented as one of our priorities to take a strong look at

219how we pay our security folks. Right. and and we may be coming back to that. So, somebody may not agree that this is the right thing to do at this time, but I think that to base it on the idea that we have done poorly and have not paid attention to the rest of the district, I think is not correct. I think we have worked to to do that. For me, this is a reasonable thing to do. the amount of extra responsibility that we're asking people to take on and the really fairly modest increase that it will be for them seems to be a reasonable and fair thing. If we don't do it, we don't. But it doesn't seem to be uh unfair and I strongly disagree that it's disrespectful because we have been respectful

220to people for the last 5 years and working to improve their pay and situations and and I I think that that should not be lost. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. One of the things that I lost a second ago when I was talking, I wanted to say that I I didn't agree with Miss Hatter's rhetoric, but the ultimate position remained true. I don't think what we've done is disrespectful to anybody. I just think that there's a a fair standard. All those improvements that you listed, the administration also got. Uh, typically for as long as I've known the school district, if the teachers fought through their contract for a 3% raise and it was approved by the board, then the administration turned around and gave the administrators 3% raise, right? That's always worked that way.

221So, so, uh, you know, it's always been tit for tat. It just needs to stay level, stay the same. If the administrators, the the five, six, whatever it was, high level administrators are going to get an extra step. That's not fair. They're not doing they're every teacher in this district does more than she's required to do. She excuse they I was thinking in particular of my wife. So that's why it came out that way. My wife is required to do does more than she's required to do. And I'm sure lots of other wives and husbands do the same and those who are unmarried as well. Okay. Other I have a lot I have another com. Okay. Okay. Um I agree both of you. Uh however uh I I just resented the piece about disrespecting everybody

222because I don't feel that. I don't. and and and having gone through and watched the different steps and the I made $72,000 a year. $7,200 a year. Excuse me. When I came and worked the process all the way through and I've been gone a while, but I've still been watching. I I I I I didn't appreciate the somebody implying that, okay, we don't want to give them x number of dollars. Well, I might not feel the same way either, but we have always given everybody a raise. Now, I am particularly upset, and they didn't want to hear about it about cutting programs. Y'all didn't say nothing about that other than, "Oh, I don't want to hear it." I'm I'm upset about that. And that has nothing to do with the Little Rock School District in

223particular. Or maybe it does. How you gonna take money out of one federal grant and put it somewhere else because oh, I don't think you all need that now. And that's what's done. So, we don't even know if we're going to have enough teachers and different programs to even put all the kids where they need to be. You might be kids sitting kids on top of each other. Now, what they've done is a lot. I hope it works out, but they might end up with kids stacked on top of of kids because teachers have been cut. Okay. And you're asking what what they're asking now is for us to okay this budget as a big as the big picture. I'm I'm for okaying the budget because it's for the greater good, not just one teacher.

224It's going to be for the district. I really hate to cut people because some people might want us to starve to death. You know what I'm saying? But I feel like I have the right to say that if you don't want to hear it. I think you all have done a I think you y'all done a pretty good job about doing these things. I understand everybody's was most people's objection to something, but what we've got to do this evening, people, we've got to do something, but don't criticize because you don't agree with one or two people on this board. Don't be pointing fingers. Don't do that. Only thing you do is go you you you you see division in this district. We don't need that. We need to be as one. You run around talking

225about we we're one. Try to be one once in a while instead of trying to be for yourself. I'm from I am I am more interested in the district having people employed and more more so having my kids educated and I had four that went through this district. Okay. My opinion you don't have to like it. I can care less. Got that? But I had to say it because I got cut off. Okay, director. Yeah, [Music] we're all up here and we're elected um regardless of how we got here, whether it was a a um heavy campaign to get here or non. Um, and just to be clear, I mean, we can disagree on each other's word choice or whatever, but I've heard from people from across the district, and I don't know if if

