##VIDEO ID:MTETmswJiq0## microphone test for Schoolboard work session Monday November 25th e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e good afternoon the time is now 4:00 the wi Public Schools Board of Education work session for Monday November 25th 2024 will please come to order let's go around the table for introductions we'll start from my right Heidi ker Sheila prior Destra B Valentina s Sarah Johansson Chase Anderson and I'm mil sooney thank you and welcome everyone as a reminder the board does not vote on any items at the work session this afternoon we have four items on the agenda first we have the finance and operations reports Executive Director of Finance and operations law Scott lasage will present the auditor's report Scott you will present the auditor report right yes thank you all right members of the board Dr Anderson thank you for having us here tonight so need to turn my ears on a little bit better over there early so apologize for that but um today we are here um to talk about the preliminary Financial drafts from our Auditors at mmkr um we're not asking for board approval tonight that will be at our regular board meeting on Monday December 9th this is just a review of the drafts of the fy2 24 audit we feel that they're pretty darn close to what they'll end up being but they're still in draft mode um and like I said December 9th will be when we're asking for approval so you'll have almost two weeks uh any questions you have or anything you can reach out to David and myself and um we'll make sure we get all those answered prior to that uh before I go in introducing Our Guest here I just also wanted to thank um group of people from my team that are here tonight um David draskovich Jack sterms Andre Balman Jen Welk um and I'm sure I'm missing others so I apologize for that but this is a super heavy lift for this team every year um I think we've put oursel in a position uh to get better and stronger every single year and I think this year um you can ask Jackie here but I think um we had a really good audit and we continue to get better on an annual basis so um so thank you team uh right to the right of me here is Jackie heagle she's a principal at mmkr and is the lead auditor for Wisa Public Schools annual audit um she'll be going over the highlights and review of the fy2 24 audited financials and then just again December 9th will be when we're asking for approval so you'll have plenty of time to answer um ask questions um so without further Ado I'll turn it over to Jackie all right well good evening and thank you for having me tonight Scott said my name is Jackie heagle and I am a partner at mmkr the lead partner on the audit for the wetta school district and here to present the audit results for the year ended June 30th 2024 so the first slide whoever is running that wants to move it forward um just giving a little background as our role as Auditors um as Auditors my role is to issue an opinion on that District financial statement uh since your District does receive more than 750,000 in Federal funding there's a separate audit of just the federal audit that's a schedule of expenditures of federal WS um that threshold is increasing in the next couple of years but it's increasing to a million dollars so even with that increase the district will probably still be meeting that threshold moving forward as well as part of the audit process then we also test the internal controls and the compliance over that financial statement audit with that Federal single audit and then with Minnesota state laws and regulations so each year the offices state auditor releases that legal compliance manual which as Auditors were required to test the specific statutes that are in that manual each year and moving on to the next slide then summarizing uh the results of the audit which you're going to see are all good audit results we issued an unmodified or clean opinion on that basic financial statement that is the opinion you are looking for as part of the audit process um in the current year there was another gasby standard that was required to be implemented U that related with some G guidance on group assets so in previous years um you are I should say in the current year now you're now required any time you are purchasing bulk assets like similar assets such as computers if it's significant to your financial statements even though individually the assets might be less than your policy you are required to include that down your financial reports so in previous years you know if you think of computers might not meet your threshold um individually as long as they were underneath the threshold you uh not need to include those as part of capital assets but started in fy4 you are now required to include those in your Capital assets so the district did have to do what we call a look back um you had to look back a couple years um at your various assets that could meet that uh policy uh items such as furniture and Equipment were the common items um so you're seeing a change in accounting principle run through your financial report of about 3.5 million and that's looking back a few years picking up any of those assets that weren't previously capitalize but now meet this new uh gasby guidance as part of all of our review of the internal controls and compliance over that financial statement audit you had no material weaknesses or instances of non-compliance to report in the current year with the Minnesota legal compliance opinions also had no instances of non-compliance uh to report in the current year and then lastly the single audit of federal Awards um all of our testing in that area we issued clean audit opinions on that schedule of expenditures of federal Awards as well as had no material weaknesses or instance of of non-compliance to report with the federal programs we audited um as part of our risk assessment in the current year we were required to audit two different Federal programs one being that special education cluster program and the second being the education stabilization funds or you might know that as the Esser funds of the district moving on to the next slide then starting to summarize some of the financial results of the audit specifically focusing in on the general fund of the district this first graph here gives that general fund financial position over the past five years showing that cash and investment balance as well as the total fund balance of that general fund overall the cash and investment balance in the general fund ended the year at about 75 million increase of about 14 million from the prior year uh you saw your total general fund fund balance uh increase or at year end end at 52 million which was an increase of about 11 million from the prior year moving on to the next slide then this breaks the fund balance down further showing those components of the general fund fund balance for the past five years it shows that by those uh various fund balance buckets the nonspendable the restricted the assigned and unassigned um so at year end that 52.6 million of total fund balance in the general fund is broken down by you have about 1.5 million in that nonspendable bucket um that is items that is already tied up in inventory or prepaid you've already prepaid for some items at year end that restricted fund balance at year end is about 25.5 million uh most of that is dollars uh that are restricted for the capital projects Levy about 4.7 million also have dollars set aside for operating capital of about 3.6 million and then about 16 million that is restricted uh for long-term facility maintenance projects in the U assigned bucket there's about 8.6 million at year end um that's tied up in various items that are assigned uh some of the larger items I'll point out there's some dollars set aside for future School opening and planning costs um also some dollars set aside for post-employment obligations as well as enrollment and that leaves about 16.9 million in that unassigned fund balance at year end which is about 8.3% of the total expenditures in the general fund so you are in line with that fund balance policy of the district which is 5 to 7% this next slide then summarizes the adjusted ADM and the pupil units served by the district uh obviously the EDM that's used um to close out the audit plays a big factor in all those general education special education funding so i' like to include this just to show you at year end uh The District closed the year with estimated ADM of 12,499 which is an increase of about 251 ADM or about 2% compared to the prior year and these adms don't get actual finalized until about January February into 2025 next slide then summarizes the general fund revenues of the district showing the current year actual compared to Prior year as well as comparing it to budget overall the total general fund revenues are about 215 million for the 2024 year that's an increase of about 9.5 million from the prior year some of the increases that you're seeing uh from current year to Prior year you saw increases in that state sources up about 15 million mainly just due to the increased enrollment in the district and then improvements in that general education and special education funding you also saw your property taxes up just under 3 million that's directly related with the increase in the approved Levy and then your other local sources you saw an increase and most of that is in investment earnings just with the improved Market in 2024 compared to Prior year when you're looking current year actual to budget you're seeing your revenue is about 5 million more than projected in the budget um most of that is in that other Revenue area came in over budget with the investment earnings the improved market performance as well as just the budgeting conservatively for the areas such as donations and fees that are inconsistent from year to year and not knowing what those will be and then your state sources came in about 2.5 million over budget mainly in that special education area this next graph here then summarizes similar information just of the general fund expenditures uh overall the general fund expenditures ended the year at about 205 million that was an increase of about 13 million from the prior year when you're looking at that increase most of that is in the salaries and benefits uh just due to contractual wage increases you also sawell your Capital expenditures increase which is mostly related with long-term facil maintenance projects overall though the general fund expenditures came in about 4 million under the final budget most of that was in purchase Services just timing of various projects going on and fewer short-term leases and professional development training than were originally anticipated in the budget the next graph I have here then summarizes the other operating funds of the district specifically that food service special Revenue fund and the community service special Revenue fund the Food Service fund ended the year with a fund balance of about 2.5 million which was an increase of about 880,000 from the prior year your revenues came in over budget about 850,000 mostly in the federal sources you're seeing your expenditures were also over budget about 500,000 mainly in capital outlay and purchase Services um overall a lot of the variances to budget um is also just due to the uh changes in legislation uh with now meals being free for all students just being difficult to anticipate just how many meals you would be serving compared to last year the community service fund um had a positive year this year end of the year with a fund balance of about 4.4 million that was an increase of about 1.6 million from the prior year your revenues were over budget mainly in state sources and other local sources and then expenditures came in under budget mainly in that salaries and employee benefit area and then the last slide I have here summarizes the internal service funds actually second to last Slide the internal service funds here this summarizes a snapshot of all your internal service funds in one column um so the district has an internal service fund for VAR self-insured benefits specifically the health and the dental benefits as well as has an internal service fund for the early retirement of benefits that's where you're required to record uh the long-term pension and Severance liabilities that the district obtains an actuary study for each year in this internal service fund so at year on the net position of the total internal service funds was about 200,000 um splitting that out though your self-insured account uh that they ended the dental and medical with a positive net position of about 3.2 million and the early retirement accounts has a deficit net position of about 3 million um and like I said most of that deficit is due to having recorded the total liabilities of that g B 73 pension and the severance benefit liability at year end then the next slide I have here this is the final slide I have this summarizes the districtwide statement of net position of the district uh this is a summary of what we consider that second reporting layer the full acral financial statements where it includes all the capital asset activity and all the long-term liabilities of the district um so it takes all your different uh fund balances that you're looking at when you talk your general fund your food service your community service funds and rolls it all up into a snapshot with those Capital assets and liabilities um so over all you're seeing that net position increase about 39.1 million U most of that if you look in the bottom portion of that table you're seeing that increase in the net investment in capital assets with all the long-term facility maintenance projects go going on and then the unrestricted net position you're seeing an increase there of about 11.7 million most of that if you m is due to the p and the TR pension plans as a district you're required to report the your unfunded liability on those pension plans and they swing from one year to the next based on the market performance of those plans and you have to remember that those plans that you're putting in your 24 financials is as of June 30th to 23 so they're a year behind as far as where the market and everything is um and also on that unrestricted area you're just seeing that improved uh general fund fund balance as well causing that increase so with that I can open it up if there are any [Music] questions any questions comments I have one can you go back to the chart for general fund so yeah so the capital expenditures I thought for long-term maintenance it's a different bucket is it not it's not under general fund or is it um it's under the restricted fund so it is under the general fund but as a reminder I and Jackie can share her thoughts as well but it's a restricted fund inside of the general fund but remember it has massive Levy adjustments every year so we're a one District so we're able to going to spend and as we've explained several times at the board meetings um during Co and coming out of Co we weren't able to get to those projects so it looks like it's a a huge sum of money sitting in an assign fund balance that's really going to work its way through the levy and okay those swings okay thanks uh thank you for that presentation now is this a time good time to ask a question on one of the attachments on the board book or do you are you going to do something else are you going to present something else c um no this would be the time if you want it yep right so one of the attachments is is titled special purpose audit reports on page eight of that report at the bottom it says does the audit qualify as a lowrisk audity I'm not even aware of what that means what the implications are is it good is it bad to be low risk yes so every year as part when you have a single audit of those federal funds there's a risk assessment as Auditors were're required to do a risk assessment and we have to determine if you're considered a lowrisk auditor or not a lowrisk audity and that determines the threshold we have to test to um so if you remember as part of last year's audit there was a material weakness relating to audit adjustments that's one of the questions um as part of this year's Federal audit um that since you had a material weakness in the past two years you're no longer considered a low-risk odity so as part of our federal testing we're required to test 40% of your federal expenditures in FY 24 okay if you are a low risk you're testing 20% so if you have two years of uh clean audits then you can go back to be a lowrisk audity okay so that question would be yes in two years if nothing nothing came up like last year in the current year nothing came up like last year we have to go one more year for that you have to have you have 25 would have to be a clean year and then 26 could go back to a low risk then thank you I understand that now any other questions comments not not thank you so much and so we will uh we will do this again on December 9th for a for an approval from the board right absolutely yep and any questions in the meantime please feel re feel free to reach out to us and just wanted to thank Jackie and her team we've really appreciated um having them do our audit um and hopefully we continue to get better on an annual basis so thank you Jackie thank you Bard thank you so much all right next we'll hear an update on the attendance area adjustment from Dr Ray Queener and Scott l all your gentlemen members of the board Dr Anderson thank you again for letting me be here tonight uh to the right of me I do I have Dr Ray Queener who is from Teamworks International and he's helping us lead the process through the attendance area adjustments