[0:28] e e [1:09] thank you for being here tonight it's a beautiful evening so I appreciate you coming back indoors and uh the summer is [1:16] still here to be enjoyed so we appreciate you being here tonight we do have a number of board members and district and school level staff that are [1:23] also here tonight um so they're also great uh sources of information and the presentation tonight will be an [1:29] information informational uh message or informational um set of uh [1:35] recommendations and and uh budget reduction um information for the [1:40] community for uh consideration that we presented on Monday night at the board meeting on September 23rd for our phase [1:47] two budget reductions and realignment process we also did talk about this timeline at the August 26th Schoolboard [1:52] meeting and where we talked process and timeline as well um as well as the [1:57] September 9th work session so I'll be referring to those uh nights and the work that was done by our school board [2:03] and our Administration throughout the presentation so with our agenda tonight I'll be discussing that process for [2:09] phase two the reductions and realignments that are recommended as well as a expl if you go [2:16] through this list here it's really a series of explanations for how we got here it's also um talking about key [2:23] dates and timeline and then ways we are trying to collect Community input and feedback in relation to the process [2:31] itself be about a 25 minute presentation and we'll also then at that point [2:37] transition to Mor of an openhouse style format where you're welcome to go up and [2:42] discuss uh the the content of the presentation with district and school leaders and uh also I strongly encourage [2:49] you to take time to uh present your questions provide feedback digitally [2:54] we'll have a QR code at the end that you can fill that out on your phone we do have some Chromebooks here over over to [3:00] the side that can be used as well and I know that information will be on our website um to lead to that feedback uh [3:07] page so we are going to strongly encourage everyone to do that it's very important for us to get that feedback in [3:12] writing to have really consistent objective uh feedback that allows us to quantify that and instead of relying on [3:19] our subjective conversations that happen so to get started our district mission [3:25] is to effectively educate each student for success and the anah School District [3:30] covers a large geographical area in the 13 communities we serve but the focus is in our schools and on each individual [3:37] learner the district mission statement provides us that focus and we are [3:42] working to uh reach each every each and every student and con constantly looking to increase our impact on the system we [3:50] do that through setting priorities with our school board on on the next slide here and this year our priorities are [3:56] around literacy student connection and behavior and our Workforce and those [4:01] three things do three things for us they provide safe and welcoming environments when we're effective at it we are trying [4:07] to increase student achievement and also provide effective organizational support and we really narrowed down the scope of [4:13] those three priorities to give added Focus so just by simplifying that list gives us um a stronger uh opportunity [4:22] for Effective results and really increase our commitment and hopefully um [4:27] better outcomes for our students so just a couple high level uh Basics about our [4:32] district so we're pushing 37,000 students with our enrollment we serve over 253,000 residents we have 13 communities [4:40] in two counties seven high schools six middle schools 25 elementary schools and [4:45] numerous other specialty sites we're just shy of 8,000 total employees and [4:51] our uh general fund budget is about $660 million under which about 350 of that is [4:58] the the unrestricted funding that we can look at for any potential budget adjustments the rest of that is in [5:04] restricted areas designated by law for how those dollars are are [5:10] used and um just as a district we formed in 1952 we have some big anniversaries [5:15] coming up I know of one of our elementary schools that is having a 75th Anniversary this year so there's a proud tradition in the district and our [5:22] schools re have over the years received broad support from our communities [5:30] to to jump right into how we got here I shared this information at our August 26 [5:36] board meeting and again our September 9th work session and Monday night at our board meeting these are the reasons why [5:44] not just in Noah henin but all districts across the state are truly uh making some tough decisions because of a [5:50] convergence of different factors coming together at the same time so not just any one thing but a combination of [5:56] things so starting with enrollment we are lucky to have St stable enrollment [6:01] we are not growing we are not declining but that also means we are not going to anticipate a large increase or a large [6:06] decrease in funding because our enrollment um in every District's enrollment drives funding it drives our [6:12] staffing we are allocated uh funds to from the state based on our enrollment [6:17] counts so that is one variable to keep in mind another one is that the in the last this this uh this is the last year [6:24] for federal pandemic Relief Fund so the added supports we've had in our system um will create an impact when those [6:31] dollars go away we also have 18 employee groups and employee contract settlements [6:38] um this past year were higher really across the state than the dollars allocated by the state and this was a [6:43] general pattern in the Metro and Statewide so just generally speaking when we get 3% or less and that's what [6:49] we anticipate