226if if constituents or and our staff who are one of the same voters and uh staff members contact you guys, but I've heard from them and they felt that it was disrespectful. and it is disrespectful. Um, and so like you could take issue with it. I mean, it it doesn't bother me because um, I'm not here to appease um, any one particular or group of people up here. I am here to contribute to a team obviously. Um, but at the same time, we have to show a level of humanity and compassion. like we are cutting folks salaries and they can't afford their living expenses. And so I think that that is something that uh we do need to be aware of and not be tonedeaf because at the beginning of the year we rewarded bad

227behavior when folks decided to leave when at at this juncture we are now cutting more um positions and then we're giving raises while taking money away. I I I just think that we have to be strategic in it and it's not about likability even though it's easy to get caught up on that and want to approve everything based on how you feel or don't feel about um somebody. So I just wanted to just you know just say that it's it's it's for me it's about the humanity and the whole piece. Okay. Do did you have something? I do have something to say. Um, right now we're just dealing with a situation whether or not we should vote to increase. I think people deserve money and I feel strongly that if you feel like you need

228an increase, you need to bring it to the board. But that's something that we're not dealing with right now. We're dealing with this situation right here. So I don't want people to think that you're not entitled to. If you feel strongly that you're entitled to, you bring it to us. But right now, we're dealing with this. Now, personally, if it was me and I was taking on extra duties, well, yeah, either I want Fridays off or I want whatever you feel like I'm entitled to. So, we have to stay focused on the mission. Yes, teachers, you deserve more money. Yeah, security, you deserve more money. But right now, we're not dealing with that issue, but we will be later. Okay? So, I think that we need to stay focused. And I'm I'm pretty sure everybody

229up here, if you took on extra duties, you want more money. I mean, that's true. I know that for a fact. We all want more money and we know we're not going to say, "No, I don't want that." So, let's just deal with the issue at hand. And when we need to bring the teachers forward or we need to bring security forward, then I think that's when we need to do that. So, don't get it twisted that we're not thinking about you and we feel like you don't deserve and not in we're not we're just dealing with this issue right here, right now. And so I think we need to just move on and whatever happens in the future then we'll deal with that then. Okay. So it's been moved improperly second that we approve

230the requested step adjustment for selected admin staff as presented. All I ask for a roll call so we can know the number. All in favor call the row. Chiefs, not a college. Director Strong, hi. Director Wesley, no. Director Mason, yes. Director Callaway. Director, no. Director Johnson, yes. Director Adams, yes. Director, Director Rose, no. Those extensions count as no votes, of course. I'm sorry. The motion carries. Wow. I don't I don't think it does, but I don't. One, two, abstain. You got a lot of abstain. Four is not enough. I think we only have four, right? Has to be five. Four. Sorry. You need five. Wait. So, so say it again. So, it was two estains, 10 more yeses, three no, right? So, that's five, four against. So it failed. The motion failed. Is that right?

231Let's be on the same page. Okay. The motion fail. But I can change. So we can count the motion. Okay. No, we can't resend the vote. You tell us. An abstension is a no. Okay. So the motion fails. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and move forward. Madam chair. Could could we take a break? Yes, we sure can. We can take one thing left. It's only what is left? Well, the only thing that's left is a really brief thing that specific to Do you guys need a break? If you need a break, yes, ma'am. We can take a break. Let's take a break. Please, let's take a break. And it's not going to be that brief. We talked about it. Yes, we have. But I get to say what I want

232to say in front of people. You didn't get to say what you wanted to say about what the brief has been. Okay. Okay. Okay, we're going to go ahead and get started. Um, returning from our break and we're going to go move forward with uh 9.1 procedures and criteria for grievance appeals to the LRSD board of directors. All right, good evening y'all. Um, so this is uh an You can call me Anna, please. Um, we've had a lot of conversations since January about how and since we looked at a process for the contracting process for this year and and the district brought forth that to us and shared it with us, we've had a lot of conversations about the grievance process as it relates to nonrenewals. And um, if y'all remember, Mr. Heler came to