so I will turn it over to him all right good evening everyone thanks for the opportunity to present this update um I did um there we go we might just have to there we go okay um tonight I I did take out some of the key process things that we have talked about several times so we're just going to focus on kind of a status update and then talk a little bit about the upcoming next steps um talk about the design team input team um kind of where the concepts are at at this point um late breaking news even today we met today this morning with the design team and then just as a reminder some of the Dynamics and complexities that the team has been wrestling with and how to try to bring balance and and honor feedback and input and hear from all voices um and then we'll uh we'll open up for some questions so that's the game plan hard questions go to Scott just saying um the point in somewhere you might have to tell Amy just next slide okay I don't think it's working okay so again um The Guiding change document that was developed um and approved by the board um we continue to use this as our driver for what we're doing um Concepts that are moving forward we try to bring in alignment with the guiding change um we talk about the what or our desired results as optimal and to the degree possible try to meet them um but it's hard to meet all of them unilaterally it's it's truly a challenge um so we're trying to continue to honor that as we go through each of our um Concepts so we continue to use our data analytics um tools to help us with all the analysis every time we make a change we run a new scenario take a look at that um hope hopefully by now folks are understanding and appreciating that it is truly an open transparent process that um we've tried to get a lot of voices we had another round of public input and if you've had a chance to see we've had over 300 responses to that input the design team takes it very seriously uh as well as they do from the 80 member input team um trying to honor um what's what we can and um trying to outreach as much as we Poss can um I know Amy has done a excellent job with her team on communicating steps and progress I know uh there's another update going out tomorrow kind of where things are at and I'll highlight a couple of those um key next steps in a few moments so I think today was 10 we've had 10 design team meetings um we were talking today actually that even though we haven't had um concepts for everything considered I I really think that over the course of this time the design team has asked what if questions about almost every neighborhood in the school district so even when they're doing their work they're running data and we're looking at just everything that we can as we talk about um these different concepts and as a reminder there's 30 people on the design team that make up a representation from um all Sites um principals District directors um people with knowledge and expertise we have transportation at the table um so they they really truly know the district and that is a summary of the concepts that have been looked at um we started off with 1 a 1B and we are now currently on 8 a 8 B-2 um when you see the dash that just means it's a second iteration it was a slight tweak to eight and um as of today it looks like we are going to have um two options two concepts that we will be bringing forward to the input team and public next week for both elementary and middle um the the Elementary in the middle Concepts will be connected and so um they're going to be an 8A grouping and an 8-2 grouping so I know our team is fast at at work I just spoke with um our data guy Rich right before I walked in the door and looks like tomorrow morning we'll be hopefully having a next iteration of those so that's the path that the design team has been on in addition to reviewing all of the data from the input team which we'll talk about next all right next slide there we go so we had our first input team meeting on 108 um there's about 80 people on that team and we asked them for feedback originally on Elementary options 3 A-1 and two and then 3B and then Middle School Concepts uh 3c1 and 3c2 um intentionally there were different components in that in those Concepts that we wanted to get feedback on so all the concepts that get presented to this point have been to get feedback and input on them knowing full well they're not options for implementation and so we we continue to remind folks that we have not put options on the table that we know would be implemented um same was true on 1113 what we learned in our process is that we really needed to start to solidify the Elementary attendance areas first when we were trying to do Elementary in middle at the same time there were too many moving dials and moving parts and so it was hard to get middle um and so we kind of owned in now on a couple of viable Elementary Concepts and then today we spent time working on the middle so also on the screen you see the responses for each of the the public responses for each of the um Concepts that we considered the themes have been posted on the website so the public has an opportunity to see what was thematically represented and the uh design team has spent time going through the themes and they had access to it was 200 and some pages of comments um so they had the raw data as well as the theme data that they reviewed and then we um also gave them the input team feedback as well and that's a sample of what you'll see on the website um the public had a chance to weigh in on the same three areas that the input team looking at each concept what were the strengths what were the concerns and then on the next slide you'll see what were the suggestions for refinement so all of that summary data is available on the district website um under the attendance area um tab so there's a lot of complexities that go into this um what what really drives most of what we're trying to do is trying to balance capacities and so that's where we started um um the goal at the elementary level was to try to hit 90% of functional capacity where possible and um I think I mentioned this um before humor that it' be nice to be able to pick schools up and maybe move them in different locations to better address them that's not available as an option so um we're trying to move areas that make sense not disrupt neighborhoods not have a boundary line right outside right outside of an elementary school where somebody's looking across the street at their elementary school if they're not attending um they we're trying to keep neighborhoods intact um always looking at Major roadways and um it's been helpful to have transportation there to be able to talk about what's happening currently and then also what if we tried these ideas what what would that look like for transportation at the middle school the dynamic is really around capacity um with East and West um trying to bring balance and also at the same time not not let Central get too large and so we are constricted there um a lot by capacity we also heard some things both rounds of our input that um parents and families feel like they if they're student is in a middle they want to finish their career at that school if possible and so we've we've tried to model that and we've done that today we've looked at that we're calling continuous enrollment so they can continue through their career that is a option that sits on the table as a part of Concepts um for Middle School however not for elementary that part um we learned quickly would be a transportation challenge um and also very expensive to do that I think I would just add on top of those items that Dr Queener had listed is you know managing all of those varials and the complexity of the situation but also knowing that we have 20 to 25% of our districts still fields and opportunity for growth knowing that um you know this will kind of be phase one of multiple phases as the district grows and as we've said many times that's one of the big challenges of being a school district especially a growing school district is we can't control interest rates we can't control developments we can't control when people move in where they move in um and so it becomes a big challenge so uh this is as Dr Queener said it's a very complex process I think we have definitely listened to the feedback um the the input from the second input team meeting and public feedback was instrumental I think it helped even um this is a process so it really helped push our design team in directions that we feel really good about um so I'm excited for us to finish up with those and be able to get those out to the public because I think they'll they'll see um that this is a very complex situation but we're absolutely listening so I I would offer three kind of key things so the there's several themes but three themes that really kept Rising one we heard minimize um split feeder schools to the middle school so to the degree possible if we don't have to have any Elementary split that would be their desire um that's proved really challenging um just from a capacity standpoint at East and West um that that's really challenging I think secondly we heard um to pay special attention to social economics and diversity and we have done that and addressed that to the best degree possible in this last iteration and then I think thirdly we've heard from uh neighborhoods that have already been moved and potentially could be moved in the future to try to minimize that and so um the concepts that we one of the concepts we worked on tried to address that as well so it's it is impossible to address all the the feedback but those three were pretty um common amongst several people and so I think the team did a nice job trying to address all three of those areas um not perfectly but as best we could without um violating any of the other goals and ideas that we were talking about I think I would just add to knowing obviously we're a growing district and keep going back to that because it's a huge element um knowing that this is kind of phase one again um is that when we looked at it from several different perspectives we're looking we're trying to also reduce a move now and then in three to five years another move so um as you know it's very complex because um when the buildings were built years ago um they probably made a whole lot of sense but when you look at our midds they just run along the southern part of the district almost in a straight line um and even the placement of a lot of our elementary schools I mean as a um population shifts um you can have a lot of changes and even when you look at the southern part of our district and the um Southeastern part uh you know once uh rates change or something changes we also might see a lot of people not age in place any longer and you might see a lot of those homes go for sale or Redevelopment so there's just I just can't stress enough there's so many variables that we absolutely cannot control but we are listen the public feedback and we're trying to uh make the best decisions we can with the information that we currently have available so you see on the screen the next steps that we have planned so we did meet this morning um we have um a December the design team will come back together next Monday for a quick review of the concepts that we worked on today those then will be going to the public and to the input team on December 4th um right now the we're thinking that uh we might do a presentation to the board on December 9th at your business meeting with the uh Concepts as they're coming forward and then uh TBD on an action date so originally we tonight we were hoping that we would be able to present Concepts to you for consideration with action on the 9th and the the last two weeks actually have yielded some I think better Concepts so we're delayed but I think in a good way um and the last thing before I open up to questions you know one of the things that we work on um with school districts is true partnership and wetta public schools have been a great partner um Scott and I have become best friends um it's you know we we text and talk and um but the team that's in wisett has just been a pleasure to work with Jen has been phenomenal um the Amy um both Amy G and Amy P have been wonderful just tremendously talented people so I really feel like it's been a partnership and I've even seen that in the design team so we have principles that represent elementaries and midds but they're there as a team not just they representing their building and so they're doing some of their best thinking whether I'm a middle school principal trying to help in the elementary or vice versa it truly has been a team effort to to do this work so um this is a this is a change that's not easy anytime anybody moves schools it's a hard change everybody REM remembers that um we spent a lot of time looking at charts and graphs and data but we know there's a family on the backside of every one of those numbers and we constantly remind people about that so with that um unless Scott has anything else we will open up to any questions no probably just reiterate uh the partnership with Teamworks and us uh it's been a lot of hours um a lot of nights weekends I'm sure Ray regrets giving me his uh cell number so a lot of text questions but I think our team internally has done a pretty amazing job too um the design team has really come together as you said it's representatives from all over the District district office staff um obviously you mentioned Jen Jen W has been uh tremendously helpful just with her insights and time in the district um along with our other our principals and other administrators so it's been a true team effort and this is a really tough process it's a tough process and sometimes you have to go through it and come up with what you think might be a good idea and then you see a few variables that swing it and you go okay we got to swing back the other way so um it's a process but please know that um everybody's been very involved I think we've had a really solid group and Teamworks has been a good partner I might just share a couple thoughts too first of all thanks for the presentation and all of your hard work throughout this process and all of our other team members and Community uh members that have been involved in input school board members uh receiving and responding to uh emails and Communications that you might have when you're out in the public but I just want to say thanks for the work that we've done and I've heard I think both of you reference uh phase one and phase two or chapter one and chapter two there's two ways to look at it it's chapter one now and chapter two coming up but if you look at the big scheme of things over a period of I don't know 15 or 20 years this might be chapter 12 and and we're heading into chapter 13 or 14 or whatever the case might be but uh growing communities go through various iterations of these types of changes and it's an indicator of a variety of things one U it's a community that people are still looking to move into um I think in the 16 years I've been here 16 in counting we've grown from about 9600 students to 13 or 12,800 so uh we've had a significant growth over that time period we've built two new elementary schools we've added on to a number of elementaries we've remodeled all of our buildings added on to the middle school added on to the high school to accommodate that growth and and there will be more of the same some of our communities and cities are filling up and getting close to uh fully grown out but uh we still have some significant pockets of growth in corkran area and also in Medina so we would anticipate that there will be more chapters of this and um you know again it's we're we're probably a decade maybe part of a second one before we get to that equilibrium point where maybe we can Define the types of maps and attendance areas that on the outset I think we were striving for uh those nice clean maps that show you know everything kind of colocated and cozied around the specific school but that might be a concept that is more applicable for an eventual fully grown out Community which some communities in the Metro are but we'll continue to uh strive forward I have really appreciated the feedback that we have received from the community as been mentioned already and we're doing our very best to be responsive to that and put together what will certainly end up being the best of the imperfect options because I don't think there's a a perfect recommendation that we can bring to you or a perfect option that will uh meet everybody's uh desired uh wishes um but we'll try to be to as responsive as we can and again position us for whatever that next chapter whatever the number might be um to position Us in the best way possible for that so with that Mr chair I'll turn it back over to you okay thank you Dr Anderson and thank you Scott and Dr Queen Scott um Dr quino said that now you are best of friends but don't forget what he said in the beginning ask the hardest questions to Scott so be careful I wrote that down okay uh but but thank you for that um any questions comments Paris yeah you can go first I have four questions so I'll wait for my turn if uh times comes to uh between choosing so social economic uh situation versus neighborhoods who had been uh which had been disrupted several times at least the feedback I've seen that some of them are saying we had uh our kids had been moved uh two years ago and right now you're disrupting us again uh which of them you're going to be choosing I don't know that there's a hard and fast rule I think every boundary every attendance area has been looked at trying to try to navigate all of