with the funding formula tied to the Consumer Price Index compare that to the cost of [6:56] business of 5 to 10% of inflation and the cost of goods and services uh that's [7:02] the that's the pressure point we're feeling as well as all the other districts uh in the state at this point so um and we all we have some things on [7:09] the horizon that we expect large increases around we do have a transportation contract coming and [7:15] that'll also have an impact and we don't anticipate any new federal revenue um other than the small increases that may [7:22] come with from the legislature that have continued to fall and lag behind inflationary rates um also Al The [7:30] District in the all districts in Minnesota did receive several new mandates that did not come with any additional funding or some one-time [7:36] funding that will run out so we've been U working hard to let our legislature know that um if you're going to ask us [7:42] to do more please give us the resources to effectively get that done uh and be able to sustain those efforts so those [7:50] the combination of those things really uh hit us uh and in February we initiated a a two-phase budget redu [7:57] reduction process for this for the 5 26 school year and we um launched that in [8:04] the late winter and completed that in the spring I'll cover those things first here we call that phase one reductions [8:09] that was done this past spring of 2024 um just by way of context with [8:15] budget reductions there are 41 area Metro School Districts The projection is over $300 million in shortfall and in [8:22] reduction across those 41 Metro districts and um that just sells says [8:28] the Anoka school district is not alone not just in the Metro but across [8:33] Minnesota so it was our goal knowing that to to work quickly with phase one so we we moved uh through the spring and [8:40] completed $5.1 million of central office reductions in our District administration that was 40 positions [8:47] reduced another uh nearly eight realigned to uh free up the general fund [8:53] dollars we needed to and you know nearly affecting 50 positions so our original [8:58] Target was $3 million we were able to with additional year end closure to [9:04] lower that number down to 26 million so that $5 million takes us down to 21 [9:09] million is the what we have left to address at this point in time with Phase [9:15] 2 and this information was shared out widely in the spring through multiple [9:21] communication modalities and um those are now complete those phase one reductions are [9:26] complete phase two so once we had our 2425 budget finished and approved at the [9:32] end of June the work of phase 2 reductions began in Earnest in [9:38] July and as a result of the 5 million in central office reductions in Phase One [9:43] Like I said the new Target was 21 million for phase two um because we applied that that 5 million towards the [9:49] 26 overall Target so some key dates um in that decision-making process includes [9:56] tonight's meeting which is one of five Community meetings also going back like I said earlier the board meeting this [10:01] past Monday work session September 9th and the August meeting uh board meeting on August [10:06] 26th so uh the recommendations like I said at the beginning are going to be provided to the community and staff for [10:12] review and feedback through these openhouse style meetings starting tonight and through an online survey [10:18] process in uh late really from late September through early October and then any refinements to the recommendation [10:25] will be made and presented at the October 28th board meeting and and then we'll have another month or so for [10:30] additional feedback and input and final recommendations made or at least are [10:36] expected to be made on November 25th for at the board meeting that evening so once again public input is and feedback [10:43] is very important in this process and I want to highlight that um staff [10:49] community members uh will have multiple Schoolboard meetings Community openhouse sessions and an online survey to provide [10:54] that feedback prior to board approval through the phase two process [11:00] as we began we we are U we established planning parameters from the beginning and they help shape the recommendation [11:06] and the key variables at play here as we look at where where we're going to head is looking at our district strategic [11:12] priorities that I covered earlier looking at District enrollment reviewing programs and services that currently [11:18] exist considering a phased reduction process which you see through the phase one and phase two approach looking at [11:25] looking again actually at Central administrative and central office reductions reviewing reductions and the [11:30] impact that they've had looking at those restricted and unrestricted funding areas looking at our fund balance and [11:37] also uh class size by level making sure that we're optimizing operations looking at instructional [11:44] supervision and and collaboration time of our teacher schedules at the elementary middle school and high school [11:50] level and um through those parameters we took those considerations uh into mind [11:57] as we began to form formulate and develop these Phase 2 reductions and we'll continue to formulate and refine [12:03] those as we move to towards the November um action of the [12:08] board so by way of review here a little bit more of how we got here on on this next slide [12:15] is um some options that were discussed at the September 9th work session so [12:21] after collecting input from the building and District level Administration and Leadership from July through the present [12:27] kind of through the summer the cabinet and ultimately myself developed the following options and evaluated them use [12:33] evaluating those giving weight to