233the the board and brought um brought forth a long and detailed conversation about the grievances related to non-renewals and what we can and can't do. And following that, I worked really closely with Mr. Heler. He was such a help in in drafting this resolution, which is a non-binding resolution. Uh but the goal of the resolution is to provide some transparency for both us as colleagues um on the board and for our staff in the district regarding the process of of addressing grievances related to non-renewals. U so we pulled in a lot of facts from different places in here in the whereas sections in this um in this revision I mean in this resolution excuse me. Um there are some pieces that s such as the third whereas which is not in current currently in compliance

234with state law under learns um per the letter that director had uh had pulled from the attorney general's office. Um so that is one thing that is is current in our grievance pro in our current grievance policy but is not currently up to state law up to alignment with state law but we still note it because it is our current policy. Um and basically what it does in the end is it says be resolved that the board by the that the board of directors says that if a grievant is coming forward with a res with an appeal or a grievance related to non-renewals that are related to procedural failing failures in the hiring process. So that eight-step process if there's a failure in that somewhere that that could be a reason to bring forth a

235grievance or if there is an allegation of illegal discrimination then the board will hear that grievance. It also says that grievances that are concerning loss of position due to a non-renewal, not so a non-renewal will will be heard if they are filed at the end of the grievance process. So if you lose a position, um you you can file one at the end of the grievance process by or at the end of the renewal process or by June 1st. And then lastly, if your if your appeal and your grievance is solely limited to a change of assignment or placement rather than a loss of position, the board will um not hear that grievance. And so it is really just trying to help employees um and the board have an understanding that we of what grievances

236will come before us because we do have the ability to determine um whether something is grievable. Um and and our grievance process policy currently does not really outline anything related to this. The other reason I'm bringing forth this resolution is because we are working in the policy committee. We are down to the last few. We had a great meeting on Monday of this week and um we are working on the final few policies. One of those is the grievance policy to try to update that to align with that attorney general's letter that director had requested. Um as well as um a few others. But in doing so, we would like to incorporate some of the non-renewal pieces into the grievance policy. And this resolution, if it's passed by the board, might help us indicate um

237a little bit about where we stand as a board on uh what what we want to do related to grievances for non-renewals in the policy revision that we hope to be bringing forth in the June work session. And um that is all I have. I do have with me um our current grievance policy, which is 3.23. I have the resolution and then I have um the attorney general's opinion if anybody has any questions. Um I will say um regarding the the motion that is drafted in our our little blue sheet. Um I don't really want to approve the procedures and criteria for non-renewal grievance appeals because I feel like that's an administrative duty duty that the staff should lead and so I don't really feel the need to approve that document. But that is in

238there as an example of what the the staff might use to um put in place the resolution that we brought forth. Questions? I have director Adams. I'm sorry. I wasn't looking. I me. So I understand Miss Strong that that the procedures part was is something that is not being recommended for us to consider being more administrative. the hearing procedures which is the other document is is that one that we are to be considered because that this one yeah the the one that talks about you know how we do hearings in general I was talking about that other one oh um no no so we're not considering that for tonight was that one also were there three was that a third document in the attachments it's just the resolution isn't it I I was just asking

239for approval really on the resolution itself. Okay. Um, so, so Miss Wesley, I I would ask that that if we're if that's not the intent for tonight that if we might bring that back another time because I thought that those hearing procedures would could be helpful for the board to have a a common make sure I'm think to have a common understanding about how we want to conduct hearings in general, not just grievance hearings, but hearings in general that if we had some common in some ways rules for the road that we all agreed on, said this is the way We want to do hearings. I thought that could be helpful. But if if that's not what we're doing tonight, do that. I I I was not I was not clear on what you were

240talking about. You were talking about the overall hearing procedures which we have reviewed and talked about in here. I am happy to include that as well. Then um I just did not want to include the blue table document because I felt like that was more aligned with staff duties. So if we if we do include the hearing procedures, which I am, which I would support, um I do want to comment to the board that I spoke with Dr. write about one detail in there and I think that there was a change made in those hearing procedures because in the in the hearing procedures it had listed that after um the administration would pres at the end of the of the hearing administration would present their position the other council would present their you know the