those parameters so how many times they've been moved the social economics and the capacity of the school and as I described to the design team they're they're like knobs where you know sometimes you turn one knob and that affects the other knobs and infect another school so I don't know that it's a hard and fast rule across the district but I do know we we did pay close attention to recent moves and potential future moves depending on growth um this last round we also spent a lot of time on diversity and socio economics and so we we tried again to honor that we're moving toward District averages but there's not a way for us to create a district average across the board for um race special education free and reduced lunch so we tried to make sure we weren't increasing a disparity wherever possible and I think the team has done a really nice job balancing all those variables can you ask two questions first and then come back third and fourth all right so for Middle School is it fair to say every student who is in the current Middle School they'll finish their career in that middle school or there is a portion which will move across when it comes to middle schools so the the concepts again nothing's been decided um nothing's been um formalized but the current scenario current Concepts that we're considering would allow um next year's seventh and eth grade and the following year eighth grade to remain that's the numbers that we're looking at again nothing's been decided um but we heard pretty loud and clear early on in the process that at the middle level if possible families really wanted their students to be able to um complete their time at the especially the with the recent boundary changes at the middle Lev okay and does that apply to their siblings as an example has that question has that come up or has that been considered that siblings will go to same middle school or again it depends to your point it's it's been discussed with no okay no further um the the dynamic actually is really hard to model so we know who's there and it's hard to project unless you know if the siblings are already in the system that's one thing but it's also um I've seen families choose to go to their newly assigned School um depending on how it's implemented so for example if I have a current sixth grader and a current fifth grader I may make a decision to move both children to the same middle next year so that it starts to create some Dynamics around modeling okay and it's really hard at the middle level because of the size of the capacities are really tight and so you know 150 kids one way or the other could really push a middle over capacity um depending on how you implement it but it has been talked about that's the short answer okay go ahead um well thanks so much for being here it's you know just great to have the you know participation involvement and um all the really great presentations I did want to ask just kind of build off of paris's question um you know with I know in 2016 about eight years ago when we did a similar redraw like this um you know fourth graders who are going to be fifth graders some of them were allowed to stay in there um given Elementary what I want to ask is is that something has been discussed um as well the at the elementary level yeah um speak it's been mentioned and talked about but it it quickly becomes a um very expensive proposition especially if the district's offering Transportation okay yeah and the second part is the reason we started this is because we were having some capacity issues and so if you make attendance area moves but then you allow people to stay you you don't address the capacity challenges potentially in some situations thank you you're welcome so remind me again so we'll have these Concepts I just I need peace of mind with this as we start to talk about um grandfathering and and kind of doing that I worry one about it delaying the process of us feeling the positive impacts but I'm also worried about the financial implications because with every bit of grandfathering there's additional bus routes or other kinds of things and so um Scott this actually is one of the hard questions for you maybe um but and I'm assuming you're doing this but is there some Financial modeling that's going on in the background as well as we think about these Concepts and and the impact that they would have on our budget they absolutely are we have um obviously these set meetings and then we pull aside groups um kind of under my direction to work through some of those Current financial things that you're talking about potential implications that are kind of not maybe seen on the surface but we know will be in the background um and obviously as superintendent uh Anderson said we have transportation at the table um Rich has been asked to come to several meetings um he gets emails on the weekends from me with questions on models because that is a big thing because as soon as you talk about those continuous students and um it kind of unwinds a lot of what we'd want to do and then we get right back into the same situation plus we don't want to send a buson to pick up three kids so um as you know uh transportation is a very large cost for us on an annual basis so to answer your questions we absolutely are looking at that we're looking at impacts from um current facilities I don't think it's the secret our middle schools we we do have a problem in the near future if we continue to grow like we do so um that is on the Forefront and then it's kind of like we look at years one to five um pretty confidently with those projections and then years six through 10 I think Ray would even say they're massively conservative estimates we believe that they're very very conservative um we see it actually going a different trend line um but we are looking even in the inter term before we could really explore that option we're looking at what options we have um that we need to do in our current facilities to make them doable for the next three to five years so whether that means reenvisioning spaces that we currently have in some of the middles um and even some of the elementaries and working through some of those even before we would explore that next step and I would just add to that the transportation portion so you have the expense of routes you have the expense buses but you also have the challenge of finding drivers yeah so even if you wanted to do that it it still presents a challenge and that's pretty Universal across all school districts right thank you I'm going to peky back on a question about Transportation I've seen uh several comments saying that uh why our kids are going to be busted uh uh they will be passing another Elementary School which is much more closer to us and where where we had been going and then right now all of a sudden we have to go to different building which is far away uh in that case when Transportation will be costly so why we are choosing that kind of option yeah May if you want to take in that one um I think that's something that we've definitely heard with the public I think as Dr Anderson alluded to we are a growing district and so you're going to have those challenges when you're balancing capacities so I think Whenever there were shifts made like that if it was a newer development there might be a cut off day so you know any purchase agreement that's after July 1st would go to ex School um that has capacity the prior to that they would stay in a school um also in these uh latest um Concepts that we're currently working on we are addressing that so we're trying to balance what you just described um but we're also trying not to we're trying to be very cautious of people that have moved before and if we do move them again we want that to be probably kind of the final move if that makes sense even factoring in the growth of the district so I think it's a balancing act it's something that we're looking at but as a growing District especially with how much growth we still potentially have to do we're going to have to have pocket boundaries and there is going to have to be those inefficiencies the interesting thing is even as inefficient as they might seem they can still be cost effective based on the worst available you know it's the best of the worst available options so when we are going into an area with a bus we're trying to make sure that bus is really full to maximize that does that answer your question okay I may just add too that we seek to minimize um long longer uh bus routes but we probably can't eliminate them and Scott alluded to the fact that in a growing School District some of those pocket boundaries might be inevitable in order to help bring greater balance to individual buildings and to uh you know do some degree of prep for the future as well so I think we're probably going to need to have some of those uh when all said and done and we land on a final recommendation at some point um because we uh are a district as I said before that is still growing and we do have buildings that have some capacity and we have others that are very tight and uh again we'll seek to minimize that but I don't think we can eliminate it at uh at this point and I think the the other piece is that again going back to the contiguous boundaries and the locations of the schools it'd be nice if the school was in the center of an attendance area but it didn't work doesn't work that way so there are several places where the school is closer to a attendance area line um so and to your first question there was conversation around do we have a pocket boundary and possibly driving by a school to get to another school to balance demographics socio economics and capacity and so there was some of that give and take that was looked at when Concepts were considered I think I would just add two because I know several of the comments were made why don't you just build a school um I'll tell you it is not that easy of a process it is a massively lengthy process so I know we literally have had a lot of that feedback and they're great questions great suggestions um it is a very um long process and as you guys have gone through it some of you on the board um and Dr Anderson it is a lengthy process which involves involves the state and getting review and uh by that area so it's not that simple so as I always say we kind of get to deal with the aftermath of things but we're expected to see into the future and uh unfortunately we have to be reactive in some Natures we just try to be planful for the different scenarios that come our way so and I think at some point that will happen um another school or schools uh we had some trend line disruption when we went through covid so I think our uh you know now as we look at our historical growth patterns and project that into the future there's some added complications because we're still navigating a little bit around those anomalies from the N from the 2021 and 2122 school years that caused somewhat of a wrinkle in in predicting and projecting and just like we couldn't have predicted minus 200 students in the 2021 school year who weren't necessarily anticipating uh the full 350 to 400 this year either so there was a bit of a pop uh within the district this year as well we don't necessarily think that's establishing a new trend line but you know this year might in and of itself be a bit of an anomaly but I'm pretty sure we are back in a growth pattern I think we've averaged 200 to 250 kids per year um during the past uh you know decade and a half and and I anticipate that we'll start approximating that again with a little a few more years into the future Valentina you have a related question or different okay if it's related go ahead otherwise let Paris finish ask questions please so I think previously we were looking at 24% of students getting moved around right is that still the percentage or now with different iteration has it gone down has it gone up do you know like roughly where we are can you repeat the beginning of the question so I think initially in our initial iterations we were expecting about 24% of students being moved to different schools is that still the percentage or has it gone down has it gone up it's gone down and I don't have the new percent off of my okay so it has gone down and at what point in time would we know the capacity so as an example when you're running the models would we know that hey for these schools this was you know capacity before and by implementing HC and hc2 now we're going to bring it down by 10% I'm making it up right so would we know that up front or we have to implement and then there are subsequent steps and the outcome will be known six months down the line like what what do you think yeah so um I don't have a Graphic to show you so I'll do my best to visually describe it um but we do look at and primarily Focus on five years we do model out to 10 but we're focused primarily on five and for every school there are four lines that we are looking at we have two horizontal lines 100% capacity and 90% capacity so we're trying to model between the two it's closer to 90 but we're trying to stay for sure in between the two the second two lines are the projection lines one line is just what we call cohort survival so it's what's happened in the past 10 years to build a how many third graders go to fourth grade and what what is that ratio we've modeled that as one line and then the fourth line in this scenario is what is development new development add to the mix yeah so each School depending on the school and its locations those model lines could be far apart or they could be very narrow if there's no development they're very narrow so we're trying to get those two lines in between our 190 as best as possible okay um so that's my visual description of what we're trying to do and so we know cooh cohort survival is a good number that's based on Trend the development we have to make some assumptions and right now we're assuming that everything that we know about for development that's been permited or plotted is going to be built out in five years right what not there which is why the the projections Beyond five years is more of um unknown is that what developments are going to happen that we aren't aware of or they haven't been permitted or platted but right now we're trying to keep those two School projection lines between 100 and 90% capacity so taking all the unknowns out I mean as you correctly stated right so if we take all the trend lines out because we don't know how things will look like in five years we have some idea but don't know the reality right but if you take those unknowns out and looking at historically where have we have been that's the third trend line you talked about would you say would we on an average be at the same class size as where we are today or there there would be Improvement making it up 5% 10% again no other factors play in current scenario with redistribution what do you think where we would land would we land same plus 10 minus 10 like what's your G so you mean class size yeah the like the grade size or the actual classroom size actual classroom size after redistribution so classroom class size to what you're asking is driven by Staffing so if you if you have space and you add staff you decrease class size if you um don't have space and you have to reduce staff then your class size goes up so we're we're operating under the current modeling for um Staffing that's not been a factor where um but it does and I don't know if you were going here but it does come into play on the special education side of things because if a special ed number goes up for a building that may um change the purpose of a class classroom and then we have to adjust accordingly so now my 100% functional capacity number has to be decreased because I've taken another classroom or another space offline but the actual grade three class size is driven by the Staffing model yeah and just to kind of build on that that we we are experiencing that in some of our buildings so you might see uh cou buildings without naming them that are very similar size and you look at the functional capacities and there might be significant differences and they're driven by um the different needs uh around the district and in that building and those are things we can't control so as I always kind of say during my budget presentations like these will change so we can't control everything um we have a building now that we shifted out to make room for uh uh lower class sizes in one of them in one of our grades and so it really is a variable um why the the functional capacity and overall capacity are so crucial and why we're going through this process maybe just add a little more detail to that um recently we um at one of our elementaries decommissioned the computer lab and turned it into a classroom space and created a traveling computer cart um so the technology teacher will be traveling into different classrooms so we could lower class size in some Kindergarten section so I mean that's the reality in some buildings we have some classroom spaces and can do for example additional early aded because there's available space and in others we can't have a computer lab because we need it to lower class size and accommodate the growth so that I think that's a good specific example of kind of the conundrum that we're in and trying to find the balance and The Sweet Spot so to speak of of having students attend buildings where we can create uh the optim learning experience based on available classroom space and and number of students sorry my microphone doesn't work when I push the button um I know we don't have a specific um map to look at right now you guys mentioned that you were