several different considerations that I covered on the previous slide so on [12:39] September 9th at that work session five options were presented and reviewed considering those Vantage points and um [12:47] all five of those options did include an additional $5 million in central office reductions in addition to the phase W5 [12:55] million so just briefly the options that were discussed in and um considered that [13:00] evening an enrollment based approach or Model A balanced instructional [13:06] model looking at uh instructional time supervision and collaboration time that [13:12] really is tied to the middle school and high school schedules option three was a a a a model [13:18] that lessened the elementary impact which really required more shifting of those reductions to the middle and high [13:24] school levels option four was a more of a balanc approach across the elementary [13:30] middle and high school levels and then option five is a referendum or an operating referendum option for November [13:35] of 2025 and getting there through a bridge reduction or in realignment of 5 million [13:41] at the district office and then sunsetting about $10 million of Prior strategic Investments those onetime [13:47] dollars uh two years ahead of schedule there had two years there's two years left on on that [13:53] plan along with trying to keep our fund balance at 6% [13:59] so at the September work session I provided two recommendations for the board to consider as we move through that [14:06] process first there was a recommendation to make the reductions we have in front of us now make those uh this make those [14:12] decisions this fall and U it's a busy time of day right with [14:19] activities so I I'll repeat that again so make sure we catch that so two recommendations [14:25] were made at the work session on September 9th and again on Monday night one is uh make reductions now kind of [14:32] option and one is to how do you bridge to a referendum in November to take that [14:38] to the voters of an Noah hennipin in 2025 so this next slide is where we [14:45] started on September 9th this was the preliminary recommendation number one and uh of the of the five options I [14:54] talked about really four of them are the options for how to make reductions now this recommendation ended up being a [15:00] hybrid of those options it really was a balanced approach by limiting trying to limit the [15:06] amount of reductions at the school level and in the classroom so we had made an early adjustment if you notice I had [15:12] said uh phase two started with 5 million and right away on September 9th we added 2 million more to that to get us to $12 [15:20] million at the central office overall to lessen the impact at the buildings by about $2 [15:26] million trying to do that in a in a fair uh fashion with the intent that we're trying to do the best we can with [15:32] instruction at the elementary middle and high school levels so at this point in time uh on September 9th that was about [15:39] 54% of the total reductions at the school level and the other 46% at the district or central office [15:46] level and I'll have a little bit more on that in a moment um one of the things that we also [15:52] talked about at in at length not just on September 9th but many other work [15:57] sessions and and uh meetings was a consideration of the middle school schedule and uh that was done through a [16:04] middle school program review actually started well before any budget reduction process was started to really look at um [16:11] how do we balance instructional time supervision and collaboration time across the levels elementary middle and high school and potential scheduled [16:19] changes have been shared through that process actually through a series of other community Meetings online surveys [16:25] presentations and discussions at board meetings so I do want to take a moment to thank the team that took a a very [16:32] serious approach and a very comprehensive approach to that middle school program review process um to just [16:37] make sure we are fully informed of the options in front of us the next slide here covers uh the [16:46] second recommendation that was made on September 9th so this is that referendum option with a district [16:52] reduction so this would to consider a bridge to get to that 26 million in [16:58] reduction and reallocations um a pathway there District fund balance would be [17:03] need to be maintained at 6% which is below the 10% policy goal the [17:09] elimination of one-time uh money strategic Investments for roughly about 50 support positions [17:15] over the next two years those are one-time dollars and not ongoing Revenue so that is uh what we mean by strategic [17:22] Investments those would need to be um eliminated right away along with an additional $5 million at the district [17:29] office to make sure we could bridge to that referendum or voter uh request so that still leaves the [17:36] additional um 12.25 million in Cuts should you go towards a referendum or [17:41] should the district and the board go that way you would pause or wait on those elementary middle and high school [17:46] reductions for the time being until the outcome of the referendum was decided so that is um the bridge so to [17:54] speak to to a voter involvement um option and then from there depending on [18:00] the outcome the district would need to look at making any additional reductions pending that outcome at the elementary [18:05] middle and high school levels Andor any additional District level adjustments so uh after that discussion [18:12] with the the school board on the work session that was a really rich robust uh discussion with different perspectives [18:18] and there was some some clear Direction there and what can we do to minimize even more the impact at the school [18:24] levels so at the uh Monday