241their closing and then the administration would come back for a brief close you know response but since we're talking about grievance hearings where the burden of proof is on the griever, the grievant, then they would go first and and then they should have a chance to have a closing response. And so the language was changed to just say whoever goes first gets a chance to Yeah. to go respond again because it needs to be fair either way. And so I just wanted to make a noted that that was changed in those hearing procedures. Thank you so much. I did not print that part out and bring it with me. Sure. And thank you for all the work on this. I'm I'm in favor of both of these things. Thank you. I have a concern. Yes,

242ma'am. Um because grievance and renewal are interchangeable and so I get kind of confused because I was at a conference and I spoke to lawyers and they actually said you didn't have to hear hearings on renewals. So, have you reached out to the Arkansas School Board Association? Just so did you when you said grievance and renewals are the same. Did you mean No, I didn't say they were the same. They I don't you did you mean termination and non-renewal? Period. If you are not non-renew, you are not granted a hearing. That's what they said. And that's Well, we and and that's what our the attorney general's letter that director had requested um and that the and the Tim Griffin's office provided said did say that they could be considered grievable. And so um so but

243yes, I know that no other district in the state is doing these and that this kind of gives us basically a framework that says we don't do it either unless there was illegal discrimination or a failure in the hiring process. So you'll flip it and say, "Okay, I was harassed or this discrimination." So I still get confused with that non-renewal because sometimes you can come to a hearing and it's strictly about a non-renewal. So, I feel like if we're going to deal with that, we also need to make sure that before a hearing even takes place that we understand exactly what's going on. Yep. I think that is so crucial. That is part of what the cover sheet that was included in there was for was to help address some of those uh address some

244of those questions to on the front end. So we get kind of a cover sheet if you will um that allows us to say whether or not we want to hear the grievance. I would like to Yes. Yes. opposed to if that answer we have had a lot of conversation about this. There's no doubt about that. Um but um most of that is centered around non-renewal and uh the actual grievance process is left less discussed. Y um termination is different from non-renewal. Termination is you're fired today. You've been through due process. You've been through due process. Yes. Yeah. You you that can come straight to us then after they've been through their termination process. Correct. We should have a cover sheet from the superintendent at that point. We should have a cover sheet from the

245superintendent when someone is grieving uh non-renewal. Mhm. We don't need a cover sheet from superintendents for a grievance, regular grievance. We need a cover sheet from the grievant for that. And that needs to be somewhere in a process of some kind. And I think that gets back to the thing that Dr. Wright said the very first time we discussed this where he read back and said, "Y'all figure out how it's going to be done." He crossed his arm. So, there isn't any of this that he wants to be something that the the administration or staff have to deal with. um the thing that you added right at the last we're we are doing it but we're not going to do X Y and Z. No, we might do X, Y, and Z if we vote

246to. We can vote to make anything a grievance. Somebody comes up here and says, "I'd like to bring my dog to school every day." That's not grievable, but we could all vote five to four and say it was. And then we'd hear their reason for why they need to bring their dog to school every day. And we could say, "No, that's not good enough. Goodbye. You don't want me to bring that in. There are things that can be done that way. Mhm. I am opposed to this resolution for the very reason of what you just tacked on the end there. It gives the impression that there's hard and fast rules and there aren't. We have the inherent power to hear grievances uh grievances related to termination and to non-renewal and to any other work condition

247that is inherent in the board's power. I have uh struggled mightily with those of you who were here before me, but not before me the first time. Those who were here before me the most recent time. And you're and I'm I Miss Wesley told me not to be personal tonight. It bothers me that y'all can't just see how a grievance works. And I can and I can't get it through to you. I don't I don't know what to say to get you to understand how simple it is. the idea that we all have an understanding of what the grievance process is. Well, I just described it. It's done. That's it. We vote on whether or not it's a grievance grievable complaint, a grievable complaint. We vote on that. And then we have a hearing sometime