looking at um you were taking into consideration the communities that had been moved multiple times and also keeping neighborhoods together and I'm I know we've heard a lot from very two specific areas um one in the northwest corner where the neighborhood that moved a lot I know one of the suggestions was to just kind of swap with another neighborhood that was nearby and that in terms of transportation and capacity it was kind of one for one swap um I wondered if you could share your thinking on that right now or if is that something we just have to wait till the the map comes out to kind of see or uh that's a great question I think that goes back to kind of what we talked about earlier I think uh we do we have heard loud and clear a lot of that feedback it was super helpful in guiding the design team um I would say not specifically knowing for sure what two areas you're talking about but um I think we've been very um diligent in how we're looking at that and I think that's where we said we recognize that we're not at the stage yet as a district with so much growth to happen that we still are looking at those at those pocket boundaries if you will um and then secondly if we are moving if we would look at moving someone that had been recently moved we would want to make sure that wherever we moved them we wouldn't we our goal would be not to try to move them in the next three to five years so assuming a new middle or a new Elementary School came online we would want them to be currently where they are if that makes sense it does and I think the um the dynamic is that we know north and west is the growth area so how can we start to build south and east and kind of almost diverge out north and west um because where where you're where are you going to be in five years and so frequency of Prior moves and if there is new schools what would that look like and what moves could we avoid because it doesn't help to move somebody this year and then move them back in two or three years and so we've tried to weigh all those things um again it's a future projection so we're trying to think of all those different scenarios and we're trying to get away from it obviously it's a complex situation but we have a lot of neighborhoods in the northern part and maybe it's some of the ones that you're referring to that um literally depending on the closing date or the purchase agreement date um their neighbor might go to one Elementary and right next door across the street they go to another one so we are looking at those and those are ones we're trying to address as well and look at okay from a transportation standpoint and a three to five year Lookout where do we see this neighborhood right so those are all complexities um I think this process um and how transparent we've been getting the public feedback um at a minimum I think it's shown the complexities um I would also B uh kind of put my finance hat on as well and I would say we also have to be grateful for growing enrollment as we saw during the pandemic uh y Zetta I would argue was very uniquely impacted uh pretty tremendously financially by the pandemic comparably to other schools due to the fact that we were a growing District that we have a very free uh free and reduced percentage which led to much fewer Esser and Co related dollars and so as we hopefully work through this last year of Cost Containment a big reason that you know coincidentally we just had the presentation of the fy2 24 audit and you saw our fund balance kind of adjusting back to where it's been over the last 5 10 years in that 8% range um we wouldn't have gotten there without growing enrollment so um I I just think it's a perfect balance um and we have very little control over a lot of what is handed to us and we're just you know we try to make the best decisions off of the information that we have so didn't mean to interject budget stuff in there but it is a big component of it and all works together okay so I have a follow-up question or a clarification a comment and then another question so in follow up to what Sheila was saying you Scott you were saying that you heard um loud and clear from certain areas and I just want to make sure that I'm understanding this correctly and that everybody who's listening might understand this as well right so as you develop themes when you when you get feedback from the public and that turns into themes that's not something that's going to benefit one area just because they had more voices involved right it's going to positively impact the entire district is that a correct understanding that's absolutely correct and so that that's why we provided both the themes and the raw data to the design team so they can see um they can see what what um context the themes are written from so they have both okay so just because there was you know we may have heard a lot from the northwest corner doesn't mean it's not it's it's going to come at the detriment of somebody in the South right like it's going to positively impact that's what themes do correct yeah yeah if we heard that um proximity to Neighborhood schools is important and it came from one part of the district it was applied to the entire yes that's yeah the public feels that proximity to schools is important that neighborhood Integrity is important that a balance of social economics and demographics are important so it's it's applied everywhere sounds good okay and it is a true balance because we look at you know even when you talk about the northern part we kind of have two different stories probably three or four different depending on the area of the district that you're in um because we do not have a perfect square boundary if you look at um our District boundary it is not uh the best you know if we got to pick it today and draw it out that's not how we would draw it so um but I would just add you know taking the feedback and not looking at we're looking for themes of that and how we apply it and we're looking at you know because there is so much growth in the north if there was recent moves I go back to when we do that if we do move them now are they going to be there in three to five years that's one of the questions we ask the next is where people say you know we've been recently disrupted or we built our house two or three years ago we look some of those people would have been people that depending on their purchase agement date would have gone to this school and their neighbor would have gone to the other one so we're looking at you know how can we we're never going to be able to minimize it to zero but we're trying to minimize the impact to say okay we have a lot of growth and development still to come in the district those families and um those uh developments that's where those families might be that pocket boundary kind of concept they would go to schools with that have open capacity at the time to try to mitigate and reduce moving families that have already moved again we can't go 100% and that's where we say if we are moving them are we moving to a school that they're going to be there in three to five years and we're not moving them again thank you on that okay so the the shout out that I wanted to give is Dr Queener you said something that really resonated with me in a positive way so you said that as you were working with everybody in the district it felt really like we were one team and then everybody was pulling for the for for the common good and I I want to just give a shout out to the principles in particular because you could very easily come and just advocate for your building but the reality is we're one district and that really really speaks heavily to me about the commitment to each and every student and so I just really I want to say thank you to the principles for that because they're not just looking at their little pocket they're really looking at how it's going to impact each of one of these students as they're moving forward so I just want to say thank you to that piece um and then it gets to this idea of I keep coming back to in my mind there's a lot of thinking that we're all doing as well about as these Concepts come out and all of the feedback that we're hearing and it's about balance and how do you create that balance and again there's no perfect solution that's going to create balance because there's you know there's a lot of complexities um but my question in part of your strategy in solidifying the elementary school balance is it fair to to say and I don't know if this is a question for you Dr Anderson but is it fair to say that as you solidify that balance in the elementary school level it will automatically create balance in the middle schools or because I I just want to make sure that the middle schools are also have that consideration because it is such a it's a tough age um and I want to make sure that our middle schools also have that nice balance that our elementary schools do I think I can start start with that one so really our goal I think there might be multiple definitions of what balance might be um it depends on what it is we're seeking to balance but I think really what we're taking a close look at is how many students can fit comfortably in each one of our facilities so that we can create comparable programming across similar level of buildings so in other words our three middle schools and our nine elementary schools and are we in a position to be able to provide the same programming the same general class sizes it's never going to be perfect building to building we strive for district averages but I think every year I've been involved in district office work which is the better part of three decades now I think um two decades two and a half um there's always been pockets of grade levels in individual buildings that are going to be larger than the norm it's just kind of how the math works out sometimes I would guess we'll continue to have that we have that this year even though I think we're one or one and a half students under in each grade level at the elementary level from our staffing ratio so we've been able to keep chipping away at that districtwide a little bit this year um and one of the well I wrote down a couple thoughts here that I was going to share as my closer but I think they kind of respond to your question and kind of relate to that but we're kind of at this point where we need to consider what are the acceptable tradeoffs we've been wrestling with the guiding change document and all of the set of variables that you know in the ideal world we' have land landed pure in every one of those and now we're at the point where because we have uh serious planning and implementation and Staffing to get to soon that we're going to have to come to the realization and I think we're kind of close that there are going to have to be some of the things that we thought on the front end that we would like to achieve maybe be able to achieve that we're going to have to maybe step back from a little bit and hold on to some of the current reality and a bit of the status quo in order to uh help make things work but I do think for example getting kids closer to their home building I think we could say we we're doing that with the latest iterations um will that uh change in the future in regard to new developments coming on board I mean that's been a pretty good model for us is to utilize uh transportation to bring new neighborhoods to schools that may have to the kids May literally have to go by two or three elementaries to get to the school that they're assigned to um again that's an acceptable tradeoff that we've chosen over the years to maximize our resources not overload um schools that are in the high growth area and um you know that's that's kind of the the point we're at primarily because uh we really need to not trade it off and and uh land this in a way that's not acceptable but in the same token realize at some point and I think we're there we can't deliver on 100% of everything we thought maybe on September 1 we might be able to um so the the timeline came up earlier and I think Ray Andor Scott mentioned that tonight we had plans of bringing what that recommendation or you know close to recommendation might look like and then bring it back for the December 9th board meeting for board action but we're not at that point we're going to have to delay the timeline but I think I can say comfortably we're still looking at trying to get this done in December partly because we have we really kind of have to um and even to drift it into uh after the first of the year would start creating some challenges for Stacy and and uh Staffing and the principal's uh planning for uh the kindergarten registration and just all of the onboarding activities that that really do start then so I don't know if that answered your question or if I answered a bunch of questions that you didn't ask but those that's some information that came to mind and I'll I'll just add to um you know balance can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people and you know ideally it'd be nice to have a 100% pure feeder Elementary School to middle schools so no Elementary School would have to be split so that that could be balanced and that that's proved very problematic we've taken two or three different runs at trying to do that but I think probably a bigger thing around balance is that the team has looked at because Transitions and kids are hard and so how do we develop concepts with as few of transitions as possible whether that's um you know the middle school where considering continuous enrollment for current middle school students to finish their career because we know that mid mid career transitions are hard so I I'm look at the the tagline of the school district I can say that there's been that kind of consideration from the team as they've looked at things as how is that impacting each and every student um in a perfect world it would be nice to not have any negative impacts but then we're not solving the challenge that we started out with so I think the team has done a good job overall with balance but it's not balanced if that makes sense I think I would just add to to you know kind of building off of what Chase and super or what superintendent Anderson and Dr Queener said as well this is just kind of one of the phases and I mean even when you look at the map just the complexities of our district I mean there was several on there that um it was really hard for them to map it so when you went in to do address lookup it might look like you're supposed to go one place but because we had purchase agreement cut off dates um we're trying to shore a lot of those up but then I tell you we will have those again in the future because there's going to be those spots you know in the northern part of the district that we see massive growth that you know one neighbor depending on purchase agreement might go to one school and you know a year or two later they might go to another school so I think it's just part of being in a growing district and we're just trying to manage it as well as we absolutely can I might just add too we have a lot of interesting and challenging bisecting major roads that go through our district uh they would include three 94 494 Highway 55 Vicksburg is pretty busy uh 101 and those are some of the additional challenges that we have to take into account for transportation and how many times do we cross each one of those you know during the course of a a route Etc so and I know every Community has its challenges and the realities they have to navigate around but there are some pretty major thorough fares that kind of bisect up our uh Community uh which complicate things a little bit too okay so I'm going to ask three easy questions um obviously this is a very complex project complexities exist and so do variables right and so I'm pretty sure when you do the modeling you give weight to those variables is that correct so let's say there is variable a b c d the roads the demographics and some other variables so is that something that you can share with us which one do you give higher priority which one is number two three four is that something you can share we we did not do that mathematically so we didn't officially put a weight on any one of the variables but I think um as Dr Anderson mentioned there was more conversation around in these scenarios what are the tradeoffs because every every Elementary attendance area every Elementary is different so there wasn't like a set of unilateral um constants that we prioritized across the entire District we we really were looking at what are the Dynamics around each Elementary and um and every every attendance area was different so we did get to the trade-offs do we do we want to push up to the 100% capacity to to get this or do we want to go below a little bit a 90% capacity for this benefit and so we con we're doing those tradeoffs but it was done by every Elementary School and not a unilateral District a case by case thing correct okay all right thank you so could you put up the guiding change document up on the screen for me please um I know somebody that can I have two questions based on that okay so the first one actually I think couple of my colleagues have already kind of talked about it but I want to ask a more detailed question on that so is in the Y category number three class sizes are not currently balanced across the district so I'm assuming that you are also keeping an eye on the class sizes is that something that you have data accumulated for that you can share eventually maybe at this point they are not ideal my concern is that we don't want to go from the frying pan Into the Fire we don't want to go from what we have right now to