night at the September 23rd school board meeting [18:29] I revised my recommendation for the board again they weren't voting on that it was just a preliminary recommendation [18:34] for the opportunity for feedback and discussion and this re reflects an [18:40] additional downward adjustment to the elementary reductions by an additional 1 million now down to uh $4.2 [18:49] million which is 3 point or really about 3 million 3.2 million down from the [18:55] original option number one discussed back about a month earlier so considerable efforts to bring that [19:02] Target down especially at the elementary level but also bringing down targets at the middle and high school level the [19:08] Middle School level brought down a half million dollar and the high school level 250,000 to accomplish that the central [19:15] office reductions have to be increased so that was um a 1.7 m $1.75 million [19:21] addition to the phase to reduction for the central office bringing that to 8.7 [19:27] in addition to the 5 million that was done in phase one so uh again the the intent is to [19:34] minimize the impact at the school level by doing everything we can to take on more uh reductions at the central [19:40] office also based just on the discussion and the direction the board have was going in from the September 9th U work [19:48] session I removed and revised my recommendation to no longer include those specific middle school and high [19:54] school schedule changes changing from a seven period to a six period day and changing at the middle level and from a [20:00] five to a six at the high school level there just wasn't board support for that and I I'm again proud of you know that [20:07] was an informed decision through the processes that we've gone through to to get to that point recommendation number [20:13] two was not revised so that still stands the same on the next slide is um again a [20:20] bridge to a referendum option that is maintaining at least a 6% fund balance [20:26] an additional $5 million in uh central office reductions and the the elimination of the $10 million in [20:32] strategic Investments and again that would be a way to to hold on the elementary middle and high school [20:38] reductions until that election or that uh referendum vote can happen so some details uh on the next [20:46] few slides around uh how this shows up at this point in our process so uh to [20:51] make sure we're honoring contract language agreements with our employees and our human resources processes you [20:57] know we're not at a point to to be able to talk about specific positions or groups of positions but we can talk about different categories that we [21:05] anticipate reductions would show up in and I'm going to walk through some some of those highlevel uh [21:11] components so at the elementary level of that $4.2 million to minimize that at [21:17] the at the elementary level 70% of those 4.2 reductions are about 1.2 million is [21:24] away from the traditional classroom teacher uh versus um and really that's [21:30] uh if you think about it in another way of our 26 million the class size increased by one is about a 5% impact or [21:38] 5% portion of the total $26 million so that was our way to try to really minimize the impact in the elementary [21:44] level meaning the remaining 95% of the the district reductions are not happening at that Elementary classroom [21:51] traditional classroom level so that does mean uh they're out you know including other positions as [21:58] you go on the list here you can see the remaining Elementary reductions are in those areas of instructional coaching and other support [22:04] positions the total number of positions is another way to look at it so the elementary reduction is about 2 and a [22:10] half% of the total number of Elementary staff positions and less than 1% or [22:16] about 1% is in the in the traditional classroom so very much minimizing the [22:22] impact at the elementary level as much as possible at the middle school level without a middle school schedule change [22:29] the class sizes are estimated to increase by approximately four so right now our our range of class sizes at the [22:36] middle school levels 29 to 33 that range will go up by four and that's something I want to make sure we try to clarify um [22:44] and that's uh one less than what we are anticipating needed at the high school [22:49] level which would go up by five so our current ranges now are approximately 29 to 34 and that range would would go up [22:56] by five students at the high school level um at the middle level we're talking about just shy 6% of our total Middle [23:03] School staff positions and at the high school level it's just a little over 5 [23:08] five uh% about 5.3% of the total number of Staff [23:14] affected okay so as we move through this one and on to the next one I will point [23:20] out too that um you don't see some high school or very minimal Middle School uh [23:26] other other impacts on this and that's because those are funded through those strategic Investments that I've talked [23:31] about previously so they're they they would be addressed in another fashion depending on the outcome of a board [23:37] decision on a referendum so with the revised recommendation if you go to the next [23:43] slide please this is a u some of the additional reductions at [23:49] the district level so in phase one we did the 5.1 total [23:55] reductions realignment this would bring another 90 to 100 additional positions to the 40 that were done in Phase One of [24:02] reduction so an additional 90 to 100 uh positions being affected and um that [24:10] would we're moving through that process like I said so we don't violate any employee contracts or bargaining [24:15] agreements or private Personnel data through our um HR procedures so we're [24:20] now at a different point if you uh think about