248later, whether it's that night or a week later or a month later. That's some that's a fiddling little bit as to when we're going to have the hearing. But we first will have a vote on whether or not we'll hear the complaint as a grievance. And that doesn't apply to terminations. They're going to have to if they want to hear if they want to speak to us about a termination, we have to hear it. We don't get to say, "Oh, no, we can't do that." We have to hear it if they followed the procedure to this point. Thank you for your Can I just respond back to a little bit in that or is that a Well, just a moment. Just a moment, Heather. Okay. So, um, this whole grievance thing, I mean, I I

249get the whole point of it and it's to be restrictive, and I understand no other district in the state does it, but that's because all the ASBA lawyers was telling people, "No, you don't do it." There is a grievance law on the books, 617208. So, that does not take away the grievance. So even if a person is non-renewed, okay, they can grieve. Even if a person like the person we heard before was demoted, promoted, demoted, promoted again, but then she was still demoted in duties or whatever the case may be. She came for a grievance to be able to do her duties uninterrupted. We had to hear that. We should not have let Kai hey. The deal is even in that her due process were was violated even in that process. So doing a resolution

250it is nonbinding. We know that we heard her say that. However the it is a backdoor way to right to give pseudo instructions to the district on how to bring things to us without the policy. Now, the PPC have been trying to bring a grievance policy to the board for several months now, even emailed it to the board several times, and there have been no movement on it. And um I would just say that yeah, it is a pain point where people don't know the difference between a grievance hearing and a personnel hearing. It is a pain point that like uh anytime there's something being done that uh staff have rights to do that like this board um members of the board it's not all of the board but it's members of the board is

251quick to write a restrictive policy right to take more rights away from uh these employees. uh just like it's a crazy idea to put the personnel policy manual within the board manual because that's just being done to circumvent going through, but you're going to run into other other issues with that. So, um I do um this is a resolution uh and so it's non-binding, but I do want to say with with those procedures for hearings that infringes on due process. Can you imagine you coming up here, you go, you get your lawyer or whomever you're going to get to represent you and then like you have your your elected school board members saying, "Oh, well then they they are only able to get three minutes to ask you a question." That's crazy. And it's all

252restrictive. And then if any of you have been watching the board meetings, these hearings, I mean, the joke is on somebody, but it's come on now. So, um, and so, and so even with our last board hearing, you heard board board members say, "Hurry along. We have other things to do. I then I have to go and do baby I got to get my babysitting." So, like, it just doesn't make sense. And so, and because none of that stuff have anything to do with your hearing and it infringes, then why don't you be processed? So, um, for me on this is it's going to be a no all the way around because, um, I would prefer having the grievance policy, um, that is, uh, co-created by the PPC and the board um, and then go

253from from from there or else just a personnel policy that will then include or have a separate grievance policy. Thank you. Yes. Thank you, Mr. President. I just wanted to respond just to for explanation at least from for Mr. Rose. I appreciate your comments and and and explain why I think we see it differently. I think that for me the the usefulness of this I agree that we as a board have the power and the responsibility to decide what is grievable to me because this is um there's not very many guard rails to figure out how to how to make how to make a decision for what it's grievable or not. To me, this gives us a sense of if we would adopt it, which we may not, but if we adopt it, it would

254give a sense of the majority to say this is how we look at grievances and how we evaluate them as opposed to each of us bringing perhaps our own totally different way of thinking about grievances. This gives us a chance to act more as a group and and I think it communicates to each other that we have a sense of it in general and I think it communicates more to our employees to so that they know is this something that the board will consider. Well, what what what what do you want to do, Greg? And I don't mean to be snotty. I mean, that's I mean are you going to make a list of things that are and include that in a policy? But when they say at the end or other things, it's not