make it worse if it stays the same may be okay but we want it to improve so is that something that you can share with us so the yes and I'll just say my part and then let Scott talk about the dist part that issue around class sizes was that it was being driven by a facility and not a staffing issue and so the concept was that if we have a building overcrowded and no place to put any more classes that drives class size up and so we are trying to address class sizes in this sorry in this project so that the facility isn't driving it it's driven by Staffing and so it's it's going to ideally going to bring some balancing of class Siz so it's not driven by overcrowding okay and then the second question I have is about the middle column the not how do not intentionally create greater discrepancy in academic opportunities through process so I I think that speaks to the demographic distribution that you talked about and I I'm I believe that you are focusing quite a bit on that because of the responses from the input team right mostly those were one of the three factors that you that you mentioned so I was looking at the concept 7A 7B and 7 C you I don't know if you have that data in front of you right now but for one school specifically Birch View I looked at the numbers that exist today for black student population and the low and fre free reduced meal lunch low free and reduced meal meals basically yeah so if you look at 7 a 7B and 7 C all three concepts have a substantial increase in those two categories yeah I can talk to those so so I'm not saying that that's the final number but hopefully that will be looked at and addressed eventually absolutely that's a great question and it kind of goes back to what we talked about we are um hearing the public and that is I can tell you um I think maybe there's a feeling that that wasn't heard the first input I can tell you being part of the design team and I think everybody on the design team will tell you the absolute opposite of that statement is that that is always front and center as well as one of the varials we consider um I think when we get these next Concepts out I think it will show that that was um heard loud and clear I think it just goes to the complexities of balancing all these different areas because as soon as you turn one dial using Rays um kind of visual it shifts something else and so you feel really good you're like oh this works great and then you look at that and you're go okay never mind we can't do that okay what do we do here so um that is a great Point that's something we heard loud and clear um because we did see with Birchview and I think even um one other of the elementaries we saw kind of some increases in free reduced in special ed so that's something that the design team definitely focused on this round yeah and I brought that up uh because we have seen over the past several years that we have we have achievement gaps right and many of them come from couple of these schools and both is one of them from specific demographics black students free and reduced meals and even special education students English language Learners so we want to make sure that it they they are improved not made worse and I think um probably the most the most difficult Nuance in all of this process that the input team and the public have tried to navigate is the fact that when we put these Concepts out it we already know they're not viable options but they're they're presenting something that the design team felt that they needed to get an opinion on before they could continue to move and I think the public and even the even though we talked about it with the input team they see them as an option even though we know that not one of seven a b orc was ever meant to be a viable option we we actually had even talked about okay what is some of the things that we're going to consider in our next iteration before we even get feedback because we knew as experts and as a design team that we couldn't Implement these as is to your point and so it's yes and yes okay all right thank you so much I that's one the questions I have I might just add one thing if I could to that too is it's important to reiterate and I think it came up before that all of our principles have been in this process they've been great advocates for their buildings for their students for the families that uh currently attend their schools and I think uh the input that they've provided to us has been I don't think I know it's been incredibly helpful uh to hear from their perspective the people that are immersed with the kids and with their families uh what the interests are of the students attending school in those buildings and I think that that's been uh incredibly helpful sorry sorry I'm sorry I was just say and I'm not trying to get the last word I promise but I think what Dr Anderson just mentioned too is even though they come to the table not as a pure advocate for their building they do bring the voice of their building to the table so we are hearing from even those that may not have filled out a Ser um a feedback form or aren't sitting on the input team the principles are very connected with their community and so they bring that to the table of the conversation I think that's something again we listened and heard we kind of took for granted that people understood and knew that the makeup of the design team and you'll notice even out on the web page there's now a link uh button that shows you who's on the design team because we had a lot of people even approach me uh I don't know if they thought I just spent my weekends putting these designs together I definitely didn't um I'm not that creative I'm an accountant so um I'm just kind of kidding and kind of not um but we did put that out there um so that people could see because we did hear a lot of feedback of have you talked to my principal yeah actually this out of my table the last two design team meetings so we wanted to put that out there to be very transparent so everybody knew that there's a lot of people um on that design team that represent a lot of different areas of the district and I can tell you no matter the position we're all here for the same thing right it's for the students the community and the families and so that is something we always have in the Forefront and and it's really what is helping guide us through this well I let to ask a question hold on one second since you spoke about principls can I can you help me understand what principal gangler role is although the high school is not involved in this oh maybe let yeah I would just say that uh determining the High School attendance areas are the easiest yeah he solved that for us I think I think he said day one he solved that usually my bad joke on the front end of this is I'll take charge of the High School attendance areas and then Dole out everything else but um he and uh a couple of his assistants have been involved with the design teams but I mean you make a good point it's you know history in the district and and uh insight about uh living in the district and having experiences about the three feeder middle schools coming to the high school so there are some insights that can be helpful but uh you know to your point it's it's uh a different role for him than for other principles yeah more the marrier I I was not trying to imply that you know his role should not be there at all but I think I think his his feedback like you said being in being involved in the district for so long is definitely very helpful but I'm all for all for more than less thank you Valentina uh with this question I know that I'll be very vulnerable but at the same time I'm okay with my background uh coming from social country uh I have a different perspective I'm curious what I'm missing when I'm hearing that we need to um kind of make it equal in Social economical uh level and in free and reduced uh what's my feeling is if you have a little bit more then it is much more easier to hire uh para per or to have ESL teacher and then the students they will be together you are not singled out you are not sitting in the class um I had two uh two different classroom experiences in one uh in cities I felt to be honest horrible I was um at I mean at the bottom of a barrel so to speak but I ended up into rural area where we were like kind of equal I I all of a sudden found myself that I can compete I can try a little bit and um first year what we've done we hired a teacher and at the end of the at the end of the day we had one hour additional time when we're doing homework and all at that year changed my life because I the problems I had in a big school they were not solved the problems were solved by one teacher and I'm forever grateful and what I I'm trying to understand I'm not I don't have any what's the word ill intent here I'm trying to understand what is uh what is uh reasoning behind again my feeling is if you have have a little bit uh several students per classroom it is much more easier financially uh to hire and then these students you not alone you don't feel uh I'm the only one who is still learning English you can kind of uh make friends with another one and then if you are GA gathering together you'll get more how to say you will feel that oh I can compete I can compete in this level and I'll do better in uh Next Level what am I missing uh what are we trying to um to get while um leveling everything out and to be honest also I heard that uh we are looking we it's very important to have integrity neighborhood Integrity um my point is I'm hoping that neighborhood Integrity will be taken into consideration uh not um not just simply dividing neighborhood because we're trying to uh reach out this leveling out the school buildings so I'll start and then I'll let Chason Scott weigh in so I'm G to put my I'm G take my facilitator and Consulting hat off and I'll put my educator hat back on spending 35 years in education um it's not that we're trying to drive balance for the sake of balance but from a programming standpoint so the goal is to be able to to have Equitable programming across the district and that becomes challenging if you have higher special education number where you're taking classrooms offline and and so a higher concentration of special ed or a higher concentration for E because that changes what the programming looks like at a school level um and so that I think was part of that it wasn't just the balance for balance sake it was how does it in a in a school like how does that impact a 500 student school for what we can offer from programming if we've got X rooms that may or may not be offline um and I had a really good second point that I just blanked on I'm sorry well you're thinking of it I'll just share that that what you've described is really facility driven because the the utilization of the facility might change dependent upon the type of programming that you're responding with to deliver for students and in the process of that it can take traditional classrooms offline so to speak that now can no longer have a classroom of 20 or 25 students in a particular grade level but uh there's a need in the building to differentiate it into a variety of functions and that can have an impact on the uh building capacity and as a result possibly some of the programming and uh how it might be delivered so those are the things that we're just trying to ensure um and we're I don't think we're striving to have everything equal in every building I you can't achieve that and that I would concur that that isn't necessarily the goal we're striving for but being able to provide and deliver Equitable educational programming within the buildings is really important I'll go back to the point that I made earlier about the principal input and granted yes they've all been a great team I'll use the elementary as an example of nine different principles in nine different buildings I think that they have really out for the you know the larger good across the district but they're also really good advocates for what their students need and what their families want and uh it's really important for us not to make any assumptions based on what we think the families attending a particular School may want or what they would like differently uh to occur and to be uh responsive to the principal's daily engagement with the students and the parents in that particular building and being able to communicate that out um in a committee structure like we're doing and I think we've been really good at listening to that feedback and responding to uh the depth of expertise and knowledge principles have about their buildings and my second point was on the so the neighborhood Integrity or keeping neighborhoods intact was more a response to what the community was saying than from an educational perspective so the the community was saying that our goal would be try to maintain in our neighborhood without running a line through the Middle where this side goes to that school and this side goes to the other school um but that was more of a community respon or Community request than it was an education request uh I I made a comment I was hoping that we're not um um in order to equalize we're not disrupting uh neighborhood uh since we're saying we would like to have neighborhood Integrity this this is friendship I mean we it's beyond School uh time we are playing outside and all kind of things I I see it's more actually important uh that these neighborhoods are not being disrupted that's what I I meant yeah and that's that's I think that's what we heard from the public okay thank you anyone else all right thank you so much Scott thank you Dr quiner we'll see you again on December 9th I believe right y thank you okay we do not have any teaching and learning report tonight but we'll move on to the superintendent reports and Dr Anderson will share District goals strategic road map and District operational Plan update all right so this is how it looks from here this is a different perspective thanks for giving me an opportunity here uh this afternoon at our work session to provide kind of a quick overview of our strategic road map and some of the work that we've uh been engaged uh with in regard to the development of our district operational plan um as you know that's uh been work in progress and I'm here today to provide you with some updates I want to uh first of all thank several members of our uh strategy leadership team for uh helping not only with formatting of this but uh beginning to populate uh for each one of those strategic directions uh actions and uh steps that we'll be taking uh in our efforts to realize those District goals so tonight I'm going to be speaking to you a little bit uh in generalities about uh some of the larger guiding documents that we have for the district and then taking a brief look at each one of our strategic directions and providing some preliminary work that's been done on that and uh also reflecting on four Focus areas that the board provided to me in my uh annual evaluation here a while back and I think you'll see some themes of things that are uh in the works related to that and as you're aware we could probably have 100 goals and list 10 things underneath each one of all of the different moving Parts within the district but I'm going to try to consolidate and and give you a high level overview and give you an opportunity to uh ask questions and provide any additional inputs I think we'll probably come back at the January work session uh with a couple more months of development with this particular document and be able to deliver um a little bit higher level of specificity in in some regards so with that I'll see if hey I think my ADV are worked did you do anything back there all right it's working so now I know I won't be pushing the the button wondering why it's not but uh just to give a quick overview I know the board is well uh versed on this as is uh our team members but uh we've had a strategic road map in place really since 2011 and it's been revised three times since then 2015 2019 and 2023 it includes a Mission Vision uh core values and our iic directions and the mission and vision and core values have really stayed pretty much intact since 2011 there have been a few modifications and variations to it over the years but uh uh for the most part it's stayed uh pretty much in place the Strategic directions which are listed at the bottom of this uh document there are seven of them really are going to be I suppose a primary focus point for tonight because those are really the drivers for the district operational plan and some of the key initiatives and actions that uh we'll be working on so I'll give you a little bit of a flavor of some of the things that are in the works for that and then as I said at the end of the presentation to give you an opportunity for inputs thoughts Andor questions uh in addition to our road map uh in 2021 our school board unanimously approved uh our Equity commitment and it really serves as an amplification of our core values and reinforces our mission vision and strategic directions both of these documents the strategic road map and the equity commitment are available on our website uh for anybody who may want to review those in Greater detail the seven uh strategic directions that are included uh that were developed uh by our leadership team with some guidance and input from our school board and and uh other staff include focusing on and I'll give a high level uh summary of each of these the daily experience for our students uh delivering high quality instruction is number two uh all of our staffing and Hing and uh recruiting mechanisms and protocols to ensure that those are uh in a good