this the central office is now at a a majority of the reductions at 53% [24:28] with approximately 30% or onethird of our district office positions being [24:33] affected versus the 2 to 6% of the positions being affected at the at the [24:40] school site so that is by Design we are trying to minimize the impact at the school level by taking on nearly uh you [24:47] know affecting nearly onethird of our district uh central office support to really keep that impact low at the at [24:53] the elementary and middle and high school level some additional realignment so I'm [24:58] shifting into realignments now and not reductions these are also ways to help us avoid additional staff reductions and [25:05] we have about $2.9 million here of additional realignments we can make so in the area of Child Nutrition we can [25:11] make a shift um to free up some general fund dollars to avoid making additional [25:16] staff Cuts another 400,000 at in our technology department about $120,000 worth of Community Education [25:24] adjustments and then uh with some new legislation that at the state we can do some really some recoding of our uh some [25:32] of our support positions in counselors and social workers as the essers and Co relief funds expire we now the ability [25:40] to make some shifts there to really free up additional dollars in the general fund to help minimize staff reductions [25:46] so that is another significant way on how we lower down those targets for elementary middle and high [25:53] school and before moving on I just want to kind of provide one last set of data that gives us some context so and I [26:00] mentioned this at the board meeting the other night of the 34 largest districts in the state we're 30th out of 34 with [26:07] the the amount of money we spent at The District Administrative level level we're at 2.8% that ranks us 30th out of [26:13] the 34 largest districts and we're um even lower when it comes to District [26:20] Operations we're 33rd in District Operations and conversely we're at uh [26:28] 18th in regular instruction or general education and we're 11th in student [26:34] support and special education so I think it's a testament to the district over time being committed to providing as [26:41] much resource that district has at the classroom and building level running the district on a very lean administrative [26:47] central office model and that'll only be leaner with this proposed model to really try to minimize that impact at [26:53] the uh District level so looking ahead [26:58] this is a visual way to look at the timeline and represent the the dates I um shared earlier in the evening so [27:04] tonight we have our first of five Community sessions that are happening here in September and early October [27:10] we'll have uh an opportunity to make any refinements to those recommendations of the two recommendations that I've made [27:16] to the school board um by our October 28th board meeting then we'll have another roughly month or so for [27:23] additional input feedback for final recommendations to be made for the November 25th F board meeting so that we [27:29] can be ahead of our um Staffing process and really our obligations around our [27:34] employee contracts so from a uh Community feedback perspective on the next slide [27:41] we show that we are we've launched a number of ways to communicate out and to [27:47] accept feedback coming in we District email was sent to families on Tuesday the 24th So Yesterday article published [27:54] on our district and school websites and then also in our uh Focus e newsletter [27:59] uh will be coming out on October 2nd and that'll also include uh how to find that online uh feedback form so a number of [28:07] ways to uh provide impact and input and feedback so that we can measure that we [28:15] very much want that to be consistent in fashion and also objective in fashion make sure that we have a robust [28:21] uh process for that to occur that's a priority of ours looking forward we have tonight's meeting and then we have a [28:27] series of other meetings also coming up U at each one of our U primary high schools Tuesday October 1st at [28:34] Andover Wednesday October 2nd at Champlin Park High School October 8th at [28:39] Blaine High School and lastly October 9th at Anoka High School all starting at 6 pm. again the online survey is [28:46] available online it's you're going to have a ways to connect to it here tonight as well that'll be um that's [28:51] live and we'll stay alive well into early October so here's a way to get there [28:57] here's a cure R code that people can use this on any device that you know can kind of snap that picture and take you [29:02] to the Google form that allows you to answer some key questions um again we have some different options here tonight [29:08] to get there and um it's really important for us to be able to get that consistent feedback in an objective way [29:14] and and be able to quantify that it's been a process that's worked well for the district when it in the past when it comes to budget decisions uh boundary [29:22] decisions um past referendum things like that so um it's been a strong reli [29:28] method to try to make sure everyone has an equal opportunity to provide feedback so that really wraps up the [29:35] presentation tonight I think I did it under under 30 minutes um thank you for coming out this evening and please take [29:41] advantage of the staff who are here and then I strongly ask our community members in the audience tonight please [29:47] complete that form however you can get there we want that feedback in writing so that we can consider that along with [29:53] all the other feedback we get throughout the process with that being said I'll wrap up thank thank you very much and I [29:59] appreciate you coming out on a beautiful uh September evening so thank [30:26] you for