255going to be an exclusive list. I hope I to me to me this is a step in in a direction that gives us some clarity about how we might look at it. All right. You have something else you'd like to add? I do, but I'm not sure I want to, you know, and I just see that we may look at that differently. But I just wanted to say that that is why that that's why I think it it could be useful for is because I think it's it is so undefined and and we went through a period of un of lack of definition and it was difficult for everybody involved cuz everybody then brought in their own sensibility that might not have been grounded on much, you know, but anything besides their own sensibility. My

256second board meeting in 2000, we had a hearing. It went perfectly smoothly. We were out in two hours. I watched hearings for two or three years. Then I was the board president and I conducted them. They're not hard and there's not much training required. I think with all due respect, Mr. Rose, um non-renewals have been are new and we are doing and trying to give and we have given our employ Renewals under learns are new and the process we have to go through to non-renew employees is new under learns. All we have to do is say goodbye. We can't even say goodbye. We are not allowed to tell people they are non-renewed. They just their name does not show up on the list. I need to read that again cuz I don't that's not the

257way. You you aren't able just to give them you give them like um you are not able to give them notice. But just like Chris Heler said, if you and I and then we're we're in the same department and then everybody else got a contract and I didn't get a contract, then I'm then I'm able to grieve the fact that based on me not getting a contract based on everyone else getting it. You can grieve that. U and you're right about it. She's speaking I know I just have to put this last thing in it because it's worth it. the contract self-terminates. So if someone doesn't say anything and they doesn't get a contract on June 30th, it that is the last day and then on June and on July 1st there is there is

258no contract. I I think we get caught up in the wind in semantics because it's really this is solely about restricting the rights of our employees because you see how hard it is to get five of these nine members to even show up. The like the will to do these are just not there and then when they have them we have them then we want to rush them through. And so I mean but that that's really the necessary. So I think Anna wanted to speak after that. Yes. Absolutely. Um so I think director Hatter's example there about the department and assuming that you've been non-renewed is the perfect example of why we need this resolution. U so we are that's Chris Heler's that wasn't mine. And I repeated with with it was a perfect example

259of of you know let's say it's March we are in step two of the process the eight-step process that we have for renewing contracts and your colleagues in your school have been recommended and you are not renewed along in round one or two. Well, you know what? You have six more steps in which you might be renewed. And so what this says is that we will not hear a grievance related to you not being renewed in round two until we've made it through round eight unless you were discriminated against or unless there was a failure in the process in round one and two. I I understood that whenever we meandered over I'm just saying that I think that's a perfect example of why we why we as a as a board could have a resolution

260on what we will and won't hear throughout that process. The other thing I did want to respond to Mr. Rose was um about the vote on whether we can vote on whether or not something is a grievable complaint. That is true. This puts a couple of example or a couple of situations out there and says we will or won't to help clarify our thoughts on this so as not so employees do not waste their time bringing forth grievances that we have as a board kind of generally said, you know, this is not a thing that we want to hear. I assure you they're going to bring them in. And so and and they and they might and but then we have something to look back on that says, you know what, we as a group

261decided we were not we were we were not going to hear grievances that are about your loss of your position at let's just say, you know, u Watson Elementary and even though you got a position at Western Hills Elementary, you know, so that you can't grieve that as long if you have a position for the next year. Um, and I and I again I did just kind of, you know, part of the third part of it why I thought this was so helpful is that we did like director Adams said, we did really struggle with non-renewal grievance hearings last year and and conflating those with termination hearings and where was due process and all of this and it's a different world and so this helps us put some structure around and was very again this

262was authored by Mr. Heler. um he thought this was a a good good document to in my understanding to help clarify this process for us um and give us those guardrails that we didn't have last year but we'll find out when we will and won't hear um those things and we are finally co-creating that policy that grievance policy update that we should bring in a month and the thought this might be helpful in if you go back to the visit Mr. Hiller made to us during that agenda meeting. Yep. It was either the first or second question he got asked and it was me saying, "We have the power to do this, right?" And he said, "Well, yes, of course." And so that's where I stopped. We have the power to do these things. Absolutely.