place uh building awareness about the health and well-being of our not only our students but our larger Community Learning and improving uh from Community engagement and I think we had a good example of that in our recent presentation the one that just concluded in regard to opportunities for way our community can weigh in ensuring effective and efficient use of District resources again that ties in tightly with with what we just spoke about and then uh always focusing on those internal protocols and decision making processes of our leadership team to ensure that we're uh taking a look at things with an open mind and broadly so that we can move forward in the best possible way uh the screen did not go bad all of a sudden that is a lighter shade uh the reason I did that is because anything you see that's in a lighter shaded blue will be representative of what you shared with me as guidance uh in my end of your document so um I think there'll be four or more of those one representing uh each one of these areas so the four suggested areas and and I'll talk quite a lot about the first one is said the development of the district operational plan that's kind of a New Concept it's not that we haven't had operational plans but they probably been more independently owned by departments within the district rather than a more comprehensive one that is co-owned uh by multiple departments from our leadership uh team members continuing to engage in partner with the community uh to understand how we can best respond to our changing student staff and Community needs number three monitoring student growth as it relates to facility needs and class sizes again we talked quite a lot about that so these are all very pertinent uh Focus areas that you provided to me and then uh providing uh prioritizing academic Excellence for each and every student um to their growth at all levels and and uh progress toward eliminating achievement Gap gaps and maximizing student opportunities so those are uh the highlevel uh guidance uh statements that you provided to me and I think you'll uh see that we have a number of things happening in each one of these areas and I'll provide you with a bit of an overview a light blue shaded slide number two so this one relates to the finalization of the district operational plan and again I'll share quite a lot about that in this particular uh update and uh some of the things that I think are again the level I've listed two of them with several bullet points under the first one but one of the things that was really helpful um and again I have to uh thank uh several members of our SLT group all have really been involved in this but I'd like to thank Dana Miller for uh really stepping up and helping uh develop many parts of the the uh District operational plan Wade Phillips has had a really good model in place for his technology department for a long time so I have to compliment and thank him for kind of the framework of this uh using his technology mind and the team that he works with to help us create a similar type of approach and um Jenny Ebert has been very involved Jenny NAS from our special services Jenny from Community Ed sve her our director of equity and inclusion and and uh just really everybody Stacy boss uh has been involved Scott lasage our other two executive directors have been involved in helping to refine this we'll continue to develop this within the uh meeting spaces of our uh strategy leadership team and we really want that team to own the work of the Strategic directions so that we don't become too siloed and departmentalized where all we focus on our you know our own areas but really to contribute and get that good team collaboration so really the the whole SLT has been uh very instrumental and and helpful um in uh the development and number two relates to uh well I guess the point I want to make with number one is what we want to also do is link it to the existing plans and again the team uh has been looking at what do we currently have in place and how should we link up our uh strategic road map to that so you've heard inputs on a lot of these things but included here are the world's best Workforce achievement integration plan uh the mtss or multi-tiered systems of support site goals you've heard us talk about built teams and uh plc's and and things that are happening at the site our Educators thriving feedback and uh our are built I guess I mentioned this before but built teams in the center for educational leadership better known as C and uh really our site teams are very engaged and involved in all that for each one of these eventually and what you'll see is kind of a framework for the goals metrics alignment uh the assigned leader in the time frame the strategies are still kind of in progress and uh weren't quite ready to be uh shared in a meeting like this yet but we continue to work on that and finding ways to help bring these things forward so this is just another way of looking at this is one of the segments actually of our uh uh District operational plan each one of the goal areas that we establish or the action steps will be aligned to one of these things those are the the list of things that I just mentioned kind of in different format off to the left but uh as we develop this we'll click on one of those uh areas that it most closely ties to I don't know that it'll always be perfect or I don't know if you can choose to sometimes there may be some overlap we seldom uh find it difficult to fully separate things out into one category or another but um those are some of the areas uh as I mentioned before that we're working on so I'll give a quick flyby through each one of the Strategic directions and I'll try not to uh overly fixate on any of them or give a excessive detail tonight's purpose really is to give you kind of a big overview as to the development of this to date and some of the progress that we've made uh two goals currently established for strategic Direction number one which again is that daily experience is that all children are ready for school and I think in some presentations you've also heard and are the schools ready for the children and it kind of has to work in two ways so that may not officially be a part of the uh goal uh right now but it certainly will be part of the thinking and something that we for sure have to keep in mind because students are going to come to school each year primarily this terminology would be focused on kindergarten um and they will come to us with large degrees of writing us to launch at a point where maybe we may have some preconceived notions that they should be launching at rather than us having a landing spot for wherever they are and taking them from that point and then developing them during the course of that that first year but it doesn't have to be exclusively uh for kindergarten but I think often times we think of that that concept uh for that entry level into the K12 system um and then all students are College and Career ready so I put other with three dots after it just means we may not be done with this these may not be the three or the two or three or however many we have listed and the ones listed might actually evolve a little bit this is a little bit of a glimpse of what the framework looks like and I'm not going to go through this word for word but uh it's available for you on your computer copy that you're able to access but notice we have a big red draft across there um to emphasize these aren't in final form but we thought it'd be helpful for you to at least get a feel for what the metrics look like probably on the left there will eventually be another column that will have the strategies for each one of those but again those weren't really developed to a point where it made sense to really put them up today and it would just be excessive detail so the formatting uh looks like this or will eventually you can see that alignment it's an alignment with one of those key areas that I spoke about before that we already have plans for the leader in charge of that particular uh concept and then a time frame so uh there's a lot of blank spaces yet that have yet to be populated that will work hard to continue to do do that prior to the January presentation I would also like to mention that I like to think in terms of documents like this as sort of being Works in progress they aren't necessarily okay today they aren't done and next Friday they will be done I don't think it really works that way and you really want to be agile and be able to be responsive to changing environmental conditions and to develop them in a way that they can be responsive uh to those changes uh Direction Number Two uh and again the narrative for each one is listed right under the header um this one relates to that high quality instruction um K12 students reading at or above grade level and students receiving El Services Andor special education services are meeting uh their individual goals and we do have a very individualized process for our uh special services programming including uh special education and El and some other categorical areas that um there is some individualized Focus increasing the district's overall performance on MCAS ensuring all students graduate from high school we already have a very high level of High our high school students that do graduate State tracks that and we track it as well internally and then all racial and economic achievement gaps between students are closed and then of course other uh is included I won't mention that every time but just as a a onetime reminder that that is part of that as well so these are there I think there's two pages of these actually that we have four uh different goal areas that I've mentioned here and each one of these categories um list that with some metrics that we'll use and many of these you have familiarity with because reporting occurs during the course of the year with MCA scores and other testing measures that uh Stacy lachner and Dana and other members of teaching and learning uh provide and uh to the school board for updates strategic Direction number three relates to the really the human resources our Personnel of our staffing and we focus to retain and develop District tent across all levels regardless of the position or the grade levels we want to make sure that we have top-notch staff um I think that's a a trademark that our school district has enjoyed for decades is our uh teachers who are second to none and the support staff that uh support them and work with them our building principles and just our general leadership I think we can be very proud of and our community should feel great about the quality of people that their kids interact with every day um embracing uh you've heard uh maybe through some different committees that you might be on or maybe at the board meeting as well the bracing of you know the embracing level of the Innovation configuration map there are some new uh guidance uh new some new guidance has been provided for uh teacher and and principal uh supervision and evaluation that relates to uh ensuring uh Adept practices of culturally responsive learning uh within classrooms and and school buildings so we're working on that again this is what strategic Direction number three currently looks like in that framework still evolving and developing but um certainly uh I think heading in a good direction and I'm liking the the format the alignment and the interconnectivity with other things that are happening strategic Direction Number Four really relates to that health and well-being and uh there's a one goal for this at the current time uh supporting social emotion developmental needs of students through hosting uh a Continuum of school-based Mental Health Resources and if you were to ask me could you provide me with the full list of details on that I would not be the person necessarily to do that but we would have people who would be able to speak to that and uh provide some additional information as we know um schooling is a complex business not just when you're trying to decide what an attendance areas are or anything else but we have 13 almost 13,000 students and that means we have 13,000 unique packages that we need to do our very best to be responsive to and that includes various academic needs and it also includes uh varying needs of uh social emotional support and uh uh guidance and counseling services and and different types of of wraparound services so to speak that we seek to provide for our students again here's the familiar format that's evolving and uh development of uh alignment to existing uh programs or or uh uh goal documents that are established either as required by the state Andor um within our own District strategic Direction number five learning and improving from Community engagement uh creating a strategic Community engagement Partnerships plan and ensuring families are identified and connected to wetta Public Schools you're probably aware or may have some varying degrees of familiarity with the fact that we've retooled our uh Welcome Center within the district it's now located at our district Services Center along with almost all of our administrative departments and we have some new leadership within the uh welcome center and uh it's kind of being shared across a couple of departments really all of our departments but Community Ed and uh the finance and operations departments uh really are teaming up and doing a wonderful job of welcoming new families and we continue to do that even I don't know if we had any today or not wouldn't surprise me to find out if we did have some new enroles today but it kind of happens throughout the course of the year most of that of course happens in the summer but they have really uh uh refined and uh repurposed how we go about that and um I'm hearing really great things about some of the changes and the improvements so kudos to uh Jenny Ebert and many other staff members who have teamed up to uh help improve and do an even better job of rolling out the welcome at to the school district um strategic Direction number six the efficient and effective use of District resources we've talked a lot about enrollment and Facilities tonight that is a big part of uh finding the you know maximizing our efficiency I don't think we'll ever hit 100% efficiency we strive toward that but um you know we've talked about enough detail on that I won't share too much more with that but alignment of budget resources to our strategic directions and uh seeking the best possible data management tools so that we have a good understanding about the systems we have in place and how well those are functioning and uh being responsive uh through this data management tool to what we're seeing as unique Trends or uh needs of individual students so that's uh where we're at currently with strategic Direction number six what we're trying not to do is to create 175 five strategic steps so some of these may end up being Consolidated they may end up becoming more standard work than strategic work um we're going to do what we need to do to the best of our ability whether it's a strategy or a goal or or not but um we're really trying to determine what are some of the priorities that we think can help best move us toward our mission and vision and then finally uh strategic Direction number seven really focusing on the development of the district operational plan um I shudder a little bit at the thought of the creation of an oversight committee because we have lots of committees already we have lots of leadership teams and I'm trying to give some consideration to uh either a new group um we left that in there or engagement with an existing group I kind of like that concept because it ties into the efficiency and effectiveness of uh our Personnel time as well and we all have a lot of meetings and to find yet one more committee to have more meeting time I'm not sure sure that would necessarily be the best way forward and then uh revisiting most of our departments have uh really well defined organizational charts for the people that are working within their Department I think sometimes there's we're missing a little bit of comingling the horizontal um alignment and I think it can create maybe some confusion for principles or lack of efficiency and who do I go to for what if any need if I have this challenge who do I uh first go to to try to get some assistance with that so I think that's really what this strategic direction is trying to get to so again we don't have three people working on the same response to a principle as an example uh because the other two didn't know a third one was working on it so I think sometimes that can can happen as organizations grow as you onboard new people uh into the team Dynamic if you don't have a well-defined protocols established it just makes it harder for new people to assimilate within the organization so we're working on that um suggested goal area number two from the board uh continue to and again these were kind of more uh I don't know if they were directives but guiding guiding statements to me um continuing to engage and partner with the community to understand and respond to our changing student staff and Community needs and I just put a few examples on here I mean I think a lot of these things do kind of happen by default not always there's certainly need for intentional Focus but District surveys and other feedback mechanisms as well one way we do that um I attend almost all of the Le District Lees on meetings for those who may not know what that is that's the uh uh group of leadership uh members from each one of our uh 13 school buildings 14 uh including our early learning school and uh they have