263And I'm not arguing that we It's just helping us precide. But when you say when you say we agreed as a group, that means you want a majority vote on that and we have to stick to it. And that's dead wrong. We have the power to do it on an individual basis. And for you to pass attempt to pass something that has a smack of policy is wrong. And I don't usually holler out wrong like that. But it's Vicki said that this was about taking away rights. Yeah, I can see why she says that. But anytime you start talking about people's rights, it's always about adding to them. It's just in this in our situation, it's about adding to them. If we start putting the guard rails are five to four as far as I'm

264concerned. If we start putting up guard rails that are intended to direct the conversation away from somebody's ability to say, "Hey, the board can grieve can hear that grievance. It's not right. It's wrong." I've said wrong now three times. I'm sorry, and I keep forgetting to turn in and look at you. I'm sorry. You don't have to. It's all right. Um, this question is for the attorney, Mr. Kazay. I just want to know how much weight does a resolution hold on this board? No. So, what? Okay. So, is this a performative vote that we're doing? Yes, it I'm asking him. Oh, thank you. They're Roberts. Actually, let me get $25 for him to go through the class. Resolutions under Roberts can mean that you just have a very complicated motion and so the resolution is

265memorializing the board action. So, like if you say, "I move that we oppose we we approve the minutes," right? Simple, easy motion. But if you say, "We're going to do a a resolution to replenish computer systems districtwide," that may be more complex. Now, Roberts in section 10 uh talks about that. Now, in other settings, like in the general assembly, a resolution like I I think I gave this example the last time we talked about it. Um I sponsored a resolution congratulating the Malvin High School girls on their state basketball win. Doesn't have the power of law, but it's an official act by the general assembly. Um so this does not supersede the law. It does not supersede your district policy. Uh the policy particularly personnel policy folds in and becomes a contract right for the

266employees. Uh this does not enter into their contract rights with the district. So it's not nothing but it's not going to supersede those things. Okay. Thank you. So absolutely. So, so the only thing I was just get some clarity on if we'll vote to adopt this, we can change our minds at the next meeting to not to not follow the resolution. Yeah. Yes. If we have it in play and Yes. Let's say that if we have this in play, it does not it doesn't imply that we must follow it to the So, we're not really making a permanent bound by it. Is that correct? We're not making a decision at all. Okay. So, I don't So, that's why I'm just baffled by all of this debate. Me, too. Me, too. Me, too. Well, Mr. Mr.

267Bali, I The thing I would say to this is it um I know you weren't here last year, but we had a very here last year, just in November, right? But, but during the board hearings around the summer, spring and summer of last year, um it was very confusing. Um our personnel hearings were very confusing around grievance, non-renewal, grievance hearings related to non-renewals. And this is really honestly just trying to put on paper and it's really it again it's non-binding. It's just an exercise but it's trying to put on paper something that we could maybe all theoretically agree on for for whether or not we do want to hear certain kinds of grievances. And so when I say I'd like that's all and it's not and it's not binding but it is just trying to

268help us develop something see something in writing and have some shared agreement on it. Yeah. And I understand that. I just feel like um that we're still going to be confused whenever we start having another grievance uh non-renewal hearing. So, I'm just that's why I'm saying I just don't understand. Good. Okay. I say I want to hear this and you say but I have a resolution says I'm going to just blow my top because that's what I'm trying not to have for you to refer to a resolution as if it is policy. I I've said that like seven times that I know but I want when we might bring forth a policy we might but when the hearing is happening and there are people listening and the room is full and you say but our

269resolution you're saying it's policy and I don't want them to think that I know I will know it's not and you will know it's not. Okay. Any other questions? Okay. So, as we move forward, I will entertain a motion if you have one. [Music] I'll be glad to move that we adopt the resolution concerning grievance appeals for non-renewals to the Lorac School Board of Directors. Is there a second? Second. It has been moved and properly second that the LRSD board of education appoint approve and adopt the resolution concerning grievance appeals to the LRA school district board of directors. All in favor say I. I.O. I know. I'm I'm thinking and I'm looking. How many do we have? Every everybody that uh is four, give me a hand. One, two, three, four. You don't know that