representatives from their governing Boards of their PTA that come together monthly it's an incredibly helpful group to me in a wonderful sounding board and uh they uh provide some really helpful input uh based on their perspectives not only from their buildings but from around the district I also uh I think I have one PTA meeting to go to yet I've been to 12 or 13 and and we'll get to all of them just to present I give uh you've probably seen my presentation along the way somewhere uh in regard to just hitting some of the highlights of the district happenings and provide opportunities for input feedback and um I find that that's a really valuable Q&A opportunity as well um I've been uh involved in uh well community's been involved in the attendance area input meetings um we also have the online input system we created a new communication tool the parents Square this year so compliments and kudos to Amy Parnell on the communications department and uh School Board committee participation so that's uh always one that maybe we don't think of front and center for ways to ensure uh we partner with the community but you are all conduits to the community and elected by the community to serve in that role and to provide uh me input based on what you're hearing in the community and to also bring that forth in the Committees that you may be involved in with our uh District leadership team uh area number three uh monitor student growth as it relates to facilities needs and class sizes need we talk more about that tonight I will just because it's up here and I want to make sure I cover it but we do have a Schoolboard facilities committee um that meets nearly monthly or regularly D throughout the course of the year we have a district facility steering committee which is comprised of Staff we work with our strategic Partners World Architects and engineers and Krauss Anderson who are in attendance at these meetings and offer their insights and assistance uh we're doing the Teamworks uh review of our enrollment and attendance areas no need to speak more about that um consideration of our immediate facility needs uh having spent a good part of my career as a principal I know you're always walking around looking for every square foot that you might be able to grab for this or some unmet need um I think principles are really good at that so that would be an example of uh uh immediate facility needs and principal creativity and then looking at our long-term facility needs we are in the chapter right now we needed to get done before we could get really into that uh long-term facility planning once we get our enrollment projections and we get our uh schools positioned so they can accommodate the growth that attends those schools so we can deliver those programming areas in an equable way like we I didn't say that very well Equitable way um then we can really start diving into what are the next steps look like do we need to start building up to a facilities question for the community to expand and make sure we can accommodate the anticipated growth so those are all things on the radar whether it's for elementary middle school or you know expanding existing facilities building new facilities and or remodeling existing facilities to again further maximize the existing footprint of a school um area number four prioritizing academic Excellence for each and every student I just included on you've had two reports in the last few months first one back in September for the world's best Workforce and that's the kindergarten Readiness and literacy component um at the last work session about a month ago you heard about MCA performance college career Readiness and high school graduation and in January at that work session I referenced before when we'll come back and and maybe speak about this plan again a little bit more um you'll hear more about the work of our achievement integration plan and understanding the work of our equity and inclusion team in wetta so that'll be coming up in January and then I think it's always important to keep in mind that uh the real action occurs in the classroom with the teachers and the kids and under the leadership of the principles so the building instructional leadership teams commonly know in the district is builts um are all operating every building has one and uh they review their site goals I think most of those teams meet twice monthly and uh in the regular PLC meetings the grade level meetings I know that there are a lot of conversations also about uh the building initiatives as well as uh classroom and grade levels so as I mentioned I'm anticipating the next update uh similar to this one will be in January 2025 and we'll provide uh how the game plan has evolved since today and uh with that Mr chair I'll turn it back over to you for any questions inputs or thoughts I have my team queued up and ready to be responsive to questions that may come up that they are better prepared to answer than I might be but with that I'll turn it back over to you thank you Dr Anderson you also punted the hard questions to the team right that's right I did the presentation so they all the questions team it thank you for that that was very elaborate I actually did not have access to the to the attachment until now so but very very well done thank you uh colleagues any questions comments no yeah shea good luck we'll have to check that one out Tech job for the week need to exercise my button pushing finger or something I don't know um um I just wanted to comment to thank you for that um you know you really addressed um the everything we talked about um for the superintendent evaluation and you know you were already doing a great job and it's good to see continued focus on the stuff that um is going to help all of our students so thank you for that thank you I have a question that just came up uh maybe maybe there is no answer for this is there a tactical goal or are there tactical goals that you have to deal with we are looking at all strategic goals do we have ever have to deal with tactical goals I mean sure there was some during covid right you have to decide as you as you went yeah I think that's a good question so kind of the comparison of strategic goals versus tactical goals or sometimes that we call Strategic work versus uh operational or standard work um I've described it in some ways as the Strategic work is really what you pre-think and plan for and uh that's the work that we go out and find and then the Tactical is the work that finds us every day and oftentimes that's kind of how it works because uh we do spend I we try not to think in terms of reacting to whatever comes our way but you know every day there are some new things that come our way that we didn't necessarily anticipate and the great thing about our team is that they're very responsive and agile and being able to uh take on whatever their daily I mean having a power outage at the high school when we're having a snowstorm that's you didn't necessarily plan that at 8 am but by noon you're in the middle of it so I mean those are some of the examples of things that kind of come up every day but um I think you know our our twoo list that we establish uh at the beginning of the day and all of our department areas really are the focus areas that collectively I think help contribute to the Strategic goals because if you're strong in your operations and have good protocols for the standard work I think collectively that adds up to better opportunity to achieve your strategic work so the attendance area adjustment is probably kind of a tactical process for long-term strategic goal correct I think it's kind of both really I mean the Strategic goal would be you know striving for That Sweet Spot of efficiency and Effectiveness and maximizing our facility facilities in the district and the more tactical or operational things are you know maybe some of the acceptable tradeoffs that I spoke about or you know what what are you willing to maybe soften a bit on in order to achieve a larger objective and taking into consideration the timelines that you're up against as well thank you all right yeah I just um I I'll build on that and and and say a thank you as well I think we saw tonight through the attendance area adjustment and through a number of other presentations how you as our superintendent lead our district to show up in the daily work that they do and um some of the many of the values when we think about each and every and we think about organizational and operational efficiency all of those things we see embedded in the presentations and so um it's exciting to watch this doop unfold and and there's really strategic stuff that I think our district um as we look to continue to be worldclass and move things forward forward will be really important to flush out and thank you again for showing both in the document and in the presentations tonight how your leadership helps the rest of our team to show up and advocate for each and every student in the in the minute by minute 13,000 um need process so thank you thank you for that we indeed have a lot of moving Parts oh I'm sorry see your uh if I can ask to call out strategic Direction Number Two please okay um I understand this is a draft uh but I also heard that MD is pressing on schools that goals need to be smart specific measurable attainable result focused and time bound so I we going to have um like by what time by what uh uh and uh what what kind of percentage so that we know I mean how how do we know did we reach our goals if we don't put u a percentage and by what time are we planning to reach um the goals I think the version that's in front of you uh gets at that whether those are the final numbers or not um again is still evolving I think that those are in alignment I might defer to Dana Miller who would have worked directly with Stacy lachner on the development of these along with some other of her team members so Dana if you would please yeah sure good question thanks for asking um where you see the and excuse me I've been battling so I'll do my best voice here but um the the Strategic direction is ours and then the goal is how it is presented in the world's best Workforce which is now going to have a new name if you recall um and then the metrics for growth and success is getting out what you're wanting and we're still in draft of those but that has that timeline of each year for those we have to provide data on a timeline of giving um an update on where those are going so um if you would look at like the first one all K12 students reading at or above grade level students receiving El Services um and students in IEPs meeting their individual goals that's the world's best Workforce goal that the state gives us and then what we're doing is saying how are we reporting our progress on that each year so all of these the timeline is is this year right and so the percent of students if I do the one you can see fully there and again in a draft but the percent of students in grades K8 who perform at or above the low risk range on our fastb Universal screeners and early reading and a reading will increase from doing my best to see it too 78 % in the spring in 23 24 to 80% in the spring of 2425 so that's the measurement for that that gives you that when is it happening is it realistic timely that's that information I think you're asking about uh for me to be honest looking at four uh again looking at strategic Direction number two and um saying all racial and economic achievement gaps between students are closed it's quite a heavy lift uh to take on are you saying that you're going to be just doing like by percentage by percentage increments so it's pre previous screen sorry were um just description okay so again those are the ones that come to us from um those the world's best Workforce that's their language so you need to have a goal around all Rao and economic gaps between schools are closed so that's a state goal which is that you know that's that your aspirational goal that in the state of Minnesota all those gaps would not exist anymore that's not our language that's through mde yeah and through the state and then you have to have a goal so if we go back to the next one on our metrics and successes you have to have a metric that shows how you're moving towards that and again that's a case where I think we talked about before in our own you set 100% because we would never want to say it's okay for two or 3% of our kids to not be performing at the same level so just like we strive to say 100% of our kids will be reading at grade level the state is saying 100% we will not have we will there will be a day in Minnesota where we do not have um predictability based on race or economic St that's our aspirational goal and then we need to have something measurable showing how we're working towards that thank you for comment to be honest why I am also probably asking I didn't have a chance to look at this da data because it was not available until today uh I am actually looking at uh this uh information right now uh first time it was not available yesterday um question I have is just uh about again uh that gaps uh gaps between students are closed I understand that Minnesota is right in it but we then are we as adult taking responsibility that yes we are doing it or is it just a big slogan uh to um I mean it sounds great uh but is it attainable um yeah I think again I would yeah it's 100% attainable we have to believe that our tagline is each and every student that's what you create in our strategic directions so we have to believe that each and every student is attainable of learning at the highest potential level and as an educator who's given my life to this profession and I think all of us in the room we believe that with all of our being and so then all of our actions go to that and so as Dr Anderson said there is a section that gets really into the weeds that is is called um uh strategies and that tells the how we're doing that so basically you have the goal you have our metrics are success and you have strategies so things like um our PLC work is a strategy giving teach um right now I've been responding to Middle School East who's doing some things with teacher talk and balancing student talk in the classroom and how we balance those some of uh um you've seen um Ross Williams Come you've seen um Dr gusterson come already this fall and they're showing you some of the work they're doing around cultural responsive behaviors all of those are tied our strategies to get to that goal to reduce that um achievement Gap and to make things unpredictable by those factors so those are strategies to get to the elimination of that achievement Gap I do understand that as adults we have to believe uh V thing then we need to try to put a date then uh to be honest if it's not done by that time then uh people who are doing it uh need to be held accountable in that case uh I mean it's easy to say uh but if you don't put a date uh then uh what are we measuring here and when are we measuring and um we supposed to hold be responsible in front of uh students each and every if we're saying that then yeah and totally agree that you want those those measurements and dates it's a big goal it's a lofty goal so you're taking it a step at a time so for example going back to the one the date is that by Spring of 2425 we will have gone from 76% of our kids at high risk 8 % that would be a step towards closing our Gap and then some of the ways we're doing that is through that PLC work through those culture responsive tractors those are our strategies for that so that's your date um you know I'd love to say that by the end of the school year we'd have no gaps in we that wouldn't be realistic but what's realistic is trying to get in one of those for example to 80% and that will measure our progress and we'll be able to then come in and Report um you know in the fall or in the summer and we're at with that with that data point okay um so we will be able to see at least in between uh I mean whatever the test results correct we do those three times a year so we're able to keep having those benchmarks absolutely thank you I have a follow-up question on that and maybe this is a different way of looking at and thinking about the world's best Workforce and I know this is a little bit off topic but just Clarity in my mind um is the world's best Workforce a way for us to also be communicating with the Department of Education about what our District's needs are so is it a way for example for us to say we still need resources put towards reducing the gaps right so it's not just about reducing the Gap but also about saying what our needs are and how we communicate with the state about what resources they're willing to give us yeah I don't know if you know spefic specifically on resources but it's definitely a communication tool with the state so they gather world's best Workforce data it's a requirement of every school district in the state of Minnesota and then they come out with kind of their State of the State on how schools are doing that you submit your world's best Workforce plan so they're also monitoring to make sure districts are making strides you can't ignore those goals that they've set for you you have to be reporting data on that you have to be making some type of progress on those things but it also does give them you know the the knowledge that um as a state are we getting closer are our math scores falling behind are they and then what do they think so a good example I can think of most recently is they got a lot of data on this is that the mental health of our students postco was a concern right and that we weren't making some of the progresses in those areas then that's when you saw funding going towards um School support I think the read Act is another strong and that's why the worded has been changed instead of reading by third grade it's reading at each and every grade level because we know with the science of reading or um evidence-based reading that those critical early years we need to be reading in every grade level so then the state has come in and made some real planning and put money in um to that program so I think those are other examples that I can think of quickly that speak to how that data is used not only at a district level but at a state and quite frankly then Minnesota state turns that in on a national level and says how we're doing it there too thank you very much Dr Anderson Dana uh for that presentation you're welcome and I want to thank you for giving me an opportunity and just to give a closing uh comment to that really the intent of this presentation was to give you an update on the framework and the format and the development of how we're building this and uh we had I referenced earlier the report we did in September and the one we did in October and the one we'll do in January that will provide some additional detail in regard to or did provide additional detail in regard to student achiev and assessment approaches and and we'll continue to provide updates along the way but thank you for the opportunity thank you thank you so much all right finally we'll hear from Executive Director of Human Resources Stacy was about the 2025 26 Calendar recommendation Stacy good evening chair soney members of the board um thank you for having me here this evening to share with you the proposed calendars for next year um wanted to just go through a few things before I share with you the um calendars that we're looking at um wanted you to be aware that we did sh uh we did change our process for getting feedback on the calendar um based upon some survey feed back um and just again my desire to see if we can get the calendar out in front of more and more people to solicit feedback um we changed the process this year to um having the proposed calendars shared with building principles and then they could take it back to their buildings and share with their staff in a variety of ways some shared this information at built some shared it at staff meetings some did surveys but it was all sent with the intention of gathering feedback and offering the opportunity to create additional calendar options if they so wish um we did have a proposal for next year's calendar from the high school that we added um so just wanted to make that clear that we're really working hard to make sure that everybody has some input into the calendars um so as a reminder there are some calendar guidelines um the Minnesota state statute mandates that um students are in session uh for at least 165 days um we are at 172 for secondary level and 170 for elementaries um so we're well within those requirements and just an additional reminder teachers not only have the um responsibility of the inperson student contact days but they have 12 additional days that are part of their contract four days days we schedule in for back to school Workshop four days for parent teacher conferences and then four days for professional development and Grading so with that uh being said our proposal for the 2526 calendar um I was really hoping that I could take this year's calendar and impose it on to next year's calendar but of course things don't ever work that smoothly so Amy if you could click on the 2526 calendar I can uh review that as people are kind of taking a look at it um so you will see um that school will start on September 2D um we will start on September 2nd with our kindergarten students doing hopes and dreams with our sixth graders doing middle school activities and with our ninth graders doing their I believe link crew activities on that first day so that all those new um into our school settings uh can have a good experience um without the upper classman um or with their parents um whatever we can do to make that first experience for our students in those building a positive and happy one and then on the third um the remainder of our students will all return for their first day um you will see then that the calendar in uh September October November um looks pretty similar what tripped us up a little bit is if you look at where the uh December holiday lands um it meant a one day week prior to those holidays and then one day um when we return a Friday so we had to kind of adjust how we do that because we didn't really want kids going and having a one-day week we anticipated that there would be a lot of extensions of vacations and maybe some days off um so to eliminate that we did move the flex learning day from September to December um in an effort to um make that uh that break uh make more sense and not have a one- day week uh just so you know um in one of the options we contemplated the day before Thanksgiving and moving that comp day to the 22nd but the feedback that we heard very loud and clear from staff was that day before Thanksgiving is very important to to them and we they didn't want to see that day changed um the remainder of the calendar looks um other than that um winter break looks very typical and very similar to what we're experiencing this year uh we didn't change um those dates at the end of the quarters we didn't change Spring Break um that falls where it usually does what again changed for us a little bit because we had to add a non- cont day on January 2nd is if you continue to scroll down you'll see our seniors are impacted they generally attend 167 days of school they will attend 166 at this point I may reach out to the high school to see if they're interested in making the last day for seniors that Friday instead of Thursday um I don't know if those are um words that will create some chaos or strong feelings um but if that day is important we could consider um changing that last day of school for the seniors um there are hours that we have to keep track of behind the scenes for Mars reporting um those hours and the days that we are in contact would mean that um if we did have any snow emergencies or anything like that seniors would not have to make up that day because their hours still equate um and keep us in that safe uh zone for not needing to make up um days and not being short short of instructional time um you will see that we um continue to have the 170 student days for our elementary the 172 for secondary and then the 166 for our seniors due to that early end and you'll also see how we account for the additional 12 contracted days for our teachers um equating that 184 days that they're contractually obligated and then um again noting holidays for our staff so that they are not scheduling in um tests homework um events on those days designated as religious observances so that's what we have for the 2526 calendar um and I think many people will be happy to know that we also are proposing this evening a 2627 calendar um only one option for this um came forward um I presented one um with the understanding that people could uh create options as they felt necessary I didn't get a lot of feedback on the 2627 calendar the biggest change for us in this particular year is the lateness of Labor Day um which of course means do we start then and go into June or do we start prior to Labor Day um so that we can end uh kind of at that beginning part of June um we will have enough as you remember in Prior um calendar conversations there is State Statute that says that you have to start after Labor Day unless you are engaging in a certain dollar amount for building projects we always meet that dollar amount for a building project so we would submit that waiver if the um State legislation doesn't already allow all school districts to start late um in the 26 27 school year due to the lateness of Labor Day in the past they have given us that Grace so we will play that out to see um what we need to do to take the steps to ensure that we are within compliance so that does mean for that school year we're starting really early um so the first day of school for the our kindergarteners Sixth and nth graders would be August 31st uh with school starting for everybody else September 1st the nice part of um even though it's a late uh Labor Day everything else Falls in place very typical to our usual calendars so if you scroll down you'll see we put the flex learning day back into September October we continue with our mea um process with um conferences the day before uh we're able to end the quarter at the same time no changes to Thanksgiving break and with the holiday pushed back a day we can tolerate and handle a two-day week um and then just um the um January 1st holiday falls on a Friday so it kind of Falls in place a little bit easier for us which then allows all of the other parts of our schedule our calendar excuse me to fall in place in ways that we are familiar with uh spring break doesn't change um we go back to our seniors having enough uh the 167 days um because we have one less um student contact non- student contact day over winter break um and then it allows for the last day of school for students June 3D and the last day for staff June 4th so those are the two proposals um again if you review the number of days we um still of the 170 for our elementary 172 for secondary 168 for senior years and the 184 all counted accounted for um for the teacher um contractual obligations and for our in-person obligations with our students any questions on either one of the calendars Valentina has a question go ahead um to be honest I also C's calendar right now um but I'm looking at that that I asked in the past I would I'm going to continue asking um about at home flex days uh question is um it's um sorry I need to go uh take my words I mean go back um you asked obviously what is feedback from teachers from staff uh but did we get a feedback from parents parents are the ones uh who have to find time find uh what they're going to do with kids during special that we set Flex uh days correct we did uh solicit parent feedback two years ago um and in that survey they did ask us to reduce those days in which elementary students were not in person and we did reduce those uh because you have to remember another layer of this is the reason the elementary um students have 170 contact days is because of the contractual planning days that elementary teachers have so we moved from four four planning days for elementary teachers to two um so that we did make that reduction at that time um as an educational facility we're not comfortable reducing the number of professional development days to fewer than what we currently have um just based on all of the demands that teachers have placed on them the ways in which students are coming to us with more needs um professional and all of the state mandates too with the read act um we really need to you know if anything from a professional Viewpoint I would say adding more professional days not taking professional days away from our teachers in the good work that they have to do in continually learning how to best address the needs of our students and so I think that you know four days are contract ual so we can't change that and then we have the two Flex learning days which is kind of a nice balance of uh being instructional in nature but also allowing for teachers um to engage in additional professional development um which as I said is very important so I'm hoping that as we continue to be consistent with our elementary student contact days that that will allow our families to adjust to this change weite recognize that it's hard um and we have listened carefully to that feedback um but again in balancing all of the very important needs that come to us um we do have to make a final recommendation um moving forward and probably um adding back those professional development days or those Flex learning days is not a plan that we would recommend at this time but my end uh I mean I'm glad that we asked feedback but it was two years ago it would be nice to have a feedback uh right now how parents feel especially when we are looking at two-year calendar um was it done in the past two-year calendar um being uh taken into consideration the so the changes made to the calendar based on Parental feedback did include them giving us feedback about planning days professional development in Flex learning days so they did share that they wanted those days reduced and we did reduce those planning Days by two at that time my understanding of the past it was done such way that uh teachers would get their training nobody is against that I mean yes teachers need that I totally it but at the same time it was done such way that for parents it's not so difficult uh uh they had I'm sudden blank with um teachers substitute teachers who were doing that job so both sides were happy and why I'm saying it um it's hard for me to understand why we when we're talking about that we are thinking about student and Equity uh there are so many families who have to go especially in this economy uh the feedback I saw uh msba gave only 10% of people do not feel economy effect all % I feel in this economy they have to work and not that many people are working from home and of course it is lowincome families who are going to be affected by these days uh during that time uh to be honest I'll be not surprised that many kids will be sitting at home alone so I would taking that into consideration too um student safety so I think that um I you did bring up the point about substitute and how we did do the four planning days in the past when we had an excessive number more numbers of substitutes and we had to change that because we no longer have the number of substitutes that are required to give all of our elementary teachers in the school district for planning days um during the school year that was a pretty major production and we just couldn't maintain um that structure to allow for planning and to allow for students being in school um you know in regards to the needs of our students um we have to balance that um we always take into consideration their safety when they are with us um when that is our responsibility um I do believe that you know when you compare ourselves wetta to other school districts they're having the same expectation for students students um we are not watching students over summer um we're not watching them over the weekend so it's not that I'm not aware of those struggles and that balance but ultimately we have to remember this is a work setting too um and that we have to provide the appropriate supports for our teachers as well as our students and our families and so again this is trying to find that middle ground and I'm so certainly compassionate um and care about the concerns that parents are sharing with us in regards to some of those professional development days um I again just go back to I don't think six days is excessive when you look at the learning needs of our teachers uh my last clarification is these uh flex days they accounted as um Hands-On uh practice them right they are counted as a learning day that's the thing it is counted correct but it is in reality it's not cont I mean we're not meeting physically so it's it's just kind of like like finding a wiggle room and um uh we're talking about being responsible for students and especially after covid I think it would be nice that these students especially ownc students will have a chance uh to be more at school and learn more at school I I thank you for that input thank you I would just say maybe one of the uh findings or end results of going through Co is that we learned some different ways to engage with students and um I think with this model there's always a focus on continuous Improvement and as we've taken that feedback I'm sure Stacy that you've worked with teacher leaders and uh leadership within the uh teacher bargaining group in regard to how can we best deliver this in the most efficient and effective way and you know we've wrestled with this and it sort of has run all these different life cycles over the time that I've been here and that we've been here in regard to planning uh comparable planning days for teachers across all levels and the challenges with substitutes really is a a big one for us not only in terms of how many are available but um when we come up short then how do you manage uh when a teacher is out on a planning day to accommodate that so it's really challenging and just the calendar in general having been uh in Stacy's role uh in a previous life before coming to a wiet I know how challenging putting a calendar is together there's lots of roadblocks and obstacles to navigate around and um I think what's being presented here tonight um for the next couple of years is probably the best of the imperfect options after taking a look at a lot of different things given that I think we can continue to think in terms of what might we be able to interject in future years that could be further helpful and I know we're always open to that so thank you thank you all right if there are no other questions thank you Stacy appreciate that thank you all right this completes our work session for this evening the next school board meeting will be on Monday December 9th to those who celebrate Happy Thanksgiving we are thankful for your support and Trust in us may your Thanksgiving be blessed with family friends and all the things that you are grateful for please remember those in need during this time the time is now 6:38 the WETA Public Schools Board of Education work session for Monday November 25th 2024 20 24 is adjourned no I