270there were four. You didn't ask for Everybody raise their hand. You asked for a voice and you get to decide who had the loudest. Five. You pushed her to five. I know I did. She's just kind and opposed. You pushed her to five. That was a sympathy vote. No. Are we all abain? Abstain and abstain. The motion carries. Okay. So, now we're going to I'll entertain a motion specific to executive session. Why are we going to executive session? Why are we going into executive session? Yeah. Um to consider the appointment of LRSD employees. All right. Talk about this appointment. That's what um All right. to talk about this, but but we already talked about this. This is the same spreadsheet just with names. We just talked about this during the PowerPoint. No, it's not. It's

271not for that. Um Stephanie, are you aware of the executive session? Um it is. We are still needing to have one. Is that correct? Yes. Two. That's what I thought. Okay. So, yes, I'll entertain a motion. Wait a minute. We just approved those positions. No, we didn't. No, we didn't. We pulled them. Remember I move that we go into executive session to consider the appointment of LRC employees. It's been moved and properly second. If no one adjourns, we will we are excused. Executive session. We're returning from executive session where no actions were taken. The um chair will entertain a motion. Miss West, I'll be glad to make a motion. I make a move that we um move approve. Pardon? Nothing. I move. Did I say remove? Let me start this again. I make a motion

272that we approve Dwayne Clayton as principal on special assignment and Crystal Green Brazwell as director of culture, climate, and well-being. Second. It's been moved and properly second that we approve the following personnel matters as indicated below. Dwayne Clayton is principal on special assignment and Crystal Green Brasswells, director of culture, climate, and well-being. All any comments? Well, no. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? The motion carries. Um, do we have a comment section down here? Let me just check. Okay, so for our Do we have one? Okay, I do. Okay. Um, hold on. Park View, their spring concert dance is beautiful. It's off the chart. You guys have got to go and see them. They have a couple of sessions tomorrow. One at 10:00 a.m. and one at 7:00 p.m. It is so beautiful.

273Okay, please go. Please just do I start up and any other Okay. Parking an aisle. Any other announcements? Thank you for sharing that. Any other announcements or comments? Cost $10. Okay. Okay. I wanted to just I wanted to uh I participated Doc and kudos to Dr. Wright and Mayor Frank Scott. Uh the city and the district are teaming up on uh addressing the school lunch debt that we have in the district which isund what 2474 74 I was like $174,000. Um and there will be a link to donate soon. Would love it off all if y'all would chip in a couple bucks if you can to help eliminate the um the meal debt for our students in this in the district. It's mostly in our not title one schools and it is the schools that

274have that aren't don't aren't able to offer a free lunch for all the kids in the school anymore. And so that has really been a change this year. I know my kids go to one of those schools and we had, you know, over $1,000 in the first few weeks of school. So, um, and that's technically owed to the district, not to any of not to an outside service to us. Yeah. And the link will be where the link will be published. I imagine the district will put it out. Um but but I know that the city will be I think the city's working on that. It's it's a donation to the city and then it's only social media but we probably need to is it on our website yet? Everything I've seen is it. Yeah.

275So anyway, I just wanted to say kudos for that partnership. It's a really great one. Um and then I also just wanted to give a shout out and say thank you to the Jefferson families who've reached out over the last week or two about um about concerns for their school and talked about the great things that are happening at Jefferson Elementary. I know Jefferson is not in my zone, but a part of my zone includes a a group of homes and people that are are zoned for Jefferson. So, I've heard a lot from my constituents about their concerns about their school, and I really appreciate them reaching out and saying really wonderful things about the education their kids get in Little Rock School District. So, any other comments? Okay, pending objections, we are ajourned. Oh,

276I'm sorry, Dr. Ro. You move too fast. You need I thought we were done. I didn't smack me in the back of the